[1/2]Actor Kevin Spacey walks outside the Southwark Crown Court on the day of his trial over charges related to allegations of sex offences, in London, Britain, June 30, 2023. REUTERS/Toby Melville
Actor Kevin Spacey charged with 12 sex offences
Oscar-winner denies all accusations
Alleged victim says he felt ashamed
LONDON, July 3 (Reuters) – An alleged sex assault victim of Kevin Spacey said the “slippery” Hollywood actor had tried to “groom” him, and the repeated groping assaults had left him feeling physically sick, a London court heard on Monday.
Spacey, 63, is on trial at Southwark Crown Court accused of a dozen allegations of historic sex offences committed against four men, then aged in their 20s and 30s, which are said to have taken place between 2001 and 2013.
He has denied all the charges and his lawyer Patrick Gibbs said last week at the start of the trial the jury were going to hear some “damned lies”.
On Monday, the court was shown a recorded police interview with the first of the alleged victims. The man said the actor had assaulted him on up to 12 occasions over a period of about four years in the early 2000s, grabbing his “private areas” when they were alone, such as in a car or an elevator.
After two to three weeks of being with Spacey, the actor made him feel uncomfortable, rubbing the man’s legs and neck while he was driving, before later starting to grope him or force the man’s hand onto his genitalia, he said.
“He was almost, from the get go, grooming me,” the man said in the interview.
The alleged victim, who cannot be identified, said the “touchy feely” actor had on one occasion aggressively grabbed his crotch so hard when he was driving him to a party hosted by singer Elton John in about 2004 that he almost crashed the car.
Describing himself a “man’s man”, the accuser recounted that he had threatened to knock the actor out if he did it again, to which Spacey had replied “that’s such a turn on to me”.
He described the Oscar-winner as a “slippery snaky, difficult person”, a “mixed-up individual” who was very confused about his sexuality. The man said Spacey’s behaviour was an open secret at the London Old Vic theatre where he worked for more than a decade.
“It was well-known that he was obviously up to no good so to speak,” the man said.
‘SICK’
Giving evidence in person in court from the behind a screen, the man said he felt shocked, embarrassment and ashamed about what had happened to him, saying the alleged assaults made him feel physically sick.
He rejected suggestions from Spacey’s lawyer Gibbs that he had been flirtatious himself with the actor, had appeared to enjoy the interaction and that he had questioned his own sexuality.
Gibbs quizzed him about why he had kept a “warm and jolly” letter Spacey had sent him ahead of a charity event the man was involved in, and a “cosy” photo he posted on social media showing him with the actor.
“It’s just a normal photo, two men standing next to each other,” the witness replied.
Gibbs also put it to him the allegation regarding the incident prior to the Elton John party was completely untrue, pointing out that Spacey had only attended one such gathering which was in 2001. The man replied he might have got the dates wrong as it had been so long ago.
Asked why he had only come forward to the police last year, he said it was the “right time”, and then when questioned whether it had occurred to him he might be able to sue Spacey, he agreed it had.
Asked how much he thought he might receive, he replied: “Whatever it would be, it wouldn’t be enough for somebody who had been assaulted and abused.”
The trial is due to last about four weeks.
Reporting by Michael Holden, Editing by William Maclean
HONG KONG, July 3 (Reuters) – Hong Kong police on Monday accused eight overseas-based activists of serious national security offences including foreign collusion and incitement to secession and offered rewards for information leading to their arrest.
The accused are activists Nathan Law, Anna Kwok and Finn Lau, former lawmakers Dennis Kwok and Ted Hui, lawyer and legal scholar Kevin Yam, unionist Mung Siu-tat, and online commentator Yuan Gong-yi, police told a press conference.
“They have encouraged sanctions … to destroy Hong Kong and to intimidate officials,” Steve Li, an officer with the police’s national security department, told reporters.
Issuing wanted notices and offering rewards of HK$1 million ($127,656) each, police said the assets of the accused would be frozen where possible and warned the public not to support them financially.
The notices accused the activists of asking foreign powers to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and China.
The activists are based in several countries, including the United States, Britain and Australia. Yam is an Australian citizen. They are wanted under a national security law that Beijing imposed on the former British colony in 2020, after the financial hub was rocked by protracted anti-China protests the previous year.
The United States on Monday condemned the move through a U.S. State Department spokesman, who said it set “a dangerous precedent that threatens the human rights and fundamental freedoms of people all over the world.”
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly criticised the decision to issue the arrest warrants and said his government “will not tolerate any attempts by China to intimidate and silence individuals in the UK and overseas”.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said her government was “deeply disappointed.” Australia, she said, has consistently expressed concern about the broad application of the national security law.
Some countries, including the United States, say the law has been used to suppress the city’s pro-democracy movement and has undermined rights and freedoms guaranteed under a “one country, two systems” formula, agreed when Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Chinese and Hong Kong authorities say the law has restored the stability necessary for preserving Hong Kong’s economic success.
ACTIVISTS DEFIANT
Several of the accused activists said they would not cease their Hong Kong advocacy work.
“It’s my duty … to continue to speak out against the crackdown that is going on right now, against the tyranny that is now reigning over the city that was once one of the freest in Asia,” Yam, a senior fellow with Georgetown University’s Center for Asian Law, told Reuters by telephone from Australia.
“I miss Hong Kong but as things stand, no rational person would be going back,” added Yam, who police accused of meeting foreign officials to instigate sanctions against Hong Kong officials, judges and prosecutors.
Former Democratic party lawmaker Ted Hui told Reuters the “bounty” adds to the arrest warrants already issued for him under the national security law, but “free countries will not extradite us”.
“The bounty … makes it clearer to the western democracies that China is going towards more extreme authoritarianism,” he said in Australia, where he has lived since 2021 on a bridging visa.
Anna Kwok, executive director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council, told Reuters from Washington she would not back down.
“One key thing I urge President Biden to do immediately is to say a strong and firm NO to (Hong Kong chief executive) John Lee’s possible entry into the United States for November’s APEC meeting in San Francisco,” Kwok wrote.
“He’s the man who has orchestrated the far-reaching transnational repression,” she said. “Bar John Lee.”
Finn Lau, an activist based in London told Reuters the reward was motivated by the fact that many democratic countries had suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong.
Nathan Law, who obtained refugee status in the UK two years ago, said that people in Hong Kong should not cooperate. “We should not limit ourselves, self-censor, be intimidated, or live in fear,” he said on Twitter.
Police told the press conference 260 people had been arrested under the national security law, with 79 of them convicted of offences including subversion and terrorism, but admitted that the chances of prosecution were slim if the defendants remained abroad.
“We are definitely not putting on a political show nor disseminating fear,” Li, the police official, said.
“If they don’t return, we won’t be able to arrest them, that’s a fact,” he said. “But we won’t stop wanting them.
Reporting by James Pomfret and Jessie Pang; additional reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Robert Birsel, Alison Williams and Conor Humphries
BUCHAREST, June 23 (Reuters) – Internet personality Andrew Tate will remain under house arrest in Romania for another 30 days from the end of June pending trial on charges of human trafficking, a Bucharest court ruled on Friday.
Tate was indicted on Tuesday along with his brother Tristan and two Romanian female suspects for human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.
They are under house arrest pending an investigation into abuses against seven women whom prosecutors say were lured through false claims of relationships, accusations the suspects have denied.
