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(20. April 1997)
Netanyahu told CNN’s Walter Rodgers he was „glad that the truth came out,“ and said the entire incident was „blown out of proportion and twisted out of shape.“
„It’s politics,“ he said in an interview shortly after the attorney general released his report. „Of course there were people out to get us. But this is going nowhere. It’s done. It’s finished.“
(05.03.2023)
The trial and the coup are now simultaneously underway, but while the first is lumbering along, the second is galloping forward. The hearings in the Jerusalem District Court will resume only after Passover. Until the judges return from their hiatus, the wings of the High Court of Justice might be clipped, the Judicial Appointments Committee might be under full control of the politicians, or Israel might be in the throes of a historic constitutional crisis.
(07.03.2023)
Larkin, now incensed that police were requesting footage from inside his home for an investigation that didn’t even involve him, wanted to fight the warrant. He estimated that a lawyer would have been too expensive, and he only had about seven days to challenge it before Ring would comply. He still doesn’t understand how a judge could have signed off on a warrant asking for footage from a camera inside his home, when the investigation was on his neighbor.
“That says to me that the cops can go in and subpoena anybody, no matter how weak their evidence is,” he said.
The judicial overhaul will destroy democracy, the Knesset isn’t authorized to enact such laws, and their important clauses will be struck down by the High Court: Retired justices, former attorneys general and law professors weigh
(February 20, 2023)
AS&E devised a product to complement the machines it made for airports and seaports. It placed a low-powered X-ray machine on the back of a Ford Motor Co. chassis. The U.S. military used the mobile scanner to detect improvised explosive devices during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the company said. Domestic law enforcement could disguise the vehicle as a delivery van and use it to scan cars in, say, a stadium parking lot.
The X-ray van, called the ZBV, made its debut in 2003. Michael Tropeano, general manager of AS&E’s cargo-scanning division, said he thought the product would be a winner from day one.
The trial and the coup are now simultaneously underway, but while the first is lumbering along, the second is galloping forward. The hearings in the Jerusalem District Court will resume only after Passover. Until the judges return from their hiatus, the wings of the High Court of Justice might be clipped, the Judicial Appointments Committee might be under full control of the politicians, or Israel might be in the throes of a historic constitutional crisis.
Although there is a certain logic in putting together all the corruption charges against Netanyahu, it is now clear that the decision of former Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit to do so has contributed to slowing down the process. Add to that the support by the High Court of Justice that no legal obstacle prevents Netanyahu from serving as prime minister despite his trial – the result is complete chaos.
Spanish National High Court Judge Santiago Pedraz summoned Pompeo and former US counterintelligence official William Evanina as witnesses to explain the alleged assassination plot and whether they received information through the security firm.
Evanina allegedly previously confessed to having access to security camera footage and audio recordings from inside the Ecuadorian Embassy, Assange’s lawyers claimed in letters seen by Spanish outlet The Objective.
(20. April 1997)
Netanyahu told CNN’s Walter Rodgers he was „glad that the truth came out,“ and said the entire incident was „blown out of proportion and twisted out of shape.“
„It’s politics,“ he said in an interview shortly after the attorney general released his report. „Of course there were people out to get us. But this is going nowhere. It’s done. It’s finished.“
Ivana Yelich said the order binding “any and all parties with possession or control over these donations” was issued Thursday afternoon. She cited a section of the Criminal Code that allows the attorney general to apply for a restraint order against any “offence-related property.”
(February 09, 2022)
A federal appeals court said Wednesday it would not reinstate President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate for federal employees while it reviews a lower court’s order putting the requirement on hold — potentially setting the stage for the case to go to the Supreme Court.
(Feb. 6, 2022)
Several lower courts considering challenges to the administration’s other Covid-19 vaccine requirements.
The prosecution’s proposed plea bargain with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contains an inherent contradiction: by insisting that the amended indictment still stresses the gravity of his misdeeds, it risks leading the court to reject the proposed sentence as too lenient.
A federal appeals court upheld Monday a district court order that blocked the White House’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers—which paused the order in only 10 states and not nationwide—the latest in a string of recent setbacks President Joe Biden’s vaccine orders have faced in court.
President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for businesses with 100 or more employees is in limbo since a federal appeals court halted it last month.
Patricia Finn, an attorney who describes herself on Twitter as „The Good Health Lawyer New Yotk (sic),“ launched the legal challenge against the mayor’s mandate. She regularly espouses anti-vaccination views on her social media accounts.
In one Facebook post, Finn wrote: „Please DO NOT support lockdowns for the unvaccinated. It garners support for lockdowns and punishment for whoever these bureaucrats deem ‚dangerous‘.“
Millions of health care workers across the U.S. were supposed to have their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by this coming Monday under a mandate issued by President Joe Biden’s administration. Thanks to legal challenges, they won’t have to worry about it, at least for now.
Same goes for a Jan. 4 deadline set by the administration for businesses with at least 100 employees to ensure their workers are vaccinated or tested weekly for the virus.
Yesterday and today, federal judges in Louisiana and Missouri entered injunctions against vaccine mandates for the staff of 21 types of Medicare and Medicaid health-care providers, enacted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and planned to go into effect next Monday. Monday’s ruling was by Judge Matthew Schlep of the Eastern District of Missouri (a Trump appointee), and applies to ten states (Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming), all of which were plaintiffs in the case.
The White House previously told businesses to proceed with the implementation of the requirements.
Every Republican senator is expected to challenge the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandate via the Congressional Review Act on Wednesday.
According to a report from Fox News, the Congressional Review Act is “ the official process for Congress to eliminate an executive branch rule.”
(20. April 1997)
Netanyahu told CNN’s Walter Rodgers he was „glad that the truth came out,“ and said the entire incident was „blown out of proportion and twisted out of shape.“
„It’s politics,“ he said in an interview shortly after the attorney general released his report. „Of course there were people out to get us. But this is going nowhere. It’s done. It’s finished.“
Netanyahu’s defense team requested that the hearing be postponed.
