position:chief prosecutor

Flint Water Prosecutors Drop Criminal Charges, With Plans to Keep Investigating - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/us/flint-water-crisis-charges-dropped.html

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Cette affaire de la pollution de l’eau à Flint est vraiment un cas d’école... jusqu’au bout ! La santé publique mérite l’intervention des citoyens, partout dans le monde.

CHICAGO — Prosecutors stunned the city of Flint, Mich., on Thursday by dropping all pending charges against officials accused of ruining the community’s drinking water and ignoring signs of a crisis, casting doubt on what some residents had seen as a small but tangible step toward justice.

Fifteen state and local officials, including emergency managers who ran the city and a member of the governor’s cabinet, had been accused by state prosecutors of crimes as serious as involuntary manslaughter. Seven had already taken plea deals. Eight more, including most of the highest-ranking officials, were awaiting trial.

On Thursday, more than three years after the first charges were filed, the Michigan attorney general’s office, which earlier this year passed from Republican to Democratic hands, abruptly dropped the eight remaining cases. Prosecutors left open the possibility of recharging some of those same people, and perhaps others, too.

But in Flint, a city where faith in government was already low and where many residents still refuse to drink the tap water, the news was seen by some as a sign that they had been wronged once again.

Ronald F. Wright, a criminal law professor at Wake Forest University, said it was not uncommon for newly elected prosecutors to drop cases brought by their predecessors. But it was far more unusual, he said, for them to suggest that they might file new charges.

“You inherit the file, you start looking through it, and the deeper you get in the file, the more you realize there are possible weak spots in your case,” Mr. Wright said. “I view this as a natural process of a new chief prosecutor becoming familiar with the details of the case.”

Ms. Nessel, the new attorney general, defended her prosecutors’ decision to drop the charges, but she also sought to reassure Flint residents. “I want to remind the people of Flint that justice delayed is not always justice denied,” she said.

That message was a tough sell for some in Flint, where residents said they had waited for years for justice and been disappointed with the results. Monica Galloway, a member of the Flint City Council, called the decision a setback on Thursday and said she hoped new charges would be filed.

“I think anyone that lives in the city of Flint that is affected by this wants justice,” Ms. Galloway said. “And justice can only be done if this is not just redone, but done properly.”

#Santé_publique #Flint #Environnement #Pollution #Néolibéralisme

C.I.A.’s Afghan Forces Leave a Trail of Abuse and Anger - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/world/asia/cia-afghanistan-strike-force.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/12/24/world/00shadowwars1/00shadowwars1-facebookJumbo.jpg

NADER SHAH KOT, #Afghanistan — Razo Khan woke up suddenly to the sight of assault rifles pointed at his face, and demands that he get out of bed and onto the floor.

Within minutes, the armed raiders had separated the men from the women and children. Then the shooting started.

As Mr. Khan was driven away for questioning, he watched his home go up in flames. Within were the bodies of two of his brothers and of his sister-in-law Khanzari, who was shot three times in the head. Villagers who rushed to the home found the burned body of her 3-year-old daughter, Marina, in a corner of a torched bedroom.

The men who raided the family’s home that March night, in the district of Nader Shah Kot, were members of an Afghan strike force trained and overseen by the Central Intelligence Agency in a parallel mission to the United States military’s, but with looser rules of engagement.

#milices #CIA

Israel is indirectly cooperating with The Hague’s probe into 2014 Gaza war despite past criticism

International Criminal Court’s criminal investigation into Israel’s actions in the Strip could lead to a wave of lawsuits against those involved and even to their arrest abroad

Yaniv Kubovich
Nov 11, 2018 9:49 AM

▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-is-indirectly-cooperating-with-the-hague-s-probe-into-2014-

Over the last few months Israel has been transferring material to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which is examining whether war crimes were committed in the Gaza Strip. According to defense sources, the material relates to events that took place during Operation Protective Edge, the 2014 Israel-Gaza war. The ICC is also looking into the demonstrations along the Gaza border fence that began on March 30.
In the past, Israel sharply criticized the court, saying that it had no authority to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, there is concern in the political and military echelons that the court will open a criminal investigation into Israel’s actions in the Strip, a process that could lead to a wave of lawsuits against those involved and even to their arrest abroad.
>>Rising terrorism in West Bank overshadows optimism around Gaza-Israel deal | Analysis 
In the last few months, diplomatic, military and legal officials have held discussions, some of them attended by the prime minister, to prepare for the court’s initial findings regarding the 2014 Gaza war. Toward that end, Israel has begun using third parties to transfer documents to the court that could bolster its stance and influence the examination team, which until now has been exposed mainly to the evidence presented by the Palestinian side.

Demonstration near the Gaza border, November 9, 2018. Adel Hana/AP
Military advocate general Maj. Gen. Sharon Afek has presented material regarding Israel’s response to the demonstrations in Gaza, but defense sources say these have been for internal use only and have not been passed on to the ICC or to any other body.
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The sources say Israel has made a distinction between the two subjects of the court’s examination: While Israel is not cooperating with the ICC on its probe of incidents at the Gaza fence, it is already holding indirect discussions with the court over Operation Protective Edge.

Last April the ICC’s chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said that violence against civilians could be considered an international crime, as might the use of civilians as a cover for military operations. She added that the situation in Palestine was under investigation. She warned that the court was following events in Gaza, and emphasized that guidelines for opening fire at demonstrators could be considered a crime under international law.

Public Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, August 28, 2017. Bas Czerwinski/Pool via REUTERS
Officials told Haaretz that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to postpone the evacuation of the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar came after Israel realized that such a move could influence Bensouda, who said she would not hesitate to use her authority with regard to the village. Last month, Bensouda said she was watching with concern the plan to evacuate the West Bank Bedouin community and that a forced evacuation would lead to violence, adding that the needless destruction of property and transfer of populations in occupied territories are a war crime, based on the Treaty of Rome. She linked the planned evacuation to events in Gaza, saying she was concerned by the ongoing violence for which both sides are responsible.

