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?

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.

Personal information detailing intimate aspects of the lives of every British citizen is to be handed over to government agencies under sweeping new powers. The measure, which will give ministers the right to allow all public bodies to exchange sensitive data with each other, is expected to be rushed through Parliament in a Bill to be published tomorrow.

The new legislation would deny MPs a full vote on such data-sharing. Instead, ministers could authorize the swapping of information between councils, the police, NHS trusts, the Inland Revenue, education authorities, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, the Department for Work and Pensions and other ministries.

Opponents of the move accused the Government of bringing in by stealth a data-sharing program that exposed everyone to the dangers of a Big Brother state and one of the most intrusive personal databases in the world. The new law would remove the right to protection against misuse of information by thousands of unaccountable civil servants, they added.

Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, said he believed Britain had gone too far in helping to bring about a “surveillance society”. In a report drawing on personal data infringements across Europe but “inspired” by Britain’s plan for a new internet, email and telephone database, he added: “General surveillance raises serious democratic problems which are not answered by the repeated assertion that those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. This puts the onus in the wrong place: it should be for states to justify the interferences they seek to make on privacy rights.”

He said he was “very worried about the downgrading of the protections of personal information”, adding: “Of course there has to be a balance to be struck. At the moment we have not got it right.”

David Howarth, the Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, added: “The Government shouldn’t try to sneak through further building blocks of its surveillance state. Unrestricted data-sharing simply increases the risks of data loss. This is particularly troubling since the Government has already shown itself entirely incapable of keeping our personal data safe.”

The data-sharing measure is referred to in the Coroners and Justice Bill outlined in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech. It could, for instance, pave the way for medical records to be sent to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to identify drivers who pose a health risk, or school attendance data being handed to the Department for Work and Pensions to verify social security claims made by parents.

But civil rights groups warned that the possibility of public records being transferred to private companies on a minister’s whim was of even greater concern. Under the existing system, public bodies require primary legislation to authorize the transfer of data to another agency. The new plans would end such parliamentary scrutiny by permitting ministers to use secondary legislation without a full vote of MPs. The Bill sets out how ministers would be able to sidestep data protection and human rights laws that prevent public bodies revealing private information.

NO2ID, a group which campaigned against government plans for ID cards and the associated National Identity Register, said the proposals went far beyond data protection and were intended “to build the database state, concealed under a misleading name”. The group’s national coordinator, Phil Booth, said: “This is a Bill to smash the rule of law and build the database state in its place. Burying sweeping constitutional change in obscure Bills is an appalling approach. Having proved – and admitted – they cannot be trusted to look after our secrets, they are still determined to steal what privacy we have left. Parliament needs to wake up before it has no say any more.”

Civil liberties groups said the new powers could be used in conjunction with the equally controversial plan for a giant database holding details of people’s emails, telephone calls and internet searches. The Communications Data Bill, which would contain this information, was set for inclusion in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech but will now be part of a consultation paper to be published in January.

Mr Hammarberg said Britain’s poor record on data loss had led to an EU-wide debate about the dangers of a surveillance society. He added: “Data protection is crucial to the upholding of fundamental democratic values: a surveillance society risks infringing this basic right.”

The Ministry of Justice said data-sharing was essential for the delivery of “efficient and effective public services, tackling crime and protecting the public”. “Any draft order would require parliamentary approval and a privacy impact assessment,” said a spokesman. “Additionally, the Information Commissioner would have been invited to comment on the proposals. This will ensure any potential privacy issues and risks are identified and examined.

“The power will be exercised only in circumstances where the sharing of the information is in the public interest and proportionate to the impact on any person adversely affected by it.”

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-big-brother-state-ndash-by-stealth-1050576.html

Last month the Home Office revealed that 2,324,879 recorded criminals (40 percent) in England and Wales did not actually have a DNA sample held on the NDNAD. At the same time, the Home Office reported that 857,366 innocent individuals’ profiles are currently held on the NDNAD.

