Category: Justice

{Anthony Sawina targeted group in Minnesota as they headed to prayers, wounding two, after threatening to ‘kill all’.}

A jury has convicted a white man of attempted murder for shooting and wounding two Somali-American men who were on their way to Ramadan prayers in Minneapolis last year.

Anthony Sawina, 26, of Lauderdale, Minnesota, was found guilty on Thursday on all nine counts he faced, including attempted first-degree murder.

The shooting happened last June in the Dinkytown area near the University of Minnesota.

Sawina, who was with a group of friends, shot and wounded the two men, who were on their way to prayers after playing basketball.

“This was shooting directly at people who were sitting in a car, defenceless,” Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said, according to Minnesota Public Radio (MPR).

“We’re just glad that the driver himself wasn’t hit. Although we understand the bullet went right by his head,” Freeman said, as he told the jurors they had made the right decision.

The victims were among a group of friends, at least one of whom was wearing a traditional robe.

A witness said she heard Sawina call the group “f*****g Muslims”.

CAIR, a US Muslim civil rights group, described the attack as Islamophobic.

Sawina maintained that he fired in self-defence, however he did not call the emergency services at the time of the incident or later to report that he had used his gun in self-defence, according to MPR.

The defence lawyer told jurors that the idea that Sawina planned to try and kill the men was “nuts”.

But Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Patrick Lofton argued that premeditation can happen in a short period of time.

“[Sawina] said, ‘I have a permit to carry and I’m going to kill you all’,” Lofton said.

Sawina is scheduled to be sentenced June 12.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Legal challenges aim to stop executions in US state as constitutional debate focuses on lethal injection drug.}

A court in the US state of Arkansas has been asked to halt what could be the nation’s first double execution in more than 16 years because of fears their poor health could cause complications.

Lawyers for Jack Jones and Marcel Williams, both scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on Monday, asked the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on Sunday to grant them stays of execution.

Jones’ lawyers say he suffers from diabetes and is on insulin, has high blood pressure, neuropathy and had one leg amputated below the knee. He is on heavy doses of methadone and gabapentin.

They say he may be resistant to the lethal injection drug midazolam because of the drugs he is taking for his maladies and could suffer a “tortuous death”.

Lawyers for Williams say he weighs 181kg and it will be difficult to find a vein for lethal injunction, so the drugs are unlikely to work as intended.

The state said the appeals are just delaying tactics and should be denied.

It was not clear when the appeals court will rule.

Arkansas originally wanted to execute eight inmates in 11 days by the end of April when its supply of midazolam expires.

It put to death Ledell Lee last week in the state’s first execution since 2005. But four of the eight inmates have had their executions blocked by the courts.

Also on Sunday, two lower court federal judges ruled against inmates in separate cases.

Judge Kristine Baker denied a request from several inmates, including Jones and Williams, that the rules for witnesses to view the executions be changed.

Judge J Leon Holmes denied a stay of execution for Williams saying that the matter should be dealt with by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, because the inmate had already been appealed to the higher court.

{{Rush to execute }}

On Thursday, Arkansas put to death 51-year-old Ledell Lee, who had been sentenced to death for murder two decades ago.

In the run-up to his execution, there was a legal battle over the constitutionality of the lethal injection drug used to kill prisoners.

Arkansas has rushed to put to death three more people before its supply of the drugs expires at the end of the month.

Jones and Marcel Williams are scheduled to die on Monday and another inmate, Kenneth Williams, is set for execution Thursday.

READ MORE: Does a Texas man who killed no one deserve death row?

Both Jones and Williams have admitted they are guilty. Williams was sent to death row in 1994 for the rape and murder of Stacy Errickson.

Jones was given the death penalty for the 1995 rape and murder of Mary Phillips.

The US has put to death 1,448 people since 1976, according to the Washington, DC-based Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).

Another 2,902 people are currently on death row.

Thirty-two states, as well as the US federal government, use lethal injection as their primary method for execution.

With recurrent legal efforts to effectively ban lethal injection, many states have alternative methods, including firing squads.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Roman Seleznev, son of a Russian politician, handed the longest sentence ever imposed in the US for a cybercrime case.}

A federal judge has handed down the longest sentence ever imposed in the US for a cybercrime case to the son of a member of the Russian Parliament convicted of hacking into more than 500 US businesses and stealing millions of credit card numbers, which he then sold on special websites.

