Sweden blocks extradition of journalist sought by Erdogan

Sweden blocks extradition of journalist sought by Erdogan
Turkish journalist Bulent Kenes, near Stockholm, Sweden, Nov. 10, 2022. (AFP)
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Updated 19 December 2022

Sweden blocks extradition of journalist sought by Erdogan

Sweden blocks extradition of journalist sought by Erdogan
  • Bulent Kenes is the only person Erdogan has identified by name among dozens of people Ankara wants extradited in exchange for approving Sweden’s NATO membership
  • Kenes: ‘It is not an unexpected decision. I have always repeated that I had 100% trust in the Swedish legal system and judicial system because Sweden has rule of law’

STOCKHOLM: Sweden’s Supreme Court on Monday blocked the extradition of exiled Turkish journalist Bulent Kenes, a key demand by Ankara to ratify Stockholm’s NATO membership.
There were “several hindrances” to sending back the former editor-in-chief of the Zaman daily, who Turkiye accuses of being involved in a 2016 attempt to topple President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the court said.
Some of the accusations against Kenes are not crimes in Sweden, which along with the political nature of the case and his refugee status, made extradition impossible, the court added.
“There is also a risk of persecution based on this person’s political beliefs. An extradition can thusly not take place,” Judge Petter Asp said in a statement.
As a result, “the government... is not able to grant the extradition request.”
Sweden’s foreign ministry’s press office underscored the point.
“If the Supreme Court declares that there are hindrances to an extradition in an individual case the government has to deny the extradition request,” the ministry said.
“We can’t speculate on any potential effects on the NATO accession. Sweden’s government has to follow Swedish and international law in extradition affairs, which is also laid out in the trilateral agreement,” it added.
Kenes is the only person Erdogan has identified by name among dozens of people Ankara wants extradited in exchange for approving Sweden’s NATO membership.
Following decades — or in Sweden’s case centuries — of staying out of a military alliance, the two countries made the historic decision to apply to join NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The bid needs unanimous approval from all NATO members.
Apart from Hungary, which is due to ratify Sweden’s and Finland’s membership in early 2023, Turkiye is the only country to threaten to prevent the two countries from joining NATO.
Turkiye, which has accused Sweden especially of providing a safe haven for outlawed Kurdish groups it deems “terrorists,” has held back on ratifying their NATO applications despite reaching an agreement with Sweden and Finland in June.
Ankara says it expects Stockholm in particular to take tougher action on several issues, including the extradition of criminals.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson traveled to Turkiye in November to meet Erdogan to discuss the issues.
When pressed about “terrorists” he wants extradited from Sweden during a joint press conference, Erdogan only named Kenes as one on the list.
Stockholm has repeatedly stressed that its judiciary is independent and has the final say in extraditions.
In early December, Sweden extradited to Turkiye a convicted member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), who had fled to Sweden in 2015 but had his asylum request denied.
Kenes, who now works for the Stockholm Center for Freedom — an association founded by other Turkish dissidents in exile — told AFP Monday that he was “happy” but not surprised by the court’s opinion.
“It is not an unexpected decision. I have always repeated that I had 100 percent trust in the Swedish legal system and judicial system because Sweden has rule of law,” Kenes said, while stressing that the allegations against him were “fabricated by the Erdogan regime.”
He insisted he committed “neither political crime nor violent crime.
“I’m not a coup maker, I am not a terrorist,” he added.
“I am just a journalist. I am just a person doing his journalism in the framework of defending human rights,” Kenes said.
Ankara has over time increased the number of people it wants extradited: first 33, then 45, then 73, in unofficial lists published by media close to the Turkish government.
Speaking to AFP in November, Kenes said he believed he was singled out by Erdogan “because he has known me for decades” due to his long career as a journalist, and because it was the first name he came up with off the top of his head.


Philippine court denies bail request for staunch Duterte critic in drugs case

Philippine court denies bail request for staunch Duterte critic in drugs case
Updated 9 sec ago

Philippine court denies bail request for staunch Duterte critic in drugs case

Philippine court denies bail request for staunch Duterte critic in drugs case
  • Petition was for a drug case that saw Leila de Lima accused of conspiring to commit illegal narcotics trade in a Philippine prison
MANILA: A Philippine court has denied a bail request from Leila de Lima, a former senator and staunch critic of ex-President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, the defendant’s lawyer said on Wednesday, thereby prolonging her detention.
“Sad to inform you that the court denied Senator Leila’s bail application,” Filibon Tacardon, her legal counsel, told reporters.
The petition was for a drug case that saw de Lima accused of conspiring to commit illegal narcotics trade in a Philippine prison.
De Lima was arrested in 2017, just a few months after she launched a senate investigation into Duterte’s anti-narcotics campaign during which thousands of users and dealers were killed, many by police or in mysterious circumstances. She has been in police detention ever since.
A Philippine court in 2021 dismissed a drug case against de Lima, 63, while another court in May acquitted her from a charge that she received drug money from prison inmates.

Russian drone attack kills two civilians in Ukraine’s Sumy region

Russian drone attack kills two civilians in Ukraine’s Sumy region
Updated 07 June 2023

Russian drone attack kills two civilians in Ukraine’s Sumy region

Russian drone attack kills two civilians in Ukraine’s Sumy region

KYIV: A Russian drone attack killed two civilians and wounded one in the Sumy region of northern Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, the head of the president’s office, said on Wednesday.

Yermak said on the Telegram messaging app that a Iranian-made “Shahed” drone had destroyed a private house and caused a fire. The president’s office said in a statement that Russia shelled the border region in the northeast several times at overnight and on Wednesday morning.


Pope Francis to undergo intestinal surgery and will be hospitalized for several days

Pope Francis to undergo intestinal surgery and will be hospitalized for several days
Updated 20 min 50 sec ago

Pope Francis to undergo intestinal surgery and will be hospitalized for several days

Pope Francis to undergo intestinal surgery and will be hospitalized for several days
  • The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said the pontiff underwent "some clinical examinations and returned to the Vatican before noon”
  • Witnesses at the Vatican's Perugino gate said Francis greeted guards as he usually does before returning to his residence

ROME: Pope Francis went to the hospital on Wednesday for surgery on his intestine, two years after he had 33 centimeters of his colon removed because of an inflammation and narrowing of the large intestine.

The Vatican said Francis, 86, would be put under general anesthesia and would be hospitalized for several days.

Pope Francis briefly went to Rome’s main hospital on Tuesday for tests and returned to the Vatican, two months after he was hospitalized with an acute case of bronchitis.

The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said the pontiff underwent “some clinical examinations and returned to the Vatican before noon” from the Gemelli hospital.

Witnesses at the Vatican’s Perugino gate, one of the main entrances to the city state, told The Associated Press that Francis greeted guards as he usually does before returning to his residence.

Francis spent three days at the Gemelli hospital in late March. Initially, the Vatican said he had gone in for scheduled tests, but the pontiff later revealed he had felt pain in his chest and was rushed to the hospital where bronchitis was diagnosed. He was put on intravenous antibiotics and was released April 1, quipping that he was “still alive.”

The Argentine pope had part of one lung removed when he was a young man. He also suffers from sciatica nerve pain and has been using a wheelchair and walker for more than a year because of strained ligaments in his knee.

Francis has had a packed schedule of late, with multiple audiences each day. The Vatican has recently confirmed a travel-filled August, when the Holy See and Italy are usually on vacation, with a four-day visit to Portugal the first week of August and a similarly long trip to Mongolia starting Aug. 31.

In a sign that the trips were very much on, the Vatican on Tuesday released the planned itinerary for Francis’ visit to Portugal for World Youth Day events from Aug. 2-6. The itinerary confirms a typically busy schedule that includes all the protocol meetings of an official state visit plus multiple events with young people and a day trip to the Marian shrine at Fatima.

Francis’ next public appointment, if confirmed, would be his weekly general audience on Wednesday in St. Peter’s Square.


UN court finds Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga unfit for trial

UN court finds Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga unfit for trial
Updated 07 June 2023

UN court finds Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga unfit for trial

UN court finds Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga unfit for trial
  • ‘The trial chamber finds Mr. Kabuga is no longer capable of meaningful participation in his trial’

THE HAGUE: Judges at a UN war crimes court in The Hague have ruled that geriatric Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga is unfit to stand trial but in a decision published Wednesday also said that slimmed down legal proceedings in his case can continue.
“The trial chamber finds Mr. Kabuga is no longer capable of meaningful participation in his trial,” a decision published on the court’s website said.
However, instead of halting the trial the judges said they would set up an “alternative finding procedure that resembles a trial as closely as possible, but without the possibility of a conviction.”


Dozens of wildfires in Canada remain out of control as Quebec orders more evacuations

Dozens of wildfires in Canada remain out of control as Quebec orders more evacuations
Updated 07 June 2023

Dozens of wildfires in Canada remain out of control as Quebec orders more evacuations

Dozens of wildfires in Canada remain out of control as Quebec orders more evacuations
  • More than 150 forest fires burning in the province on Tuesday, including more than 110 deemed out of control

MONTREAL: Northern Quebec’s largest town was being evacuated on Tuesday as firefighters worked to beat back threats from out-of-control blazes in remote communities in the northern and northwestern parts of the province.
According to the province’s forest fire prevention agency, more than 150 forest fires were burning in the province on Tuesday, including more than 110 deemed out of control. The intense Canadian wildfires are blanketing the northeastern US and parts of Eastern Canada in a haze, turning the air acrid, the sky yellowish gray and prompting warnings for vulnerable populations to stay inside.
The effects of hundreds of wildfires burning in Quebec could be felt as far away as New York City and New England, blotting out skylines and irritating throats.
Late Tuesday, authorities issued an evacuation order for Chibougamau, Quebec, a town of about 7,500 in the remote region of the province. Authorities said the evacuation was underway and promised more details Wednesday.
“We’re following all of this from hour to hour, obviously,” Premier François Legault told reporters in Sept-Îles, Quebec. “If we look at the situation in Quebec as a whole, there are several places where it is still worrying.”
Legault said the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region in northwestern Quebec is an area of particular concern, with the communities of Normétal and Lebel-sur-Quévillon under threat.
The mayor of Lebel-sur-Quévillon, where about 2,100 people were forced from their homes on the weekend, said the fire is about 10 kilometers outside of town, but its advance has been slower than expected.
“The fire started in an area where there were no trees, which slowed it down considerably,” Mayor Guy Lafrenière said.
Other northern communities at risk include Chibougamau the Cree village of Chisasibi on the eastern shore of James Bay. Firefighting resources have also been dispatched to Hydro-Québec’s Micoua substation near Baie-Comeau, Legault said.
On Monday, Legault said authorities had no choice but to leave the hamlet of Clova to burn, drawing the ire of local residents. Legault said Tuesday that he had simply repeated what fire prevention officials told him: the fire around the tiny community about 325 kilometers northwest of Montreal was too intense to send water bombers. That remained true Tuesday, he said, but he noted that no homes had burned.
Dominic Vincent, the owner of the Auberge Restaurant Clova, said that by Monday afternoon, the situation in the area had already improved, aided by cooler temperatures and a change in wind direction. While smoke remained visible, it was far less intense, he said.
Quebec Natural Resources Minister Maïté Blanchette Vézina told reporters in Quebec City that evacuees across the province number just over 8,300, down from 10,000 to start the week, but the Abitibi region remains a concern.
“We are not expecting rain in the short term, which is what makes it more difficult to fight fires,” Blanchette Vézina said.