The four suspects were held in police custody from Dec. 29 until March 31 before a Bucharest court put them under house arrest, which prosecutors on Tuesday sought to extend.
The Tate brothers are citizens of the United States and Britain. Andrew Tate, a self-described misogynist, built up a following of millions on social media, promoting his own lavish lifestyle in posts which critics say denigrate women.
The court needs to approve preventative restrictive measures such as house arrest every 30 days. It held a hearing on Wednesday and said it would rule on Friday.
“We’re not the first affluent wealthy men who have been unfairly attacked,” Tate told reporters on Wednesday after the hearing. “I love this country, I’m going to stay here regardless no matter what and I look forward to being found innocent at the end of everything.”
The trial will not start immediately. Under Romanian law, the case gets sent to the Bucharest court’s preliminary chamber, where a judge has 60 days to inspect the case files to ensure legality.
Trafficking of adults carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years, as does rape.
Prosecutors also said they were investigating the four suspects in a separate ongoing case on allegations of money laundering, witness tampering, and child and adult trafficking.
Reporting by Luiza Ilie and Octav Ganea; Editing by Alan Charlish and Peter Graff
WASHINGTON, June 13 (Reuters) – A vast majority of Republicans believe federal criminal charges against Donald Trump are politically motivated, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Monday that also showed him far ahead of his nearest rival in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
The polling, which began on Friday, a day after Trump was indicted, found that 81% of self-identified Republicans said politics was driving the case, reflecting the deep polarization of the U.S. electorate. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has repeatedly said he has no involvement in the case brought by the Department of Justice.
The number of Republicans who believe the former president is being unfairly targeted vastly exceeds the 30-35% of Trump supporters who are estimated by political analysts to make up his core base.
Some 62% of respondents in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, including 91% of Democrats and 35% of Republicans, said it was believable that Trump illegally stored classified documents at his home in Florida as alleged by prosecutors.
The indictment did not appear to dent Trump’s standing in the Republican nominating contest for the 2024 presidential election. The specific charges, including obstruction of justice, became public on Friday afternoon when the indictment was unsealed.
Some 43% of self-identified Republicans said Trump was their preferred candidate, compared to 22% who picked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s closest rival.
In early May, Trump led DeSantis 49% to 19%, but that was before DeSantis formally entered the race.
The rest of the Republican field, which includes former Vice President Mike Pence who declared his candidacy last week, had low single-digit levels of support.
Trump flew to Miami on Monday to face federal charges of unlawfully keeping U.S. national security documents and lying to officials who tried to recover them. Trump, who will appear in court on Tuesday, has proclaimed his innocence and vowed to continue his campaign to regain the presidency in the November 2024 general election.
Many Republican contenders in the 2024 race have accused the U.S. Justice Department of political bias and say it is being “weaponized” against Biden’s biggest Republican challenger. The department says all investigative decisions are made without regard to partisan politics.
Trump also faces charges in New York in a state criminal case related to alleged hush money payments to a pornographic film star. A Reuters/Ipsos poll in March found that Republicans also saw that investigation as politically motivated.
Biden’s approval rating stood at 41% last week, close to the lowest level of his presidency. Trump had a 40% approval rating at this point in his 2017-2021 presidency.
The latest poll included responses from 1,005 adults nationwide and had a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 4 percentage points for all voting-age Americans and between 6 and 7 percentage points for Republicans.
Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Ross Colvin and Howard Goller
[1/2] Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong attends the 22nd ASEAN Plus Three Summit in Bangkok, Thailand, November 4, 2019. REUTERS/Chalinee Thirasupa/File Photo
SINGAPORE, May 24 (Reuters) – Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has ordered an investigation into the circumstances around the rental of state-owned homes in an exclusive location to two cabinet ministers following questions from the opposition.
The matter has prompted comment in the wealthy city-state, which has long prided itself on a government free from corruption, with the annual salaries of many cabinet ministers exceeding S$1 million ($755,000) to discourage graft.
Lee said the review by a senior minister, whose results will be made public before lawmakers take up the issue in July, would establish whether “proper process” was followed in the rental of the colonial-era bungalows and if there was wrongdoing.
“This must be done to ensure that this government maintains the highest standards of integrity,” Lee said in a statement.
This month, opposition politician Kenneth Jeyaretnam questioned how the law and home affairs minister, K Shanmugam, and the foreign minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, could afford the market rate for such “pricey” properties.
Shanmugam said accusations of impropriety were “outrageous” and he had nothing to hide. Balakrishnan said he was “very glad” a review was taking place.
Social media posts in Singapore mocked the ministers or expressed outrage over the size of the properties, while others questioned why the government needed time until July to explain the issue.
The expression of disapproval comes as many in Singapore battle rising living costs, amid high inflation and rising prices of homes and cars.
Eight in 10 of Singapore’s 3.6 million citizens live in public housing and just a third of households own cars.
Lawmakers, including three members of the ruling party and the leader of the opposition, have submitted parliamentary questions on whether the ministers acted on privileged information to secure the leases.
The Singapore Land Authority has said the ministers leased bungalows that had been vacant for years and had made bids that were higher than the rent guidance, a price that had not been disclosed to them.
Government graft scandals are rare in Singapore.
A minister was investigated in 1987 but died before the inquiry concluded.
Lee and his father – founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew – both addressed parliament in 1996 to answer accusations, investigated at the time by the prime minister, that the family had bought prime real estate at a discount.
The investigation concluded there was nothing improper about the Lee’s property purchases.
Xinghui leads the Singapore bureau, directing coverage of one of the region’s bellwether economies and Southeast Asia’s main financial hub. This ranges from macroeconomics to monetary policy, property, politics, public health and socioeconomic issues. She also keeps an eye on things that are unique to Singapore, such as how it repealed an anti-gay sex law but goes against global trends by maintaining policies unfavourable to LGBT families. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/even-singapore-lifts-gay-sex-ban-lgbt-families-feel-little-has-changed-2022-11-29/
Xinghui previously covered Asia for the South China Morning Post and has been in journalism for a decade.
Hit finance ministry, president’s office, spy agency and others
Sources believe Beijing was seeking info on debt
NAIROBI, May 24 (Reuters) – Chinese hackers targeted Kenya’s government in a widespread, years-long series of digital intrusions against key ministries and state institutions, according to three sources, cybersecurity research reports and Reuters’ own analysis of technical data related to the hackings.
Two of the sources assessed the hacks to be aimed, at least in part, at gaining information on debt owed to Beijing by the East African nation: Kenya is a strategic link in the Belt and Road Initiative – President Xi Jinping’s plan for a global infrastructure network.
“Further compromises may occur as the requirement for understanding upcoming repayment strategies becomes needed,” a July 2021 research report written by a defence contractor for private clients stated.
China’s foreign ministry said it was “not aware” of any such hacking, while China’s embassy in Britain called the accusations “baseless”, adding that Beijing opposes and combats “cyberattacks and theft in all their forms.”
China’s influence in Africa has grown rapidly over the past two decades. But, like several African nations, Kenya’s finances are being strained by the growing cost of servicing external debt – much of it owed to China.
The hacking campaign demonstrates China’s willingness to leverage its espionage capabilities to monitor and protect economic and strategic interests abroad, two of the sources said.
