News

Colombian Priest Who Ran Far-Right Militia Captured

By Ellis Cortez
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTA, Colombia – The Colombian Attorney General’s Office has announced the capture of a fugitive Catholic priest who was convicted in absentia last year of organizing a killer far-right militia made up of members of a dismantled paramilitary bloc.

Colombia nabs fugitive priest linked to criminal gangs
Gang members give their guns during a ceremony at a church in Medellin, Colombia. (Photo Courtesy of AFP Photo/Raul Arboleda)

After months-long search, Rev Oscar Albeiro Ortiz was arrested in the town of La Virginia, in the central-western province of Risaralda. The Colombian Army took part in the raid.

Ortiz, a former parish priest of a Roman Catholic Church in San Antonio de Prado, was arrested in 2010, but was cleared by a lower court and continued to maintain that he was innocent. This past August, Ortiz was retried and sentenced to 19 years in prison. The High Court in Medellin convicted him in absentia of giving orders to a group known as “Los Desmovilizados de El Limonar.”

Ortiz created the group in San Antonio de Prado in 2003. During this time, Ortiz had accompanied members of the paramilitary bloc and then recruited them after the bloc was ostensibly disbanded under a peace pact brokered by the government of then-president Alvaro Uribe. The group engaged in kidnappings, extortion, and murder.

Authorities say investigators using wiretaps had overheard Ortiz pointing out people as leftist rebels who later turned up murdered. People beaten or driven from their homes by paramilitary henchmen of Ortiz were told they were being punished “for disobeying the orders of the priest.”

The so-called paramilitaries, organized under the umbrella of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, committed more than 70% of the killings in the country’s nearly half-century-old dirty war, according to prosecutors.

The AUC, accused of committing numerous human rights violations, demobilized more than 31,000 of its fighters between the end of 2003 and mid-2006 as part of the peace process with the Uribe administration.

Under the terms of the 2005 Peace and Justice Law, former AUC members face a maximum of eight years in prison if convicted of any of the scores of massacres of suspected rebel sympathizers.

Their foes in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia are now engaged in peace talks with the government in Cuba.

For more information please see:

ABC News – Colombian Priest Who Ran Far-Right Militia Nabbed – 1 February 2014

The Guardian – Catholic priest who ran right-wing death squad arrested in Colombia – 31 January 2014

The Washington Post – Colombian priest who ran far-right militia nabbed – 31 January 2014

Fox News – Priest captured who ran far-right death squad in Colombian suburb – 31 January 2014

Unseen President Unsuccessfully Attempts to Resolve Ukrainian Unrest

By Ben Kopp
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

KYIV, Ukraine – Ukrainian tensions remained high following President Yanukovich’s attempted relief to the opposition. However, world leaders offered help.

Ukrainian opposition continues to stand against the government, despite amnesty and the repeal of anti-protest laws. (Photo courtesy of RT)

Unseen since taking sick leave, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich repealed anti-protest legislation, and signed an amnesty into law for activists detained during massive protests. Amidst news reports of a prominent opposition activist’s kidnapping and torture claims, many rejected Yanukovich’s decision because he conditioned it on activists leaving occupied buildings.

“There’s no point in signing this amnesty law,” said an improvised clinic worker at Kyiv’s occupied city hall. “No one will leave here until this government is gone.”

Concerned for demonstrators’ health in Arctic temperatures, opposition leaders urged protesters not to take to the streets for their weekly rallies. However, media outlets continued to replay video of activist Dmytro Bulatov’s story of kidnap and torture, which has kept anti-government tensions high.

Bulatov disappeared on 22 January 2014, at the hands of unknown kidnappers. Since Bulatov’s return, an interior ministry official has accused him of faking his claims to stir unrest.

“There isn’t a spot on my body that hasn’t been beaten. My face has been cut. They promised to poke my eye out. They cut off my ear,” Bulatov said. “They crucified me by nailing me to a door with something and beat me strongly all the while.”

In a statement, the Defense Ministry said, “The military and the Ukrainian armed forces … called on the supreme commander to take immediate steps, within the framework of the law, to stabilize the situation in the country and reach agreement with society.”

While Yanukovich has expressed concerns that Ukraine is on the verge of civil war, the military refused to take sides. A Defense Ministry news website quoted retired Admiral Serhiy Rybak, as he recalled Ukrainian peacekeeping missions abroad: “No political ambition is worth a drop of human blood.”

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen tweeted that the “military must remain neutral” even if it were to become involved in the crisis.

