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Ukraine plans international court to put Putin on trial

Fast News

President Joe Biden announces nearly $3 billion in military aid to Kiev — the biggest US package so far — as fighting in Ukraine rages on its 183rd day.

A drone flying with a giant Ukrainian national flag passes over the Motherland monument in Kiev during Ukraine's Independence Day. (AFP)

Thursday, August 25, 2022 Ukraine plans international court to put Putin on trial Ukrainian officials are drawing up plans to make sure Russian President Vladimir Putin and his top military commanders will be tried for launching the military offensive. The plan for a special international tribunal to investigate Russia's alleged "crime of aggression" is being spearheaded by Andrii Smirnov, deputy head of Ukraine's presidential administration. The International Criminal Court, which has been trying the gravest crimes for the past 20 years, is already investigating war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Ukraine. But it cannot look into accusations of aggression because neither Ukraine nor Russia has ratified the Rome Statute. This court is "the only way to make sure that the criminals who started the Ukraine war are held accountable quickly," Smirnov told the AFP news agency. "The world has a short memory. That's why I would like this tribunal to start working next year." For live updates from Wednesday (August 24), click here Source: TRTWorld and agencies

#Ukraine #plans #international #court #put #Putin #trial https://www.globalcourant.com/ukraine-plans-international-court-to-put-putin-on-trial/?feed_id=15468&_unique_id=6306f196cedbf

Mexico ex-top prosecutor to stand trial in disappeared students case

Jesus Murillo Karam, who is accused of leading a botched investigation into the case, will be tried on charges of forced disappearance of 43 students in 2014, torture and obstruction of justice, authorities say.

Mexico's top human rights official says government role in the disappearance –– including local, state and federal officials –– constituted a "state crime." (AFP)

A Mexican judge has agreed to hear the charges against the country's former attorney general Jesus Murillo in relation to his alleged role in the disappearance of 43 students in 2014, judicial authorities said. Jesus Murillo Karam, who led a highly contentious investigation into the case, will be tried on charges of forced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice, the Federal Judiciary Council said on Wednesday after a court hearing. Murillo Karam, a former heavyweight of the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), was arrested earlier this week and is the highest-ranking official detained so far in connection with the case, which shocked the nation and generated international condemnation. He is considered the architect of the so-called "historical truth" version of events presented in 2015 by the government of then-president Enrique Pena Nieto that was widely rejected, including by relatives. The teaching students had commandeered buses in the southern state of Guerrero to travel to a demonstration in Mexico City before they went missing. Investigators say they were detained by corrupt police and handed over to a drug cartel that mistook them for members of a rival gang, but exactly what happened to them has been hotly disputed. According to the official report presented in 2015, cartel members killed the students and incinerated their remains at a garbage dump. Those conclusions were rejected by independent experts and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as the families. Commission blames military

Last week, a truth commission determined that military personnel bore responsibility, either directly or through negligence, in the disappearance of students.

"Their actions, omissions or participation allowed the disappearance and execution of the students, as well as the murder of six other people," said the commission's head, deputy interior minister Alejandro Encinas, on Thursday. Mexico's top human rights official, Alejandro Encinas, has said that government involvement in the disappearance –– including local, state and federal officials –– constituted a "state crime." In the aftermath, the last government "concealed the truth of the facts, altered crime scenes, covered up the links between authorities with a criminal group."

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in March that navy members were under investigation for allegedly tampering with evidence, notably at a garbage dump where human remains were found, including those of the only three students identified so far.

He denied an accusation by independent experts that Mexican authorities were withholding important information about the case, which shocked the country and drew international condemnation. Source: Reuters

#Mexico #extop #prosecutor #stand #trial #disappeared #students #case https://www.globalcourant.com/mexico-ex-top-prosecutor-to-stand-trial-in-disappeared-students-case/?feed_id=15384&_unique_id=6306a9585fa1b

Russia's Ukraine soldiers trial to undermine talks – Zelenskyy

Fast News

Kiev bans public gatherings amid fears of Russia intensifying bombings ahead of Ukraine’s Independence Day as war enters 180th day.

Putting Ukrainian soldiers on trial "will be the line beyond which no negotiations are possible" with Russia, says Ukraine's President Zelenskyy (file photo). (Reuters)

Monday, August 22, 2022 Russia's Ukraine soldiers trial to undermine talks – Zelenskyy Russia might take the provocative step of putting Ukrainian soldiers on trial as Kiev marks 31 years of independence for the war-ravaged country on Wednesday, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned. "If this despicable court takes place, if our people are brought into these settings in violation of all agreements, all international rules, there will be abuse," Zelenskyy warned in an evening address. Ukraine's Independence Day, August 24, will also mark six months since Russia attacked the former Soviet republic, in a devastating war that has cost thousands of lives.

