Most recently, Natalia had been investigating a killing by a government death squad in a small village in southern Chechnya. Natalia was the person they all came to, to tell of a missing son or husband, of a fresh abduction in the middle of the night, or a house burned in retribution for a rebel attack.

Locals told her an old man had been accused of giving one of his sheep to the Islamic insurgents. On 7 July, government troops came to his home, dragged the old man to the village square, and then – as villagers looked on – they shot him in the head. “This,” they were told, “is what will happen to any of you who help the rebels.”

Now Natalia herself has become a victim of the brutality she had worked so fearlessly to document. At 0830 local time on Wednesday, four men dragged her from her apartment in the centre of Grozny. Passersby saw her being forced into a white Lada. She managed to shout out: “I am being abducted.”

They were the last words anybody would hear her say. Nine hours later, her body was found 30 miles (50km) away, dumped in a forest. She had been shot in the head. The finger of blame has immediately been pointed at Ramzan Kadyrov, the 32-year-old warlord who now runs Chechnya at Moscow’s behest.

He has emphatically denied it, and has promised that he will personally take control of the investigation. That promise has been met with derision by friends and colleagues.

The truth is that Natalia was not short of enemies. She was born to a Russian mother and Chechen father. When the first Chechen war broke out in the mid-1990s, most with Russian blood fled Grozny. But she refused to leave.

Critics ‘end up dead’

When Moscow began its second onslaught on the city in 1999, she fled.
But a year later she returned and began documenting the abductions, torture and murders of thousands of young Chechen men by federal Russian troops. Later – as Moscow handed its war to its Chechen allies – she took on the local regime. She was a thorn in the side of many, but particularly of President Kadyrov. And she is not the first of his critics to end up dead.

Three years ago a Chechen man called Umar Israilov turned up in Austria seeking political asylum. For several years he had worked as one of Mr Kadyrov’s bodyguards. In testimony to Austrian authorities he said he had personally witnessed Mr Kadyrov taking part in torture sessions. He also said Mr Kadyrov kept a list of 300 enemies to be killed.

On 13 January this year, Umar Israilov was shot dead outside his Vienna apartment.

Sulim Yamadayev is another of Ramzan Kadyrov’s enemies to have met a sticky end. He used to be one of the most powerful military commanders in Chechnya. But last year he fled to Dubai after falling out with the Chechen president.

On 30 March this year, Sulim Yamadayev was shot dead in the car park of his Dubai apartment. A week later the Dubai police issued an international arrest warrant for a man named Adam Delemkhanov.

It just happens that Mr Delemkhanov is Ramzan Kadyrov’s right-hand man. In April when I went to the Grand Mosque in Grozny for Friday prayers, there he was kneeling down right beside Chechnya’s president.

Culture of impunity

My guess is that it will never be proved who ordered Natalia Estemirova’s killing. In Russia such murders are rarely solved. Look at the case of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, shot dead outside her Moscow apartment three years ago.

Or of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, gunned down in broad daylight in Moscow this January.

They were both close friends of Natalia Estemirova.

There is what Amnesty International this week called a culture of impunity in Russia. One by one, the voices of those still willing to stand up and speak out are being silenced.

Without them the outside world will never know about the horrors still being committed in places like Chechnya.

The “false positives” scandal has revealed that the army murdered civilians, who were then dressed in rebel uniforms or given guns. They were then presented as guerrillas or paramilitaries killed in combat.

These allowed units to fabricate results, and officers to gain promotion.
The number of victims is believed to be in the thousands. “The issue of the false positives puts into doubt the doctrine of the security forces with respect to human rights,” said Maria Victoria Llorente, director of the think-tank Foundation Idea for Peace. “This puts at risk a prized value for the military: legitimacy.”

Demand for results

By certain measures, the “democratic security” policy of President Alvaro Uribe has been a great success. It has pushed back Marxist rebels from around the cities and deep into their mountain and jungle strongholds.