The hacks constitute a three-year campaign that targeted eight of Kenya’s ministries and government departments, including the presidential office, according to an intelligence analyst in the region. The analyst also shared with Reuters research documents that included the timeline of attacks, the targets, and provided some technical data relating to the compromise of a server used exclusively by Kenya’s main spy agency.
A Kenyan cybersecurity expert described similar hacking activity against the foreign and finance ministries. All three of the sources asked not to be named due to the sensitive nature of their work.
“Your allegation of hacking attempts by Chinese Government entities is not unique,” Kenya’s presidential office said, adding the government had been targeted by “frequent infiltration attempts” from Chinese, American and European hackers.
“As far as we are concerned, none of the attempts were successful,” it said.
It did not provide further details nor respond to follow-up questions.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Britain said China is against “irresponsible moves that use topics like cybersecurity to sow discord in the relations between China and other developing countries”.
“China attaches great importance to Africa’s debt issue and works intensively to help Africa cope with it,” the spokesperson added.
THE HACKS
Between 2000 and 2020, China committed nearly $160 billion in loans to African countries, according to a comprehensive database on Chinese lending hosted by Boston University, much of it for large-scale infrastructure projects.
Kenya used over $9 billion in Chinese loans to fund an aggressive push to build or upgrade railways, ports and highways.
Beijing became the country’s largest bilateral creditor and gained a firm foothold in the most important East African consumer market and a vital logistical hub on Africa’s Indian Ocean coast.
By late 2019, however, when the Kenyan cybersecurity expert told Reuters he was brought in by Kenyan authorities to assess a hack of a government-wide network, Chinese lending was drying up. And Kenya’s financial strains were showing.
The breach reviewed by the Kenyan cybersecurity expert and attributed to China began with a “spearphishing” attack at the end of that same year, when a Kenyan government employee unknowingly downloaded an infected document, allowing hackers to infiltrate the network and access other agencies.
“A lot of documents from the ministry of foreign affairs were stolen and from the finance department as well. The attacks appeared focused on the debt situation,” the Kenyan cybersecurity expert said.
Another source – the intelligence analyst working in the region – said Chinese hackers carried out a far-reaching campaign against Kenya that began in late 2019 and continued until at least 2022.
According to documents provided by the analyst, Chinese cyber spies subjected the office of Kenya’s president, its defence, information, health, land and interior ministries, its counter-terrorism centre and other institutions to persistent and prolonged hacking activity.
The affected government departments did not respond to requests for comment, declined to be interviewed or were unreachable.
By 2021, global economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic had already helped push one major Chinese borrower – Zambia – to default on its external debt. Kenya managed to secure a temporary debt repayment moratorium from China.
In early July 2021, the cybersecurity research reports shared by the intelligence analyst in the region detailed how the hackers secretly accessed an email server used by Kenya’s National Intelligence Service (NIS).
Reuters was able to confirm that the victim’s IP address belonged to the NIS. The incident was also covered in a report from the private defence contractor reviewed by Reuters.
Reuters could not determine what information was taken during the hacks or conclusively establish the motive for the attacks. But the defence contractor’s report said the NIS breach was possibly aimed at gleaning information on how Kenya planned to manage its debt payments.
“Kenya is currently feeling the pressure of these debt burdens…as many of the projects financed by Chinese loans are not generating enough income to pay for themselves yet,” the report stated.
A Reuters review of internet logs delineating the Chinese digital espionage activity showed that a server controlled by the Chinese hackers also accessed a shared Kenyan government webmail service more recently from December 2022 until February this year.
Chinese officials declined to comment on this recent breach, and the Kenyan authorities did not respond to a question about it.
‘BACKDOOR DIPLOMACY’
The defence contractor, pointing to identical tools and techniques used in other hacking campaigns, identified a Chinese state-linked hacking team as having carried out the attack on Kenya’s intelligence agency.
The group is known as “BackdoorDiplomacy” in the cybersecurity research community, because of its record of trying to further the objectives of Chinese diplomatic strategy.
According to Slovakia-based cybersecurity firm ESET, BackdoorDiplomacy re-uses malicious software against its victims to gain access to their networks, making it possible to track their activities.
Provided by Reuters with the IP address of the NIS hackers, Palo Alto Networks, a U.S. cybersecurity firm that tracks BackdoorDiplomacy’s activities, confirmed that it belongs to the group, adding that its prior analysis shows the group is sponsored by the Chinese state.
Cybersecurity researchers have documented BackdoorDiplomacy hacks targeting governments and institutions in a number of countries in Asia and Europe.
Incursions into the Middle East and Africa appear less common, making the focus and scale of its hacking activities in Kenya particularly noteworthy, the defence contractor’s report said.
“This angle is clearly a priority for the group.”
China’s embassy in Britain rejected any involvement in the Kenya hackings, and did not directly address questions about the government’s relationship with BackdoorDiplomacy.
“China is a main victim of cyber theft and attacks and a staunch defender of cybersecurity,” a spokesperson said.
Reporting by Aaron Ross in Nairobi, James Pearson in London and Christopher Bing in Washington
Additional reporting by Eduardo Baptista in Beijing
Editing by Chris Sanders and Joe Bavier
West & Central Africa correspondent investigating human rights abuses, conflict and corruption as well as regional commodities production, epidemic diseases and the environment, previously based in Kinshasa, Abidjan and Cairo.
Reports on hacks, leaks and digital espionage in Europe. Ten years at Reuters with previous postings in Hanoi as Bureau Chief and Seoul as Korea Correspondent. Author of ‘North Korea Confidential’, a book about daily life in North Korea. Contact: 447927347451
Award-winning reporter covering the intersection between technology and national security with a focus on how the evolving cybersecurity landscape affects government and business.
May 3 (Reuters) – Texas authorities have arrested the wife and a friend of a man accused of killing five of his neighbors, saying the two helped the suspect evade capture for four days, a local prosecutor said on Wednesday.
Francisco Oropesa was apprehended on Tuesday after a manhunt conducted by local, state and federal officials. He was found in a closet under some laundry in a home in Montgomery County.
The bloodshed erupted on Friday in nearby San Jacinto County after neighbors asked the suspect to stop firing his semiautomatic rifle in his yard because it was keeping their baby awake. Instead, the 38-year-old man reloaded, entered the home of the neighbors and killed five, including an 8-year-old boy, officials said.
The suspect’s wife, identified as Divimara Nava, 52, was arrested Wednesday morning and was being held in Montgomery County, San Jacinto County District Attorney Todd Dillon said at a news conference.
“We believe that Nava was providing him with material aid and encouragement, food and clothes, and had arranged transport to this house,” Dillon said.
Nava was facing a felony charge of hindering apprehension and prosecution of a known felon, according to jail records.
[1/2] Francisco Oropesa, 38, suspected of shooting five Texas neighbors to death and leading multiple agencies on a four-day manhunt, is seen in an undated photograph released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). FBI/Handout via REUTERS
A friend of the suspect was also arrested on a marijuana charge and will be charged with helping the suspect flee the neighborhood in Cleveland, Texas, where the crime took place, Dillon said.
A $5 million bond will be set for the suspected gunman when he appears later Wednesday before a judge in a local jail where he is being held on five counts of murder, San Jacinto County Chief Deputy Tim Kean said at an earlier news conference on Wednesday.
