IGIHE

Category: Justice

  • ICC Likely to Fail Accessing President Uhuru’s Accounts

    ICC Likely to Fail Accessing President Uhuru’s Accounts

    {{ As the International Criminal Court ( ICC) faces increasing challenges in pursuing prosecutions, there are few signs that global powers will step up and give the institution the political backing it needs.}}

    Since beginning its work in 2002, the ICC has struggled to apprehend high-profile fugitives like Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, who is charged with genocide in Darfur.

    In two ongoing cases in Kenya, the court has found it hard to secure cooperation from the government as it seeks to prosecute President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto.

    In the Sudan case, judges in The Hague recently called on the United Nations Security Council to take action against the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) because the authorities there failed to arrest Bashir while he was in that country.

    In their April 9 decision, judges warned that efforts to deliver justice would be in vain if the ICC did not get the necessary backing from the Security Council, the body that referred the Darfur conflict to the court in 2005.

    “If there is no follow-up action on the part of the Security Council, any referral by the Council to the ICC… would never achieve its ultimate goal, namely, to put an end to impunity,” judges warned in a written decision. “Accordingly, any such referral would become futile.”

    Shortly before issuing this decision, the ICC also threatened to refer Kenya to the court’s 122 signatory states – known collectively as the Assembly of State Parties (ASP) – if the government failed to cooperate. However, it is unclear what states could actually do in this eventuality, since the ICC’s Rome Statute does not outline particular actions and the ASP cannot impose sanctions.

    Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda wants the Kenyan authorities to hand her Kenyatta’s financial records which she hopes will support charges that he bankrolled ethnic violence six years ago.

    Kenyatta and Ruto are charged in two separate ICC cases with orchestrating the two months of bloodshed that followed Kenya’s polls in December 2007. A third defendant, Joshua Arap Sang, is on trial in the same case as Ruto.

    In a decision issued on March 31, judges delayed the start of Kenyatta’s trial until October 7 in order to give the Kenyan authorities a further opportunity to hand over evidence.

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  • Chris Brown Imprisoned for Violating Probation

    Chris Brown Imprisoned for Violating Probation

    {{Troubled singer Chris Brown admitted Friday to violating his probation and was jailed for a year in Los Angeles, though he was given credit for about eight months already served.}}

    A judge also renewed Brown’s probation and extended it through January 2015, after the star admitted breaching the terms of his release linked to his notorious assault five years ago on then-girlfriend Rihanna.

    Brown, who is also facing legal action over an alleged attack in Washington DC, has been on probation since he admitted the eve-of-Grammys assault on Rihanna in February 2009.

    The probation was first revoked last summer after allegations stemming from a car crash, but was reinstated in August when Los Angeles judge James Brandlin ordered him to carry out an additional 1,000 hours of community labor.

    Brown, 24, and his bodyguard Chris Hollosy, 35, were then accused of punching a man last October outside a trendy Washington hotel after the singer rejected the man’s request for a photo.

    Back in California, he was arrested in March after being thrown out of a Malibu substance abuse and anger management center, reportedly after making remarks about guns and knives in a group therapy session.

    While remaining in custody, he was transferred to Washington last month for hearings on last year’s hotel fracas, but the case was postponed and he was returned to Los Angeles to face Friday’s parole hearing.

    Judge Brandlin sentenced Brown to one year in LA County Jail, but gave him credit for 234 days already served.

    Brown is now due back in Washington for a status hearing on June 25. If convicted, Brown faces up to six months in jail there.

    Brown, who is also a dancer and actor, won a Grammy for best R&B album in 2012.

    {wirestory}

  • Saudi Blogger Imprisoned For 10 years

    Saudi Blogger Imprisoned For 10 years

    {{A Saudi court has imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi for 10 years for “insulting Islam” and setting up a liberal web forum, local media report.}}

    He was also sentenced to 1,000 lashes and ordered to pay a fine of 1 million riyals ($266,000; £133,000).

    Amnesty International called the verdict “outrageous” and urged the authorities to quash the verdict.

    Mr Badawi, the co-founder of a website called the Liberal Saudi Network, was arrested in 2012.

    A Saudi newspaper close to the government reported that he had lost his appeal against an earlier, more lenient sentence of seven years and three months in jail and 600 lashes.

    Last year he was cleared of apostasy, which could have carried a death sentence.

    Mr Badawi had previously called for 7 May to be a “day for Saudi liberals”. The website he set up has since been closed.

    {wirestory}

  • Berlusconi Begins Community Service For Fraud

    Berlusconi Begins Community Service For Fraud

    {{Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi arrived at a Catholic care home near Milan on Friday to start a year of community service.}}

    He was sentenced to four years in prison for tax fraud last year, commuted to four hours work a week with elderly dementia patients.

