1.2 tonnes of drug found hidden inside yacht at Southampton docks and six members of suspected international gang arrested A record £300m haul of cocaine has been seized and six alleged members of an international drug gang arrested, officials have said. A total of 1.2 tonnes of cocaine was found hidden inside a 65ft pleasure cruiser at Southampton docks in June. It is the biggest haul of class-A drugs ever found in the UK, officials from the UK Border Agency (UKBA) and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) said. French authorities were alerted to the suspicious £1m craft, named Louise, while it was in the Caribbean in May and it was then tracked to Southampton, on its way to the Netherlands. Officials spent six days searching the vessel and found the drugs packed in a specially designed compartment beneath the boat’s bathing platform. It is understood the cocaine, which originated in South America, was packed inside the boat while it was in Venezuela. The drug was 90% pure, while the average purity of cocaine seized at the UK border is 63%, officials said. The haul is estimated to be worth between £50m wholesale and £300m on the streets. Since the drugs were found in June, the UKBA has helped Dutch police track members of the gang and six men were arrested during early morning raids on Tuesday – two 44-year-olds in Amsterdam, a 60-year-old in Meppel, two, aged 32 and 34, in Heusden, and a 27-year-old in Waalwijk. A total of €100,000 (£87,300), two Harley Davidson motorcycles, two firearms, a silencer and ecstasy were also seized. The immigration minister, Damian Green, said: “This was a significant drugs seizure which was made possible by the co-operation of our international partners. “Our efforts have helped bring an international crime gang to book and the message is clear: we will investigate and prosecute anyone who tries to smuggle banned substances through UK borders. “By keeping the border secure we play a key role in stopping drugs entering the UK and in reducing the harm they do to our communities.” The Dutch police were acting on intelligence provided by Soca’s international network and the French customs investigation service Drugs trade Drugs Crime Health Netherlands Europe guardian.co.uk
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Oil giant faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars following class action suit brought on behalf of communities in Bodo, Ogoniland Shell faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars after accepting full liability for two massive oil spills that have devastated a Nigerian community of 69,000 people and may take at least 20 years to clean up. Oil spill experts who have studied video footage of the spills at Bodo in Ogoniland say the spills could together be as large as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disater in Alaska when 10m gallons of oil was spilt. Until now, Shell has claimed that less than 40,000 gallons were spilt. Papers seen by the Guardian show that following a class action suit in London over the past four months, the company has accepted responsibility for the double rupture in 2008 of the 50-year-old Bodo-Bonny trans-Niger pipeline that pumps 120,000 barrels of oil a day though the community. Ogoniland is the small region of the Niger delta which threw out Shell in 1994 for its pollution but then saw eight of its leaders, including the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa , executed by the goverment. The crude oil that gushed unchecked from the two Bodo spills which occurred within months of each other in 2008 has clearly devastated the 20 sq km network of creeks and inlets on which Bodo and as many as 30 other smaller settlements depend for food, water and fuel. No attempt has been made to clean up the oil, which has collected on the creek sides, washes in and out on the tides and has seeped deep into the water table and farmland. According to the communities in Bodo, in two years the company has only offered £3,500 together with 50 bags of rice, 50 bags of beans and a few cartons of sugar, tomatoes and groundnut oil. The offers were rejected as “insulting, provocative and beggarly” by the chiefs of Bodo, but later accepted on legal advice. Shell’s acceptance of full liability for the spills follows a class action suit bought on behalf of communities by London law firm Leigh Day and Co , which represented the Ivory Coast community that suffered health damage following the dumping of toxic waste by a ship leased to multinational oil company Trafigura in 2006. Many other impoverished communities in the delta are now expected to seek damages for oil pollution against Shell in the British courts. On average, there are three oil spills a day by Shell and other companies working in the delta. Shell consistently blames the spills on local youths who, they argue, sabotage their network of pipelines. “The news that Shell has accepted liability in Britain will be greeted with joy in the delta. The British courts may now be inundated with legitimate complaints,” said Patrick Naagbartonm, corordinator for the Centre of Environment and Human Rights in Port Harcourt. Later this week the company will be heavily implicated by the UN for the environmental disaster in the Niger delta