Hosni Mubarak's Sentence Greeted with Initial Euphoria, Then Anger
THE GUARDIAN: Egyptians react with dismay as former president is convicted on lesser charge and given sentence 'wide open' to appeal

Egypt's stuttering revolution has taken a dramatic new turn after Hosni Mubarak, the country's all-powerful dictator for 30 years, was sentenced to life imprisonment for enabling the massacre of protesters who rose up against his rule.

But initial euphoria at the historic verdict – the first time an Arab leader has ever been deposed, tried and convicted by his own people – quickly gave way to confusion and then fury on the streets as full details of the court judgement emerged.

Watched by tens of millions on live television, the judge, Ahmed Refaat, declared that neither Mubarak nor any other defendants in the so-called "trial of the century" were responsible for ordering the lethal assault by security forces last January and February that left almost a thousand demonstrators dead, and that the toppled autocrat and his former interior minister Habib al-Adly were guilty only of not using their high political office to put a stop to the bloodshed.

All other charges, which included profiteering and economic fraud, were dismissed, allowing key members of Mubarak's family and security apparatus – including his two sons Gamal and Alaa and several top security officials – to walk free. Legal experts claimed the ruling left Mubarak's life sentence "wide open" to appeal, and political analysts said the outcome was a victory for the deep state and a sign of the old regime reasserting its grip over the country.

"The verdict shows that they are quite willing to cut off the heads of the regime and throw them to the dogs in an effort to preserve the rest," argued Issandr el-Amrani, a columnist on Egyptian affairs who blogs as the Arabist. » | Jack Shenker and Abdel-Rahman Hussein in Cairo | Saturday, June 02, 2012


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Hosni Mubarak Guilty Verdict Sparks Courtroom Scuffles
Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak receives a life sentence for his role in the killing of anti-government protesters last year but is aquitted on corruption charges, sparking angry exchanges in the courtroom.

Read the article here | Saturday, June 02, 2012
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Danish Newspaper 'Massacre Plot' Trial Begins

AL JAZEERA ENGLISH: Four men plead not guilty to plotting to kill staff of Jyllands-Posten after it published cartoons of Prophet Mohammed.

Four men on trial over a suspected plot to murder staff of a Danish newspaper that first published controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed have pleaded not guilty.

The men appeared in court on Friday in the Danish capital Copenhagen. The prosecution named them as Sahbi Ben Mohamed Zalouti, Munir Awad and Omar Abdalla Aboelazm, all Swedish citizens of Tunisian, Lebanese and Moroccan origin respectively.

The fourth man, Mounir Ben Mohamed Dhahri, a Tunisian national living in Sweden who pleaded guilty to arms possession, faces charges of "attempted terrorism".

Prosecutors say the four were plotting to "kill a large number of people" at the Jyllands-Posten daily's offices in Copenhagen when they were arrested on December 29, 2010.

Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons in 2005 of the Prophet Mohammed that Muslims believed were insulting, sparking violent and sometimes deadly protests around the world. » | Sources: Agencies | Friday, April 13, 2012

Austria – Free Speech: The Trial of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff Commences

GATES OF VIENNA: The Trial of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, Day 1 >>> Baron Bodissey | Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff Enters Vienna Courtroom

The 9/11 Suspects

Sarkozy and de Villepin Enter Court Battle Over Alleged Smear Campaign
THE GUARDIAN: Smear campaign charges centre on kickback claims / Clearstream trial threatens to damage country's elite

It has been billed as France's political trial of the decade, a saga worthy of the darkest spy thriller that threatens to expose poisonous machinations and backstabbing at the highest reaches of the French state.

Tomorrow morning, in the courtroom where Marie-Antoinette was ordered to be beheaded in 1793, a legal battle will begin that is unprecedented in modern French history. France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is the key plaintiff in a trial accusing the former prime minister Dominique de Villepin of running an elaborate smear campaign to damage Sarkozy's chances in the 2007 presidential election campaign. If De Villepin is found guilty of a plot to torpedo Sarkozy's political career, he could face five years in prison.

But the so-called "Clearstream" trial involves not just the all-consuming hatred and rivalry between two of France's most prominent politicians. It also threatens to damage the standing of the French intelligence services and business world. Scores of plaintiffs and witness from the highest levels of French politics, senior spies and businessmen, will take part in the trial which former president Jacques Chirac once warned would damage the entire French political class.

Sarkozy is so bent on justice that he has vowed to hang those responsible for the alleged plot "on a butcher's hook". De Villepin, who privately refers to Sarkozy as "the dwarf", denies wrongdoing, saying the president is "obsessed" and "meddling" in the justice system by forcing the case to trial.

The saga dates back to 2004, when Sarkozy and De Villepin were rival ministers under Chirac and both possible runners for the 2007 presidency. Sarkozy, the young, ambitious finance minister who had turned against Chirac, his one-time mentor, was the favourite to lead the country. De Villepin, who served as foreign and interior minister before becoming prime minister, was an aristocratic career diplomat, a Napoleon fan who Chirac called his "commando-in-chief".

In the summer of 2004, an anonymous source wrote to one of France's investigating judges, accusing a string of politicians and businessmen of holding secret bank accounts at the Luxembourg bank Clearstream. The accounts were said to have been used for laundering kickbacks from the £1.5bn sale of French frigates to Taiwan in 1991. On the lists of supposedly crooked account holders were scores of politicians from the right and left, top businessmen, leading journalists, even a famous female actor. … >>> Angelique Chrisafis in Paris | Sunday, September 20, 2009

Turkish Nationalist Plotters 'Planned to Kill Prime Minister'
TIMES ONLINE: Members of a nationalist plot to overthrow the Turkish Government planned to attack the Nato headquarters in Turkey and assassinate 12 prominent figures, including the Prime Minister, a court heard today.

