Egypt’s Morsi accused of complicity in protest deaths

Egyptian women from the Muslim Brotherhood shout slogans and hold portraits of ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, as they gather in Cairo to attend a march in his support on August 11, 2013

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/19/319523/morsi-charged-over-protest-deaths/

Ousted Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, has been accused of complicity in the deaths and torture of demonstrators outside his presidential palace in 2012, judicial sources say.

On Monday, Egypt’s prosecution extended Morsi’s detention for another 15 days which starts from next week. He already stands accused of crimes related to his 2011 escape from jail.

In December 2012, violent clashes erupted between Morsi’s supporters and opponents in the capital, Cairo, after he issued a controversial constitutional declaration in November of the same year to expand his powers.

On December 5, five people were killed in the clashes between backers and opponents of Morsi in the capital.

Earlier in July, a court in the Arab country ordered Morsi's detention over allegations of collaboration with Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, “to undertake aggressive acts in the country, as well as attacking police facilities, officers and soldiers.”

On August 12, the Egyptian Judiciary extended the Morsi’s detention pending an inquiry into his alleged links with Hamas.

Morsi was due to be questioned on whether he collaborated with Hamas in attacks on police stations and prison breaks in early 2011, when he and some members of the Muslim Brotherhood escaped from jail during a revolution against the regime of former dictator, Hosni Mubarak.

Hamas reacted to the allegations on July 26 and condemned Morsi’s detention, saying “it is based on the premise that the Hamas movement is hostile.”

The movement’s spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, noted, “This is a dangerous development, which confirms that the current powers in Egypt are giving up on national causes and even using these issues to deal with other parties - first among them the Palestinian cause.”

Egypt plunged into chaos after the head of the country’s armed forces, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, ousted Morsi on July 3, suspended the constitution and dissolved the parliament.

US, Germany slam Khodorkovsky verdict

Khodorkovsky, the former head of the Yukos oil company, is accused of stealing billions of dollars worth of oil from their oil company between 1998 and 2003

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/157508.html

The US and Germany have criticized Moscow over a second guilty verdict against the jailed Russian former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were charged with embezzlement and laundering of stolen property at a Moscow district court on Monday.

The United States was quick to express its "deep concern" about the verdict.

"The apparent selective application of the law to these individuals undermines Russia's reputation as a country committed to deepening the rule of law," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he was "very worried" by the "extremely dubious" trial.

"The trial … is a step backward on the road toward modernization of the country," Westerwelle said in a statement.

So far, the European Union has refrained from denouncing the verdict.

Political commentator, Peter Lavelle, told Press TV that Khodorkovsky is "a criminal at a vast scale" and compared the tycoon to US financier Bernard Maydoff, who was sentenced to a 150 years in prison for large-scale fraud.

Khodorkovsky, the former head of the Yukos oil company, and his business partner Lebedev are accused of stealing over 23 billion dollars worth of oil from their oil company between 1998 and 2003.

Both Khodorkovsky and Lebedev maintained their innocence and claimed the charges against them were politically motivated.

The trial, which began in March 2009, was the second for the two men. During a 2005 hearing, both Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were sentenced to eight years behind bars for tax evasion.

The new verdict is likely to keep Khodorkovsky and Lebedev in prison for several more years, but the announcement of the final verdict may take some days.

As the judge inside the court delivered the guilty verdict, hundreds of supporters outside the court building were chanting "freedom" and "shame."

Among those who gathered were public figures, opposition and rights activists.

They believe that the Kremlin wants Khodorkovsky behind bars for as long as possible because he financed the opposition when Vladimir Putin was the country's president.

Days ahead of the verdict, Putin -- who is now Russia's prime minister -- referred to the former oil tycoon as "a thief" who "belongs in prison."

Since the Russian premier has hinted that he may return to presidency in 2012, observers believe Khodorkovsky is likely to stay behind bars until then.

However, many in Russia have no sympathy for the former billionaire.

