Accused 9/11 mastermind open to role in victims' lawsuit if not executed

NEW YORK - The accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has indicated a willingness to be deposed by victims who are suing Saudi Arabia for damages, if the United States decides not to seek the death penalty against him.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's offer was disclosed late Friday in a letter filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan by lawyers representing individuals and businesses seeking billions of dollars in damages.

The Saudi government has long denied involvement in the attacks, in which hijacked airplanes crashed into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., and a Pennsylvania field. Nearly 3,000 people died.

Michael Kellogg, a Washington-based lawyer for the Saudi government, declined to comment. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier about the letter.

According to the letter, the plaintiffs' lawyers have been in contact with lawyers for five witnesses in federal custody about their availability for depositions.

The lawyers said three, including Mohammed, are housed at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detention camp, where they face capital charges, while two are at the "Supermax" maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.

According to the letter, Mohammed would not agree "at the present time" to be deposed, but that could change.

"Counsel stated that 'the primary driver' of this decision is the 'capital nature of the prosecution' and that ' n the absence of a potential death sentence much broader cooperation would be possible,'" the letter said.

Mohammed and the other Guantanamo detainees have been attending pre-trial hearings in their cases, the letter said.

James Kreindler, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said it was not clear how useful Mohammed might be.

"We're just really leaving no stone unturned," he said.

The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Saudi Arabia long had broad immunity from Sept. 11 lawsuits in the United States. But that changed in September 2016 when the U.S. Congress overrode President Barack Obama's veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act ("JASTA").

In March 2018, U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan, who oversees the litigation by victims, said their claims "narrowly articulate a reasonable basis" for him to assert jurisdiction through JASTA over Saudi Arabia.

His decision covered claims by the families of those killed, roughly 25,000 people who suffered injuries and many businesses and insurers.

The case is In re: Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 03-md-01570.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Billionaire Branson urges business to back LGBT+ rights

LONDON - British billionaire Richard Branson urged fellow business leaders on Thursday to use their clout and put pressure on countries such as Brunei that persecute citizens for their sexuality.

Brunei's decision to impose the death penalty for gay sex had spurred the call for action, Branson wrote in a blog posted on Virgin.com. He was joined by 20 other top executives, who put their names to a wider initiative in support of LGBT+ rights.

"Why take action now? The answer is simple. I feel that every opportunity to stand up for what we believe in is a good opportunity to shift the conversation on a global scale," said Branson, who made his fortune from a conglomerate of enterprises bearing the Virgin name.

John Fallon, chief executive of education group Pearson, and Paul Polman, former chief executive of consumer goods company Unilever, were among 21 signatories of an initiative supported by Open For Business, a coalition of global firms promoting LGBT+ inclusion.

"It is time for all of us, as business leaders and as human beings, to stand up to ensure that people are free from the fear of abuse for who they love," the 21 signatories wrote.

"This is our responsibility to our employees, to our customers and to communities all over the world."

The initiative calls for businesses to create inclusive workplaces, actively support criminalized LGBT+ communities, and engage with repressive regimes on their policies.

More than 70 countries worldwide, including Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, enforce anti-LGBT+ laws.

Brunei, a small Southeast Asian country of about 400,000 people, sparked outcry last month when it rolled out laws penalizing sodomy, adultery and rape with the death penalty.

Celebrities, from actor George Clooney to singer Elton John, have galvanized support, with protesters boycotting the Dorchester Collection of hotels, owned by the Brunei Investment Agency.

A growing list of banks, including Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Citi and Nomura, have banned staff from using the hotels.

STA Travel and London's transport network have also begun to cut ties with businesses owned by the sultanate.

In a letter to the United Nations, Brunei has defended the imposition of strict sharia laws, which it began introducing in 2014, as more for "prevention than to punish."

Matt Cameron, managing director of investment industry organization LGBT Great, called for a boycott of countries that enacted anti-gay and anti-transgender laws.

"The financial services sector is a massive part of the global economy and carries a lot of clout," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"I do think there's a responsibility and an accountability for the industry to step up and use its force."

However, Daniel Winterfeldt, a partner in law firm Reed Smith's global capital markets practice, stressed the value of talking with governments, whatever their views.

"Engagement is incredibly important. If you build up a barrier, things can actually get worse," Winterfeldt said.

"When (business leaders) attend high-level meetings with governments, it is important that on their lists of concerns are equality issues." 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Actor George Clooney calls for boycott of Brunei-owned hotels

WASHINGTON, United States - American actor George Clooney has called for a boycott of nine Brunei-owned hotels over the sultanate's imposition of the death penalty for gay sex and adultery.