Liberty’s Director Shami Chakrabarti said:

“This is one of the most strongly worded judgments that Liberty has ever seen from the Court of Human Rights. That Court has used human rights principles and common sense to deliver the privacy protection of innocent people that the British Government has shamefully failed to deliver.”

The Home Office is expected to hold a consultation about the retention of DNA following today’s judgment. The judgment would not have affected the outcome of any of the recent, high profile, convictions where DNA evidence has been a significant factor.

Liberty’s Legal Officer Anna Fairclough said:

“Forty percent of Britain’s criminals are not on this database, but hundreds of thousands of innocent people are. Sweeping up the innocent with the guilty does not help fight crime. The Court of Human Rights has protected the privacy of British people so poorly let down by our own government.”

Key passages of Grand Chamber Judgment of S and Marper v the United Kingdom include:

● The Court was struck by the blanket and indiscriminate nature of the power of retention in England and Wales. In particular, the data in question could be retained irrespective of the nature or gravity of the offence with which the individual was originally suspected or of the age of the suspected offender; the retention was not time-limited; and there existed only limited possibilities for an acquitted individual to have the data removed from the nationwide database or to have the materials destroyed.

● The Court expressed a particular concern at the risk of stigmatization, stemming from the fact that persons in the position of the applicants, who had not been convicted of any offense and were entitled to the presumption of innocence, were treated in the same way as convicted persons. It was true that the retention of the applicants’ private data could not be equated with the voicing of suspicions. Nonetheless, their perception that they were not being treated as innocent was heightened by the fact that their data were retained indefinitely in the same way as the data of convicted persons, while the data of those who had never been suspected of an offense were required to be destroyed.

● It observed that the protection afforded by Article 8 of the Convention would be unacceptably weakened if the use of modern scientific techniques in the criminal justice system were allowed at any cost and without carefully balancing the potential benefits of the extensive use of such techniques against important private life interests. Any State claiming a pioneer role in the development of new technologies bore special responsibility for striking the right balance in this regard.

●In the Court’s view, the capacity of DNA profiles to provide a means of identifying genetic relationships between individuals was in itself sufficient to conclude that their retention interfered with the right to the private life of those individuals. The possibility created by DNA profiles for drawing inferences about ethnic origin made their retention all the more sensitive and susceptible of affecting the right to private life. The Court concluded that the retention of both cellular samples and DNA profiles amounted to an interference with the applicants’ right to respect for their private lives, within the meaning of Article 8.1 of the Convention.

Notes to Editors

Background on S and Marper v United Kingdom

1. Liberty agrees that a DNA database can be a valuable crime detection tool. However, repeated legislative changes have rolled out retention policy by stealth so that anyone arrested for even very minor offences can have their DNA held for the rest of their life, even if they have been mistakenly arrested. DNA is relevant only to a small number of serious offenses, mainly involving sexual assault or violence. Liberty believes that the correct and proportionate approach to the National DNA Database would be based on allowing retention of DNA for those convicted or cautioned of these types of serious offense. This approach is the one adopted by nearly every EU and other comparable state.

2. S & Marper v United Kingdom, heard in the European Court of Human Rights on 27 February 2008, establishes if the automatic retention of DNA samples, profiles and fingerprints from those who are not convicted of any offense is a breach of the right to a private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The government has repeatedly said it has no plans to create a universal database because it does not think the population is ready for the civil liberties implications of that. Liberty believes that the present arbitrary basis on which the database is built is both unsustainable and unjustifiable.

3. S & Marper concerns the legality of amendments to s64 Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 which enable the police to retain bodily samples, DNA profiles and fingerprints from anyone arrested for a recordable offense, whether or not they are charged, prosecuted or convicted. Virtually all offenses (except the most trivial) are recordable. Current Government policy is to retain this information, including DNA on the National DNA Database (NDNAD), until the individual dies or reaches 100 years old. Samples, profiles and fingerprints can be destroyed on request in exceptional circumstances.