The suspect was arrested in the town of Cut and Shoot, Texas, roughly 17 miles (27 km) west of Cleveland. Both are about 50 miles (80 km) north of Houston.
Officials acted on a tip from an unidentified person who was eligible for an $80,000 reward offered for information leading to the arrest, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said on Tuesday.
Most of the victims were shot in the head. All were from Honduras and among the 10 people living at the address, but they were not all family members, Capers said.
The suspect is a Mexican national who was deported from the United States four times since 2009, U.S. immigration officials said.
Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Mark Porter
ATLANTA, May 3 (Reuters) – Police have arrested a former U.S. Coast Guardsman suspected of killing one person and wounding four, all of them women, in a shooting on Wednesday at a medical building in Atlanta, then carjacking a vehicle to flee the scene, authorities said.
The suspected gunman, identified as Deion Patterson, 24, was taken into custody without incident after an undercover officer spotted him north of the city in suburban Cobb County several hours after the 12:30 p.m. shooting at the Northside Medical facility, police said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an emailed statement that the woman killed was one of its employees, but did not identify her. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper identified the slain woman as Amy St. Pierre, citing her husband Julian St. Pierre.
The motive for the shooting, and whether the suspect knew or targeted any of his victims, had yet to be determined, police said.
“We know that he had an appointment at the facility, but why he did what he did, all of that is under investigation,” Atlanta’s deputy police chief of criminal investigations, Charles Hampton, said at a news briefing after the arrest.
Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum told an earlier press conference that it was too early in the investigation to determine if the five women who were shot were patients or employees.
The woman who died was 39. The four wounded women ranged in age from 25 to 71, media reported. Three of them were in critical condition and underwent surgery at Grady Memorial Hospital, officials said. The fourth was treated at the hospital’s emergency room.
Schierbaum described them as “fighting for their lives.”
[1/5] Deion Patterson, who Atlanta Police describe as the suspect in a lunchtime mass shooting at a medical building, poses in an undated photograph. Atlanta Police Department/Handout via REUTERS
Hampton said the gunman opened fire with a pistol and was only inside the medical center for about two minutes, then fled on foot and headed to a nearby gasoline station, where he commandeered a pickup truck that had been left running unattended and drove away.
At one point during the hunt, police searched a building under construction that the suspect had entered near Battery Atlanta, a commercial complex being developed adjacent to Truist Park stadium, home of the Atlanta Braves baseball team, Cobb County Police Chief Stuart VanHoozer told reporters. But that search came up empty-handed, he said.
The suspect’s apparent proximity to the Battery “was a concern to us because many people would be at that location,” the chief said.
Police analyzed a barrage of surveillance camera images and telephone tips from the public on sightings to ultimately narrow down the suspect’s location, VanHoozer said.
The gunman arrived at the medical center with his mother, Schierbaum said, but she was not injured. Police said she and other family members were cooperating with investigators.
Little was immediately known about the suspect’s background.
The U.S. Coast Guard said Patterson joined the force in July 2018 and was discharged from active duty in January, after having last served as an electrician’s mate second class. No reason for his discharge was given.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens decried the shooting as the latest act of carnage in what has become “a national epidemic of gun violence” turning schools, workplaces, churches and doctors’ offices into potential killing zones.
He said active-shooter drills have become so common that a business in the area of Cobb County where Patterson was arrested happened to be conducting such an exercise as police closed in on the suspect nearby.
Reporting by Rich McKay and Tyler Clifford; Editing by Doina Chiacu
LISBON, April 23 (Reuters) – Government officials from Brazil are using their president’s first visit to Europe since being elected to raise awareness and fight against the racial discrimination faced by the Brazilian community in Portugal and elsewhere.
Brazil’s minister of racial equality, Anielle Franco, was one of the officials who travelled with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Her mission was to bring discussions about racism to the table.
“We’re not going to be able to solve 523 years of problems in just one visit but I hope we can move forward because that’s why we’re here,” Franco told reporters on Sunday, referring to centuries of oppression faced by Black people.
Franco is the sister of Marielle Franco, a Black councilwoman in Rio de Janeiro who fought for racial justice and was shot dead in 2018.
When elected, Lula said he aimed to attack racism and Brazil’s legacy of slavery. Portuguese vessels carried nearly 6 million enslaved Africans into slavery. Most went to Brazil.
Europe’s top human rights group previously said Portugal had to confront its colonial past and role in the transatlantic slave trade to help fight racism and discrimination in the country today.
“Let’s build a future without forgetting the debts of the past,” Franco wrote on Instagram. “Let’s build a future where cooperation is mutual between countries to seek justice and reparation.”
In a letter addressed to Lula on Sunday, Lisbon-based migrant association Casa do Brasil said cases of discrimination against Brazilians in Portugal were on the rise.
A study by Casa do Brasil showed 91% of Brazilians in Portugal, a community of around 300,000, have faced some sort of discrimination in access to public services.
Franco met Portuguese parliament affairs minister Ana Catarina Mendes on Saturday to discuss policies to tackle racial injustice.
Both governments agreed on a national strategy to combat racism.
“We need to make it happen,” said Franco.
Reporting by Catarina Demony; Editing by Christina Fincher
Portugal-based multimedia correspondent reporting on politics, economics, the environment and daily news. Previous experience in local journalism in the UK., co-founded a project telling the stories of Portuguese-speakers living in London, and edited a youth-led news site.
NAIROBI, April 23 (Reuters) – Kenyan police have now exhumed the bodies of 47 people thought to be followers of a Christian cult who believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves to death.
Police near the coastal town of Malindi started exhuming bodies on Friday from the Shakahola forest.
“In total, 47 people have died at the Shakahola forest,” detective Charles Kamau told Reuters on Sunday.
The exhumations were still ongoing, Kamau said.
[1/4] Kenya police officers stand guard as Forensic experts and homicide detectives exhume bodies of suspected members of a Christian cult named as Good News International Church, who believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves to death, in Shakahola forest of Kilifi county, Kenya April 22, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer
Earlier this month, police rescued 15 members of the group — worshippers at the Good News International Church — who they said had been told to starve themselves to death. Four of them died before they reached hospital, police said.
The leader of the church, Paul Mackenzie, was arrested following a tip-off that suggested the existence of shallow graves belonging to at least 31 of Mackenzie’s followers.
Local media, citing police sources, reported that Mackenzie has refused to eat or drink while in police custody.
Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki said the entire 800 acre forest had been sealed off and declared a scene of crime.
“This horrendous blight on our conscience must lead not only to the most severe punishment of the perpetrator(s) of the atrocity on so many innocent souls, but tighter regulation (including self-regulation) of every church, mosque, temple or synagogue going forward,” he said.
Reporting by Humphrey Malalo and Ayenat Mersie
Editing by Christina Fincher
President Ruto calls cult leader “terrible criminal”
NAIROBI, April 24 (Reuters) – Kenyan police have recovered 73 bodies, mostly from mass graves in a forest in eastern Kenya, thought to be followers of a Christian cult who believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves, a police officer said on Monday.
The death toll, which has repeatedly risen as exhumations have been carried out, could rise further. The Kenyan Red Cross said 112 people have been reported missing to a tracing and counselling desk it has set up at a local hospital.
The cult’s leader, Paul Mackenzie, was arrested on April 14 following a tip-off that suggested the existence of shallow graves containing the bodies of at least 31 of his followers.