"This will be the line beyond which no negotiations are possible."

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

For live updates from Sunday (August 21), click here Source: TRTWorld and agencies

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/russias-ukraine-soldiers-trial-to-undermine-talks-zelenskyy/?feed_id=14045&_unique_id=6302f86cc29ad

Five Europeans Go on Trial in Separatist-Controlled Ukraine

Five Europeans captured in eastern Ukraine went on trial Monday in a court administered by Kremlin-backed separatists in the city of Donetsk, Russian media reported.

The five — Mathias Gustafsson of Sweden, Vjekoslav Prebeg of Croatia, and Britons John Harding, Andrew Hill and Dylan Healy — all pleaded not guilty to charges of being mercenaries, according to Russian media reports.

They could face the death penalty under the laws of the self-proclaimed, unrecognized Donetsk People's Republic.

The next court hearing in their case is scheduled for October, Russian media reported.

Harding, Prebeg and Gustafsson were captured in the Ukrainian port of Mariupol and face possible execution for attempting to "seize power by force" and "taking part in armed conflict as mercenaries," the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

Hill faces charges of being a mercenary, while Healy is being tried for taking part in the recruitment of mercenaries for Ukraine, the news agency said.

On June 9, the supreme court of the self-proclaimed republic already sentenced two Britons and a Moroccan, all of whom were captured by pro-Russian forces in Ukraine's industrial east, to death for being mercenaries. All three have appealed their verdicts.

There has been a moratorium on the death penalty in Russia since 1997, but it does not apply in the two separatist regions in Ukraine.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/five-europeans-go-on-trial-in-separatist-controlled-ukraine/?feed_id=11462&_unique_id=62fb14e696d0a

Yaser Said 'honor killings' trial: Daughter in 911 call tells police she's 'dying'

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In a 911 call presented to a Dallas courtroom on Thursday in the trial against Yaser Abdel Said, who is accused of killing his two daughters in 2008, one of his daughters can be heard frantically telling police, "I'm dying."

"Help. My dad shot me. I’m dying, I'm dying," his youngest daughter, Sarah, says in the 911 call. "I’m dying, that's what's up.

She can also be heard repeating, "Stop it, stop it, stop it," toward the beginning of the call.

SON OF YASER SAID, FBI TEN MOST WANTED ‘HONOR KILLINGS’ SUSPECT, PLEADS GUILTY TO CONCEALING HIM

Said, 65, is on trial for capital murder after spending 12 years on the run after allegedly murdering his 17-year-old and 18-year-old daughters in what prosecutors have described as "honor killings" because he did not like that they had boyfriends. He faces an automatic life sentence if convicted because prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.

Ironically, the courtroom also learned that the girls' mother and Said's former wife, Patricia Owens, married Said, an Egyptian immigrant who worked at a gas station next door to her childhood home, when she was just 15 and he was 29. Owens had dated his younger brother when she was 14 for "five or six months" before she met Said and got permission from her parents to marry him.

TRIAL OF TEXAS MAN ACCUSED OF MURDERING DAUGHTERS IN ‘HONOR KILLINGS’ FOR HAVING NON-MUSLIM BOYFRIENDS BEGINS

She had their first child — a son named Islam Yaser Said — at 15 in 1988. Her two daughters, Amina and Sarah, were born shortly afterward.

Patricia Owens confirms a photo of herself at age 14, a year before she married her former husband, Yaser Said, when he was 29. (FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth)

Owens testified that "part of" her knew what her husband was capable of doing to her daughters while "part of" her did not. She knew he had a gun in the house and had threatened to use it before. She had previously filed complaints with police against Said for touching her daughters in a sexual manner. She had fled home numerous times with the girls, but she continued to return to Said in Dallas because she was "scared" that he would hurt her, Owens said.

MARYLAND MAN ACCUSED OF KILLING, DISMEMBERING DAUGHTER, YEARS AFTER ALLEGEDLY MURDERED SON AND FRIEND

After filing police reports about Said allegedly abusing their daughters in the late 1990s, Owens fled to her sister's home in another part of Texas but eventually returned to Said. Owens also testified that she made her daughters recant their statements to police and dropped charges against her husband after they returned home to Said.

