Libya could sign anti-tank missiles order with EADS
PARIS (AP) – Libya may soon sign an order with European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co.'s missile unit MBDA for the purchase of antitank missiles, the French daily La Tribune reported Thursday.
Without citing sources or providing details on the value of the order, the paper said the missile maker would benefit from the recent normalization of relations between France and Libya. The improved ties will clear the way for deals that have been under discussion for nearly a year.
MBDA refused to comment on the report. EADS could not immediately be reached for comment.
On Wednesday, the French daily Le Monde quoted Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, son of leader Moammar Gadhafi, as saying that a deal to buy military hardware from France was an element of negotiations that led to the release of six medics detained in Libya.
President Nicolas Sarkozy denied the report with a curt ''no'' and his spokesman David Martinon said ''no armaments contract (was) signed during the visit'' by Sarkozy, who traveled to Libya to normalize ties a day after the medics were freed on July 24.
The Tribune report said that negotiations had been under way for nearly a year but that it was clear no contracts could be signed before the medics were freed.
The five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor had spent 8½ years in prison and were given life sentences on charges they deliberately infected more than 400 children with the AIDS virus – an allegation the six vehemently denied.
AP
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Court blocks deportation of Algerians
Court blocks deportation of Algerians
Mon Jul 30, 2007 6:27PM BST
By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) - Three Algerian men won an appeal against deportation on Monday in a blow to the government's efforts to throw out suspected foreign militants it views as a threat to national security.
The Court of Appeal said a lower court had not properly considered whether one of the men was at risk of torture on his return to Algeria. Secrecy surrounded its ruling on the two others, which the court said was based on "closed evidence" it could not reveal.
Lawyers and civil rights groups welcomed the decision to block the deportations but condemned the lack of openness.
"We are deeply concerned about the unnecessary secrecy that continues to surround these cases," said Alex Gask, legal officer at rights group Liberty.
Amnesty International said it was "doubly disturbing" the two men had been told neither of the government's case against them nor the grounds for Monday's decision.
"The principle that justice should not only be done but be seen to be done seems to have been turned on its head," it said, adding that Algerian military intelligence "routinely detains and abuses" terrorist suspects.
No comment was available from the Algerian embassy.
The court referred all three cases back to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), a tribunal which has spent years deliberating the fate of around 15 Algerians the British government wants to expel.
"BIN LADEN LINK"
The government acknowledged the three men -- whom media are only allowed to identify by their initials -- could not be deported for the time being.
But it said it hoped SIAC, which must now re-examine the case in the light of the Appeal Court ruling, would go on to find they could safely be sent home to Algeria.
The three include one man, U, who the government says had direct ties to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and supported militants behind bomb plots in 1999 and 2000 against Los Angeles airport and a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France.
The Court of Appeal said that, on the "open evidence" available to it, SIAC was right to conclude Britain could deport U to Algeria without breaching its human rights obligations.
But it said its confidence in that conclusion was undermined by other, secret evidence submitted to it.
"We cannot, of course, explain in any detail why we have reached that view. All we can say is that we have been shown closed evidence which is capable of undermining SIAC's overall conclusion," its written ruling said.
Gareth Peirce, U's solicitor, said she had no idea what the closed evidence contained.
"It's a complete nightmare of comprehension," she told reporters, adding she would seek bail for her clients.
The Home Office said it welcomed the Court of Appeal's endorsement of its approach on seeking case-by-case assurances from the Algerian government that deported individuals would be well treated.
"It is our belief that it is safe to deport to Algeria on the basis of assurances," it said in a statement.
"It remains our intention to remove these individuals, whom the Home Secretary considers pose a threat to national security, as soon as we are able to do so."
© Reuters 2006.
================================================
10 jailed in Strasbourg Christmas bomb plot
PARIS, Dec 16 (AFP) - A French court on Thursday sentenced 10 people to prison terms of up to 10 years for taking part in a conspiracy to blow up a Christmas market in the eastern city of Strasbourg.
Mohamed Bensakhria and Slimane Khalfaoui, said to be the group's leaders, were given 10 years, and Mohamed Yacine Aknouche was given eight.
Rabah Kadri - who is in detention in Britain after being arrested in 2002 under that country's anti-terrorism laws in connection with a reported attempt to attack the London Underground - was given six years and was banned from entering French territory.
They and the others, who received terms of six years or less, were all found guilty of "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise."