FILE Photo: The West Bank village of Khan al-Ahmar, September 25, 2018. Emil Salman

Yaniv Kubovich
Haaretz Correspondent

As Elections Near, Egypt Finds a New Target: Foreign News Media - The New York Times

▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/world/middleeast/egypt-elections-news-media.html

CAIRO — Egypt’s chief prosecutor delivered a withering broadside against the news media on Wednesday, blaming the “forces of evil” for negative coverage and instructing his staff to take legal action against outlets deemed to be undermining Egypt’s security.

The remarks by the prosecutor, Nabil Sadek, were the latest escalation of a draconian crackdown on civil liberties before a presidential election in March that has become fraught with tension even though President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi faces no real opposition.

In comments that appeared aimed at the foreign news media, Mr. Sadek accused outlets of spreading false news “to disturb the public order and terrorize society.” A day earlier, Egypt had called for a boycott of the BBC over a documentary that aired last week detailing torture and illegal abductions by Egyptian security forces.

Local news coverage has been dominated in recent days by a wave of government-driven outrage over the documentary. Although the documentary contained abuse accusations already widely documented by human rights groups, it was denounced as propaganda spread by the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

The State Information Service, which oversees the foreign media, said the BBC film was inaccurate because a young woman featured in the documentary later told a local television station that she had not been harmed.

Her mother said on Tuesday that the woman had been coerced into giving a false statement to the local station. A day later, the mother was reported to have been arrested.

The BBC said in a statement: “We stand by the integrity of our reporting teams.”

While Mr. Sisi has long treated Egyptian news outlets harshly, jailing dozens of reporters and blocking about 500 websites, he has generally spared foreign reporters the worst measures. That appears to have changed with the presidential election campaign.

A long list of rules announced by the national election commission in February seeks to dictate the questions journalists can ask voters, prohibits them from using photographs or headlines “not related to the topic” and forbids them from making “any observations about the voting process.”

“These rules made me laugh, and scared the hell out of me at the same time,” said Gamal Eid, a leading lawyer and human rights activist. “The rules are purposefully vague so they can decide to let their friends go, and punish their critics. It seems tailor-made for the foreign media.”

Egypt After 2 years of investigations: Regeni and clues about his killers | MadaMasr
▻https://www-madamasr-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.madamasr.com/en/2018/02/01/opinion/u/after-2-years-of-investigations-regeni-and-clues-about-his-killers/amp/?platform=hootsuite

Editorial Note: On January 25, 2018, the second anniversary of the disappearance of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni, the Italian newspapers Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica published a letter addressed to their editors in chief that was written by Giuseppe Pignatone, Rome’s chief prosecutor. In the letter, Pignatone summarizes the results of the Italian-Egyptian joint investigation into Regeni’s death. While Mada Masr published a story on the letter on January 26 titled “Italian General Prosecutor: Egyptian secret services complicit in Regeni case,” we have decided to translate Pignatone’s letter into English, preserving Corriere della Sera’s editorial framing, to give the full context of the prosecutor’s address.

—

Dear editor in chief,

Two years after Giulio Regeni was abducted in Cairo, here is a brief reflection on some aspects of the inquiry.

The Cooperation

The fact that the tragic events took place in Egypt naturally entailed that the Egyptian authorities had, first and foremost, the right, but also the duty, to carry out the investigations. As for us, Italian judicial magistrates and police, we can only cooperate and support the investigations of the Egyptian team by making suggestions and requests. We cannot possibly imagine gathering evidence that would allow us to identify those responsible for the crime from outside Egypt.

This cooperation with our Egyptian colleagues is the first of its kind in the history of judicial cooperation. For the first time, I believe, a public prosecutor of another country came to Italy, in the absence of treaties, to share the results of his own investigations. We also traveled to Cairo for the same reasons: there have been seven meetings in total. For this, I must publicly thank Prosecutor General Nabil Sadek.

In the absence of international agreements or conventions, as in this case, such complex and demanding judicial cooperation can be made possible only if the governments of both countries simultaneously initiate real cooperation. Undoubtedly, the pressure of public opinion – also at an international scale –played a major role in this.

The Inquiry

As magistrates, our activities have to comply with specific standards and methods, as well as with our established legal culture. It was not always easy to penetrate the mentality of the Arab world and measure ourselves against a judicial system with completely different investigative procedures and practices.

To give an example of this: in order not to break the thread of cooperation, we had to acknowledge the legal impossibility of being present during witness hearings held before our Egyptian colleagues in Cairo.

Sometimes, hurdles were overcome. At least in part. Another example: we had immediately asked that data from the mobile network in certain areas of Cairo, concerning the crucial dates of January 25 and February 3, 2016 (the disappearance of Giulio and the date the body was discovered), be delivered to us, but Egyptian law wouldn’t allow it. The problem was partly solved because we had access to the reports of Egyptian experts. However, accessing the crude data and analyzing it directly obviously would have made a huge difference.

Despite all these obstacles, we continued with our work, and I think I can say we reached some tangible results. First, we wanted to avoid the investigations heading down the wrong track. Focusing on non-existent espionage activity by Giulio or the involvement of a group of common criminals, for example. Secondly, we wanted to establish some red lines within the framework for further investigations into the murder. First and foremost, the motive can be easily traced to his research activities during his months in Cairo. Light was shed on the role played by some of the people who Giulio met in the course of his research and who betrayed him. It has also become clear that Giulio attracted the attention of Egypt’s state apparatus for several months, attention which increased in intensity leading up to January 25.

These are crucial elements in pursuing the investigation, and above all, in finding common ground with our Egyptian colleagues. Two years ago, no one would have expected that we could obtain such results.

We do not intend to stop here, even though we remain extremely aware of the significant complexity of the investigation. Here is another example, to illustrate the hurdles we have already overcome and those we still have to face. During our last meeting in Cairo, in December, we wanted to share the meticulous reconstruction of all the evidence collected until now with our Egyptian colleagues. This information was compiled by the Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale and the Servizio Centrale Operativo, who did, one must say, an outstanding job these past two years. For this, they deserve our gratitude. In an ordinary investigation, the public prosecutor’s office would have been able to draw some conclusion, although incomplete, on the basis of the information filed. In this case, the cooperation between both offices imposes a slow and laborious process: sharing the information, waiting until our colleagues examine it, and then together assessing the next steps to take. This is a complex process based on a reciprocal sense of collaboration, and while it cannot be as quick as we all wish, it is the only possible one. The slightest rush on our part would boomerang and nullify all the evidence that has been painfully reconstructed until now.

