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Georgian Court Sentences Saakashvili In Absentia

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The Tbilisi city court has found former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili guilty of abuse of power

The Tbilisi city court has found former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili guilty of abuse of power in connection with a 2006 murder case and sentenced him in absentia to three years in prison.

Judge Giorgi Arevadze on January 5 announced the verdict against Saakashvili, Georgia’s president from 2004 until 2013, convicting him of abusing his presidential powers by trying to cover up evidence about the murder of Georgian banker Sandro Girgvliani, and issuing pardons for four men who were convicted of the killing.

Saakashvili, who rejects the charges as politically motivated, said on January 5 that his conviction was the result of pressure from one of his major political opponents in Georgia, former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, who Saakashvili linked to Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom.

“The so-called ‘ruling’ against me by a Georgian court that is fully under control of Gazprom-shareholder Ivanishvili is absolutely illegal and contradicts all international and domestic regulations and common sense,” Saakashvili wrote on Facebook from Ukraine, where he currently resides and is an opposition politician.

“The trial of a president for using his right to pardon, which is not limited by any means, shows that the case is fully politically motivated,” Saakashvili said. “It also shows that Georgian authorities have not been able to find anything against me in the last five years — neither facts of corruption nor other violations of the law.”

Saakashvili said a simultaneous court hearing against him in Kyiv showed that “oligarchic authorities in Ukraine and Georgia are operating in synchronicity and in full coordination with each other” against him because he is “the leader of a battle against corruption, oligarchs, and the robbery of the people.”

Saakashvili said the world knew that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has been demanding both Georgian and Ukrainian authorities to implement repressive measures” against him.

Putin “repeated that in his recent press conference,” the 50-year-old Saakashvili said, claiming that talks aimed at “neutralizing” him were conducted between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Ivanishvili in Georgia several days before Poroshenko issued an order to strip him of his Ukrainian citizenship last summer.

“According to my sources, [the issue was also discussed] by Poroshenko and Putin in a telephone conversation on December 29, 2017,” Saakashvili wrote.

Saakashvili’s government-appointed lawyer, Sofio Goglichidze, said after the ruling that the court violated “a number of legal provisions and the constitution” in convicting former Georgian president.

“It is obvious that political persecution is going against Mikheil Saakashvili. It was impossible to deliver a guilty verdict in the case in accordance with the law,” Goglichidze said.

Girgvliani, who headed the foreign department of United Georgian Bank, was found dead in January 2006 outside of Tbilisi with multiple injuries after he was seen arguing in a bar with high-ranking Interior Ministry officials.

Saakashvili was the president of Georgia when Girgvliani was killed and issued presidential pardons for four Georgian men who were convicted of murder in the case in 2006.

In November 2014, when Saakashvili was no longer the Georgian president, prosecutors charged him and other former Georgian officials of being accomplices in the falsification of evidence presented in the murder trial.

Khatia Dekanoidze, a member of Saakashvili’s United National Movement party in Georgia, said the January 5 verdict in Tbilisi might help Ukrainian authorities extradite Saakashvili to Georgia.

“Nobody doubts that the charge was motivated and ordered,” said Dekanoidze, who served as the head of the Ukrainian National Police when Saakashvili was governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region in 2015-16.

“I do not exclude Mikheil Saakashvili’s extradition [to Georgia] because the administrative resources of the two countries are working together” against him, Dekanoidze said in Tbilisi.

French court turns down Azerbaijani suit against France 2 reporters for calling the country a ‘dictatorship’

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The court in the Paris suburb of Nanterre dismissed on Tuesday the criminal defamation charges brought by Azerbaijani government against two French journalists for calling the country a “dictatorship.” In its November 7 ruling, the court dismissed the complaint for being ‘unacceptable.’ The hearing was the first case, involving a foreign government bringing a defamation suit against journalists before a French court.

To remind, Azerbaijan sued journalists Elise Lucet and Laurent Richard working for the France 2 network for defamation over a 2015 investigative report. The reporters were accused of defaming the Azerbaijani government by referring to it as a “dictatorship” when the former Soviet republic received a visit from then French president Francois Hollande.