The men provided logistical support for a group of Islamists based in the German city of Frankfurt, who were arrested in possession of plans to blow up the Strasbourg market in December 2000.
Four members of the Frankfurt group were sentenced to between 10 and 12 years in jail by a German court last year.
The 10 in France were charged with being directly involved in the plot, which was to have used a timer connected to explosives to wreak havoc at the Strasbourg Christmas market, a picturesque stretch of decorated stands that attracts tens of thousands of shoppers each year.
Others sentenced were: Meroine Berrahal, who got six years; Laurent Djoumakh, also six years; Lazhar Tlili, a Tunisian given five years; and Samir Korchi, four years.
The last two, Nicolas Belloni and Abdelkader Tcharek, were sentenced respectively to three years and two and a half years, but were given an 18 months' suspension in each case.
Defence lawyers called the jail terms too severe, with one, Karim Beylouni, saying his client, Aknouche, had been arrested for a "virtual crime" not carried out. Aknouche had been in a German prison during the planning for the attack.
Khalfaoui's lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre (also the lawyer - and wife - of the jailed terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal), said the judgements showed that "French institutions are racist, anti-Arab and Islamophobic."
The four arrested and sentenced in Germany last year were all French citizens of Algerian origin.
One of them, Djillali Benali, said during the trial that he had trained at an Islamic militants' camp in Afghanistan but that he had not planned the Strasbourg attack on the orders of Osama bin Laden or his al-Qaeda network.
Three of the accused admitting attempting to bomb a deserted synagogue in Strasbourg in late January or early February 2001 and said their sentences should be light because no one would have been hurt.
Federal prosecutors had tried to draw a link between the group and al-Qaeda, but the defendants repeatedly denied any ties and the prosecutors dropped the charge in January as it would have been too time consuming to prove.
The four were arrested on December 26, 2000 during a police raid in Frankfurt in which explosives, weapons and the videotape were seized.
© AFP
================================================
UK extraditing Algerian terror suspect to France
COTIGNAC, France, June 22, 2006 (AFP) - Britain is in the process of extraditing to France an Algerian national convicted over a failed plot to blow up a busy Christmas market in 2000, French Justice Minister Pascal Clement said Thursday.
Rabah Kadri, tried in absentia in 2004, was handed a six-year prison sentence over his role in the conspiracy to attack the market in the eastern French city of Strasbourg.
The target of an international arrest warrant issued by a French judge, the Algerian had been detained in Britain since his arrest in 2002 in connection with a reported attempt to attack the London Underground.
He was due to arrive at the military airport of Villacoublay west of Paris on Thursday afternoon, where he was to be brought immediately before a Paris prosecutor to be informed of his conviction.
He will start serving his term immediately if he accepts his conviction, or will be granted a retrial if he contests it, Clement told reporters.
The Strasbourg plot was to have used a timer connected to explosives to wreak havoc at the city's Christmas market, a picturesque stretch of decorated stands that attracts tens of thousands of shoppers each year.
Four member of a group of Islamists based in the German city of Frankfurt, arrested in possession of plans to blow up the market, arms and explosives, were handed jail terms of 10 to 12 years by a German court in 2003.
Kadri was one of 10 people based in France, who were handed prison terms of up to 10 years for providing logistical support to the Frankfurt Islamists.
Clement announced Kadri's extradition during a meeting in the southeastern town of Cotignac.
Copyright AFP
Cyprus: Old grudges die hard
Old grudges die hard
By Alexia Saoulli
IT SEEMS old grudges die hard in Cyprus politics, as DIKO vice president Nicos Pittokopitis yesterday accused AKEL of collaborating with DISY to oust former President Spyros Kyprianou over 20 years ago.
Denying AKEL accusations of mudslinging, the former Paphos deputy asked whether it was mudslinging to say that the left-wing party’s political office had “co-operated” with right-wing DISY to force early parliamentary elections in 1985.
Pittokopitis was referring to reports in Haravghi newspaper which accused him of mudslinging, an allegation he rejected.
Referring to the so-called 1985 collaboration, DIKO’s vice president said the parliamentary elections had been called so that the new Parliament could revise the constitution and force Kyprianou, a DIKO president, to step down and abandon his insistence on setting pre-conditions ahead of Cyprus problem talks.
Thanks to the collaboration, two-thirds of the new Parliament’s seats were held by DISY and AKEL. Knowing the Turkish Cypriot side would never agree to pre-conditions, the two parties wanted Kyprianou to abandon this stipulation so that talks could go ahead.
