By Brandon R. Cottrell 
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America 

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala – The Guatemalan Supreme Court has upheld its ruling that Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz must step down in May, which is seven months prior to her term’s natural expiration.

U.S. Ambassador Arnold Chacon, in a statement this week described Paz as “an example of an honest, capable public servant of integrity.”  Paz y Paz, since taking office in May 2010, has put four civil war era generals and organized crime suspects on the stand to face charges of crimes against humanity and for genocide.  Prior to her appointment, these cases had been at a stand still for decades.  As of now, however, only one of those cases has been brought to trial.

Additionally, Paz y Paz has moved for international training of prosecutors, so that the prosecutors will “carry out more scientific prosecutions.”  This movement has resulted in the successful prosecution of several high profile cases.

The prosecution of General Efrain Rios Montt, who ruled from 1982 to 1983, is perhaps Paz y Paz’s highest profile case.  That case resulted in an eighty-year sentence for Montt, who knew about the slaughter of nearly two thousand Mayans during the Civil War.  That sentence, however, was annulled on appeal.

The annulment of Montt’s sentence is seen by many as a sign of the lingering influence of the military and its backers.  This is only further verified when considering that Ricardo Sgastume, the lawyer who brought the constitutional challenge to out Paz y Paz is a member of the National Convergence Front Party, which was founded by former military officials.

Jorge Santos, a member of the Convergence for Human Rights, has criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling saying that they (the Convergence for Human Rights) “believe the court’s decision doesn’t do anything to defend the Constitution and instead works in favor of vested interests that want to maintain impunity.”

In a statement, Paz y Paz did not comment as to whether or not she thought her ouster was motived by political reasons.  She did say, however, that “the magistrates have to interpret laws according to their values and criteria and according to what the Constitution says and they can’t act based on other types of influences.”

A commission has since been formed to find Paz y Paz’s replacement.  The commission was formed after 94 of 158 lawmakers voted in favor of replacing Paz.

 

For further information, please see:

ABC News – Guatemala Begins Process To Replace Top Prosecutor – 10 Feb. 14

AP – Guatemalan Court Upholds Top Prosecutor’s Ouster – 8 Feb. 14 

Washington Post – Guatemalan Court Upholds Top Prosecutor’s Ouster – 8 Feb. 14  

by Michael Yoakum
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

WASHINGTON, D.C., United States – The US Army is embroiled in scandal since news broke Tuesday that a program designed to encourage recruitment resulted in fraudulent payments of totaling in the tens of millions. More than 1,200 people are under investigation with the fraud program that occurred during the peak of the Iraq War.

The program began in 2005 as a National Guard recruitment tool and expanded to the Army and Army Reserve, offering between $2,000 and $7,500 to recruit friends and family members. According to information provided by two Army generals at a Senate hearing, the program paid out $300M for 130,000 during the Iraq War.

One soldier reportedly accrued $275,000 in illegal bonuses according to papers released by the Senate panel. Four others reportedly obtained over $100,000 in bonuses.

High school principals and guidance counselors accepted recruitment money for students they already knew to be joining the Army. Others illegally accepted bonuses after forcing subordinates to sign up as recruiters and funnel recruitment bonuses into personal bank accounts.

This is discouraging and depressing,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, adding “Clearly, we’re talking about one of the largest criminal investigations in the history of the Army.”

McCaskill called the meeting of the Senate’s financial and contractor oversight committee Tuesday.

In a statement to the press, Army spokesman George Wright expressed the Army leadership’s outrage, saying “After internal Army investigations identified instances of fraud in Recruiting Assistance Programs, the Secretary of the Army immediately terminated those programs and their funding in February 2012.

Major General David E. Quantock, commanding general of the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command, testified fraudulent payments, believed to total $29M, could increase to nearly $100M before the end of the investigation.

McCaskill chastised the alleged offenders, saying “It is disappointing that people who wore the uniform saw a way to get one over on the government and they did. It does such a disservice to the majority of people who have served honorably.”

For more information, please see:

BBC News – US Army rocked by Iraq war recruitment fraud scheme – 4 February 2014

The Guardian – US army investigates hundreds of soldiers for recruitment fraud – 4 February 2014

The New York Times – Fraud in Army Recruiting Bonus Program May Cost Nearly $100 Million – 4 February 2014

The Washington Post – Army probes allegations of fraud by recruiters and others in enlistment referral program – 3 February 2014

USA Today – Recruiting fraud, kickback scandal rocks Army – 3 February 2014

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.

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

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.

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 

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.

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