An Australian man working for the Theiss construction company in Indonesia has been sentenced to 10 months in jail for possession of the drug shabu shabu, a form of crystal methamphetamine.

The 45-year-old Queenslander, John Michael Kelly, was arrested in September at Sangata on the island of Borneo.

The court found Kelly guilty of possession of half a gram of shabu shabu.

Police had told the court he was arrested at a hotel room, along with an Indonesian girlfriend, in possession of half a gram of the drug and equipment to smoke it.

The judge ordered that three months already served in prison be taken into account, meaning he will serve another seven months.

Kelly's Indonesian lawyer told the ABC that the sentence was considered light and that an appeal is unlikely.

TONY EASTLEY: As Australian terror suspect David Hicks begins his fifth year in detention at Guantanamo Bay, his Australian lawyer's latest attempt to travel to Cuba has been rejected.

David McLeod says the Government isn't providing enough legal aid funding to adequately represent Mr Hicks, and the latest refusal for legal aid is just another in a long list of basic rights that Mr Hicks has failed to receive since his capture in 2001.

Krista Eleftheriou reports.

KRISTA ELEFTHERIOU: For four years David Hicks has spent 23 hours each day in a prison cell. In that time he's been permitted to see his father Terry Hicks once and speak to him on three other occasions - the last time on Christmas Eve.

TERRY HICKS: He was pretty down, but after speaking for 38 minutes his spirits were up.

KRISTA ELEFTHERIOU: David Hicks has been charged under US law with conspiracy, attempted murder and aiding the enemy, but he's yet to face the military commission.

The British High Court last month found he had a right to British citizenship.

His lawyers hoped it would force that government to call for his release from Guantanamo Bay, as it did for nine of its citizens once held at the prison.

But the British Government is appealing the court's decision.

  • Click Here for Complete Story
  • New Guantanamo prison not 'sign of permanency'
  • Hicks Speaks to Father & is concerned about UK appeal
  • David Hicks Wins U.K. Citizenship
  • Govt should feel embarrassed over Hicks: lawyer
  • Father of Australian Guantanamo detainee welcomes British decision
  • Australia may not welcome British citizen Hicks back home
  • PM blames Hicks' lawyers for case delay
  • Aussie Taliban offered prostitutes for information: ex-chaplain
  • Hicks's jail time 'would not count toward sentence'
  • Hicks's jail time should count: Downer

    • Australia-Indonesia treaty 'ready'

AUSTRALIA and Indonesia are poised to sign a landmark security treaty, according to Indonesian government sources.

The wide-ranging pact encompassed not only counter-terrorism, intelligence and military cooperation but social, humanitarian and joint political concerns.

At its core was a commitment from Australia not to intervene in Indonesia's internal affairs or undermine its territorial integrity.

This has been the year of living dangerously for young Australians overseas. First Schapelle Corby, then the Bali Nine. Then Michelle Leslie and finally Tuong Van Nguyen.

The inevitable media circus inflated their stories into national soap operas, almost like real-life episodes of Law and Order. Sadly, once the story ends the circus moves on. Apart from a brief burst of publicity about a photograph, we’ve heard very little about Schapelle Corby recently.

Unfortunately, the day-to-day grind of serving a lengthy prison sentence isn’t very newsworthy. Van Nguyen also will fade from media attention fairly quickly.

The powerful emotions swirling around these cases have clouded a few realities. Other countries in our region have very different laws and judicial processes from ours. They don’t like giving special treatment to foreign offenders, particularly those from Western countries.

It isn’t that long ago that Singapore and Indonesia were colonies, with their people treated as second class citizens by Europeans. It’s hardly surprising that they resent being heavied by Australia about their punishment of convicted offenders.

The message from all these cases is very clear. Don’t expect Australian laws and judicial processes in other countries. In some situations, like Schapelle Corby and Van Nguyen, the punishment may be out of all proportion to the crime.

The fact that alleged offenders are Australian does not mean they are innocent, or entitled to lenient treatment. And no Australian government can easily change the outcomes of other countries’ judicial processes.

  • Click Here for Complete Story

    • Australian on murder charge seeks bail
An Australian cardiologist committed to stand trial in Uganda over his wife's murder is again seeking bail.

Dr Aggrey Kiyingi has applied to the Ugandan High Court for bail on the grounds of poor health.

Through his lawyer Mubiru Nsubuga, Kiyingi told Justice Remmy Kasule he suffered high blood pressure, backache and that at 51 years of age he could not cope with prison conditions.

He said that it was his constitutional right to be granted bail, adding he was a man of dignity with a lot of property in Uganda and so could not flee.

Justice Kasule said he would rule on the bail application on January 18.

