Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta is accused of crimes against humanity, including murder and persecution. The son of Kenya’s founding president. Lost 2002 elections to Mwai Kibaki but backed him in 2007. Like President Kibaki, a member of Kenya’s Kikuyu community – the country’s largest.

Accused of developing a plan to take revenge for attacks on Kikuyus and keep Kibaki in power. Kenyatta was allegedly the focal point between the government and the Kikuyu Mungiki sect, which was sent to the Rift Valley, setting up road blocks and going house-to-house, killing some 150 suspected Odinga supporters.

Cabinet secretary Francis Mutaura is a right-hand man of President Mwai Kibaki and seen as one of the most powerful unelected figures in the country. A former Kenyan ambassador at the United Nations and the European Union. From the Meru community, which is closely linked to President Kibaki’s Kikuyu group.

Accused of developing a plan with Kenyatta and Ali to take revenge for attacks on Kikuyus and keep Kibaki in power. Muthaura allegedly met Mungiki leaders and ordered the police to let Mungiki members through road blocks while using excessive force against supporters of Raila Odinga.

Former Education Minister William Ruto is one of the most influential people in the Rift Valley, where the worst violence took place. Suspended as minister in October after being accused of corruption over land deal, he flew to The Hague in November to try to clear his name.

William Ruto is accused of planning even before the election to set up militias to attack supporters of President Kibaki. Alleged to have urged his supporters to uproot the weeds from the fields – referring to communities in the Rift Valley with origins elsewhere in the country.

Reporter and executive of Kass FM radio, Joshua arap Sang Hosted morning shows on a Kalenjin-language radio station during the post-election violence in 2007/2008.

Joshua arap Sang is accused of planning attacks, along with Kosgey and Ruto, as well as whipping up ethnic hatred on the airwaves. Worst atrocity was the burning of a church near Eldoret where ethnic Kikuyus were sheltering.

Đorđević, former Assistant Minister of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) and Chief of its Public Security Department (RJB), was found guilty of participating in a joint criminal enterprise in 1999, whose aim was to change the ethnic balance of Kosovo to ensure Serbian dominance in the territory.

This objective was pursued through a widespread campaign of terror and violence against ethnic Albanians, which included deportations, murders, forcible transfers and persecutions. The common plan of the Joint Criminal Enterprise had the agreement and participation of political leaders of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and Serbia, the leadership of the Yugoslav Army (VJ), including the relevant Corps in Kosovo, and the leadership of the MUP including its Staff in Kosovo.

The Chamber found that some of the core members of the Joint Criminal Enterprise included Slobodan Milošević, President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Nikola Šainović, Deputy Prime Minister of the FRY and responsible for Kosovo. The MUP membership of the Joint Criminal Enterprise included Vlajko Stojiljković, Minister of the Interior, the Accused Vlastimir Đorđević, Chief of the RJB, Radomir Marković, Chief of the State Security Department, and Sreten Lukić, head of the MUP Staff for Kosovo.

The Judges dismissed Đorđević’s claim that he did not have effective control over the use of MUP forces in Kosovo because Minister Stojiljković had excluded him. To the contrary, the Chamber found that “the Accused’s participation in the joint criminal enterprise was crucial to its success”. He had lawful powers and exercised effective control over the police in Kosovo including regular and reserve police.

Đorđević was found responsible for the crimes of deportations, murders, forcible transfers and persecutions committed in the 13 municipalities listed in the indictment. These municipalities were: Orahovac/Rahovec, Prizren, Srbica/Skenderaj, Suva Reka/Suharekë, Peć/Pejë, Kosovska Mitrovica/Mitrovicë, Priština/Prishtinë, Đakovica/Gjakovë, Gnjilane/Gjilan, Uroševac/Ferizaj, Kačanik/Kaçanik, Dečani/Deçan and Vučitrn/Vushtrri.