“The death toll now stands 73 people,” Charles Kamau, head detective in Malindi, Kilifi County, told Reuters via telephone.
He said three more people had been arrested, without giving details. Privately-owned NTV channel reported that one of those arrested was being held on suspicion of being a close associate of the leader of the cult.
Followers of the self-proclaimed Good News International Church had been living in several secluded settlements in an 800-acre area within the Shakahola forest.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations said on Twitter that 33 people had so far been rescued.
[1/4] Body bags are seen arranged as forensic experts and homicide detectives exhume bodies of suspected members of a Christian cult named as Good News International Church, who believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves to death, in Shakahola forest of Kilifi county, Kenya, April 22, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer
Earlier on Monday, the country’s police chief Japhet Koome, visiting the scene, said most of the people were found in mass graves as well as eight who were found alive and emaciated, but later died.
Koome said 14 other cult members were in police custody.
Mackenzie was arraigned on April 15 at Malindi Law Courts, where the judge gave police 14 days to conduct investigations while he was kept in detention. Kenyan media have reported that he is refusing food and water.
Reuters was not able to reach any lawyer or representative for Mackenzie.
President William Ruto said Mackenzie’s teachings were contrary to any authentic religion.
“Mr Mackenzie … pretends and postures as a pastor when in fact he is a terrible criminal,” said Ruto, who was delivering a speech at an unrelated public event just outside Nairobi.
He said he had instructed relevant agencies to get to the root cause of what had happened and to tackle “people who want to use religion to advance weird, unacceptable ideology in the Republic of Kenya that is causing unnecessary loss of life”.
Reporting by Hereward Holland; Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Alexander Winning
BOSTON, April 14 (Reuters) – A 21-year-old member of the U.S. Air National Guard accused of leaking top secret military intelligence records online was charged on Friday with unlawfully copying and transmitting classified material.
Jack Douglas Teixeira of North Dighton, Massachusetts, who was arrested by heavily armed FBI agents at his home on Thursday, made his initial appearance in a crowded federal court wearing a brown khaki jumpsuit.
At the hearing, Boston’s top federal national security prosecutor, Nadine Pellegrini, requested that Teixeira be detained pending trial, and a detention hearing was set for Wednesday.
During the brief proceeding, Teixeira said little, answering “yes” when asked whether he understood his right to remain silent.
The judge said Teixeira’s financial affidavit showed he qualified to be represented by a federal public defender, and he appointed one.
After the hearing, three of Teixeira’s family members left the courthouse, with a group of reporters trailing them for several blocks. They entered a car without making any comments.
The leaked documents were believed to be the most serious U.S. security breach since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2010. The Pentagon has called the leak a “deliberate, criminal act.”
This leak did not come to light until it was reported by the New York Times last week even though the documents were posted on a social media website weeks earlier.
U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday he ordered investigators to determine why the alleged leaker had access to the sensitive information, which included records showing purported details of Ukrainian military vulnerabilities and embarrassed Washington by revealing its spying on allies.
Fallout from the case has roiled Washington. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has requested a briefing for all 100 senators next week while Republican House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy vowed to investigate.
“The Biden administration has failed to secure classified information,” McCarthy said on Twitter. “Through our committees, Congress will get answers as to why they were asleep at the switch.”
FBI agents arrest Jack Teixeira, an employee of the U.S. Air Force National Guard, in connection with an investigation into the leaks online of classified U.S. documents, outside a residence in this still image taken from video in North Dighton, Massachusetts, U.S., April 13, 2023. WCVB-TV via ABC via REUTERS
Biden said he was taking steps to tighten security. “While we are still determining the validity of those documents, I have directed our military and intelligence community to take steps to further secure and limit distribution of sensitive information,” he said in a statement.
MORE CHARGES EXPECTED
A criminal complaint made public on Friday charges Teixeira with one count of violating the Espionage Act related to the unlawful copying and transmitting of sensitive defense material, and a second charge related to the unlawful removal of defense material to an unauthorized location.
A conviction on the Espionage Act charge carries up to 10 years in prison.
The charges are connected to just one leaked document so far, a classified record that described the status of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and included details about troop movements on a particular date.
Experts expect more charges as investigators examine each leaked document. Teixeira could also face more counts depending on the number of times he separately uploaded and transmitted each document.
“They are going to pick the ones (documents), I would imagine, that foreign governments have already seen,” said Stephanie Siegmann, the former national security chief for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston and now a partner with the Hinckley Allen law firm.
In a sworn statement, an FBI agent said Teixeira had held a top secret security clearance since 2021 and also had sensitive compartmented access to other highly classified programs.
Since May 2022, the FBI said, Teixeira has been serving as an E-3/airman first class in the Air National Guard and has been stationed at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts.
Siegmann said one lingering question is why a 21-year-old National Guardsman held such a top-level security clearance.
“That’s an issue that Department of Defense needs to now deal with,” she said. “Why would he be entitled to these documents about the Russia-Ukrainian conflict?”
Reuters has reviewed more than 50 of the documents, labeled “Secret” and “Top Secret,” but has not independently verified their authenticity. The number of documents leaked is likely to be over 100.
Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Tim McLaughlin in Boston
Editing by Don Durfee and Alistair Bell
Sarah N. Lynch is the lead reporter for Reuters covering the U.S. Justice Department out of Washington, D.C. During her time on the beat, she has covered everything from the Mueller report and the use of federal agents to quell protesters in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, to the rampant spread of COVID-19 in prisons and the department’s prosecutions following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
RATINGEN, Germany, April 14 (Reuters) – In the German town of Ratingen, exploding cash machines are a hot-button topic.
Two got blown up early on the same morning last month, at branches of Santander (SAN.MC) and Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) across the street from each other close to the Duesseldorf suburb’s main square.
A year ago, residents of the apartments above Santander unsuccessfully sued to have the machines removed due to concerns they could be raided – a gesture that might in retrospect be deemed prophetic in other countries.
But in Germany, thieves are blowing ATMs up at the rate of more than one a day.
Attacks are up more than 40% since 2019, according to the interior ministry, and investigators say two factors are driving the increase.
Europe’s largest economy has 53,000 ATM machines, a disproportionately high number that reflects Germans’ preference for cash rather than bank cards. The country also boasts an extensive network of highways, or Autobahns, on much of which no speed limit is enforced.
Ratingen lies just 70km (40 miles) from the Dutch border, and investigators say gangs from the Netherlands are the prime culprits for the attacks, which send glass flying, cause building facades to crumble and money cartridges to crack open.
Raiders got away with nearly 20 million euros ($22.1 million) in 2021, when 392 ATM explosions were recorded, a tally that rose to 496 in 2022. Police in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Ratingen lies and which has borne the brunt of the attacks, have recorded 47 incidents so far in 2023, up on last year’s rate.
Reuters Graphics Reuters Graphics
DUTCH RAIDERS
Meanwhile the frequency of ATM attackers is falling in the Netherlands, partly due to security measures such as glue that makes blocks of cash inside ATMs unusable, Dutch police say.
So Dutch cash machine raiders are crossing the border and, German police estimate, have carried out between 70% to 80% of attacks in Germany since 2018.
Dutch police suspect around 500 men are responsible, working in ever-evolving groups as new recruits replace those who get caught. Prosecutors in Frankfurt this week charged six Dutch citizens with causing explosions, theft and property damage.