A group of 10 states has filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration and its requirement that health care workers in the U.S. to be vaccinated against COVID-19, saying the mandate is „unconstitutional and unlawful.“
The American Trucking Associations, National Association of Convenience Stores, National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors and National Federation of Independent Business also joined the lawsuit, among other groups.
Many of the high-profile lawsuits up until this point had come from GOP-led states and conservative groups.
(05.11.2021)
Twenty-six states cosigned four petitions, amounting to perhaps the most sweeping legal challenge to pandemic-era safety requirements since Biden took office. Three Democrat-led states are among the 26.
Former FDA commissioner and Pfizer board member Dr. Scott Gottlieb shared some thoughts via his Twitter account over the weekend about a federal court temporarily pausing the implementation of the Biden vaccine mandate.
The Fifth Circuit panel will now decide whether to lift its decision to block the mandate or make it permanent. But it is unlikely to have the final word.
Some other legal challengers to the mandate are in different appeals court circuits, and the many pending challenges are expected to be consolidated before a randomly assigned appeals court later this month. The issue is very likely to end up before the Supreme Court.
It took just a day-and-a-half for President Biden’s vaccine-or-test rule covering 84 million workers to be blocked by a federal appeals court.
Now, the Biden administration is gearing up for a fight
A federal court issued Texas a temporary victory in its lawsuit against the Biden administration’s coronavirus vaccine mandate issuing a stay on the controversial federal government regulation in Texas.
The current case is just one of three that Netanyahu is facing in Jerusalem District Court on a range of corruption charges stemming from his alleged conduct as prime minister. He denies any wrongdoing.
In the case currently being heard, dubbed Case 4000, the former prime minister is charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, arising from allegations that he traded favorable coverage from the Walla website for government regulatory concessions to Walla’s parent company, the Bezeq telecommunications firm.
(July 29, 2021)
In its ruling, the Karlsruhe-based court said that while Facebook had the right to decide what stays on or off the platform, it needs to be more forthcoming with users on how it does so. The court found that the social media company did not inform two users that it had removed their posts. It added that the company should have also informed and given users an opportunity to respond before suspending them from its platform.
The decision sets a major precedent for how social media companies police content on their platforms, likely giving a boost to EU lawmakers in Brussels, who are pushing to add further obligations on social media companies.
On Monday, the Oaxaca State’s Administrative Justice Tribunal (TJAO) Judge Enrique Pacheco was shot dead while leaving his house to the gym in La Reforma City.
At least 6000 Indigenous marched on Thursday in Brasilia to demand the annulment of the „Temporary Framework,“ a bill under debate in the Supreme Federal Court that seeks to end the demarcation of Indigenous lands.
„They were put there by the PRI and PAN and now both should come forward and explain how they appointed them with such a lack of integrity, of principles, that is happening at the moment. That is why I say again they should all resign, and the parties should stop doing this,“ AMLO reiterated.
On Tuesday, the family of Berta Caceres asked Honduras‘ Sentencing Court to send Roberto Castillo to 25 years in prison for the murder of the Indigenous environmentalist in March 2016.
It may not be surprising that corporate journalists, keen to hold on to their jobs, are consenting through their silence to this all-out assault on journalism and free speech, with Craig Murray its latest victim, writes Jonathan Cook.
The decision to remove glyphosate from Roundup is a response to years-long court battles Bayer inherited after acquiring Roundup manufacturer Monsanto in 2018. Over one hundred thousand plaintiffs allege that their non-Hodgkins lymphoma is linked to Roundup use. However, Bayer’s decision only applies to consumer markets – the company will continue selling glyphosate-based formulas for agricultural and professional use.
Drone strikes shield U.S. military members from harm in order to minimize Americans’ opposition to war. But drone operators who make or carry out remote targeting decisions nevertheless suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
At his sentencing hearing, Hale told U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady, “I believe that it is wrong to kill, but it is especially wrong to kill the defenseless.” Hale said he revealed what “was necessary to dispel the lie that drone warfare keeps us safe, that our lives are worth more than theirs.”
(05.07.2021)
The trial has been frozen since June 16 and will now reconvene on July 19 instead of the prior dates of July 5 or 12 for restarting witness testimony of July 5, reported The Jerusalem Post.
The court’s decision effectively means that the trial will not fully restart until October; the court’s summer recess runs from July 21 – September 1 and many of September’s hearings will be canceled due to the Jewish High Holy Days and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles).
While the indictment does not identify the hackers by name, five people familiar with the case say that Azari is being charged in relation to New Delhi-based BellTroX InfoTech Services, which Reuters last year reported was behind a hacking campaign that targeted lawyers, government officials, businessmen, investors and activists around the world.
Azari is charged with conspiracy to commit hacking, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft, court documents show.
(10.06.2021)
Citing an article in The Financial Times, which in turn cites the Citizen Lab report, Muddy Waters Research tweeted that a German payment processing company Wirecard was a client of BellTrox.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to grant police more authority to enter the home of a fleeing suspect following a minor offense.
The unanimous ruling adopts a legal test that involves weighing the circumstances of a warrantless search to determine its lawfulness under the Fourth Amendment.
The Justice Department, Energy Transfer LP—one of the owners of the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) – and Indigenous tribes are set to appear virtually at 2 pm EDT in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where federal government lawyers are expected to announce the fate of the fossil fuel project.
At the start of the session, the prosecution told Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman that Yeshua complained before them he received threatening messages after his testimony on Monday, and that Israel Police were informed.
Friedman-Feldman told prosecutor Liat Ben-Ari that the defense should have been notified as well as the police. „We don’t want to create drama or an impression that we’re contacting the witness,“ Ben-Ari said, to which Friedman-Feldman replied that it could influence his testimony.
