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'Hotel Rwanda' hero charged with terrorism in Rwanda court
Headline News |
2020/09/15 11:26
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A Rwandan court on Monday charged Paul Rusesabagina, whose story inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda,” with terrorism, complicity in murder, and forming an armed rebel group.
Rusesabagina declined to respond to all 13 charges, saying some did not qualify as criminal offenses and saying that he denied the accusations when he was questioned by Rwandan investigators.
Rusesabagina, 66, asked to be released on bail, citing poor health that has caused him to be taken to hospital three times in the time that he has been held in Rwanda.
“I request that I am given bail and I assure the court that I will not flee from justice,” Rusesabagina said. The court said it will rule on his bail application on Thursday.
Rusesabagina was represented by Rwandan lawyers David Rugaza and Ameline Nyembo, who have been discounted as state-imposed representation by his family outside Rwanda.
Neither his lawyers nor the prosecution explained the circumstances under which Rusesabagina arrived in Kigali at the end of August from Dubai. He had traveled from the U.S. to Dubai and then mysteriously appeared in Rwanda. The Rwandan court said the suspect was arrested at Kigali International Airport, contradicting the earlier police version that he was arrested through “international cooperation.”
When Rwandan President Paul Kagame spoke on national broadcasting about the case, he indicated that Rusesabagina may have been tricked i nto boarding a private plane in Dubai that took him to Rwanda.
Amnesty International on Monday urged Rwandan authorities to guarantee Rusesabagina his right to a fair trial.
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Norfolk courts latest in Virginia OK'd for jury trials
Topics |
2020/09/14 11:26
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One of Virginia’s largest courts will restart jury trials next week, six months after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the Tidewater-area judges to halt them. Norfolk Circuit Court is one of four courts statewide that the Virginia Supreme Court has allowed to conduct jury trials again, The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk reported.
The Supreme Court banned all lower courts from conducting jury trials starting in mid-May, but Norfolk already had postponed them in mid-March. Courts can petition the high court to restart jury trials.
Potential jurors in Norfolk Circuit Court will be kept in small groups, have to wear face masks and practice social distancing. Once in court, they won’t sit in jury boxes but in seats 6 feet (1.8 meters) apart, and they’ll decide verdicts in an empty court room, rather than in a special side room normally used.
Norfolk’s judges already have been holding in-person hearings of several types, including bench trials in which a judge renders a verdict. The Supreme Court also has allowed jury trials again in Alleghany, Henrico and Stafford counties.
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Girl appeals Slender Man stabbing to Wisconsin Supreme Court
Topics |
2020/09/13 08:12
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One of two girls convicted of stabbing a classmate to please the horror character Slender Man asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday to rule that the case should have been tried in juvenile court.
Morgan Geyser and Anisa Weier attacked their friend, Payton Leutner, in a Waukesha County park following a sleepover in 2014. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times, as Weier encouraged her, leaving the girl to die. All three girls were 12 at the time.
Leutner survived the attack. Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide in adult court in a deal with prosecutors to avoid prison. She was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. Weier pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree intentional homicide in adult court. She was also found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
Geyser was ordered to spend 40 years in a mental health institution, and Weier was committed to one for 25 years. Geyser’s attorney, Matthew Pinx, argued in his petition to the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday that Geyser thought she had to kill Lautner or Slender Man would kill her or kill her family. She was acting in self-defense and should have been charged with attempted second-degree intentional homicide in juvenile court, Pinx argued.
He also maintained that Geyser gave statements to detectives before she was read her rights, and she couldn’t really understand what rights she gave up when she agreed to speak alone with a detective while she was in custody and confessed to the stabbing.
The state Department of Justice is defending Geyser’s conviction. Department spokeswoman Gillian Drummond had no immediate comment. Last month, the 2nd District Court of Appeals rejected the argument that Geyser’s case was overcharged and belonged in juvenile court. |
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Judges: Trump can’t exclude people from district drawings
Court Watch |
2020/09/11 10:07
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Saying the president had exceeded his authority, a panel of three federal judges on Thursday blocked an order from President Donald Trump that tried to exclude people in the country illegally from being counted when congressional districts are redrawn.
The federal judges in New York, in granting an injunction, said the presidential order issued in late July was unlawful. The judges prohibited Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose agency oversees the U.S. Census Bureau, from excluding people in the country illegally when handing in 2020 census figures used to calculate how many congressional seats each state gets.
According to the judges, the presidential order violated laws governing the execution of the once-a-decade census and also the process for redrawing congressional districts known as apportionment by requiring that two sets of numbers be presented ? one with the total count and the other minus people living in the country illegally.