In an effort to drive home his point that the two parties had “collaborated” and not simply agreed on one point, at one specific period in both their political histories, Pittokopitis told reporters of an announcement dated August 24, 1984, which was issued by AKEL’s political office. The DIKO vice president said this announcement effectively crushed AKEL members’ claim that any co-operation between AKEL and DISY had been between the left-wing party’s parliamentary group and not with the approval of any body.
“Just as then it so happened that AKEL agreed with DISY on then UN Secretary-general [Javier] Perez de Cuellar’s guidelines, they happened to agree during the period of the referendum,” he said, referring to events of 2004 when AKEL’s political office decided to accept the Annan plan 10 votes to four.
Pittokopitis also called on Christofias to say whether or not during meetings in Strasbourg, immediately after the referendum, he had tried to encourage proposals to promote the Annan plan with some changes. According to DIKO’s vice head, Christofias had set a timeframe of one month whereby he proposed that all parties, including President Tassos Papadopoulos, submit what changes they wanted to accept the Annan plan.
Pittokopitis then asked Christofias to what extent the AKEL leader had called Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Talat to a meeting in Birkenstock to discuss possible changes so that the plan could be accepted by the people.
The DIKO vice chairman added that AKEL, like DISY, favoured a return to the Annan plan but with small, “cosmetic” changes.
He concluded that although neither he nor DIKO wanted any sort of conflict with AKEL and its members, he could not keep quiet while “lies” were being told.
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2007
By Alexia Saoulli
IT SEEMS old grudges die hard in Cyprus politics, as DIKO vice president Nicos Pittokopitis yesterday accused AKEL of collaborating with DISY to oust former President Spyros Kyprianou over 20 years ago.
Denying AKEL accusations of mudslinging, the former Paphos deputy asked whether it was mudslinging to say that the left-wing party’s political office had “co-operated” with right-wing DISY to force early parliamentary elections in 1985.
Pittokopitis was referring to reports in Haravghi newspaper which accused him of mudslinging, an allegation he rejected.
Referring to the so-called 1985 collaboration, DIKO’s vice president said the parliamentary elections had been called so that the new Parliament could revise the constitution and force Kyprianou, a DIKO president, to step down and abandon his insistence on setting pre-conditions ahead of Cyprus problem talks.
Thanks to the collaboration, two-thirds of the new Parliament’s seats were held by DISY and AKEL. Knowing the Turkish Cypriot side would never agree to pre-conditions, the two parties wanted Kyprianou to abandon this stipulation so that talks could go ahead.
In an effort to drive home his point that the two parties had “collaborated” and not simply agreed on one point, at one specific period in both their political histories, Pittokopitis told reporters of an announcement dated August 24, 1984, which was issued by AKEL’s political office. The DIKO vice president said this announcement effectively crushed AKEL members’ claim that any co-operation between AKEL and DISY had been between the left-wing party’s parliamentary group and not with the approval of any body.
“Just as then it so happened that AKEL agreed with DISY on then UN Secretary-general [Javier] Perez de Cuellar’s guidelines, they happened to agree during the period of the referendum,” he said, referring to events of 2004 when AKEL’s political office decided to accept the Annan plan 10 votes to four.
Pittokopitis also called on Christofias to say whether or not during meetings in Strasbourg, immediately after the referendum, he had tried to encourage proposals to promote the Annan plan with some changes. According to DIKO’s vice head, Christofias had set a timeframe of one month whereby he proposed that all parties, including President Tassos Papadopoulos, submit what changes they wanted to accept the Annan plan.
Pittokopitis then asked Christofias to what extent the AKEL leader had called Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Talat to a meeting in Birkenstock to discuss possible changes so that the plan could be accepted by the people.
The DIKO vice chairman added that AKEL, like DISY, favoured a return to the Annan plan but with small, “cosmetic” changes.
He concluded that although neither he nor DIKO wanted any sort of conflict with AKEL and its members, he could not keep quiet while “lies” were being told.
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2007
Interview: President of European Court of Human Rights Notes Necessity Searching Additional Ways of Simplifying Court Procedures
Interview: President of European Court of Human Rights Notes Necessity Searching Additional Ways of Simplifying Court Procedures
Trend’s interview with President of the European Court of Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Jean-Paul Costa.
http://news.trendaz.com/cgi-bin/readnews2.pl?newsId=966058&lang=EN
Question: The European Union has recently established an Agency for European Union on major rights. How could the activities of the new establishment affect the work of the European Court of Human Rights?