Lead prosecutor Liat Ben-Ari told judges that Netanyahu was involved in „a serious case of government corruption.“
Judge Kevin Castel sentenced to life imprisonment Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez, brother of the president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH), on charges of drug trafficking.
he former leader of the Los Cachiros cartel, Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, said that the money was delivered to the president’s sister Hilda Hernández in return for „protection so that the military police and preventive police didn’t capture us in Honduras.“
A Bolivian court has issued arrest warrants for Jeanine Añez, the former interim president who seized power in a coup d’etat in late 2019, alongside several of her senior ministers, claiming that they are a „flight risk.“
Brazil’s Supreme Court Judge Edson Fachin on Monday overturned all convictions related to the Car Wash operation that the Federal Justice in the state of Parana held against Workers‘ Party leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
In the past weeks, Muscat has been cooperating with authorities to reach a plea deal with prosecutors that will see him serve a reduced sentence in exchange for a confession and testimony about fellow co-conspirators.
(04.12.2019)
Several prominent U.S. billionaires are on the list of over 300 people who could potentially be called as witnesses at Prime Minister Benjamin’s Netanyahu’s upcoming corruption trial.
The opening of the premier’s trial last May followed years of investigations, deliberations and legal proceedings that eventually took place during the course of three election campaigns, capped by a last-minute delay due to the coronavirus.
The court rejected a demand from the prime minister’s lawyers to dismiss the indictment by reason of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit’s failure to formally file a written request for the probe of Netanyahu.
However, the court did condemn Mandelblit for the oversight, saying it was a „defect“ in the legal procedures.
„This is a matter of procedural defect which doesn’t concern the root of the matter,“ the court stated, as cited by Hamodia.
The government wrongly used emergency powers to bring in the first curfew since the Nazi occupation in World War II, a judge at The Hague district court ruled.
As Netanyahu arrived at court, some 150 protesters carrying signs that read „the State of Israel vs. Benjamin Netanyahu“ and „May The Defendant Rise“ demonstrated across the street.
By decision of the judges, Netanyahu had to attend the hearing.
On this basis, the majority, composed of Judge Reine Adélaïde Sophie Alapini-Gansou and Judge Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, found that the Court’s territorial jurisdiction in the Situation in Palestine extends to the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
(…)
Judge Péter Kovács, Presiding Judge, appended a partly dissenting opinion, in which he disagrees on the fact that Palestine qualifies as ‚[t]he State on the territory of which the conduct in question occurred‘ for the purposes of article 12(2)(a) of the Statute, and that the Court’s territorial jurisdiction in the Situation in Palestine extends – in a quasi-automatic manner and without any restrictions – to the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
The judges – Presiding Judge Peter Kovacs of Hungary, Judge Marc Perrin de Brichambaut of France and Judge Reine Alapini-Gansou of Benin – accepted the findings of Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s preliminary investigation from December of 2019 that there is a basis for investigating the matter further, and ruled that the court does have jurisdiction in the Palestinian territories, rejecting Israel’s argument that it lacks such authority.
(09.01.2021)
The order could potentially postpone the calling of witnesses to right before Election Day, or right after.
The order came less than 48 hours after the same court rejected Netanyahu’s request for postponing his January 13 hearing next week.
In one of the most brazenly political sections in her December 4 legal judgment, Westminster district judge Vanessa Baraitser cited a suspect report by CNN that accused Assange of conspiring with Russians to turn Ecuador’s embassy in London, where he was trapped in refuge for roughly seven years, “into a command post for election meddling.”
Baraitser twice pointed to this dubious CNN article in order to justify a 24/7 CIA spying operation that targeted not only Assange, but Ecuador’s embassy and its sovereign operations and internal affairs as well.
What the British judge failed to mention is that the CNN story she relied on was itself based entirely on untrustworthy intelligence reports drafted by a Spanish security firm called UC Global, which secretly worked with the CIA to spy on the WikiLeaks publisher and Ecuadorian embassy staff.
(04.01.2021)
1. This is a request made by the Government of the United States of America (“the US”) for the extradition of Julian Paul Assange. The US is represented by James Lewis QC, Claire Dobbin and Joel Smith. Mr. Assange is represented by Edward Fitzgerald QC, Mark Summers QC, Ben Cooper QC and Florence Iveson.
The U.S. government will appeal to the High Court to reverse the judge’s ruling, a process that could take several months — perhaps even longer because of Assange’s poor health and the soaring outbreak of coronavirus in Britain, which has the capital city on near-lockdown.
The three-judge panel headed by Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman is expected to focus in Sunday’s hearing on Netanyahu’s claim that he was protected by parliamentary immunity at the time of the filing of the indictments against him. The panel is expected to rule on the issue in the next few weeks because there is no dispute over the facts on this issue.
Catholic organisations have challenged the limit, arguing that churches and cathedrals are much more spacious than retail outlets, where the limit is one person per eight square metres.
The prime minister’s lawyers had also previously argued that the trial should be delayed due to coronavirus health restrictions, saying that it would be difficult to see whether a masked witness was „telling the truth.“
Poland won’t allow women-led street protests to trigger a “revolution,” a senior government official said, after police cracked down on a demonstration for abortion rights.
Police pepper sprayed demonstrators and cudgeled them with batons late on Wednesday, drawing condemnation from opposition parties. It was an unprecedented show of force after a month of protests against a court ruling that effectively bans abortion.
„The rule of law, as established by the United States Constitution and the Minnesota Legislature, dictates these rules must be followed notwithstanding the Secretary’s instructions to the contrary,“ the assenting judges wrote in explaining their decision.
„There is no pandemic exception to the Constitution.“
The judicial authorities declared valid a request for freedom filed by Morales’ defense, considering that the ex-president’s fundamental rights were violated.