Reuters Graphics
Ratingen police are investigating a possible Dutch connection in last month’s twin raid too, having identified a small vehicle that sped from the scene to a nearby Autobahn.
On Thursday, nearly a month after the attacks, Santander’s facade remained boarded up. Deutsche Bank’s sign was still damaged, and a sign asked for customers’ understanding that ATMs were out of order while under repair.
In Germany, roughly 60% of everyday purchases are paid in cash, according to a Bundesbank study that found Germans, on average, withdrew more than 6,600 euros annually chiefly from cash machines.
Germany is also working with officials in Belgium and France and at Europol to combat the cash machine crime wave. The partner authorities did not respond to requests for comment.
Noting that ATM raids endangered lives, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser this week urged banks to step up safety measures for ATMs.
Both Santander and Deutsche said they prioritised safety and were continuously improving ATM security, but banks inside Germany are reluctant to adopt blanket measures, instead advocating a case-by-case approach depending on individual security risk.
A spokesperson for Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft, a umbrella lobby group for the nation’s financial institutions, said: “Different locations come with different risks. There is currently no one-size-fits-all solution.”
($1 = 0.9044 euros)
Additional reporting by Milan Pavicic; editing by John Stonestreet
Covers German finance with a focus on big banks, insurance companies, regulation and financial crime, previous experience at the Wall Street Journal and New York Times in Europe and Asia.
April 3 (Reuters) – A fugitive and former top aide to former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan was killed in Tennessee after a confrontation with the FBI, the Washington Post reported, citing the former aide’s lawyer.
Roy McGrath, 53, who in 2020 was appointed chief of staff to the Republican former governor, was wanted for failing to appear in court last month on fraud charges.
McGrath had pleaded not guilty to charges of wire fraud and falsification of records in October 2021 and was released on bond, but he did not appear in court for his trial.
The U.S. Marshals Service, part of the Justice Department, said last month it had initiated an interstate fugitive investigation and published a “Wanted” poster of McGrath.
“The loss of Roy’s life is an absolute tragedy, and I think it’s important for me to say that Roy never wavered about his innocence,” attorney Joseph Murtha said, according to the Post report.
The exact circumstances of Roy’s death remained unclear. The Baltimore Sun said he was shot but it was uncertain whether it was self-inflicted or by the FBI.
The FBI said in a statement it was reviewing an agent-involved shooting, the Post reported.
“During the arrest the subject, Roy McGrath, sustained injury and was transported to the hospital. The FBI takes all shooting incidents involving our agents or task force members seriously,” the FBI statement said.
McGrath died in the hospital, the Baltimore Sun reported, citing William Brennan, an attorney for McGrath’s wife.
Hogan, who served as Maryland’s governor from 2015 to 2023, had considered running for the 2024 Republican nomination for president as a critic of Donald Trump. But Hogan announced last month before McGrath went missing that he would not run.
Hogan said in a statement he and his wife, Yumi Hogan, were saddened by the “tragic situation,” the Baltimore Sun reported.
“We are praying for Mr. McGrath’s family and loved ones,” Hogan said.
Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Edmund Klamann
Poland pledges more MiG jets for Kyiv during Zelenskiy visit
Zelenskiy cites difficult situation for Kyiv’s forces in Bakhmut
France’s Macron in China to nudge it to help end Russia’s war
KYIV, April 5 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said during a trip to Warsaw on Wednesday that Poland would help form a coalition of Western powers to supply warplanes to Kyiv, adding that Ukrainian troops were still fighting for Bakhmut in the east but could withdraw if they risked being cut off.
Neighbouring Poland is a close ally of Ukraine and helped galvanise support in the West to supply main battle tanks to Kyiv. During Zelenskiy’s visit, Poland announced it would send 10 more MiG fighter jets on top of four provided earlier.
“Just as your (Polish) leadership proved itself in the tank coalition, I believe that it will manifest itself in the planes coalition,” Zelenskiy said in a speech on a square in Warsaw.
Earlier in the day, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian troops faced a really difficult situation in Bakhmut and the military would take “corresponding” decisions to protect them if they risk being encircled by Russian invasion forces.
Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut sometimes advanced a little only to be knocked back, Zelenskiy said, but remained inside the city.
“We are in Bakhmut and the enemy does not control it,” Zelenskiy said.
BOMBARDMENT
Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s mainly Russian-occupied Donetsk province, has proven one of the bloodiest and longest battles of Russia’s invasion, now in its 14th month. Kyiv’s forces have held out against a Russian onslaught with heavy losses on both sides and the city, a mining and transport hub, reduced to ruin after months of street fighting and bombardment.
“For me, the most important is not to lose our soldiers and of course if there is a moment of even hotter events and the danger we could lose our personnel because of encirclement – of course the corresponding correct decisions will be taken by generals there,” Zelenskiy said.
He appeared to be referring to the idea of withdrawing.
However, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said later in that the situation at the front was “completely under control” despite repeated Russian attempts to take Bakhmut and other cities in the east.
Reuters could not verify the battlefield reports.
Ukrainian military commanders have stressed the importance of holding Bakhmut and other cities and inflicting losses on Russian troops before an anticipated counter-offensive against them in the coming weeks or months.
[1/6] Ukrainian service member, Naza, 21, commander from 28th mechanised brigade repositions his machine gun during a fire exchange at the frontline, amid Russia?s attack on Ukraine in the region of Bakhmut, Ukraine, April 5, 2023. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
Mercenaries from the Wagner group – who have spearheaded the assault on Bakhmut – said at the weekend they had captured the city centre, a claim dismissed by Kyiv.
The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War said the Wagner fighters had made advances in Bakhmut and were likely to continue trying to consolidate control of the city centre and push westward through dense urban neighbourhoods.
PLAYING THE CHINA CARD
French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, was visiting China after he and U.S. President Joe Biden agreed they would try to engage Beijing to hasten the end of the Russian assault on Ukraine.
China has called for a comprehensive ceasefire and described its position on the conflict as “impartial”, even though the Chinese and Russian presidents announced a “no limits” partnership shortly before the invasion.
Both Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, due in Beijing shortly after him, have said they want to persuade China to use its influence over Russia to bring peace in Ukraine, or to at least deter Beijing from directly supporting Moscow in the conflict.
The U.S. and NATO have said China was considering sending arms to Russia, which Beijing has denied.
‘SHOULDER TO SHOULDER’
Poland has played a big role in persuading Western allies to supply battle tanks and other heavy weapons to Ukraine, which helped Kyiv stem and sometimes reverse Russian advances so far.
“You have stood shoulder to shoulder with us, and we are grateful for it,” Zelenskiy said after Polish President Andrzej Duda presented him with Poland’s highest award, the Order of the White Eagle.
Duda said Warsaw was also working to secure additional security guarantees for Ukraine at a NATO summit to be held in the Lithuania in July.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state TV that Moscow needed to maintain relations with Washington even though American supplies of weapons to Ukraine meant “we are really in a hot phase of the war”.
In addition to MiG-29s, Kyiv has also pressed NATO for F-16 jet fighters but Duda’s foreign policy adviser, Marcin Przydacz, said Poland would not decide soon on whether to send any.