Moscow highlighted its economic over Ukraine by refusing its planned purchase of $2 billion of Ukrainian government bonds. The move contributed to the currency falling to its lowest point against the dollar in over four years.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry planned to meet opposition leaders, on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich.

“Our message to Ukraine’s opposition will be the full support of President Obama and of the American people for their efforts,” Kerry said in Berlin before the meetings. “But we will also say to them that if you get that reform agenda… we would urge them to engage in that because further standoff, or further violence that becomes uncontrollable, is not in anybody’s interests.”

Kerry also said, “We would … say to our friends in Russia this does not have to be a zero (sum) game, this is not something where Ukraine should become a proxy and trapped in some kind of larger ambition for Russia or the United States.”

For further information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Tension Grips Ukraine over Torture Claims – February 1, 2014

BBC News – Stand-Off over ‘Tortured’ Ukrainian Activist Dmytro Bulatov – January 31, 2014

Reuters – Ukraine President Signs Amnesty but Anger Remains, Currency Slumps – January 31, 2014

RT – Russia’s Emergency Loan to Ukraine on Hold until Govt Forms – January 30, 2014

Times Of India – Ukrainian President Takes Sick Leave, No Crisis Solution in Sight – January 30, 2014

Snowden’s Leaked Documents Shows Canada Spying On Airport Travelers

By: Brandon R. Cottrell 
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America 

OTTAWA, Canada – The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported today that leaked documents by Edward Snowden show Canada’s electronic spying agency collected data from “ordinary airline passengers” travelling through Canadian airports over a two week period.

Airline passengers who used the airport’s free wi-fi were the victim of a Canadian spying effort, per an Edward Snowden leaked document (Photo Courtesy CBC News).

Though Canadian law prohibits the Communications Security Establishment Canada (“CSEC”) from targeting any individual in Canada without a warrant, the CSEC has defended its action by citing its mission, which is to collect foreign intelligence by intercepting phone and internet traffic in order to protect Canadians.  CSEC has also said that no Canadians were spied on, yet most find no merit to that claim, as it is mostly Canadians that frequent Canadian airports.

Ronald Deibert, one of Canada’s foremost authorities on cyber-security, said, however,  that he “can’t see any circumstance in which this would not be unlawful, under current Canadian law, under our Charter, under CSEC’s mandates.”

The CSEC further defends its action by saying that it only collected metadata, which it is legally authorized to collect and analyze.  Metadata, the information about a communication, such as the date and location of the communication but not the details of what was said or written, is however, still valuable information and considered by most to be an invasion of privacy.

Deibert, in regards to metadata, said that it is “way more powerful than the content of communications . . . you can tell a lot more about people, their habits, their relationships, their friendships, even their political preferences, based on that type of metadata.”

The report also indicates that the metadata was collected using a new powerful software program that was being developed by the United States’ National Security Agency (“NSA”), and is now fully operational.  Experts say that the program, after initially capturing information, “would have enabled the agency to track them for a week or more as they showed up in other wi-fi ‘hot spots’ around Canada, such as other airports, hotels or restaurants.”  The new program is also considered to be “game-changing,” as it could be used for tracking “any target that makes occasional forays into other cities/regions.”

A spokeswoman for the Canadian agency was critical of the leak, and defended the document as a “technical presentation between specialists exploring mathematical models built on everyday scenarios to identify and locate foreign terrorist threats [and that] the unauthorized disclosure of tradecraft puts our techniques at risk of being less effective when addressing threats to Canada and Canadians.”

Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, is currently living in Russia after fleeing the US in May 2013 after he leaked thousands of documents that revealed extensive internet and phone surveillance by US intelligence services.

For further information, please see: 

BBC – Snowden Leaks: Canada ‘Spied On Airport Travellers’ – 31 Jan. 2014 

Bloomberg – Spy Agency Tracked Canadians At An Airport – 31 Jan. 2014 

CBC News – CSEC Used Airport Wi-Fi To Track Canadian Travellers: Edward Snowden Documents – 31 Jan. 2014 

RT – Attention Fliers: Canada’s Electronic Spy Agency Is Following You – New Snowden Leaks – 31 Jan. 2014 

EU Authorities Arrest Kosovo Serb Politician on War Crimes Charges

by Tony Iozzo
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MITROVICA, Kosovo – A top Kosovo Serb politician has been detained by the European Union’s police and justice mission on suspicion that he committed war crimes.