  • Click Here for Complete Story

    • Eight drug smugglers face death
The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court sentenced Friday eight people to death and nine others to life terms for smuggling 78 kg of heroin in what is considered the largest drugs case in southern Vietnam.

Mastermind Tran Xuan Ha, a 24-year-old college student, and some of his relatives got the death penalty.

Three others got 20 years each while a dozen others got jail terms ranging from 5 to 20 years.

The court also fined the traffickers between US$312 and 31,250 after a weeklong trial.

A KUWAITI court has sentenced an Australian man to four years' jail for terrorist-related offences linked to bloody attacks in the country in January.

Talaal Adree, 30, from Auburn in Sydney's west, was among 37 Islamists on trial as members of the "Peninsula Lions" group believed to be linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda in Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Six of the suspected militants were sentenced to death.

Among those on trial were 25 Kuwaitis, seven stateless Arabs, two Jordanians, a Saudi, and a Somali.

Other suspects received jail terms of between four months to 15 years, and one received a life term.

  • Click Here for Complete Story
    •
  • Australian man jailed in Kuwait on terrorism charges
  • Adrey torture claims prompt protocol call
  • Six Lions sentenced to death; Harsh: Defense
  • Tallaal Sentenced to 2 years in prison.
  • Uncertainty surrounds plight of convicted terrorist
  • Tallaal Adrey Case Information.

    • Payne given nine months jail over drugs

An Indonesian court has sentenced Australian Graham Payne to nine months in prison for possessing small amounts of crystal methamphetamine and heroin.

The 21-year-old Adelaide man has been in custody since his arrest in August in Medan on Sumatra.

With time already served, Payne - who had taught English at a school in Indonesia - could be released from Medan's Tanjung Gusta Prison in April.

He was also fined one million rupiah ($A137).

TER ROR suspect David Hicks isn't confident his British citizenship will secure his release from detention at Guantanamo Bay, his father said today. The British Government said today it would appeal a British High Court ruling two weeks ago in which a judge ruled there was "no power in law" to deprive Adelaide-born Hicks of British citizenship.

Hicks, whose mother is British, has been detained by the US since his capture among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001.

Britain's Home Office said today it would appeal the High Court ruling which granted British citizenship to Hicks, a 30-year-old Muslim convert from Adelaide.

"The ruling by the courts was a disappointment. The Home Office was granted permission to make an appeal and we have done so," a Home Office spokesman said. No date has been set for the appeal.

Hicks' legal team hoped the granting of a British passport would force the UK to release him from Guantanamo Bay because Britain refuses to allow its citizens to be tried before US military commissions, saying they do not meet international standards of law.

Hicks last year pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, attempted murder and aiding the enemy at a commission hearing but it remains unknown when he will face trial.

His father, Terry Hicks, spoke to his son by telephone on Christmas Eve.

  • Click Here for Complete Story
  • David Hicks Wins U.K. Citizenship
  • Govt should feel embarrassed over Hicks: lawyer
  • Father of Australian Guantanamo detainee welcomes British decision
  • Australia may not welcome British citizen Hicks back home
  • PM blames Hicks' lawyers for case delay
  • Aussie Taliban offered prostitutes for information: ex-chaplain
  • Hicks's jail time 'would not count toward sentence'
  • Hicks's jail time should count: Downer

    • Australian sentenced to death in Vietnam

An Australian man of Vietnamese origin has been sentenced to death for trafficking heroin in southern Vietnam, a court official says.

A court official in the province of Tay Ninh says 53-year-old Trinh Huu was given the death sentence after being found guilty of trafficking around two kilograms of heroin.

He was arrested last December close to the border with Cambodia along with three Vietnamese accomplices.

The official says the accomplices have received jail terms ranging from 15 years to life.

The Australian Government says an appeal must be lodged within 15 working days.

How much is a condemned killer's life worth?
The vast majority of people would say not much.

Then there are the polar opposites - those for and those against execution.

Turn the other cheek or an eye for an eye.

So was the case of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the so-called man of peace who was executed early Wednesday for the gunshot execution slayings of four people in two robberies in Los Angeles in 1979.

The 51-year-old Williams, co-founder of the Crips gang, maintained his innocence until the very end, even though, as journalists covering the story wrote, acknowledging overwhelming evidence of guilt in the murders could have spared his life.

While some promised him a funeral "befitting a statesman" others worried about rioting in the streets by supporters of a killer who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for writing a series of books encouraging youth to stay out of gang life.

The riots never came and Williams lasted for some 15 minutes while the lethal injection procedure slowly sapped the life out of him.