Reporting by Pavel Polityuk with additional reporting by Ron Popeski, Mike Stone, Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz and Tom Balmforth; writing by Angus MacSwan, Mark Heinrich and Idrees Ali; editing by Philippa Fletcher, Nick Macfie and Grant McCool
April 3 (Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump is scheduled to be arraigned at a Manhattan courthouse on Tuesday following his indictment on criminal charges after a probe into hush money paid to a porn star.
Below is an explanation of what it means to be indicted and arraigned, and other key terms related to Trump’s case.
INDICTMENT
An indictment is a court document containing charges that were voted on by a grand jury, a group of people who decide whether a prosecutor has enough evidence to pursue criminal charges.
An indictment formally charges a defendant with a crime and provides a basis for legal prosecution.
Following an indictment, a defendant is given formal notice of the charges, a right enshrined in the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
A defendant can then be formally arraigned on whatever charges are brought. Law enforcement officials fingerprint and photograph most defendants facing arraignments.
ARRAIGNMENT
An arraignment is where a defendant is brought to court to hear charges and have a chance to enter a plea, which is generally guilty or not guilty.
A judge or prosecutor typically reads the charges aloud. A defendant is usually represented by lawyers, especially in cases that are high-profile or could lead to jail or prison.
If a defendant pleads not guilty, a judge will typically accept the plea and schedule the next court appearance, and perhaps a tentative trial date.
[1/6] A person uses a smartphone after former U.S. President Donald Trump’s indictment by a Manhattan grand jury following a probe into hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, in New York City, U.S, April 3, 2023. REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli
If a defendant pleads guilty, the judge will impose punishment, typically at a later date.
Trump’s lawyers have said he will plead not guilty on Tuesday.
Lawyers for some defendants who plead not guilty may engage in plea bargaining, where they negotiate a guilty plea with prosecutors to avoid a trial. Defendants would typically plead guilty to some but not all charges they face.
BAIL
Judges in New York state criminal court have three options for bail: They can set bail, order a defendant released without bail, or order a defendant’s detention.
The purpose of bail in New York is to ensure that a defendant returns to court, without taking into account the risk a defendant may cause further harm. In 2019, New York ended cash bail for most cases involving misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, such as Trump’s case.
GAG ORDER
A gag order is when a judge prohibits lawyers, parties and witnesses from talking about a case in public.
Gag orders are common in criminal cases. That is especially true when there is a risk that someone may make statements that could incite violence, be viewed as threatening to prosecutors or witnesses, or taint the jury pool.
A defendant who violates a gag order in New York can be held by a judge to be in criminal contempt, a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail. A judge will typically warn a defendant before issuing a contempt citation.
If a gag order is imposed against Trump, he can appeal and argue that it undermines his First Amendment right to free speech as he runs for president.
Reporting by Rami Ayyub and Jonathan Stempel; editing by Noeleen Walder and Jonathan Oatis
March 25 (Reuters) – Russia’s parliament speaker on Saturday proposed banning the activities of the International Criminal Court (ICC) after the court issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crimes.
Vyacheslav Volodin, an ally of Putin’s, said that Russian legislation should be amended to prohibit any activity of the ICC in Russia and to punish any who gave “assistance and support” to the ICC.
“It is necessary to work out amendments to legislation prohibiting any activity of the ICC on the territory of our country,” Volodin said in a Telegram post.
Volodin said that the United States had legislated to prevent its citizens ever being tried by the Hague court and that Russia should continue that work.
Any assistance or support for the ICC inside Russia, he said, should be punishable under law.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant earlier this month accusing Putin of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. It said there are reasonable grounds to believe that Putin bears individual criminal responsibility.
Russian officials have cautioned that any attempt to arrest Putin, Russia’s paramount leader since the last day of 1999, would amount to a declaration of war against the world’s largest nuclear power.
In its first warrant for Ukraine, the ICC called for Putin’s arrest on suspicion of unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of people from the territory of Ukraine to the Russian Federation since Feb. 24, 2022.
The Kremlin says the ICC arrest warrant is an outrageously partisan decision, but meaningless with respect to Russia. Russian officials deny war crimes in Ukraine and say the West has ignored what it says are Ukrainian war crimes.
Big powers such as Russia, the United States and China are not members of the ICC though 123 countries are state parties to the Rome Statute, including Britain, France, Germany and some former Soviet republics such as Tajikistan.
Ukraine is not a member of the ICC, although Kyiv granted it jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed on its territory.
Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Stephen Coates
As Moscow bureau chief, Guy runs coverage of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Before Moscow, Guy ran Brexit coverage as London bureau chief (2012-2022). On the night of Brexit, his team delivered one of Reuters historic wins – reporting news of Brexit first to the world and the financial markets. Guy graduated from the London School of Economics and started his career as an intern at Bloomberg. He has spent over 14 years covering the former Soviet Union. He speaks fluent Russian.
Contact: +447825218698
Soldiers assaulted family soon after invasion, prosecutors say
Ukraine accuses Russian army of widespread sexual assaults
President Vladimir Putin’s government denies atrocities
KYIV, March 14 (Reuters) – Ukraine has accused two Russian soldiers of sexually assaulting a four-year-old girl and gang raping her mother at gunpoint in front of her father, as part of widespread allegations of abuse during the more than one-year-long invasion.
According to Ukrainian prosecution files seen by Reuters, the incidents were among a spree of sex crimes Russian soldiers of the 15th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade committed in four homes of Brovary district near the capital Kyiv in March 2022.
Russia’s Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Phone numbers listed for the brigade were out of order. Two officials at the Samara Garrison, of which the brigade is a part, said they were unable to give contacts for the unit when contacted by Reuters, with one saying they were classified.
During Moscow’s failed push to capture Kyiv after its Feb. 24 invasion, soldiers entered Brovary a few days later, looting and using sexual violence as a deliberate tactic to terrorise the population, the Ukrainian prosecutors said.
“They singled out the women beforehand, coordinated their actions and their roles,” said the prosecutors, whose 2022 documents were based on interviews with witnesses and survivors.
Most of the alleged atrocities took place on March 13, when soldiers “in a state of alcoholic intoxication, broke into the yard of the house where a young family lived,” the prosecutors alleged.
The father was beaten with a metal pot then forced to kneel while his wife was gang raped. One of the soldiers told the four-year-old girl he “will make her a woman” before she was abused, the documents said.
The family survived, though prosecutors said they are investigating additional crimes in the area including murders during the same period.
President Vladimir Putin’s government, which says it is fighting Western-backed “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine, has repeatedly denied allegations of atrocities. It has also denied that its military commanders are aware of sexual violence by soldiers.
The soldiers were both snipers, aged 32 and 28, the files said, adding that the former had died while the younger, named as Yevgeniy Chernoknizhniy, returned to Russia.
When Reuters asked for the identities of both soldiers, prosecutors provided only the name of the younger man. When Reuters called a number in online databases for him, a person saying he was Chernoknizhniy’s brother said he was deceased.
“He died. There’s no way you can get hold of him,” said the man, crying. “That’s all that I can say.”
Reuters was unable to independently confirm his assertion.
GROWING ACCUSATIONS
The two snipers were among six suspects accused in the Brovary assaults, which prosecutors say is one of the most extensive investigations of sexual abuse since the invasion.
After the alleged attack on the girl and her parents, the two soldiers entered the house of an elderly couple next door, where they beat them, prosecutors said, also raping a 41-year-old pregnant woman and a 17-year-old girl.