Facts

S was arrested in January 2001 when he was an 11 year old boy. He has no previous convictions, cautions or warnings. He was charged with the offence of attempted robbery and his fingerprints and samples were taken. Following a trial on 14.6.01 S was acquitted. He subsequently sought through his solicitors the destruction of his samples and fingerprints, but the police refused because of the legislative amendments referred to above (which came into force with retrospective effect on 11.5.01).

Marper was 38 when he was arrested in March 2001. He had no previous convictions. He was charged with harassment of his partner and his fingerprints and DNA samples were taken. By the time of a pre-trial review in May 2001 he had reconciled with his partner who no longer wished to press charges. The proceedings were discontinued. The police refused his request for the destruction of his samples and fingerprints.

European Court of Human Rights

S & Marper applied to the ECtHR to raise the following legal questions:

1.Is there any justification for keeping the original bodily samples from which DNA profiles are generated? Whilst the profiles reveal a limited amount of information about an individual, the samples contain that person’s complete genetic makeup and to retain them requires a very strong justification which the government has not supplied. The government says the samples are needed for quality control purposes and in case it might need to upgrade the database in future. Liberty does not accept this. A future upgrade of the database is a hypothetical possibility which does not justify retention of the samples now. It is likely that the database will soon be so large that an upgrade of the all the profiles is in any event an unrealistic option.

2. Is there sufficient justification for keeping DNA profiles from those not convicted of any offense? Although the profiles (a numerical representation of part of a person’s DNA) may be difficult to decipher to the untrained eye, there are a number of major privacy issues that arise from their retention on the database.

a)  Research is carried out on the database without the consent of those whose profiles are on it. This is only supposed to be for the ‘prevention or detection of crime’ but that is interpreted very broadly so that research into ethnicity for example would be acceptable provided it can be loosely associated with crime prevention or detection.

b)  The NDNAD has an electronic link to the Police National Computer to enable the police to use it for intelligence purposes. The PNC is accessible from over 120,000 terminals in the UK, including non-police bodies. Previously, records held on the PNC were ‘weeded’ so that if you were acquitted or no proceedings were brought, the PNC record would be removed after around 40 days. Now, because of the link between the NDNAD and the PNC and because DNA profiles are kept until death/age 100, the PNC records are also kept. As a solution to the legal implications of this, the police propose to mask some of the information from ‘non-police users’ of the PNC but the system is not yet fully operational. Further, the Information Commissioner (ICO) considers that for the police to keep all this information even for themselves breaches the Data Protection Act 1998.

3. Britain’s DNA database is proportionately the largest in the world. Approximately 4.5 million people have their DNA permanently retained on the NDNAD.

Thousands of DNA samples from innocent people are currently retained

The men’s information was held by South Yorkshire Police, although neither was convicted of any offense. The judgment could have major implications on how DNA records are stored in the UK’s national database. The judges said keeping the information “could not be regarded as necessary in a democratic society”.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she was “disappointed” by the European Court of Human Rights’ decision. The database may now have to be scaled back following the unanimous judgment by 17 senior judges from across Europe.

Under present laws, the DNA profiles of everyone arrested for a recorded offense in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are kept on the database, regardless of whether they are charged or convicted.

Discriminatory

The details of about 4.5m people are held and one in five of them does not have a current criminal record.

Both men were awarded £36,400 (42,000 Euros) in costs, less the money already paid in legal aid. The court found that the police’s actions were in violation of Article 8 – the right to respect for private and family life – of the European Convention on Human Rights. It also said it was “struck by the blanket and indiscriminate nature of the power of retention in England and Wales”.

The judges ruled the retention of the men’s DNA “failed to strike a fair balance between the competing public and private interests,” and that the UK government “had overstepped any acceptable margin of appreciation in this regard”. The court also ruled “the retention in question constituted a disproportionate interference with the applicants’ right to respect for private life and could not be regarded as necessary in a democratic society”.

