Six Australians Suspected of Murder in Peru Win Bid to Testify from Australia

By Ellis Cortez
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

LIMA, Peru – Six young Australians wanted in connection with the death of a 45 year-old hotel doorman in Lima have won the right to make statements on the case from Australia instead of returning to Peru, where the case is being tried.

Six young Australians who are at the centre of an ongoing diplomatic row with Peru who want them all extradited for murder.
Peru Six: The young Australians who have been fighting homicide allegations. (Photo Courtesy of Dallas Kilponen/Sydney Morning Herald)

A statement from the group revealed they would be permitted to give statements via video link rather than having to return to Peru, where they have said they fear they will not get a fair trial. “We were told by our lawyers and DFAT [Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade] on 24 October that the three Superior Judges in Lima had made a favorable decision on our appeal to be able to give our statements from Australia under the International Co-Operation Procedure. However, we couldn’t share the news with you until it had been formally stamped by the court and overnight it was!” wrote the group on their official Facebook page.

The Australians, known as the “Peru Six”, are Jessica Vo, Hugh Hanlon, Tom Hanlon, Harrison Geier, Andrew Pilat, and Sam Smith. They were named as primary suspects following the mysterious death of Lino Rodriguez Vilchez, who fell 15 stories from a balcony at the Lima hotel where they were staying in January of last year.

Police initially ruled the death a suicide, but they reopened the investigation after a public campaign by Vilchez’s brother who argued that the evidence appeared inconsistent with suicide. The family of Vilchez claims the Australians attacked and threw Vilchez from the balcony after a dispute over a noise complaint.

Peruvian courts seeking extradition of the six served subpoenas in July and threatened the group with an Interpol arrest warrant if they failed to return to Peru to face court proceedings. The group remained in Australia over fears that they would be imprisoned and not receive a fair trial. A Peruvian court originally rejected the group’s bid to give evidence in Australia, but that decision was overturned on appeal.

The Peruvian judges have set dates of November 5, 6 and 7 for the group to testify.

The six have strongly denied any involvement in Vilchez’s death and maintain their innocence. Theresa Hanlon, mother of two of the Australians, says the group is relieved that the threat of being placed on Interpol’s wanted list appears to have ended.

For more information please see:

ABC News (Australia) – ‘Peru Six’ to be allowed to make statements while remaining in Australia – 30 October 2013

The Guardian – Six Australians accused of murder will not have to return to Peru – 29 October 2013

Peru this Week – ‘Peru 6’ will be allowed to testify from Australia – 29 October 2013

The Sydney Morning Herald – Peru Six win bid to give evidence in Australia – 29 October 2013

Afghanistan Plagued with Drug Crisis

By Darrin Simmons
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

HERAT, Afganistan-A recent report from the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs has discovered that one in ten Afghani households has at least one drug user.  In Herat, it is one in five.

Men prepare heroin near Dahne Kamarkalagh, a city in western Afghanistan (photo courtesy of Stars and Stripes)

Known as an area of stability and progress in Afghanistan, Herat has become one of the world’s most addicted societies as a global leader in opium production.  Total number of drug users in Afghanistan is estimated to be 1.6 million, which is about 5.3 percent of the population.

The use of opiates has doubled from 2005 to 2009, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, with the number of heroin users jumping to more than 140 percent.  However, government funding for treatment and outreach is less than $4 million a year with most treatment programs relying heavily on $12 million a year in extra international funding.

Despite the growing severity in recent years, the drug crisis in Afghanistan is nothing new.  International health officials claim it spawns from the traditional use of opium for medication.  One of the earliest challenges Afghan security forces had to overcome was a public image as a “band of opium-addled thieves.”

“This is a tsunami for our country.  The only thing our drug production has brought us is one million drug users” stated Dr. Ahmad Fawad Osmani, the director of drug demand reduction for the Ministry of Public Health

Rural areas have seen the highest use and worse conditions with drug use as high as 30 percent of the population, based on hair, urine, and saliva studies accumulated by authors of a recent urban study.

To make matters worse, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) recently fired 65 officers after discovering that they were addicted to heroin.  “We have sacked 65 employees who were addicted to heroin and our efforts will continue,” stated the Rahmatullah Nabil, the acting head of NDS.

The men were discovered by way of a project implemented to weed out drug users from the NDS ranks.  The program started in Kabul but will soon be expanding to NDS staff across all of the country’s 34 provinces, said Nabil.

Another method used in the fight against opium has been the success of saffron, a spice fetching thousands of dollars per kilogram.  It is one of the few crops that Afghanistan can use to compete with the profits of opium cultivation.  However, lack of accessible flights and border control of potential businessmen have hindered the saffron market

For more information, please see the following: 

Sydney Morning Herald-Junkie ghettos tell of country’s growing addiction-03 November 2013

New York Times-That Other Big Afghan Crisis, the Growing Army of Addicts-02 November 2013

Stars and Stripes-Options limited for broke, addled and hopeless on Afghanistan’s heroin highway-30 October 2013

Reuters-Afghan intelligence agency sacks 65 ‘heroin addicts’-22 October 2013

 

Niger Arrests 127 Migrants Crossing Sahara

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

NIAMEY, Niger – Officials in Niger have arrested 127 migrants as they attempted to cross the Sahara into Algeria.