Đorđević was found to be responsible for the murder of “not less than 724 Kosovo Albanians” who were murdered by Serbian forces, in most cases police, in many of the municipalities listed.

“In the large majority of cases the victims, including many women and children, were civilians, who were unarmed and not in any way participating in any form of armed conflict,” the Chamber found. It added that the murder offences charged were merely examples and “by no means exhaustive, of the crimes committed by Serbian forces, especially police, against the Kosovo Albanian population in the course of the widespread and systematic attack referred to”.

Among the incidents of murder for which Đorđević bears responsibility was the shooting and subsequent torching of 114 men and boys from a village near Orahovac/Rahovec who were killed by the police on 26 March 1999. On that same day in Suva Reka/Suharekë the police killed about 45 members of one family. In Podujevo, Serbian forces lined up and shot 19 women and children of whom 14 were killed. The five children who survived sustained severe and permanent injuries.

Đorđević was also found guilty of deportation and forcible transfer. While over 800,000 Kosovo Albanians left Kosovo between 24 March 1999 and 20 June 1999 this Trial Chamber concerned itself with the events that took place in the 13 municipalities listed. It found that Đorđević was responsible for the deportation of at least 200,000 Kosovo Albanians from the area in the three months adding that “the estimate is incomplete and very conservative and the true figure is likely to be very much higher”.

“Kosovo Albanians left Kosovo because they were specifically ordered to do so by Serbian forces, or because the conduct of Serbian forces caused them to leave, in particular by shelling, shooting, killing and by burning houses and other buildings in their villages, towns and cities,” Judge Kevin Parker, Presiding, said.

The Chamber dismissed Defence allegations that Kosovo Albanians were fleeing the NATO bombing of FRY which commenced on 24 March 1999 and the fighting between the Serbian forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army. While these factors “may have caused some concern in the minds of some Kosovo Albanians, the factor which was dominant and compelling in causing Kosovo Albanians to leave their homes, and in many cases in causing them to leave Kosovo, was the deliberate campaign of violence and terror conducted against Kosovo Albanian civilians by Serbian forces”, the Chamber found.

Đorđević was also found to have played a leading role in the MUP efforts to conceal the murders of Kosovo Albanians. “The evidence confirms that from the second week of April 1999, on at least six occasions over a period of several weeks, trucks containing bodies of Kosovo Albanians killed by Serbian forces in Kosovo arrived at the 13 Maj SAJ Centre in Batajnica near Belgrade,” the judgement reads. Two further deliveries were made to the Petrovo Selo PJP Centre. Bodies were also recovered from Lake Perućac in Serbia and buried in a mass grave site nearby. In 2001 the remains of 744 individuals were exhumed from the SAJ Centre in Batajnica, 61 from Petrovo Selo and 84 from Lake Perućac.

The Chamber has found that the transportation of bodies from Kosovo for clandestine burial in mass graves on MUP grounds was undertaken as part of a coordinated operation to remove evidence of crimes committed by Serbian forces against Kosovo Albanians in Kosovo during the Indictment period. This operation was conducted under the direction of the Accused, in consultation with Minister Stojiljković, pursuant to an order of the President of the FRY, Slobodan Milošević.

Vlastimir Đorđević is the eighth former senior Serbian official to be tried for the crimes committed in Kosovo and the sixth to be convicted. He was indicted in 2003 but remained on the run until his arrest on 17 June 2007 in Montenegro. His trial began on 27 January 2009 and concluded with closing arguments on 13 and 14 July 2010. The Chamber has heard over 140 witnesses and has admitted in evidence over 2,500 exhibits, including many orders and reports of the MUP and the VJ, and records of meetings of the Serbian political, police and military leaderships.

Since its establishment, the Tribunal has indicted 161 persons for serious violations of humanitarian law committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 2001. Proceedings against 125 have been concluded. Proceedings are currently ongoing for 34 Accused.