‘Privacy protection’

The home secretary said: “DNA and fingerprinting is vital to the fight against crime, providing the police with more than 3,500 matches a month. “The government mounted a robust defense before the court and I strongly believe DNA and fingerprints play an invaluable role in fighting crime and bringing people to justice. “The existing law will remain in place while we carefully consider the judgment.”

Solicitor Peter Mahy, who represented the men, said that the decision will have far-reaching implications. “It will be very interesting to see how the UK government respond. “The government should now start destroying the DNA records of those people who are currently on the DNA database and who are innocent of any crime.”

Human rights group Liberty said it welcomed the court’s decision. Director Shami Chakrabarti said: “This is one of the most strongly worded judgements that Liberty has ever seen from the Court of Human Rights. “That court has used human rights principles and common sense to deliver the privacy protection of innocent people that the British government has shamefully failed to deliver.”

‘Invasion of privacy’

Phil Booth, of the NO2ID group, which campaigns against identity cards, said: “‘This is a victory for liberty and privacy. “Though these judgments are always complicated and slow in coming, it is a vindication of what privacy campaigners have said all along. “The principle that we need to follow is simple – when charges are dropped suspect samples are destroyed. No charge, no DNA.”

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics reports on the ethical questions raised by recent advances in biological and medical research. Its director, Hugh Whittall, said: “We agree wholeheartedly with this ruling. The DNA of innocent people should not be kept by police. “People feel it is an invasion of their privacy, and there is no evidence that removing from the DNA database people who have not been charged or convicted will lead to serious crimes going undetected.
“The government now has an obligation to bring its own policies into line.”

Rights breach claim

One of the men who sought the ruling in Strasbourg, Michael Marper, 45, was arrested in 2001. He was charged with harassing his partner but the case was later dropped. He had no previous convictions. The other man – a teenager identified as “S” – was arrested and charged with attempted robbery but later acquitted.

In both cases the police refused to destroy fingerprints and DNA samples taken when the men were taken in to custody. The men went to the European Court of Human Rights after their cases were thrown out by the House of Lords.

They argued that retaining their DNA profiles is discriminatory and breaches their right to a private life. The government claims the DNA profile from people who are not convicted may sometimes be linked to later offenses, so storing the details on the database is a proportionate response to tackling crime.

Scotland already destroys DNA samples taken during criminal investigations from people who are not charged or who are later acquitted of alleged offenses.

The Home Office has already set up a “contingency planning group” to look into the potential implications arising from a ruling in favor of the men.

Saltspring Island resident Josip Budimcic is Living Free in Canada

Josip Budimcic, who was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison for war crimes in 1995 in Croatia, will remain in Canada. The Canada Immigration and Refugees` Board reached this decision, which announced that there were no evidence to point that Budimcic has committed war crimes.

Canada`s Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has filed a request before the Canada Immigration and Refugees` Board on 2007, for the refugee status to be revoked, which would enable Budimcic`s deportation. He was given the status of a refugee for claiming he and his wife in Croatia were in danger because he is a Croat and his wife is Serbian. The committee elaborated its provision to refuse the minister’s request in a 57-page document.

During the Osijek County Court trial, four former Croatian Army members testified, saying Budimcic took part in executions and tortured prisoners during the Serbian aggression on Croatia in 1991. However, Board member Ross Pattee said the witnesses were not brought to Canada to testify at the immigration hearing.

Osijek County Court spokesperson Miroslav Rozac said that Croatia cannot do anything, although Budimcic was validly sentenced to 15 years in prison.

- Budimcic has Canadian citizenship and nothing can be done unless Canada extradites him – Rozac said.

With regard to the four witnesses who did not come to testify in Canada, the court spokesperson said the Justice Ministry had jurisdiction.

- The Canadian and Croatian Justice Ministries were supposed to have agreed on giving depositions from Croatia – Rozac said, adding that the witnesses could have testified via video link.