It has demobilised 30,000 members of an illegal right-wing paramilitary army, the United Self Defence Forces of Colombia. It has seen a massive drop in kidnapping and a fall in the murder rate, once among the highest in the world.

But Mr Uribe’s demand for results has pushed his security forces to the limit – and this appears to have provoked this scandal of the false positives. The scandal broke last October when it was found that poor, young men had been recruited from the slums of Bogota, promised well-paying jobs in the province of Norte de Santander, then murdered in cold blood and presented by the army as having been killed in combat.

The attorney general’s office has evidence that 30 young men were murdered in such circumstances, and so far 17 soldiers have been arrested in connection with these extra-judicial killings.

Cases multiply

The funding for these operations allegedly came from the budget for informants. The paying of informants is one of the central struts of the democratic security policy. Many people… have made false accusations, to try to paralyse the action of the security forces

However, more examples of false positives are coming to light, spread across the country. Prosecutors now have 900 cases on their books, involving 1,500 victims, with more reports arriving daily. Sixty-seven soldiers have already been found guilty and more than 400 have been arrested and are awaiting trial. A total of 1,177 members of the security forces are currently under investigation linked with cases of extra-judicial killings.

It is alleged that soldiers were sent to the city of Medellin to round up homeless people from the streets who were later presented by the army as rebels killed in combat. Investigators have managed to identify six cases, and 46 operations by the battalion are being scrutinised amid fears that they were simply staged using murdered civilians.

Student snatched

The most recent case of a false positive took place in the northern province of Cordoba in December last year, which was well after 27 soldiers, among them three generals and 11 colonels, were sacked as part of the scandal.

Defence Minister Santos, who is likely to run for the presidency in 2010, then stated that the problems had been resolved and that the human rights abuses would be stopped.

However last week he admitted that a student, Arnobis Negrete Villadiego, had been snatched off the streets of Monteria in Cordoba on Christmas Day. The corpse of the 18-year-old appeared a day later, presented as a member of a drug-trafficking gang killed in combat.

Military defended

But the minister insists that the situation is not as bad as the media is making out. “We have discovered that there are many false denunciations, many people that want to present legitimate killings in combat, terrorists, guerrillas, as extra-judicial executions, in order to stain the good name of our military institutions,” said Mr Santos.

President Uribe has said the same thing, insisting that elements linked to the guerrillas are using the false positives to undermine military morale.

“We have to be the first to denounce that many people, using the [false positives scandal], have made false accusations, to try to paralyse the action of the security forces against the terrorists,” the president declared.

International implications.

The British government has now diverted part of its aid to the Colombian military to other programmes that could have no links to the false positives, explained Alan Campbell, of the UK’s Home Office, who visited Bogota this week.

The White House is also studying the aid package known as Plan Colombia, which has delivered more than $6bn (£4bn) in mainly military aid since 1999.

Sources in the US embassy in Bogota said that it is likely to be cut, or at best have funding directed away from the military and into social investment programmes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8038399.stm

Ms Mukoko is among 18 leading activists to be detained just two months after they were released on bail. The activists say they were tortured into making false confessions. The party of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has warned that the move could threaten the future of Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government.

“Today’s ruling seriously threatens not only the life and health of the inclusive government, but its longevity and durability,” a statement from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said. It added that the decision “threatens the goodwill” Zimbabwe has received from the international community.

Torture claims

Magistrate Catherine Chimanda in Harare said she was revoking bail because a formal indictment had been filed a day earlier. It accuses Ms Mukoko and the others of sabotage, terrorism and banditry. The suspects – who include several MDC members – were detained in December for three months.

They were charged with attempting to overthrow Mr Mugabe’s government and replace it with one headed by Mr Tsvangirai. Some had fallen ill and were put under police guard in hospital. Ms Mukoko, the director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, was granted medical treatment at a previous court hearing after she said she had been tortured.

