Tag Archives: crimes

U.S. cities sue ATF over untraceable ‘ghost guns’

By Brad Brooks

(Reuters) – Chicago and three other cities on Wednesday sued the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), demanding it correct how it interprets what is a firearm and halt the sale of untraceable “ghost gun” kits increasingly used in crimes.

The lawsuit is the first of its kind filed against the ATF, according to lawyers for the cities of Chicago, San Jose, Columbia, South Carolina, and Syracuse, New York. It was filed in the Southern District of New York state.

So-called “ghost gun” or “80% gun” kits are self-assembled from parts purchased online or at gun shows. The parts that are assembled are not classified as a firearm by the ATF. For that reason they can be legally sold with no background checks and without serial numbers to identify the finished product.

The lawsuit argues the ATF and the Department of Justice “refuse to apply the clear terms of the Gun Control Act” which the suit says defines regulated firearms as not only working weapons “but also their core building blocks – frames for pistols, and receivers for long guns.”

The ATF says on its website that receivers in which the fire-control cavities are solid “have not reached the ‘stage of manufacture’ which would result in the classification of a firearm.”

The ATF said in an emailed statement that its “regulatory and enforcement functions are focused and clearly defined by laws.” The bureau emphasized that it investigates criminal possession and other criminal use of privately made firearms.

Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group that is a plaintiff in the lawsuit along with the cities, argues that until about 2006, the ATF did require unfinished components that clearly were going to be used to make guns to carry a serial number and anyone buying them undergo a background check.

“The ATF used to interpret the Gun Control Act the right way – they would look at how quickly a frame or receiver could be converted into an operable weapon,” said Eric Tirschwell, managing director for the litigation arm of Everytown. “If it was pretty quickly, they would say ‘yeah, that’s a firearm.'”

TECHNOLOGY TROUBLES

It’s unknown how many ghost guns are in circulation, but law enforcement agencies are unanimous in saying numbers are undeniably growing. Police in Washington D.C. last year recovered over 100 ghost guns – a 342% increase over 2018. They are already on pace this year to double the number found.

The ATF has said upward of 30% of the illegal weapons it has confiscated in some areas of California are ghost guns.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, whose city has been beset by gun violence, demanded the ATF close the ghost gun loophole and regulate the sale of gun parts that are marketed to easily be used to build guns.

“Individuals with dangerous histories shouldn’t be able to order lethal weapons on the internet with a few quick clicks,” Lightfoot said.

But Rick Vasquez, a Virginia-based firearms consultant and former ATF technical expert who evaluated guns and gun products to help the bureau determine if they were legal, said anyone wanting to address the proliferation of kit guns should pass new laws in Congress.

The continued rapid advancement of tools and technology widely available to the public meant it was getting to the point where even rudimentary “chunks of metal” can be turned into firearms, Vasquez said.

“How do you regulate that? The ATF can’t do it. This situation is uncontrollable because of technology, and I’m not sure what anyone can do about it.”

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

In Colombia, victims of sexual abuse speak out after peace deal

Lina, who said she was raped by dozens of right-wing paramilitary fighters in the Montes de Maria region during the five-decade civil war, laughs as she puts on a hairband in Soacha, on the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia, June 12, 2018. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

By Nacho Doce and Daniel Flynn

SOACHA, Colombia (Reuters) – Yeimy sobbed with her head in her hands as she described how her husband was tied to a pole, gagged and made to watch as she was raped by four fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) 12 years ago.

Yeimy (C), 37, who was raped by four rebel fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) during the five-decade civil war, holds photographs of herself and her husband Elkin, as she poses with her children at their house in Soacha, on the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia, May 28, 2018. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

Yeimy (C), 37, who was raped by four rebel fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) during the five-decade civil war, holds photographs of herself and her husband Elkin, as she poses with her children at their house in Soacha, on the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia, May 28, 2018. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

Her husband, Elkin, had been abducted by the FARC’s 45th Front in the Tolima region of central Colombia after refusing to pay a revolutionary tax or hand their six-year-old son to the Marxist rebels to become part of the armed group, Yeimy said.

After trekking through the jungle for days to find the rebel camp, Yeimy pleaded for her husband’s release but the FARC commander, known by the nom de guerre Pepito, demanded a terrible price, she said.

“He told me, ‘I will pick four of my men and they can do what they want with you’,” said the 37-year-old, who asked that her family name not be used.

After securing a deal for the release of her husband, Yeimy fled with her family to Soacha, near Colombia’s capital Bogota, which is home to tens of thousands displaced by the conflict.

But two years later the rebels who had kidnapped Yeimy’s husband found them, claiming the couple still owed FARC the so-called revolutionary tax. Yeimy said they took away her husband and shot him.

Yeimy is one of hundreds of women who has come forward to talk to victims groups about their alleged sexual abuse during Colombia’s five decades of civil war. After a 2016 peace deal with the FARC the government set up a Special Peace Tribunal (JEP) to try crimes committed by all sides in the conflict.

Yeimy has started therapy sessions with a psychologist to overcome her fear so she can testify before a public defender, said Sonia Tarquino, who runs a victims program in Soacha.

Lina, who said she was raped by dozens of right-wing paramilitary fighters in the Montes de Maria region during the five-decade civil war, shows the picture of her son Over on the mobile phone inside her house in Soacha, on the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia, May 28, 2018. . REUTERS/Nacho Doce

Lina, who said she was raped by dozens of right-wing paramilitary fighters in the Montes de Maria region during the five-decade civil war, shows the picture of her son Over on the mobile phone inside her house in Soacha, on the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia, May 28, 2018. . REUTERS/Nacho Doce

Reuters has not been able to verify Yeimy’s account independently. FARC spokesman declined to comment on individual allegations of war crimes since the peace deal, saying these cases will be heard by the JEP.

But last month, three victims associations delivered 2,000 documented cases of sexual abuse to the JEP.

The tribunal’s president, Patricia Linares, has said those responsible would not be allowed to escape justice, but would be eligible to receive non-jail sentences if they came clean about the crimes.

Colombia’s National Centre for Historical Memory estimates 15,687 people were victims of sexual violence during the conflict, at the hands of right-wing paramilitary groups, security forces and the guerrillas.

Armed groups used sexual violence, including gang rape, to instill fear in communities, as a way of imposing their control over an area and as a form of punishment, rights groups have said.

The 2016 peace deal between the Colombian government and the FARC guarantees non-jail sentences for crimes related to the conflict, provided those responsible fully admit their wrongdoing and tell the truth about what happened. It also furnishes rebels who disarm with lodging and a monthly stipend.

The terms of the accord frustrated many Colombians and it was rejected in a referendum before a modified version was approved by Congress.

 

IMPLEMENTING THE PEACE DEAL

Colombia’s right-wing President Ivan Duque, who took office in August, has promised to toughen the terms of the peace deal and make FARC commanders pay for crimes with prison time. He has said those guilty of rape should not be provided with special treatment under the deal.

Yet Duque faces a challenge to overhaul the accord as most parties in Congress support it and the constitutional court has also ruled that the terms of the pact cannot be altered for three presidential terms.

Former President Juan Manuel Santos, who signed the deal with the FARC, told Reuters in an interview in July that most Colombians wanted it implemented to turn the page on the conflict.

Duque has pledged not to do anything that would derail the accord as his government seeks to restore peace but a presidency spokesman said that he would continue to press for rapists to not receive amnesty.

Yet, with large areas of Colombia still prey to armed groups including dissident FARC fighters, Mexican-backed drug gangs, and the ELN leftist rebel group, some Colombians say they fear that tampering with the peace process could drive more former rebels to take up arms again.

More than 7 million people, nearly one sixth of the population, remain displaced by violence in Colombia after decades of internal conflict, according to government figures.

ABUSE BY PARAMILITARY AS WELL AS FARC

Tarquino, who runs the victims program in Soacha, has been holding meetings for women abused during the conflict for four years. Many of the women have, like Yeimy, had family members killed by the FARC rebels or right-wing paramilitary fighters.

Lina, who is now 49 and asked not to reveal her family name, said she was sexually assaulted 22 years ago in northern Colombia by paramilitaries belonging to the Heroes of the Montes de Maria group.

When she refused to take any more, the men sexually abused her using a tent pole, Lina said.

The paramilitary groups, which continued to operate in many parts of Colombia despite a 2006 peace deal, were founded by landowners to protect themselves from rebels but quickly turned to drug trafficking and violence.

Lina’s home province of Sucre was involved in a scandal that erupted in 2006 over ties between paramilitary fighters and local politicians that resulted in the arrest of several congressmen.

“The doctors were named by them. The mayor was appointed by them,” said Lina. “I had to put on a mask to hide the pain that I felt from my child. After 22 years, I can finally declare the facts to the competent authorities.”

Colombia’s government provides compensation to victims of sexual violence, including rape, under a 2011 law.

Lina has given testimony to a public defender and has been classified as a victim but has not yet received any compensation. Her case document, reviewed by Reuters, recognizes she suffered sexual violence, torture and personal injury.

Lina took part in a secret meeting this year with former paramilitaries, including one of the men who abused her, in which they asked forgiveness. Reuters reviewed a video of the meeting but Lina asked not to reveal its location nor the identity of the men.

“We as women have to forgive because we cannot live with this anger inside us,”said Lina.

Click on https://reut.rs/2xl3PY6

(Reporting by Daniel Flynn; editing by Diane Craft and Clive McKeef)

California deals with dementia among aging inmates

An inmate sits in the yard of a cellblock which mainly houses prisoners with cognitive decline, Alzheimer's, and dementia, at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton, California, U.S., May 24, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

By Sharon Bernstein

STOCKTON, Calif. (Reuters) – California prison inmate Richard Arriola does not remember the digestion problems that drove him to the doctor on a recent morning, or details of the conviction for child molestation that sent him to prison at age 88.

Arriola is one of about 18,400 inmates over the age of 55 in California prisons, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

It is a swelling population that has led authorities to take the first steps toward creating a dementia unit at the state’s main prison medical facility in the San Joaquin Valley city of Stockton, Reuters has learned.

“We have identified a specific need for a specialized unit for our dementia population and are in the very early phases of concept development,” said Elizabeth Gransee, spokeswoman for California Correctional Health Care Services.

The wing would mark a shift from California’s earlier efforts to treat prisoners with cognitive decline, relying on inmate volunteers and a modest staff to help them rather than a more expensive medical unit.

Reuters visited two California prisons recently to look at the challenges states face, as improved medical care, long sentences from tougher crime laws, and a steady increase of older adults entering prison has contributed to an extraordinary rise of elderly inmates.

In California, seven percent of the state’s 130,000 prisoners were over the age of 60 in 2016, the most recent year for which data is available, compared to just 1 percent 20 years earlier, according to a report by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

“We and all of the jails and prisons around the country need to be able to do a better job with individuals who have cognitive impairment,” said Dr. Joseph Bick, chief medical executive at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville.

Throughout the United States, states are grappling with similar challenges as prisoners age. Inmate medical costs amount to about $3 billion per year nationwide, according to a recent report by the state of Georgia, where medical care for inmates over the age of 65 costs $8,500 per year, compared to $950 for those who are younger, the report showed.

Nationwide, 44 percent of inmates over the age of 50 have disabilities, compared to 27 percent of prisoners overall, a 2015 report by the Department of Justice shows. About 20 percent have cognitive disabilities, the report showed.

ROUND-THE-CLOCK CARE

Prisoners with cognitive decline can require round-the-clock care and help with dressing themselves, brushing teeth and going to the restroom. Because prison life – and for many, life on the streets before prison – is so difficult, inmates are considered geriatric after the age of 55 in California and many other states.

Arriola, who is housed with about 2,600 prisoners with chronic conditions at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton, came on a Thursday morning in May for a follow-up visit with a gastroenterologist. But he talked distractedly to the doctor, and said he did not recall having stomach problems.

It is not an uncommon situation at the Stockton facility, where physicians and nurses are trained to work with an increasing number of patients experiencing cognitive decline, said Dr. Anise Adams, the chief medical officer.

About 500 prisoners are being treated for dementia or Parkinson’s Disease in California prisons, including 200 at Stockton, officials said.

“It’s hard for them to explain to the nurses what they want or how they feel,” said inmate Scottie Glenn, 47, who participates in a program in which able-bodied inmates help those who are ill.

On a recent May morning, Glenn, who is serving 25 years to life for murder, was assisting a wheelchair-bound inmate who needed to see a doctor. Sometimes, he writes letters for inmates, or helps them to communicate.

HOSPICE CARE

Older inmates’ needs have led the state to build a large dialysis center, stock hundreds of wheelchairs and offer assistance with hearing and declining vision. Stockton’s medical facility has a physical therapy center, and a palliative care unit is set to open in the next few weeks.

The California Medical Facility in Vacaville set up a hospice decades ago during the AIDS crisis, which now houses more inmates dying of old age diseases, officials said. The state expects to spend about $26,000 per inmate on health care next year.

Once a dementia unit is set up, California would follow New York, which opened one for its much smaller prison population in 2006. New York spends about $2.7 million annually to care for 29 patients in the unit, the state corrections department said.

California officials say it is too soon to know how much the unit they hope to create will cost, but it would not be difficult to re-purpose an existing ward for use by dementia patients.

Such patients wake up in the middle of the night not knowing where they are, requiring trained staff to comfort them. Others behave in ways that normally get an inmate in trouble, such as batting away a doctor’s hand during an injection.

In a normal prison ward, that is considered assault, said Captain Paul Vasquez, whose job includes reviewing behavioral issues at the Stockton facility.

Inmates can be handcuffed, lose privileges and even be sent to the Security Housing Unit, where prisoners are kept in near-isolation, he said.

“We need to learn to respond to them a different way – and not in a regular mainline type of prison,” Vasquez said.

 

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Additional reporting by Jane Ross; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Diane Craft)

Turkey’s Erdogan calls Syria’s Assad a terrorist, says impossible to continue with him

Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference with Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi (not pictured) at Carthage Palace in Tunis, Tunisia, December 27, 2017.

TUNIS (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a terrorist and said it was impossible for Syrian peace efforts to continue with him.

Syria’s foreign ministry quickly responded by accusing Erdogan of himself supporting terrorist groups fighting Assad in Syria’s civil war.

Turkey has demanded the removal of Assad from power and backed rebels fighting to overthrow him, but it has toned down its demands since it started working with Assad’s allies Russia and Iran for a political resolution.

“Assad is definitely a terrorist who has carried out state terrorism,” Erdogan told a televised news conference with his Tunisian counterpart Beji Caid Essebsi in Tunis.

“It is impossible to continue with Assad. How can we embrace the future with a Syrian president who has killed close to a million of his citizens?” he said, in some of his harshest comments for weeks.

Though Turkey has long demanded Assad’s removal, it is now more focused in Syria on the threat from Islamist militants and Kurdish fighters it considers allies of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), who it says have formed a “terror corridor” on its southern border.

Turkey says the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara views as an extension of the outlawed PKK which has fought an insurgency in southeast Turkey since the 1980s, cannot be invited to Syrian peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana.

The YPG is the main element in a force that Washington has assisted with training, weapons, air support and help from ground advisers in the battle against Islamic State. That U.S. support has angered Ankara, a NATO ally of Washington.

Despite its differences with Russia and Iran, Turkey has worked with the two powers in the search for a political solution in Syria.

Ankara, Moscow and Tehran also brokered a deal to set up and monitor a “de-escalation zone” to reduce fighting between insurgents and Syrian government forces in Syria’s rebel-held northwestern Idlib province.

“We can’t say (Assad) will handle this. It is impossible for Turkey to accept this. Northern Syria has been handed over as a terror corridor. There is no peace in Syria and this peace won’t come with Assad,” Erdogan said.

Syria’s state news agency SANA quoted a foreign ministry source as saying Erdogan “continues to misdirect Turkish public opinion with his usual froth in an attempt to absolve himself of the crimes which he has committed against the Syrian people through advancing support to the various terrorist groups in Syria”.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ece Toksabay in Ankara; Editing by Dominic Evans and Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

U.N. team to collect evidence of Islamic State crimes in Iraq

The United Nations Security Council meets to discuss adopting a resolution to help preserve evidence of Islamic State crimes in Iraq, during the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. Headquarters in New York, U.S., September 21, 2017.

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations Security Council on Thursday approved the creation of a U.N. investigative team to collect, preserve and store evidence in Iraq of acts by Islamic State that may be war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

The 15-member council unanimously adopted a British-drafted resolution, after months of negotiations with Iraq, that asks Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to establish a team “to support domestic efforts” to hold the militants accountable.

Use of the evidence collected by the team in other venues, such as international courts, would “be determined in agreement with the Government of Iraq on a case by case basis.”

U.N. experts said in June last year that Islamic State was committing genocide against the Yazidis in Syria and Iraq to destroy the minority religious community through killings, sexual slavery and other crimes.

International human rights lawyer Amal Clooney and Nadia Murad, a young Yazidi woman who was enslaved and raped by Islamic State fighters in Mosul, have long pushed Iraq to allow U.N. investigators to help.

Activist Amal Clooney (R) attends a United Nations Security Council meeting set to adopt a resolution to help preserve evidence of Islamic State crimes in Iraq, during the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. Headquarters in New York, U.S., September 21, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan

Activist Amal Clooney (R) attends a United Nations Security Council meeting set to adopt a resolution to help preserve evidence of Islamic State crimes in Iraq, during the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. Headquarters in New York, U.S., September 21, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan Mcdermid

The Security Council met during the annual gathering of world leaders for the U.N. General Assembly.

Iraq’s foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari officially requested international help in a letter to the Security Council last month. The council could have established an inquiry without Iraq’s consent, but Britain wanted Iraq’s approval.

Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate effectively collapsed in July, when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces completed the recapture of Mosul, the militants’ capital in northern Iraq, after a nine-month campaign.

 

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Grant McCool)

 

Iraq seeks international help to investigate Islamic State crimes

FILE PHOTO: Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari speaks to reporters during a news conference in Baghdad, Iraq July 19, 2017. REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily

By Riham Alkousaa

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Iraq asked for international help on Wednesday to collect and preserve evidence of crimes by Islamic State militants and said it is working with Britain to draft a United Nations Security Council resolution to establish the investigation.

Britain, international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney and Nadia Murad, a woman from the Yazidi religious minority who was enslaved and raped by Islamic State fighters in Mosul, have been pushing Iraq to allow a U.N. inquiry.

The 15-member Security Council could have established an inquiry without Iraq’s consent, but Britain wanted Iraq’s approval in a letter formally making the request. Iraq sent the letter, seen by Reuters, on Monday.

“We request assistance of the international community to get benefited from international expertise to criminalize Daesh terrorist entity,” wrote Iraq’s foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari in the letter, which was translated from Arabic.

Daesh is another name for Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS.

Britain’s mission to the United Nations said on Twitter that it was working with Iraq on a draft resolution. It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote in the council.

Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate effectively collapsed last month, when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces completed the recapture of Mosul, the militants’ capital in northern Iraq, after a nine-month campaign.

Parts of Iraq and Syria remain under Islamic State control, especially along the border.

“I hope that the Iraqi government’s letter will mark the beginning of the end of impunity for genocide and other crimes that ISIS is committing in Iraq and around the world,” Clooney said in a statement.

“Yazidis and other ISIS victims want justice in a court of law, and they deserve nothing less,” Clooney said.

The Yazidis beliefs combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions. Islamic State militants consider the Yazidis to be devil-worshippers.

U.N. experts said in June last year that Islamic State was committing genocide against the Yazidis in Syria and Iraq to destroy them through killings, sexual slavery and other crimes.

The Iraqi government said in the letter that it was important to bring Islamic State militants to justice in Iraqi courts.

 

(Reporting By Riham Alkousaa; editing by Grant McCool)

 

New York mayor criticized for proposed limits on legal aid to immigrants

People rally on the steps of City Hall in Manhattan, New York, U.S., May 11, 2017. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

By Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York City public defenders on Thursday criticized a proposal by Mayor Bill de Blasio to deny free legal counsel to immigrants in deportation hearings if they had been convicted of serious crimes in the past, saying the plan would deny them due process.

In his proposed annual budget, De Blasio allocated $16.4 million to legal services for immigrant New Yorkers, citing concern about U.S. President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants living in the country illegally.

Lawyers, local lawmakers and civil rights activists welcomed the funding proposal, which sharply increases legal aid for immigrants. But they gathered on the steps of City Hall to criticize a provision they said would unfairly deprive some people of the right to due process under the law.

De Blasio’s proposal would deny city-funded lawyers to immigrants previously convicted of one of 170 crimes that the city considers serious or violent.

Jennifer Friedman, who runs the immigration practice at Bronx Defenders, said the mayor’s plan would create a “two-tier system that treats people different based on their criminal history.”

The funding be in addition to the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP), which has been funded by the City Council since 2013 and provides free lawyers to immigrants facing deportation hearings at the federal immigration court.

In the United States, the right to a lawyer does not extend to federal immigration hearings which are civil, not criminal, proceedings.

The plan contradicted de Blasio’s description of New York as a “sanctuary city” for immigrants, the public defenders said.

Seth Stein, a City Hall spokesman, wrote in an email that “the public should not be expected to foot the bill” for immigrants convicted of dangerous crimes. “The vast majority of immigrants have not been convicted of violent crimes,” he wrote.

More than 2,000 immigrants have received free lawyers under the council-funded program, which provides free lawyers regardless of an immigrant’s criminal record, in the four years since it began, Legal Aid said.

In New York City, immigrants without lawyers managed to overturn a removal order in court only 3 percent of the time, while those with lawyers were able to remain in the country 30 percent of the time, Legal Aid said.

(Editing by Frank McGurty and Cynthia Osterman)

U.N. broadens inquiry into North Korea ‘crimes against humanity’

Mun Jong Chol, counselor at the North Korea mission to the U.N. in Geneva, talks with journalists aside of a meeting of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland March 24, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The top United Nations human rights body agreed on Friday to widen its investigation into widespread violations in North Korea with a view to documenting alleged crimes against humanity for future prosecution.

North Korea said it “categorically and totally rejects” the resolution adopted by the U.N. Human Rights Council. The text had been framed by the United States and “other hostile forces” for political reasons “to strangle the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea),” its envoy said after boycotting the debate.

The 47-member state Geneva forum adopted a resolution, brought by Japan and the European Union and backed by the United States, on the final day of its four-week session without a vote.

The U.N. human rights office in Seoul will be strengthened for two years with international criminal justice experts to establish a central repository for testimony and evidence “with a view to developing possible strategies to be used in any future accountability process”, the text said.

The Seoul office deploys six staff who conduct in-depth interviews with dozens of North Korean defectors each week, recording their testimony, a U.N. official based there told Reuters. Some 1,400 North Koreans arrive each year in South Korea, most via China, he said.

DEFECTORS’ TESTIMONY

“This not only brings North Koreans one step closer to justice for human rights crimes they have suffered, but should also make North Korean government officials think twice before inflicting more abuse,” John Fisher of the group Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

A U.N. commission of inquiry, in a landmark 2014 report based on interviews and public hearings with defectors, cataloged massive violations in North Korea – including large prison camps, starvation and executions – that it said should be brought to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“The ‘resolution’ is nothing more than a document for interference in internal affairs of sovereign states and represents the culmination of politicization, selectivity and double standards of human rights,” Mun Jong Chol, a counselor at North Korea’s mission to the U.N. in Geneva, told reporters.

It was a fraudulent document full of “lies, fabrications and plots”, Mun said.

China said it “dissociated” itself from the council’s decision and called for dialogue.

The situation on the divided Korean peninsula is “complex and sensitive” and all sides should avoid provocation by an act or words that might lead to an escalation”, China’s delegation said.

“China hopes we can focus on the bigger picture,” it said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Ralph Boulton)

U.N. urged to prepare North Korea case for alleged crimes against humanity

The North Korea flag flutters next to concertina wire at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Edgar Su

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – A veteran investigator urged the United Nations on Thursday to appoint an international legal expert to prepare judicial proceedings against North Korea’s leadership for documented crimes against humanity.

His call came amid an international furor over the murder of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and critic of his rule, in Malaysia last month.

A U.N. commission of inquiry, in a 2014 report issued after it conducted interviews and public hearings with defectors, cataloged massive violations in North Korea – including large prison camps, starvation and executions – that it said should be brought to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Marzuki Darusman, a former Indonesian attorney-general who served on the U.N. commission of inquiry on North Korea, said the U.N. Human Rights Council must pursue North Korean accountability during its current session.

“There is a need for the Human Rights Council to appoint an independent special expert to oversee the judicial prosecutorial process which will lead up to an eventual mechanism of accountability,” Marzuki told a panel held on the sidelines of the Geneva forum.

The landmark 2014 report, rejected by Pyongyang, said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might be personally responsible for crimes against humanity.

Evidence recorded over the past decade or more by U.N. investigators should be given to a new U.N. mechanism for prosecution, he said, adding: “Let us prevail in the end-game.”

Experts hope an ad hoc tribunal on North Korea may be set up someday, as China would be expected to veto any move in the U.N. Security Council to refer its ally to the ICC.

The “assassination” of Kim Jong Nam ought to be a “wake-up call”, Lee Jung-Hoon, South Korean ambassador for North Korean human rights, told the event.

“That is why I think this assassination is such a game-changer because a general audience is seeing for the first time live what kind of regime we are really dealing with,” Lee said.

“If North Korea is able to do this to the older brother of Kim, to the uncle of Kim (Jang Song Thaek executed in 2013), and all the elite purging left and right, can you imagine what life might be like if you are a prisoner in a North Korean prison camp, with over 100,000 of them?” he said.

Australian Justice Michael Kirby, who chaired the 2014 inquiry, said witness statements would be used once a tribunal and prosecutor were appointed. “Accountability is the name of the game in human rights, otherwise it’s all rhetoric.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Mark Heinrich)

69,000 would be or actual German crimes linked to Migrants

Immigrants are escorted by German police to a registration centre, after crossing the Austrian-German border in Wegscheid near Passau, Germany,

BERLIN (Reuters) – Migrants in Germany committed or tried to commit some 69,000 crimes in the first quarter of 2016, according to a police report that could raise unease, especially among anti-immigrant groups, about Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal migrant policy.

There was a record influx of more than a million migrants into Germany last year and concerns are now widespread about how Europe’s largest economy will manage to integrate them and ensure security.

The report from the BKA federal police showed that migrants from northern Africa, Georgia and Serbia were disproportionately represented among the suspects.

Absolute numbers of crimes committed by Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis – the three biggest groups of asylum seekers in Germany – were high but given the proportion of migrants that they account for, their involvement in crimes was “clearly disproportionately low”, the report said.

It gave no breakdown of the number of actual crimes and of would-be crimes, nor did it state what percentage the 69,000 figure represented with respect to the total number of crimes and would-be crimes committed in the first three months of 2016.

The report stated that the vast majority of migrants did not commit any crimes.

It is the first time the BKA has published a report on crimes committed by migrants containing data from all of Germany’s 16 states, so there is no comparable data.

The report showed that 29.2 percent of the crimes migrants committed or tried to commit in the first quarter were thefts, 28.3 percent were property or forgery offences and 23 percent offences such as bodily harm, robbery and unlawful detention.

Drug-related offences accounted for 6.6 percent and sex crimes accounted for 1.1 percent.

In Cologne at New Year, hundreds of women said they were groped, assaulted and robbed, with police saying the suspects were mainly of North African and Arab appearance. Prosecutors said last week three Pakistani men seeking asylum in Germany were under investigation after dozens of women said they were sexually harassed at a music festival.

The number of crimes committed by migrants declined by more than 18 percent between January and March, however, according to the report.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Mark Heinrich)