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Diamond Bank PLC, a leading bank in the Nigerian retail banking space, has rewarded loyal customers of the DiamondXtra account in a special draw targeted at students of the Nigerian Law School, Victoria Island Campus, Lagos.
In his welcome address at the event, Mr. Osita Ede, Head, Mass Market Segment, Diamond Bank PLC, said the draws were in line with the Bank’s promise to add value to customers’ lives, in this case, by giving them an exciting incentive to save. According to him, “We hold the targeted draws for a cluster group, like the Law School where we have a significant number of students that Bank with us. When a cluster group meets our requirements we hold these draws to reward them for their loyalty as well as to encourage them to imbibe a savings culture.
“This particular draw is targeted at the mass market segment. This is our own way of encouraging more people to come into the banking system in line with the CBN target of financial inclusion and to bring more monies into the system instead of people hiding them under their pillows. We have been doing this for a while and it has been successful. We also try to follow up with our winners and offer them opportunities to invest their winnings profitably. However, they are not compelled to do anything but those who have responded have been successful and you will soon begin to hear their testimonials,” he added.
Mr. David Otukpe, Product Manager, Savings Account, Diamond Bank Plc, said the choice of the Nigerian Law School was intended to reward customers within the school that had opened a DiamondXtra account in the last three weeks prior to the draw.
He said: “We are here to reward loyal customers of the DiamondXtra account and hope that this reward scheme will inspire others to join the Diamond Bank family. The DiamondXtra account is a Savings Account with Current Account benefits. More than three thousand customers have been rewarded with cash prices since the inception of the scheme.”
An elated winner in the N100, 000 category, Frances Okoro, said: “I woke up this morning and asked God for favour. All through today I’ve been walking around praying silently for favour. As I was coming here, an inner voice questioned my decision to come witness the draws and I responded that I had faith that I was going to win something. I am so happy. Thank you Father.”
Other winners include: Manley ChinemAgbegbe, with N100,000 prize money; Rosemary BogofanyoIriakuma, Tolulope Omobolaji Johnson, Ethel Nwahachie, Christain Osemudiame Orukpe, Nancy UjunwaIreh and James Nwokpopo Nwebonyi, all of whom won in the N50,000 category.
DiamondXtra account is a special savings account designed for individuals who want to build up their savings gradually. It is a simple and straightforward interest-yielding account that allows the deposit of both cash and third party cheques. In addition, DiamondXtra account holders receive a cheque book and an ATM card with which they can withdraw from their accounts at any Diamond Bank branch. Minimum opening amount is N5,000 which also automatically qualifies the account holder for the draws.
Diamond Bank is currently executing the longest running reward scheme in Nigeria, called the DiamondXtra Reward Scheme. Draws are held weekly (every Friday), monthly (every last Friday of the Month) and to mark special occasions as determined by the Bank.
The Draws are monitored by renowned accounting firm -KPMG, the Nigerian Lottery Regulatory Commission and Consumer Protection Council.
The Ogun State Police Command on Monday arraigned 17 suspects in connection with the attack on a house at the Ijaye area of Abeokuta, the state capital.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi, said in a statement that the suspects were arraigned at Magistrate court 1 Isabo Abeokuta and charged with malicious damage, conspiracy and conduct likely to cause breach of peace, in a case with charge No MA/273C2014.
He said, “The suspects were amongst the angry youths who attacked a house of one retired Deputy Superintendent of Police at Ijaye Abeokuta for alleged ritual purposes.
“They went on rampage to the extent of damaging some items in the house and launched attack on the police, community leaders and other security agents at the scene after series of confirmation that the house was not a ritualist den and several pleas from prominent people in the area for calm.”
They were however granted bail and the case was adjourned to June 25, 2014.
Meanwhile, the Ogun State Commissioner of Police, CP Ikemefuna Okoye, has condemned such acts, noting that “attacking innocent individuals for unconfirmed allegation of kidnap or child stealing in the state is unlawful.
He also ordered that anyone caught carrying out jungle justice in the state.
He said, “Anyone caught will be arrested and charged to court so as to serve as deterrent to others who are fond of doing so, particularly beating up persons of unsound mind and the likes.”
A man accused of murdering two young Melbourne sisters on Easter Sunday has appeared in court.
Charles Amon Mihayo, 35, has been charged with two counts of murder after Savannah, four, and Indianna, three, were found dead at a Watsonia home on Sunday afternoon.
Mihayo, of Watsonia, appeared in the Melbourne magistrates' court on Tuesday morning.
He was remanded in custody for a committal mention in August.
Mihayo is known to the girls, police said on Sunday.
Photographs of the smiling sisters, captured in matching outfits and holding hands, were released by the family on Sunday.
The family says it is devastated by the loss and say the girls will be missed forever.
“We are utterly devastated at the loss of Savannah and Indianna,” said a statement released by police.
“The girls will be forever missed, loved and never forgotten.”
Floral tributes and messages of sympathy were left outside the Watsonia home on Monday.