The court decision was explained by references to the press law which “is designed to ensure the freedom of speech and prevent a state from launching a prosecution against individuals.”

The French Liberation paper quoted the court decision, saying “the press law has been put in place to prevent political censorship.”

The lawsuit against the two television journalists was earlier slammed by the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) as “an act of intimidation highlighting the Azerbaijani government’s contempt for free speech.” Media freedom activists also pointed to the dangerous precedent by a foreign government to export censorship beyond its own borders.

Kurdish independence referendum: Iraq court rejects result

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Iraq’s Supreme Court has ruled that the constitution does not allow any region to secede. The declaration comes a month after the northern Kurdish region overwhelmingly voted for independence in a disputed referendum.

Iraq’s top court said on Monday there were no articles in the country’s constitution that allowed a region or province to break away.

The ruling was a response to a request from the central government in Baghdad to put an end to any “wrong misinterpretation” of the constitution and assert the unity of Iraq, a court spokesman said.

The court also rejected the September 25 Kurdish referendum that saw the Kurds overwhelmingly vote for independence, defying the government in Baghdad.

Tensions between the government in Baghdad and the Kurds escalated following the non-binding referendum.

Last month, Iraq-led forces launched an operation in the Kurdish-held areas and recaptured the oil-rich province of Kirkuk and other disputed territories from the Kurdish peshmerga forces.

Major blow for Kurdistan

Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Friday called on the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to abide by the court’s ruling.

“We call on the region to clearly state its commitment to non-separation or independence from Iraq,” he said in a statement. There was no immediate reaction from Kurdish authorities.

Abadi said the government was now “taking the necessary measures to impose federal authorities.” He did not provide any further details.

The ruling is a major boost for Abadi as he seeks to prevent a repeat of the September vote, said Ahmed Younis, a Baghdad-based constitutional expert.

“The court ruling has put an end to the Kurdish attempt to breakaway from Iraq,” he added.

European Court Finds Catholicosate’s Suit Inadmissible; And Could Not Be Appealed

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Photo www.gagrule.net during ANCA-WR Conference

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN

The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia (headquartered in Antelias, Lebanon) filed a lawsuit on April 25, 2015, against the government of Turkey seeking the return of its historic seat in Sis (present-day Kozan district of the Adana Province) which was confiscated in 1921.

The first of its kind lawsuit was filed in the Constitutional Court of the Turkish Republic because the claim raised issues of property rights that lower courts would not have jurisdiction to overturn the maze of laws adopted by Turkey in 1915 and succeeding years. At the recommendation of the Justice Ministry of Turkey, the Constitutional Court referred the Armenian Church lawsuit to the lower courts. The lawyers for the Catholicosate of Cilicia, however, decided to appeal the case directly to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France, on December 8, 2016.

The issue of sidestepping submission of the Catholicosate’s lawsuit to a lower court in Turkey is critical in view of the requirements of the European Court of Human Rights that before any case is brought to the ECHR, all local legal remedies must first be exhausted, starting with the lowest court and ending with the highest court of the country being sued.

On October 19, 2017, addressing the conference of the Armenian Cause in the European Parliament in Brussels, His Holiness Catholicos Aram I of the Great House of Cilicia criticized the single judge from ECHR who had rejected the Armenian Church’s lawsuit finding it inadmissible. Until this announcement, there was no news about the status of the lawsuit. I contacted the ECHR headquarters in Strasbourg inquiring about the Armenian Church’s claim. I was informed that a single judge indeed has the authority to reject any lawsuit, which in this case was not first submitted to a lower court in Turkey in order to exhaust all local remedies, and that the letter of rejection was sent to the Catholicosate in March 2017. More ominously, I was told by ECHR that the judge’s decision could not be appealed!

I then contacted Payam Akhavan, a member of the Catholicosate’s legal team and Professor of International Law at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, inquiring why no announcement was made earlier by the Catholicosate regarding the rejection of the lawsuit six months ago. Prof. Akhavan explained that the ECHR judge had sent the letter to the wrong address! The Catholicosate then wrote to that judge “expressing serious concern on miscarriage of justice; that a single judge could throw out what was clearly a well-argued case, and waited until recently for a standard response that there is no appeal, and the decision is final.”

In his Brussels speech on Oct. 19, 2017, Catholicos Aram the First harshly condemned the ECHR for rejecting the Church’s lawsuit: “Why would the European Court of Human Rights so easily reject our case knowing that no lawyer would dare to bring such a case before the Turkish courts? How could a single judge throw out a 900-page Application, historically and legally well substantiated by some of the best international lawyers? Why was our legal team not given a chance for a hearing? Is everybody now afraid to confront Turkey’s appalling record of human rights violations? We are astonished and, in fact, deeply disappointed at this miscarriage of justice, particularly at this crucial juncture of modern history when Europe is expected, in faithfulness to its values and principles, to consider justice above geopolitical interests…. Europe is essentially a community of values, not merely political and economic interests. Therefore, I still hope that the European Court of Human Rights will reconsider the admissibility of the case on the basis of justice and human rights. In spite of the denial of justice, the Armenian people will continue to struggle for justice.”

Prof. Akhavan called the ECHR judge’s decision “scandalous.” He then added in his email to me: “By the measure of several highly experienced ECHR lawyers, this decision is totally unacceptable. It shouldn’t be forgotten that our counsel was Tim Eicke QC [Queen’s Counsel], who is now the British judge on the ECHR. He of course is conflicted from involvement in the case, but there is a sense among many that the Court is too afraid of confronting post-coup Turkey with such controversial cases.”

Prof. Akhavan also stated that the next steps for this lawsuit “are either to re-submit the case with some new facts such as the impossibility of going back to the Turkish courts under current circumstances, or to go back to the Turkish courts, waste a lot of resources, and come back to the ECHR once again. It is a ludicrous decision because everybody knows that is exactly what will happen. It is a hot potato the ECHR doesn’t want to handle….”

In conclusion, I would suggest that the Catholicosate of Cilicia make public the complete files of its lawsuit, including the 600-page submission to the Turkish Constitutional Court and its response, and the 900-page filing to the European Court of Human Rights and its response. After all, this is not a private lawsuit, but one dealing with the Armenian nation’s property demands from Turkey!

Iraqi Supreme Court Orders Suspension Of Kurdish Referendum

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Kurdish Peshmerga fighters march in Irbil on September 13 in support of the planned independence referendum.

Iraq’s Supreme Court has ordered the suspension of an independence referendum in the semiautonomous region of Kurdistan scheduled for next week.

The Supreme Court in Baghdad said in a September 18 statement that it has “issued a national order to suspend the referendum procedures…until the resolution of the cases regarding the constitutionality of said decision.”

It is not clear if Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq would abide by the court’s ruling.

Baghdad has repeatedly condemned the referendum as unconstitutional.

The United States and the United Nations have called on the Iraqi Kurdistan region to hold off the vote amid concerns that it could contribute to instability as Iraqi forces fight the extremist group Islamic State (IS).

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on September 17 warned that the planned September 25 referendum “would detract from the need to defeat” IS and to rebuild cities captured from the extremists.

Countries in the region, including Iran and Turkey, have also have also vehemently opposed the referendum amid fears that it could encourage their Kurdish minorities to break away.

Iran on September 17 warned that should Iraq’s Kurdistan region gain its independence, it would mean an end to all border and security arrangements agreed previously between Tehran and the regional government.

Turkey on September 18 launched a military drill with tanks close to the Iraqi border, the army said.

Ankara’s national security council will meet on September 22 to discuss the country’s official position on the referendum.

Egypt sentences 28 to death over 2015 prosecutor killing

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A Cairo criminal court on Saturday, July 22 sentenced to death 28 people over the 2015 killing of Egypt’s top prosecutor after the death penalty was approved by the country’s top religious authority, and it also jailed 15 others for 25 years each, Reuters reports.

Public prosecutor Hisham Barakat was killed in a car bomb attack on his convoy in the capital, an operation for which Egypt blamed the Muslim Brotherhood and Gaza-based Hamas militants. Both groups have denied having a role.

The court had in June recommended passing the death penalty to Egypt’s top religious leader, the Grand Mufti, who can approve or reject the recommendation. The mufti’s guidance is required when a court seeks the death penalty but his decision is not binding..

The sentences, confirmed by the court in Saturday’s hearing, can be appealed.

“The verdicts were shocking today,” said one of the defense lawyers, Ahmed Saad. “Others who had nothing to do with the assassination of martyr Hisham Barakat received life sentences. They had nothing to do with the incident.”

Egypt’s Interior Ministry released a video last year showing several young men confessing and admitting going to Gaza for training from Hamas, but some later denied the charges in court.

The defendants said they were forced to confess under torture and their lawyers asked that they be medically examined.

Egypt faces an Islamist insurgency led by Islamic State in North Sinai, where hundreds of soldiers and police have been killed. But the group has increasingly targeted Egypt’s Christians with church bombings and shooting.

Related links:

Reuters. Egypt court sentences 28 to death over 2015 prosecutor killing

Turkish court orders release of 5 suspects in Dink case

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hrant dinkAn Istanbul court on Friday ordered the release of five suspects with alleged links to the killing of a prominent Armenian-Turkish journalist in 2007, Worldbulletin.net reports, citing a judicial source said.

Former gendarmerie officers Abdullah Dinc, Yusuf Bozca, Ali Baris Sevindik, and Volkan Sahin, as well as a publishing house owner Adem Sarigul had been remanded in custody last summer over the murder of Hrant Dink.
Dinc and Bozca were remanded in July 2016, while the others were remanded a month later.
The 14th High Criminal Court ruled their release under judicial supervision and an international travel ban, the source said on condition of anonymity due to restrictions over talking to the media.

Dink, editor-in-chief of the Armenian-Turkish newspaper Agos, was killed outside his office on January 19, 2007 in a case that has stirred intrigue and conspiracy theories.
Ogun Samast was jailed for 23 years in 2011 for the killing. Samast, who was aged 17 at the time of the shooting, claimed he killed Dink for “insulting Turkishness”.
Although Samast is the only person to be jailed for the murder, speculation at the involvement of others has persisted.
In April, Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) – which Turkey accuses of having plotted last year’s deadly July 15 coup attempt – was officially tied to the case.

A 120-page indictment said that soldiers and police involved in the Dink murder later played an active role in the coup.

FETO leader Fetullah Gulen, former prosecutor Zekeriya Oz, the former editor-in-chief of the Gulenist Zaman newspaper Ekrem Dumanli as well as journalists Adem Yavuz Arslan, Faruk Mercan and Ercan Gun were charged with “intentional killing” and “attempting to remove the constitutional order”.

Life in Turkey, Kurd leaders to Jail house, Turk generals to court house Erdogan on vacation

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HDP co-chair Yüksekdağ loses seat in parliament

Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Figen Yüksekdağ, who has been in jail for three months on terror charges, has lost her parliamentary status for a prison sentence she received in a previous case. 

Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Ayşenur Bahçekapılı read out a Prime Ministry motion at the start of the parliamentary session on Feb. 21, regarding Yüksekdağ’s sentencing on “terror propaganda” on Nov. 27, 2013, which was approved by the Supreme Court of Appeals on Sept. 22, 2016.

According to the constitution, the loss of the parliamentary seat “through a final judicial sentence or deprivation of legal capacity, shall take effect after the final court decision in the matter has been communicated to the plenary” of the parliament, without the necessity for a vote.

Yüksekdağ, who was also the party’s lawmaker from the eastern province of Van, was arrested on Nov. 4, 2016, over her alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). She currently faces over 80 years in prison.

Ahmet Yıldırım, HDP’s deputy parliamentary group leader, said the decision was “void.”