Roman Seleznev was sentenced to 27 years in prison on Friday and ordered to pay nearly $170m in restitution to the businesses and banks that were the victims of his scheme.

Seleznev is the son of Valery Seleznev, a Russian Parliament member.

Prior to his sentencing, Roman Seleznev asked US district judge Richard Jones for leniency. He apologised to his victims and said he was remorseful for his crimes, and he urged the judge to consider his medical problems, the result of being wounded in a bombing in Morocco in 2011, in deciding his prison term.

“I plead, pray and beg your honour for mercy,” he said.

But Jones told Seleznev that the bombing “was an invitation to right your wrongs and recognise you were given a second chance in life.” But instead, Jones said Seleznev “amassed a fortune” at the expense of hundreds of small business.

“You were driven by one goal: greed,” Jones said.

After sentencing, Seleznev’s lawyer Igor Litvak read a hand-written statement from his client that said the long sentence was a political prosecution at a time of strained US-Russian relations.

“This decision made by the United States government clearly demonstrates to the entire world that I’m a political prisoner,” Seleznev wrote.

“I was kidnapped by the US. Now they want to send a message to the world using me as a pawn. This message that the US is sending today is not the right way to show Vladimir Putin of Russia, or any government in this world how justice works in a democracy.”

Seleznev said he is a citizen of the Russian Federation and he said he wanted to send a message to that government: “Please help me. I beg you.”

US lawyer Annette Hayes said Seleznev’s statement was “troubling”. He told the judge that he accepted responsibility and then sent his lawyer out claiming the case was political, she said.

“He was treated with due process all along the way just as any US citizen would have been,” she said.

{{‘Unprecedented prosecution’}}

Seleznev was first indicted in 2011 on 29 felony charges and captured in 2014. US Secret Service agents, with the help of local police, arrested Seleznev in the Maldives as he and his girlfriend arrived at an airport on their way back to Russia.

The agents flew him to Guam, where he made his first court appearance, and then to Seattle, where he was placed in federal custody.

Russian authorities have condemned the arrest of Seleznev as an illegal kidnapping.

The indictment grew to 40 counts in October 2014, and his trial was held last August. A jury found him guilty on 38 charges, including nine counts of hacking and 10 counts of wire fraud.

“This is truly an unprecedented prosecution,” Norman Barbosa, deputy US attorney, told the judge before sentencing.

For 15 years, Seleznev broke into the payment systems of hundreds of businesses. He had more than 2.9 million unique credit card numbers in his possession when he was arrested. His thefts resulted in about $170m in business losses.

“That is a staggering amount,” Barbosa said. “It exceeds any loss amount this court has ever seen.”

Seleznev was “living like a mob boss” and spent money on fast cars, expensive boats and luxury trips around the world, he said.

Prosecutors asked for a 30-year sentence to send a message to hackers around the world.

“Never before has a criminal engaged in computer fraud of this magnitude been identified, captured and convicted by an American jury,” prosecutors told the judge in a presentence memo.

{{Seleznev’s life story}}

Litvak had urged the judge to consider Seleznev’s life story in his decision.

Seleznev’s parents divorced when he was two years old; his alcoholic mother died when he was 17; he suffered a severe head injury in a bombing in Morocco in 2011; and his wife divorced him while he was in a coma, Litvak told the judge.

Seleznev continues to suffer after-effects from the bombing, including seizures, Litvak said.

To prove his commitment to helping fight cybercrime, Seleznev recently arranged to give the US government four of his laptops and six flash drives, and he has met with officials to discuss hacker activities, Litvak said.

Prosecutors said his offer to help fight hackers came too late.

{{
Botnet takedown}}

In another case involving an alleged Russian hacker, the US issued an indictment to Peter Levashov, who goes by several aliases. Levashov is accused of controlling one of the world’s top generators of spam and online extortion, officials said on Friday.

Levashov, 36, from Saint Petersburg, was arrested at Barcelona’s El Prat Airport on April 7 by Spanish authorities acting on a US warrant. The US is now seeking his extradition.