The judges said that those in the country illegally qualify as people to be counted in the states they reside. They declined to say whether the order violated the Constitution.
“Throughout the Nation’s history, the figures used to determine the apportionment of Congress ? in the language of the current statutes, the ‘total population’ and the ‘whole number of persons’ in each State ? have included every person residing in the United States at the time of the census, whether citizen or non-citizen and whether living here with legal status or without,” the judges wrote.
Opponents of the order said it was an effort to suppress the growing political power of Latinos in the U.S. and to discriminate against immigrant communities of color. They also said undocumented residents use the nation’s roads, parks and other public amenities and should be taken into account for any distribution of federal resources.
The lawsuits challenging the presidential order in New York were brought by a coalition of cities, civil rights groups and states led by New York. Because the lawsuits dealt with questions about apportionment, it was heard by a three-judge panel that allows the decision to be appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The judges agreed with the coalition that the order created confusion among undocumented residents over whether they should participate in the 2020 census, deterring participation and jeopardizing the quality of the census data. That harm to the census was a sufficient basis for their ruling and they didn’t need to rely on the speculation that a state would be hurt by possibly losing a congressional seat if people in the country illegally were excluded from apportionment, the judges said. |
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Wisconsin Supreme Court halts Dane County school order
Court Watch |
2020/09/10 10:07
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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has temporarily blocked an order that prevented most students in Dane County from attending school in person, restrictions issued by health leaders to help control the spread of the coronavirus.
The court, a 4-3 vote, agreed Thursday night to hear a lawsuit challenging the Public Health Madison and Dane County order.
The court's conservative justices were in favor of hearing the case, while more liberal justices opposed. The county's order issued Aug. 21 required students in grades 3-12 be taught online.
The court issued a temporary injunction on the county's order, which means schools across the county can open immediately.
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WikiLeaks’ Assange to fight US extradition bid in UK court
Law Center |
2020/09/09 10:04
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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is set to fight for his freedom in a British court after a decade of legal drama, as he challenges American authorities’ attempt to extradite him on spying charges over the site’s publication of secret U.S. military documents. Lawyers for Assange and the U.S. government are scheduled to face off in London Monday at an extradition hearing that was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
American prosecutors have indicted the 49-year-old Australian on 18 espionage and computer misuse charges adding up to a maximum sentence of 175 years. His lawyers say the prosecution is a politically motivated abuse of power that will stifle press freedom and put journalists at risk.
Assange attorney Jennifer Robinson said the case “is fundamentally about basic human rights and freedom of speech.” “Journalists and whistle-blowers who reveal illegal activity by companies or governments and war crimes ? such as the publications Julian has been charged for ? should be protected from prosecution,” she said.
American prosecutors say Assange is a criminal, not a free-speech hero. They allege that Assange conspired with U.S. army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer and release hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also say he conspired with members of hacking organizations and sought to recruit hackers to provide WikiLeaks with classified information.
“By disseminating the materials in an unredacted form, he likely put people -- human rights activists, journalists, advocates, religious leaders, dissidents and their families -- at risk of serious harm, torture or even death,” James Lewis, a British lawyer acting for the U.S. government, told a hearing in February.
Assange argues he is a journalist entitled to First Amendment protection, and says the leaked documents exposed U.S. military wrongdoing. Among the files released by WikiLeaks was video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.
His lawyers argue the prosecution is an abuse of process by a Trump administration that wants to make an example of Assange. They say he would be held in inhuman conditions and would not get a fair trial in the United States.
Journalism organizations and human rights groups have called on Britain to refuse the extradition request. Amnesty International said Assange was “the target of a negative public campaign by U.S. officials at the highest levels.”
“If Julian Assange is prosecuted it could have a chilling effect on media freedom, leading publishers and journalists to self-censor in fear of retaliation,” said Amnesty’s Europe Director, Nils Mui?nieks.
The four-week extradition hearing is part of a twisting saga rife with competing claims of hacking, spying and subterfuge. Assange’s lawyers claim the U.S. intelligence services directed a private security firm to spy on him while he was living in Ecuador’s London embassy -- a case currently being heard in a Spanish court.
Assange also alleges he was offered a pardon by the Trump administration if he agreed to say Russia wasn’t involved in leaking Democratic National Committee emails that were published by WikiLeaks during the 2016 U.S. election campaign. The White House denies that claim.
Assange’s legal troubles began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women. He refused to go to Stockholm, saying he feared extradition or illegal rendition to the United States or the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
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