The Saudi court ruled that the killing was not premeditated — though the CIA has previously concluded that the prince personally ordered Khashoggi’s murder.
Berlin Senate is appealing #covid19 #berlin
Brooklyn U.S. District Judge Brian M. Cogan said safety restrictions and guidelines may even “turn New York City into a very different, even desolate, place compared to how it was before the pandemic,” but he declined to grant a preliminary injunction against rules that prohibit restaurants from serving food after midnight. Indoor dining is also restricted to 25% capacity as of Sept. 30.
Ruling in a lawsuit brought by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis said in an order Friday that even though the rules harm religious groups, it is not in the public interest to block them if they are helping prevent a wave of new infections.
Yackel ordered the state to appear in court Monday to defend the order.
The report „Coal Mining and De-mining: Ethnocide and Ecocide in La Guajira“ was presented this week, examining the impacts on the Wayúu communities, small farmers and Afrodescendants who live in the vicinity of the Cerrejón coal mine.
There was confusion on Thursday as to the immediate effects of the ruling, although it was confirmed that fines cannot now be levied on citizens who flout the perimetral confinement of 10 cities in the region, including the Spanish capital. The court ruling does not, however, have an effect on the other restrictions imposed, such as capacity limits for bars and restaurants, and early closing times for all establishments, as well as a limit of six people for meetings both in public and private.
Cops in Vallejo have put their controversial cell-phone surveillance tool back in the box, after a judge released a tentative ruling (which the judge might or might not later finalize or amend) that they’d acquired it in violation of state law. The case was brought by Oakland Privacy, the EFF Pioneer Award Winning organization and Electronic Frontiers Alliance member.
After receiving a citizen lawsuit against the State, the Rio de Janeiro’s Federal Criminal Judge Maria Almeida Senos de Carvalho temporarily suspended the decision taken by the National Environment Council (CONAMA) because its implementation may generate „irrevocable damage to the environment.“
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal leader of the Supreme Court and a trailblazing champion of women’s rights, died Friday. She was 87 years old.
The Supreme Court said in a statement that Ginsburg died „surrounded by her family at her home in Washington, D.C., due to complications of metastatic pancreas cancer.“
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. said of Justice Ginsburg: “Our Nation has lost a jurist of historic stature. We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her — a tireless and resolute champion of justice.”
According to Tobar, the lawyers have warned that this case cannot be processed in the military criminal justice. Instead, the case has to be judged by the ordinary court since there is a risk that if judged by a military justice system, the police members who killed the lawyer Javier Ordóñez may be unpunished, as it has happened before.
According to a complaint filed by the Prosecutor’s Office in the Curitiba federal court, Cunha demanded bribes for USD5 million in contracts for the construction of drillships by Petrobras, which implied diverting some US$10 million from public coffers.
Today, President Donald J. Trump announced the following additions to his Supreme Court List:
Having reported the long, epic ordeal of Julian Assange, John Pilger gave this address outside the Central Criminal Court in London on September 7 as the WikiLeaks Editor’s extradition hearing entered its final stage.
Court hearings in Britain over the US administration’s extradition case against Julian Assange begin in earnest next week. The decade-long saga that brought us to this point should appall anyone who cares about our increasingly fragile freedoms.
Starting midnight Tuesday, the Pohang branch of the Daegu District Court will be able to start the procedure to auction off some of Nippon Steel Corp.’s stake in a joint venture company established with POSCO so as to cash them out for compensating forced labor victims.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation of Oregon called on a federal court on Tuesday to hold federal agents in contempt for alleged attacks on journalists and legal observers at protests in Portland, Ore.
24.7.2020 The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today joined a group of 17 leading U.S.-based Internet freedom organizations in telling a federal appeals court that Trump administration appointee Michael Pack has no legal authority to purge leadership at the Open Technology Fund (OTF), a private, independent nonprofit that helps hundreds of millions of people across the globe speak out online and avoid censorship and surveillance by repressive regimes.
The judges – panel head Rivka Friedman-Feldman, Moshe Bar-Am and Oded Shaham – ruled that in this second hearing only the defense attorneys would be present, not the accused.
The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and a close associate of imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange says he was the “top target” of the 24/7 surveillance of Assange at Ecuador’s embassy in London by the Spanish security company UC Global, which, according to press reports and court documents, shared the surveillance with the CIA.
Craig Murray said he has been contacted by an attorney in the spying case on Assange and that he will be going to Madrid to testify. The founder of UC Global, David Morales, was arrested over the surveillance (including privileged Assange-lawyer conversations) and is on trial.
Murray told former CIA analyst Ray McGovern in an email, shared with Consortium News with Murray’s permission, that the CIA was “obsessed” with him.
Conservative lawmakers blasted Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts after he sided with the court’s liberal justices in a 5-4 decision Friday that rejected a Nevada church’s request to block the state government from enforcing a cap on attendance at religious services.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tweeted early Saturday morning that Roberts had „abandoned his oath.“
The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU, and the restraining order acts against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Marshals Service. Portland police were already banned from arresting or attacking journalists and legal observers at the protests.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is set to testify in the public inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia as self-confessed middleman and key witness Melvin Theuma was found at his home with a slit throat. RSF is in the country and monitoring developments closely.
The panel of judges, headed by Rivka Friedman-Feldman, Moshe Bar-Am and Oded Shaham, ruled that in this second hearing only the defense attorneys would be present, not the accused.
Friedman-Feldman determined that the evidentiary phase will begin in January 2021, with three sessions a week.
The person who will determine whether the trial which has riven society in two will be fast-tracked or drag its feet is the head of the panel of judges, Rivka Friedman-Feldman. If she decides to speed things up, there is no reason the trial should drag on for years.
In his ruling released Thursday, Federal Court Justice Patrick Gleeson found the Canadian Security Intelligence Service breached its duty of candour to the court, part of a troubling pattern dating back years.
