LONDON, ENGLAND – The three dethroned heroes of Pakistan’s cricket team, Salman Butt, age 30, Mohammad Asif, 28, and Mohammad Amir, 19, were handed prison sentences and fines by a London court Thursday. Butt and Asif, who were found guilty of conspiracy to defraud and accept corrupt money earlier this week have been handed sentences of 30 and 12 months respectively. Amir was given a six-month sentence.
All three were suspended from the sport for five years by the ICC, the International Cricket Council, in February 2011. All are appealing their bans.
Mazhar Majeed, the agent who was behind the betting scam pleaded guilty and was given two sentences of 32 and 8 months, to run concurrently.
The judge in London also ordered the men to pay fines: Butt £30,937, Amir £9,389 and Asif £8,120. It’s not clear what fines Majeed will have to pay. The judge pointed out that he appears to have kept most of the money for himself.
The judge, in his sentencing remarks, notes that the name of the sport used to mean “fair dealing on the sporting field”. He reprimanded them in the name of the Pakistan team’s fans, saying “In Pakistan, where cricket is the national sport, the ordinary follower of the national team feels betrayed by your activities, as do your fellow countrymen in this country. You Butt, Asif and Amir have let down all your supporters and all followers of the game.”
Links to other sites: BBC, CBC Canada (AP), India Today, Jakarta Globe
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Former Unkrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymochenko was handed a seven-year prison sentence Tuesday 11 October, found guilty of criminally abusing her power, in particular of losing large amounts of money in a natural gas deal with Russia. Tymochenko was one of the heroes of the Orange Revolution in 2004 who fought the regime of Victor Yanukovych, widely considered to be tainted by fraud. Tymochenko then lost the presidency in a close race in 2010, to Yanukovych, in a climate coloured by economic discontent.
The judge also ordered her to back the millions lost by the state in the gas deal, and told her she cannot run for political office for three years after completing her prison term.
The trial has been heavily criticized as politically motivated in the West, with Catherine Ashton, European Union foreign minister warning Kiev within two hours of the verdict of “profound implications” for Ukraine and its integration into the EU, if the sentence is upheld.
Update 17:05 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The two US men who were jailed by Iran after hiking in the Iranian border area are reported by the Iranian state news agency to be free and en route home, and AP is reporting that a convoy has left Evin Prison, with Swiss and Omani diplomats and police and possibly the two men.
Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal have been held by Iran since they were arrested in July 2009 while hiking with Sarah Shourd. She was released and sent home on $500,000 bail, and the release of the men is also reportedly for similar bail. The two men were sentenced to eight years in prison for spying.
Switzerland, which represents US affairs in Iran, has been actively involved in negotiations to free the Americans but the Swiss government has remained mum on the affair.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – A 27-year-old woman who in 2006 shook a child to death, has been given a 10-year-prison sentence. She is the third person involved in a child abuse case that involved her partner and his other female companion and three of the man’s children. They were all living together as a group with religious convictions, with the man dictating severe punishments that eventually led to the incident where one of the children died.
The man and his other partner were earlier sentenced to 9.5 and 7 years for their part in the string of abuses.
TSR notes that a Swiss study showed in 2008 that there had been eight deaths and 50 hospitalizations in five years for shaking babies and young children, with the public not fully aware of the damage that can be caused to a young child by shaking it.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The 51-year-old Frenchman driving the wrong way on the autoroute who had a head-on crash on the A1 between Yverdon and Lausanne at 06:00, 10 August had an alcohol level of 1.89 (legal limit: 0.5), canton Vaud police say. He was interviewed in the hospital, where he was treated for his injuries before being transferred to a Vaud prison. Another Frenchman, who was in the passing lane, was killed in the accident.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland, which in 2010 signed the Council of Europe (EC) treaty covering sexual exploitation of minors has now completed legislative changes that will make it a crime to solicit, encourage or take part in sexual acts with 16- to 18-year-olds, for remuneration.
The legal revisions extend the age of minors where remunerated sexual acts are concerned to age 18.