At another location where several families lived, the soldiers forced everyone into the kitchen and gang raped a 15-year-old girl and her mother, they said.
All the victims survived, prosecutors said, and were receiving psychological and medical assistance.
A pre-trial investigation is ongoing into the possible role of superior officials in the Brovary attacks, prosecutors said, in a case adding to growing allegations of systematic sexual abuse by Russian soldiers.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s office says it is investigating more than 71,000 reports of war crimes received since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops over the border.
Ukrainian investigators know the probability of finding and punishing suspects is low and potential trials would be mainly in absentia, but there are also international efforts to prosecute war crimes including by the International Criminal Court.
While suspects are unlikely to be surrendered by Moscow, anyone convicted in absentia may be placed on international watchlists, which would make it difficult to travel.
A U.N. human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine has said that most of the dozens of sexual violence accusations pointed at the Russian military.
So far, Ukrainian prosecutors have convicted 26 Russians of war crimes – some prisoners of war, some in absentia – of which one was for rape.
Reporting by Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam and Stefaniia Bern in Kyiv;
Additional reporting by Anton Zverev and Maria Tsvetkova;
Editing by Alison Williams and Andrew Cawthorne
JAKARTA, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Egianus Kogoya, the dreadlocked rebel behind the kidnapping of a New Zealand pilot this month in the highlands of Indonesia’s Papua region, is at the vanguard of an increasingly dangerous and media-savvy insurgency for independence.
Separatist rebels kidnapped New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens, 37, after he landed his small plane in the remote Papuan highlands on Feb 7.
Sitting in the cockpit of the plane, Kogoya, wearing a denim jacket, bone necklace and mirror shades, with a hand draped over a rifle, appeared to relish posing as his men documented their most high-profile kidnapping to date.
In a series of videos, Kogoya demanded the resource-rich region’s independence in return for Mehrtens’ release.
Fighters in the Indonesian, western half of New Guinea island have for decades waged a low-level battle for independence, but Kogoya and his gang have emerged as especially dangerous and unpredictable.
“What we are seeing is younger, new leadership among local rebel groups that is more aggressive and not necessarily strategic in the long term,” said Deka Anwar, from the Jakarta-based think tank, the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC).
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The security ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the separatists but military spokesperson Kisdiyanto said attacks against Indonesian sovereignty by “a few” separatists were being handled.
The military has said it is preparing for a “law enforcement operation” but only as a last resort if negotiations to free Mehrtens fail.
Separatists say their fight is legitimate because former colonial power the Netherlands promised the region it could become independent before it was annexed by Indonesia in 1963.
Indonesia says Papua is its territory after a 1969 vote supervised by the United Nations, in which 1,025 handpicked people unanimously backed its integration.
More than a half a century later, rebels are still fighting the Indonesian republic.
An estimated 500 fighters identify as members of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement (OPM).
Loosely organised and geographically fractured, the TPNPB lacks cohesion and a central leadership and command.
Instead, units in different areas operate under individual commanders, like Kogoya, who hails from a family with rebel connections – some relatives were behind the kidnapping of several foreign researchers in 1996.
For years, the separatists mounted small attacks with minimal casualties but Kogoya and his group opened a bloody new chapter in 2018 when they attacked a road-construction project killing 21 workers.
Indonesia launched a security crackdown in response, vowing to wipe out the rebels with hundreds of extra troops.
The violence forced thousands of villagers to flee, triggering a humanitarian crisis in which more than 160 people died of sickness and starvation. But in the rugged Papuan highlands, the security forces failed to track down Kogoya and his men.
SOCIAL MEDIA TOOL
Rebels who once brandished bows and arrows are now increasingly carrying guns, including automatic rifles seized in raids on the security forces or bought on the black market, and conducting more frequent and more lethal attacks, the IPAC said in a July report. Fifty-two members of the security forces and 34 fighters were killed between 2018 and 2021, it said.
The rebels are also taking advantage of modern communications.
Cahyo Pamungkas, a researcher from the National Research and Innovation Agency, said the separatists are using social media to get their message out.
“Social media is a tool of resistance to deliver the stories from Papua because national media is mainly dominated by perspectives from Jakarta,” he said.
“They are really media savvy,” said IPAC’s Anwar, “They want to show they are not a rag tag rebel group but have some structure, at least at the local level.”
TPNPB spokesperson Sebby Sambom said the New Zealand pilot was being well looked after and treated as “family”.
“This was his idea but we are responsible for controlling the situation,” Sambom said by telephone, referring to Kogoya’s seizure of the pilot.
Sambom vowed more violence unless the separatists’ demands were met, saying the TPNPB planned a “total revolution” by 2025 with widespread destruction and bloodshed.
The government did not respond to requests for comment on the rebel threat of escalation.
Some rights activists criticise the government’s response to the insurgency.
A project to get satellite coverage over the area that would help the security forces pinpoint Kogoya’s location has become embroiled in graft, a lawmaker with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on the condition of anonymity.
There are also questions about overall responsibility for policy with the government flagging a “softer approach” while the military has tended to deploy more troops in response to attacks.
“It’s not quite under the control of the civilian government there,” said Marzuki Darusman, a former attorney general turned human rights campaigner.
“It’s become military turf and that doesn’t help.”
(This story has been corrected to fix the name to Sebby Sambom, not Sebby Sambon, in paragraphs 24-26)
Additional reporting by Ananda Teresia; Editing by Robert Birsel
LOS ANGELES, Feb 22 (Reuters) – A California man was sentenced on Wednesday to at least 60 years in prison for the 2019 killing of Grammy-winning rapper Nipsey Hussle after a chance encounter in the south Los Angeles neighborhood where the men grew up.
A jury had found Eric Holder Jr, 32, guilty of first-degree murder in July 2022 for fatally shooting Hussle outside a clothing store the rapper owned.
On Wednesday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge H. Clay Jacke sentenced Holder to 25 years to life in state prison for murdering Hussle, plus an additional 25 years to life because he used a gun in the slaying.
Holder was ordered to serve an additional 10 years in prison for shooting two bystanders.
[1/3] Eric Ronald Holder sits in the courtroom at Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center ahead of his sentencing for first-degree murder in the 2019 shooting of Grammy-winning rapper Nipsey Hussle in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on September 15, 2022. Apu Gomes/Pool via REUTERS
Prosecutors said Holder shot Hussle at least 10 times after they ran into each other on a Sunday afternoon outside the clothing store. Following a brief conversation, Holder left and returned about 10 minutes later and opened fire.
Public defender Aaron Jansen acknowledged that Holder killed Hussle but argued that he should not be convicted of first-degree murder because he said the attack was not pre-meditated.
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Jansen said Holder acted in “the heat of passion” after Hussle told him there were rumors of him “snitching” to police, which he considered a serious offense. Holder did not testify during the trial.
Hussle, who was 33 when he died, had publicly acknowledged that he joined a gang as a teenager. He later became an activist and entrepreneur as he found success with rap music and collaborated with artists including Snoop Dogg and Drake.
In 2020, Hussle won two posthumous Grammy awards including one for “Racks in the Middle,” released a few weeks before his death and featuring Roddy Ricch and Hit-Boy.
Reporting by Lisa Richwine and Jorge Garcia in Los Angeles
Editing by Leslie Adler, Matthew Lewis and David Gregorio
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