Answer: Well first of all I should stress that I have never seen efforts undertaken by the European Union in the field of human rights as being in some way in competition with the Council of Europe and its institutions. If we are serious about strengthening human rights protection throughout Europe then we must welcome initiatives that help to achieve this. The efforts of the European Union and the Council of Europe in this sphere are and must be complementary. In this context I am particularly encouraged by the decision at the recent EU summit in Brussels that the new reform treaty will include the obligation for the Union to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights. As to the Fundamental Rights Agency itself, I do not see it having any direct impact on the Court’s work, since its role is entirely different. It is not a judicial organ with competence to examine and adjudicate individual complaints against member States. It is more concerned with data collection, research, analysis and awareness-raising and this may help the Court and the Council of Europe (who will have a representative on the Agency’s management board) in the wider perspective of enhancing human rights protection generally.
Question: What are your views on the future of the Court and its mission in the general European law, with the consideration of developments ongoing worldwide, including Europe? Will the Court remain loyal to its principles, developed over more than 50 years?
Answer: My view is that the system set up by the European Convention on Human Rights has proved its worth and that no one has yet come up with a better system for international human rights protection. Indeed I would go further and say that the system remains an outstanding model for control mechanisms designed to supervise the implementation of international law. In many ways its mission has become even more important – as the world get smaller the need for effective international justice grows. But also if the challenges do change and the environment within which the system has to operate obviously evolves, the basic premise of the system remains as valid as it was in 1950. That is that the best way to secure a stable and peaceful Europe is the maintenance of democracy and the rule of law through a judicial mechanism of external scrutiny based on the principle of collective enforcement. Will the Court remain loyal to its principles? Well in one sense of course it will remain an independent judicial body, functioning impartially on the basis of the legal framework which defines its competence. Yet the Convention has never been wholly static; it is what we call a living instrument and this dynamic character is necessary to adapt its guarantees to changing society and technology. For example what was understood by private and family life in 1950 bears little resemblance to what is encompassed by this notion in 2007. Thus the Court has interpreted the Convention’s provisions quite extensively over the years. However, it does so with caution and it is in my view right that it should do so, within a subsidiary system, having close regard to what is or is not a matter of European consensus in terms of the legal recognition of moral, social and technological development.
Question: At the moment over 90,000 appeals are under the consideration of the European Court of Human Rights. Yet Protocol 14 has not been ratified. Ideas by the Sage Group are not approved fully, as well. What are your views on the future of the European Court of Human Rights?
Answer: I have repeatedly stressed the need for a rapid entry into force of Protocol No. 14 and I continue to urge the Russian Federation, the only Council of Europe State still to ratify the Protocol, to take the necessary steps as soon as possible. At the same time I think it is important that the Council of Europe takes forward the work of the Wise Persons without delay. We must look for additional ways for the Court to streamline its procedures. We have to make sure that the Court is able to devote enough time to producing well-reasoned judgments in respect of the most important cases, particularly those which have the most impact on national legal systems. But in the end it is only through more effective implementation at national level that we will be able to reduce the Court’s caseload to a more manageable level. When, as already happens in some Contracting States, national courts are ready to apply the Convention and the Convention case-law themselves, then the Strasbourg Court could become what it is designed to be, a Court of last resort, not instance.
Could you name the post-Soviet country which mostly appeals the Court and what are the major problems in the court system in counties in transition period?
It is no secret that State with the highest volume of incoming applications is the Russian Federation, which accounts for approximately 22% of all the applications pending before the Court. However, in terms of the number of applications per head of population several States have higher rates: for example Slovenia, Czech Republic, Latvia, Romania, Poland, Croatia …. I should also make clear that the number of applications brought against a State is not necessarily an indication of how well human rights are protected there. For one thing many applications will be declared inadmissible; for another the number of applications will often depend on how well known the Convention is generally within the State concerned and specifically within the legal community.
The sort of problem varies from State to State and there are some rather special situations which give rise to particular types of issue. Generally it takes time to adapt a legal system to the proper operation of the rule of law and it also requires adequate financing. Some problems are common to certain States. For instance the non-execution of final judicial decisions is an issue that we encounter in several states. Schemes introduced for the restitution of nationalised property have given rise to problems in some states. Some systems allowed for the quashing of final judgments on an appeal by the Prosecutor General, but this has mostly been resolved. Length of judicial proceedings is also a chronic problem in some States, but we also find this issue in the older democratic States.