Fifty-two additional suspects, including a former senior policeman, were charged with involvement in the alleged campaign of chaos and violence that was to culminate in a military coup. A court accepted the third, 1,454-page indictment in the Ergenekon trial, charging the ultranationalist, ultra-secularist group.

Two four-star generals and senior figures from the security forces, business, politics, academia and the media are among the defendants as Turkey confronts for the first time what has long been known as the Deep State. The network is considered to be the true, military-backed power behind the throne in this mainly Muslim democracy.

Ergenekon, named after a mythical valley where ancient Turks once lived, is considered the latest incarnation of an organisation that has allegedly existed for decades under different guises. It was given a new impetus and its new title after the rise of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister, whose party was first elected in 2002. His background as a political Islamist has helped the group to sway public opinion, but it is his reformist, pro-European Union actions and policies that are most offensive to this isolationist and anti-Western group’s hard core. >>> Suna Erdem in Istanbul | Thursday, August 06, 2009

Lubna Hussein: Justice Deferred
THE GUARDIAN: Lubna Hussein's trial for 'indecent dressing' has been postponed. But whatever the result she has struck a blow for women's rights

The trial of Lubna Hussein was postponed for the second time yesterday. Under the pretext of attempting to determine whether Hussein had truly revoked her immunity from prosecution when she resigned from her UN position, the authorities have bought more time to find a face-saving resolution to the debacle. This is looking more and more unlikely as Hussein's campaign gathers momentum both at home and abroad.

Initially, she was viewed as something of a loose cannon in Khartoum. So many before her had suffered the pot luck fate of flogging and retreated to lick their wounds in private for fear of attracting more shame and indignity. In a naturally demure and modest society, any suggestion of inappropriate behaviour leaves a woman with no option but to try and minimise the damage to her reputation and quell the "no smoke without fire" whispers.

But now that spell has been broken. Around 50 female protesters braved tear gas and baton beatings from police outside court yesterday, tying their fate to Lubna's. An ancillary case is brewing as another journalist faces an exorbitant fine for criticising the government's handling of the case. By breaking through the self-imposed barrier of fear of what others would think, Lubna has stripped her punishment of all its power and turned the tables spectacularly. If ultimately she is flogged her "martyrdom" will be complete – if she is found innocent the government will be humiliated and public order laws made a mockery of. >>> Nesrine Malik | Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Protests at Sudan Woman's Trial
BBC: Police have fired tear gas at supporters of a Sudanese woman charged with wearing "indecent clothing" shortly before her trial was postponed.

The trial in the capital Khartoum was delayed for a month.

Under Khartoum's Sharia law, Lubna Ahmed Hussein could face up to 40 lashes in public if convicted.

Earlier, she told the BBC she was not afraid to be flogged publicly, saying: "Flogging is not pain, flogging is an insult to humans, women and religions."

She says she was wearing trousers when arrested and has resigned from a UN job that would have given her immunity to take on the case.

"If the court's decision is that I be flogged, I want this flogging in public," she told the BBC's Today programme.

She says she has invited 500 people to attend the hearing. >>> | Tuesday, August 04, 2009

From the Today programme

Aung San Suu Kyi 'Fears Worst' as Trial Nears an End
TIMES ONLINE: Burma’s democracy leader is “preparing for the worst” as her two and a half month trial for giving shelter to an eccentric American well wisher nears its conclusion, one of her lawyers said today.

Aung San Suu Kyi's defence team summed up their case in the court in Rangoon’s notorious Insein Prison where she is on trial for allegedly breaching the terms of her detention under house arrest. Also on trial is John Yettaw, a US citizen who swam uninvited to her lakeside house because he had dreamed of her assassination and wanted to warn her of impending danger.

Her two house companions are also charged, and defence arguments for them and for Mr Yettaw will continue on Monday. Foreign diplomats from European embassies in Rangoon were allowed into court for the first time in several weeks, but her lawyer, Nyan Win, suggested that Ms Suu Kyi held out little hope of avoiding conviction, which could bring a sentence of five years and exclusion from the elections which the unelected junta promises to hold next year.

“As for her, she is preparing for the worst,” he told Reuters after the hearing. >>> Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor | Friday, July 24, 2009

Junta to Put Democracy Leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Trial
Aung San Suu Kyi. Photo credit: TimesOnline
TIMESONLINE: Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s democracy leader, is to stand trial on Monday at Rangoon’s notorious Insein prison in connection with a visit from a mysterious American last week, her party said last night.

A motorcade which included her car and several police vehicles left her lakeside home early this morning and drove to the prison.

“Her lawyer said the authorities will charge the lady and her two maids at the court in Insein prison,” said Nyan Win, spokesman for Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party.

It was not clear what charges she faced but exile groups said she was likely to be charged under a cover-all public security law which is often used against political dissidents and could face a prison term of up to seven years.

Ms Suu Kyi., 63, has already spent more than 13 of the last 19 years — including the past six — in detention without trial for her non-violent promotion of democracy, despite international pressure for her release.

A trial could be used to justify another extension of her detention, which officially ends on May 27. The military junta has repeatedly found reasons to extend her periods of house arrest. >>> Anne Barrowclough | Thursday, May 14, 2009