A US federal grand jury returned the eight-count indictment in the northeastern state of Connecticut on Thursday. The charges include fraud, identity theft and conspiracy.

Prosecutors accuse the purported hacker of controlling the Kelihos network of tens of thousands of infected computers, stealing personal data and renting the network out to others to send spam emails by the millions and extort ransoms.

The US Justice Department shut down the botnet on April 10.

Levashov has not been tied to alleged Russian interference in last year’s US presidential election.

But his operation allegedly depended on sending spam emails that allowed hackers to penetrate the computers of the Democratic Party to steal data.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Ledell Lee, 51, executed after US Supreme Court denies petitions to halt a series of death sentences in Arkansas.}

Arkansas has carried out its first execution in 12 years, according to local news media reports.

The southeastern US state executed Ledell Lee on Thursday at its Cummins Unit in Grady, which houses the state’s death chamber.

Lee was pronounced dead four minutes before his death warrant was due to expire at midnight.

The US Supreme Court had cleared the way earlier in the day for Arkansas to conduct the execution by removing holds on the lethal injection, just 30 minutes before the state’s death warrant expired.

Lawyers for Lee, 51, who had maintained his innocence for years, had launched last-minute appeals to halt the execution with federal courts and the Supreme Court.

The US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in St Louis considered a last-minute request from Lee for DNA testing, and had issued a stay until 9:15pm on Thursday (01:15 GMT Friday).

Lee was convicted and sentenced to death for beating Debra Reese to death with a tyre iron in 1993.

Reese’s relatives were at the Cummins Unit prison and told local news media Lee deserves to die for a crime that upended their lives.

“I pray this lawful execution helps bring closure for the Reese family,” Leslie Rutledge, the Arkansas attorney general, said just minutes after Lee’s execution.

But advocates for Lee condemned the execution.

“Arkansas’ decision to rush through the execution of Mr Lee just because its supply of lethal drugs are expiring at the end of the month denied him the opportunity to conduct DNA testing that could have proven his innocence,” said Nina Morrison, senior staff attorney with the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal organisation that helped represent Lee in his last appeals.

Two more Arkansas inmates are set to die on Monday, and one on April 27. Another inmate scheduled for execution next week has received a stay.

{{Legal wrangling}}

The Supreme Court ruling was the latest legal twist as Arkansas seeks to carry out a series of executions before one of the drugs used in its lethal injection mix, the sedative midazolam, expires by the end of the month.

Lawyers for the inmates argued that the state’s rush to the death chamber amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, violated the inmates’ right to counsel and their right to access the courts and counsel during the execution process.

The Supreme Court denied the petitions. One of them was a 5-4 decision in which new Justice Neil Gorsuch sided with the four other conservative justices in denying the motion while the court’s liberals dissented.

Earlier on Thursday, the top Arkansas court overturned a previous ruling that had blocked the use of one of the other three drugs that the state planned to use.

Arkansas had planned to execute eight inmates in 11 days, the most of any state in as short a period since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Courts have halted four of those executions. The state’s plan and the legal battles have raised questions about US death chamber protocols and lethal injection drug mixes

Back-to-back executions set for Monday were indefinitely halted.

Previous legal challenges prevented the state from executing any prisoner since 2005.

In the ruling on the state’s lethal injection drug, the Arkansas Supreme Court agreed with the state that it did nothing illegal in acquiring the muscle relaxant vecuronium bromide and lifted an order by a state circuit judge on Wednesday that blocked its use.

{{‘Assembly line of killings’}}

McKesson Medical-Surgical Inc, a pharmaceutical wholesaler, had argued that it sold Arkansas the drug for medical use, not executions, and that it would suffer harm financially and to its reputation if the executions were carried out.

Arkansas’ protocol calls for use of midazolam to render the inmate unconscious, vecuronium bromide to stop breathing and potassium chloride to stop the heart.

Anti-death penalty activists have protested in Arkansas against what has been labelled “assembly line killings”.

Midazolam has been linked to botched executions, and critics say it has proved ineffective in rendering unconsciousness prior to administration of the two lethal agents.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a petition that “Arkansas wants to use an execution drug combination – with midazolam – that’s never been used before in the state and that risks making prisoners feel as if they are burning alive from the inside while paralysed”.

Source:Al Jazeera