Question: Do you plan to visit the South Caucasus countries, including Azerbaijan, in the near future?
Answer: I will be going to Armenia in the autumn and I plan to visit Azerbaijan next May.
UK challenges Strasbourg ban
UK challenges Strasbourg ban
Clare Dyer and Alan Travis
Thursday July 12, 2007
The Guardian
Britain launched an attempt at the European court of human rights yesterday to overturn an 11-year-old judgment by the court which bans the deportation of suspected terrorists to countries where they face a risk of torture or degrading treatment.
The government has been trying for two years to find a way of challenging the Strasbourg court's judgment in the 1996 Chahal case, which has frustrated its attempts to expel suspects to such countries as Tunisia and Algeria.
It was given permission to intervene in a case brought against the Netherlands by Mohammed Ramzy, a 22-year-old Algerian terror suspect, but that case has been held up by procedural delays.
However, yesterday the court's grand chamber of 17 judges heard Britain's arguments when it intervened in another case, brought against the Italian government by Nassim Saadi, 23, a suspected terrorist and brother of a suicide bomber. He was convicted of criminal conspiracy in Italy and given a 20-year sentence by a Tunisian military court in his absence for belonging to a terrorist organisation abroad and incitement to terrorism.
Italy obtained diplomatic assurances from Tunisia that he would not be tortured and could reopen the criminal case against him, but his lawyer, Sandro Clementi, told the court yesterday that it had strong evidence that torture was "a daily practice" in Tunisia.
Britain hopes to persuade the court to reconsider its judgment in the case of Karamjit Singh Chahal, a Sikh militant who successfully argued that he should not be sent back to India because he would face a real risk of inhumane treatment.
Strasbourg Court Sanctions Romania for Failure to Remedy Police Ill-Treatment of Romani Man
Strasbourg Court Sanctions Romania for Failure to Remedy Police Ill-Treatment of Romani Man
Bucurest, 27.7.2007, 16:04, (ERRC)
The European Court of Human Rights today delivered its judgment in the case of Cobzaru v. Romania concerning the beating of a Romani man by police officers while in custody in Mangalia, Romania, and the ensuing official investigation. The Court held that Romania is responsible for breaches of the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment (Article 3), the right to an effective remedy (Article 13) and the prohibition of discrimination (Article 14). The applicant was represented by Monica Macovei, a Bucharest-based lawyer, the Romanian Helsinki Committee, and the European Roma Rights Centre.
On 4 July 1997 after a domestic incident involving his partner and her relatives, the applicant went to the local police station asking for help. However, instead of offering help, two police officers brutally ill-treated him, and eventually released him after two hours. As a result of the beating, the applicant suffered from craniocerebral trauma and numerous bruises and haematoma all over his body. The official investigation into the assault ended with a decision of non-indictment, and was marked by numerous derogatory remarks on the part of the authorities in relation to the applicant's and the witnesses' Roma ethnicity.
In relation to the applicant's claims under Article 3, the Court noted the numerous shortcomings of the official investigation, and concluded that the Government did not satisfactorily establish that the applicant's injuries were caused otherwise than by the treatment inflicted on him while he was under police control, thus warranting a finding of both the substantive and the procedural aspects of Article 3.
The Court also established a violation of Article 13 of the Convention, since no effective investigation into the allegations brought by the applicant was carried out, and moreover, since the negative result of the criminal proceedings prevented the applicant from availing of any other domestic remedy.
The ruling on the applicant's Article 14 claim brings welcome clarification to the Court's case-law on the prohibition of discrimination. Firstly, the Court held that there was no evidence that the beating was motivated by racial hatred, and therefore did not find a substantive violation of Article 14. Secondly however, with regard to the procedural aspect of Article 14, the Court noted that even in the absence of prima facie plausible information to prove that the assault on the applicant was racially-motivated, the authorities were under an obligation to investigate a possible racist motive to the attack given the number and notoriety of such incidents in post communist Romania, and the general policies adopted by the Romanian government to combat discrimination against the Roma. Thirdly, the Court held that during the official investigation, a number of derogatory remarks were made in relation to the applicant's Roma origin, which disclosed the general discriminatory attitudes of the authorities, which in itself constituted discrimination contrary to Article 14.