Budimcic left the area of the so-called Serb Krajina during the period of peaceful reintegration. This area was under integration of the Canadian battalion, so he went to Canada and took Canadian citizenship.

Witnesses stated in their deposition that they recognized Josip Budimcic among Chetniks who had tortured prisoners. They said they tied the prisoners up, beat them, extinguished cigarettes all over their bodies and shot above their heads to frighten them.

The trial for the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, which took place in October 2006, has opened with the suspected killer still at large, the press excluded from the proceedings, and an apparent attempted poisoning of the prosecution’s lawyer. But even if the three existing defendants are found guilty, the actual masterminds of the murder have little to worry about.

We will probably never know who killed Anna Politkovskaya. The opening of pretrial proceedings at the Moscow District Military Court on Wednesday confirms, rather than confounds that statement. The three men who are facing prosecution, Sergei Khadjikurbanov and Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, ethnic Chechens and brothers, are accused of shadowing Politkovskaya prior to the killing. But the man believed to have actually pulled the trigger (Rustam Makhmudov, Dzhabrail and Ibraghim’s older brother) is yet to have been detained; the identity of who actually ordered the killing is still unknown; the money supposed to have changed hands in payment for the killing has apparently not been traced; and none of the accused has confessed or agreed to assist the investigation.

If the prosecution has a weak case (and with no murderer in the dock or blood money in the evidence room it is not looking strong), it will not be helped by the fact that the professions of two of the suspects, Lt. Col. Pavel Ryaguzov, a serving FSB officer, and Sergei Khadjikurbanov , a former member of the anti-organized crime unit of the Moscow police department, mean the trial may be closed to the press and to the public. “As for the secret documents, they concern our requests to the FSB and MVD [the Interior Ministry] that are responsible, for example, for the observation service, whose officers’ names are classified,” Petros Garibyan, the senior investigator from the investigating committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office, told Novaya Gazeta in a recent interview. The next hearing will decide whether these “secret” materials mean that the press must be barred from the court room.

Meanwhile, the press has reported extensively on an apparent attempted poisoning of Politkovskayas’ family lawyer, Karinna Moskalenko, in France. The hearing went ahead without her, despite requests from the prosecution to delay proceedings until she was well enough to attend.

This week’s events have not been confidence building; in that, they are consistent with how the case has been conducted from the very beginning. It has been characterized by a bizarre mixture of surprise breakthroughs marred by premature announcements, extraordinary contradictions, and repeated leaks of sensitive information to the press.

Throughout the investigation, progress has been matched almost step for step by setbacks and frustrations. For almost a year after Politkovskaya’s murder, little was said officially. Then, on August 27, 2007, then Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika called a press conference in which he announced the arrest of ten people connected with the killing. He neither named the suspects nor explained their roles, but did say that they included serving and former members of the FSB and members of a Chechen-led criminal gang. On the same day, the FSB’s internal security department announced that a serving officer, Lt. Col. Pavel Ryaguzov, was suspected of being involved in the killing. Two days later, on August 29, a spokesman for Moscow City courts announced a warrant had been issued for the arrest of an eleventh suspect, identified as a former police officer in the Moscow Anti-Organized Crime Directorate (that was presumably Khadjikurbanov , though he was not named at the time).

After ten months of official silence, this apparent progress came as a welcome surprise – particularly the admission from both the prosecutor general and the FSB itself that security officers were involved. Politkovskaya was well known to have earned enemies amongst the security services, and the notion that FSB men might have been involved in her murder surprised no one. The idea that they might face justice did.

Then came the setbacks. Many of the names that Chaika had refused to mention in his press conference were almost immediately leaked to the press, compromising the investigation. By August 30, 2007, two of the eleven suspects had already been released because there was insufficient evidence to hold them longer. The remaining nine suspects were apparently charged, but by May 12, 2008, Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the investigating committee, said only seven remained in custody. Now, four have been charged, and three more have apparently been released, but it is not clear why.