“The prosecutors, judges of the said sentencing are currently in prison. The ruling of a power hiding behind terrorists cannot be the ruling of the judiciary,” Yıldırım said.

Trial begins for murder of soldier who resisted July 15 coup attempt

The trial for the killing of a Turkish anti-coup soldier, who has been idolized for his resistance during a raid on the Special Forces Command in Ankara before he was killed by coup plotting soldiers, has started. 

Ankara 14th Heavy Penal Court on Feb. 21 started the trials of 18 suspects in the case regarding the murder of non-commissioned officer Ömer Halisdemir after he shot a pro-coup general, Semih Terzi, who arrived in the commandership to capture it as part of its coup activities on July 15, 2016, which is widely believed to have been masterminded by the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ).

Acting on his commander’s orders, Halisdemir shot Terzi dead outside the special forces’ headquarters in Ankara. He was later killed by the plotters.

Hundreds of babies born after the coup have been named after Halisdemir as a tribute, while hundreds of thousands have visited his grave. Parks, schools and other public places have been named after him, while a cottage industry of souvenirs to preserve his memory was founded.

Dressed in suits, they were escorted into the courthouse by paramilitary forces in front of cameras surrounded by heavy security and a water cannon truck.

The courtroom was packed with security forces including police with shields behind the suspects as the judge confirmed the identities of those on trial.

Some 18 suspects, who are currently being accused of deliberately killing the soldier and attempting to remove the government, are facing multiple life sentences.

HDP co-chair Demirtaş given jail term, MP arrested

Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş, who is currently under arrest, was sentenced on Feb. 21 to five months in prison on charges of “insulting the state and its institutions,” while the party’s Diyarbakır Deputy İdris Baluken was arrested for a second time in Ankara.

The Doğubayazıt 2nd criminal court of first instance on Feb. 21 sentenced Demirtaş to five years in prison on charges of “denigrating the Turkish nation, the Turkish Republic and the institutions of the state.”

Police also detained Baluken following an appeal against his release in a case filed as part of a terror investigation on Feb. 21. He was later arrested.

He had previously been released on Jan. 30 after being arrested on Nov. 4, 2016. An arrest warrant was later issued for him.

The court in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır on Feb. 17 had issued an arrest warrant for HDP Diyarbakır deputy Baluken.

The prosecutor’s office previously appealed the court decision on Baluken’s release pending trial on Jan. 30 to a higher court.

After reviewing the appeal, the Diyarbakır 1st court of serious crimes on Feb. 17 issued an arrest warrant for Baluken.

Baluken faces an aggravated life sentence and up to 23 years in prison on four separate charges, namely “disrupting the unity of the state and the country,” “being a member of armed terror organization,” “engaging terror organization propaganda” and “refusing to disperse despite warning in illegal demonstration and marches.”

Source: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/hdp-co-chair-demirtas-given-jail-term-mp-arrested-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=110006&NewsCatID=341

Germany’s Constitutional Court not to accept claim for cancelling bill about recognition of Armenian Genocide

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Germany’s Constitutional Court refused to accept the appeal for cancelling the bill that recognized the events of 1915 as the Armenian Genocide.

As the Turkish BirGun reports, the German Constitutional Court did not accept the appeal, stating that there are not sufficient evidences that the recognition of the Armenian Genocide violates any laws. The Turkish representative, Ramazan Akbash, announced that they will submit the appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in two days.

German court rejects Turkish suits against Armenian ‘genocide’ vote

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BERLIN –  Germany’s highest court has rejected a string of complaints against a decision by the country’s parliament to label the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago as genocide.

The Federal Constitutional Court threw out eight complaints against the resolution approved by lawmakers in June.

It published one of the decisions Monday, in which judges said the plaintiff had failed to provide sufficient evidence that his fundamental rights had been violated and that no such violation was obvious.

The parliamentary vote infuriated the Turkish government and prompted it to withdraw its ambassador from Berlin for a few months.

Ankara also refused to let German lawmakers visit German military personnel stationed at Turkey’s Incirlik air base, but relented after the German government stressed the resolution isn’t legally binding.