Cambridge

Since the murderer’s motive is linked exclusively to Giulio’s research, one has to highlight how important it is to comprehend what led him to travel to Cairo and to identify all those he had contact with, both academics and Egyptian labor union members.

This is why the obvious inconsistencies between the statements by university staff and what we uncovered from Giulio’s correspondence (recovered in Italy through his personal computer) required further investigations in the United Kingdom. These investigations were made possible thanks to the effective cooperation of the British authorities. The results of this cooperation – including the search and seizure of material – seem fruitful after an initial examination. They are currently being studied by our investigators.

The family

We met Giulio’s parents numerous times over the past 24 months. We were impressed by their dignity in the face of tragedy, and by their incessant efforts to pursue truth and justice. We can assure them, on our part, that we will continue deploying sustained efforts, doing everything necessary and useful to bring those responsible for the abduction, torture and the murder of Giulio to justice.

Rome’s chief prosecutor

Ken Burns explique que Donald Trump est l’héritier de Joseph McCarthy
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z13FoWqtQy0

Joseph McCarthy’s lawyer was Donald Trump mentor.

Il suffit de regarder les entrées de Wikipedia pour identifier le rôle que joue l’interview dans la lutte entre les impérialistes démocrates et le réactionnaires républicains. La lignée de Trump est quand même intéressante.

Joseph Mcarthy
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy

Roy Cohn
►https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Cohn

Cohn’s direct examination of Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass, produced testimony that was central to the Rosenbergs’ conviction and subsequent execution. Greenglass testified that he had given the Rosenbergs classified documents from the Manhattan Project that had been stolen by Klaus Fuchs. Greenglass would later claim that he lied at the trial in order “to protect himself and his wife, Ruth, and that he was encouraged by the prosecution to do so.” Cohn always took great pride in the Rosenberg verdict and claimed to have played an even greater part than his public role. He said in his autobiography that his own influence had led to both Chief Prosecutor Saypol and Judge Irving Kaufman being appointed to the case. He further said that Kaufman imposed the death penalty, based on his personal recommendation.

J. Edgar Hoover, who recommended him to Joseph McCarthy.

Cohn invited his friend G. David Schine, an anti-Communist propagandist, to join McCarthy’s staff as a consultant. When Schine was drafted into the US Army in 1953, Cohn made repeated and extensive efforts to procure special treatment for Schine. He contacted military officials from the Secretary of the Army down to Schine’s company commander and demanded for Schine to be given light duties, extra leave, and exemption from overseas assignment. At one point, Cohn is reported to have threatened to “wreck the Army” if his demands were not met. That conflict, along with McCarthy’s accusations of Communists in the defense department, led to the Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954, in which among other developments the Army charged Cohn and McCarthy with using improper pressure on Schine’s behalf, and McCarthy and Cohn countercharged that the Army was holding Schine “hostage” in an attempt to squelch McCarthy’s investigations into Communists in the Army.

In 1971, businessman Donald Trump moved to Manhattan, where he became involved in large construction projects. Trump came to public attention in 1973 when he was accused by the Justice Department of violations of the Fair Housing Act in the operation of 39 buildings. The government alleged that Trump’s corporation quoted different rental terms and conditions to blacks and made false “no vacancy” statements to blacks for apartments they managed in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island.

Representing Trump, Cohn filed a countersuit against the government for $100 million, asserting that the charges were irresponsible and baseless. The countersuit was unsuccessful. Trump settled the charges out of court in 1975 without admitting guilt, saying he was satisfied that the agreement did not "compel the Trump organization to accept persons on welfare as tenants unless as qualified as any other tenant.

Ken Burns
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Burns

Burns is a longtime supporter of the Democratic Party, with almost $40,000 in political donations.

Christiane Amanpour
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiane_Amanpour

Amanpour is the niece-in-law of General Nader Jahanbani, who commanded the Imperial Iranian Air Force for nearly 20 years until he was executed by Islamic Revolutionaries in 1979, and of his younger brother Khosrow, who was married to Princess Shahnaz Pahlavi. Amanpour’s uncle, Captain Nasrollah Amanpour, was married to the younger sister of Khosrow and Nader.
...
During the height of the Syrian crisis, in mid to late 2013, Amanpour started a push for the case of war with Syria. She traveled to the UK and appeared on several news programs, not as a journalist, but as an “expert” on the Middle East, and pushed the Obama administration line for war in Syria.

#USA #politique #racisme #anticommunisme #impérialisme élections

In the Age of ISIS, Who’s a Terrorist, and Who’s Simply Deranged? - NYTimes.com
▻http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/18/world/europe/in-the-age-of-isis-whos-a-terrorist-and-whos-simply-deranged.html?mwrsm=Facebook&_r=0&referer=http://m.facebook.com

In December 2014, a middle-aged man driving a car in Dijon, France, mowed down more than a dozen pedestrians within 30 minutes, occasionally shouting Islamic slogans from his window.

The chief prosecutor in Dijon described the attacks, which left 13 injured but no one dead, as the work of a mentally unbalanced man whose motivations were vague and “hardly coherent.”

A year and a half later, after Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel slaughtered dozens of people when he drove a 19-ton refrigerated truck through a Bastille Day celebration on Thursday in Nice, France, the authorities did not hesitate to call it an act of Islamic terrorism. The attacker had a record of petty crime but no obvious ties to a terrorist group, yet the French prime minister swiftly said Mr. Lahouaiej Bouhlel was “a terrorist probably linked to radical Islam one way or another.”

The age of the Islamic State, in which the tools of terrorism appear increasingly crude and haphazard, has led to a reimagining of the common notion of who is and who is not a terrorist.

ICC Probe : No Crimes Against Humanity At Ukraine’s EuroMaidan
▻http://www.rferl.org/content/icc-probe-finds-no-crimes-against-humanity-at-ukraine-euromaidan/27362584.html

A preliminary probe by the International Criminal Court (ICC) suggests that Ukraine’s security forces used “excessive and indiscriminate” force in the 2014 EuroMaidan protests but are not guilty of crimes against humanity.

ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a report released on November 12 that The Hague-based organization had opened a tentative investigation into the conflict.

