Tag: GreatLakesNews

The Sudanese foreign ministry on Thursday summoned the Canadian charge d’affaires in Khartoum Dominique Rossetti to protest a statement by Ottawa which condemned the ruling against a man convicted of a 2006 highway robbery.

Last month the 30-year old Adam al-Muthna was subjected to amputation of his right hand and left foot by doctors at al-Ribat hospital after the constitutional court affirmed the sentence imposed by judges in lower courts.

The Canadian foreign minister John Baird issued a statement this month calling the sentence ” a barbaric expression of Shar’ia law, as cruel and inhumane punishments that are completely at odds with international norms”.

“Sudan, a country with a terrible human rights record, has sunk to new depths of cruelty, having carried out amputations on a man convicted of a criminal offence” he said.

According to Sudan news agency (SUNA) the foreign ministry told Rossetti that this statement is a blatant and unacceptable interference in the country’s internal affairs and its judicial rulings.

The Sudanese Penal Code provides cross amputation as a penalty for armed robbery when it results in grievous injury or involves theft of property with a value exceeding SDG 1,500 or about $340.

However there have been very few cases in Sudan’s history when this form of punishment was actually implemented.

France and several human right groups lambasted the court order and called for reforming Sudanese laws.

(ST)

The International Criminal Court has postponed the trials of Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and former head of civil service to July 09, 2013.

The trial judges are however yet to decide on the trial dates for the William Ruto and Joshua arap Sang cases.

In a statement released on Thursday, the international court said trial judges had granted Mr Kenyatta’s and Mr Muthaura’s request to have the trials postponed from the initial April 10, 2013 date.

“Trial Chamber V of the International Criminal Court (ICC) decided to grant the Defence teams’ requests, to which the Prosecutor did not oppose, and to postpone the opening of the trial in the case The Prosecutor v. Francis Kirimi Muthaura and Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and set the new date provisionally for 9 July 2013,” said the statement.

The court, in explaining the postponement of Mr Kenyatta’s and Mr Muthaura’s cases, said that the April date did not give them sufficient time to make a ruling on a request by the suspects to have their cases referred back to the Pre-Trial Chamber.

“The Chamber considers that, in addition to Defence submissions related to delayed disclosure of information, the Defence teams’ applications requesting referral back to the Pre-Trial Chamber raise very serious issues that must be resolved before the trial can proceed and which may not be resolved before 11 April 2013, the date initially set for the opening of the trial,” the court explained.

“The Defence teams in the case The Prosecutor v. William Samoei Ruto and Joshua Arap Sang also submitted requests to postpone the opening of the trial, currently scheduled to being on 10 April 2013. Trial Chamber V will issue its decision on these requests in due course,” it added.

NMG

The manhunt for the two individuals who violently assaulted veteran Tanzanian journalist Absalom Kibanda Tuesday night has moved into high gear, as the editor was flown to South Africa for specialised medical care.

The senior journalist, who is the group managing editor of the private New Habari Corporation and the firebrand chairman of Tanzania Editors’ Forum (TEF), was grievously wounded following the vicious attack outside his house at Mbezi Juu in Dar es Salaam.

He suffered serious injuries to his left eye. His assailants also knocked several teeth off him and hacked off a finger from his left hand.

Just before he was flown out, Mr Kibanda told local reporters he believed the incident had something to do with his work as a journalist, for which he faces a treason trial.

After the incident, Mr Kibanda was rushed to Muhimbili National Hospital’s Orthopaedic Institute, where doctors referred him to a South African hospital for more treatment.

Following the brutal event, the Inspector General of Police, Mr Said Mwema, has assigned four detectives from the Police Force headquarters to beef up investigations, but no arrests have been made yet.

A statement by minister of Home Affairs Emmanuel Nchimbi said IGP Mwema’s decision is meant “to increase efficiency.”

NMG

The UN Security Council has unanimously voted to partially lift its ban on selling arms on Somalia for a year.

The embargo is the world’s oldest, having been imposed in 1992, and will be partially eased for a year in order to help the country’s new government.

The decision means the government will be able to buy light arms to help in its fight against Islamist militants.

Some countries had been reluctant to ease the ban for fear of fuelling insecurity in Somalia.

Correspondents say a compromise seems to have been reached: lifting an embargo on small arms for one year but keeping restrictions on heavy weapons.

The council also voted to extend the mandate of an African Union peacekeeping force in the country by a year.

The government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud had been pressing for the embargo to be lifted. He took office in 2012 after the first election of its kind since President Mohamed Siad Barre.

“The council has struck the right balance. It sends a positive signal to President Hassan Sheikh but it continues to give the council oversight of weapons flows into Somalia,” Britain’s UN ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said.

Many items will still be banned from Somalia, including surface-to-air missiles, large-calibre guns, howitzers and cannons.