Of the four who remain, only three – the two Makhmudov brothers, who are said to have followed Politkovskaya and passed information on to the killer, and Khadjikurbanov, who is said to have directed them – are to be tried for involvement in the killing. The case against these three is “pretty strong,” said Sergei Sokolov, the deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta who headed the paper’s own investigation of the killing. But the trial is “about three and half men,” Sokolov added. The involvement of the fourth man, Ryagazov, is more tenuous.

On August 30, 2007, a spokesman for the Moscow District Military Court told the Associated Press that the arrest of Ryagazov was “in no way” connected with the Politkovskaya murder – a direct contradiction of the FSB’s announcement three days earlier. A few weeks later, however, Shamil Burayev, the former head of the Achkoi-Martan administrative district in Chechnya, was arrested (in what was becoming a predictable pattern, his name was also leaked to Komsomolskaya Pravda before the authorities announced it. In April 2008, Rustam Makhmudov’s name was leaked to the same paper), and accused of hiring Ryaguzov to find Politkovskaya’s home address.

But Burayev was released, and although Ryaguzov is to be tried as part of the same case, he is charged not with the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, but with abuse of office and the attempted blackmail of a businessman called Eduard Ponikarov in 2003. “I could not make Ryaguzov’s case separate, as he did all that jointly with Khadjikurbanov, who is also accused of Politkovskaya’s murder,” Garibyan, the investigator, said in the Novaya Gazeta interview. Because Ryaguzov is a serving FSB officer, the entire case will be heard in a military court. “The courts will be military ones because one of the accused – Lt. Col. Ryaguzov – is an acting FSB officer. The rest did not object to military justice,” Garibyan told Novaya Gazeta.

That raises the suspicion that the FSB man is being attached to this case simply to ensure that the trial is heard in a military court. Like so much about this case, however, that is a matter of conjecture, and it is unclear who the military court benefits. The case will still be tried by a jury, and the issue of secrecy applies to documents submitted as evidence, not to the court itself. Sokolov, indeed, still believes Ryaguzov was involved in Politkovskaya’s murder, even if it is as yet unclear how, and thinks elements in the security services have been protecting him by obstructing the investigation.

Yet for all the leaks, premature statements and controversies, “in the grand scheme of things, this is progress,” said Nina Ogninova, Europe and Central Asia program coordinator at the Commitee to Protect Journalists, who has followed the case closely. “We have to commend Garibyan’s team, even if we have reservations about the Prosecutor General’s motives.”

“We don’t have any disagreement with the investigators concerning those three suspects,” Sokolov agreed, “though we have a slightly different opinion about Ryaguzov’s involvement.”

With no confessions or money changing hands, it seems that the prosecution’s case will be largely based on CCTV footage and telephone call records. We will only see how strong such a case can be once the trial opens – if it is not held in a closed court. But even with a guilty verdict, this trial will not close the case. Rustam Makhmudov, believed to be the killer, has still to be detained. The question of who ordered the killing, and who is laundering the money for the hit, will remain. Nor will it change the fact that somebody did their best to sabotage the investigation by leaking suspects’ names, and somebody put mercury in Karinna Moskalenko’s car on the eve of the trial. In this case, establishing the truth is proving as bewildering as sorting the good news from the bad.

http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=Politics&articleid=a1224254571

Bavarian cops have searched the office of a spokesman for the German Pirate Party (Piratenpartei Deutschland) hunting for a mole who leaked information on plans to develop a Trojan capable of eavesdropping on Skype conversation, according to local reports.

Golem.de reports that an office in the home of Pirate Party spokesman Ralph dog Erlach was searched in the early hours of September 11 by police demanding to know who had leaked plans for the controversial wiretap program. Police took away files and computer servers, said to be protected by strong encryption.

The German Pirate Party, which campaigns about the misuse of copyright and other issues, is styled after the better-known Swedish Pirate Party and represents a minor political grouping in the German political scene. The party won a 0.3 per cent of votes in the Hesse state election this year, the first it has contested.