The months-long pro-Western uprising began in November 2013 on Kyiv’s Maidan Square and led to the toppling of Viktor Yanukovych’s pro-Russian government and the deaths of some 100 people, mostly protesters.

Bensouda said that “While these considerations tend to indicate that alleged crimes do not amount to crimes against humanity,” she added that the ICC did find that “serious human rights abuses did occur” at Independence Square.

Bensouda said that although the attacks on the protesters constituted an “attack directed against a civilian population,” there was “limited information...to support a conclusion that...it was either widespread or systematic.”

Rapport sur les activités menées en 2015 en matière d’examen préliminaire, Cour Pénale Internationale, le Bureau du Procureur, 12/11/15
▻https://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/otp/OTP-PE-rep-2015-Fra.pdf

Source: Sakvarelidze to become Odesa Oblast’s top prosecutor
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/content/kyiv-post-plus/source-sakvarelidze-to-become-odesa-oblasts-top-prosecutor-397848.html

Deputy Prosecutor General Davit Sakvarelidze will become Odesa Oblast’s chief prosecutor, a source familiar with the situation told the Kyiv Post on Sept. 14.

At the same time, he will keep his position as a deputy prosecutor general, the source said. The source suggested that the reason for the move was that Odesa Oblast Governor Mikheil Saakashvili needed a trusted man to crack down on corruption.

The source is not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity. Artem Demartino, a spokesman for the Prosecutor General’s Office, and Sakvarelidze’s spokesperson had no comment.

Sakvarelidze, who was Georgia’s first deputy prosecutor general from 2009 to 2012, is seen as close to Saakashvili, the ex-Georgian president. Saakashvili has announced a plan to crack down on corruption in Odesa Oblast, while Sakvarelidze launched an anti-corruption campaign at the Prosecutor General’s Office by arresting two top prosecutors in July.

The source also said that Sakvarelidze would “still be responsible for the open competition for the positions of top local prosecutors.”

Sakvarelidze oversees a reform of the Prosecutor General’s Office that envisages organizing a transparent and competitive hiring process for prosecutors. The source added that Sakvarelidze was still set to continue changing staff and work guidelines for the Prosecutor General’s Office and top regional prosecutors during the second stage of prosecutorial reform scheduled for next year.

Video in Death of Palestinian Seems to Rebut Israeli Military - The New York Times

▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/14/world/middleeast/israeli-group-questions-militarys-account-of-palestinian-youths-death.html?

JERUSALEM — An Israeli human rights group on Monday challenged the military’s account of an episode in which a soldier shot and killed a Palestinian youth who had hurled a rock at the soldier’s vehicle, saying that video and witnesses’ accounts contradicted the army’s version of the incident.

The rights group B’Tselem, which made the assertions, also questioned Israel’s ability to impartially investigate allegations that its armed forces had acted illegally.

Immediately after the shooting on July 3, a military spokeswoman said that Israeli soldiers first fired into the air to warn the stone throwers to stop, and that the episode was under investigation. The military has since said it could not comment more on the matter.

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Israeli Forces Kill Palestinian Teenager in West BankJULY 3, 2015
But the video and the witnesses’ accounts appear to indicate that the soldiers ran after the youth, Muhammad Hani al-Kasba, after he threw a rock at their vehicle and that they were not in apparent danger while pursuing him, B’Tselem said. In addition, Mr. Kasba, 17, was shot in the back and the side of his face, suggesting that he was shot while fleeing the soldiers, said Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for B’Tselem.

The episode has loomed large since the Palestinians joined the International Criminal Court. The court will have to decide whether Israel can fairly investigate itself before it opens its own criminal investigation into Israel’s actions during the war in Gaza last summer, as well as investigating suspected violations in the West Bank, as the Palestinians have requested. Fatou Bensouda, the court’s chief prosecutor, began a preliminary investigation on that question in January.

The shooting of Mr. Kasba has received unusual attention because Israeli news media outlets have reported that the officer who shot him, Col. Yisrael Shomer, leads a brigade that oversees a central district in the West Bank.

“It sends a message to all other soldiers in the region: ‘This is how one should behave,’ ” Ms. Michaeli said.

The Israeli news media reported that Colonel Shomer had been questioned on Sunday.

Video from a security camera provided by Mr. Kasba’s family to B’Tselem shows the teenager hurling a rock at a vehicle’s window and then running away. Three soldiers then leave the vehicle, with two of them pursuing Mr. Kasba and the third soldier standing near the vehicle. Seconds later, they return to the vehicle and drive away.

The video, along with accounts by Palestinian witnesses and photographs of Mr. Kasba’s body that were provided to B’Tselem, indicate that he was not risking the soldiers’ lives when he was shot and killed, Ms. Michaeli said. In a video distributed on social media networks that purports to show Mr. Kasba after he was shot, he is seen lying on the ground with blood pooling around his face, neck and upper shoulders, as people yell for medical help.

Ms. Michaeli said that he had been shot twice in the upper back and once on the side of his face, which she said indicated that he had been running away when he was shot. The witnesses’ statements and the video also suggested, she said, that the soldiers left Mr. Kasba without offering any medical treatment. He was taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Ramallah, where he was pronounced dead.

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Bahrain activist Maryam al-Khawaja jailed for a year in absentia for assault | World news | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/01/bahrain-activist-maryam-al-khawaja-jailed-assault

Abdulla al-Dossary, chief prosecutor of the Muhrarraq district, said the high criminal court had found Khawaja guilty of assaulting and injuring two policewomen at Bahrain international airport, the Bahrain News Agency said.

The agency did not say whether the other two charges had been upheld.

Khawaja said in a statement she had not returned to Bahrain to attend the trial as she did not recognise the independence of the court and the charge of assault had been trumped up. Her statement did not say where she was.

ICC sheds its western blind spot, by Allison West
▻http://mondediplo.com/blogs/icc-sheds-its-western-blind-spot

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague is no longer fixated on Africa. In a long overdue step, Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda recently reopened preliminary investigations into UK war crimes in Iraq. Bensouda’s principled move provides a new point of leverage for international civil society to revive and ratchet up pressure on the UK, and it marks a hopeful turning point for Iraqi victims, the Court, and international criminal justice on the whole.