which has seen more than 7,000 oil spills in the low lying swamps and farmland since 1989. Shell first discovered oil in the Niger delta in 1956. According to Amnesty International, more than 13m barrels of oil have been spilt in the delta, twice as much as by BP in last year’s Gulf of Mexico spill . The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report, funded by Shell, will be presented to president Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday and is expected to be released on Friday in London. UNEP’s report, the first peer-reviewed scientific study of more than 60 spills, is expected to to say that oil pollution in Ogoniland is much worse than previously believed, having sunk deep into the water table. Many spills have not been cleared up since 1970 and the effects on the local economy, health and development have been severe. The report will not apportion blame for individual spills. International oil spill asessment experts who have seen the Bodo spill believe that it could cost the company more than $100m to clean up properly and restore the devastated mangrove forests that used to line the creeks and rivers but which have been killed by the oil. Proceedings against Royal Dutch Shell and Shell petroleum development company (SPDC) Nigeria began in the high court on 6 April 2011. Last week Shell Nigeria said: “SPDC accepts responsibility under the Oil Pipelines Act for the two oil spills both of which were due to equipment failure. SPDC acknowledges that it is liable to pay compensation -to those who are entitled to receive such compensation.” Oil spills Oil Energy Royal Dutch Shell Oil Oil and gas companies Nigeria Africa John Vidal guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Oil giant faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars following class action suit brought on behalf of communities in Bodo, Ogoniland Shell faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars after accepting full liability for two massive oil spills that have devastated a Nigerian community of 69,000 people and may take at least 20 years to clean up. Oil spill experts who have studied video footage of the spills at Bodo in Ogoniland say the spills could together be as large as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disater in Alaska when 10m gallons of oil was spilt. Until now, Shell has claimed that less than 40,000 gallons were spilt. Papers seen by the Guardian show that following a class action suit in London over the past four months, the company has accepted responsibility for the double rupture in 2008 of the 50-year-old Bodo-Bonny trans-Niger pipeline that pumps 120,000 barrels of oil a day though the community. Ogoniland is the small region of the Niger delta which threw out Shell in 1994 for its pollution but then saw eight of its leaders, including the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa , executed by the goverment. The crude oil that gushed unchecked from the two Bodo spills which occurred within months of each other in 2008 has clearly devastated the 20 sq km network of creeks and inlets on which Bodo and as many as 30 other smaller settlements depend for food, water and fuel. No attempt has been made to clean up the oil, which has collected on the creek sides, washes in and out on the tides and has seeped deep into the water table and farmland. According to the communities in Bodo, in two years the company has only offered £3,500 together with 50 bags of rice, 50 bags of beans and a few cartons of sugar, tomatoes and groundnut oil. The offers were rejected as “insulting, provocative and beggarly” by the chiefs of Bodo, but later accepted on legal advice. Shell’s acceptance of full liability for the spills follows a class action suit bought on behalf of communities by London law firm Leigh Day and Co , which represented the Ivory Coast community that suffered health damage following the dumping of toxic waste by a ship leased to multinational oil company Trafigura in 2006. Many other impoverished communities in the delta are now expected to seek damages for oil pollution against Shell in the British courts. On average, there are three oil spills a day by Shell and other companies working in the delta. Shell consistently blames the spills on local youths who, they argue, sabotage their network of pipelines. “The news that Shell has accepted liability in Britain will be greeted with joy in the delta. The British courts may now be inundated with legitimate complaints,” said Patrick Naagbartonm, corordinator for the Centre of Environment and Human Rights in Port Harcourt. Later this week the company will be heavily implicated by the UN for the environmental disaster in the Niger delta which has seen more than 7,000 oil spills in the low lying swamps and farmland since 1989. Shell first discovered oil in the Niger delta in 1956. According to Amnesty International, more than 13m barrels of oil have been spilt in the delta, twice as much as by BP in last year’s Gulf of Mexico spill . The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report, funded by Shell, will be presented to president Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday and is expected to be released on Friday in London. UNEP’s report, the first peer-reviewed