A Tel Aviv court has rejected a legal case filed by Amnesty International that attempted to block the Israeli spyware firm NSO Group from selling its cyberweapons internationally.
The rights groups sought to force the Israeli defence ministry to revoke NSO Group’s export licence for its leading phone-hacking software, Pegasus. Amnesty’s lawyers alleged the product had been used by repressive governments to target activists, including one the rights group’s own researchers, as well as journalists.
“Today’s disgraceful ruling is a cruel blow to people put at risk around the world by NSO Group selling its products to notorious human rights abusers. At a moment when NSO and the Israeli MOD should be held accountable for their practices, it is appalling that the court has failed to do so.
“NSO Group continues to profit from human rights abuses with impunity. The ruling of the court flies in the face of the mountains of evidence of NSO Group’s spyware being used to target human rights defenders from Saudi Arabia to Mexico, including the basis of this case – the targeting of one of our own Amnesty employees. We will continue to do all we can to stop NSO Group’s spyware being used to commit human rights abuses.
The Knesset on Wednesday voted against forming a commission of inquiry that will probe conflicts of interest of Supreme Court justices.
Earlier on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party said it would back the initiative by far-right lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich of the Yamina faction to establish such a commission.
Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz’s Kahol Lavan party called the move „a declaration of war on democracy.
Two Oklahoma police officers have been charged with second-degree murder almost exactly one year after a July 4 incident in which they allegedly used Tasers on a man more than 50 times before he died.
The conservative politician was found guilty of paying Penelope Fillon €1.156m (£1.06m, $1.3m) for work she never did as a parliamentary aide.
The organizers said that over the course of the week, they will establish a protest tent on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard – recalling the tent city that had been erected there during the social protests of 2012.
Additional protests are taking place at some 70 intersections throughout the country. Dozens of protesters are present at each junction, holding signs reading „Netanyahu is corrupt and corrupts,“ „Investigation now“ (referring to the so-called submarine affair), „The defendent needs to go home,“ and other slogans.
(24.05.2020)
The Trump administration won a court ruling Tuesday upholding its plan to require insurers and hospitals to disclose the actual prices for common tests and procedures in a bid to promote competition and push down costs.
A petition was filed by the family requesting that footage of Iyad’s death be released, but an Israeli court struck it down last week following a police request.
At a funeral held for al-Hallak, his relatives alleged that his death would have been treated differently if he had not been a Palestinian and accused the Israel Police of using lethal violence over nothing but a mere suspicion.
(04.06.2020)
Judge Burke ruled in favor of the NYPD because of the coronavirus pandemic. „Therefore, I find it is necessary because we are in a crisis caused by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic which prevents live arraignments, which in turn requires virtual arraignment which causes delay.“
German agrochemicals group Bayer AG has been blocked from selling its dicamba herbicide in the United States after an appeals court rejected a federal regulator’s permit for the product.
If evidence is found, the Supreme Court can launch a criminal trial against the former head of state, who is now a senator.
“This ruling means hundreds of thousands of Floridians will be able to rejoin the electorate and participate in upcoming elections,” said Julie Ebenstein, senior staff attorney with ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. “This is a tremendous victory for voting rights.”
“If the shops are shut down, shopkeepers will die of hunger rather than the coronavirus,” the broadcaster quoted the chief justice as saying.
Human rights groups and experts have welcomed a series of orders issued by a South African court that compel authorities to prevent police and army brutality during the enforcement of a lockdown meant to curb the spread of coronavirus.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has overturned the state’s stay-at-home order, ruling it „unlawful“ and „unenforceable“ in a high-profile win for the state’s Republican-led Legislature.
In a 4-3 decision Wednesday, the court ruled that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers‘ administration overstepped its authority when the state Department of Health Services extended the order to May 26.
The swearing-in will take longer than usual, both due to the emergency regulations and the surfeit of ministers, some of whom won’t have any idea what they’ll be doing in the cabinet. If the event could have a soundtrack it would probably be a requiem – a mass for the democratic rules of the game that somehow survived here for 72 years.
Eleven High Court justices unanimously legitimized the strangest, most warped governing coalition ever engineered in a political laboratory. We’ll never know if the gun pointed at their heads – the threat of a fourth election – affected their judgment.
For decades, civil rights lawyers have tried to help students and families in underfunded schools by arguing that the U.S. Constitution guarantees children at least a basic education. Federal courts have consistently disagreed. Until now.
The ability to read and write is „essential“ for a citizen to participate in American democracy, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday.
WikiLeaks said Friday that Assange’s attorneys will ask a London court to delay his extradition proceedings due to restrictions imposed as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.
In its decision, Ontario’s top court ruled police had no right to search Luke Stewart when he entered a public park. Requiring the search infringed his rights to free expression and to be free from arbitrary detention, the court found.
When the pandemic erupted and a state of emergency was declared, Justice Minister Amir Ohana was the first of the ministers to act, and in a rather suspicious manner ordered the work of the courts frozen only a few days before the prime minister’s trial was meant to begin. It later emerged that the move was coordinated with Supreme Court President Esther Hayut and the courts administrator, Yigal Marzel. The state of emergency declared for the courts was then extended to May 10.
A federal judge has blocked an order by Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) restricting in-person religious assemblies to no more than 10 people in an effort to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
Federal Judge Brian Morris determined that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wrongly issued the permit, saying the Corps did not comply with environmental requirements.
Yesterday Mark Sommers QC, the extremely erudite and bookish second counsel for Julian Assange in his extradition hearing, trembled with anger in court. Magistrate Vanessa Baraitser had just made a ruling that the names of Julian Assange’s partner and young children could be published, which she stated was in the interests of “open justice”.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday overturned Gov. Tony Evers’s (D) executive order to postpone Tuesday’s elections, sowing confusion and chaos around a critical election featuring a Democratic presidential primary and a pivotal state Supreme Court seat.