    The care home says the 77-year-old will be treated like any other assistant.

    As he arrived, Berlusconi was heckled by a trade unionist in a clown hat who shouted: “To prison!”

    “We Italian workers have one dream in our hearts: Berlusconi in San Vittore!” he yelled, referring to a prison in Milan, before being led away by police.

    The billionaire has been embroiled in a string of court cases.

    His conviction last year was in connection with the purchase of TV rights by his firm, Mediaset, in the 1990s.

    But he was spared prison because the Italian legal system is lenient to the over-70s.

    Berlusconi chose community service rather than house arrest to serve out his commuted sentence.

    Reporters in Rome says this will enable him to continue to lead his centre-right party, Forza Italia, in the European elections, although he was forced to resign his seat in the upper house of parliament.

    Berlusconi has also had to surrender his passport and his travel within Italy is severely restricted.

    He also has to observe a nightly curfew at his palatial home near Milan.

  • Canada court upholds conviction of Genocide criminal Desire Munyaneza

    Canada court upholds conviction of Genocide criminal Desire Munyaneza

    MONTREAL – The first person ever found guilty under Canada’s war-crimes legislation has failed in an attempt to have his conviction overturned.

    The Quebec Court of Appeal said Wednesday it has upheld the conviction against Rwandan war criminal Desire Munyaneza.Munyaneza’s trial heard he raped women, participated in the slaughter of hundreds of people inside a church and used sticks to beat children tied up in sacks.

    He was found guilty in May 2009 of several charges relating to rape and civilian massacres in Rwanda and later sentenced to the maximum life in prison.

    His lawyers filed an appeal almost immediately thereafter.In a decision released Wednesday, the province’s highest court dismissed the multipronged appeal of the landmark verdict.

    “In the court’s opinion, these arguments have no merit,” the appeals court ruled.

    Munyaneza appealed on several grounds, alleging poorly defined charges, irregularities and misrepresentations by the trial judge and a lack of credibility in Crown witnesses.

    But the three justices who listened to the arguments over three days in April 2013 picked apart the arguments of Munyaneza’s lawyers and said it was clear he played a central role in the crimes.

    “Almost all of the Crown witnesses, who for the most part were in no way connected with each other, stated that the appellant acted as a leader during the events that took place in the Butare prefecture between April and July of 1994,” they wrote. “That is why the (trial) judge found that he was ‘at the forefront of the genocidal movement’.”Instead of refraining and refusing to take part in the genocide, he chose to participate actively as Interahamwe (Hutu militia) leader and as a member of the local elite.”

    The offences took place in and around Butare, where Munyaneza, the son of a wealthy local businessman, was an influential figure.

    Munyaneza arrived in Toronto in 1997 seeking refugee status but his claim was rejected.

    He was arrested by the RCMP at his Toronto-area home in 2005 and eventually convicted on seven charges related to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    In October 2009, Munyaneza was sentenced to life in prison without parole for 25 years, despite pleading for leniency on the issue of parole eligibility.With time served, Munyaneza was expected to be eligible for parole at the earliest in 2030.

    The appeals court ruling also confirms the validity of the country’s war-crimes legislation, which was under the microscope during the expensive, secretive and lengthy trial.

    Quebec Superior Court Justice Andre Denis oversaw the two-year case and heard from 66 witnesses in court proceedings that were held in Canada, Europe and Africa.Many of those witnesses were heard behind closed doors and had their identities hidden to shield them from reprisals.

    The Munyaneza case has been followed intently by international legal observers as it was the first test of prosecuting someone in a Canadian court for crimes committed abroad.Munyaneza was convicted under Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, enacted in 2000.

    © Times Colonist

  • Thai Court Rules PM Must Step Down

    Thai Court Rules PM Must Step Down

    {{A Thai court found Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra guilty of violating the constitution on Wednesday and said she had to step down, throwing the country into further political turmoil, although ministers not implicated in her case can remain in office}}.

    The decision is bound to anger her supporters, but the survival of her government could take the sting out of protests they had planned for the weekend and may make confrontation between pro- and anti-government groups less likely.

    Yingluck has faced six months of sometimes deadly protests in the capital, Bangkok, aimed at toppling her government. The anti-government protesters failed to achieve their aim in the street but turned to legal challenges to remove her.

    But there appears no end in sight to Thailand’s dysfunctional status quo, putting a further strain on the tourism-led economy which could be heading towards a recession, with protesters still pushing for political reform before any new elections are held.

    The judge who delivered the verdict said Yingluck had abused her position by transferring the National Security Council chief to another post in 2011 so that a relative could benefit from subsequent job moves.