UN report blasts US over human rights abuses

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117180§ionid=3510203


A United Nations' report says the US has been violating basic human rights by kidnapping and holding terrorism suspects in secret detention centers during the past nine years.

The US is among dozens of countries that have kidnapped suspects, four independent UN rights investigators said in a year-long study based on flight data and interviews with 30 former detainees.

"On a global scale, secret detention in connection with counter-terrorist policies remains a serious problem," they wrote in the 226-page report which is expected to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in March.

"Secret detention as such may constitute torture or ill-treatment for the direct victims as well as their families," the report said.

Victims and their families deserve compensation and those responsible should be prosecuted, said the four independent investigators.

The UN report explained that the purpose of the secret detentions was to cover up torture and inhuman treatment of the detainees in an effort to obtain information or silent the subjects.

The rights investigators said running facilities such as those used by the Nazis, the Soviet gulag system and Latin American dictatorships in the 1970s and '80s, was banned under the internationally recognized laws laid out in the Geneva Conventions.

They also said establishment of secret detention could not be justified under any circumstances, including during states of emergency or armed conflict.

The study, which was led by the UN Special Rapporteur On Torture Manfred Nowak and the Special Rapporteur on Terrorism and Human Rights Martin Scheinin, also offers an account of how secret US detention were set up and run.

It said after the September 11, 2001 attacks, US President at the time George W. Bush declared a global "war on terror" and set up the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and other "black sites" where al-Qaeda detainees were beyond the reach of domestic courts.

"The secret detention policy took many forms. The CIA established its own secret detention facilities to interrogate the so-called 'High Value Detainees'.

"It asked partners with poor human rights records to secretly detain and interrogate persons on its behalf."

It added that after the start of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, prisoners were held incommunicado and deprived of basic rights to trial, a lawyer, and contacts with their relatives.

The investigators also cited comments by some former detainees who said that they were subjected to torture including being kept naked or subjected to loud noises or sleep deprivation during their secret detention.

The report said that under the unlawful practice, known as extraordinary rendition, detainees also appeared to have been sent to allied countries, including Thailand, Poland and Romania.

"The CIA appears to generally have been involved in the capture and transfer of prisoners, as well as in providing questions for those held in foreign prisons," it said.

"Equally, little is known about the amount of detainees who have been held at the request of other states such as the United Kingdom and Canada," it added.

The UN investigators said commitments by the Obama administration to close CIA detention facilities were not sufficient, pointing out that clarification was needed on what had happened to detainees held in sites in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Rwanda's genocide leader 'lives freely in France'

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116928§ionid=351020603


A Rwandan rebel leader belonging to Armed Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and accused of genocide is reportedly living as a free man in a suburb of Paris.

Callixte Mbarushimana, executive secretary of the FDLR rebel group, coordinates the rebels' daily activities in Rwanda and its neighboring countries, AP reported Saturday.

Based on the report, the 46-year-old former UN employee is able to regularly send out press releases from his apartment in the French capital.

FDLR is one of several groups accused of creating instability in the African nation as many of its members are accused of taking part in Rwanda's genocide.

The Genocide was the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda's Tutsis and Hutu political moderates by the Hutu dominated government.

An estimated 800,000 people were massacred in the genocide.

French Foreign Ministry has refused to extradite Mbarushimana to Rwanda whose men are accused of killing at least 700 civilians last year.

"France does not extradite the citizens of countries which apply the death penalty, as was the case in Rwanda, or whose justice systems do not fully guarantee their rights," French Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bernard Valero said.

Relations between two countries have reached a new low as Rwanda's government accuses France of playing an active role in the 1994 genocide.

The FDLR group is also accused of decapitating several hundred people a few months ago in the village of Busurungi in DR Congo.

The war, centered mainly in eastern DR Congo, has involved nine African nations and directly affected the lives of 50 million Congolese.

An estimated 5 million people died in Congo from disease and hunger as a result of the civil war which raged from 1998 to 2003.