Ivanovic was ordered detained for a month on Monday, EU officials say. (Photo courtesy of BBC News)

EU officials state that Oliver Ivanovic has been identified as a suspect as a result of a war crimes investigation that examined the Kosovo conflict of the 1990’s. No details of the alleged crimes have been released to the public, but reports indicate that Ivanovic, 60, is suspected of having tortured and killed numerous Albanians. Ivanovic is also believed to have a main organizer of a since-disbanded Kosovo Serb vigilante group widely known as the “Bridgewatchers.” The Bridgewatchers are suspected of widespread violence against ethnic Albanians.

Ivanovic turned himself into EU authorities voluntarily on Monday while accompanied by his lawyer. He was ordered to be detained for a month while investigators look into crimes “which occurred in 1999 and 2000 against Albanian victims,” Ivanovic’s lawyer, Nebojsa Vlajic, stated. Ivanovic has been transferred to a prison in Pristina.

Ivanovic is considered to be a moderate politically. He lost a recent election to be mayor of the Serb area of the northern town of Mitrovica to Krstimir Pantic. Ivanovic’s supporters believe that the recent war crimes charges are politically motivated, and untrue.

Ivanovic is the first senior Kosovo Serb official to be arrested by the European Union Rule of Law Mission (EULEX) on suspicion of war crimes against ethnic Albanians. EULEX has authority to investigate and prosecute cases that the local judiciary and police are either unable or unwilling to handle.

The 1998-1999 conflict began in Kosovo after ethnic Albanians rebelled against NATO bombings in Belgrade, which prompted an extreme crackdown.

Roughly 120,000 ethnic Serbs currently live in Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and accounts for 1.8 million inhabitants, most of whom are ethnic Albanians. However, the approximately 40,000 Kosovo Serbs living in the northern part of the country do not recognize Kosovo’s independence. Serbia also rejects Kosovo’s secession. Despite this, Kosovo has been recognized by over 100 countries, including the United States and most EU states.

For more information, please see:

B92- Lawyer: Accusations Against Ivanovic “Politically Motivated” – 29 January 2014

BBC News – Kosovo Serb Politician Oliver Ivanovic Arrested Over War Crimes – 28 January 2014

InSerbia – Ivanovic Suspected of Crimes Committed in 1999, 2000 – 28 January 2014

Reuters – EU Arrests Moderate Kosovo Serb Leader in War Crimes Probe – 27 January 2014

 

70 Air Force Officers Implicated in Nuclear Test Cheating Scandal

by Michael Yoakum
Impunity Watch Reporter

WASHINGTON, D.C., United States – The number of Air Force nuclear missile launch officers implicated in a cheating scandal widened Tuesday from 34 to 70. The Air Force is now investigating this unprecedented exam cheating scandal involving officers of captain rank.

News of the cheating scandal has prompted Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to rethink the manner in which ICBM launch officers are tested. (photo courtesy of Al Jazeera)

Air Force leaders indicated that they stumbled on to the cheating at the Global Strike Command at Malmstrom Air Force base in Montana while investigating a separate drug-abuse scandal that spanned six different Air Force bases. At least 34 of the nuclear launch officers implicated in this scandal have been stripped of their certification while three others were implicated in the drug-abuse scandal.

The Malmstrom base houses and maintains 150 Minutemen 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles or one third of the nation’s ICBM arsenal. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh indicated that the remaining personnel on staff at Malmstrom were sufficient to maintain the nuclear nation’s arsenal.

Considered the largest breach of integrity in the nuclear force, Air Force leadership determined that some staffers from the 341st  Missile Wing texted answers to routine tests to others while others knew but failed to report the news. Ultimately, 16 officers were found to have actually cheated on the exams.

“This is absolutely unacceptable behavior and it is completely contrary to our core values in the Air Force and as everybody here knows, the No. 1 core value for us is integrity,” said Deborah Lee James, Secretary of the Air Force.

The exam questions were designed  to test launch officers’ proficiencies in “emergency war orders,” including receiving orders through the chain of command to fire a missile.

This scandal is the latest in a line for the Air Force, stretching back to October of last year when the two star general in charge of the ICBM arsenal, Michael Carey, was fired for drinking binge and other embarrassing behavior during a trip to Moscow.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Air Force nuclear cheating scandal widens – 28 January 2014

BBC News – Number of US nuclear ‘cheats’ doubles – officials – 28 January 2014

Fox News – Air Force: 34 nuclear missile officers implicated in cheating scandal – 16 January 2014

CNN – Air Force nuke officers caught up in big cheating scandal – 15 January 2014

The Washington Post – Air Force investigates dozens accused of cheating on nuclear proficiency exams – 15 January 2014