When the girls were in high school, they took up jobs at a Kroger grocery store, where Owens also worked, at which point they met two boys named Eric and Edgar who would eventually become their boyfriends. Owens said she hid their relationships from Said, whom she thought might "take away their phones" as punishment if he found out.

Yaser Said allegedly invited his daughter to a meal at Denny's before killing them. (FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth)

Around Christmas in 2007, Owens helped her daughters plot to run away from home so that they could date their boyfriends. The trio, plus Eric and Edgar, traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for several days before eventually returning to their home with Said in Dallas so that Amina could finish school.

NEW YORK MAN INDICTED IN AMBUSH SHOOTING DEATH OF MOM PUSHING BABY IN STROLLER

"Amina had…a few more months of school, and we were scared that it would mess up her credits for the college she wanted to go to," Owens testified. "After she graduated high school, we were going to move back to Oklahoma."

On Jan. 1, 2008, Said allegedly shot both of his daughters to death after they had both returned home from Tulsa, and he invited them out for a meal at Denny's. Said, a taxi driver, drove the girls in his taxi that evening.

Yaser Said, a taxi driver, is accused of murdering his two daughters in his cab on the night of Jan. 1, 2008. (FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth)

Amina’s boyfriend testified that she "knew she was gonna die" when she reluctantly went home on New Year's Day. He said her last words to him were that she would never see him again. She returned home on Jan. 1, 2008 and was murdered that night.

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Authorities found the girls riddled with bullets inside their father’s cab, which was parked outside a hotel in Irving, Texas.

Owens previously told Fox News that Said had become enraged that his daughters had boyfriends who weren’t Muslim. He said he didn't want to raise "whores as daughters," Owens said. After her daughters' killings, Owens said she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and extreme depression, among other ailments, and she later divorced Said.

Fox News' Brie Stimson and Greg Norman contributed to this report.

Audrey Conklin is a digital reporter for FOX Business and Fox News. Email tips to audrey.conklin@fox.com or on Twitter at @audpants.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/yaser-said-honor-killings-trial-daughter-in-911-call-tells-police-shes-dying/?feed_id=6700&_unique_id=62ec43bfdb0af

Brittney Griner trial and Russia-Ukraine news

Brittney Griner leaves the courtroom after the court's verdict on August 4. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images)

WNBA star Brittney Griner’s lawyer, Maria Blagovolina, said that Griner’s defense team has 10 days to appeal the court’s decision, which found Griner guilty of drug smuggling and sentenced her to nine years of jail time.

Earlier today in a written statement following the court’s decision, both of Griner’s lawyers, Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov, said they would appeal.

Later, speaking to journalists outside the Khimki court near Moscow region, Boykov said that the average time in jail for this type of crime is five years, adding that almost a third of those convicted get a parole.

Blagovolina, a partner at Rybalkin, Gortsunyan, Dyakin and Partners law firm, told journalists that Griner “is not doing fine today.”

Boykov added that the WNBA star passed through her lawyers a message for her family that is not to become public. Griner’s defense team is hopeful that she will be able to talk to her family next week.

Blagovolina added that Griner will return to the detention center she is currently kept at. Both lawyers agreed that Griner has been treated fine so far.

Asked about the prisoner swap offer by the US, Griner’s lawyers said they had no information.

“Unfortunately, we are not involved in the process,” Blagovolina said, responding to a question by CNN outside the court.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/brittney-griner-trial-and-russia-ukraine-news/?feed_id=6658&_unique_id=62ec19f93e37a

Texas trial begins for man accused of killing his daughters

DALLAS -- A man who evaded arrest for more than 12 years after being accused of fatally shooting his two teenage daughters in a taxi parked near a Dallas-area hotel was “obsessed with possession and control,” a prosecutor said Tuesday during opening statements of his capital murder trial.

“He controlled what they did, who they talked to, who they could be friends with, if they and who they could date," prosecutor Lauren Black said. "And he controlled everything in his household."

Yaser Said, 65, is accused of killing 18-year-old Amina Said and 17-year-old Sarah Said on New Year’s Day in 2008. Said, who entered a not guilty plea Tuesday, faces an automatic life sentence if convicted.

About a week before the sisters were killed, they and their mother fled their home in the Dallas suburb of Lewisville to Oklahoma to get away from Yaser Said, who worked as a taxi driver, Black said. The sisters had become “very scared for their lives,” and the decision to leave was made after Said “put a gun to Amina's head and threatened to kill her,” the prosecutor said.