The latest detentions will be seen as another blow to the authority of Zimbabwe’s new power-sharing government, which has been struggling to resolve a plethora of political and economic issues, says the BBC’s Southern Africa correspondent, Peter Biles.

Karadzic wants both Sweden and the United States to be forced to provide evidence confirming the immunity deal he claims he was granted.
He requested the UN’s war crimes court to press the two countries for the evidence of the deal in a court submission Monday. “The information is critical to (his) case,” he said in his submission.

Karadzic claims he struck a deal with top US official Richard Holbrooke in July 1996. In return for disappearing from the public eye, he would be shielded from prosecution by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), he says.

But Karadzic also sought the court’s help in interviewing Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who had helped mediate an end to the Balkans conflict.
“Mr. Bildt was in daily contact with Holbrooke during the period in which the agreement was made and was jointly responsible for obtaining the resignation of Dr. Karadzic,” he claimed.

He had so far received no response to his requests for an interview with Bildt. Holbrooke, who was the US peace negotiator in Bosnia at the time, has insisted that no such deal existed.

Karadzic, currently awaiting trial before the ICTY, claims the US government had indicated that it had documents relating to the deal. None have yet been produced, however. The tribunal ruled in December that the alleged immunity deal, even if it existed, would be invalid and could not stop Karadzic’s prosecution.

Karadzic, 63, was arrested on a Belgrade bus last July, 13 years after he was first indicted. He faces 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, notably for the 44-month siege of Sarajevo that left 10,000 dead and the July 1995 massacre of around 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica.

An indicted war criminal is playing a leading role in the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to documents seen by the BBC.

A Congolese army paper suggests ex-rebel leader Gen Bosco Ntaganda has a major part in the command chain, says a BBC correspondent in the country.

The UN-Congolese force is fighting Hutu rebels in the eastern DR Congo.

The force says Congolese authorities have given assurances that Gen Ntaganda is not involved in joint operations.

Gen Ntaganda – known as “the Terminator” – is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged forced enrolment of child soldiers in 2002-2003.

‘No name’

The BBC’s Thomas Fessy in the capital, Kinshasa, has seen an internal Congolese army document, dated 4 April 2009, which refers to Gen Ntaganda as the deputy co-ordinator for the joint mission’s operations.

Rather than denying or ignoring the role being played by Bosco Ntaganda, the UN should be actively seeking his arrest and transferring him to The Hague Anneke Van Woudenberg Human Rights Watch Q&A: DR Congo conflict Congo conflict in a beer can

Our correspondent says the paper – which notes that Gen Ntaganda spoke during an operations meeting – proves he is playing a major role in the chain of command.

A high-ranking Congolese army official confirmed the former rebel leader was involved in the operations, describing him as an adviser to the operations commander.

The UN’s peacekeeping force in DR Congo, which is known as Monuc, denied the report.

“Monuc has been in very close touch with the Congolese authorities working with the Congolese military,” spokesman Kevin Kennedy told the BBC’s Network Africa programme.

“A document has been shared with Monuc concerning the command for the operations that Monuc is working on with the FADRC (Congolese national army).

“Bosco Ntaganda’s name does not appear on that document, so we have from our Congolese counterparts an assurance that he is not part of the command.”

‘Head in the sand’

Earlier this year, when the Congolese government said he could be useful in bringing peace to the eastern DR Congo, Monuc said it would not participate in any operation involving an indicted war criminal.

WHO IS BOSCO NTAGANDA? Known as “the Terminator” Indicted for war crimes; conscripting children to fight Ex-ally of rebel chief Thomas Lubanga, detained at The Hague Ntaganda refused offer of a Congolese army post in 2004 He joined Gen Nkunda’s CNDP two years later Split and joined Congolese army in January 2009

New York-based Human Rights Watch accused Monuc on Wednesday of deliberately ignoring the issue.

“We are very worried by this information and it seems to us that the United Nations is acting like an ostrich with its head in the sand,” Anneke Van Woudenberg, the group’s senior researcher on DR Congo, told the BBC.