"Every single time we stay at or take meetings at or dine at any of these nine hotels we are putting money directly into the pockets of men who choose to stone and whip to death their own citizens for being gay or accused of adultery," Clooney wrote on website Deadline Hollywood.

"I've learned over years of dealing with murderous regimes that you can't shame them. But you can shame the banks, the financiers and the institutions that do business with them and choose to look the other way," he added.

The nine hotels are located in the US, Britain, France and Italy.

Brunei will implement the harsh new penal code -- which also mandates amputation of a hand and foot for theft -- starting next Wednesday.

Homosexuality is already illegal in the tiny sultanate, but it will now become a capital offense. The law only applies to Muslims.

Brunei first announced the measures in 2013, but implementation has been delayed as officials worked out the practical details and in the teeth of opposition by rights groups.

In addition to film-making chops that have netted him two Oscars, Clooney is known for his globe-trotting political activism, especially his tireless campaigning to draw attention to the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region.

source: news.abs-cbn.com 

Nebraska conducts first US execution with fentanyl

CHICAGO - Nebraska on Tuesday carried out America's first execution using fentanyl -- the opioid at the center of the country's deadly overdose crisis -- as part of a previously-untested, four-drug combination.

Carey Dean Moore, sentenced to death for two 1979 murders, was the first prisoner executed in the Midwestern state in 21 years, in what was its first ever lethal injection. 

The 60-year-old was pronounced dead at 10:47 am (1547 GMT). The execution lasted approximately 20 minutes, according to Scott Frakes, director of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services. 

Moore's execution survived a last-minute legal challenge from a drug company and protests about the new lethal injection protocol. 

It was a pivotal test for Nebraska, where the state legislature abolished the death penalty in 2015, only to see voters reinstate it the next year in a referendum. The state last performed an execution in 1997 by electric chair.

"I recognize that today's execution impacts many people on many levels," said Frakes. 

The execution was carried out with "professionalism, respect for the process and dignity for all involved," he said. 

QUESTIONS ABOUT DRUGS USED

The lethal injection consisted of the sedative diazepam to bring on unconsciousness, the painkiller fentanyl citrate, the muscle relaxer cisatracurium to stop breathing, and potassium chloride to stop the heart.

Only potassium chloride has been used before in executions.

Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said the new procedure was an indication of the trouble states are having in acquiring death penalty drugs.

"It indicates that states are looking for drugs that are available," Dunham told AFP. 

Pharmaceutical manufacturers and providers have been increasingly hostile to selling such drugs to states. Officials across the country have had to scramble to find the execution drugs they need or find alternatives. 

Dunham said Nebraska's use of fentanyl was problematic, because use of the powerful opioid is closely controlled by law, and the state has not disclosed its source for the drug.

"The manner in which they obtained it is highly questionable," he said. 

COURTS WEIGH IN 

Last week, German drug maker Fresenius Kabi challenged Nebraska with regards to two other drugs in the protocol, claiming the company was the likely source of the substances, and if so, Nebraska improperly obtained them.

It demanded that the state disclose the source of its drugs. 

But the state insisted the drugs were legally acquired and both a federal judge and an appellate court sided with Nebraska.

Even the pope himself was not able to change Moore's fate. 

Two weeks ago, Pope Francis changed the Catholic Church's teaching, declaring the death penalty "inadmissible" in all cases. 

Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts, a Catholic who supported the reinstatement of the death penalty, was resolute. 

"While I respect the pope's perspective, capital punishment remains the will of the people," Ricketts said.

A handful of demonstrators gathered during the rainy morning to protest the execution. A small group also gathered in the early evening in the state capital Lincoln to criticize the governor's decision. 

"Ricketts would kill Jesus," one protester's sign read.

The American Civil Liberties union also criticized the governor, saying he had carried out an execution "shrouded in secrecy." 

"The 38-year-long journey to this execution further proves what we've been saying all along: The ACLU believes the death penalty in America is a broken process from start to finish and should be abolished nationwide," the group said in a statement.

'I AM GUILTY'

Moore had been on death row for 38 years and did not want further delays of his execution. 

In 1980, while still in his early 20s, he was sentenced to death for the killings the year prior of two Omaha taxi drivers five days apart. 

Expressing contrition, he admitted to fatally shooting the first driver during a robbery committed with his brother, and killing the second driver to "foolishly" prove to himself that he could commit murder on his own. 

In his final words, Moore alluded to a written statement dated August 2, in which he pointed to other Nebraska death row inmates who claim their innocence. 

"I am guilty, they are not," he wrote. "Why must they remain there one day longer?"

Moore also asked forgiveness from his brother. 