scientific study of more than 60 spills, is expected to to say that oil pollution in Ogoniland is much worse than previously believed, having sunk deep into the water table. Many spills have not been cleared up since 1970 and the effects on the local economy, health and development have been severe. The report will not apportion blame for individual spills. International oil spill asessment experts who have seen the Bodo spill believe that it could cost the company more than $100m to clean up properly and restore the devastated mangrove forests that used to line the creeks and rivers but which have been killed by the oil. Proceedings against Royal Dutch Shell and Shell petroleum development company (SPDC) Nigeria began in the high court on 6 April 2011. Last week Shell Nigeria said: “SPDC accepts responsibility under the Oil Pipelines Act for the two oil spills both of which were due to equipment failure. SPDC acknowledges that it is liable to pay compensation -to those who are entitled to receive such compensation.” Oil spills Oil Energy Royal Dutch Shell Oil Oil and gas companies Nigeria Africa John Vidal guardian.co.uk
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Business secretary Vince Cable says site blocking is too cumbersome and unworkable, and work is being done on other ways to tackle online copyright infringement Vince Cable on Wednesday scrapped plans to introduce the blocking of illegal filesharing websites, arguing the a scheme proposed by last year’s Digital Economy Act is too cumbersome and unworkable, but said that some form of plan to bring down piracy sites is still being worked on. A consultation document, launched by Cable, said that ministers intend to do more work on what other measures can be pursued to tackle online copyright infringement in an effort to stop widespread music piracy, which is increasingly spreading to television and film. The business secretary said that people will also be able make copies of music and other media for personal use, confirming well-leaked plans to relax the current law that makes it illegal to copy the contents of a CD they own onto an iPod or other digital device. “This brings the law into line with, frankly, comon sense,” said Cable, responding to the Hargreaves report on the future of UK copyright law, which recommended the changes back in May 2011. “A lot of this has to do with consumer freeedom. We need to have a legal framework that supports consumer use rather than treat it as regrettable. We can’t say that businesses should embrace technology but say to consumers they can’t use technology for products they have paid for.” However ,Cable was not able to give detail on whether the new rules would apply to consumers using cloud services to store digital content on their portable media players, such as those launched by Google and Amazon in the US, adding that it would only apply for devices on a limited basis without infringing European law. Cable recognised that more needs to be done to crack down on illegal filesharing to protect the copyright holders, but nevertheless backed down on introducing site blocking legislation to the DEA. “Music and film makers have to be able to take effective and justified measures,” he said. “The basic philosophy is we do recognise the need for protection, but it has to be protection that’s proportionate to needs and based on evidence.” Ed Vaizey, the communications minister, said that the existing measures were too cumbersome and unworkable to have a real impact. He said that a specially commmissioned Ofcom report into the feasibility of site blocking legislation proved that it was too elaborate and complicated to go through, adding: “We haven’t said no to site blocking per se, forever.” Rights holders have heavily lobbied for the introduction of site-blocking legislation to curb digital piracy. However, Vaizey said that last week’s landmark high court ruling, which forced BT to cut off access to mass-piracy site Newzbin2, showed that there is a route forward if rights holders want to take it. But he acknowledged that the court process can take a long time, pointing out that the system can never cope with an illegal website launching on a Friday to cash in on a live sport event and then disappearing on Sunday. “One of the things that is frustrating for rights holders is the length of time it takes for a court process,” he conceded. Vaizey has been aiming to broker a fast-track legal process for site blocking by holding a series of meetings between rights holders. The talks aim to find common ground so both sides can agree in advance if a website is in fact infringing copyright – as well as protect ISPs from any repercussions if rights holders are wrong in their allegations – so that long-winded and costly court cases can be avoided. “One of the things I’ve enabled is conversations between ISPs and rights holders,” he said. “I want to see if ISPs and rights holders can come to agree a process to get facts together before going to court. The key point is up to court to make a [final] decision”. Ministers still have available the ultimate sanction of disconnecting serial pirates, although under the DEA, they have to examine a variety of less penalties before they can introduce disconnection. Initially, alleged