One of first jobs facing a Netanyahu-Gantz government will be to appoint a permanent state prosecutor. Netanyahu must not be allowed to control or have even the slightest influence over who gets this post, given the important role the state prosecutor will play both in managing Netanyahu’s trial and in potential future investigations.
The controversial Dakota Access Pipeline hit another roadblock Wednesday when a federal judge struck down permits for the pipeline and ordered a full workup of the environmental impacts of the project.
North Dakota’s Standing Rock Sioux Tribe had sued over the pipeline as protesters from around the country came to rally against pipeline construction that would travel across native lands and cross the Missouri River.
Spain, the US and Iran have already released thousands of low-risk prisoners to stop COVID-19 from spreading further and WikiLeaks said Assange’s bail bid comes after the UK has failed to follow suit.
I have previously objected to how the Justice Department uses grand juries to punish certain individuals who refuse to cooperate with federal investigations.
Ordering Manning’s release, Judge Anthony J Trenga wrote: “The court finds Ms Manning’s appearance before the grand jury is no longer needed, in light of which her detention no longer serves any coercive purpose.”
Eight conservation organizations, represented by the nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice, challenged the logging plan on the grounds that, among other claims, it had violated the National Environmental Policy Act, which gives people a say in government actions that will affect their communities.
Dallas County Elections Administrator Toni Pippins-Poole will be in district court today asking a state judge to allow a partial recount of the March 3 primary, due to “counting errors” found days after the ballot count was complete.
In a petition filed Friday night, the Democrat official said she discovered “discrepancies” between the number of voters who checked in at the polls and the number of electronic ballots counted:
LeBlanc’s district spans Ascension, Assumption and St. James parishes, which lie along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and includes portions of both cities’ metropolitan areas. The area, still rich in architecturally significant plantation homes, was once abundant in crops tended by black slaves. Today, factories and refineries replace the crops in portions of the district that lie inside what has become known as Cancer Alley.
Referring to witness two’s evidence, Mr Fitzgerald said: ‚There were conversations about whether there should be more extreme measures contemplated, such as kidnapping or poisoning Julian Assange in the embassy.‘
Reading from a witness statement, Mr Fitzgerald continued: ‚David (Morales) said the Americans were desperate and had even suggested more extreme measures could be applied against the guest to put an end to the situation.‘
Julian Assange was handcuffed 11 times, stripped naked twice and had his case files confiscated after the first day of his extradition hearing, according to his lawyers, who complained of interference in his ability to take part.
Their appeal to the judge overseeing the trial at Woolwich crown court in south-east London was also supported by legal counsel for the US government, who said it was essential the WikiLeaks founder be given a fair trial.
We speak to the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer about the persecution of Julian Assange. He discusses the threat Assange’s persecution poses to press freedom, why mainstream media are starting to slowly support the Wikileaks founder, the allegations Julian Assange faced in Sweden, governments not cooperating with him despite his UN mandate and more!
Israeli court says Prime Minister Netanyahu corruption trial to begin March 17, two weeks after national elections.
Last week there was a hearing at a Guantanamo Bay courtroom in which one of the psychologists who devised the Central Intelligence Agency torture regime testified under oath.
A Peruvian judge ordered opposition leader Keiko Fujimori to return to prison for a further 15 months‘ pre-trial detention Tuesday as part of an investigation into Latin America’s sprawling Odebrecht corruption scandal.
One of Juan Guaido’s financiers is involved in the embezzlement of US$1.2 billion, an amount which was laundered through false real estate and security deals.
The extradition hearings for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been split in two, with the second taking place in May, according to a ruling made by a judge on Thursday, January 23rd.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been denied access to evidence and even basic items like paper and pens by British prison officials, putting his US extradition case on the brink of judicial review, his lawyer has warned.
Solicitor Gareth Pierce was shocked to learn that District Judge Vanessa Baraitser only intended to allow the defence team one hour to review evidence with the Australian in the holding cells at the Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday.
A court in Turkey’s capital Ankara ruled on Wednesday to lift a ban on Wikipedia, after a decision by the country’s top court that the block breached freedom of expression.
Turkish authorities had blocked the online encyclopedia on April 29, 2017, after which its parent organization, the Wikimedia Foundation, filed a case against the ban with the country’s Constitutional Court.
The Israeli opposition pushed Sunday for parliament to swiftly address Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s immunity request, potentially speeding up the embattled leader’s appearance in court.
The New Orleans-based court ruled unconstitutional the individual insurance mandate — which the federal government was no longer enforcing — yet refused to resolve the most pressing issue: does that mean the rest of the law is also unconstitutional?
By a 2-1 vote, the appeals panel returned the case to a US district court judge for the start of another round of rulings.
It will now likely be months, perhaps even years, …
Assange, who is currently serving time at a high-security prison in Britain, was to answer questions from a judge at Spain’s National Court in Madrid, testifying by videoconference from Westminster Magistrates Court in London, his legal team said.
Owner and director of UC Global S.L. David Morales declined to say whether his company spied on Assange. “All the information is confidential and it belongs to the government of Ecuador,” Morales told El Pais in July. “We simply did a job.” …
Speaking outside the court in Westminster, former Ecuadorean consul in London Fidel Navraez accused Undercover Global of betraying Ecuador and Assange.
“That company was contracted by Ecuador in order to protect the embassy, protect Julian Assange, protect the embassy staff … but it is a corrupt company – we know that now,” he said.
(15.12.2019)
California Congressman Devin Nunes, Republican ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee demands Schiff to call on IG Horowitz to testify before House Intelligence Committee.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has dealt with some of the most sensitive matters of national security: terror threats and espionage. Its work, for the most part, cannot be examined by the American public, by order of Congress and the president. Its work has been mostly secret, its structure largely one-sided.