The ERRC and APADOR consider that the judgment in the Cobzaru case is important for two reasons. Firstly, it highlights Romania's failure to provide effective protection to its Roma minority from harm meted out by police officers, as well as the widespread anti-Roma discrimination in the country. Secondly, Cobzaru further crystallizes the Court's case-law in the field of discrimination, principally by attaching significance to the general context of anti-Roma discrimination in Romania, and thus going beyond the particulars of the applicant's situation.
Read the full text of the judgments here: http://www.errc.org/db/02/6E/m0000026E.docc
ERRC
Bucurest, 27.7.2007, 16:04, (ERRC)
The European Court of Human Rights today delivered its judgment in the case of Cobzaru v. Romania concerning the beating of a Romani man by police officers while in custody in Mangalia, Romania, and the ensuing official investigation. The Court held that Romania is responsible for breaches of the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment (Article 3), the right to an effective remedy (Article 13) and the prohibition of discrimination (Article 14). The applicant was represented by Monica Macovei, a Bucharest-based lawyer, the Romanian Helsinki Committee, and the European Roma Rights Centre.
On 4 July 1997 after a domestic incident involving his partner and her relatives, the applicant went to the local police station asking for help. However, instead of offering help, two police officers brutally ill-treated him, and eventually released him after two hours. As a result of the beating, the applicant suffered from craniocerebral trauma and numerous bruises and haematoma all over his body. The official investigation into the assault ended with a decision of non-indictment, and was marked by numerous derogatory remarks on the part of the authorities in relation to the applicant's and the witnesses' Roma ethnicity.
In relation to the applicant's claims under Article 3, the Court noted the numerous shortcomings of the official investigation, and concluded that the Government did not satisfactorily establish that the applicant's injuries were caused otherwise than by the treatment inflicted on him while he was under police control, thus warranting a finding of both the substantive and the procedural aspects of Article 3.
The Court also established a violation of Article 13 of the Convention, since no effective investigation into the allegations brought by the applicant was carried out, and moreover, since the negative result of the criminal proceedings prevented the applicant from availing of any other domestic remedy.
The ruling on the applicant's Article 14 claim brings welcome clarification to the Court's case-law on the prohibition of discrimination. Firstly, the Court held that there was no evidence that the beating was motivated by racial hatred, and therefore did not find a substantive violation of Article 14. Secondly however, with regard to the procedural aspect of Article 14, the Court noted that even in the absence of prima facie plausible information to prove that the assault on the applicant was racially-motivated, the authorities were under an obligation to investigate a possible racist motive to the attack given the number and notoriety of such incidents in post communist Romania, and the general policies adopted by the Romanian government to combat discrimination against the Roma. Thirdly, the Court held that during the official investigation, a number of derogatory remarks were made in relation to the applicant's Roma origin, which disclosed the general discriminatory attitudes of the authorities, which in itself constituted discrimination contrary to Article 14.
The ERRC and APADOR consider that the judgment in the Cobzaru case is important for two reasons. Firstly, it highlights Romania's failure to provide effective protection to its Roma minority from harm meted out by police officers, as well as the widespread anti-Roma discrimination in the country. Secondly, Cobzaru further crystallizes the Court's case-law in the field of discrimination, principally by attaching significance to the general context of anti-Roma discrimination in Romania, and thus going beyond the particulars of the applicant's situation.
Read the full text of the judgments here: http://www.errc.org/db/02/6E/m0000026E.docc
ERRC
Strasbourg Fails to Reform Bulgaria’s Violent Police
Strasbourg Fails to Reform Bulgaria’s Violent Police
18 07 2007 Human Rights Court rulings fail to have much impact on law enforcers whose abuses go unpunished.
By Albena Shkodrova in Sofia
Several dozen people suffering from gas intoxication, three of them requiring medical treatment for rashes and pain in their eyes, and one for head injuries; this was the legacy of a visit by the Bulgarian police to the site of an unauthorized coal miners’ strike in the south a few days ago.
“When my officers carry out orders, I support them,” the interior minister, Rumen Petkov, commented after the event.
The minister justified the police brutality, saying the protesters had violated the local mayor’s orders concerning where to hold their strike. Workers from the Maritsa-Iztok mines had blocked the road between Svilengrad and Ruse as part of their protest against low wages.
Instead of decreasing as the country develops and integrates with the European Union, critics say excessive and unnecessary police violence not only remains a problem in Bulgaria but is getting worse.
They claim a mixture of low standards, controversial legislation and ineffective prosecution of police who abuse their position stand behind this trend.