pirates will be sent warning letters that identify them as being serial illegal downloaders from the second half of 2012 – more than a year later than originally anticipated. Fearful that there could be thousands of time-consuming appeals by receipients of the letters, ministers said that consumers who wish to appeal will have to pay £20, in an effort to deter frivilous claims. The amount will be refundable if somebody receiveing a letter can prove their innocence. The government has also asked Ofcom to begin establishing benchmarks and data on trends in online infringement as soon as possible. Cable also said that plans for an Amazon-style digital copyright exchange, to create a kind of one-stop-shop for easily buying and selling rights, have been accepted in principle. The government has launched a feasibility study to see how the exchange will work. “[It will] serve as a genuine marketplace independent of sellers and purchasers, for example on the model of independent traders using Amazon.co.uk to sell goods, rather than simply being an aggregated rights database,” the government said in its response to Hargreaves’ recommendations. The government allayed a number of the fears that rights holders have raised, such as that forcing them to join may break European regulations, saying that it will be a compelling proposition to rights holders but not compulsory. Intellectual property laws around parody, which are considerably more stringent than in countries such as the US, have also been relaxed to allow comedians, broadcasters and other content creators more scope – ensuring that spoofs such as the YouTube hit Newport State of Mind are no longer removed. Filesharing Internet Computing Piracy Piracy Digital media Vince Cable Digital Economy Act Mark Sweney guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Business secretary Vince Cable says site blocking is too cumbersome and unworkable, and work is being done on other ways to tackle online copyright infringement Vince Cable on Wednesday scrapped plans to introduce the blocking of illegal filesharing websites, arguing the a scheme proposed by last year’s Digital Economy Act is too cumbersome and unworkable, but said that some form of plan to bring down piracy sites is still being worked on. A consultation document, launched by Cable, said that ministers intend to do more work on what other measures can be pursued to tackle online copyright infringement in an effort to stop widespread music piracy, which is increasingly spreading to television and film. The business secretary said that people will also be able make copies of music and other media for personal use, confirming well-leaked plans to relax the current law that makes it illegal to copy the contents of a CD they own onto an iPod or other digital device. “This brings the law into line with, frankly, comon sense,” said Cable, responding to the Hargreaves report on the future of UK copyright law, which recommended the changes back in May 2011. “A lot of this has to do with consumer freeedom. We need to have a legal framework that supports consumer use rather than treat it as regrettable. We can’t say that businesses should embrace technology but say to consumers they can’t use technology for products they have paid for.” However ,Cable was not able to give detail on whether the new rules would apply to consumers using cloud services to store digital content on their portable media players, such as those launched by Google and Amazon in the US, adding that it would only apply for devices on a limited basis without infringing European law. Cable recognised that more needs to be done to crack down on illegal filesharing to protect the copyright holders, but nevertheless backed down on introducing site blocking legislation to the DEA. “Music and film makers have to be able to take effective and justified measures,” he said. “The basic philosophy is we do recognise the need for protection, but it has to be protection that’s proportionate to needs and based on evidence.” Ed Vaizey, the communications minister, said that the existing measures were too cumbersome and unworkable to have a real impact. He said that a specially commmissioned Ofcom report into the feasibility of site blocking legislation proved that it was too elaborate and complicated to go through, adding: “We haven’t said no to site blocking per se, forever.” Rights holders have heavily lobbied for the introduction of site-blocking legislation to curb digital piracy. However, Vaizey said that last week’s landmark high court ruling, which forced BT to cut off access to mass-piracy site Newzbin2, showed that there is a route forward if rights holders want to take it. But he acknowledged that the court process can take a long time, pointing out that the system can never cope with an illegal website launching on a Friday to cash in on a live sport event and then disappearing on Sunday. “One of the things that is frustrating for rights holders is the length of time it takes for a court process,” he conceded. Vaizey has been aiming to broker a fast-track legal process for site blocking by holding a series of meetings between rights holders. The talks aim to find common ground so both sides can agree in advance if a website is in fact infringing