Israel has little to fear from the International Criminal Court -
| Haaretz
By Anshel Pfeffer | May 20, 2014 |
▻http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/jerusalem-babylon/1.591596

In the dysfunctional state of Israeli-Palestinian relations, the “nuclear option” for the Palestinians would be joining the International Criminal Court as a member state and exercising that membership to launch war crimes investigations against Israel. At least, that’s the view of many in Israel, which, like the United States, is not a member of the ICC.

But to judge by comments made by the ICC’s former chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo — who, even two years after leaving his post in The Hague, remains the controversial court’s most persuasive advocate — Israel has little to worry about. 

Last week, on his first visit to Israel, Moreno-Ocampo was full of praise for the local legal system and eager to point out that joining the ICC could backfire for the Palestinians. “Being here in Israel is not liking talking about international justice in Boston or Sweden,” said Moreno-Ocampo, who was here as a guest of the Fried-Gal Transitional Justice Initiative at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s law school. “The issues here are not academic.”

But he isn’t at all sure that if the Palestinian Authority were to join the ICC — or if Israel were to join, for that matter — the international court would actually play an active role in the conflict.

The ICC’s job is to investigate and prosecute only in cases in which the local legal system is not performing. “In a dictatorship they can make you disappear and kill you,” said Moreno-Ocampo. “But here, even if the situation is awful, you cannot disappear; you have the rule of law.”

He is wary of being yet another foreigner who “comes here and says I can solve your problems.” Saying Israel has “great lawyers here,” the former chief prosecutor said if Israel’s Supreme Court could find a way to win the Palestinians’ trust, perhaps it could adjudicate claims the Palestinians want to bring before the ICC. For the ICC to rule on Israel’s activities, he said, “the Palestinians have to prove that the [Israeli court’s] decision was to shield the defendants. They would have to prove that it wasn’t a fair proceeding.”

Moreno-Ocampo rejected a Palestinian request that the ICC launch a war crimes investigation against Israel after its May 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, which ended in the deaths of nine Turkish nationals. “I told them that I can’t offer you success because you are not considered a state,” the former chief prosecutor recalled. “First go to the United Nations and when they recognize you, come back.”

The Palestinian Authority did go to the United Nations, and its status has since been upgraded to non-member observer state, making it eligible to join the court. All the same, Moreno-Ocampo said ICC membership could be a double-edged sword for the Palestinians, since it would also open them up to investigation for alleged war crimes, such as rocket fire and bombings targeting Israeli civilians.

“The ICC could help the Palestinians, but it could also increase the conflict,” said Moreno-Ocampo. “And the Palestinians should ask themselves how they would do it, because if you want to include everything since 2002 [when the ICC was established], that could include things done by the Palestinians. Another alternative is to start from 2015, not investigate past events and now that Hamas is part of the government, that would prevent them from committing more crimes.” 

Moreno-Ocampo’s warnings may seem strange to those who see the ICC as an interventionist organization of busybodies, but he doesn’t see the international court as an institution that should necessarily be conducting many global investigations.

Twelve years after the international court was founded, it is hard to find many supporters. In addition to Israel, the United States, Russia, China and India have not signed or ratified the treaty that established the ICC. The small number of indictments that have led to trials have all been focused on Africa, leading to accusations of bias. There are also indications that the court has not been particularly effective.

Sudanese President Omar Bashir, who in 2008 became the first sitting head of state to be indicted of war crimes and genocide, has become the ICC’s most high-profile case, but he seems no closer to trial five years after the court issued a warrant for his arrest. Likewise, the ICC’s attempts to participate in the prosecution of senior members of the former Libyan regime have been rebuffed by the new rulers in Tripoli, and the court has not taken any substantive steps toward involvement in prosecuting Syrian President Bashar Assad, though he is directing the murder of tens of thousands of civilians in Syria’s civil war.

Moreno-Ocampo has no doubt that “Bashar will face a court” one day. “Who thought that one day Gadhafi would be brought down, or that his son or [Muammar Gadhafi’s intelligence chief Abdullah] Senoussi would be put on trial.” When I remind him that Gadhafi was brutally lynched and that the ICC has been kept out of the Libyan trials, he replies that the international court served its role by launching an investigation and issuing a warrant for Senoussi’s arrest.

“They [the Libyans] were grateful for what we did because we showed them the world didn’t accept him and they want to show that they can do better themselves,” said Moreno-Ocampo. “We are changing the world in that sense. We didn’t prosecute a case in Colombia, for example, but they changed the way they do things and prosecuted cases themselves because of the ICC. The world needs different tools to manage conflicts.”

The former chief prosecutor is certain the ICC’s impact will be felt over decades, not necessarily because of the cases that actually go through the court but because it is drawing a line between war crimes that can only be prosecuted by an international forum and cases that will be increasingly dealt with by the countries where the war crimes took place.

“Law enforcement is national, but acts of terror need global investigations,” said Moreno-Ocampo. “We’re living in a new age when people under 25 from Argentina, Italy and Russia are communicating around the world with each other and are very similar. This is the global community which will demand common standards.” The best outcome of for the ICC, he said, is that “there will be zero cases. That is the best because it means we are having an effect. The law is not for judges; it’s for people.”

The success of the ICC, maintains Moreno-Ocampo, should not be measured by the number of its successful prosecutions, but by the change its very existence is making in the way governments investigate their own security forces. He is certain that even the Israel Defense Forces “changed its orders just because of the ICC.”