Beatrice Mtetwa grew up on a Swaziland farm with nearly 50 siblings. An average day involved waking at 4am, working in the maize fields, preparing breakfast for her family, walking barefoot to school over an hour away, preparing dinner, doing chores and, finally, going to bed. Now 54, she believes it was her childhood struggles that helped make her who she is today: a fearless human rights lawyer in Zimbabwe, dedicating her life to representing those persecuted under the Mugabe regime, and whose story has been captured in a new documentary.
For over two decades, she's proven indefatigable in her fight against injustice. In 2009 Mtetwa became the only African other than Nelson Mandela to win the prestigious Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize. Now, her courage in the face of almost insurmountable obstacles has been captured in a film – Beatrice Mtetwa and the Rule of Law – due to have its UK premiere in London on Tuesday 18 June.
The full face veil courted controversy this week after a judge ruled that a Muslim woman must remove her niqab while giving evidence but may wear it at other times during her trial. "Judge Peter Murphy delivered a judgment on Monday that is learned, readable and persuasive. It is also, in my view, wrong," writes Joshua Rozenberg. He continues:
Murphy correctly identified the balance that he had to strike. But he then struck it in the wrong place. He rightly said that the jury must be able to see the defendant if she gives evidence. But he did not think she should have to remove her veil at other times. "While it remains true that juries scrutinise defendants throughout the proceedings and take note of a defendant's reaction to the evidence as it is given throughout the trial," the judge said, "I am not persuaded that this is of sufficient importance to require a restriction on the defendant's right to wear the niqab."
Foremost constitutional lawyer and senior advocate of Nigerian, Prof Ben Nwabueze (SAN), has said the ongoing National Conference will be meaningless except there is a legal backing that will make its outcome binding on the nation.
Addressing reporters in Umuahia, the Abia State capital, Prof Nwabueze said the outcome of the conference must become a law for it to have meaning.
The legal icon was in the state with other members of Igbo Leaders of Thought to congratulate the governor on his election as the Southeast Governors ‘Forum chairman.
Prof Nwabueze said he was among those who agitated for the conference – with the belief that it was what the people needed to transform the country to a better place for the citizens and visitors.
The constitutional lawyer said he had explained in his write-ups the type of confab he expected to see.
According to him, he expects a conference that should “have a legal basis and framework, which must (also) have the competence to be legally binding”.
The renowned constitutional lawyer said the confab should have the competence to adopt a constitution, which would be a superior law of the land.
Prof Nwabueze said he advocated this for the conference but was not seeing this happening at the conference.
He said: “Though what I advocated for is not what is happening, all hope is not lost. It could still be salvaged. This is what I am working on right now, and there are some things Mr President can do to get it right.
“…If he (Dr Jonathan) does what requires some measure of courage, because of the stand of the National Assembly on the conference, the situation would be salvaged.”
The constitutional lawyer noted that if President takes the right step on the conference, he would be showing the nation that he has put pressure on the members of the National Assembly to pass the bill into law.
This, Prof Nwabueze said, would give the outcome of the conference the legal backing it needs to become binding on the people.
He said the National Assembly could repeal the current constitution, which became a law through Section 9 schedule of Decree 24 of 1999 by making the schedule to disappear and by so doing the constitution would disappear.
He said once decree 24 is repealed the schedule would disappear with the constitution and once it does that with the legal backing of the national assembly through an executive bill which would have been passed into law, the outcome of the CONFAB will now be the new constitution.
The senior advocate of Nigeria however warned that making the decree that makes the constitution a law to disappear should be done in a systematic way, “So that the national assembly will not also disappear like the constitution”.
Prof Nwabueze noted that Section 4 of the constitution gives the national assembly the right to make the constitution to disappear, “As it was done in 1963 instead of waiting for two thirds majority of the national assembly to do that”.
A large number of policemen and soldiers have been deployed in the Kirikiri Maximum Prisons, Lagos, after a rainstorm collapsed its fence last Sunday, the PUNCH has learnt.
Our correspondent learnt that after the building collapsed, prisons officials rallied around and ordered the inmates into their cells.
It was learnt that the prisons authorities subsequently called on sister security agencies to fortify the prison to prevent a jailbreak.
Some corrugated sheets and wood, it was learnt, had been used in providing temporary cover, while the activities of inmates have been under close watch since the collapse of the fence.
Our correspondent learnt that over 50 armed policemen and soldiers have been guarding the prison for over a week, while some other prisons officials serving in other units have also been deployed in Kirikiri.
The Public Relations Officer, Nigerian Prisons Service, Lagos State Command, Mr. Biyi Jeje, confirmed the story to our correspondent on the telephone
Jeje said with the high level of security at the prison, it was impossible for any inmate to escape.
He said, “The perimeter fence fell last Sunday during the rainstorm but we have been able to secure the area. We have many policemen, soldiers, dogs and prisons officials on guard. The place is very secure and no one can escape.