German reports don’t say but the raid on the Pirate Party spokesman apparently follows the publication of two leaked documents on Wikileaks in January. One detailed plans by German firm Digitask to develop wiretap packages capable of intercepting Skype VoIP communications and SSL transmissions, while the second contained costing and licensing proposals for such software drawn up by the Bavarian Ministry of Justice.

If nothing else, the raid provides suggestive evidence of the authenticity of these documents.

Bavaria became the first German state to pass legislation that allows police to plant spyware on the PCs of suspects in terrorist investigations back in July. The measure is strongly opposed by both sections of the security community and privacy activists, who might yet mount some kind of legal challenge at the federal level.

Skype promises confidentiality through encrypted calls, but not anonymity. For example, a fugitive business exec was tracked down to Sri Lanka by private detectives in 2006 after making a Skype call. Often police are simply interested in who a target is talking to and when rather than the content of conversations.

That’s not enough for to satisfy some law enforcement agencies, however.

German police have been the most vocal in complaining about how encryption and VoIP was making their lives miserable. Spyware was seen as a way of turning back the clock to the sort of set-up on monitoring suspects depicted in the film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others), adding an extra tool in the fight against terrorism in the process.

But the whole Trojan ruse is fraught with numerous difficulties. Quite aside from concerns about the admissibility of evidence obtained using the tactic there’s also the worry that samples of the malware might fall into the hands of cybercrooks.

Then there’s the possibility that the anti-virus software of suspects might detect the state-sanctioned malware. Security firms that agree to law enforcement requests to turn a blind eye to state-sanctioned malware risk would undermine trust in their technology, as demonstrated by the Magic Lantern controversy in the US a few years ago. ® http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/18/german_police_raid_pirate_party/

Richard Owen in Rome

An Italian comedienne who said that Pope Benedict XVI would go to Hell and be tormented by homosexual demons is facing a prison term of up to five years.

Addressing a Rome rally in July, Sabrina Guzzanti warmed up with a few gags about Silvio Berlusconi — her favorite target for her biting impressions — before moving on to some unrepeatable jokes about Mara Carfagna, the Equal Opportunities Minister and one-time topless model.

But then she got religion, and after warning everyone that within 20 years Italian teachers would be vetted and chosen by the Vatican, she got to the punchline:”

The joke may have gone done well with her crowd on the Piazza Navona in Rome, but not with Italian prosecutors. She is facing prosecution for “offending the honor of the sacred and inviolable person” of Benedict XVI.

The Christian world may have been dismayed, even outraged, at the Muslim reaction in 2005 to Danish cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammed, but Italian law enforcement appears to have had its own sense of humor failure.

Giovanni Ferrara, the Rome prosecutor, is invoking the 1929 Lateran Treaty between Italy and the Vatican, which stipulates that an insult to the Pope carries the same penalty as an insult to the Italian President. Prosecution requires authorization from the Ministry of Justice, for which Mr Ferrara has applied.

The incident has strong political overtones as Mr Berlusconi has been at pains to court the Vatican — and the Catholic vote — since returning to power for the third time in May. Last weekend he accompanied Benedict to Cagliari in Sardinia and attended mass there.

The July rally was called to protest against alleged interference by the Vatican and the Catholic Church in Italian affairs, from abortion to gay rights, but also to attack the Prime Minister for passing “ad personam” laws to protect his own interests and avoid prosecution on corruption allegations.

Mr Berlusconi, who owns Italy’s three main commercial television channels and as Prime Minister also wields influence over RAI, the state broadcaster, has been accused by the Left of using his media power to muzzle critics and satirists.

Three years ago Ms Guzzanti released a widely praised film, Viva Zapatero!, about the suppression in 2003 of her late night show RAIot in which she had satirized the Italian Prime Minister. At the 2005 Venice International Film Festival Viva Zapatero! was given an ovation.

The move to prosecute her over her anti-papal remarks was praised by some on the center Right, including Luca Volonte, a Christian Democrat, who said that “gratuitous insults must be punished”.

