News

Nine Nuclear Commanders Fired in Cheating Scandal

by Michael Yoakum
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

WASHINGTON, D.C., United States – Nine Air Force commanders were fired Thursday after being implicated in scandal involving cheating on nuclear proficiency tests.  Air Force leadership additionally will discipline dozens of junior officers posted at Malmstrom Air Force Base, a nuclear missile base in Montana.

Col. Robert Stanley, who was led Malmstrom’s 341st Missile Wing, reportedly resigned in light of the cheating scandal. (photo courtesy of BBC News)

Though not directly involved in the cheating scandal, the nine commanders held leadership positions at Malmstrom.  Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said the nine “failed to provide adequate oversight of their crew force.”  Those firings were in addition to Col. Stanley, who resigned from his post Thursday.

“Leadership’s focus on perfection led commanders to micromanage their people,” said Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson, commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command.  Wilson added “Leaders lost sight of the fact that execution in the field is more important than what happens in the classroom.”

Officers at Malmstrom were under pressure to achieve 100% proficiency on regular tests when only 90% was required, perhaps precipitating the cheating scandal.

James indicated Thursday that 100 junior officers were implicated in the cheating scandal, either for participating or overlooking the cheating. Nine of those officers were cleared of charges while the remainder received punishments ranging from letters of counseling to courts-martial. 30-40 of those officers are expected to be retrained and returned to duty.

Disciplinary measures are one of a variety of changes expected to affect the Air Force’s intercontinental ballistic missile programs, according to both James and Wilson.  Other issues to be addressed are morale and the micromanagement of lower-level officers.  James, while optimistic about the changes, cautioned that progress will likely be slow.

“The issues that we have before us today are tough, and they didn’t come overnight . . . While we have progress in certain areas in recent years, there is more work to be done,” James said.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel also expressed concern about the state of morale and discipline among nuclear officers.  Hagel instituted a review of nuclear forces to look into the impact of these issues.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Nine fired in US nuclear force cheating scandal – 27 March 2014

CNN – 9 Air Force commanders fired from jobs over nuclear missile test cheating – 27 March 2014

Fox News – Commanders fired in nuclear missile exam cheating scandal – 27 March 2014

Russia Today – Nine nuclear base commanders fired from US Air Force over cheating scandal 27 March 2014

The Washington Post – Nuke test cheating linked to flawed leadership – 27 March 2014

Same-Sex Marriages Begin in Britain

By Ben Kopp
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

LONDON, United Kingdom – Britain recognized same-sex marriages at midnight on 29 March 2014, a historic change that many couples did not wait until dawn to celebrate.

The first same-sex marriage ceremonies took place as early as 12:01 a.m. on 29 March 2014. (Photo courtesy of Irish Times)

Around the 1980s, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government passed a law that banned schools and local authorities from “promoting” homosexuality or depicting it as “a pretended family relationship.”

In 2003, Britain repealed that law without the large street protests against same-sex marriage that appeared in France. By 2005, British law provided a civil partnership that provided same-sex couples all legal protections and rights afforded heterosexual married partners, except for the label of marriage.

And in July 2013, Parliament legalized same-sex marriage by a wide margin, with the backing of Prime Minister David Cameron, who stated that no two people should be denied the right to marriage based on their sexuality. Polls demonstrated that two-thirds of Britons—especially young adult Britons—supported same-sex unions. However, BBC research suggested that a quarter of the women and half of the men surveyed would turn down an invitation to a same-sex wedding.

At midnight on 29 March 2014, Britain’s new same-sex marriage law came into effect. Couples began celebrating Britain’s first same-sex marriages within minutes. One marriage, that of Londoners Sean Adl-Tabatabai and Sinclair Treadway, included approximately one hundred guests at a town hall in Camden, and concluded at 12:10 a.m. Camden Mayor Jonathan Simpson officiated the ceremony. Adl-Tabatabai and Treadway emerged to loud applause, as well as Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You, Babe.”

“It’s amazing and surreal,” Adl-Tabatabai said. “It did feel like a historic moment.”

“For the first time, the couples getting married won’t just include men and women – but men and men, and women and women,” Cameron said in a statement. “When people’s love is divided by law, it is the law that needs to change.”

“What has amazed me is how much of Britain, how quickly, has moved toward backing us on this,” said columnist and former Conservative lawmaker Matthew Parris.

Britain exempted religious groups from conducting same-sex weddings, unless a group chose to opt in. While Quakers and Liberal Judaism have opted to conduct same-sex weddings, the Church of England, the country’s biggest faith, does not conduct same-sex weddings.