Certified German politician Doris Pack, head of the vote monitoring expressed her concern about “vote-rigging.” One polling station in Drenica, which was a solid base for Thaci’s PDK reported overwhelming turnouts at the two municipalities of Skenderaj with 93.68% and Gilogovc with 86.94%. There were 1.6 million people eligible to vote. In three polling stations more ballot papers were cast than the number of people registered to vote.

Petrit Selimi says the party would have prevailed, but the filing of 171 appeals had postponed the formation of a new government. Complaints included stuffing ballot boxes, multiple voting and defective verification with ultraviolet lights. A new election has been scheduled to be held on January 9, 2011.

Another problem is that two days after the election, Swiss politician and former prosecutor for the Council of Europe, Dick Marty implicated Thaci in drug smuggling and murder, and claims to have the proof. Marty allegedly conducted the two-year investigation into organized crime in Kosovo and accused the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) of removing at least 300 ethnic Serbs and Kosovar
enemies by imprisoning them in jails in Albania. The report has been endorsed by the Council of Europe and has ordered a complete investigation. Prime Minister Sali Berisha of Albania states his country is completely open for investigation.

Thaci and his group of guerilla commanders from the region of Drenica allegedly kept the captives in secret detention areas in Albania after the 1998-1999 war ended, transferred the men to the Medicus Clinic founded by a European philanthropist who aided Albanian doctors during the 1999 Kosovo war, and performed secret and illegal organ transplants and shipped the organs to Istanbul.

The Medicus Clinic, located in a poor suburb near downtown Pristina has been alleged to have been founded by Dr. Lutfi Dervishi, a former secretary of health who provided the clinic with a false license to operate. Turkish surgeon, Yusuf Sonmez has become the subject of an international manhunt. Referred to as “Doctor Vulture” and “Turkish Frankenstein” the situation has horrible
reminders of the Nazi concentration camps and subsequent egregious human experiments performed by German surgeons.

Prosecutors also believe Shaip Muja, a former KLA “medical commander based in Albania may have overseen the operations at Medicus.

The claims first became public in 2008 when chief war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte’s book, The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals claimed Kosovo Albanians were smuggling organs of kidnapped enemies. Her memoirs spurred the Council of Europe investigation. Del Ponte’s book originated from information she claimed to have received from Western investigative journalists, according to the
Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe (P.A.C.E.) who were working for a US based documentary producer American Radio Works. Ms. Del Ponte has since been sent to Argentina by the Swiss government as her nation’s ambassador.

Seven people were charged with international organ trafficking which was based in Kosovo alleging poor people were hired from slums, and promised payment of up to $20,000 for their kidneys. The harvested organs were sent to patients in Israel and Canada.

The Kosovo government has rejected all allegations of human organ trafficking, and heroin smuggling and invites the United Nations war crimes tribunal to investigate the case. Senator Marty alleges human organ trafficking has been going on for years.

Kosovo’s government has been thrown under the bus before, but the timing and context of the allegations has cost Thaci a lot of credibility. He claims the reports to be “ill-intentioned propaganda” intended to undermine Kosovo’s independence that Serbia refuses to acknowledge.

The report however alleges more than organ trafficking. On a larger scale the “Drenica” group participates in much more crime and corruption including murder, trafficking of women, heroin distribution and money laundering. Thaci calls the continued PACE claims libelous. Reports filed by the U.S., DEA, FBI, and other country intelligence agencies have stated that the Drenica group members
are always named as key players for organized crime.

Why hasn’t the U.S participated in this investigation? This past summer Vice President Joseph Biden met with Thaci to “reaffirm the United States’ full support for an independent, democratic, whole, and multi-ethnic Kosovo.” Biden also “reiterated the US firm support for Kosovo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

All of this certainly makes you wonder doesn’t it?

On this site you will find videos relating to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi enriched with synchronized transcripts, searchable index terms, and maps. Videos include testimonies of Genocide survivors and perpetrators, Gacaca Justice System court proceedings, and remembrance ceremonies.