copyright – as well as protect ISPs from any repercussions if rights holders are wrong in their allegations – so that long-winded and costly court cases can be avoided. “One of the things I’ve enabled is conversations between ISPs and rights holders,” he said. “I want to see if ISPs and rights holders can come to agree a process to get facts together before going to court. The key point is up to court to make a [final] decision”. Ministers still have available the ultimate sanction of disconnecting serial pirates, although under the DEA, they have to examine a variety of less penalties before they can introduce disconnection. Initially, alleged pirates will be sent warning letters that identify them as being serial illegal downloaders from the second half of 2012 – more than a year later than originally anticipated. Fearful that there could be thousands of time-consuming appeals by receipients of the letters, ministers said that consumers who wish to appeal will have to pay £20, in an effort to deter frivilous claims. The amount will be refundable if somebody receiveing a letter can prove their innocence. The government has also asked Ofcom to begin establishing benchmarks and data on trends in online infringement as soon as possible. Cable also said that plans for an Amazon-style digital copyright exchange, to create a kind of one-stop-shop for easily buying and selling rights, have been accepted in principle. The government has launched a feasibility study to see how the exchange will work. “[It will] serve as a genuine marketplace independent of sellers and purchasers, for example on the model of independent traders using Amazon.co.uk to sell goods, rather than simply being an aggregated rights database,” the government said in its response to Hargreaves’ recommendations. The government allayed a number of the fears that rights holders have raised, such as that forcing them to join may break European regulations, saying that it will be a compelling proposition to rights holders but not compulsory. Intellectual property laws around parody, which are considerably more stringent than in countries such as the US, have also been relaxed to allow comedians, broadcasters and other content creators more scope – ensuring that spoofs such as the YouTube hit Newport State of Mind are no longer removed. Filesharing Internet Computing Piracy Piracy Digital media Vince Cable Digital Economy Act Mark Sweney guardian.co.uk
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Youth who is 16 years old detained with three other men after PSNI arrested them under Terrorism Act A teenager is among four men from Derry being detained by police in connection with ongoing dissident republican terrorist activity. The arrests came about after a security operation on the west bank of the city during which armed police officers rammed a vehicle and forced it to halt. The men, aged 54, 42, 23 and a 16-year-old youth were arrested in the Foyle Road area of Northern Ireland’s second city on Tuesday night. They were later taken to the serious crimes suite at Antrim police station for questioning. Derry has been a focal point of dissident republican armed action for the last two years with the Real IRA maintaining several active terror units there. Their targets have ranged from the city’s main police station at Strand Road, a courthouse, two banks and a number of men in nationalist areas the terror group have deemed as “anti-social elements”. Last week the Real IRA was accused of being behind a pipe bomb attack on the home of a man accused of indecent exposure. A Police Service of Northern Ireland spokesman said detectives from the serious crime squad made the arrest under the Terrorism Act. The PSNI spokesman said that a suspected firearm had been taken away for examination. He said that a suspicious object was also discovered by officers during the operation on the Foyle Road and is currently being examined by army bomb experts. A number of residents in the area were temporarily evacuated from the homes, taking refuge at the nearby Brooke Park Leisure Centre. SDLP councillor John Boyle visited the scene and some of those forced from their homes. He said: “From speaking to local people I can confirm that witnesses saw a police vehicle ram another vehicle on the Foyle Road close to Craigavon Bridge, which is quite close to the city centre. The occupants of that vehicle were subsequently apprehended.” Northern Ireland Real IRA UK security and terrorism Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Youth who is 16 years old detained with three other men after PSNI arrested them under Terrorism Act A teenager is among four men from Derry being detained by police in connection with ongoing dissident republican terrorist activity. The arrests came about after a security operation on the west bank of the city during which armed police officers rammed a vehicle and forced it to halt. The men, aged 54, 42, 23 and a 16-year-old youth were arrested in the Foyle Road area of Northern Ireland’s second city on Tuesday night. They were later taken to the serious crimes suite at Antrim police station for questioning. Derry has been a focal point of dissident republican armed action for the last two years with the Real IRA maintaining several active