The latest incident comes 92 days after migrants were found dead of thirst (photo courtesy of BBC)

Niger lies on a major migrant route between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe.

The migrants were reportedly caught as they were leaving the northern town of Arlit before dawn in five vehicles.

The migrants, mostly men, with some women and few children, are believed to be from Nigeria and Niger.

This arrest comes after 92 migrants were found to have died of thirst after two trucks broke down carrying them across the Sahara.

The government announced on Friday a plan to close illegal camps in Northern Niger, which are referred to as “ghettos,” and said those involved in trafficking migrants would be “severely punished.”

Niger has said that migrants found in illegal camps will be handed over to international aid agencies.

On Wednesday, bodies of 52 children, 33 women, and 7 men were found dead after an attempt to cross the Sahara. The country has been holding three days of mourning over the bodies. Another 5 from the same convoy had been found several days earlier by the army.

The government has said in its statement on Friday that the tragedy was the result of criminal activities led by all types of trafficking networks.

About 5,000 African migrants are said to be currently stranded in illegal camps in the northern town of Agadez, alone.

Most of the migrants have paid large sums of money to be moved. They are waiting to cross the hundreds of kilometers of desert into Libya or Algeria, from where they can take boats to Europe in hope of a better life.

Many people emigrate to flee poverty in Niger, ranked by the United Nations as the least developed country on earth. Some work in neighboring Libya and Algeria to save money before returning home.

More than 32,000 people have arrived in southern Europe from Africa so far last year.

More than 500 are believed to have died in two shipwrecks off southern Italy this month.

For more information, please visit:

BBC News – Sahara deaths: Niger ‘arrests’ 127 departing migrants – 2 November 2013
Librepensa – Sahara deaths: Niger ‘arrests’ 127 departing migrants – 2 November 2013
Wordpress – Sahara deaths: Niger ‘arrests’ 127 departing migrants – 2 November 2013
Bangalore Wishesh – Niger arrests 150 migrants in crackdown after Sahara deaths – Daily News & Analysis – 2 November 2013
The Herald Scotland – 127 migrants arrested as they tried to cross the deadly Sahara – 3 November 2013

Swedish Police Have Removed the Russian Arrest Warrant Against Mr Browder from their Databases

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Distribution

1 November 2013 – The Swedish police have informed William Browder, the leader of the global justice campaign for Sergei Magnitsky, that they have removed the Russian arrest warrant in relation to him from Swedish police databases.

Following Mr Browder’s successful campaign to impose financial and visa sanctions on the Russian officials who killed Sergei Magnitsky in the United States, the Russian government retaliated by launching politically motivated criminal proceedings against him in Russia, which ended in the conviction of Mr Browder in absentia for nine years along with Mr Browder’s murdered lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, posthumously in the first ever posthumous trial in Russian history.

Mr Browder was planning to travel to Sweden in September to make a presentation to the Swedish Parliament at the invitation of Mats Johansson MP on the progress of implementing Magnitsky sanctions in Europe. Prior to his visit, Mr Browder applied to the Swedish authorities for a letter of safe passage to gain assurances that he would not be arrested on a Russian arrest warrant when he arrived in Sweden. The Swedish government refused to provide him with that letter and his trip was cancelled.

Sweden’s decision was contrary to the decisions of Germany, France, the UK and Interpol not to act of Russian requests against Mr Browder.

Following a loud domestic and international uproar over the Swedish government’s reluctance to guarantee the freedom for Mr Browder to campaign on this case in Sweden, the Rikskriminalpolisen, the Swedish police authority, has written to Mr Browder’s lawyers providing him with assurances that he would indeed be safe to travel to Sweden.

“We can therefore assure you that your client would not have been detained on the grounds of the request for extradition from Russia based on the diffusions which Interpol considered contrary to Interpol’s Constitution,” said the Swedish police authority in their letter.

The letter went on further to say that it has deleted all data on Mr Browder from the Swedish police data systems.

“The information in relation to Mr Browder will be erased…This decision is due to a message from Interpol General Secretariat…where a diffusion from the Russian Federation received in Stockholm…this year, concerning the above mentioned person, is considered a notice of political character and thus not authorised according to the Interpol’s Constitution,” said Swedish police authority in their notification.

“I look forward to coming to Sweden to carry on my campaign to get the Swedish government to stop Sergei Magnitsky’s torturers and killers from coming to Stockholm and from keeping their blood money in Swedish banks. I’m pleased that the Swedish law enforcement agencies will allow me to travel safely to Sweden,” said William Browder.

For further information, please see:

Law and Order in Russia