Two prosecutors pulled from Turkish #corruption_probe
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/two-prosecutors-pulled-turkish-corruption-probe

Two prosecutors were removed from a corruption investigation targeting members of #turkey's elite allegedly because they summoned two business leaders to testify, media reports said Wednesday. Chief prosecutor Hadi Salihoglu, named January 16 as the government has sought to rein in the high-profile investigation, removed prosecutors Celal Kara and Mehmet Yuzgec from the probe, the Hurriyet newspaper reported, citing judicial sources. “They were taken out of the investigation immediately after the summons had been received,” Hurriyet quoted an unnamed prosecutor as saying. read more

#erdogan #Top_News

#turkey removes top prosecutors, pushes strict Internet bill
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/turkey-removes-top-istanbul-prosecutors-pushes-strict-internet-co

Turkey removed a series of top Istanbul prosecutors from their posts on Thursday, pressing a government purge of the judiciary intended to curb what it considers a specious corruption investigation shaking the government. Istanbul’s chief prosecutor and five of his deputies were among 20 people reassigned in the shakeup, the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), which is headed by the justice minister, said in a statement. read more

#Top_News

HEAR EXPLOSIVE AUDIO: Bill Lockyer, Thomas Girardi and Walter Lack Secretly Own Indian Gaming Outfits in California - Clients of Howard Dickstein

BELOW MODIFIED VERSION OF COMMUNICATION FROM YR TO THIRD PARTY. AUDIO MODIFIED TO PROTECT IDENTITY OF SOURCE

AUDIO @:

▻http://lesliebrodie.blog.co.uk/2013/03/19/explosive-audio-bill-lockyer-thomas-girardi-and-walter-lack-sec

PART I:

1. ETHICS COMPLAINT / IN RE GIRARDI — In 2010, the United States Federal Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit issued its final ruling in the disciplinary matter of In Re Girardi by imposing close to $500,000 in sanctions on Walter Lack of Engstrom Lispcomb & Lack and Thomas Girardi of Girardi & Keese stemming from an attempt to defraud the court and cause injury to Dole Food Company in the underlying litigation. You may have heard of Walter Lack and Thomas Girardi as they are the lawyers who were featured in the movie “Erin Brokovich” involving utility company PG&E.

The court ruled that Walter Lack (who stipulated to Special Prosecutor Rory Little that his prolonged acts of misconduct were intentional) and Thomas Girardi intentionally and recklessly resorted to the use of known falsehoods for years. The Ninth Circuit ordered Girardi and Lack to report their misconduct to the State Bar of California.

The State Bar of California disqualified itself from handling the matter since Howard Miller (of Girardi & Keese) served at that time as its president, and had also made the decision to hire then-chief prosecutor, James Towery.

Mr. Towery, in turn, appointed Jerome Falk of Howard Rice (now Arnold & Porter) as outside “special prosecutor” to determine whether or not to bring charges against Girardi and Lack. (Mr. Falk is a colleague of Douglas Winthrop, and both represented PG&E in its massive bankruptcy proceedings.)

Mr. Falk, in turn, exercised prosecutorial discretion and concluded that he did not believe Lack acted intentionally and that no charges will be brought against the two attorneys.

Within days of Mr. Falk’s decision, I filed an ethics complaint with the State Bar of California against Jerome Falk, James Towery, Howard Miller, and Douglas Winthrop (managing partner of Howard Rice and then-elected president of the Foundation), alleging that it was improper for Mr. Towery to appoint Mr. Falk given the close personal relationship between Howard Miller and Douglas Winthrop. Specifically, Howard Miller — in his capacity as president of the State Bar — had appointed Douglas Winthrop as president of the California Bar Foundation, a foundation maintained and controlled by the State Bar. (Much later I also discovered that Jerome Falk is actually the personal attorney of Thomas Girardi, and that Howard Rice and Jerome Falk represented Walter Lack, Thomas Girardi, Engstrom Lispcomb & Lack, and Girardi & Keese in approximately 2007, and for a period of 2 years, in a malpractice action.)

2. FOGEL V. FARMERS — In the matter of In Re Girardi, Mr. Girardi and his law firm were represented by the firm of Skadden Arps. In reviewing the file of In Re Girardi, I discovered that, beginning in 2003, Girardi & Keese and Engstrom Lispcomb & Lack were prosecuting a class action case against Farmers Insurance Company, which was represented by Skadden Arps. This was a nationwide class action with estimated damages of close to $15 billion that had originally been filed by Texas Governor Rick Perry.

I thereafter informed the Los Angeles County Superior Court (Judge William Highberger) of this information, and filed a State Bar ethics complaint against attorneys Thomas Girardi of Girardi & Keese and Thomas Nolan and Raoul Kennedy of Skadden Arps because neither the class of plaintiffs (consisting of 14 million Americans), nor the courts (the Ninth Circuit in the matter of In Re Girardi and the Los Angeles County Superior Court in the matter of Fogel vs. Farmers) had been informed of the concurrent representation by which Skadden Arps represented Girardi & Keese (in the Ninth Circuit matter), while at the same time defending Farmers.

Shortly after I filed this ethics complaint, Skadden Arps and Dewey Lebeuf (representing Farmers’ parent company, Zurich Financial) moved ex parte (which was unopposed) to amend the settlement agreement in the Fogel matter and the notice to the class of 14 million Americans throughout the country to include a proviso by which members of the class would be prohibited from suing anyone due to the concurrent representation described above. Nevertheless, the State Bar of California decided not to take any action on this ethics complaint.

3. CaliforniaALL — When researching the relationship of Girardi & Keese and Howard Rice and the appointment of Douglas Winthrop as president of the California Bar Foundation by Howard Miller of Girardi & Keese, I reviewed the California Bar Foundation’s annual reports to familiarize myself with the names of the Foundation’s board of directors. I stumbled upon the fact that the Foundation ended 2008 close to $500,000 in the negative. Specifically, the Foundation reported to the IRS that REVENUE LESS EXPENSES in 2007 equaled plus +$373.842.00. However, in 2008, the Foundation reported to the IRS that REVENUE LESS EXPENSES equaled minus -$537,712.

I discovered that the money had been transferred to a newly-created Section 501(c)(3) non-profit entity (headed by Ruthe Catolico Ashley — a friend of Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakayue) known as CaliforniaALL, which obtained hundreds of thousands of dollars from utility companies PG&E, SCE, AT&T, and Verizon. In turn, CaliforniaALL funneled a large portion of the money to the UCI Foundation, where a friend and former partner of Mark Robinson (of the Judicial Council), State Bar of California Executive Director Joe Dunn, served as trustee in 2008-9 to launch a new entity known as Saturday Law Academy.

Various factors and evidence caused me to suspect that a significant portion of the funds transferred from the California Bar Foundation ended up financing a newly-created online publication which Joe Dunn had launched with the help of Thomas Girardi and James Brosnahan of Morrison & Foerster; this online publication is known as “Voice of OC.”