However, many people were strongly critical. Paolo Guzzanti, Ms Guzzanti’s father and a center Right MP, said the move was “a return to the Middle Ages”.”Perhaps my daughter should be submitted to the judgment of God by being made to walk on hot coals,” he added.

Antonio Di Pietro, a senator and former anti-corruption magistrate, who organized the rally, said that Ms Guzzanti had only “exercised her constitutional right to freedom of thought.

“You can agree or not agree with what she said — and personally I didn’t — but to put people in prison for what they think is reminiscent of a time when those who thought differently had castor oil poured down their throats” — a reference to the Fascist era, when the Laterna Treaty was enacted.

Dario Fo, the Nobel prize-winning playwright, said that applying the treaty more widely would even have led to the prosecution of Dante, since “he put a Pope in the Inferno as well, namely Boniface VIII”. Marco Travaglio, a left-wing writer who also addressed the July rally, said: “At this rate Aristophanes and Rabelais would have ended up in prison for being satirists.”

Even certain sections of the Church are unimpressed. Father Bartolomeo Sorge, a Jesuit scholar, told La Repubblica the move to prosecute Ms Guzzanzi was incomprehensible. “We Christians put up with many insults, it is part of being a Christian, as is forgiveness. I feel sure the Pope has already forgiven those who insulted him on Piazza Navona.”

Condemned to Hell by Dante Dante’s Inferno condemned Boniface VIII to Hell even before his death. As Dante approaches the circle of those sinners who have committed simony – the buying and selling of church offices – the soul of Pope Nicholas III mistakes Dante for Boniface:

“Shame of the Papal Chair! and art thou come,
Hollow and dismal from the fiery tomb,”
He cried – “a later doom the Prophet told –
But come, Seducer of the Spouse of God,
Who rul’d the christian world with iron rod,
Come! thine eternal revenues behold!”

Translation: Henry Boyd

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4732048.ece

This post was a copy of a letter written by the widow of the ex KGB operative who was allegedly murdered on November 1, 2006. by another KGB operative, Andrei Lugovoy, using radioactive polonium-210.

Marina Litvinenko stated in part: “I do this against the wishes of the Scotland Yard and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, who both told me that making the evidence public would prejudice a criminal trial of the chief suspect, Andrei Lugovoy, whom the UK is trying to extradite from Russia. But after waiting for 15 months I have come to the conclusion that Mr Lugovoy, a former KGB agent, will never be extradited. So I respectfully reject their argument. I cannot wait for another ten years for a slim chance that their approach would bear fruit.”

While preparing a follow up post that would include a wanted poster, the unexpected happened. To ensure the accuracy of our information, we did a search on Interpol, entering “Andrei Lugovoy” as the search term. We got an interesting return on our search queries!

No documents matching your query were found.

Continuing, others data banks were searched:

FBI: Your search – Andrei Lugovoy – did not match any documents.
No pages were found containing “Andrei Lugovoy”.

Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard): web search: no matches were found for ‘Andrei Lugovoy’

Home Office: Your search – Andrei Lugovoy – did not match any documents.
No pages were found containing “Andrei Lugovoy”.

The Crown Prosecution Service: Search results for “Andrei Lugovoi”
Sorry, no results found

We did actually get a hit using the US State department web site. There is a mention in the 2007 country report on Britain stating:
On May 28, British authorities requested the extradition from Russia of Andrei Lugovoy in connection with the 2006 death by radioactive poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Alekasandr Litvenenko. Litvenenko had been highly critical of the Russian political leadership, and many observers believed the killing was politically motivated. Russian authorities rejected the extradition request.

Marina Litvinenko indeed may be a long time waiting for “justice”!

EDIT: At the request of a contributor, we ran the same checks using the Russian spelling, “Andrei Lugovoi” and actually added more checks. Same results.

Your search – Andrei Lugovoi – did not match any documents.
No pages were found containing “Andrei Lugovoi”.