“As soon as he took over, minister Petkov said the police will go to the limits of what the law allows,” a human rights lobbyist, Mihail Ekimdzhiev, says, referring to the treatment of the miners. “Instead of being condemned, his statement is becoming truer than ever.”
Through the years of its transition to democracy, Bulgaria has had a long and grim record of police brutality. Although the media have reported on hundreds of cases, many have gone unpunished.
Some were solved by the local courts, or reported to the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg, where a large proportion of the 112 sentences concerning Bulgaria since 1998 centre on police brutality.
Most involved the use of firearms against unarmed persons and beatings of suspects during interrogation. Most also concerned individuals rather than groups.
However, the case with the group of miners is not without precedent. During routine security checks last June, police from a special unit carried out a mass beating of clubbers in the resort of Varna, according to the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee. Several victims of the raid told the committee that while the police beat them, they forced them to bark like dogs.
Experts say one reason why police brutality continues to flourish is that so many of these kinds of abuse remain unpunished.
In a number of cases, the Strasbourg court found Bulgaria guilty of mismanaging the investigations, apparently aiming to cover up rather than establish the true sequence of events.
The authorities dispute this. Sofia’s Military Court of Appeal, for example, has released statistics noting that 55 Bulgarian police were sued for injuries in the last two years alone while 34 were sentenced.
But the Helsinki Committee remains skeptical. They say their research show relatively few police face any penalty for abuse, “especially when the victims belong to the Roma minority.”
One case on their files concerns a Roma man who was shot dead in the head by a policeman in March 2004.
Plovdiv’s Military Prosecution office then allegedly tried to stop an investigation on the grounds that the firearm was used legally. The courts have repeatedly returned the case for further investigation.
Another case involves a Roma man shot dead by a policeman in September 2004. In this case also, the Sofia Military Prosecutors office have tried to block any investigation, while the Sofia courts have pushed it forward.
In 2006, judges ruled: “It is clear that the Sofia Military Prosecutors have aimed at stopping the case without making any serious efforts to establish the truth.” In spite of this sharply worded court resolution, no indictment of the policeman was filed to date.
Apart from the fact that police crimes often remain unpunished, critics say a culture of brutality is encouraged by the ambiguities in the ministry of interior’s code of conduct.
“It does not clearly state the terms and conditions concerning the use of fire arms,” Ekimdzhiev says of the code on the website of his organization, Eurorights. “The law allows for the use of guns against unarmed persons who do not … [even] threaten anyone.”
As an example, he quotes the case of “Nachova versus the state”, which ended with a verdict against Bulgaria in Strasbourg in 2005. In it military police shot two Roma boys dead after they absconded from military service and tried to flee the patrol following them.
The Helsinki Committee agrees. “Many cases of lethal use of fire guns by police in the last years remained ineffectively investigated and were closed with the conclusion that the weapons were used legally,” it reported earlier this year.
“In at least one case a man has lost his life under dubious circumstances, after ending in police hands,” it added.
As the continuing pattern of police brutality over recent years is quite clear, the issue is whether the Strasbourg court will manage to force the Bulgarian police to change its practices and culture.
Snezhana Botusharova, a judge at the court for nine years, says decisions made by the court have helped to modify local legislation. She says the penal code has been changed as a consequence of some verdicts in Strasbourg, for example.
But not everyone agrees that the court’s sentences concerning Bulgaria have had a significant effect on the national judiciary. “We think it’s the other way around,” Yuliana Metodieva of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, says. “Our researches show that concerning police brutality, practice is regressing.”
Apart from general political indifference to the problem at a national level, one other factor diminishes the effect of Strasbourg Court’s decisions; when verdicts involve compensation, those are paid out of the state budget. No financial responsibility is sought from those who actually inflicted the damage.
“The government does what is easiest,” Ekimdzhiev says. “It pays compensations with taxpayers’ money and neither analyses the judicial problem which brought the verdict, nor acts adequately to solve it.”
Albena Shkodrova is BIRN`s Bulgaria country director. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.
18 07 2007 Human Rights Court rulings fail to have much impact on law enforcers whose abuses go unpunished.
By Albena Shkodrova in Sofia
Several dozen people suffering from gas intoxication, three of them requiring medical treatment for rashes and pain in their eyes, and one for head injuries; this was the legacy of a visit by the Bulgarian police to the site of an unauthorized coal miners’ strike in the south a few days ago.
“When my officers carry out orders, I support them,” the interior minister, Rumen Petkov, commented after the event.