The human rights group Amnesty International had said the move would be “premature”, saying tighter safeguards were needed first to ensure weapons did not fall in to the wrong hands.

The embargo was imposed after the fall of President Barre in 1991 and subsequent bloody infighting between clan warlords.

Recent years have seen conflict between a UN-backed government and the al-Shabab Islamist militia.

Al-Shabab, a group aligned to al-Qaeda, seized control of southern and central parts of Somalia before Ethiopian, Kenyan and African Union peacekeeping troops undertook a counter-offensive in 2011, supported by the US.

Al-Shabab has now been forced out of Somalia’s main towns but it still controls many smaller towns and rural parts of southern and central Somalia.

BBC

British High Commission in Kenya has dismissed claims that High Commissioner Dr Christian Turner had taken sides in the just concluded presidential elections.

In a statement to the press, the British Foreign Office spokesperson Mr John Bradsaw said the allegations by the Jubilee Coalition against the diplomat are malicious and unfounded.

Mr Bradsaw also explained that the presence of the British military in Kenya is official and restricted to training activities in well-defined areas in agreement with the Kenyan authorities.

“British soldiers currently in Kenya are here as part of the regular training programme at British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK) agreed with the Kenyan MoD. This routine exercise is completely unrelated to the Kenyan elections, and was planned nine months ago,” read the statement.

Mr Bradsaw further stated: “Claims of British interference, including by the High Commission, in the electoral process are entirely false and misleading.”

He further explained that British citizens engaged in the electoral process, including a 40 member observer delegation, were properly accredited by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

“Alongside six independent observer missions and representatives from the rest of the diplomatic community, the UK has had 40 electoral observers accredited by the IEBC observing the elections across the country,” the statement stated.

Further the British Foreign Office official reiterated that United Kingdom does not have any position on who is elected Kenya’s President and urged politicians to avoid making inflammatory statements and take disputes to court.

“The UK does not have a position on the question of how to handle the rejected votes. That is for the IEBC, and if necessary Kenyan courts, to determine,” the statement said.

Earlier the Jubilee coalition raised complaints over Dr Turner’s conduct, accusing him of interfering with the process.

“ The Jubilee Coalition is however, deeply concerned about the shadowy, suspicious and rather animated involvement of the British High Commissioner to Kenya Dr Christian Turner in Kenya’s 2013 General Election,” the statement read.

URP Chairman Francis Kaparo, addressing the press at the Bomas of Kenya, demanded that the rejected votes should be isolated in computing the final Presidential results.

“Counting the rejected votes is like walking to city mortuary and counting all dead bodies together with the living people,” Mr Kaparo stated.

He claimed that a parallel tallying by the Jubilee team had pointed to a strong Jubilee win.

“Even if they count the spoilt votes whether they like it or not we have won this elections. Let us just wait and see. It is round one for us,”he said.

At the same time Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s Coalition for Reforms and Democracy relocated its base to Tipuana Gardens near the Bomas of Kenya from where its team would be monitoring the computation of results.

NMG

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The U.N. Security Council hopes to approve by the end of March a special force to combat rebels in the DRCongo, but some members have concerns that need to be addressed first, Russia’s U.N. envoy Vitaly Churkin said on Tuesday.

While Churkin did not divulge these concerns, some diplomats worry the creation of the intervention force within the existing peacekeeping operation, known as MONUSCO, could lead to two competing units.

They want more detail on the new unit’s command structure.

“We think it’s very important that the intervention force is fully integrated into MONUSCO,” said one senior council envoy, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“I don’t see opposition” to the proposal, he said, “but we need a lot of clarification.”

South Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique are the most likely candidates to supply the several thousand soldiers needed for the intervention force, but diplomats have questions about the ability of those troops to take on the rebel groups, including the M23, which have taken parts of eastern Congo.

“A lot of hard work is ahead of us in the next few weeks,” Churkin told reporters after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon briefed the 15-member council on his proposal to strengthen and define MONUSCO’s mandate and create the intervention force.

“There are some issues to be sorted out … Hopefully by the end of the month we will be able to adopt that mandate” resolution, said Churkin.

M23 began taking parts of eastern Congo early last year, accusing the government of failing to honor a 2009 peace deal.

That deal ended a previous rebellion and led to the rebels’ integration into the army, but they have since deserted.

“The intervention brigade will be tasked with containing the expansion of both Congolese and foreign armed groups, neutralizing these groups, and disarming them,” Ban told the Security Council on Tuesday.

In practical terms, U.N. diplomats say, troops in the brigade will have more freedom to open fire without being required to wait until they are attacked first, a limitation that is standard for U.N. peacekeepers deployed around the world.

African leaders signed a U.N .-mediated deal late last month aimed at ending two decades of conflict in Congo’s east and paving the way for the intervention force.