The revisions are now open for public consultation, until November, at which point the government will take into consideration suggested modifications before the changes take effect. The EC treaty nevertheless went into effect in July 2010 and Swiss legal changes align the country with the treaty’s requirements.
The treaty is the first international effort to create a set of rules that call for penal codes to punish child sexual abuse and exploitation.
It covers four main areas for minors: sexual abuse, prostitution, pornography and encouraging children to take part in pornographic “representations”, including film and photography.
The main change required for Swiss laws to be in line is the age extension. The current legal situation is that a client of a child under age 16, who consents and is remunerated, risks prison only if he or she is more than three years older.
©2011 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
The New York Times in the US and the Guardian in the UK have put on the table an extraordinary set of leaked Guantánamo bay military prison documents they say are not from Wikileaks. The publication of the files on the prisoners have prompted a stiff criticism from the US government, which appears to believe that the information was provided by Wikileaks (more on the source, Guardian). Wikileaks also published the information, including some material edited out by the NY Times and the Guardian. Media reactions have ranged from Huffington Post’s rummage through the who-posted-what-when look at media to a total eclipse on Fox News, which by midnight Sunday New York time did not even mention the published files on its home page.
Links to other sites: Guardian, New York Times, NPR, Wikileaks
Rudolf Elmer at a press conference in Zurich 19 January
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Rudolf Elmer, the former Bank Julius Baer employee who famously appeared with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks two days before his trial in Zurich for theft and threatening his former employer, has had one of his appeals turned down, his lawyer has told Swiss media in a press release.
He was convicted but given a suspended sentence 19 January for threats and theft, a lighter sentence than the prosecutor had demanded. He was then re-arrested within minutes on suspicion of breaking Switzerland’s banking secrecy laws, with which he was charged 22 January.
The appeal that was turned down 16 February was for the 19 January judgement, which did not cover banking secrecy.
He appealed, 27 January, his 22 January remand in custody for breaking bank secrecy laws by handing information to tax authorities, and this remains pending.
Elmer’s attorney, Ganden Tethong, noted in a press release 22 January that:
“The parties were informed of the court’s ruling this afternoon. In its decision, the court held that:
- there is probable cause to arrest Mr Elmer
- there is danger of collusion; in conclusion
- it granted remand.”
Switzerland’s law forbids bankers from handing data on client accounts to tax authorities unless done so at the client’s request.
Related stories in GenevaLunch:
Julius Baer nemesis reborn as Assange pal (17 January 2011)Rudolf Elmer arrested again over latest WikiLeaks handover (19 January 2011)
Theft and threats out of the way, Zurich turns to bank secrecy law violations to jail former banker
Rudolf Elmer at a press conference in Zurich 19 January
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Rudolf Elmer was arrested again in Zurich Wednesday evening, shortly after being handed a suspended sentence. Elmer had a quick court hearing and sentencing Wednesday 19 January, for threatening his former employer, Bank Julius Baer, and for stealing data from the bank in 2002, which he then gave to WikiLeaks and others in 2008. He was widely reported to have been charged with breaking bank secrecy laws, not in fact the case.
Zurich police say he was taken into custody again late Wednesday on suspicion of breaking Swiss banking secrecy laws after he publicly handed two disks with data to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in London, last weekend, stating that they contained bank data. Elmer also said publicly, during his day in court Wednesday, that he had handed over to bank data to tax authorities and media groups.
NZZ reports that the cantonal prosecutor has until Friday evening to decide if Elmer will be charged.
Privacy protection is the umbrella for bank secrecy, professional secrecy laws
Swiss bank secrecy laws are part of a group of privacy protection that also cover data protection in the broader sense, limiting, for example, Google Street View’s right to film and sending to jail, as well as professional secrecy laws. The long-running nuclear proliferation Tinner case in Switzerland has involved questions about professional secrecy being violated.
Elmer might be charged under Article 47 of the civil code which requires bankers to protect the confidentiality of clients’ data. It also allows for a subsequent charge of violating professional secrecy:
Update 3 / 14 June Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss businessman Max Goeldi, freed from prison in Libya 10 June, is en route home to Switzerland, news agency AFP reports his lawyer as saying Sunday night, possibly via Tunis.