The minister justified the police brutality, saying the protesters had violated the local mayor’s orders concerning where to hold their strike. Workers from the Maritsa-Iztok mines had blocked the road between Svilengrad and Ruse as part of their protest against low wages.
Instead of decreasing as the country develops and integrates with the European Union, critics say excessive and unnecessary police violence not only remains a problem in Bulgaria but is getting worse.
They claim a mixture of low standards, controversial legislation and ineffective prosecution of police who abuse their position stand behind this trend.
“As soon as he took over, minister Petkov said the police will go to the limits of what the law allows,” a human rights lobbyist, Mihail Ekimdzhiev, says, referring to the treatment of the miners. “Instead of being condemned, his statement is becoming truer than ever.”
Through the years of its transition to democracy, Bulgaria has had a long and grim record of police brutality. Although the media have reported on hundreds of cases, many have gone unpunished.
Some were solved by the local courts, or reported to the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg, where a large proportion of the 112 sentences concerning Bulgaria since 1998 centre on police brutality.
Most involved the use of firearms against unarmed persons and beatings of suspects during interrogation. Most also concerned individuals rather than groups.
However, the case with the group of miners is not without precedent. During routine security checks last June, police from a special unit carried out a mass beating of clubbers in the resort of Varna, according to the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee. Several victims of the raid told the committee that while the police beat them, they forced them to bark like dogs.
Experts say one reason why police brutality continues to flourish is that so many of these kinds of abuse remain unpunished.
In a number of cases, the Strasbourg court found Bulgaria guilty of mismanaging the investigations, apparently aiming to cover up rather than establish the true sequence of events.
The authorities dispute this. Sofia’s Military Court of Appeal, for example, has released statistics noting that 55 Bulgarian police were sued for injuries in the last two years alone while 34 were sentenced.
But the Helsinki Committee remains skeptical. They say their research show relatively few police face any penalty for abuse, “especially when the victims belong to the Roma minority.”
One case on their files concerns a Roma man who was shot dead in the head by a policeman in March 2004.
Plovdiv’s Military Prosecution office then allegedly tried to stop an investigation on the grounds that the firearm was used legally. The courts have repeatedly returned the case for further investigation.
Another case involves a Roma man shot dead by a policeman in September 2004. In this case also, the Sofia Military Prosecutors office have tried to block any investigation, while the Sofia courts have pushed it forward.
In 2006, judges ruled: “It is clear that the Sofia Military Prosecutors have aimed at stopping the case without making any serious efforts to establish the truth.” In spite of this sharply worded court resolution, no indictment of the policeman was filed to date.
Apart from the fact that police crimes often remain unpunished, critics say a culture of brutality is encouraged by the ambiguities in the ministry of interior’s code of conduct.
“It does not clearly state the terms and conditions concerning the use of fire arms,” Ekimdzhiev says of the code on the website of his organization, Eurorights. “The law allows for the use of guns against unarmed persons who do not … [even] threaten anyone.”
As an example, he quotes the case of “Nachova versus the state”, which ended with a verdict against Bulgaria in Strasbourg in 2005. In it military police shot two Roma boys dead after they absconded from military service and tried to flee the patrol following them.
The Helsinki Committee agrees. “Many cases of lethal use of fire guns by police in the last years remained ineffectively investigated and were closed with the conclusion that the weapons were used legally,” it reported earlier this year.
“In at least one case a man has lost his life under dubious circumstances, after ending in police hands,” it added.
As the continuing pattern of police brutality over recent years is quite clear, the issue is whether the Strasbourg court will manage to force the Bulgarian police to change its practices and culture.
Snezhana Botusharova, a judge at the court for nine years, says decisions made by the court have helped to modify local legislation. She says the penal code has been changed as a consequence of some verdicts in Strasbourg, for example.
But not everyone agrees that the court’s sentences concerning Bulgaria have had a significant effect on the national judiciary. “We think it’s the other way around,” Yuliana Metodieva of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, says. “Our researches show that concerning police brutality, practice is regressing.”
Apart from general political indifference to the problem at a national level, one other factor diminishes the effect of Strasbourg Court’s decisions; when verdicts involve compensation, those are paid out of the state budget. No financial responsibility is sought from those who actually inflicted the damage.
“The government does what is easiest,” Ekimdzhiev says. “It pays compensations with taxpayers’ money and neither analyses the judicial problem which brought the verdict, nor acts adequately to solve it.”
Albena Shkodrova is BIRN`s Bulgaria country director. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.
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