Those factors include, but are not limited to, the fact that some individuals and entities involved in the creation of CaliforniaALL and the subsequent transfer of $780,000 from the Cal Bar Foundation to CaliforniaALL were also involved in assisting Joe Dunn with the creation of “Voice of OC” to wit – Morrison & Foerster’s Susan Mac Cormac as legal counsel for CaliforniaALL; Girardi & Keese’s Howard Miller in his capacity as BOD member of Cal Bar Foundation; and BOG members who voted to endorse CaliforniaALL and consider it to have been a partner of the State Bar of California. Also relevant was that Morrison & Foerster’s James Brosnahan and Girardi & Keese’s Thomas Girardi also assisted Joe Dunn in establishing Voice of OC, the fact that Saturday Law Academy was established many years earlier, and the fact that Ruthe Ashley exited CaliforniaALL in the same month and year Joe Dunn established Voice of OC (September 2009).

Based on my concerns, I requested that Voice of OC provide me with copies of its IRS 990 forms. Voice of OC did not comply with applicable IRS regulations in that it failed to reply to my request for copies of its 990 forms submitted to the IRS, whereupon I filed a complaint against Voice of OC and Joe Dunn with the IRS.

Later, after thorough research, I discovered that events surrounding CaliforniaALL, OBAMA FOR AMERICA, and those responsible for the financing of OBAMA FOR AMERICA are highly related, to wit, Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich, Ron Olson, Brad Phillips (of Munger Tolles & Olson) Ambassador John Roos and Mark Parnes (of Wilson Sonsini) James Brosnahan, DOJ’s Tony West, Chris Young, Annette Carnegie (of Morrison & Foerster) Steven Churchwell (of DLA Piper in Sacramento — where CaliforniaALL resided free of charge) Kamala Harris, as well as Freada Kapor - a California Democratic Party operative who served as a director of CaliforniaALL, and that The Kapor Center generally used to fund-raise on behalf of the many foundations located there, were additionally used to contact potential voters and encourage them to vote for then candidate Barack Obama. Her husband, Mitchell Kapor, was part of a tech team working for the campaigns of Barack Obama and Kamala Harris of CaliforniaALL.

I invite you to visit the below link for more details:

▻http://la.indymedia.org/news/2012/09/255420.php

4. UC DAVIS QUADRAPLEGIC LAW STUDENT SARA GRANDA / JUDGE MORRISON ENGALND /RACHEL GRUNBERG / LARRY YEE — Also in connection with CaliforniaALL, I advanced a judicial misconduct complaint against Judge Morrison England since State Bar of California Executive Director Judy Johnson, Judge England, his wife (Torie Flournoy-England), and State Bar of California employee Patricia Lee were all members of CaliforniaALL’s board of directors and/or advisory council. The basis for that complaint was these individuals’ failure to inform plaintiff Sara Granda — who had filed an action in federal court naming the State Bar of California as a sole defendant that was heard by Judge Morrison England — of these facts.

Specifically, without informing plaintiff Granda of his relationship with Judy Johnson (the State Bar’s Executive Director) vis-a-vis CaliforniaALL and either obtaining a waiver from this plaintiff or independently recusing himself, Judge England summarily dismissed Ms. Granda’s complaint against the California State Bar. Fortunately for Ms. Granda, several days later then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger championed her cause and pressured the California Bar to accommodate her needs.

I invite you to visit the below link to CaliforniaALL’s own publication which shows the relationship I described.

▻http://www.scribd.com/doc/48722718/9-CaliforniaALL-Newsletter-announcing-change-of-address-and-DLA-Piper-Pro-Bo

▻http://www.scribd.com/doc/100876445/CalALL-Mar2009Newsletter

In connection with the failure to disclose the relationship to plaintiff Sarah Granda, I also filed an ethics complaint with the State Bar of California against its own employees/attorneys which represented the State Bar in the litigation — Rachel Grunberg, Mark Torres Gil, and Larry Yee.

5. JUSTICE MING CHIN / DEPARTURE FROM CAUSE — While researching CaliforniaALL, I stumbled upon a separate non-profit entity in Southern California which was also absorbing money from utility companies known as CAUSE.

Since Justice Ming Chin was part of the entity’s board/council, I filed a complaint with the Office of Judicial Performance, and very shortly thereafter I was informed by CAUSE’s legal counsel that Justice Chin quit the entity.

6. JEANNINE ENGLISH / HOWARD DICKSTEIN — Upon further familiarizing myself with the members of the State Bar Board of Governors, I also filed a complaint with the Board of Governors against Public Member Jeannine English — the wife of Howard Dickstein, an Indian gambling attorney. Weeks later, US Senator John McCain (Arizona) filed a complaint against Howard Dickstein for various acts of misconduct and asked that he be investigated.

–-------------------------------------------------------------------------

6/12/2011

Dear President Hebert, Senator Dunn, Members of the Board of Governors, and to whom it may concern:

While examining circumstances concerning the California Consumer Protection Foundation ("CCPF"), which was secretly controlled by State Bar Executive Director Emeritus Judy Johnson (and which will be the subject of an upcoming request for investigation), I fortuitously stumbled upon troubling facts and events relating to Board of Governors ("BOG") member Jeannine English.

As such, and despite its anticipated futility, this correspondence is intended to advise the BOG of these events and officially request an investigation into irregularities, conflicts of interest, self-dealing, breach of fiduciary duties, and lack of disclosures by BOG member Jeannine English. Those irregularities relate to circumstances surrounding the following:

1. Keker & Van Nest’s representation of Jeannine English’s spouse, Mr. Howard Dickstein, in an action for, among others, fraud, advanced by the Rumsey Tribe and related lack of disclosure on the part of Ms. English and Jon Streeter concerning the existence of a past business relationship.

2. Misconduct by Howard Dickstein against the tribes, and related involvement by Jeannine English, who was also concurrently representing the tribe in her role as “Lobbyist.” Subsequently, when the tribe advanced a suit against Dickstein claiming he had taken advantage of them by defrauding the tribe of millions of dollars over more than a decade, Dickstein referred to the suit as a “pack of lies,” whereupon Keker & Van Nest was summoned to defend the action.

3. An unusually large cy pres award of $900,000 to the AARP in a class action suit in which Girardi & Keese (specifically, Thomas Girardi and Graham Lippsmith) represented the plaintiff. Jeannine English has strong ties to the AARP and, in fact serves as the president of its California branch.