Switzerland and Libya signed a “plan of action” Sunday in Tripoli, with Germany and Spain also signatories, to end the diplomatic impasse between the Swiss and Libyan governments. Max Goeldi, Swiss businessman and ABB employee who has been held in Libya for nearly two years, is scheduled to fly home from Tripoli, via Madrid, Sunday. Goeldi’s prison sentence in Libya for visa irregularities has been at the centre of the diplomatic tussle that began with the arrest in Geneva in July 2008 of Hannibal Qadaffi, son of Libya’s leader.
Swiss Secretary for Foreign Affairs Micheline Calmy-Rey made the announcements about Goeldi’s flight home and the action plan as she came out of a meeting in Tripoli with her Libyan counterpart, Moussa Koussa. She also met with Libya’s leader Muammar Qadaffi in his reception tent, along with Spanish leader Miguel Angel Moratinos and Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, as well as other European leaders.
The plan of action includes the following:
- a tribunal will be created to investigate the circumstances surrounding the arrest in Geneva of Hannibal Qadaffi in July 2008, to which then-Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz agreed in principle in August 2009;
- Switzerland will offer Libya an official apology for the theft of a police mug shot of Hannibal Qadaffi from police files, and for their publication in the Tribune de Geneve newspaper, and those who stole the material will be prosecuted (it was revealed that a criminal case has already been opened);
- Max Goeldi’s request for a judicial pardon from Libya will be expedited.
TSR, Swiss public television, reports that Tripoli says Geneva has already paid CHF1.5 million euros to Hannibal Qadaffi, a sum that has not been verified and that runs counter to statements made earlier by Bern.
Swiss Secretary for Foreign Affairs Micheline Calmy-Rey made the announcements about Goeldi’s flight home and the action plan as she came out of a meeting in Tripoli with her Libyan counterpart, Moussa Koussa.
Background, GenevaLunch
Rashid Hamdani, left and Max Goeldi, right, at the Swiss embassy in Tripoli in 2009
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss businessman held by Libya since July 2008, Max Goeldi, is expected to be released from prison and allowed to return home to Switzerland when he finishes his four-month prison sentence 12 June, his lawyer has told Swiss media. Only 8 of the 53 days he served in prison in July-August 2008, after his arrest, have been taken into consideration in calculating the time he has purged.
Goeldi was arrested with Rashid Hamdani, another Swiss businessman, shortly after the arrest in Geneva of Hannibal Qadaffi, son of the Libyan leader, for beating a member of his staff in a hotel.
Background, GenevaLunch
Huang Guangyu, once the richest man in China, has been sentenced to 14 years in prison by a Beijing court that found him guilty of bribes, insider trading and illegal business dealings. The 41-year-old set up a company, Gome Electrical Appliances Holdings, which has become China’s largest home appliance chain. By 2005 his worth was said to be over $6 billion.
Links to other sites: China Daily, Reuters
Post-walk “strike” by 20 prisoners designed to show solidarity with man who died in fire
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Twenty prisoners detained at Bois-Mermet in Lausanne refused to return to their cells Tuesday 27 April following their 08:00 walk, to show their solidarity with the family of a 30-year-old Swiss man, who died 11 March when smoke from the mattress he’d set on fire killed him.
Police say the men and prison officials negotiated all morning, and in the early afternoon police arrived and negotiations began again. The group returned to their cells at 16:30 without any incidents.
The circumstances surrounding the death of the man who died at the Bochuz prison in Vaud, has been in Swiss headlines for the past few weeks, and the death is currently under investigation by an independent judge appointed by Vaud authorities.
Four senior executives with Rio Tinto have been sentenced to prison terms varying from 7 to 14 years and fines. Personal assets of two of the men have also been confiscated. The four have been fired by the British-Australian mining company, says chief executive officer Sam Walsh, after the company was given clear evidence of bribery. The case has been watched closely by Western companies concerned about a crackdown on their employees.