“Even if you visit the prison, you will think it is a barracks because of the large number of security personnel. Very soon, the fence will be rebuilt.”
Presently, there are over 750 inmates at the prison which houses inmates charged with or convicted of capital offences such as murder and armed robbery.
Survey finds nine in 10 say the crime is a 'very big problem', while three in four say laws too lax and police not strict enough
A new poll shows that Indians view rape as a big problem in their country and think the criminal justice system is inadequate to deal with it.
The national survey was conducted by the Pew Research Centre one year after the December 2012 gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi unleashed a wave of public anger about sexual violence in India. The results were published Tuesday.
The survey shows nine in 10 Indians agree that the crime of rape is a "very big problem." About eight in 10 say the problem is growing.
And despite some legal reforms after the Delhi case, about three in four Indians say laws are too lax and faulted police for not being strict enough in investigating rape cases.
The survey was based on 2,464 face-to-face interviews with adults across India between December 2013 and January 2014. It found the concern about rape cuts across gender and party lines, and is shared by urban and rural Indians.
Some 91% of men said rape was a very big issue, and 89% of women.
The nationwide outcry following the Delhi gang rape led the federal government to rush legislation increasing prison terms for rapists and criminalising voyeurism, stalking, acid attacks and the trafficking of women.
In September, a special fast track court sentenced four of the perpetrators of the Delhi case to death. And earlier this month, a court sentenced to death three men who raped a photojournalist inside an abandoned textile mill last year in Mumbai, India's biggest city, under a new anti-rape law. The woman who was attacked survived.
The Pew poll found that only 7% of Indians rated the current laws as "about right" in dealing with cases of rape, and only 6% said the police investigated rape cases adequately. Some 18% thought the laws were too tough.
A Federal High Court in Lagos has struck out a criminal charge filed by the federal government against Commissioner for Insurance and Chief Executive Officer of the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), Fola Daniel.
Daniel was charged before Justice Okon Abang over an alleged misrepresentation of facts involving Alliance and General Insurance Limited.
Justice Abang had struck out the charge following an application for withdrawal of the case filed by the Director of Public Prosecution of the Federation (DPPF) on behalf of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN).
The application was based on the constitutional powers vested on the AGF to institute and to discontinue criminal cases.
Daniel was charged to court on a six-count charge bordering on criminal misrepresentation of facts and deliberate falsehood.
A private prosecutor, Chijioke Ndubuisi, had filed the motion together with a six-count charge against Daniel at the court and subsequently wrote for a fiat of the AGF.
The AGF declined the fiat but instead elected to do the prosecution. In the said charge accompanying Ndubuisi’s motion, it was alleged that Daniel deliberately made a number of misleading and malicious misrepresentations against an insurance company, Alliance and General Insurance Limited to a number of public officers and agencies with the intention of damaging the reputation of the said insurance company.
It was further alleged that Daniel committed the same offences against Fidelity Bond Group, by representing that the Group had infracted the Insurance Act of 1997.
A part of the six-count charge against Daniel stated that he “did present information to the Minister of Aviation that there is no subsisting court order against the commissioner prohibiting the commission from enforcing its regulatory functions, which information you (Daniel) knew to be false in any material particulars and you thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 89 (1) and (2) of the Insurance Act, 2003.
“That you Fola Daniel on or about 7th August 2012, whilst being in the employment of the National Insurance Commission knowingly informed the chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) that Fidelity Bond Group and A&G Insurance Plc had been prohibited from doing business, the information which you know to be false and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 89 (1) and (2) of the Insurance Act and punishable under section 89 (2).”
Stakeholders in the building and construction sector of the economy have urged the federal government to provide a legal framework for the National Building Code which had existed since 2006 without a legal backing. They insisted that such a legal instrument would restore sanity and safety in the building industry which had recently been charactrised by the incessant incidence of building collapse that had become an embarrassment to government. In a communique issued at the end of the second Lafarge National dialogue series themed:" Building Collapse: An Assessment of Building Practices in Nigeria and the Imperative for Sustainable Construction" in Abuja, the stakeholders demanded that the building code be sent without further delay to the National Assembly for consideration and passage. Participants were also unanimous that though incidents of building collapse remained a major challenge, there is no connection in anyway with the quality of cement.
The communique expressed regrets that building collapse had persisted despite the sustained efforts by various professional bodies in the industry and called on the various tiers of government to tame the trend. It said: "Incidents of building collapse have remained prevalent despite continued efforts by various concerns and professional bodies in the building industry and at various tiers of government. Professionals are unanimous that cement is not responsible for building collapse and identify issues such as faulty designs, sharp practices, non-involvement of professionals in building projects, over-loading due to change in initial building plans amongst others for economic gains as contributory factors to building collapse." It added: "The National Building Code should be forwarded without further delay to the National Assembly for consideration and passage to achieve the desired sanity and safety in the building industry." It further recommended that the research institute should develop effective substitute to cement to make more choice available to consumers.