“It’s time now this is addressed head on. Rather than denying or ignoring the role being played by Bosco Ntaganda, the UN should be actively seeking his arrest and transferring him to The Hague.”

Gen Ntaganda formerly served as chief of staff to Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda in the Tutsi-dominated rebel militia, the Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP).

But he joined the national army after splitting in January with Gen Nkunda – who was subsequently arrested in Rwanda.

International Criminal Court judges have said that as deputy head of military operations for another rebel militia, Gen Ntaganda was responsible for seven camps where children were trained.

He is also accused of taking part in that group’s attacks when the group used child soldiers.

Witnesses say government soldiers killed 21 people in the village of Sokumba, in the Ndele area, about 70km (44 miles) from the border with Chad. Some 18,000 refugees have crossed the border into Chad to escape the conflict, says the UN refugee agency. The Central African Republic (CAR) army declined to respond to the allegations.

Other human rights abuses committed by both the national military and rebels have been reported in the area. Four months after a peace deal was signed by various insurgent groups, the country is facing renewed fighting in the north.

Blood-stained clothes

In Sokumba, a group of women were preparing for a funeral ceremony when soldiers – believed to be part of the elite presidential guard – arrived in the village and told all the men to gather under a mango tree.

The men were stripped naked and tied to mango trees before several were shot in the head, some were stabbed to death and one person was decapitated Eyewitness reports Massacre haunts CAR villagers Profile: Central African Republic

The BBC’s Thomas Fessy interviewed witnesses who say soldiers accused them of supporting the rebels and killed the men after first shooting the chief of the village.

Diplomatic sources say empty shell cases and blood-stained clothes were found at the scene a week after the killing.

Between seven and nine other people are reported to have been killed by government soldiers in nearby villages.

The BBC’s Celeste Hicks on Chad’s border with CAR says about 250 families have just arrived.

She says people are coming day after day with whatever they have been able to carry – some cooking pots, utensils and their children – after weeks fleeing through the bush.

Refugees told her that the killings in Sokumba had aimed to suppress a little-known rebel movement, the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP).

The eyewitnesses said the men were stripped naked and tied to mango trees before several were shot in the head, some were stabbed with knives in the stomach until they died and one person was decapitated after he was killed. According to the unverified testimony, the troops’ commander checked all were dead by shooting them again, before leaving the bodies in the street.

The head of the UN human rights section in Bangui, the capital of the CAR, Renner Onana, says abuses have been committed by both the army and the rebels in the area. CAR army chief-of-staff Gen Francois Mobebou refused to comment.

Sporadic fighting broke out in January between government troops and the CPJP. Little is known about the rebel group’s aims or organisation.

Jose Antonio Ortega Osona, 40, a Spanish citizen who lives in New York, pleaded guilty Friday in Dartmouth provincial court to a Criminal Code charge of possessing child pornography and a Customs Act charge of smuggling prohibited goods.

Associate Chief Judge Brian Gibson, after giving Mr. Ortega Osona double credit for the nine days he spent on remand, sentenced him to serve an additional 72 days at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Burnside.

Customs officers searched Mr. Ortega Osona’s personal belongings after he arrived at the airport on a flight from New York on April 9.

Portable memory devices found in his backpack contained more than 800 images of hard-core child pornography, some involving a girl who appeared to be about five years old.

Mr. Ortega Osona expects to lose his job as a demographer with the UN’s fertility division because of the convictions, defence lawyer Geoff Newton said.  “Any jail sentence he gets pales in comparison to the effects this will have on his life,” Mr. Newton said. Others debate whether this will occur!

Mr. Ortega Osona was ordered to provide a sample of his DNA for a national databank.

“We are committed to keeping this type of material out of our communities,” Andrew LeFrank, the Canada Border Services Agency’s director for Nova Scotia, said in a release.