Links to other sites: CNN, Financial Times, Xinhua
The owner of The Netherlands largest cannabis-selling coffee shop, which was closed in 2009 by the government, was fined 10m euros for breaking the law by having more than the permitted amount of the drug on the premises. Meddie Willemsen’s Checkpoint coffee shop in Terneuzen reportedly served up to 3,000 customers a day at its peak. In two police raids officers netted more than 500kg of cannabis, well over the allowed amount of 500g. Willemson has also been sentenced to 16 weeks in prison.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Amnesty International’s Swiss branch, which has maintained contact with Swiss businessman Max Goeldi, sentenced to four months in prison in Libya for visa irregularities, is in poor condition, the group told news agency ATS Monday 15 March. His lawyer made a similar statement Sunday. Goeldi initially saw his prison detention as a temporary state while request for clemency was pending, says Amnesty, but Libya’s judicial system has not yet reviewed his case.
Goeldi’s mental state has deteriorated rapidly since he left the Swiss embassy in February, where he had been living for more than 18 months while awaiting sentencing.
Amnesty International a week ago handed Libya 14,000 signatures asking for the country to release the prisoner.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The family of Swiss businessman Max Goeldi, serving a four-month prison sentence in Libya, has appealed to Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffi to release the man. The demand for clemency follows a visit in prison to Goeldi by Hannibal Qadaffi, son of the leader. The visit has given the family some hope that Goeldi will be released sooner, Moritz Goeldi, brother of Max, said Tuesday 2 March on Swiss German public television.
His mother, who celebrated her 80th birthday Monday 1 March, is having a hard time understanding why her son is unable to come home, says Moritz, who noted that Max’s detention in Libya for more than 18 months has been very hard on their mother.
Background, GenevaLunch
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss government remains silent on Libya, while Libya appears to want to stay in news headlines this week: leader Muammar Qadaffi’s declaration of a jihad or holy war against Switzerland last week was firmly rebuffed as unacceptably by the United Nations and Swiss Muslim leaders. Reports are coming in that some Libyans have taken it more seriously, and that anywhere from 1,000 t0 2,000 of them, depending on who is reporting, have gathered outside the Swiss Embassy in Tripoli. Security forces are guarding the building.
Meanwhile, Hannibal Qadaffi has visited Max Goeldi in prison in Libya, in the presence of reporters.
Rashid Hamdani, left and Max Goeldi, right, at the Swiss embassy in Tripoli in 2009
Tripoli, Libya (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss government remains officially silent but news reports from journalists in Tripoli, including a Reuters reporter, say that Swiss businessman Max Goeldi has surrendered to Libya authorities, to begin a four-month prison sentence. The Swiss will ask for clemency, and if it is granted, Human Rights Watch says, this would be a sign that the political crisis is over between Switzerland and Libya.
Libyan security forces surrounded the Swiss embassy in Tripoli after giving Switzerland a deadline to hand over Goeldi, who has been staying at the embassy. The second Swiss businessman held by Libya but whose charges were recently dropped, Rashid Hamdani from the Lake Geneva region, appears to have been allowed to leave the embassy and is reported to have traveled to Tunisia by car.
Background, GenevaLunch
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, Amnesty International, Le Temps (Fre), TSR (Fre)
Chinese “dissident” leader Liu Xiaobo has lost his appeal, with a prison sentence of 11 years upheld by Beijing’s High Court. US and EU diplomats who stood outside tdhe court said afterwards that they were disappointed at China’s failure to allow political dissent. The Foreign Ministry spokesperson used the English word “dissident” in a regular news briefing to repeat a frequently used government line that China has laws and there are those who abide by them, and those who don’t – criminals.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, Reuters, RTT News
Tripoli, Libya (GenevaLunch) – Rachid Hamdani, one of two Swiss businessmen who have been held by Libya for 18 months, has reportedly had his prison sentence overturned for staying illegally in the country. He and Max Goldi, the other Swiss, appeared Saturday and Sunday in a court to where appeals in their cases were being heard. The two then returned to the Swiss Embassy, where they have been staying. The Swiss government has confirmed the news.
