Detainee argues why we must fight ‘unfair system’ of secret evidence
Posts Tagged ‘evidence’
Slow Torture: Detainee U
July 18th, 2009 |
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Judge H. Lee Sarokin: Reflections on the Senate Confirmation Hearings
July 17th, 2009 |
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With all of the pontificating about the need for judges and justices to be fair and impartial and leave their biases at the door, the senators do just the opposite.
Emmett Till’s Casket Could Be Moved To Mississippi Museum From Desecrated Cemetery
July 17th, 2009 |
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Emmett Till’s glass-topped casket that showed evidence of his death by lynching in 1955 turned up last week in the storage shed of an Alsip cemetery embroiled in a grave reselling scheme.
“Kosovo police involved in arms smuggling”
July 16th, 2009 |
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Police Chief Milorad Veljović says there’s evidence to suggest members of the Kosovo police are involved in the smuggling of arms from Kosovo into south Serbia. Speaking to B92, Veljović said that MUP had certain information on one person suspected of planting Tuesday’s bomb in PreÅ¡evo.
Jackson death ‘treated as homicide’
July 15th, 2009 |
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Police refuse to comment on report that investigation into singer’s death is focusing on Dr Conrad Murray and anaesthesia Propofol
Los Angeles police are refusing to comment on a report that detectives are treating Michael Jackson’s death as homicide after concluding that the singer was killed by a powerful anaesthetic.
The TMZ website, which broke the news of Jackson’s death, cites multiple law enforcement sources as saying that the investigation is focusing on Dr Conrad Murray after evidence pointed to the anaesthesia Propofol as the cause of death. Investigators believe the drug, which is administered intravenously and is usually used only in hospitals in controlled conditions, was given to help Jackson sleep because he suffered from chronic insomnia.
Murray has said he found Jackson on the day he died and tried to revive him with CPR. His lawyers deny he “furnished or prescribed” Jackson with drugs.
TMZ quotes law enforcement sources as allegedly saying there is “plenty of powerful evidence” that Murray administered the drug to Jackson. The evidence includes an intravenous drip stand and an oxygen tank found in the star’s home.
Police sources have told the US press that Murray is not co-operating with the investigation. He has been interviewed twice under caution, which led detectives to conduct a second search of Jackson’s home, during which vials of Propofol were discovered.
Investigators’ suspicions were also aroused by the delay in calling the emergency services after it was discovered that Murray waited up to 30 minutes.
Murray’s lawyer would neither confirm nor deny that his client administered Propofol to Jackson. The police said there would be no public comment on the investigation until it was complete.
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Marine microplanktons may have survived mass extinction by taking refuge on sea floor
July 15th, 2009 |
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A team of experts has presented remarkable evidence that single-celled shell-building members of the marine microplankton community may have survived mass extinction by taking refuge on the sea floor.
According to Dr Chris Wade from the Institute of Genetics, “Using genetic data we have been able to prove that the planktonic species Streptochilus globigerus and the [...]
David Danzig: Military Prosecutor: 66 Ready to Be Tried At Gitmo
July 14th, 2009 |
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Navy Captain Murphy, the chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, announced today that military prosecutors were ready to proceed with cases against 66 of the…
Sri Lanka probe ‘clears military’
July 14th, 2009 |
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<img src=”http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46055000/jpg/_46055240_exhume226ap.jpg” align=”left” width=”226″ height=”170″ alt=”An Action Against Hunger worker watches two of the 17 aid workers’ bodies being exhumed in September” border=”0″ vspace=”4″ hspace=”4″>
Sri Lanka’s top human rights panel has cleared the army of killing 17 people working for a French charity in 2006.
The head of the inquiry commission said he had been unable to find out who was to blame "because he ran out of funds".
The bodies of the Action Against Hunger workers were found in the north-eastern town of Muttur. Truce monitors blamed security forces, who denied the charge.
Heavy fighting had been going on in the area between troops and Tamil rebels fighting for an independent state.
Fifteen of the bodies were found lying down and shot at close range on 7 August 2006, in a case that caused an international outcry. Two other bodies were found later.
The aid staff – all but one ethnic Tamils – were working on tsunami relief projects in the area.
‘Incorrect’
"The evidence that was laid before us is that not a single witness stated before us that they saw the army around the place at the relevant time," the head of the commission, retired Supreme Court Judge Nissanka Udalagama, told the BBC’s Sinhala service.
"The entire town was taken over by the LTTE [Tamil Tiger rebels] at the time. The LTTE said on their website that they had taken over the town of Muttur," he said.
Defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella had earlier claimed that Muttur was under the complete control of the military at the time of the massacre.
Judge Udalagama said he "believed that information to be incorrect".