“These weddings will send a powerful signal to every young person growing up to be lesbian, gay or bisexual – you can be who you are and love who you love, regardless of your sexual orientation,” said Ruth Hunt, acting Chief Executive for leading gay rights charity Stonewall.

Scottish law will begin recognizing same-sex marriages in October 2014.

For further information, please see:

Aljazeera – UK Holds First Gay Marriage Ceremonies – March 29, 2014

BBC News – Swansea and Caerphilly Couples among First in UK to Have Same-Sex Weddings – March 29, 2014

Independent – Gay marriage: ‘When People’s Love Is Divided by Law, It Is the Law That Needs to Change,’ Says David Cameron as First Same-Sex Couples Tie Knot – March 29, 2014

Irish Times – First Gay Couples Marry in UK at Stroke of Midnight – March 29, 2014

TIMES – First Couples Wed as Gay Marriage Becomes Legal in UK – March 29, 2014

Japan Releases Death Row Inmate after 48 Years, Evidence Found to be Fabricated

By Brian Lanciault

Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

TOKYO, Japan–After forty-eight years of professed innocence and incarceration, thirty of which were in solitary confinement, Iwao Hakamada was freed Thursday. On June 10, 1966 when two children and their parents were stabbed to death and their home set ablaze, Hakamada, the longest-serving death row inmate in the world, was arrested, thrown in jail and ultimately sentenced to death for it.

Iwao Hakamada, former Japanese featherweight champion, was held for 48 years on death row, and finally released on Thursday after a tribunal determined that evidence was fabricated. (Photo courtesy of Reuters).

Hakamada, a former professional boxer who is now 78, was released Thursday morning after a Japanese court concluded investigators had likely fabricated evidence during his 1968 trial, according to Associated Press reports. Hunch-backed and wearing a yellow button-down, he struggled into an awaiting car, surrounded by a crowd flashing cameras. The decision to free him comes a month after the exoneration and release of America’s longest-serving death row inmate, Glenn Ford.

Blood on a shirt prosecutors alleged Hakamada wore during the family’s murder turned out not to contain his DNA. The court ordered a retrial, calling Hakamada’s original verdict an injustice. Prosecutors reported that they will seek appeal.

The order marks only the sixth time in Japan’s postwar history that a death row inmate has been granted retrial. The decision is expected to ignite more criticism of a capital justice system that has come under attack before. Japan and the United States are the only two Group of Seven nations to maintain the death penalty, and it holds high popularity in Japan.

Critics report significant problems with the system. Death row inmates, who are hanged, don’t know the date of their execution until the morning of the event. “For decades,” Reuters reports, “Japan did not even officially announce that capital sentences had been carried out.” Perhaps most troubling of all, police obtain confessions in closed-door interrogations, opening the door for false or fabricated confessions.

This is exactly what Hakamada claims happened to him.

In 1966 Hakamada had taken a job in the town of Shimizu situated along Japan’s southern coast at a food-processing factory. On June 30 of that year, the factory’s manager and his wife and two children were found stabbed to death. Someone had also stolen 200,000 yen — $2,000 –from their house, which had been razed.

Two months later in August, Hakamada was arrested, charged with murder, robbery and arson. While in custody, he said he did it. He later recanted the confession, but it was too late. On September 11, 1968, a three-judge panel sentenced him to death.

The case wasn’t nearly as solid as it appeared. The sentencing haunted one of the judges. “I have thought about his trial for many years,” Judge Norimichi Kumamoto told reporters in 2007. ”The guilty verdict was based solely on Hakamada confessing to the killings. But he confessed after being confined and tortured in a small room for 20 days. … The police use shocking, barbaric means to extract confessions and those who make them do so only out of despair.”

“I have felt sadness and disappointment over this,” Kumamoto continued.

Despite that admission, Hakamada languished on death row for seven more years, always unsure if every day was to be his last. He was eventually admitted into the Guinness Book of World Records as the globe’s longest-serving death row inmate.

If previous cases offer guidance, Hakamada’s chances at retrial are good. Four of the other five death row inmates who were tried a second time were acquitted. The other case is pending.

For more information, please see:

The Telegraph– World “longest serving” death row prisoner released–27 March 2014

Washington Post– Japan frees world’s longest-serving death row inmate after more than 45 years— 27 March 2014

Japan Times– Hakamada released after 48 years— 27 March 2014

ABC News– Japan Frees World’s Longest-Held Death Row Inmates— 27 March 2014

Houston Police Arrest Five Men for Kidnapping 115 Immigrants

by Michael Yoakum
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

HOUSTON, United States – Police arrested five men on Tuesday, charging them with kidnapping 115 people at gunpoint and holding them in a small Houston area home.  The 115 people are suspected illegal immigrant, who were told by their captors that they must pay a ransom in order to continue their entry into the United States.  Sixteen of the 115 captors were minors.