Moore's execution was the 16th in the United States this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. 

nov/ia

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European lawmakers urge immediate release of De Lima

European legislators on Thursday called on the Philippines to immediately free a senator who has waged a decade-long bid to expose hardline President Rodrigo Duterte as the leader of death squads.

Human rights activist Leila de Lima was arrested last month for drug trafficking, in what her allies say were trumped-up charges.

She has said the charges are to silence her probes into thousands of killings allegedly orchestrated by Duterte when he was a city mayor.

The often volatile Duterte won presidential elections last year after promising to eradicate drugs in society by killing tens of thousands of people and reinstating the death penalty.

MEPs in a resolution called "for the immediate release of Senator Leila M. De Lima and for her to be provided with adequate security whilst in detention."

They also strongly condemned "the high number of extrajudicial killings by the armed forces and vigilante groups related to the anti-drug campaign".

The MEPs said they felt "grave concern over credible reports to the effect that the Philippine police force is falsifying evidence to justify extrajudicial killings," the resolution added.

Since Duterte took office in the middle of last year, about 7,000 people have been killed in a crackdown on crime, prompting accusations by rights groups that the president could be overseeing a crime against humanity.

On Thursday Duterte's ruling party stripped a dozen lawmakers of congressional leadership posts for voting against the death penalty, turning up the pressure on his opponents.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Saudi condemns 15 to death for spying for Iran

A Saudi court Tuesday sentenced 15 people to death for spying for the kingdom's rival Iran, local media and a source close to the case said, in a move likely to heighten regional tensions.

The source told AFP that most of the 15 Saudis were members of the kingdom's Shiite minority.

Tehran swiftly denied the espionage charges and urged Saudi Arabia not to "seek to bring baseless accusations against Iran with the intention of political gains and increasing tensions in the region".

The espionage trial opened in February, a month after Riyadh cut diplomatic ties with Tehran over the burning of the Saudi embassy and a consulate by Iranian demonstrators protesting against the kingdom's execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

The most serious charge levelled against the accused was high treason.

Prosecutors also alleged the accused had divulged defence secrets, tried to commit sabotage and recruit moles in government departments, to send coded information, and supported "riots" in the Shiite-dominated eastern district of Qatif, Saudi media reported.

The 15 were among a group of 32 people tried over the espionage allegations, Alriyadh newspaper said.

Some of the defendants were accused of meeting Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The death sentences will be appealed, said the source close to the case, who cannot be identified due to its sensitivity.

Two of the group were acquitted while the rest received jail sentences of between six months and 25 years.

Apart from one Iranian and an Afghan, all the defendants were Saudis. The source said that one of those acquitted was a foreigner.

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said Riyadh had not passed on "any information to the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding the alleged Iranian person" in the trial.

Amnesty International, in a statement, called Tuesday's sentence "a travesty of justice and a serious violation of human rights".

"Sentencing 15 people to death after a farcical trial which flouted basic fair trial standards is a slap in the face for justice," said Amnesty's Samah Hadid.

- Syria, Yemen tensions -

Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW), told AFP that the trial was "flawed from the beginning".

It was tainted by allegations that the accused did not have access to lawyers during interrogation, Coogle said.

They were also charged with offences that do not resemble recognisable crimes, including "supporting demonstrations", attempting to "spread the Shia confession" and "harming the reputation of the kingdom", he said.

"Criminal trials should not be merely legal 'window-dressing' where the verdict has been decided beforehand," he said.

HRW earlier cited a lawyer who represented some of the accused until March as saying the timing of the case "may relate to ongoing hostility between Iran and Saudi Arabia".

All but one of the accused had been detained since 2013.

The region's leading Shiite and Sunni powers are at odds over a range of issues including the wars in Syria and Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has also expressed concern over an international agreement that lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for guarantees it would not pursue a nuclear weapons capability.

Riyadh fears the pact will lead to more Iranian "interference" in the region.

With relations at a low, Iranian pilgrims in September -- for the first time in nearly three decades -- did not attend the annual hajj in Saudi Arabia after the two countries failed to agree on security and logistics.

Nimr, the executed cleric whose case sent tensions soaring, was a driving force behind protests that began in 2011 among the Shiite minority, most of whom live in the kingdom's east which faces Iran across the Gulf.

The protests developed into a call for equality in the Sunni-dominated kingdom, where Shiites have long complained of marginalisation.

Nimr was convicted of terrorism and executed in January alongside 46 other people -- mostly Sunnis -- found guilty of the same crime.

Rights activists say more than two dozen other Shiites are on death row in Saudi Arabia.

source: news.abs-cbn.com