„The most unusual thing is that there is a body of law that the court has created, but as a practitioner that is part of that law, we have between zero and some very limited knowledge of what that law is,“ Michael Sussmann, a former Justice Department prosecutor and current private attorney in the consumer and computer-privacy field, told Fox News. „But, it’s the fact that there is a secret law and a secret body of law that makes it the most vexing.“
(today)
….They want to Impeach me (I’m not worried!), and yet they were all breaking the law in so many ways. How can they do that and yet impeach a very successful (Economy Plus) President of the United States, who has done nothing wrong? These people are Crazy!
10,120 replies 12,033 retweets 44,359 likes
(today)
The inspector general concluded that central to the FBI’s court applications for surveillance of Page were a set of allegations provided by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. The Steele dossier, as it came to be known, contained allegations against Trump, Page and other Trump associates, and those allegations have been the subject of intense political fighting since they became public in early 2017.
(20.11.2019)
The FBI is seeking an interview with a CIA whistleblower whose complaint led to an impeachment inquiry into whether President Trump abused his office in his dealings with the Ukrainian president, according to three people familiar with the matter.
„The FBI’s handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the OIG report, was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above,“ Rosemary Collyer, presiding judge with the FISC, wrote in the order released by the court.
The judge gave the FBI until Jan. 10 to provide the court a sworn statement detailing how it plans to overhaul its approach to future surveillance applications.
The end of San Diego’s program marks a major victory in the nationwide battle against face surveillance. But it doesn’t stop here. Join our campaign to end face surveillance on the local level across the country.
But the court ruled that authorities had failed to follow proper procedures in revoking a previously issued license allowing the sale of 110 vehicles to Saudi Arabia, 10 of which had already been sent by the end of last October.
A court in Suriname on Friday convicted President Desi Bouterse of murder for the execution of 15 opponents in 1982 following a coup to seize power, sentencing the man who has dominated the former Dutch colony’s recent history to 20 years in prison.
Israel’s top court on Sunday dismissed a petition to order Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step aside after his indictment on corruption charges.
EFF filed an amicus brief in Davis, and we were gratified that the court’s opinion closely parallels our arguments. The Fifth Amendment privilege prohibits the government from coercing a confession or forcing a suspect to lead police to incriminating evidence. We argue that unlocking and decrypting a smartphone or computer is the modern equivalent of these forms of self-incrimination.
Maurizi reported yesterday, “Even the most inviolable meetings were violated: video and audio footage seen by Repubblica show a half-naked Julian Assange during a medical check up, the Ecuadorian ambassador Carlos Abad Ortiz and his staff during one of their diplomatic meetings, two of Assange’s lawyers, Gareth Peirce and Aitor Martinez, entering the women’s bathroom for a private conversation with their client.”
Lady Emma Arbuthnot, the Westminster chief magistrate enmeshed in a conflict of interest, will no longer be presiding over the extradition proceedings of imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, said WikiLeaks lawyer Jen Robinson, at an event in Sydney on Friday night .
(14.11.2019)
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, a former defence minister, is a paid chair of the advisory board of military corporation Thales Group, and was until earlier this year an adviser to arms company Babcock International. Both companies have major contracts with the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD).
The revelations highlight concerns about conflicts of interest. Lady Arbuthnot began presiding over Assange’s legal case in 2017 and ruled this June that a full hearing would begin next February to consider the request for extradition from the UK made by the Trump administration.
A federal court in Boston has ruled that warrantless U.S. government searches of the phones and laptops of international travelers at airports and other U.S. ports of entry violate the Fourth Amendment.
Tuesday’s ruling in U.S. District Court came in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and laptops were searched without individualized suspicion at U.S. ports of entry.
Ms Fujimori, the daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, is in jail awaiting trial for allegedly accepting illegal funds from Odebrecht.
The president also argued that Congress’s appointment of a new judge to the constitutional court would interfere with his efforts to stamp out corruption. Among other things, the court is soon due to decide whether to free Keiko Fujimori from pre-trial detention.
Another administrative hearing will take place on 11 October and a case management hearing on 21 October, the court heard. The final extradition hearing is expected in February.
In supporting the European banking union, Germany’s highest court reveals its anti-democratic heart.
Five of the 24 men sentenced last week by an Italian court to life in prison for their roles in a brutal and bloody US-backed Cold War campaign against South American dissidents graduated from a notorious US Army school once known for teaching torture, assassination and democracy suppression.
Afula imposed the prohibition a month ago, effectively cutting off access to the 10-hectare (25-acre) park by residents of nearby Arab villages who frequented the popular site.
Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Luis Roberto Barroso on Monday issued an injunction suspending President Jair Bolsonaro’s move to transfer powers over indigenous land claims to the Agriculture Ministry.
The decision by the court to accept the habeas corpus was celebrated by activists in Ecuador and across the world who have rallied around Ola and his fight for freedom. Since his arrest on April 11, Bini’s case has been marred by violations and irregularities. Human rights defenders and privacy activists have also denounced the political nature of Bini’s detention.
The archive we received from our source is vast, and contains many more explosive stories yet to be reported. Just last night, we published another story exposing even more serious improprieties by Judge Moro, widely regarded as the anchor of legitimacy for the Bolsonaro government, that has led for more calls for him to resign. Because of the importance but also complexity of these issues for those outside of Brazil, we created a video explaining what this archive is about, what these revelations mean, and why the consequences of our reporting are so significant not only for Brazil but for the entire democratic world.
(09.06.2019)
In the files, conversations between lead prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol and then-presiding Judge Sergio Moro reveal that Moro offered strategic advice to prosecutors and passed on tips for new avenues of investigation. With these actions, Moro grossly overstepped the ethical lines that define the role of a judge. In Brazil, as in the United States, judges are required to be impartial and neutral, and are barred from secretly collaborating with one side in a case.