The stakeholders also want building professionals strengthened in their effort at stamping out non-professionals from supervising building projects while manufacturers of building materials should adhere strictly to global standards. They also called for the prosecution of perpetrators of acts of negligence resulting in building collapse from the side of the contractors, consultants and suppliers as a way of addressing the menace. It argued: "There is no sub standard cement produced in the country as the 32.5 strength manufactured by the cement manufacturers is of world standard. Construction standards should be institutionalised through introduction of courses on standards in the universities and other higher institutions of learning in the country."
The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has announced the suspension of its on-street park and pay scheme in Abuja with immediate effect. This was announced yesterday in a statement signed by the Special Assistant on Media to the FCT Minister, Mr. Nosike Ogbuenyi. Ogbuenyi said the suspension was in compliance with the judgment of an FCT High Court last Thursday, declaring the system illegal. According to him, the Secretary of Transportation of the FCTA, Mr. Jonathan Ivoke, had already dispatched a letter to the operators of the scheme informing them of the suspension.
He reminded that the scheme was conceived and launched by the FCTA for the purpose of effective traffic management and control in the nation's capital city especially against the backdrop of its fast growth in vehicular population. He said: "The introduction of the scheme is in sync with the standard practice in many mega cities around the world. "However, while the scheme has been widely hailed for helping to bring about orderliness, sanity, beauty and reduction in auto crashes on FCT roads and streets, some persons and groups opposed to the new order have launched ferocious attacks against it especially through the institution of several legal actions challenging its legal status." Judgment of Justice Peter Affen of an Abuja High Court which had declared the scheme illegal was the culmination of the attacks launched against the new system by some aggrieved members of the public. . Ogbuenyi however noted that the court in delivering the judgment rated the scheme as an excellent policy but only faulted it on the grounds that there was no valid legislation backing it.
He said as a law abiding organisation that strongly believes in the rule of law, the FCTA had decided to comply with the judgment of the court. By this decision, he stated, all the operators licensed by the FCTA had been directed to immediately suspend the operation of the scheme to give full effect to the judgment. Ogbuenyi added that FCTA had set in motion the process for a review of the FCT Road Transport Regulation, 2005 to address the legal lacuna and to properly capture the on-street park and pay scheme including the incorporation of the extensive review already started by the administration. "The review is expected to address perceived loopholes in the scheme," he said. Meanwhile, the FCTA has absolved the FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed, of involvement in the award and execution of the Close Circuit Television (CCTV) project in Abuja. The Special Assistant on Media to the minister, Nosike Ogbuenyi, in a statement issued yesterday, said the CCTV contract was neither awarded nor executed by the FCTA.
Ogbuenyi condemned what he described as an unwarranted and misguided attack on Mohammed by the Executive Chairman of a self-styled Coalition against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL), Debo Adeniran, over the $470million (N76billion) National Public Security Communications System Project in Abuja otherwise known as the CCTV Project. The statement was a response to a story published in one of the dailies yesterday in which Adeniran was reported to have called for the prosecution of the FCT minister in connection with the Abuja CCTV contract. “We regard that unguarded outburst by Adeniran as a shameful advertisement of ignorance not just on the part of the man himself but also the organisation that he purports to lead. "While the FCTA has been doing a lot to enhance security of lives and property in the FCT and is ever ready to collaborate with any person, institution, ministry, commission or group committed to the same objective, the fact needs to be stressed that the Abuja CCTV project was never a baby of the FCTA by conception, execution or supervision," the minister's spokesman clarified. Ogbuenyi therefore called on CACOL and its Executive Chairman, to render an unreserved apology to the FCT minister for wrongful accusation and defamation.
He stated: “If those calling for FCT Minister’s prosecution on account of a CCTV contract that he neither originated nor executed are not comprehensive illiterates, they should have been able to at least carry out preliminary internet research on the project to ascertain those that awarded and executed the contract.” The minister's aid advised CACOL and its leaders to henceforth endeavour to carry out proper investigation of issues before making public pronouncements on them in order to avoid ridiculing itself and embarrassing innocent persons and institutions. He however, described the CCTV project as an important scheme in the estimation of the FCTA and enjoined those responsible for the installation, completion and operation of the vital security devices to do the needful thing to make them fully operational.
A prison doctor has been fired and two staffers are in the midst of being dismissed after an inmate at the Kentucky State Penitentiary starved himself to death ina case that has exposed lapses in medical treatment and in how hunger strikes are handled at the facility. Prison officials have asked prosecutors to investigate after the Associated Press began asking questions about the inmate's death.
James Kenneth Embry, 57 and with just three years left on a nine-year sentence for drug offenses, began to spiral out of control in the spring of 2013, after he stopped taking anti-anxiety medication. Seven months later, in December, after weeks of erratic behavior – from telling prison staff he felt anxious and paranoid to banging his head on his cell door – Embry refused most of his meals. By the time of his death in January 2014, he had shed more than 30lb on his 6ft frame and died weighing just 138lb, according to documents reviewed by the AP.