"We got the army to give evidence. The officer in charge of the contingent which came to Muttur from Jaffna gave evidence. He denied Rambukwella’s statement. We would have liked to have Rambukwella’s evidence, but because of time limits, we were unable to do so."
The report exonerates the army and navy, but says auxiliary police known as home guards could have carried out the killings.
"There was other evidence like the presence of Muslim home guards. They had access to the weapons. And it could have been LTTE," Judge Udalagama said.
The report also found the French charity to be at fault.
"They also have to take a portion of the blame, they have to enhance the compensation given to the people," Judge Udalagama said.
In 2007, a report by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said there had been "a disturbing lack of impartiality and transparency in the investigation" by the police into the massacre.
The report said official reports indicated that police had decided from the outset that Tamil rebels were responsible for the killing of the aid workers, all but one of whom were ethnic Tamils.
The report said the collection of evidence had been incomplete and inadequate.
Impunity
Critics say Sri Lanka has a long history of failing to prosecute human rights abuses.
The Sri Lankan group University Teachers for Human Rights said the government had to be held to account "to stop this culture of impunity in the country".
"The way in which the government handled the whole investigation – the pressure put on witnesses, the video conferencing through which witnesses tried to bring out information on how it was stopped – all sorts of things basically show that the commission was not interested in finding the true culprits," a spokesman for the group, Gopalasingham Sridharan, told BBC Tamil.
"Unfortunately we are not aware about the full report, from the media we gather that they are absolving the security forces.
"We are now in preparation of another report to try to bring out all the facts again." </p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Extraditing hacker ‘could be disaster’
July 14th, 2009 |
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Gary McKinnon, who hacked into US military computers, will suffer psychologically if imprisoned there, his lawyers say
“Humanitarian considerations” that have arisen in the case of Asperger’s syndrome sufferer Gary McKinnon mean he should not face trial in the US for hacking into American military computers, the high court heard today.
In a last-ditch attempt to overturn earlier court decisions that the 43-year-old “UFO enthusiast” should be extradited, his lawyers accused prosecutors of ignoring the “disastrous consequences” of facing trial and a possible lengthy prison sentence in an American “supermax” prison.
The case also comes as the Tories are expected to devote an opposition day debate in parliament tomorrow to McKinnons’ extradition, after David Cameron said he was “deeply saddened and worried” about the case.
McKinnon’s barrister, Ed Fitzgerald, told the high court: “The Crown Prosecution Service wrongly failed to address the specific human rights issues, and the humanitarian issue, raised by the claimant’s Aspergers syndrome.
“The CPS, as a public authority, had a duty to consider whether its failure to prosecute [in the UK] has inevitably exposed him to an avoidable and unnecessary risk of serious psychological suffering,” he added.
The hearing comes after McKinnon signed a statement earlier this year admitting he had committed an offence under UK law by hacking into 97 computers belonging to the US navy and Nasa. The incident, which the US government says is the “biggest military hack of all time” and cost more than $700,000 (£430,000) in repairs, has led to talks between UK prosecutors and the US department of justice since charges were originally brought against the 43-year-old in New Jersey in 2002.
Although previous attempts to halt the extradition – which reached the House of Lords last year – failed, McKinnon’s lawyers have since obtained a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome after consulting two psychiatrists last year.
“Both experts referred to the grave risk to his health if he was extradited to the US, and [autism expert] Professor [Simon] Baron-Cohen referred to the risk to his life,” Fitzgerald said. “[The director of public prosecutions] failed to confront the human rights arguments for prosecutions in this country rather than in the US,” Fitzgerald added.
Both former home secretary Jacqui Smith and the current home secretary, Alan Johnson, have said they would comply with US requests for McKinnon’s extradition, while prosecutors argue that although McKinnon has admitted to “computer misuse” under UK law, it is less serious than the offence of “computer fraud” alleged against him in the US
The CPS, which defended its positiontoday , claims that the damage caused by the offence took place in the US, and that the investigation and most of the witnesses and evidence were located there. In February the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, said there was not enough evidence to try McKinnon in the UK, an argument which McKinnon’s lawyers deny.
“This was inconsistent with the CPS’s own finding that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute,” Fitzgerald said. “McKinnon’s computer hacking conduct all took place in the UK, insofar as he was located here and using a computer in his home in the UK when he gained unauthorised access to the US systems.”
McKinnon, from Wood Green, north London, is described as “vulnerable” and “misguided” by his supporters, who contrast the efforts to extradite him with terrorist suspects who have been kept in the UK.
“I will not give up this fight until the government intervenes to protect my vulnerable son,” McKinnon’s mother, Janis Sharp, said. “When considering the extradition of Abu Hamza, the then home secretary said ‘Had we evidence in this country of a crime committed here then of course the police and the attorney general would have taken action’. Well, if that’s the approach for a convicted terrorist, why not for a gentle, misguided Asperger’s sufferer like Gary?”