    “The accused was involved in the transfer of Thawil Pliensri from his position as National Security Council head,” the judge said, adding that was done in order for Priewpan Damapong, a relative, to “gain a new position”.

    “The accused acted for her own political benefit … The transfer wasn’t done for the benefit of the country,” he added.

    Yingluck denied wrongdoing when she appeared in court on Tuesday. She was not present on Wednesday and her spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

    It was not immediately clear if she could appeal or if she faced other penalties apart from having to stand down, or if she faced a ban on participation in politics.

    {wirestory}

  • Thailand PM in Court Over Abuse of Power

    Thailand PM in Court Over Abuse of Power

    {{Thailand’s prime minister has appeared before the Constitutional Court in Bangkok to defend herself against allegations of abuse of power.}}

    The complaint was filed by senators who said Yingluck Shinawatra’s party benefited from improperly transferring her national security chief in 2011.

    Ms Yingluck could be removed from office and banned from politics for five years if found guilty.

    The decision is expected on Wednesday, the court said after the hearing.

    The prime minister’s supporters believe the top courts are biased against her and the case is an attempt by the elite to force her from office.

    Reporters in Bangkok says if the Constitutional Court also bans enough of her cabinet to disable her caretaker administration, her ministers have warned there will be chaos, with large-scale protests by pro-government red-shirts a certainty.

  • French Lesbian Couple Blocked From Adopting Child

    French Lesbian Couple Blocked From Adopting Child

    Gay rights groups in France have voiced anger after a judge prevented a French lesbian couple from adopting an infant.

    The boy, now aged four, was conceived through artificial insemination of one of the women in Belgium.

    Under French law that procedure is not explicitly open to lesbian couples. The judge said the law had been violated.

    France legalised gay marriage nearly a year ago. The Versailles judge’s ruling was “homophobic”, said ADFH, a group representing homosexual parents.

    ADFH said French law had failed to protect the rights of the child.

    A lesbian rights activist, Nathalie Allain-Djerrah of Enfants d’Arc-en-ciel (Rainbow Children), said the ruling “shows in a blatant and violent way how inequality persists between the children of homosexual parents and those of heterosexual parents”.

    According to the French newspaper Le Figaro, in similar cases French judges have allowed lesbian couples to adopt infants since gay marriage was legalised.

    France’s same-sex marriage law also legalised gay adoption. Opponents staged huge rallies against it but President Francois Hollande signed the “Taubira” bill into law after months of heated debate.

  • Samsung Ordered to Pay Apple $119.6m

    Samsung Ordered to Pay Apple $119.6m

    {{Samsung has been ordered to pay $119.6m (£71m) to Apple by a US court for infringing two of its patents.}}

    A jury in California delivered its verdict in a federal court in San Jose on Friday in the latest lawsuit involving the two tech giants.

    Apple had sought $2bn at the trial, accusing Samsung of violating patents on smartphone features.

    The court also ruled that Apple infringed Samsung’s patents and awarded $158,000 in damages.

    Apple had sought $2.2bn after accusing Samsung of infringing five of its patents covering functions such as the “slide to unlock” from its devices.

    Samsung denied any wrongdoing and sought $6m after arguing Apple had infringed two of its smartphone patents related to camera use and video transmission.

    “Though this verdict is large by normal standards, it is hard to view this outcome as much of a victory for Apple,” said Brian Love, a Santa Clara University law professor.

    “This amount is less than 10% of the amount Apple requested and probably doesn’t surpass by too much the amount Apple spent litigating this case.”

  • Teenager Gets 20 Years For Mom Killing

    Teenager Gets 20 Years For Mom Killing

    {{A teenager who helped her boyfriend kill her mother was sentenced to 20 years’ jail by the Western Cape High Court, Beeld reported on Saturday.}}

    Judge Robert Henney on Friday accepted 19-year-old Phoenix Racing Cloud Theron’s plea bargain with the State and sentenced her to 20 years, five of which were suspended for five years.

    She admitted that she helped her boyfriend, Kyle Maspero, strangle her mother Rosemary, 39, with a rope in her home in Fish Hoek on 7 March 2013.

    In mitigation of sentencing she told the court that she spent the first three years of her life travelling through SA with her parents, selling marionettes, attending hippie gatherings, and using drugs.

    Rosemary Theron abandoned her daughter when she was 5 to go to South America. She returned pregnant a few years later and performed as a clown and fire dancer at parties.

    From the age of 6 Phoenix Theron was sexually assaulted by a friend of her father’s and her grandmother’s boyfriend.

    She had to steal food as her mother often did not provide any, was in several primary schools and received home schooling. She had an abortion a week before the murder, and suffered from depression.

    – SAPA