An internal investigation determined that medical personnel failed to provide anti-anxiety medication that may have kept his suicidal thoughts at bay and didn't take steps to check on him as his condition worsened. The internal review of Embry's death also exposed broader problems involving the treatment of inmates – including a failure to regularly check inmates on medical rounds and communication lapses among medical staff.
The AP, tipped off to Embry's death, obtained scores of documents under Kentucky's Open Records Act, including a report detailing the investigation into Embry's death, an autopsy report and personnel files. Along with interviews with corrections officials and correspondence with inmates, the documents describe Embry's increasingly paranoid behavior until his death and the numerous opportunities for various prison staff to have intervened.
"It's just very, very, very disturbing," said Greg Belzley, a Louisville, Kentucky attorney who specialises in inmate rights litigation and reviewed some of the documents obtained by the AP. "How do you just watch a man starve to death?"
According to the report of the internal investigation, Embry stopped taking medications for anxiety in May 2013. Seven months later, he told the lead prison psychologist, Jean Hinkebein, on 3 December that he felt anxious and paranoid and wanted to restart those medications. But the psychologist concluded Embry didn't have any significant mental health issues, even though Embry repeatedly talked about wanting to hurt himself. Hinkebein and an associate considered his comments vague, and his request for medication was denied.
Seven days later, Embry began banging his head on his cell door and was moved to an observation cell where he refused meals and told the prison psychologist: "I don't have any hope."
He soon began refusing most food, though he drank tea on occasion while continuing to make threats to hurt himself in the ensuing weeks.
A nurse checked on Embry on 4 January, finding him weak and shaky, and advised him to resume eating. Embry responded that it had been too long for him to start taking food again. Nine days later, on the day he died, an advanced practice registered nurse named Bob Wilkinson refused a request from other medical staffers to move Embry to the infirmary at 11.51am and said the inmate should be taken off a hunger strike watch, according to the internal investigative report. Guards found Embry unresponsive in his cell hours later, his head slumped to the side. He was pronounced dead at 5.29pm.
Lyon County coroner Ronnie Patton classified Embry's death as a suicide and listed dehydration as the primary cause of death, with starvation and several other medical ailments as secondary causes.
The documents obtained by the AP show a prison system with a dated protocol for handling hunger strikes, staff who weren't familiar with its provisions, and others who said they were told not to follow them. In Embry's case, those in charge of his well-being were simply counting on him to cave in and start eating again on his own, the records show.
On 16 January, three days after Embry's death, Steve Hiland, the lead physician at the maximum-security prison, signed off on a nurse's note about Embry consistently refusing food and being taken off of the hunger-strike watch because he drank tea. During the internal investigation, Hiland said he believed a hunger strike consisted of missing "six or eight meals" and ended when the inmate ate or drank anything at all.
In a revealing exchange, investigators asked Hiland how he thought inmates were supposed to be removed from a hunger strike. Hiland told them that prison staff "usually don't have to worry about it because they [the inmates] eventually give up."
James Kenneth Embry died on 13 January. Photograph: uncredited/AP
When Embry stopped eating regularly, the Corrections Department's existing guidelines recommended multiple checks of the inmate's vital signs three times a week, repeated visits with a physician and ongoing evaluations by a psychologist.
Medical staff would later tell internal investigators they were either unfamiliar with the protocols for handling a hunger strike or that Hiland and Wilkinson forbade those procedures from being used. There is no mention of whether anyone considered force-feeding the inmate.
Corrections investigators determined Embry continued to refuse most food, though he drank tea on occasion while continuing to make threats to hurt himself in the ensuing weeks. Investigators concluded that Embry refused 35 of 36 meals before his death.
The state has placed Hinkebein, who is also in private practice in Central City, Kentucky, on administrative leave, and said it is in the process of firing her and her associate. Hinkebein declined to comment, saying she was still a state employee.
The internal investigation found that Hiland and Wilkinson didn't check on inmates as they should have during routine visits. The report also documented multiple communication problems among medical staff and allegations that other nurses were intimidated by Wilkinson, a contract staffer who works for Nashville, Tennessee-based Correct Care Solutions.
Phone and email messages left with the company seeking comment from managers there and from Wilkinson were not returned.
Embry, a heating and air conditioning repairman by trade, had no family or friends visit him at the prison, and no one claimed his remains. He is buried in a potter's field near the penitentiary.
The major fissure concerning the controversial military commissions at Guantánamo Bay is no longer between civil liberties and national security. It’s between the commissions and the intelligence services, with the future of the 9/11 war crimes tribunal hanging in the balance.
On one side are both the commission prosecutors and defense attorneys, all of whom grapple in different ways with bringing justice to defendants who spent years in the brutal black box that was CIA custody. The prosecution in particular is laboring to send the message that, after years of stop-and-start proceedings, the commissions are now a viable, professional complement to federal courts.