The two are also charged with illegal business activities, and these charges will be heard again 6 and 7 February, according to Hamdani’s lawyer, reports TSR.
Background, GenevaLunch
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© Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Film director Roman Polanski could be released on bail for CHF4.5 million, the Swiss Federal Criminal high court ruled Wednesday 25 November, noting that the amount of money put up plus other security measures are adequate to cover the risk he will flee. The court has asked for his identity papers and he has been told to remain home with electronic surveillance while the US request for extradition is examined, a process that could take some weeks.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Film director Roman Polanski’s request to be freed, while a demand from the United States for his extradition is pending, has been turned down by the Swiss Justice and Police ministry, reports AP, citing spokesperson Guido Falco, who could not be reached for confirmation. An official statement has not yet been issued.
The government reportedly believes there is a risk he will flee. Polanski was jailed following his arrest 26 September at Zurich Airport when he arrived for the Zurich Film Festival. Switzerland and the US have had an extradition treaty covering assistance in criminal matters since 1990. To be extraditable, an offense must be considered a penal crime in both countries.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 25-year-old Valais woman has been taken to prison, accused of defamation against six people, after telling police in March 2009 that she had been gang-raped by her former boyfriend and five other men in a garage in Carouge. She described in graphic detail the sexual relations that took place, in August 2008, but police became suspicious when she remained vague about the identity of the former boyfriend, whom she clearly knew well.
Bernard Madoff has been sentenced to 150 years in prison in New York, USA. The judge called his crimes “extraordinarily evil” and handed him the sentence asked for by prosecutors, for fraud charges that grew out of his massive Ponzi scheme. Madoff pleaded guilty to the charges: securities fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, investment adviser fraud, three counts of money laundering, false statements, perjury, false filings with the SEC, theft from an employee benefit plan. Bloomberg, New York Times
US freelance journalist Roxana Saberi, sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran for spying and working without press credentials, has been freed after a court heard her appeal and reduced the sentence to a suspended two-year term, according to National Public Radio. She joined her parents and will return to the family’s home in North Dakota in coming days, according to US officials. The New York Times argues that the court’s ruling was political, with Iran-US relations a hot issue in Iran, with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad facing an election in a month, but Saberi’s lawyer tells NPR that the sentence was reduced for legal reasons. Al Jazeera, Yahoo news
Roxana Saberi, who holds dual US and Iranian citizenship, has been sentenced by an Iranian court to eight years in prison for spying. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier in April called on Iran to release her. Saberi grew up in the US where she played soccer for Concordia College in Minnesota and was named Miss North Dakota in 1997. She has spent the past six years in Iran working on a book. BBC, Freeroxana.net, Huffington Post
This much is clear: OJ Simpson, fallen football hero who got away with (his ex-wife’s) murder, has a long stretch in prison ahead of him, possibly up to 33 years, but he becomes eligible for parole in nine years. What is less clear, judging by big media reports that vary hugely, is the extent to which he’s a bad guy. The Chicago Tribune wrote a tear-jerker, Reuters paints him a little less sympathetically and quotes the sentencing judge as saying, “”While at this case bail hearing, I said to Mr Simpson that I didn’t know if he was arrogant or ignorant or both. Then during the trial and through this proceeding, I got the answer: it was both.” The UK’s Guardian takes a cooler, America-hoped-for-it approach.
Switzerland (SwissInfo, Eng) – European human rights experts began today a two-week inspection of Swiss detention facilities. The Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) will report on the treatment of inmates at facilities across Switzerland, including juvenile centres, prisons, and cantonal police jails.
Inspectors have noted problems of overcrowding in Swiss prisons, especially in Geneva’s Champ-Dollon prison, which has 480 inmates, nearly twice the number it was designed to hold. Prisoners at Champ-Dollon in August staged a protest against overcrowding.
This is the fifth visit by the CPT to Switzerland since 1991. Four
years ago, inspectors examined the treatment of foreign nationals awaiting deportation at
Zurich airport.