Other chats in the archive raise fundamental questions about the quality of the charges that ultimately sent Lula to prison.
(09.06.2019)
The Intercept’s only role in obtaining these materials was to receive them from our source, who contacted us many weeks ago (long before the recently alleged hacking of Moro’s telephone) and informed us that they had already obtained the full set of materials and was eager to provide them to journalists.
Informing the public of matters in the public interest and exposing wrongdoing was our guiding principle in doing this initial reporting on the archive, and it will continue to be our guiding principle as we report further on the large number of materials we have been provided.
(09.06.2019)
An enormous trove of secret documents reveals that Brazil’s most powerful prosecutors, who have spent years insisting they are apolitical, instead plotted to prevent the Workers’ Party, or PT, from winning the 2018 presidential election by blocking or weakening a pre-election interview with former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with the explicit purpose of affecting the outcome of the election.
Current Prime Minister Imran Khan accuses both Zardari and Sharif of massive corruption and illegally taking billions of dollars to build assets in other countries. He blames the two opposition parties for plunging the national economy into crisis through widespread corruption, which added tens of billions of dollars to the country’s foreign debt.
The document, filed Tuesday, sought a court order to force tech companies including Apple, Google and Microsoft, to turn over email information from eight targets of the investigation, including President Juan Orlando Hernandez and Security Minister Julian Pacheco.
This time next year, will Boris Johnson be installed in No 10 as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and First Lord of the Treasury?
Or will he be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure, dispensing coffee in the prison canteen and running journalism lessons for fellow jailbirds while waiting for his next visit from the ever-loyal Jacob Rees-Mogg?
I suppose the first outcome is rather more likely.
Marcus Ball, a Remain-backing campaigner, took out a private prosecution against Mr Johnson, claiming he was wrong to say during the EU referendum campaign that Britain gives £350 million a week to Brussels.
The Foreign Secretary, a Tory leadership candidate, refused to commit to taking the UK out of the EU before the October 31 deadline but said the bloc would back down because they do not want the “shadow of Brexit hanging over them”.
– Tory leadership hopeful made comments in 2016 ahead of the referendum
– Entrepreneur Marcus Ball, 29, raised £370,000 to bring private prosecution
– Mr Johnson faces 3 charges over comments – 2 as an MP and 1 as London Mayor
– The case will next be heard at Westminster Magistrates Court – though a date is yet to be set – and will then be sent on to crown court
A Brazilian court will allow investigators to examine the banking records of President Jair Bolsonaro’s senator son and his former driver in a money-laundering investigation, two sources with knowledge of the situation told Reuters on Monday.
Fourth, despite widespread false reporting, Assange was never charged with anything related to the Swedish allegations. These only reached the level of a “preliminary investigation”. The Swedish prosecution questioned Assange on two separate occasions, in 2010 and 2016. He has consistently professed his innocence.
Fifth, almost entirely omitted from current media reporting is that the initial Swedish preliminary investigation in 2010 was dropped after the chief prosecutor of Stockholm concluded that “the evidence did not disclose any evidence of rape” and that “no crime at all” had been committed. Text messages between the two women, which were later revealed, do not complain of rape. Rather, they show that the women “did not want to put any charges on JA but that the police were keen on getting a grip on him” and that they “only wanted him to take a test”. One wrote that “it was the police who made up the charges” and told a friend that she felt that she had been “railroaded by police and others around her”.
Sixth, Assange left Sweden after the prosecutor told him that he was free to leave as he was not wanted for questioning. Assange had stayed in Sweden for five weeks. After he left, Interpol bizarrely issued a Red Notice for Assange, usually reserved for terrorists and dangerous criminals – raising concerns that this was not just about sexual accusations.
Seventh, Sweden’s investigation is now entirely closed. It was shelved for six years during the period 2010-2016 while the Swedish prosecutor refused to question Assange in London.
Swedish prosecutors are set to announce whether they are reopening an inquiry into a rape allegation against Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange.
The investigation may be revived at the request of the alleged victim’s lawyer.
The U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned a former soldier convicted by a military court for murdering an unarmed Iraqi man.
GENEVA (3 May 2019) – The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention takes note of Mr. Julian Assange’s conviction by a UK court on 1 May 2019, and his sentencing to 50 weeks imprisonment. On 4 December 2015, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted Opinion No. 54/2015*, in which it considered that Mr. Assange was arbitrarily detained by the Governments of Sweden and the UK.
The Working Group issues the following statement:
The 47-year-old appeared by video link at Westminster Magistrates‘ Court.
The court heard that the „extradition process will take many months“. The case was adjourned until 30 May.
As he was taken down to the cells, Assange defiantly raised his fist to the supporters in the public gallery behind him.
They raised their fists back at him in solidarity and shouted: “Shame on you” towards the court.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is in court for a sentencing hearing that could see him receive a year in jail for breaching his bail and hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy.
The 47-year-old, wearing a black jacket over a grey sweatshirt and sporting a clipped beard, raised his fist in a gesture of defiance as he arrived in a van at Southwark Crown Court in London.
„Julian Assange will be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court at 1030 tomorrow for ‘violating his bail conditions’ whilst seeking & obtaining political asylum,“ WikiLeaks said.
Stabbing a teenage prisoner to death, picking off a young girl and an old man with a sniper rifle and firing a heavy machinegun into a residential area: these are some of the charges facing an elite US Navy SEAL on trial for war crimes while deployed in Iraq.
A Brazil special court of supreme judges ruled Tuesday to reduce the sentence of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, from 12 years and 10 months to eight years and 10 months, which would potentially allow his defense to file for moving him to house arrest.
Former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning will remain in jail after a federal appeals court on Monday denied her request to be released on bail, and upheld a lower court’s decision to hold Manning in civil contempt for refusing to testify before a grand jury.