On the other side are the CIA and the FBI, which have gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent information about the detainees – particularly about their torture in CIA custody – becoming public. The intelligence and law enforcement agencies’ equities at Guantánamo, at a minimum, conflict with the successful military prosecution of the detainees. At worst, they undermine the venue meant to provide a final dispensation for alleged post-9/11 war crimes.
Last week, defense attorneys for 9/11 co-defendant Ramzi bin al-Shibh revealed that the FBI surreptitiously compelled a classification specialist assigned to them to sign documents indicating he would inform on the defense teams.
The revelation crowded out the pre-trial hearings scheduled to take place last week. The judge in the case, Army Colonel James Pohl, isslowly unfolding his own inquiry into whether the FBI is investigating the commissions’ defense attorneys, seemingly over the release of an unclassified manifesto by accused 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Barring unforeseen events – and, admittedly, the military tribunals have been nothing if not a series of unforeseen events – when the 9/11 military commissions resume in June, it will not be to clear through the thicket of motions that must be resolved before an actual trial can commence, but to examine the extent of the FBI’s penetration of the defense counsel. One of the defense lawyers in the case doubts the trial will get under way by 2016.
The apparent investigation into Mohammed’s defense attorneys was only the latest example of intelligence or law enforcement agencies asserting their prerogatives over the 9/11 tribunal. Last year, the CIA remotely muted the courtroom when a lawyer for Mohammed attempted to discuss conditions at the agency’s now-shuttered secret prisons. The agency’s ability to mute the proceedings was a surprise to Pohl, who issued acease-and-desist order.
Additionally, rooms used by the 9/11 defense lawyers for discussions with clients featured listening devices disguised as smoke detectors, confirming years of suspicion on the part of the defense that their conversations were under surveillance. The culprit was the FBI. Furthermore, the defense teams have faced a huge breach of their email data, which the Pentagon says was inadvertent.
“At this rate, it looks less and less likely that the 9/11 defendants will ever be brought to trial,” the Miami Herald editorialized.
If and whenever the trial commences, surreptitious surveillance of the defense and interference with the proceedings may also jeopardize any convictions or sentences obtained, according to legal observers.
“If the allegations are true, the FBI’s tapping of a member of the defense team for information on the defense’s case, something unimaginable in federal court proceedings, could conceivably lead to the defense asking for a mistrial,” said Karen Greenberg of Fordham University Law School.
“But as the trial isn’t yet under way, and mistrials assume that the trial is under way, it is more likely that you would get a request for dismissal based on outrageous government conduct.”
The prosecution is attempting to press on. A lawyer added to the team specifically to address the FBI issue owes Pohl a filing by the end of Monday responding to the defense’s assertions. The chief prosecutor, Army Brigadier General Mark Martins, insists he can proceed to jury empanelment by year’s end, despite the mounting complications caused by the intervention of the FBI and CIA.
And the biggest clash between the CIA and the commissions is just beginning to unfold.
Last week, in a different case, Pohl ordered the CIA to produce, through the prosecution, specific information about what the agency’s secret, torturous detentions after 9/11 actually meant in practice. As Pohl is also the judge in the 9/11 tribunal, the 9/11 attorneys promptly vowed to use Pohl’s ruling as a precedent to force the CIA to turn over similar information in their case.
The CIA must now decide whether it will co-operate and provide information that it has fought strenuously for over a decade to keep secret or if it will resist a judge’s order and jeopardize the prosecution of the 9/11 defendants. And it must make the choice while facing the partial public disclosure of a Senate inquiry into its post-9/11 renditions, detentions and interrogations.
Last week’s courtroom events may have made the intelligence agencies’ role in the tribunal more stark, but they have hung over the tribunal like a shadow. Were it not for the treatment the 9/11 defendants suffered in CIA custody, the tribunal would likely have concluded by now, as a large swath of their attorneys’ pretrial motions concerns establishing the extent of their pre-trial incarceration and its legal implications.
The intelligence value the CIA reaped from torture was minimal, according to senators who investigated it. The impact on the only legal proceedings designed to bring a semblance of closure to 9/11 may be far greater.
The continued detention of Australian Peter Greste and his colleagues sends a message to all journalists working in Egypt: 'no one is safe'
In just a few hours, Australian journalist Peter Greste and his colleagues are due to face court in Cairo, charged under terrorism offences for a crime that normally warrants praise, not a lengthy prison sentence.
The last time we saw Greste and his co-defendants was two weeks ago on 10 April. Greste, 48, has been detained since 29 December last year, along with Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed. The three journalists have been under trial for charges of “fabricating false news”, “supporting the Muslim Brotherhood” and “defaming Egypt internationally”.
Handcuffed, Greste entered the courtroom iron cage, his hands tied with his co-defendants. I watched intently as Fahmy shouted to the judge “the handcuff!” raising his arm up, upon which the presiding judge ordered police to free their hands.