“This seizure reaffirms our role in the efforts to prevent the exploitation of children in Canada and around the world.”

Iran’s judiciary chief has ordered a “quick and fair” appeal for US-Iranian reporter Roxana Saberi, jailed last week for eight years for spying. Ayatollah Shahrudi said different aspects of the case “should be fairly, accurately and quickly considered”.

His order came after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the journalist must have the legal right to defend herself.

The journalist originally faced the less serious accusation of buying alcohol, and later of working as a reporter without a valid press card. Then, in a period of less than two weeks, the charge of spying was introduced, and she was tried and sentenced behind closed doors by the Revolutionary Court in Tehran.

Few details of the trial or the specifics of the charges have been released. Ms Saberi’s father, Reza, said his daughter was tricked into making a confession – being told by investigators she would be set free if she co-operated.

Ms Saberi, who holds dual US and Iranian citizenship, has spent six years in Iran studying and writing a book. She has been in jail in Tehran since January.

US President Barack Obama has expressed concern at the sentencing, handed down after a one-day trial in Tehran. Ms Saberi, 31, denies any involvement in espionage, and Mr Obama also said she was not a spy and called for her release.

Confession ‘trick’

Asked about Mr Obama’s comments, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi told a news conference: “It is an international norm that one should respect the rulings issued by the court.

“I recommend that as long as you have not studied the contents of the case one should not just express his views… I’m sure some American officials have also studied law.” Mr Qashqavi went on to say the Iranian authorities respected the defendant’s right of appeal.

In his statement, Ayatollah Shahrudi reiterated Mr Qashqavi’s point, saying he “emphasised the necessity of access to fair consideration of Roxana Saberi’s case, especially at the appeals stage, which is the certain right of the accused”.

more can be found at: http://freeroxana.net/

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I’ve visited Nairobi several times since June and each visit I’ve been startled by the large number of killings publicly confirmed by the police. Some days the police admit to killing as many as five to ten people — all likely robbers and violent criminals, according to the cops.

Whenever I complain about the amount of killings by police, Kenyans tell me that the police actions are welcome — and that there are simply too many crimes in Nairobi and too many armed criminals.

The police also have taken to killing suspects rather than arresting them — partly as a form of protest against a judicial system that moves too slowly against criminals and too often offers them leniency. Prosecutors, meanwhile, routinely fall down on the job, failing to document their cases sufficiently.

The judicial failures, while real, are used as an excuse for police to kill people with impunity. The practice of police killings legitimizes violence in Kenya, by ordinary criminals and political actors alike as well as by the state itself.
That so many of the people killed by police are alleged to be carrying weapons has made me wonder whether the police routinely plant guns on those they kill in order to protect themselves from complaints and obtain at least a flimsy justication for their deadly actions.

My worst suspicions about extra-judicial killings by police have been confirmed by a United Nations investigator. Philip Alston has found that senior police officials are ordering killings by their officers. Alston told the BBC: “Kenyan police are a law unto themselves. They kill often, with impunity.”

Alston provided evidence showing that police officers are given a “bonus” of $65 for every “suspect” they kill. He called on Kenya’s government to fire its police chief.

http://www.gogo.to/hkbhb7

The Helsingen Sanomat said Thursday that investigators claim the unidentified suspect planned and implemented the slaughter of up to 25,000 people in the south Rwandan municipality of Nyakizu.

The suspect was arrested in April 2007 in relation to the genocidal acts but has maintained his innocence in the matter.

“The police have heard various assessments on how many deaths he might have been involved in. The estimates vary from several thousand to as many as 25,000,” NBI official Thomas Elfgren told Helsingen Sanomat.

The NBI  investigation into the 100-day genocide at the hands of extremist Hutu tribesmen is being aided by Rwandan authorities, the Helsingen Sanomat said. The lengthy genocide is said to have resulted in the deaths of more than 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus.

The Finnish newspaper said the suspect was once a Rwandan Baptist Church official who may have had ties to former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana.