UFO Disclosure: Just a distraction? US prepares to announce its extraterrestrial findings

Govt-Plan-UFOs

Important Takeaways:

  • Is the US government preparing to announce aliens? This is the Senate’s proposed UFO ‘controlled disclosure plan’ and how it would work
  • The Senate passed an Act that would require disclosure of UFO evidence
  • Step One: The President forms the Review Board
    • Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, has teamed up with Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican, in leading an effort to force the disclosure of information relating to what the government officially calls ‘unidentified anomalous phenomena.’
    • Their proposal is modeled after a 1992 US law spelling out the handling of records related to the 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy.
    • The document continues to explain that the president can postpone disclosure of certain records if they are identified as harm ‘to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations.’
  • Step 2: Governments must handover UAP records
    • The Act states government offices have 300 days after the date of enactment to hand over records to the Review Board.
    • These offices include the president, the Department of Defense, all military branches, the Department of Energy, the Director of National Intelligence, the Library of Congress and more.
    • The head of each office is required to print a copy of each physical record and create a digital copy that will be sent to the Review Board.
    • The Act establishes that the federal government would have ’eminent domain’ over any recovered technologies of unknown origin and that private individuals or entities may control any biological evidence of ‘non-human intelligence.’
  • Step 3: Review Board investigates the evidence
    • The nine-person board will have 180 days to review each case about UAPs.
    • This group must have at least one national security officer, foreign service official, scientist or engineer, economist, professional historian and sociologist.
    • The Review Board’s goals are to determine if a recorder constitutes as an unidentified anomalous phenomena record and whether an unidentified anomalous phenomena record or particular information in a record qualifies for postponement of disclosure.
    • These individuals also have the power to subpoena citizens for their testimony, records and other information relevant to the case.
  • Step 4: Review Board publishes its findings
    • Senator Rounds said: ‘Our goal is to assure credibility with regard to any investigation or record keeping of materials associated with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs).
    • David Grusch – a former high-ranking intelligence official – was one of three military whistleblowers who testified under oath that they had firsthand encounters or knowledge about secret government programs involving technology that is ‘non-human.’
    • He claimed that the US has been in possession of UFOs since ‘the 1930s’ and has been secretly back-engineering them and carrying out a public disinformation campaign to prevent the details from leaking publicly.
    • Grusch was sworn in on July 26, along with Ryan Graves, an esteemed former pilot, and Navy veteran fighter pilot Commander David Fravor, who witnessed the 2004 ‘Tic Tac’ UFO
    • The men stated that the US had run a top-secret UFO retrieval program for decades and claimed the ‘Vatican was involved’ in the first-ever UFO crash.
    • Grusch said last month that the first recovery of a UFO was in Magenta, Italy, in 1933, and Mussolini’s Italian government held it until 1944 through 1945 when Pope Pius XII tipped America off about it.

Read the original article by clicking here.

House Republicans call for Biden impeachment after release of bank records

Important Takeaways:

  • Greg Steube Files Articles Of Impeachment Against Joe Biden For Bribery, Extortion, Obstruction Of Justice, Fraud, Financial Involvement In Drugs And Prostitution/Trafficking: “We Have All The Facts And Evidence Now”
  • Greg Steube, R-Fla., jumped ahead of his Republican colleagues on Friday and introduced articles of impeachment against President Biden.
  • While several congressional committees are building a multipronged case to remove Biden from office, Steube said it was past time to take action. He filed articles of impeachment against Biden charging that the president had been complicit in his son Hunter’s alleged crimes and had worked to shield him from justice.
  • “It’s long past time to impeach Joe Biden,” Steube said in a statement. “He has undermined the integrity of his office, brought disrepute on the Presidency, betrayed his trust as President, and acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law and justice at the expense of America’s citizens.”
  • Steube filed four articles alleging high crimes and misdemeanors by Biden. The first accuses the president of abusing the power of his office by allegedly accepting bribes, committing Hobbs Act extortion and honest services fraud related to use of his official position…
  • The second article charges that President Biden obstructed justice, citing IRS whistleblower testimony that “members of the Biden campaign improperly colluded with Justice Department (DOJ) officials to improperly interfere with investigations into tax crimes alleged to have been committed by Hunter Biden.”
  • The third and fourth articles accuse Biden of “fraud” and paying for Hunter Biden’s illegal drugs and trysts with prostitutes, respectively. “The evidence continues to mount by the day – the Biden Crime Family has personally profited off Joe’s government positions through bribery, threats, and fraud. Joe Biden must not be allowed to continue to sit in the White House, selling out our country,” Steube said

Read the original article by clicking here.

Judge sees evidence of Buk missile being used in downing of MH17 airliner

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – A judge in the Dutch murder trial over the downing of a Malaysian airliner over rebel-held eastern Ukraine in 2014 said on Tuesday there was evidence the airplane was hit by an outside explosion caused by a Russian-made Buk missile.

Judges on Tuesday started reading out the evidence in the trial in the Netherlands against four fugitive suspects – three Russians and a Ukrainian citizen – accused of shooting down the plane on July 17 2014 and killing all 298 people on board.

Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in a field in territory held by pro-Russian separatists fighting against Ukrainian forces after being shot down with what international investigators say was a Russian surface-to-air missile.

“Experts have stated that the impact on the hull [of the plane] is compatible with a Buk missile system and a Buk warhead. No damage was found that would not be compatible with that scenario, or that would indicate another scenario,” judge Hendrik Steenhuis said.

After years of collecting evidence, a team of international investigators concluded in May 2018 that the missile launcher used to shoot down the aircraft belonged to Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade.

The Dutch government holds Moscow responsible. Russia denies any involvement.

The four suspects are standing trial in absentia. After a year of mostly procedural hearings, judges announced the start of the evidence phase on Monday.

This week the panel of judges will specifically look to determine what type of missile hit the airplane, where it was fired from and whether the four suspects can be held responsible.

“Today, it is about: was it a Buk missile or not?,” Hans de Borst, who lost his daughter in the crash, said before the hearing.

“I think the question is already answered but the court is now really answering it, so it’s important.”

(Reporting by Bart Meijer and Bart Biesemans, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Bitter week for families as evidence to be read in MH17 airliner trial

By Stephanie van den Berg

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -Judges in the Netherlands will begin reading out the evidence this week in the murder trial against four fugitive suspects accused of shooting down a Malaysian airliner over rebel-held eastern Ukraine in 2014 and killing 298 people in 2014.

Victims’ relatives said they were expecting the testimony to bring up painful memories, but that they were grateful for a chance to hear at last what had happened aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

The flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in a field in territory held by pro-Russian separatists fighting against Ukrainian forces, after being shot down with what international investigators say was a Russian surface-to-air missile.

Three Russians and a Ukrainian citizen, all suspected of having key roles in the separatist forces, are on trial for murder. Moscow has refused to extradite those in Russia.

One of the Russians is mounting a defense from abroad and denies blame, while the others have not appointed lawyers and are not participating.

“It is a very difficult day for us. It is now the first day of the prosecution, and that is difficult for us,” Evert van Zijtveld, who lost his two children Frederique and Robert-Jan and his wife’s parents, told journalists as he walked into court.

After a year of mostly procedural hearings, judges announced the start of the evidence phase on Monday. From Tuesday the judges will begin summarizing the evidence gathered by investigators in the case, and potentially calling witnesses.

Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said his panel would be looking specifically to determine what type of missile hit the airplane, where it was fired from and whether the four suspects can be held responsible.

“It is taking a long time but we want to know the truth. It is the only thing we can still do for the children,” said Rob Frederiksz, whose 23-year-old son Bryce died along with his girlfriend Daisy in the crash.

After years of collecting evidence, a team of international investigators concluded in May 2018 that the missile launcher used to shoot down the aircraft belonged to Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade. The Dutch government holds Moscow responsible. Russia denies any involvement.

On Monday the Kremlin said it was following the trial and took note of “alternative information” that could lead to other explanations of the crash from the Dutch prosecutor’s main theory of the Russian-made missile fired by pro-Russian separatists.

“But again, because we are not part of the investigation, we cannot directly influence what is happening,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg, additional reporting by Dmitry Antonov and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber in Moscow ; Editing by Peter Graff)

UK court lifts bar on evidence transfer over Islamic State ‘Beatles’

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Supreme Court on Wednesday lifted a bar which prevented the government from giving evidence to U.S. authorities about an alleged Islamic State execution squad, nicknamed “the Beatles”, after reassurances were given that the men would not face the death penalty.

The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking the extradition of Britons Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, who are accused of the killing and torture of Western hostages in Syria.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr said last week that U.S. prosecutors would not seek the death penalty against the men or carry out executions if they were imposed, an issue which had been a stumbling block for Britain handing over captured militants.

In March, Britain’s Supreme Court had ruled that data protection laws meant Britain could not provide material to the United States or other foreign countries in cases which could lead to a death penalty. That decision followed legal action brought by Elsheikh’s mother, Maha El Gizouli.

The British courts imposed a block on the transfer of evidence while her case was ongoing. But the Supreme Court said it had released an order on Wednesday which formally ended El Gizouli’s action and thus ended the legal prohibition.

“The order concludes the proceedings in the Supreme Court, which means that the stay or the stop on providing material to the U.S. government is removed,” a court spokeswoman said.

There was no immediate response from Britain’s Home Office (interior ministry).

Kotey and Elsheikh are being held by the U.S. military in an unidentified overseas location after they were captured in 2019 but Barr said it was becoming untenable to continue to hold them.

The pair were members of a four-strong Islamic State unit that was known as the Beatles because they were English speakers.

They are alleged to have detained or killed Western hostages, including U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig.

One member, Mohammed Emwazi, known as “Jihadi John”, was believed to have been killed in a 2015 U.S.-British missile strike.

The U.S. Justice Department wants Britain to turn over evidence it has on Kotey and Elsheikh to allow them to be tried in the United States.

Barr had said if Britain did not turn over the material by Oct. 15, the United States would turn over the men for prosecution in the Iraqi justice system.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Citing racial bias, U.S. high court tosses black man’s murder conviction

Death row inmate Curtis Flowers. Courtesy Mississippi Department of Corrections/via REUTERS

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court, confronting racial bias in the American criminal justice system, on Friday threw out a black Mississippi death row inmate’s conviction in his sixth trial for a 1996 quadruple murder conviction, finding that a prosecutor unlawfully blocked black potential jurors.

The court, in a 7-2 ruling written by conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, found that the prosecutor’s actions violated the right of Curtis Flowers, 49, under the U.S. Constitution to receive a fair trial. The ruling does not preclude Mississippi from putting Flowers on trial for a seventh time.

Kavanaugh, appointed by President Donald Trump last year, wrote that the prosecutors sought to strike black jurors through all six trials. Prosecutors “engaged in dramatically disparate questioning of black and white prospective jurors” at his sixth trial, Kavanaugh added.

The prosecution’s decision in the most recent trial to strike one black juror in particular “was motivated in substantial part by discriminatory intent,” Kavanaugh wrote.

The decision was the latest of several in recent years in which the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of individual criminal defendants on race-related issues.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, appointed by Trump in 2017, and fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas dissented in the case.

In his dissenting opinion, Thomas described the ruling as “manifestly incorrect.” Thomas noted the court’s majority “does not dispute that the evidence was sufficient to convict Flowers or that he was tried by an impartial jury.”

Thomas, the only black Supreme Court justice and one of its most conservative members, asked his first questions during an oral argument in three years when the case was argued in March. His questions centered on whether defense lawyers for Flowers during his trials had excluded white potential jurors.

In U.S. trials, prosecutors and defense lawyers can dismiss – or “strike” – a certain number of prospective jurors during the jury selection process without stating a reason. Some prosecutors, including in Southern states like Mississippi, have been accused over the decades of trying to ensure predominately white juries for trials of black defendants to help win convictions.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1986 that people cannot be excluded from a jury because of their race, based on the right to a fair trial under the Constitution’s Sixth Amendment and the 14th Amendment promise of equal protection under the law. Friday’s ruling applied that precedent and, Kavanaugh wrote, “we break no new legal ground.”

Flowers was appealing his 2010 conviction, in his sixth trial, on charges of murdering four people at the Tardy Furniture store where he previously worked in the small central Mississippi city of Winona. There were 11 white jurors and one black juror.

His lawyers accused long-serving Montgomery County District Attorney Doug Evans, who is white, of engaging in a pattern of removing black jurors that indicated an unlawful discriminatory motive. Evans has given non-racial reasons for striking black potential jurors.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, a Democrat, said it is now up to Evans to decide whether Flowers will face another trial. Evans could not immediately be reached for comment.

Flowers’ lawyer, Sheri Lynn Johnson, expressed hope Flowers would not face another trial.

“A seventh trial would be unprecedented, and completely unwarranted given both the flimsiness of the evidence against him and the long trail of misconduct that has kept him wrongfully incarcerated all these years,” Johnson said.

Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law civil rights group, said the ruling should “sound an alarm” for prosecutors who engage in racial discrimination during jury selection.

“Racial bias continues to infect virtually every stage of our criminal justice system, including the jury selection process,” Clarke added.

In 2016, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a black Georgia death row inmate who also said black potential jurors were excluded by the prosecution in his case. In 2017, the court ruled in separate cases that a Hispanic man could challenge his conviction based on a juror’s racist comments and that a black Texas death row inmate could seek to avoid execution due to testimony from an expert witness at trial who said the man was more likely to commit future crimes because of his race.

Flowers was found guilty in his first three trials – the first one with an all-white jury and the next two with just one black juror – but those convictions were thrown out by Mississippi’s top court. Several black jurors participated in the fourth and fifth trials, which ended without a verdict because the jury both times failed to produce a unanimous decision.

Prosecutors have said Flowers was upset with the store owner for firing him and withholding his paycheck to cover the cost of batteries he had damaged. Flowers was convicted of killing store owner Bertha Tardy, 59; bookkeeper Carmen Rigby, 45; delivery worker Robert Golden, 42; and part-time employee Derrick Stewart, 16. All except Golden were white.

 

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

Ireland pleads with religious orders for answers on baby deaths

FILE PHOTO: A shrine dedicated to children lost at the site of the Tuam babies graveyard where the remains of 796 babies were uncovered at a former Catholic home in Tuam, Ireland, September 29, 2018. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/File Photo

By Padraic Halpin

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland pleaded with religious orders on Wednesday to reveal where decades-old remains of all babies who died in their care are buried, after an official inquiry found they provided remarkably little evidence about their deaths.

Findings by the inquiry two years ago that remains ranging in age from 35 fetal weeks to 3 years were stored in underground chambers at a former church-run home for unwed mothers revived anguish over how women and children were once treated at state-backed Roman Catholic institutions.

Investigators confirmed on Wednesday that 802 children died at the home in the western town of Tuam between 1925 and 1961 but said some were likely buried elsewhere on the site.

They expressed surprise at the lack of knowledge about the burials from the local council and the nuns from the Bon Secours order who ran the home.

Their latest interim report also found that over 3,000 children died in five other institutions over a similar time period. In one case investigators could only establish where 64 of the 900 children recorded to have died at the County Cork home of Bessborough were buried, despite extensive searches.

“My plea this morning, especially to the relevant people who may be out there: Let us know where they are buried,” Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone told a news conference.

“Please come forward. Tell the truth. Let us acknowledge them with that truth, that they lived and died and then maybe they could be treated with dignity in death. This is my hope as the minister for Christens in Ireland.”

The infant mortality rate at Church-run institutions was significantly higher than in wider Irish society at that time, with death certificates blaming mainly infections like measles, gastroenteritis, bronchitis, tuberculosis, and pneumonia.”

Relatives have alleged that the babies were mistreated because they were born to unmarried women.

As part of the inquiry, nuns from the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary order who ran the Bessborough institution provided affidavits and oral evidence but gave “remarkably little evidence about the burial arrangements”, the report found.

One member of the order who was in Bessborough for most of the 1948-1998 period told the Commission that she did not remember any child deaths during her time there.

The Catholic Church’s once powerful position and prestige in Ireland have been greatly diminished over the past three decades by a series of scandals over pedophile priests, abuse at Magdalene laundries (workhouses), forced adoptions of illegitimate babies and other painful issues.

The commission is due to submit its final findings by February 2020.

“I did not think in assuming the children’s ministry (that) I would be spending so much time talking about death,” Zappone said.

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Turkey’s Erdogan says Khashoggi recordings ‘appalling’, shocked Saudi intelligence

FILE PHOTO: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses members of parliament from his AK Party (AKP) in Ankara, Turkey, October 23, 2018. REUTERS/Tumay Berkin/File Photo

By Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan said recordings related to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, which Turkey has shared with Western allies, are “appalling” and shocked a Saudi intelligence officer who listened to them, Turkish media reported on Tuesday.

Khashoggi, a critic of de facto Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate on Oct. 2 in a hit which Erdogan says was ordered at the “highest levels” of the Saudi government.

Six weeks after Khashoggi’s death, Turkey is trying to keep up pressure on Prince Mohammed and has released a stream of evidence that undermined Riyadh’s early denials of involvement.

Prine Mohammed won support on Tuesday from U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, who said he did not think recordings of the killing shared by Turkey implicated the young crown prince.

Erdogan told reporters on his plane returning from a weekend visit to France that he discussed the Saudi journalist’s killing with the U.S., French and German leaders there, adding that Turkey had played the recording to at least six countries.

“The recordings are really appalling. Indeed when the Saudi intelligence officer listened to the recordings he was so shocked he said: ‘This one must have taken heroin, only someone who takes heroin would do this’,” he added.

Khashoggi’s murder has provoked global outrage but little concrete action by major powers against Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter and a strong proponent of U.S. policy to contain Iranian influence across the Middle East.

President Donald Trump has expressed reluctance to punish Saudi Arabia economically, citing its multi-billion-dollar purchases of military equipment and investments in U.S. firms.

Bolton said he did not think that people who heard the recordings concluded that the crown prince was linked to the killing. “And certainly that is not the position of the Saudi government,” he said in Singapore.

Asked again if the audio tape provided by Turkey did not link Prince Mohammed to the killing in any way, Bolton said: “I haven’t listened to the tape myself but in the assessment of those who have listened to it, that is right.”

Bolton shares with Saudi Arabia a hawkish stance against Riyadh’s biggest Middle East rival Iran, and he championed Washington’s resumption of sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

ELECTRIC SHOCK DEVICES

The New York Times, in a report confirmed by a Turkish official, said a member of the Saudi team which was sent to Istanbul to kill Khashoggi told one of his superiors after the killing to “tell your boss” – which the newspaper said was believed to be a reference to Prince Mohammed.

The individual was identified as Maher Mutreb, who reports to an aide to the crown prince, Saud al-Qahtani. Mutreb was also quoted as saying words to the effect that “the deed was done”.

In his comments to reporters, Erdogan said it was clear the killing was planned and that the order came from the top level of Saudi authorities, but that he could not think such a thing of King Salman, for whom he has “limitless respect”.

“The crown prince says ‘I will clarify the matter, I will do what is necessary’. We are waiting patiently,” Erdogan said, adding that the perpetrators of the killing were among 18 suspects detained in Saudi Arabia.

“It must be revealed who gave them the order to murder.”

Last month two separate intelligence sources told Reuters that Qahtani gave orders over Skype to Khashoggi’s killers at the consulate. More recently, a government source familiar with the matter said Qahtani featured prominently throughout the recordings.

Saudi state media said King Salman sacked him and other officials over the killing, and a senior Saudi official said last month that Qahtani had been detained. But four sources based in the Gulf told Reuters this week that he was still at liberty and continued to operate discreetly.

“He still has the same influence,” one of the sources said. Qahtani has wielded that influence over the last three years, with his authority growing alongside that of the young prince.

He ran social media for Prince Mohammed, masterminded the arrest of hundreds of Saudi Arabia’s elite late last year in a campaign Riyadh said aimed at rooting out corruption, and took a harsh line against neighboring Qatar when Saudi Arabia imposed an economic boycott of the Gulf state in June 2017.

He also supervised the brief detention, humiliation and beating of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri last year.

Turkey’s pro-government newspaper Sabah reported on Tuesday that the luggage of the Saudi team that was sent to Istanbul at the time of Khashoggi’s killing contained syringes, large scissors, staple guns, walkie-talkies, electric shock devices and a signal jammer.

It published photos of X-rays of bags taken as the Saudis passed through security checks at the airport when they left. Reuters could not immediately verify the Sabah report.

Saudi Arabia initially denied any knowledge or involvement in Khashoggi’s killing, but Saudi public prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb later said it was planned in advance. Another Saudi official said Prince Mohammed had no knowledge of the specific operation.

(Additional reporting by John Geddie in Singapore; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Dominic Evans and Mark Heinrich)

Saudis sent ‘clean-up’ team to Turkey after Khashoggi killing, official says

A demonstrator holds a poster with a picture of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi outside the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul, Turkey October 25, 2018. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

By Orhan Coskun

ANKARA (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia sent a two-man “clean-up team” to erase evidence of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing a week after he disappeared at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, a Turkish official said on Monday, calling it a sign top Saudi officials knew of the crime.

Confirming a report in Turkey’s pro-government Sabah newspaper, the official said the chemist and toxicologist were tasked with erasing evidence before Turkish investigators were given access to the Saudi consulate and consul’s residence.

Sabah identified the two men as Ahmed Abdulaziz al-Jonabi and Khaled Yahya al-Zahrani, saying they arrived in Turkey as part of an 11-person team sent to carry out the inspections with Turkish officials.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist critical of the Saudi government and its de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, disappeared at the consulate on Oct. 2.

Saudi officials initially insisted Khashoggi had left the consulate, then said he died in an unplanned “rogue operation”. The kingdom’s public prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb later said he was killed in a premeditated attack.

Turkish and Saudi officials have carried out joint inspections of the consulate and consul’s residence in Istanbul, but President Tayyip Erdogan says some Saudi officials are still trying to cover up the crime. Ankara has also demanded Riyadh cooperate in finding Khashoggi’s body, which Istanbul’s chief prosecutor said had been dismembered.

A senior Turkish official confirmed the names of the men identified on Monday by Sabah. “We believe that the two individuals came to Turkey for the sole purpose of covering up evidence of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder before the Turkish police were allowed to search the premises,” the official said.

The two individuals carried out clean-up operations at the consulate and the consul’s residence in Istanbul until October 17 and left the country three days later, he said.

“The fact that a clean-up team was dispatched from Saudi Arabia nine days after the murder suggests that Khashoggi’s slaying was within the knowledge of top Saudi officials,” the official said.

Saudi Arabia says 18 people have been detained over Khashoggi’s killing and the head of its human rights commission told a meeting in Geneva on Monday Riyadh was investigating the case with a view to prosecuting the perpetrators.

ACID REPORTS

Saudi Arabia’s conflicting accounts of Khashoggi’s killing have prompted international outcry against the world’s top oil exporter, upending the young crown prince’s international image as a reformer.

Turkey has released a stream of evidence challenging the initial Saudi denials of involvement and continues to press Riyadh for details.

On Monday Vice President Fuat Oktay called for an investigation into newspaper reports last week that Khashoggi’s body was disposed of by dissolving it in acid.

“The question now is who gave the orders. This is what we are seeking answers to now,” Fuat Oktay told Anadolu news agency. “Another question is where the body is… There are reports of (the body) being dissolved with acid now. All of these need to be looked at”.

In an article in the Washington Post on Friday, Erdogan said the order to kill Khashoggi came from the “highest levels” of the Saudi government and called for the “puppetmasters” to be unmasked.

(Reporting by Orhan Coskun and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Dominic Evans)

Special Report: How Myanmar punished two reporters for uncovering an atrocity

Detained Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo leave Insein court after listening to the verdict in Yangon, Myanmar September 3, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

By John Chalmers

YANGON (Reuters) – Time and again, Myanmar’s government appeared at risk of blowing its prosecution of two young journalists who had exposed a massacre of 10 Muslim men and implicated security forces in the killings.