Police found ninety-nine men and sixteen women in a 1300 square foot Houston area home last week. (photo courtesy of BBC News)

The five men – identified as Jose Aviles-Villa, Jonathan Solorzano-Tavila, Antonio Barruquet-Hildiberta, Jose Cesmas-Borja and Eugenio Sesmas-Borja – appeared before a federal judge Tuesday on hostage taking, weapons, and conspiracy charges.  The judge denied bail to all five suspects, believing them to be a flight risk for trial.

Conviction for the hostage taking charges could result in a 10 year sentence with a potential for 20 years for the conspiracy charges, plus fines.

A criminal complaint drafted by agents from the Department of Homeland Security claimed that agents found the 115 hostages in the Houston area home last week stripped of their shoes and most of their cloths.  The complaint said they were threatened with violence if they did not comply and there were instances of some being kicked and beaten and females being groped.

The captives told authorities that they were held under armed guard, the doors were locked with deadbolts, and the windows were covered with plywood to prevent their escape.  Authorities recovered a shotgun, rifle, stun gun, ammunition, and wooden paddle from the home.

Police found the 115 captives after a Chicago resident contacted Houston police about the possible abduction of her daughter.  The criminal complaint alleges that she paid $15,000 for the return of her daughter and two grandchildren.  After she paid the original ransom, the complaint claims the captors demanded an additional $13,000.

Houston police traced the phone call from the captors and began surveillance on the house, ultimately finding the captives.  Stash houses of more than one hundred captives are not rare in South Texas, but this was the largest in the city in several years.

For more information, please see:

ABC News – 5 Charged in Houston Human Smuggling Operation – 25 March 2014

BBC News – Five charged with holding 115 hostages in ‘stash’ house – 25 March 2014

The Guardian – Five men charged with hostage-taking after 115 people found in Texas house – 25 March 2014

Star Tribune – 5 charged in Houston human smuggling operation after more than 100 immigrants rescued – 25 March 2014

USA Today – Police find more than 100 immigrants in stash house – 20 March 2014

Turkish Court Orders Termination of Twitter Ban

by Tony Iozzo
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

ANKARA, Turkey – A Turkish court ordered the country’s Telecommunications Authority to restore access to Twitter throughout the country through a court-issued injunction.

Demonstrators against the Twitter ban in Ankara. (Photo courtesy of BBC)

Five days ago, the Telecommunications Authority blocked access to Twitter throughout the entire country. The social network had been a large source of links that provided recordings implicating government corruption. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to “rip out the roots” of the social network, and accordingly ordered the Telecommunications Authority to block the website. The Telecommunications Authority had accused Twitter of not following Turkish court orders to remove certain content from the website.

Since the enactment of the Twitter-ban, lawyers, opposition parties, and journalists both inside and outside the country had advocated for the abolishment of the ban. Pro-Twitter advocates contended that the ban was unconstitutional. The ban drew a lot of international criticism and many Turkish Twitter users found ways to access Twitter during the ban. The Turkish President Abdullah Gul tweeted his opposition to the blockage after it was enacted.

The administrative court in Ankara based its decision on Wednesday on freedom of expression and the right to communicate freely, both of which are cited in the country’s Constitution, as well as the European Convention on Human Rights.

Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc stated that the Telecommunications Authority would obey Wednesday’s court decision after it received official notice from the administrative court, but that it was reserving the right to appeal the decision. An anonymous government source stated that the Authority has thirty days to implement the court’s decision.

This upcoming Sunday, Turkey will be holding elections which are being regarded as a referendum on Prime Minister Erdogan’s time in office. During a recent election rally in northern Turkey, Prime Minister Erdogan accused opposition parties and media who criticized the Twitter ban of being the “advocate of companies who don’t recognize Turkey’s laws and treat Turkey as a Third World country.” Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag stated that the Telecommunications Authority had been merely implementing court orders: “Is it against the Constitution to implement court orders?”

For more information, please see:

ABC News – Turkish Court Orders Halt to Twitter Ban – 26 March 2014

Al Jazeera – Turkish Court Orders Halt to Twitter Ban – 26 March 2014

BBC News – Court in Turkey Suspends Ban on Twitter – 26 March 2014

Reuters – Turkish Court Upholds Appeal Against Twitter Blockage-Media – 26 March 2014