During the session Greste watched an Egyptian judge puzzled by the contents of his backpack: a USB flash drive and a wireless USB. The judge asked the “expert”, a police officer, to show the contents of the flash drive. It contained two videos: some video footage from Kenya and a BBC documentary on Somalia presented by Greste. Greste’s lawyer objected that the videos were irrelevant to the case, as they were shot outside Egypt.
Greste and the two other journalists could face anything from three years to a life sentence. Local and international human rights NGOs have described the trial as “politically motivated". As Salil Shetty, secretary general of Amnesty International, said: “The [trial] sends the chilling message that only one narrative is acceptable in Egypt today - that which is sanctioned by the Egyptian authorities.”
Before the trial started, Khaled Mohamed Abdel Raouf, a student in the same case, told the judge he had been on hunger strike for 15 days due to a lack of medical care. The judge said he would look into it, but 15 minutes later the young man fainted in the cage and was taken outside to be seen by a doctor.
One defense lawyer attempted to strike a chord with nationalist sentiments he assumed the judges would be sensitive to. He screamed at the court “the trial is very harmful to Egypt’s image abroad. This trial is not for a terrorist channel (referring to Al Jazeera) but against Egyptian educated and cultured and patriotic youth”.
At the end of the session, the court’s three judges withdrew to discuss the court’s decision. During that time, Fahmy shouted across the courtroom from his cage “innocence is not enough … if we are not released this is a politicised judge. I want a visit by Amnesty International and the ICRC”. As a line of policemen separated the cage with a buffer zone, I shouted back “I am attending on behalf of Amnesty International and I will follow up on your request”. Some international reporters also shouted questions to the defendants about their health and treatment and what they expect today from the court. Greste remained quiet.
The judges returned about 20 minutes later to the courtroom to adjourn the trial to 22 April so that other videos (which could not be shown with the equipment in the court, according to the expert) could be examined by an "expert committee".
Again, the Egyptian authorities failed to show how the journalists and the students in the case represent a threat to Egypt. The court seems intent on simply prolonging their detention.
Greste’s case comes at a time of obvious politicisation of the judiciary, and crackdown on freedom of speech. In the past few months, the Egyptian judiciary have handed extreme sentences to political opponents and journalists. Among them is a death sentence to 528 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood for the death of one policeman.
The continued detention of Greste sends a message to all journalists working in Egypt: “no one is safe”. By imprisoning a foreign Australian journalist, the Egyptian authorities can warn local and international reporters they will be monitoring news reporting and will stifle anything they perceive as dissent.
But Greste and his colleagues, along with their friends and family, must be heartened to see what the reaction from both within and outside Egypt demonstrates: despite a government's best attempts, voices in a courtroom, and voices outside it, cannot be silenced.
• Mohamed Lotfy is observing and documenting the trial on behalf of Amnesty International. He’ll be tweeting updates throughout the day on behalf of the human rights organisation via his account @mlotfy81
The rule of law in Europe is facing its most serious crisis since the end of the cold war, according to the chief executive of Europe's largest human rights body.
Thorbjørn Jagland, secretary general of the 47-nation Council of Europe, made his assessment before tensions in eastern Ukraine rose over the weekend and before the council's parliamentary assembly voted last Thursday to suspend Russia's voting rights over its annexation of Crimea. Jagland argues that a lack of human rights in Ukraine has paved the way for Russia's actions.
He writes: "In Ukraine the absence of an independent judiciary, and lack of the checks and balances which a functioning parliament and free media should provide, allowed endemic corruption and misuse of power to thrive unchecked. This caused mistrust, social unrest and ultimately a revolution."
Jagland addressed his remarks to member states in an unpublished report on the state of democracy in Europe. The report is due to be released after it has been considered by delegations from the member governments meeting at a summit in Vienna early next month.
Most of the 72-page report is devoted to identifying "very worrying" challenges to human rights, democracies and the rule of law across Europe.
These include discrimination against ethnic and national minorities (in 39 member states); prison overcrowding (30 states); corruption (26 states); ill treatment by police (23 states); social exclusion and discrimination against Roma (20 states); and restrictions of free expression (eight states).
Problems with the judiciary are identified in 20 countries and deeply embedded judicial corruption has been reported in "many" of the 47 Council of Europe states, the report says. In some, the justice system was "completely corrupt". The European court of human rights, which is operated by the Council of Europe, continues to find violations of the right to a trial within a reasonable period of time. In some states, prosecutors sit in court alongside the judges, exercising powers that are too broad and lack transparency.
To avoid the risk that its publication will be vetoed by member states, the report does not name and shame individual governments. But each country was told last November, in confidence, of the three main challenges it is seen as facing. These are not necessarily its worst violations of human rights; they may include persistent and politically difficult issues as well as those that the Council of Europe believes it can best assist in overcoming.
These problems are not confined to eastern Europe. Calling for an improved gender balance within the judiciary, the report notes that two countries have supreme courts that are over 90% male. The UK must be one of them.