On April 20, a prosecution witness revealed in pre-trial hearings that police planted military documents on Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo in order to frame them for violating the country’s Official Secrets Act. That admission drew gasps from the courtroom.

A police officer told the court that he burned notes he made at the time of the reporters’ arrest but didn’t explain why. Several prosecution witnesses contradicted the police account of where the arrests took place. A police major conceded the “secret” information allegedly found on the reporters wasn’t actually a secret.

And outside the courtroom, military officials even admitted that the killings had indeed taken place.

These bombshells bolstered central assertions of the defense: The arrests were a “pre-planned and staged” effort to silence the truthful reporting of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo.

In the end, the holes in the case were not enough to stop the government from punishing the two reporters for revealing an ugly chapter in the history of Myanmar’s young democracy. On Monday, after 39 court appearances and 265 days of imprisonment, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were found guilty of breaching the Official Secrets Act and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Yangon northern district judge Ye Lwin ruled that the two reporters had breached the secrets act when they collected and obtained confidential documents. Delivering his verdict in the small courtroom, he said it had been found that “confidential documents” discovered on the two would have been useful “to enemies of the state and terrorist organizations.”

After the verdict was delivered, Wa Lone told a cluster of friends and reporters not to worry. “We know we did nothing wrong,” he said, addressing reporters outside the courtroom. “I have no fear. I believe in justice, democracy and freedom.”

The prosecution of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo has become a landmark press freedom case in Myanmar and a test of the nation’s transition to democratic governance since decades of rule by a military junta ended in 2011. The military, though, still controls key government ministries and is guaranteed 25 percent of parliamentary seats, giving it much power in the fledgling democracy.

During the court hearings, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres and leaders from several Western countries had called for the reporters’ release. After the verdict, Scot Marciel, the U.S. ambassador to Myanmar, said the ruling was “deeply troubling” for everybody who had struggled for media freedom in the country. “I’m sad for Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo and their families, but also for Myanmar,” he said.

Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler said the two reporters had been convicted “without any evidence of wrongdoing and in the face of compelling evidence of a police set-up.” The verdict, he said, was “a major step backward in Myanmar’s transition to democracy.”

Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay did not respond to requests for comment about the verdict.

FILE PHOTO: Ten Rohingya Muslim men with their hands bound kneel as members of the Myanmar security forces stand guard in Inn Din village September 2, 2017. REUTERS/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Ten Rohingya Muslim men with their hands bound kneel as members of the Myanmar security forces stand guard in Inn Din village September 2, 2017. REUTERS/File Photo

A week before the ruling, United Nations investigators said in a report that Myanmar’s military had carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Muslim Rohingya with “genocidal intent,” and that the commander-in-chief and five generals should be punished. The report also accused the government of Aung San Suu Kyi of contributing to “the commission of atrocity crimes” by failing to shield minorities from crimes against humanity and war crimes. Myanmar has rejected the findings.

Suu Kyi, the country’s de facto leader who spent some 15 years under house arrest during the junta era, has made few public statements about the case. In a rare comment in June, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate told Japanese broadcaster NHK that the reporters weren’t arrested for covering the violence in western Myanmar. “They were arrested because they broke the Official Secrets Act,” she said.

The act dates back to 1923, when Myanmar – then known as Burma – was under British rule. The charge against the reporters carried a maximum sentence of 14 years. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were found guilty under Section 3.1 (c) of the act, which covers obtaining secret official documentation that “might be or is intended to be, directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy.”

At the time of their arrest in December, Wa Lone, now 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, now 28, were working on a Reuters investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim villagers during an army crackdown in Rakhine State in the west of the country. The violence has sent more than 700,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh, where they now live in vast refugee camps.

The United States has accused the government of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya, a Muslim minority who are widely reviled in this majority-Buddhist country. Myanmar says its operations in Rakhine were a legitimate response to attacks on security forces by Rohingya insurgents.

Reuters published its investigation into the massacre on Feb. 8. An account of the killing of eight men and two high school students in September in the village of Inn Din, the report prompted international demands for a credible probe into the wider bloodshed in Rakhine.

The story and its accompanying photographs provided the first independent confirmation of what took place at Inn Din. Two of the photos obtained by the reporters show the men kneeling, in one with their hands behind their necks and in a second with their hands tied behind their backs. A third picture shows their bodies, some apparently with bullet wounds, others with gashes, in a blood-stained, shallow grave.

SLEEP DEPRIVED

The prosecution of the reporters put Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, in the glare of an uncomfortable global spotlight. Hailed as a champion of democracy for standing up to the junta, Suu Kyi was released from house arrest in 2010. Her party won a general election in 2015 and formed Myanmar’s first civilian government in more than half a century in early 2016. Her cabinet includes three generals, however; in a speech last month, she called these military men “all rather sweet.”

