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.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The murder convictions of American Amanda Knox and her one-time boyfriend, Italian Raffaele Sollecito, could be overturned by a court in Perugia in central Italy Monday 3 October, but the prosecution says it will appeal if the earlier verdict is quashed, and that life sentences will be demanded.
The case of the murder of British university student Meredith Kercher in Perugia in a drug-fueled sexual assault, as the lower court described it, has held the attention of world media for the past four years, since the couple was arrested shortly after the 2 November 2007 murder. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison and Sollecito to 25 years. Knox in particular has provoked deeply divided views of her role.
Links to other sites: CBC, Canada, Seattle PI, Daily Telegraph, UK
A woman who was sentenced in Malaysia to a fine and a caning for drinking beer in public has been sent home. Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno was sentenced by a sharia court to a caning which she asked to be conducted in public. She was scheduled to be detained prior to her caning, was picked up from her home by a religious affairs van Monday 24 August, then returned to her home inexplicably. Citing “instructions from higher powers”, the officials said “for now, the sentence cannot be carried out”, according to The Star. Some legal experts argue that the law says a person must be detained prior to being caned, but since she was not given a jail sentence, she should not be caned. BBC, CNN
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
Bernard Madoff, the disgraced investor and former SEC chairman who will be sentenced in a court in New York Monday, has been ordered by the judge to forfeit his fortune of $170 billion, including all real estate, and his houses and apartment in New York will now be sold. Madoff’s wife Ruth will be allowed to keep $2.5 million in cash. Bloomberg
Lawyers for Brossard told journalists after the sentencing that they will not appeal
Journalists crowd around Palais de Justice entrance
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Cécile Brossard, who killed her lover Edouard Stern in Geneva in 2005, has been sentenced to eight and a half years in prison. She has served four of those. Yesterday’s harsh judgement by the jury, convicting Brossard of homicide rather than of a crime of passion, was softened by the relatively light sentence: she could have received as much as 20 years, and a crime of passion normally carries a lighter sentence of one to 10 years in prison.
It was a hot day in Geneva and crowds headed for the cafes near the Palais de Justice rather than courtrooms while Cécile B, as she was known in the French press, was sentenced
The public defender had called for 11 years but her lawyers asked for compassion, suggesting she be allowed to leave prison as soon as possible. She will in fact most likely be eligible to leave at the end of 2010.
TSR notes that the documents, photos, latex suit in which the murdered man was found, the weapon and other items related to the crime and trial will be destroyed, citing the court president.
Related: TSR, Fre
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Swiss news weekly L’Hebdo magazine’s 2 June edition features on its cover the murder trial of Cécile Brossard, accused of killing her lover, wealthy French banker Edouard Stern, in 2007. GenevaLunch, a partner of l’Hebdo, brings you the English version in two parts.
French version © 2009 l’Hebdo
English version © 2009 GenevaLunch (may not be reproduced in part or whole without written permission).
Part two: Edouard Stern, a man and a banker in too much of a hurry
28 February, Geneva: a brutal end, at age 50, to the life of Edouard Stern. Known as the enfant terrible of his bank who was headed for disaster at some point, he finally succeeded in achieving that. He was the offspring of a financial dynasty who, at the age of 22, found himself at the head of the family bank. He turned it into a gem, then sold it in 1988 to Société de Banque Suisse. He then joined his father-in-law, Michel David-Weill, at the centre of power of another high finance bank, Lazard. But his temperament didn’t sit well with the traditionalists. For Stern, business was something to be done quickly, without personal involvement.
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