Digitized photos, publications, archival documents, and audio recordings relevant to the Rwandan Genocide are also available on this site.

Khmer Rouge prison chief Dutch

Dutch, 67, whose full name is Kaing Guek Eav, was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

He had admitted overseeing the torture and execution of thousands of men, women and children at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, and asked for forgiveness.

Prosecutors had asked the judges for a 40-year prison sentence. However, Dutch will not serve the full 35 allotted years as judges reduced the sentence by five years because he had been held illegally, and reduced it by a further 11 years for the time already served behind bars.

Only about a dozen people who were held at Tuol Sleng are thought to have survived, three of whom are still alive. Up to 17,000 people are believed to have died there.

1942 Kaing Guek Eav born in Cambodia’s central province of Kampong Thom
1962 Studies at the prestigious Lycée Sisowath in Phnom Penh. After graduating in mathematics – and coming second in the entire country – he studied for a teaching certificate
1960s Becomes a secondary school teacher. Spends months in detention for leftwing activity
1969 Joins Khmer Rouge, the communist movement fighting Cambodia’s US-backed government
1970 King Sihanouk of Cambodia is deposed in a coup. General Lon Nol assumes power
1975 Khmer Rouge seizes power. Duch becomes head of Tuol Sleng prison. This serves as the foremost interrogation centre for “enemies of the regime”. As many as 17,000 people were interrogated and tortured there before execution
1979 Vietnamese forces topple Khmer Rouge regime. Remnants flee to Thai border and Duch goes into hiding
1999 Duch found living in a village in north-west Cambodia working for a US non-governmental institution under an assumed name and gets arrested
2005 Tribunal for surviving Khmer Rouge leaders gets UN approval after years of debate about funding
July 26 2010 Tribunal sentences Duch to 35 years in jail for his part in running Tuol Sleng

Victims of Khmer Rouge

Her family members have sought her in vain in numerous detention centres. They have since been forced to leave their village, having received threats from members of the security forces. Initially, as is the way in many such cases, the military denied holding Maina. Reports surfaced indicating that she had been tortured to death in detention. She was reportedly beaten, dunked in water and subjected to repeated electric shocks. Her injuries led to her death in detention. Following these reports, the military claimed that Maina had been killed while trying to escape from custody, and that they had returned her body to her family following a post-mortem examination. Her family has not received her body and there has been no evidence of any such post-mortem examination.

More recently, three members of the military were tried by a military court, but they have only received derisory punishment. Details concerning the investigation conducted by the “Court of Inquiry Board” (CIB) of a military court have just surfaced and clearly indicate that the military are responsible for Maina’s torture and subsequent death, and even identify the area in which her body has been buried. As with other cases of violations of civilians’ rights by members of the military in Nepal, they need to be investigated by the police and brought to trial before a civil court, if there is any chance of justice being achieved. Attempts by the police to investigate the case and to retrieve Maina’s body are currently being blocked by the army. Furthermore, the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Office (OHCHR) Nepal’s investigation is also thought to have been hampered due to the army’s non-cooperation and the government’s indifference.

The CIB reportedly concluded that a covert military team from the Birendra Peace Operations Training Centre in Panchkhal had arrested Maina on February 17, 2004 and that she had been killed by members of the army, as the result of severe torture. The CIB has indicated that Training Centre Chief Colonel Babi Khatri, Captains Niranjan Basnet, Sunil Adhikari, Amit Pun, Seargeant Major Khadak Bahadur Khatri, and soldiers Dil Bahadur Basnet and Shrikrishna Thapa were present during Maina’s interrogation and torture. The CIB also stated that the military, notably Babi Khatri, had taking steps to cover up her death by torture. He reportedly ordered Amit Pun to shoot a bullet into the back of Maina’s dead body, to make it look like she had been shot while trying to escape. Furthermore, Babi Khatri reportedly ordered Amit Pun to bury Maina’s body secretly and Niranjan Basnet to summon the police to prepare a report.

According to the information received, Amit Pun then ordered a member of the military called Surendra to dig a pit to the north-east of the officers’ mess, some 50 to 60 metres outside of the ‘concertina’ barbed-wire. It is reported that Amit Pun took a photograph of Maina’s body just before she was buried in the pit. For his part, Niranjan Basnet allegedly ensured that a false report was prepared by the Panchkhal Police Office concerning Maina’s death.

On September 27, 2005, the media in Nepal reported that Colonel Babi Khatri, Captains Niranjan Basnet and Sunil Adhikari had been ‘found guilty of not following the proper procedures when Maina was found dead in custody’. Colonel Khatri also reportedly had to pay Rupees 50,000 (approximately US$ 670) to the victim’s family and had any promotion blocked for two years. Captains Ameet Pun and Sunil Adhikari were each to pay Rupees 25,000 and had any promotions blocked for one year. Due to a lack of transparency of the military justice system, the AHRC and its sources have not been able to ascertain whether these persons have actually served any of their prison sentences. Regardless of this, the punishment given to these persons for having tortured a 15-year old girl to death is derisory and scandalous, both in terms of the length of imprisonment terms and of the amount of compensation. The family members have reportedly refused to accept this compensation and have the case closed, and are instead seeking justice through the civil courts. The fact that the alleged perpetrators remain in service in the military, with their prospects for promotion only slightly dented despite the grave nature of their crimes, is an indicator of the protection under which members of the armed forces can operate.

It is vital in this case that the alleged perpetrators in question be tried for murder before an independent, impartial court and that, if found guilty, they receive punishment that is proportional to their crimes, in line with international standards. Adequate compensation must also be awarded to the victim’s family for their loss.

As part of the trial before a civil court, further investigations are required. A First Information Report (FIR) has been lodged concerning this case demanding the criminal prosecution of the perpetrators. The police are required to investigate the case and then send their findings to the public prosecutor, who then takes the case before the courts. It is reported that the military are blocking the police’s attempts to investigate these events.

Update

Deputy Superintendent of Police (Dy.S. P.) Sanjaya Singh Basnet refused to register the case due to the involvement of the military, and that it was even too sensitive to explain why the case was being refused.  According to Nepalese law (State Cases Act) the police have to register any information regarding a crime of this nature and they have to provide the receipt of the registration to those who have provided the information.  The action of Dy.S.P.Sanjaya was in direct contravention of the State Cases Act and indicates the apparent disregard that state officials show concerning the law in the country.

Devi Sunuwar then went to the Chief District Officer (CDO) at the District Administrative Office who registered the complaint, but stated that it had no legal validity since according to the State Cases Act the complaint has to be registered by the police. This is not correct: under the provisions of the State Cases Act, if a police officer refuses to register a complaint, the complainant can go to a higher police authority or the CDO to have the complaint registered.

Additional Info

Details on persons reported to have been killed prior to Maina being abducted.

The plainclothes army forces shot two young girls, named Reena Rasaili and Subhadra Chaulagain, between midnight of 12 and dawn of 13 February 2004 in the in Pokahari Chauri-4 village, Kavre District in Nepal. It is alleged that a group of security personnel also raped Reena before shooting her. There was a report about another extra-judicial killing of a young boy named Tasi Lama, who lives in the same village by security personnel on that same day.

Several family members and relatives of the victims were also tortured. However, the next day (13 February), the national radio broadcasted news stating that the security forces killed three Maoist named Reena Rasaili, Subhadra Chaulagain and Tasi Lama during the encounter with the Maoist rebels. Pokahari Chauri-4 village is a very remote area without access to the city and its hospitals, and is located forty-five kilometers away from Dolalghat and almost 150 kilometers far from the Kavre district headquarter.

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

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.

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.

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”.

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