News

Grenade Injures Six Students at Libyan School

By: Danielle L. Gwozdz
Impunity Watch News Reporter, Africa

TRIPOLI, Libya – At least six children have been injured by a grenade attack in a Benghazi, Libya school.

Security personnel stand in front of a court building after blasts occurred in Benghazi (photo courtesy of Reuters).

Witnesses say the grenade was thrown over a wall into a private school during a break from lessons.

The blast damaged part of the building and some victims were seriously wounded.

Blasts and assassinations are not uncommon in Benghazi, where security forces are battling Islamist militants tied to the Ansar al-Sharia group. Washington has listed this group as a foreign terrorist organization.

Benghazi, the city from which the 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Muammar Qaddafi stemmed, saw a series of attacks in recent months as the weak central government has tried to rein in former rebel brigades turned militias.

Fadia al-Barghathi, a spokesperson for Benghazi’s hospital, stated: “The injuries range between light and moderate.”

A security official described the force of the explosion as “weak” and said that a hunt was underway for those behind the attack.

A medic revealed that two of the six children are in critical condition and were taken to the Beghazi medical centre.

The gunmen, later in the night, attacked Al-Saiqa checkpoint at Al-Jala hospital, sparking a firefight, which, thankfully, left no injuries.

Two days ago, the son of Libya’s special forces chief was kidnapped by gunmen in Benghazi.

A military source said the abduction was aimed at pressuring the special forces to bring about the release of prisoners held by the army.

The special forces had announced last month the arrest of four suspects in possession of a hit list of officers to be targeted or had been killed.

Militia brigades often fight “turf wars” for control of areas and businesses, and they have refused to disarm.


For more information, please visit:

BBC News – Libyan blast injures six children at Benghazi school – 5 February 2014
Reuters – Blast at Libya school wounds six children – hospital, security sources – 5 February 2014
Yahoo! News – Blast at school in Libya’s Benghazi wounds six children – 5 February 2014
Al Arabia News – Blast at school in Libya’s Benghazi wounds children – 5 February 2014
The Daily Star – Playground bomb wounds 12 kids in Libya’s Benghazi: medics – 5 February 2014

 

Former Rwandan Official on Trial in France for Genocide Charges

by Tony Iozzo
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

PARIS, France – A French court began a genocide trial on Tuesday against a former Rwandan intelligence officer who fled Rwanda after the 1994 genocide.

If convicted, Simbikangwa would face life imprisonment. (Photo courtesy of Al Jazeera)

In what has been promised to be the first of several prosecutions of former Rwandan officials, Pascal Simbikangwa appeared before a panel of judges in Paris to face the charges of complicity in genocide and crime against humanity. Simbikangwa, 54, had been sought under an international arrest warrant beginning in 2008. He had been in hiding on the island of Mayotte, a French territory in the Indian Ocean.

Simbikangwa could receive a sentence of life imprisonment if he is convicted. The initial indictment, drafted by Judge Olivier Leurent, stated that Simbikangwa had stashed a massive amount of weapons in his home, as well as harassing members of the minority ethnic group- the Tutsi. Simbikangwa is a Hutu, which was the ethnic group that constituted the majority of the government during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.

The trial is expected to last seven weeks, and the panel of judges is expected to hear from 53 witnesses. The potential witnesses include Simbikangwa’s former neighbors back in Kigali, the Rwandan capital; French historians, and former Rwandan officials. The trial is scheduled to conclude with testimony from Tharcisse Renzaho, a former politician and prefect, who was sentenced to life in prison by the United Nations’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

France has widely been considered a refuge for Rwandan fugitives that participated in the country’s ethnic genocide, which killed over 800,000 people in 100 days back in 1994. Human rights groups see Simbikangwa’s trial an effort by France to shed this reputation, and end the protection of the fugitives.

France also has been accused of providing military training to the Hutus, and has never tried anyone accused of complicity in the Rwandan genocide. After restoring diplomatic relations with Rwanda in 2009, Paris appointed five judges to investigate the matter of the Rwandan fugitives and opened a police unit that specialized in genocide crimes.

In addition to the criminal case, five human rights groups have filed civil suits against Simbikangwa. On Tuesday, the civil plaintiffs included the Collective of Civil Plaintiffs for Rwanda, the group that first found Simbikangwa in Mayotte and filed a complaint against him.

In Europe, several countries including Belgium, a former colonial overseer of Rwanda, as well as Norway, have already brought Rwandans to justice in their countries.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Landmark Rwanda Genocide Trial Opens in Paris – 4 February 2014

BBC News – Rwanda Ex-Spy Chief Tried in Paris on Genocide Charges – 4 February 2014

France 24 – 20 Years On, France Confronts Rwandan Genocide – 4 February 2014

NY Times – Former Rwandan Intelligence Chief Goes on Trial For 1994 Genocide – 4 February 2014

87 Exonerated In United States During 2013

By Brandon R. Cottrell 
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

WASHINGTON, D.C., United States – According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 87 people were exonerated in 2013, which is a record amount.  The previous high, 83, was set in 2009, and over 1,200 exonerations have taken place in the United States since 1989, when amounts first began to be recorded.

Nicole Harris was recently exonerated, after it was determined that her son’s accidental death had been mischaracterized as a homicide (Photo Courtesy Huffington Post).

Samuel Gross, the lead author of the 2013 report, says that the exonerations are “good news because we are more likely to address the problem that caused false conviction in the first place but that these cases . . . are only a small proportion of errors that actually occur [and] most times, they’re never discovered.”

While DNA evidence influenced the exoneration in a large number of cases, as it “has lent credibility to convicts’ claims of innocence in the eyes of the courts and the prosecutors,” many were also influenced by law enforcement.  The 2013 report said that the “police and prosecutors appear to be taking increasingly active roles in reinvestigating possible false convictions, and [are] more responsive to claims of innocence from convicted defendants.”

Of those exonerated, nearly half had been wrongfully convicted of murder.  Most startlingly, however, is that approximately one third of the exonerations involved cases where no crime had even occurred.  In such instances, many of the exonerated plead guilty (or confessed) in exchange for reduced sentences, as they were not willing to risk a lengthier sentence if the case went to trial and they lost.

For example, Nicole Harris, one of the exonerated, was convicted of first-degree murder for the death of her 4-year old son and received a 30-year sentence.  Her conviction was based primarily on a videotaped confession, which was recorded after “an intense 27 hours of police questioning . . . [where] officers threatened her, called her names, pushed her, withheld food and water, and denied her use of the bathroom.”

Additionally, in that case, investigators refused to consider an alternative explanation for the death – that the elastic band from the bed sheet wrapped around his threat as he jumped off his bed pretending to be Spiderman.  Harris, who spent more than 7 years in prison, was exonerated when the prosecutor’s office moved to dismiss the charge, after evidence was introduced that the police had indeed coerced her into confessing.

Though justice was delayed for these 87 individuals, and is likely being delayed to hundreds currently in prison, Rob Warden, executive director of the Center of Wrongful Convictions, has said that “the more we learn about wrongful convictions, the better we’ll be at preventing them, and, of course, at correcting them after the fact as best we can.”

For further information, please see the following:

BBC – Study: Record Number Of US Convicts Cleared In 2013 – 4 Feb. 2014

Huffington Post – A Record Number Of Inmates Were Exonerated Last Year For Crimes They Didn’t Commit – 4 Feb. 2014

Global Post – Wrongful Convictions Overturned At Faster Clip In 2013 – 4 Feb. 2014 

Time U.S. – Record Number of U.S. Prisoners Exonerated in 2013 – 4 Feb. 2014

Widespread Corruption Reported Across Europe, Suggestions for Change Follow

By Ben Kopp
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

BRUSSELS, European Union – The European Union Anti-Corruption Report, a first of its kind, highlighted “breathtaking” corruption across the EU. The report offered suggestions to help reduce corruption.

A new report revealed perceptions of corruption across all 28 EU countries. (Photo courtesy of Irish Independent)

While presenting the European Union Anti-Corruption Report, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem stated that corruption in the EU costs the bloc’s economy 120 billion euros per year. That amount is roughly the same as the EU’s annual budget. Malmstroem called the extent of EU corruption “breathtaking.”

The first-of-its-kind report analyzed all 28 EU Member States, looking into existing measures, problems, and successful policies related to corruption. Over three-fourths of surveyed persons in the report said they believed corruption is widespread in their own country. More than a half added that corruption levels were on the rise.

The report suggested more accountability standards, control mechanisms in public authorities, improve the effectiveness of courts and police, protection for whistleblowers, more transparent lobbying practices, and increased transparency through e-tools.

The EU Commission plans to meet with all Member States, European Parliament, and national parliaments to discuss and work on recommendations discussed in the report. A follow-up report is being planned for about 2016 to measure European progress.

“There are no corruption-free zones in Europe,” Malmstroem said.

While carrying the lowest levels of witnessed corruption, Finland and Denmark each had three percent of respondents claim that corruption in their country was widespread.

Greece and Italy ranked as the top countries in which respondents believed corruption was widespread; Lithuania, Spain, and the Czech Republic tied for the third place ranking. The report highlighted that countries behind in their scores of “perceptions and actual experience of corruption” include Croatia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece.

“In these countries,” the report stated, “between 6 and 29 percent of respondents indicated that they were asked or expected to pay a bribe in the past 12 months, while 84 percent up to 99 percent think that corruption is widespread in their country.”

When it came to doing business in the EU, more than 40% of companies claimed that corruption is a problem for European operations.

In a press conference, Malmstroem said that corruption destroys democracy and the trust in public institutions. “It undermines our internal market, it hampers foreign investment, it costs taxpayers millions, and in many cases it helps organized crime groups do their dirty work.”

While Bulgaria, Romania, and Italy were noted hotspots for organized crime, white-collar crimes and VAT fraud were deemed widespread in many EU countries.

“The price of not acting is simply too high,” Malmstroem concluded.

For further information, please see:

RT – Cost of Corruption across EU Equals Its Annual Budget – EU Commission – February 4, 2014

AFP – ‘Breathtaking’ EU Corruption Costs 120 bn Euros a Year – February 3, 2014

BBC – Corruption across EU ‘Breathtaking’ – EU Commission – February 3, 2014

Irish Independent – Corruption Costs EU £99bn a Year – February 3, 2014

New York Times – Study Details Graft in European Union – February 3, 2014

U.S. Poised to Table a Human Rights Resolution against Sri Lanka

By Brian Lanciault

Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka– State Department officials announced Saturday that the United States will table a United Nations human rights resolution against Sri Lanka, putting new pressure on Colombo to address war crimes allegations.

Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Biswal addresses reporters along with U.S. Ambassador Michele Sison (right) on Saturday. (Photo Courtesy of AFP/Getty Images)

The UN has already called on Sri Lanka to punish military personnel responsible for atrocities in the civil war that the government won in 2009.  Washington says the human rights climate on the island is worsening each day.

Nisha Biswal, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, held talks with Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris over a range of issues including allegations that government troops killed thousands of Tamil civilians during the final months of the war in 2009.

“Lack of progress in Sri Lanka has led to a great deal of frustration and skepticism in my government and in the international community,” assistant secretary of state Nisha Biswal told reporters in Colombo after her two-day visit.

“There hasn’t been sufficient action taken by the government to address the issues of justice and accountability. We heard from many people about people who are still unaccounted for, whose whereabouts and fates are unknown to their family members.”

Biswal declined to say what would comprise the resolution set to be tabled at the March session of the UN Human Rights Council, but US embassy officials have said it may call for a full-scale international investigation into Sri Lanka and their military affairs.

“We understand growing concern, frustration, and skepticism among many in my country and many in the international community that has led to increasing calls for international investigation and an international process.” Biswal said.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government, which finally put down an exhaustive 26-year rebellion by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009, has rejected UN calls for an international inquiry and said repeated requests from overseas were to please the large Tamil diaspora in the west.

A top Sri Lankan official announced last week that an international inquiry into war crimes would bring “chaos” and insisted that the government’s national reconciliation process must be given several more years to work.

Biswal acknowledged that the reconciliation process needed more time, but said credible steps had to be taken now.

“The culture of deterioration of human rights gives us great concern when churches and mosques are burnt down and people feel that they cannot practice their faiths freely and without fear. Then I believe the urgency that has gripped the international community is justified,” she said.

The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has said he will push for the international inquiry into war crimes allegations if Sri Lanka does not conduct its own probe by March.

Some Sri Lankans who met with Biswal told reporters that they had told her an international process was essential.

“We do not have confidence in a local investigation because that would be done by the military, who are accused of war crimes,” one activist from northern Jaffna peninsula told Reuters, on condition of anonymity.

A UN panel indicated that about 40,000 mainly Tamil civilians died in the final few months of the war. Both sides committed atrocities, but army shelling killed most victims, it concluded. Separatist Tamil Tiger rebels renowned for the use of child soldiers and suicide bombings battled with government forces since 1983.

For more information, please see:

New York Times– U.S. Envoy to Visit Sri Lanka as Pressure Builds for War Crimes Inquiry— 30 January 2014

The Guardian– US to table UN human rights resolution criticizing Sri Lanka over ‘war crimes’— 1 February 2014

AFP– US envoy in Sri Lanka as pressure builds over war crimes— 31 January 2014

NDTV– US envoy to visit Sri Lanka as pressure grows for war crimes inquiry— 31 January 2014