terror units there. Their targets have ranged from the city’s main police station at Strand Road, a courthouse, two banks and a number of men in nationalist areas the terror group have deemed as “anti-social elements”. Last week the Real IRA was accused of being behind a pipe bomb attack on the home of a man accused of indecent exposure. A Police Service of Northern Ireland spokesman said detectives from the serious crime squad made the arrest under the Terrorism Act. The PSNI spokesman said that a suspected firearm had been taken away for examination. He said that a suspicious object was also discovered by officers during the operation on the Foyle Road and is currently being examined by army bomb experts. A number of residents in the area were temporarily evacuated from the homes, taking refuge at the nearby Brooke Park Leisure Centre. SDLP councillor John Boyle visited the scene and some of those forced from their homes. He said: “From speaking to local people I can confirm that witnesses saw a police vehicle ram another vehicle on the Foyle Road close to Craigavon Bridge, which is quite close to the city centre. The occupants of that vehicle were subsequently apprehended.” Northern Ireland Real IRA UK security and terrorism Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
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Nick Harvey says he does not accept findings of Commons defence select committee report, which warns cuts will affect military’s ‘capability to undertake all that is being asked of them’ The armed forces minister, Nick Harvey, has rejected claims the British military is “overstretched” following a damning report by MPs that calls into question the government’s defence strategy and spending plans. The report, by the Commons defence select committee, said the armed forces had been so hard hit by spending cuts announced in last year’s strategic defence and security review (SDSR) that they might not be able to do all that is asked of them after 2015. It also criticised the government’s decision to enter into a military campaign in Libya while at the same time cutting the budget. In an interview with Sky News, Harvey admitted the armed forces would be faced with some “capability gaps” over the next decade. But, speaking later on BBC Radio 4′s Today programme, he said: “I don’t accept that we’re overstretched. This is within the defence planning assumptions; this is within the capabilities that we have at our disposal, but I do readily acknowledge that we’re working people and kit very hard.” Participating in Nato’s Libya operation, he added, was “well within the range of the things” possible. “We don’t know what … will come up but we had the capacity to handle both long-scale enduring operations and some of these ad-hoc ones that come along, and Libya is an ad-hoc one that has come along. “Now, of course, with less manpower and fewer assets than we had previously, we’re working both people and assets harder but this is well within the range of capabilities that we have, and I don’t accept that this is in some way untenable or unsustainable,” he added. James Arbuthnot, the Tory MP who chaired the committee, accused the minister of “exaggerating” the military’s current capacities. “We live in an increasingly unstable world, [with] unrest and turmoil going on in Arab countries at the moment, and the problem with the SDSR is that it has left us with virtually no contingency whatsoever so we are running at the very extremes of what our defences can provide and when he said ‘it’s well within’ the range of the capabilities we have I think he’s exaggerating our powers in the Ministry of Defence.” In its report, the cross-party group of MPs questions claims by ministers that cuts will have no effect on what the military can do. “We are not convinced, given the financial climate and the drawdown of capabilities arising form the SDSR that from 2015 the armed forces will maintain the capability to undertake all that is being asked of them,” warns the report. It also warned that British influence in the world could be diminished by the cutting of resources. Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Colonel Stuart Tootal said the criticisms raised by the select committee were “hardly surprising”. “We have a strategic security and defence review which has been driven by costs rather than strategy. There is a real risk – and it is already happening now – that there is a mismatch between resources that the armed forces have now, will have after 2015 and the commitments and tasks they are going to have to meet, and there are going to be gaps, quite serious capability gaps.” Acknowledging the financial constraints the government is facing, Arbuthnot said he would like to see an increase in resources nonetheless. Asked what he thought the government should do if it cannot raise the defence budget, he said: “Well, if we can’t scale up our resources then we have to scale down our commitments.” Harvey said he agreed that a real-terms increase in the post-2015 defence budget was needed. He added that defence secretary Liam Fox’s recent announcement that the defence equipment budget would be increased every year between 2015 and 2021 by 1% was already allowing the MoD to place orders for more equipment, including Chinook helicopters and surveillance aircraft. Defence policy Military Lizzy Davies guardian.co.uk