Earlier this year, veteran U.S. politician Bill Richardson said Suu Kyi was “furious” with him when he raised the case of the Reuters journalists with her. Richardson, a former Clinton administration cabinet member, resigned in January from an international panel set up by Myanmar to advise on the Rohingya crisis, saying the body was conducting a “whitewash” and accusing Suu Kyi of lacking “moral leadership.” Suu Kyi’s office said at the time that Richardson was “pursuing his own agenda” and had been asked to step down.

As leader of the opposition, Suu Kyi had criticized the junta’s treatment of journalists. In 2014, she reportedly described as “very excessive” a prison sentence of 10 years with hard labor handed down to four local journalists and their boss. They were found guilty of trespassing and violating the Official Secrets Act, the same law used to prosecute the Reuters reporters. “While there are claims of democratic reform, this is questionable when the rights of journalists are being controlled,” the local Irrawaddy newspaper quoted her as telling reporters in July 2014.

A government spokesman did not answer calls by Reuters seeking comment on Suu Kyi’s statement.

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested on the evening of Dec. 12. During hours of testimony in July, they described that night and the interrogations that followed. They told the court that their heads were covered with black hoods when they were transported to a police interrogation site. They testified they were deprived of sleep for three days during their grillings. At one point, Kyaw Soe Oo said, he was punished and made to kneel on the floor for at least three hours. A police witness denied that the reporters were deprived of sleep and that Kyaw Soe Oo was forced to kneel.

Describing the night of their arrest, Wa Lone said he and Kyaw Soe Oo were detained almost immediately after being handed some documents at a restaurant by a police lance corporal he had been trying to interview for the massacre story. The policeman had invited Wa Lone to meet and Kyaw Soe Oo accompanied him, Wa Lone testified.

When the two reporters exited the restaurant, they were grabbed by men in plain clothes, handcuffed and shoved into separate vehicles, they both testified. As they were driven to a police station, Wa Lone recalled in court, a man who appeared to be in charge called a senior officer and told him: “We’ve got them, sir.”

The interrogation centered on the journalists’ reporting and their discovery of the massacre, not on the allegedly secret state documents, Wa Lone told the court. One officer, he said, offered “possible negotiations” if the massacre story wasn’t published. Wa Lone said he rejected the overture.

At one point, Wa Lone testified, the police chastised him for reporting on the Rohingya. “You are both Buddhists. Why are you writing about ‘kalars’ at a time like this? They aren’t citizens,” Wa Lone recalled being told. ‘Kalar’ is a slur widely used in Myanmar to describe Muslims, especially Rohingya and people of South Asian origin.

It was two weeks from the time of their arrest before Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were allowed contact with their families and lawyers.

In late December, they were sent to Yangon’s Insein Prison, a colonial-era building that became an emblem of the former military junta’s repressive rule. For decades, dissidents were held alongside murderers, thieves and drug dealers. Suu Kyi spent a brief period there.

“I found out my cell was built in 1865. It was used for the prisoners before they were killed,” Wa Lone told a colleague before one court hearing, amused to have discovered he was living on a Victorian-era death row.

THUMBS-UP SIGN

The first hearing came on Dec. 27, which was overcast with a few specks of drizzle. Some reporters had gathered outside the courthouse before dawn in case police tried to rush through the proceedings. Many from local media wore black T-shirts in solidarity with the Reuters reporters.

Wa Lone’s wife, Pan Ei Mon, mouthed quiet prayers between interviews with journalists. Kyaw Soe Oo’s sister, Nyo Nyo Aye, kept near her side, barely speaking.

When a white Toyota police van swung into the yard, Pan Ei Mon and Nyo Nyo Aye pushed through scrambling photographers and hugged the two men as they were led into the courthouse. Within minutes, the court extended their remand for 14 days. An application for bail was refused on Feb. 1.

After that, the two reporters were put in a pick-up truck almost weekly to make the roughly half-kilometer journey to Yangon’s Northern District Court, a dilapidated two storey red-brick building. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo would arrive at court handcuffed. Holding his hands clenched and at chest-level, Wa Lone looked like a boxer entering a ring, smiling and giving a thumbs-up sign for the cameras.

If there was a break in proceedings, the men were allowed to join their families in a side room, where they were fed and hugged. Kyaw Soe Oo’s daughter, Moe Thin Wai Zan, now three, would cling to her father. From time to time, he carefully lowered his handcuffs over her head and peppered her face with kisses.

Wa Lone’s wife, Pan Ei Mon, sat as close to her husband as she could during the hearings. She gave birth to a girl, the couple’s first child, on Aug. 10.

The courtroom could hold around 40 people and was invariably packed with family, friends, reporters and foreign diplomats. Sparrows flitted through gaps above the saloon-style doors and nested in the rafters; a cat sometimes wandered through the court. From a nearby room sounded the clacking of an old-fashioned typewriter. Power cuts were routine, and during the humid summer, the room warmed quickly as the single ceiling fan slowed to a halt. In a familiar drill, a court official would hustle spectators aside to fetch a generator and lug it into a hallway, where it chugged until the session was over.