California - United States authorities on Tuesday executed Stanley "Tookie" Williams, a convicted killer who was at the centre of one of biggest anti-death penalty campaigns in the United States in decades, a spokesperson for San Quentin prison said.

Williams, executed by lethal injection, was declared dead at 12:35, she added.

Several thousand people gathered outside the prison, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean south of San Francisco, raising their voices in anger when Williams' execution was announced.

"It's over, but it's not," said Reverend Jesse Jackson, one of several well known personalities who supported Williams in his quest to have his execution stayed.

"He came in without any kind of resistance, was strapped down, showed no kind of resistance whatsoever," said Los Angeles Times reporter Steve Lopez, who witnessed the execution along with nearly 40 other people, including supporters of Williams and the families of his victims.

  • Click Here for Complete Story
  • How 'Tookie' died
  • Stanley Tookie Williams Executed
  • Stanley Tookie Williams, Crips Gang Co-Founder, Is Executed
  • Images from the Williams Execution
  • Excerpts From an Interview With Stanley Tookie Williams
  • Schwarzenegger Denies Clemency for Williams
  • Calif. High Court Refuses Williams' Stay
  • Emergency Stay Sought for Tookie Williams
  • Stan 'Tookie' Williams Case Information

    • Rostam Tajik Executed Dec 10 2005

Rostam Tajik was publicly executed on 10 December in a park in the city of Esfahan, central Iran.

He had reportedly been sentenced to qisas (retribution specified by the victim's family) by Branch 9 of the General Court of Esfahan for the May 2001 murder of a woman, carried out when he was 16 years old. The sentence had reportedly been upheld by the Supreme Court.

On 9 December, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Philip Alston, called on the Iranian authorities not to proceed with the execution.

Laos (FFC) Lao military forces continue to use forced starvation as a weapon against the U.S. Secret veterans and their families in the remote mountains of Laos. Their future remains uncertain.

Since the end of November, 2005, combined Lao PDR and SRV military units continue to buildup and have surrounded the veterans of the U.S. Secret veterans and their families. By early December, 2005, as the military campaign to wipe out the defenseless people in the jungle continues, leaders in the Xaysomboune Special Zone and Borikhamxay cried out to the United States government and the United Nations for intervention. Thus far, there have been no responses from the U.S. government, or the U.N. Since mid December 2005, the Lao PDR and Vietnamese military though not chasing and and hunting the veterans and their families, have surrounded them and occupied their food sources. The Lao PDR continues using starvation as a weapon to wipe out the former French and U.S. ally trapped in the mountainous jungles of Laos.

THE US Supreme Court today stopped the planned execution of Florida death row inmate Clarence Hill after his lawyers appealed saying that the chemicals to be used were inhumane.

Hill, who had originally been due to be put to death yesterday with a lethal injection, won an 11th hour delay after his lawyers petitioned the Supreme Court arguing that his death would be cruel and inhumane under the US constitution.

A single Supreme Court justice temporarily halted yesterday's execution and this was confirmed by the full court overnight so that it could review the case.

Hill's lawyers based their argument on the combination of lethal chemicals to be used by the southern state in the execution.

AN Australian nurse held in Italy on drug smuggling charges is expected to face court next month, her lawyer has revealed.

 Carly Emma Morris, 26, from Port Elliot near Adelaide, was held by Customs officials after they allegedly caught her with 3.2kg of heroin as she crossed into the country from Switzerland.

She now faces 20 years in jail and her only option for a lighter sentence is to plead guilty in a plea bargain that could see her serve between three and five years.

Ms Morris has changed lawyers three times since she was arrested in October at Como in northern Italy after crossing the border by train.

Each lawyer has provided the same advice.

The only visitors she has had since have been lawyers and Australian consular officials.

Her mother is expected to arrive next month as the trial begins.

Her lawyer Daria Pesce said: "I have just taken up this case but I have been to see Carly in prison.

"She is very frightened and scared at the prospect of going to trial.

HUMAN RIGHTS FOR EACH PERSON REGARDLESS OF AGE, RACE, RELIGION OR POLITICS
HOME | CAMPAIGNS | PRISONERS/PRISONS | EXPERIENCES | BOOKS/PRODUCTS | HOW TO HELP | NEWS | EMAIL
NEWS ARCHIVE
China to free last high-profile Tiananmen prisoner

A Chinese paramilitary policeman stands guard at Tiananmen Square in Beijing October 1, 2005. A Chinese journalist, jailed for splashing paint over a portrait of Mao Zedong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, is due to be freed on Wednesday, his mother and a rights activist said, ahead of President Hu Jintao's visit to the United States. REUTERS/Jason Lee
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese journalist jailed for throwing paint at a portrait of Mao Zedong during the 1989 Tiananmen protests is due to be freed on Wednesday, his mother and a rights activist said, ahead of President Hu Jintao's visit to the United States.