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Hacker’s human rights ‘ignored’
July 14th, 2009 |
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Human rights arguments against extraditing a British man accused of hacking into US military networks were not "confronted," a court has heard.
Gary McKinnon, 43, from Wood Green, London, wants to overturn a refusal to put him on trial in the UK on charges of computer misuse.
Edward Fitzgerald QC accused the Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC of misapplying the law.
Mr McKinnon, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, faces trial in America.
Mr Starmer decided there was "insufficient evidence" to support a UK prosecution under the Computer Misuse Act.
If there is no UK prosecution, Mr McKinnon would inevitably be extradited to stand trial in the US, the judges heard.
Lawyers for the DPP are arguing the decision not to prosecute was "entirely rational" and was "manifestly not one which is susceptible to judicial review".
Mr McKinnon, who was arrested by British police in 2002, has already appealed unsuccessfully to the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights to avoid extradition.
Mr McKinnon is accused of hacking into 97 government computers belonging to organisations including the US Navy and Nasa during 2001 and 2002.
The US government says this caused damage costing $800,000 (£500,000) at a time of heightened security in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks.
He claims he was looking for details of UFOs.
"Psychological suffering"
Mr Fitzgerald told two High Court judges in London that extraditing Mr McKinnon would lead to "disastrous consequences" because of his medical condition, including possible psychosis and suicide.
Mr Fitzgerald also said Mr Starmer had failed to confront the new evidence concerning Mr McKinnon’s medical condition and deal with the human rights issues it raised.
If sent to the US, Mr McKinnon was likely to receive a substantial prison sentence and was unlikely to be repatriated to serve his sentence, Mr Fitzgerald said.
And the process of extradition, trial and sentence would expose Mr McKinnon to "an avoidable and unnecessary risk of serious psychological suffering" with "all of the attendant disastrous consequences," he added.
This application for judicial review at the High Court in London is the second recent legal challenge in Mr McKinnon’s case.
In the first, Mr Fitzgerald accused the home secretary of reaching a "flawed" decision, following medical evidence of the severe mental suffering that extradition would cause.
The judges are expected to give their ruling in both legal challenges later this month.</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Slow Torture: the testimony of Detainee Z
July 14th, 2009 |
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Video: Under Britain’s secret evidence laws, terror suspects can be subjected to virtual house arrest without trial. Actor Lewis al-Samari reads the testimony of an Algerian detainee
MPs shown phone-hacking evidence
July 14th, 2009 |
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News of the World exposé ‘might contradict’ evidence of Les Hinton, adds chairman of commons culture committee
John Whittingdale, the chairman of the commons culture committee, said today that the Guardian revelations about alleged phone hacking at the News of the World “raised questions” about the extent of the practice and “might contradict” evidence given by former News International executive chairman Les Hinton.
Speaking at the start of a hearing prompted by Guardian stories that the paper’s publisher had secretly paid £1m to victims of phone hacking at the tabloid, he revealed that Hinton did not want to change the evidence he gave to a previous culture committee inquiry into press self-regulation in 2007.
Whittingdale said “when the committee saw these stories it did raise questions. It appeared there might be some contradiction between [them and] the evidence given by Les Hinton two years ago”.
In his letter to Whittingdale, Hinton said the answers he gave in 2007 were “sincere” and “comprehensive” and that he declined to appear.
Giving evidence to the committee, Tim Toulmin, the director of the Press Complaints Commission, said that the watchdog would contact the News of the World again in the light of the Guardian stories, which revealed that PFA chief exec Gordon Taylor and two others were paid a total of £1m in out-of-court settlements by the Murdoch title after suing on privacy grounds.
He said that the Guardian stories “gave us cause for concern. We’re going to ask further questions [to discover] whether there was any evidence we were misled.”
“The fact that Gordon Taylor had sued the paper and the suggestion that another reporter at the NoW knew about Mulcaire’s activity – I think that’s new, and we will be chasing that with the Guardian”.
Glenn Mulcaire was the private investigator used by Clive Goodman, former NoW royal editor to obtain information illegally, sometimes by hacking into mobile phone messages. Both men were jailed in January 2007 after admitting the offence.
Toulmin said the PCC would be “writing to the paper [NoW] once we have as much information as we can possibly lay our hands on.”
He added that the board of the PCC, which meets next week, will ultimately decide whether further action should be taken. “If there is any evidence we have been misled, we will be straight on it.”
Paul Farrelly MP asked Toulmin what aspects of the case the PCC would investigate.
Farrelly said the PCC might want to ask how Mulcaire was paid: if it came out of a retainer or a “separate slush fund”.
Farrelly also said the PCC should ask “how far up the chain of command a settlement of the Taylor case went? Did it go to the board of NI?”