"Senior members of the executive branch in some member states have publicly criticised court decisions," the report continues. That was certainly a problem in the UK at one time, although it is fair to say that members of the present government have been more restrained.
More broadly, the council's monitoring bodies have raised concerns about police and prisons as often in northern and western Europe as in central and eastern Europe. Discrimination and social exclusion are widespread, although targeted groups vary from region to region.
The report identifies more effective monitoring as one of the paths to progress. Some standards, such as freedom of expression, are not specifically monitored within Europe. Others, such as the status of minorities, are monitored by overlapping bodies. And some bodies are too slow to cope with emergencies. The report also finds that some countries are reluctant to seek help because of the damage to the state's reputation that might follow.
It offers reassurance that Europe is not divided into countries that have human rights problems and those that do not. But it adds that Europe can be divided into those that are willing to co-operate in addressing their problems and those that are unwilling to do so.
Inevitably, increased monitoring and support will cost more money, which would have to come from member states – although Jagland says that reforms in recent years have led to a "leaner and more efficient organisation". He also wants to hold a summit next year at which heads of state would agree a five-year agenda for democratic security.
If this goes ahead, its recommendations are bound to need funding. But if they give member states less justification for invading each other's territory, it would surely be a small price to pay.
Britain's sovereignty over the Chagos Islands and America's lease for the Diego Garcia military base could be thrown into doubt by an international court hearing due to open in Istanbul on Tuesday.
It is considered of such importance that the attorney general, Dominic Grieve QC, will appear to defend Britain's declaration of a marine reserve around the archipelago.
Mauritius, which launched its legal challenge three years ago, believes a ruling in its favour could lead to the unravelling of Britain's colonial-era claim and the eventual return of hundreds of exiled islanders who have been forced to leave the archipelago. Many now live in Britain.
The PCA is based at The Hague, in the Netherlands, but its judicial proceedings are often held in neutral, international venues. Turkey is host for the latest round in the dispute. The hearing is expected to last several weeks although Grieve will only present the UK's opening arguments.
Teams of prominent British and American lawyers have also been hired by the UK and Mauritius. Among the UK counsel are Sir Michael Wood, a former Foreign Office adviser; Mauritius has recruited Prof James Crawford, Prof Philippe Sands QC and Elizabeth Wilmshurst, a Foreign Office lawyer who resigned on the eve of the invasion of Iraq.
The hearing will be held in secret with none of the proceedings open to the public. At some point it is hoped the documents may be made public, including internal Foreign Office files relating to key decisions from 1965 to April 2010.
The Mauritian prime minister, Navinchandra Ramgoolam, has claimed that the decision to establish a 1,411,550sq km (545,000sq mile) marine reserve was carried out in defiance of assurances given to him at the time by the then UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, in 2009.
A Foreign Office cable released by WikiLeaks recorded an official's assertion that "establishing a marine park would, in effect, put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago's former residents", who were described as "Man Fridays".
In a statement to the UN's general assembly last summer, Ramgoolam said: "The dismemberment of part of our territory, the Chagos archipelago – prior to independence – by the then colonial power, the United Kingdom, in clear breach of international law, leaves the process of decolonisation not only of Mauritius, but of Africa, incomplete."
He added: "I am confident that the UK and the US would want to be on the right side of history. States which look to the law and to the rules of the comity of nations for the resolution of disputes should not be frustrated by the lack of avenues under international law for settlement of these disputes."
In 1965, three years before Mauritius attained independence, the UK decided to "detach" the Chagos Islands from the rest of its then Indian Ocean colony. The Mauritian government, supported by every country in Africa, claims this was in breach of UN general assembly resolution 1514, passed in 1960, which specifically banned the breakup of colonies prior to independence.
The Chagos archipelago was subsequently declared to be part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (Biot) from which, in 1971, the 1,500 islanders were deported. The largest island, Diego Garcia, was then leased to the US as an airbase. The lease is due to be renegotiated later this year.
Claims that Diego Garcia was used as a secret "black site" detention centre during CIA rendition operations after 2001 resurfaced this month after Abdel-Hakim Belhaj – a rebel military commander and opponent of Muammar Gaddafi arrested in Malaysia and forcibly returned to Libya with his then pregnant wife – reported that he had been held there. The Foreign Office has disputed the claim.
The PCA case is being fought within the arcane legal territory of theUnited Nations convention on the law of the sea (Unclos), an area in which the UK could be at disadvantage. While Mauritius and the Seychelles have put in mutually agreed claims for large tracts of the nearby seabed, the UK has not put in any proposals to the UN commission on the limits of the continental shelf in respect of Biot and has now run out of time to do so.
The UK is hoping to persuade the five arbitrators to rule that they do not have jurisdiction over the dispute, but an earlier effort to get that argument decided before dealing with the substantive claim was rejected by the tribunal last year.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The rules of procedure established for the purposes of these proceedings provide that any evidence submitted alongside the pleadings of either party is confidential. Therefore, the UK is not in a position to comment on matters which are before the tribunal."