But, Black said, in another act of “control” and “manipulation” by Said, he told them he had changed and convinced them to return home. The evening the sisters were shot, their father wanted to take just the two of them to a restaurant, she said.

In a letter written to the judge overseeing the case, Said said he was not happy with his kids’ “dating activity” but denied killing his daughters. Defense attorney Joseph Patton said in opening statements that the evidence would not support a conviction, that police were too quick to focus on Said and suggested that anti-Muslim sentiment played into that focus. Said was born in Egypt.

Before the sisters were found shot to death in a taxi parked near a hotel in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Sarah Said had managed to call 911 using a cellphone, telling the operator that her father shot her and that she was dying.

Black said Sarah Said was shot nine times and Amina Said was shot twice.

In moments of extreme trauma, like being shot multiple times, people can have hallucinations, Patton said.

In an email to her Lewisville High School history teacher a few days before she and her sister were killed, Amina Said said that she and Sarah did not want to live by their father’s culture and marry men from the Middle East, “especially men we don’t know or love.” So they were running away from their father's home, she said in the email prosecutors read into evidence.

“I know that he will search until he finds us, and he will without any drama nor doubt kill us,” the email read.

After the sisters were found fatally shot in the taxi, police contacted the taxi's registered owner, who said Yaser Said had been driving the taxi for the past 10 days, according to an affidavit for an arrest warrant.

Said, who had been sought on a capital murder warrant since the slayings, was placed on the FBI's most-wanted list. He was finally arrested in August 2020 in Justin, about 35 miles (60 kilometers) northwest of Dallas. His son, Islam Said, and his brother, Yassim Said, were subsequently convicted of helping him evade arrest.

Black said the sisters, both high school students in Lewisville, dreamed of becoming doctors, and that Yaser Said grew “angrier” as they grew up and became more educated and independent.

“When they had more independence, that was less control for him,” Black said.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/texas-trial-begins-for-man-accused-of-killing-his-daughters/?feed_id=5825&_unique_id=62e9c8fb4c2f3

Shakira to go to trial in Spain for alleged tax fraud

"Shakira and her team consider that this case constitutes a total violation of her rights," the statement reads, "since she has always shown impeccable behaviour, as a person and taxpayer, and total willingness to resolve any disagreement from the beginning, even before the criminal proceeding."

In July 2021, a judge at a court near Barcelona ruled that the Colombian singer could stand trial for alleged tax evasion of 14.5 million euros ($17 million) in Spain.

In a ruling obtained by CNN, the investigating magistrate said that there is "sufficient evidence" to hold a trial for Shakira's alleged tax evasion for the years of 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Judge Marco Jesús Juberías argued that Shakira lived more than 200 days in Spain in each of those three years, making her liable to pay taxes in the country.

At the time, Spanish media reported that Shakira's team argued her main residence was in the Bahamas. But local media reported she has a home in the Barcelona area with her former partner, FC Barcelona football defender Gerard Piqué. Piqué and Shakira, who have two children together, announced their split last month.

The judge argued that Shakira and a financial adviser, also named in the ruling, used a series of companies in off-shore tax havens to attempt to hide the sources of her income during those years.

CNN has reached out to the prosecutor's office for comment, but there has been no response yet.

https://www.globalcourant.com/shakira-to-go-to-trial-in-spain-for-alleged-tax-fraud/?feed_id=4579&_unique_id=62e61b367df44

Steven Bannon jurors reach verdict in Trump aide contempt trial

Former U.S. President Donald Trump's White House chief strategist Steve Bannon arrives following his trial on contempt of Congress charges for his refusal to cooperate with the U.S. House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, at U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S., July 22, 2022.

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

A federal court jury reached a verdict Friday in the trial of Steve Bannon, the former top Trump White House aide who is charged with criminal contempt of Congress.

The verdict is expected to be announced shortly in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

Bannon is accused of willfully failing to comply with subpoenas issued by the House select committee that is investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by a mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

He faces a minimum criminal sentence of 30 days in jail if convicted of two counts of contempt.

Prosecutor Molly Gaston told jurors in her closing arguments that Bannon "chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance with the law."

"When it really comes down to it, he did not want to recognize Congress' authority or play by the government's rules," Gaston said. "Our government only works if people show up. It only works if people play by the rules. And it only works if people are held accountable when they do not."