Toulmin said “We weren’t told about the Taylor settlement”.
Farrelly pointed out that NoW journalists and executives who organised and attended PCC training seminars held in the wake of the Goodman case would have known about the Taylor case.
He also asked whether the PCC regretted his decision not to call former NoW editor Andy Coulson during its 2007 investigation into the extent of phone hacking and other activities on Fleet Street. Toulmin said “maybe it would have been better for the PCC to have done so. The focus of this is on have we been misled?
“If Andy Coulson has any evidence … he may come into it as a relevant party. That is a decision for the board. We are going to test what they said to us two years ago with what [we] now know.”
Toulmin added that he was convinced such practices were no longer commonplace on Fleet Street because of the amount of publicity they received in the wake of the Goodman trial. The hearing is also taking evidence from the Guardian News & Media editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, reporter Nick Davies, and the GNM deputy editor, Paul Johnson.
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Slow Torture: the testimony of Detainee Y
July 14th, 2009 |
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Video: Under Britain’s secret evidence laws, terror suspects can be subjected to virtual house arrest without trial. Actor Lewis al-Samari reads the testimony of an Algerian detainee
$120M suit against Janet Jackson dismissed for want of evidence
July 14th, 2009 |
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A Bronx man who filed a 120million-dollar lawsuit against singer Janet Jackson, after he was allegedly beaten up by her bodyguards, has been told by a Manhattan judge that his petition cannot be maintained for want of evidence.
The judge dismissed the lawsuit filed in 2005 by Leonard Salati, who claimed that Jackson had ordered [...]
Slow Torture: the testimony of Detainee Y
July 13th, 2009 |
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Video: Under Britain’s secret evidence laws, terror suspects can be subjected to virtual house arrest without trial. Actor Lewis al-Samari reads the testimony of an Algerian detainee
Slow Torture: the testimony of Detainee Y
July 13th, 2009 |
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Video: Under Britain’s secret evidence laws, terror suspects can be subjected to virtual house arrest without trial. Actor Lewis al-Samari reads the testimony of an Algerian detainee
Andy Worthington: Former Insider Shatters Credibility of Military Commissions
July 11th, 2009 |
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On Wednesday, I reported how Retired Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, the former Judge Advocate General of the US Navy from 1997 to 2000, had…
Caught in a Home Office trap
Y was sentenced to death in Algeria, but his inhumane immigration bail conditions seem designed to drive him back
Here’s irony for you. Five monologues based on five men living under deportation orders broadcast online, through the Guardian, one a day over a week. But none of the men featured will be able to watch them. For these so-called “threats to national security”, based on secret evidence, access to the internet, a computer or mobile phone is banned.
One of the men, Y, lives under immigration bail conditions in an isolated Home Office-selected location two hours outside London. Each time I visit I undergo a ritual. It involves switching off my mobile phone and digging deep into my handbag for stray USBs, iPods or MP3 players. I try to conceal my laptop under a car seat. Y is not allowed any of these items in the house.
A joint police and immigration search of his home can happen at any time, night or day. Hence the constant need for vigilant adherence to the “house rules”. Y finds it amusing that the state thinks him such a genius that he is deemed a lethal weapon if he were to wield an iPod. Granted, he is rather good at Sudoko after years of practice in isolation, but, no offence to Y, such electrical wizardry is beyond him.
This level of intrusion has a purpose. The objective of the incessant hardship, the isolation, the forced living on the outer edges of sanity and civilisation is to force these men back to the torture cells they escaped from. Y was tortured in Algeria – the evidence is clear from the scars on the front and back of his head. His crime was to speak out against human rights abuses in the early 1990s. When it was clear that he had to leave he came to the UK, and with his powerful testimony he was given full rights to remain. Not a false passport or fake name in sight. Leaving saved his life. Not long after, he was issued with a death sentence in absentia in Algeria. The UK’s desire to hand him back hints largely at maintaining diplomatic ties and is nothing to do with national security.
As a result, I see an isolated edgy young man turned old through the “slow torture” of these last eight years in the UK. Detained for a total of 57 months in prison – first for the ricin case, for which he was fully acquitted, then detained again based on…? Your guess is as good as mine. It’s called secret evidence and neither Y or his lawyers have any idea what it is.
When I visit, we go to Tesco for coffee. It’s the only place to go within his boundaries. On a rare occasion, Y gets clearance for the town centre but the time constraints are so challenging that the entire trip is adrenalin-inducing. A permitted three-hour trip is mainly spent on the bus getting there and back. And there is always a “random” police search of the house the next day.
When I leave, the tension in my head remains for some time. Even as a visitor you become infected by the pungent poison administered so lavishly by the Home Office and the security services to these men. This is Kafka’s Trial, 2009.