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Four ex-members of special forces unit sentenced for their part in slaughter of 201 civilians in 1982 during country’s civil war Three Guatemalan former special forces soldiers have been sentenced to 6,060 years in prison each for the 1982 massacre of 201 men, women and children during the Central American country’s civil war. A former army second lieutenant was also sentenced to 6,066 years in prison for the same massacre in the village of Dos Erres in Guatemala’s northern Peten region. The length of the sentences is largely symbolic since under Guatemalan law the maximum time a convict can serve is 50 years. The sentences for Manuel Pop Sun, Reyes Collin Gualip and Daniel Martinez include 30 years for each death, plus 30 years for crimes against humanity. The three men are former members the Guatemalan military’s elite Kaibil unit. Former Second Lieutenent Carlos Antonio Carias received an extra six years for stealing the victims’ belonging, the court said in a statement on Tuesday. Prosecutors say Carias was in charge of a military base near the community of Dos Erres and provided information to the army that led to the massacre. Outside the court, survivors of the massacre cried when the sentences were announced and held red roses. They spelled the word “justice” on the ground with red petals. “We waited many years for justice,” said survivor Raul de Jesus Gomez. “I saw when they were killing people. They had us kneeling for five hours and would put their rifles in our mouths every time we asked them to stop killing the others.” A group of the relatives of the accused soldiers shouted that the court was biased. Carias called the sentence “unjust” and said: “I would risk my life again for that honourable institution that is the army.” Court filings say 17 Kaibiles attacked the community of Dos Erres before dawn on 7 December 1982, looking for missing weapons that guerrilla groups operating in the region had stolen from the soldiers days earlier. They accused the farmers of collaborating with the rebels. While more than 40 soldiers guarded the perimeter of the community, the men raped and killed women and girls, and banished hundreds of people from the community, according to the filings. Dozens of bodies were exhumed from a well in the community in the 1990s and the remains from 171 victims were recovered in all. At least 67 children under the age of 12 were among the dead. Witnesses say villagers were tortured and robbed by the soldiers as part of a “scorched earth” effort to eliminate communities supporting insurgent groups at the height of Guatemala’s 36-year civil war. This is Guatemala’s second massacre trial related to its 1960-1996 civil war, when more than 200,000 people, mostly Mayan Indians, were killed or went missing and entire villages were exterminated, according to the United Nations. The first trial ended in a 2004 verdict against an officer and 13 soldiers, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. This trial had been delayed since 2000 through dozens of court injunctions. Another three Kaibiles from the same unit were detained in the United States, one has already been deported to Guatemala. A fourth one was detained in Canada. Guatemala has requested their extradition. Guatemala War crimes guardian.co.uk
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Sam Weihagen, Manny Fontenla-Novoa’s deputy, will become interim CEO while a successor is found Manny Fontenla-Novoa, the chief executive of Thomas Cook, has resigned from the company, paying the price for hitting shareholders with three profits warnings in a single year. Thomas Cook announced on Wednesday that Fontenla-Novoa had left the holiday company “with immediate effect”. A permanent replacement has not been lined up – Sam Weihagen, Fontenla-Novoa’s deputy, will become interim CEO while a successor is found. It is understood that Fontenla-Novoa offered to step down on Tuesday, following a review of the company’s recent disappointing performance . “The board felt that Manny should take responsibility for recent events, and accepted his resignation,” a company insider explained. In a brief statement Fontenla-Novoa, who had run the group since June 2007, said: “Thomas Cook and its people have a sound heritage and I have been proud to have been part of the company.” The holiday industry has suffered a series of blows in recent months. The economic crisis has hit consumer confidence, with many families cutting back on discretionary spending such as overseas holidays. The political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa also deterred holidaymakers from travelling to the region. Last month, Thomas Cook announced it was reviewing its UK business after admitting that operating profits for this year would be £60m below expectations . This review appears to have concluded that a new chief executive was needed. Thomas Cook also told investors it remained on track to achieve current expectations for this financial year. Thomas Cook Travel & leisure Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
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