4. Lack of disclosures on the part of Girardi & Keese’s Howard Miller and Jeannine English of the existence of the transaction. Aggravating the lack of disclosures are circumstances surrounding misconduct by Girardi & Keese and Howard Miller in the Dole Litigation, the subsequent handing of the matter by the State Bar which assigned the matter to the firm of State Bar of California Foundation president Doug Winthrop, my own involvement, and the involvement Alec Chang.

THE RUMSEY MATTER

The Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians ("Rumsey") consists of 40 adult members who reside in Brooks, California, which is situated in Capay Valley — 50 miles northwest of Sacramento and 90 miles northeast of the Bay Area. From a fledgling bingo business to what is now a thriving establishment known as “Cache Creek Casino,” attorney Howard Dickstein, a pioneer in tribal gambling law and the spouse of Jeannine English, helped dig the tribe out of poverty.

In and about 2007, and in addition to the services offered by Mr. Dickstein, Ms. Jeannine English and her company — Jeannine English & Associates — were also conducting business with Rumsey, by which lobbying and consulting services were purveyed by Ms. English.

Toward the end of 2007, Rumsey — represented by Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal and Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy — filed a suit in Yolo County Superior Court against Howard Dickstein and Jane Zerbi of Dickstein & Zerbi and Arlen Opper, a financial consultant, accusing them of unjustly enriching themselves with tribal money by defrauding the tribe of millions of dollars over more than a decade.

In statements to the media, Howard Dickstein referred to the allegations in the suit as a “pack of lies,” while disparaging his client. Dickstein also stated that he plans to fight the suit and “fight hard.” Appearing on behalf of defendant Dickstein was Elliot Peters of Keker & Van Nest.

The undersigned submits that because of the attorney-client relationship between Rumsey and Dickstein, it was questionable for Ms. English to enter into a business relationship with Rumsey and reckless for Jon Streeter and Jeannine English to conceal the past relationship from the public. If in fact a disclosure was made by any of them in a conspicuous place available for public viewing, please forward it to the undersigned in order for this portion of the complaint to be withdrawn.

These events lead one to wonder whether, hypothetically speaking, in the upcoming election for State Bar president Jeannine English would vote for Jon Streeter and not Michael Tenanbaum or Linda Davis as consideration for the representation Keker & Van Nest provided to her spouse. At least in part, it also explains to the undersigned the zeal and desire of Ms. English to be a member of the BOG. Clearly it was not to protect and serve the public; rather, it was to protect the interests of her husband (and, by extension, herself) who was accused of defrauding the Rumsey tribe of millions of dollars. In addition, it leads one to question whether the State Bar of California was not as vigorous as it should have been in protecting Rumsey from Dickstein.

THE AARP MATTER

In addition to serving on the State Bar’s BOG, Jeannine English also serves as the President of the AARP’s California branch, and is also involved with the AARP on a national level. Assuming no shenanigans, financial improprieties, or self-dealing with the AARP (which by the way, also operates a for-profit insurance brokerage), Ms. English deserves great credit for her outstanding contribution to the community. However, due to the overall set of circumstances surrounding English as described above, and as it is obvious that she serves on the BOG to serve the interests of her husband (and, by extension, herself), the undersigned is far from impressed.

Specifically, within the past few years, a plan has been devised by which a cy pres amount of $900,000 will be funneled to the AARP from a class action in which the law offices of Girardi & Keese serves as counsel. (Attridge v. Visa Case No. CGC-04-436920)

While the sums will not go directly to Ms. English, they will indirectly benefit her vis-a-vis the associated prestige resulting from successful fund raising efforts. The lack of disclosure regarding the proposed cy pres is alarming, especially considering events relating to the State Bar’s handling of attorney misconduct in the Dole matter, my ethics complaint and request for an inquiry of 5 months ago as to James Towery, Jerome Falk, Douglas Winthrop, and Howard Miller as well as the overall circumstances surrounding the State Bar/BOG disinclination to deal with the matter. To date, only myself and, later, David Cameron Carr (a former State Bar prosecutor) have spoken about this grave injustice. Of those who had a moral, legal, and ethical obligation to disclose conflicts, and to otherwise speak, now you know why at least one more such person — namely, Jeannine English — has failed to do so.

Thank you for time.

–-----------------------------------------------------------------------

7. On June 17, 2011, shortly after I filed the complaint against Jeannine English, a special meeting of the Board of Governors of the State Bar of California took place to introduce amendments to proposed legislation. The proposed amendments , among others, called for a change to the conflict of interest policies. Specifically, public members should not be permitted to serve if they are involved in the legal profession or are the spouses of lawyers.

8. After I asked the BOG to investigate Ms. English, a confidential source from Southern California informed me that Howard Dickstein and Thomas Girardi are business partners. Out of an abundance of caution, this information was forwarded on June 22, 2011 by me to the Deputy Executive Director of the State Bar of California, Robert Hawley, as follows:

Mr. Hawley:

This is to inform the State Bar about information I recently received
concerning Jeannine English, Howard Dickstein, and Thomas Girardi.

Based on what was communicated to me, Howard Dickstein and Thomas
Girardi are involved in some sort of a joint venture; or otherwise are
business partners in areas relating to Indian gambling.

Please note that I do not personally vouch for the credibility of the
source nor the accuracy of the information.

However, based on the totality of the circumstances, it is a lead
worth following.

Thanks

Important: Inside the Hezbollah Bombing “Hypothesis” of an Israeli Tour Bus (Gareth Porter)
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/18/inside-the-hezbollah-bombing-hypothesis

Major revelations about the investigation by the former head of the probe and by a top Bulgarian journalist have further damaged the credibility of the Bulgarian claim to have found links between the suspects and Hezbollah.

The chief prosecutor in charge of the Bulgarian investigation revealed in an interview published in early January that the evidence available was too scarce to name any party as responsible, and that investigators had found a key piece of evidence that appeared to contradict it.

[…]

The decision to call the conclusion an “assumption” or even the weaker “hypothesis” about Hezbollah was obviously a compromise between the preference of the investigators themselves and the demands of the United States and Israel.

[…]

Tsvetanov admitted that the Hezbollah “assumption” had been adopted only “after the middle of January”. That admission indicates that the decision was reached under pressure from Washington, not because of any new evidence.