Flanked by policemen, Wa Lone would often make an impassioned statement to the media outside court after hearings. On the day the court charged the reporters, he raised his voice and spoke quickly: “For us, no matter what, we won’t retreat, give up or be shaken by this. I would like to say that injustice will never defeat us.”

Police said Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were caught in Yangon with secret information about the operations of security forces in Rakhine, the state where the Inn Din massacre took place. The reporters, they said, were detained after being searched at a traffic checkpoint by officers who didn’t know they were journalists.

But early in the proceedings, the police version of events began to fray. At a hearing on Feb. 1, a police major, who led the team of arresting officers, conceded that the information in the documents had already been published in newspaper reports. It was one of many inconsistencies to surface during testimony from the 22 witnesses called by the prosecution.

The precise location and circumstances surrounding the arrests emerged as a key point of contention in court. The police said the reporters were stopped and searched at a traffic checkpoint at the junction of Main Road No. 3 and Nilar Road by officers who were unaware they were journalists – not at a restaurant, as Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo testified.

One prosecution witness, civilian official Kyaw Shein, supported the police on the location of the arrests. Then, in a moment of courtroom drama, defense lawyer Than Zaw Aung reached through the wooden bars of the witness stand and turned over Kyaw Shein’s left hand, which the witness had been glancing at while giving testimony. On it were written the words “Thet Oo Maung” – the official name of Wa Lone – and below it, “No. 3 Road and Nilar Road junction.” (It is common for people in Myanmar to use more than one name, as Wa Lone does.)

Asked if someone had told him to write down the address where police say the arrest took place, Kyaw Shein said no. He wrote on his hand because he was “forgetful,” he said.

‘ENTRAP HIM AND ARREST HIM’

On April 10, in a move that acknowledged the truth of the Reuters report on the Inn Din massacre, the army announced that seven soldiers had been sentenced to “10 years in prison with hard labor in a remote area” for participating in the killings.

Ten days later, the state’s case against Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo appeared to suffer a setback when the court heard the reporters’ version of events – astonishingly, from a prosecution witness. They had in fact been arrested as they left a restaurant still holding in their hands documents they had just been given by police officers as part of a plan to ensnare them, said Captain Moe Yan Naing of the paramilitary 8th Security Police Battalion.

Before the reporters were arrested, Wa Lone had interviewed several members of Battalion 8 about the army crackdown in Rakhine. At least three police officers told him that the unit supported military operations there.

Moe Yan Naing testified that he was interviewed by Wa Lone in November, and had himself been under arrest since the night of Dec. 12. Earlier that day, he said, he had been taken to Battalion 8’s headquarters on the northern edges of Yangon. When he arrived, he said, he found himself among a group of several policemen who were believed to have given interviews to Wa Lone. They were interrogated about their interactions with the Reuters reporter.

Moe Yan Naing told the court that police Brigadier General Tin Ko Ko, who led an internal probe into what the reporters had been told, ordered an officer to arrange a meeting with Wa Lone that night and hand over “secret documents from Battalion 8.”

Brigadier General Tin Ko Ko gave the documents to a police lance corporal “and told him to give them to Wa Lone,” Moe Yan Naing testified. When Wa Lone left the restaurant, the general continued, the local police were to “entrap him and arrest him,” according to Moe Yan Naing. He told the court he witnessed Tin Ko Ko giving these orders.

“Police Brigadier General Tin Ko Ko told the police members, ‘If you don’t get Wa Lone, you will go to jail’,” Moe Yan Naing said.

“This officer spoke based on his own feelings,” police spokesman Colonel Myo Thu Soe told Reuters, referring to Moe Yan Naing.

In the days following his testimony, Moe Yan Naing’s wife and three children were evicted from police housing in the capital city of Naypyitaw, and he was sentenced to one year in prison for violating the Police Disciplinary Act by having contact with Wa Lone. The prosecution sought to have Moe Yan Naing declared an unreliable witness. Nevertheless, Judge Ye Lwin declared he was credible. The captain returned to court two weeks later – this time in shackles and wearing a dark blue prison uniform – to give further testimony.

A police lance corporal, who met the reporters in the restaurant moments before they were arrested, contradicted Moe Yan Naing’s account of a set-up operation. Naing Lin, the lance corporal, denied giving the Reuters reporters secret documents to incriminate them. He also denied calling Wa Lone to invite him to a meeting on Dec. 12. During cross-examination, though, defense lawyer Than Zaw Aung said phone records showed that Naing Lin had called the journalist three times on that day.

In the end, the defense’s ability to punch holes in the prosecution’s case proved to be insufficient ammunition. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo’s exposure of atrocities against a despised minority had put them on a collision course with Aung San Suu Kyi, the generals and their nation’s Buddhist majority.

(Edited by Peter Hirschberg and Michael Williams.)