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Judge: Pretrial release OK for man accused in Capitol riot
U.S. Court News |
2021/05/14 14:02
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A judge has ruled that one of two Oregon brothers accused in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol will be released from custody Friday to a third-party guardian, where he will be on home detention and GPS monitoring pending his trial.
U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss, of the District of Columbia, on Thursday granted Matthew Klein’s pretrial release to a Baker County couple after refusing to allow him to stay with his parents. Moss last week cited text messages that showed Klein’s mother and father warning Matthew’s younger brother and co-defendant Jonathanpeter Klein not to broadcast their roles, noting “braggers get caught,” according to court testimony and documents, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.
Matthew Klein, 24, and Jonathanpeter Klein, 21, both have pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States, aiding and abetting in the obstruction of an official proceeding, obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder, destruction of government property, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, and disorderly conduct in a restricted building or grounds.
The judge ordered Matthew Klein to be released to a woman who is retired from Baker County government and lives with her husband, a prison guard at the Powder River Corrections Facility, court documents said. He’ll be released on Friday once he is fitted with a location monitoring device.
Jonathanpeter Klein also has asked for pretrial release to a third-party guardian, under home detention and GPS monitoring. Federal prosecutors don’t object. His release hearing will be held in early June.
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UK lawyer fined for defying Heathrow court ruling embargo
Court News |
2021/05/11 20:06
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A British lawyer and climate campaigner was fined 5,000 pounds ($7,070) on Monday after being convicted of contempt of court for a tweet which broke an embargo on a U.K. Supreme Court judgment over Heathrow Airport’s expansion.
Tim Crosland, a director of an environmental campaign group, revealed on social media the court ruling on Heathrow Airport’s proposed third runway a day before it was made public in December. He was among involved parties to receive a draft of the appeal judgment, and has said that he broke the embargo deliberately as “an act of civil disobedience” to protest the “deep immorality of the court’s ruling.”
The court had ruled that a planned third runway at Heathrow was legal. The case was at the center of a long-running controversy and environmentalists had argued for years that the climate impact far outweighed the economic benefits of expanding the airport.
Crosland said the proposed 14 billion-pound ($19.8 billion) expansion of Heathrow, one of the world’s busiest, would breach Britain’s commitments to the Paris climate agreement.
He argued that the government “deliberately suppressed” information about the effect that the airport’s expansion would have on the climate crisis, and said the publicity gained over breaking the embargo would act as an “antidote” to that.
Addressing the court, Crosland said: “If complicity in the mass loss of life that makes the planet uninhabitable is not a crime, then nothing is a crime.”
Three Supreme Court justices found Crosland in contempt of court for his “deliberate and calculated breaches of the embargo” and fined him 5,000 pounds.
The judges said he “wanted to demonstrate his deliberate defiance of the prohibition and to bring this to the attention of as large an audience as possible.”
Crosland had brought a small suitcase to Monday’s hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in case he was given immediate jail time. The maximum sentence had been up to two years in prison and an unlimited fine.
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Albanian officials want ex-minister tried over deadly blast
U.S. Court News |
2021/05/06 14:19
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Albanian prosecutors on Thursday asked Supreme Court judges to allow the trial of a former defense minister over a massive munitions disposal factory blast that killed 26 people in 2008, more than a decade after the case against him was dropped.
The Special Prosecution Against Corruption, or SPAK, formally asked the Supreme Court to revoke its 2009 dismissal of the criminal case against Fatmir Mediu. At the time, Mediu had been spared trial because he had been re-elected to parliament and then lawmakers had immunity.
He is still a member of parliament with an opposition party, but that form of immunity in criminal cases has since been abolished.
Mediu denied wrongdoing and said Thursday that the SPAK move was politically motivated.
The March 15, 2008 explosions at Gerdec, outside the capital, Tirana, killed 26 people, injured 264 and damaged about 5,500 houses. Mediu had been subsequently charged with abuse of power.
In 2012 a court convicted and jailed 19 people over the accident, but angry relatives of the victims complained that top government officials had evaded justice.
The request to resume the case against Mediu followed an appeal to SPAK by Zamira Durda and her husband Feruzan Durda, whose six-year-old son was killed while playing in the back yard of their home near the blast site.
“That is the motive of my life, gaining justice for my son,” said Zamira Durda. “Everything in the Gerdec case should resume from scratch, not only the former minister.”
SPAK was formed under a judicial reform in 2016, prepared with help from European Union and United States experts and intended to ensure political independence for judges and prosecutors and to root out bribery. |
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Ex-soldiers acquitted of 1972 murder of Official IRA leader
Law Firm News |
2021/05/02 14:19
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Two former British paratroopers accused of the 1972 murder of an Official IRA leader in Belfast were formally acquitted Tuesday after the veterans’ trial collapsed.
Joe McCann, 24, was allegedly evading arrest when he was shot dead by paratroopers in the Markets area of Belfast in April 1972.
The trial of the two veterans, now in their 70s and identified only as A and C, opened last week at Belfast Crown Court. It was the first in years that involved charges against former military personnel who served in Northern Ireland’s bloody conflict, known as the Troubles.
But a judge ruled that evidence implicating the former soldiers was not admissible and prosecutors said Tuesday they would not offer further evidence at the trial.
McCann’s family lawyer Niall Murphy said outside the court Tuesday that the ruling “does not acquit the state of murder” and that the family plans to apply to the Attorney General for an inquest into the killing.
“This ruling does not mean that Joe McCann was not murdered by the British Army,” he told reporters. “He was shot in the back whilst unarmed, from a distance of 40 metres, posing no threat. It was easier to arrest him than to murder him.”
Joe McCann’s daughter, Aine, criticized the state for failing “at all levels” in her father’s case as well as for many other families.
McCann was wanted by the British Army and was involved in many shootings, including the 1972 attempted assassination of then-unionist official John Taylor.
Statements made by the defendants to the Royal Military Police in 1972 could not be accepted because of problems, including that the defendants were ordered to make them and they were not conducted under caution.
A second source of evidence ? statements the two men gave to a police legacy unit in 2010 ? was ruled not legitimate. The judge sided with defense lawyers on Friday, ruling that this evidence was just the 1972 evidence “dressed up and freshened up with a 2010 cover.”
Philip Barden, senior partner at the law firm representing soldiers A and C, said prosecutors should never have proceeded on the case. He said a senior judge should investigate the decision-making process “to ensure that the decision to prosecute these veterans was not political.”
Supporters of the veterans have said authorities should protect former soldiers who served in Northern Ireland from prosecutions. Former Defense Minister Johnny Mercer has called for legislation to end the “relentless pursuit of those who served their country.”
Four other cases involving the prosecution of British veterans are ongoing.
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