The release of Yu Dongyue, 38, from more than 16 years in prison would leave about 70 Chinese political prisoners still serving time for their roles in the student-led demonstrations for democracy crushed by the army on June 4, 1989, the human rights watchdog Dui Hua Foundation said.

"He's the last major Tiananmen figure (to be released)," said John Kamm, chairman of the San Francisco-based foundation who helps secure the release of Chinese political prisoners.

A MAN who was accused of murder and languished in prison for 38 years after becoming lost in India's bureaucracy was reunited with his family today after finally being freed by a Supreme Court order.

Jagjivan Yadav, 70, was greeted by around 700 people as he arrived in his village in Uttar Pradesh state, but said the only member of his family he recognised was his wife.

"I can hardly recognise anyone. They say they are my relatives, but I do not remember," he said.

The only person Yadav recognised was his wife, Patto Devi.

Devi said she had thought her husband was dead, having lost touch with him after his arrest for the murder of a woman in 1968.

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - The Asia Foundation has opened Laos' first shelter to protect women and children who are victims of domestic abuse and human trafficking, the nonprofit organization said Thursday.
The shelter, a walled compound on the outskirts of the capital, Vientiane, was built on land donated by the government, the San Francisco-based foundation said in a statement. The facility provides trained counselors and can house up to 50 women and children.

"Until now, women who found themselves in violent situations had to return home at night," said Gretchen Kunze of the Asia Foundation.

"This is a huge step forward for Laos," she said, contacted in Vientiane ahead of a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the shelter to be attended by Laotian officials.
  • Click Here for Complete Story

    • Drug accused clears Corby

HOLIDAY snap ... Malcolm McCauley and Schapelle Corby in the Bali jail.
CONVICTED drug smuggler Schapelle Corby has been cleared of any link to the Adelaide man facing drug charges with whom she was photographed in Bali's Kerobokan Prison.

Breaking his silence, the man in the controversial photos Malcolm McCauley, 60 said he had visited Corby twice last year in Bali, but only as a tourist offering support during her trial.

"A mate and I were in Bali, and we thought we'd go have a looksee in court," Mr McCauley said at his Adelaide home yesterday. "She's high profile, and she's an Aussie, that's why we and a lot of others were interested in it.

"Her sister and mother thanked us for being there, like they were doing with a lot of groups."

Mr McCauley said the first time he met Corby, 28, was at her court hearing in May. Corby's mother introduced him while she was in the holding cell at the court before inviting him to visit Corby in Kerobokan Prison the following day.

  • Click Here for Complete Story
  • Drug smuggler suspect mum on photos
  • Corby's mum to hand-deliver photos
  • Corby mum denies knowing drug suspect
  • Australian police evaluate new photographs of Schapelle Corby
  • Urgent Appeal for Photos/Photos have been examined
  • Schapelle Supporter hits back!
  • No Qantas-Corby link, says Keelty
  • Corby's mum has message for Leslie
  • November 24, 2005 Update from Mercedes Corby
  • Schapelle's cell conditions worsen
  • Schapelle Update 07 Nov 2005
  • Corby's lawyers to offer new evidence

    • Hicks denied access to Australian lawyer


Armed officers keep tight security in Singapores
Singapore police said Thursday they had arrested 13 foreigners – including British, American, Japanese, Thai and Malaysian nationals – and a Singaporean for drug offences.

Singapore's Central Narcotics Bureau said in a statement on its Web site that it had arrested a total of 14 people in a series of raids on Tuesday.

It said the raids uncovered drugs, including cocaine and cannabis, with a total street value of over S$9,400 (US$5,575).

Singapore has some of the world's toughest laws against drugs. Last week, a 25-year-old Australian drug trafficker was executed in Singapore, sparking protests in Australia against the death penalty.

  • Click Here for Complete Story
  • Briton charged with cocaine trafficking in Singapore
  • Expat junkies, dealer, get their fix then fall into net
  • British gems expert linked to wrong sort of ring

    • Boy, 13, held at Moscow airport had drugs in tummy

MOSCOW — A 13-year-old boy was arrested at a Moscow airport yesterday after stepping off a plane from Tajikistan with 840g of heroin hidden in his stomach, Russian customs officials said.

"During a customs check, the presence of containers with drugs were identified in the young boy's stomach-intestinal tract," Russia's customs service said in a written statement.

"The boy was immediately taken to a children's hospital where doctors extracted 840g of heroin from his body," the statement added. The boy was travelling with his mother, a citizen of Tajikistan, when they were detained at Domodedovo Airport near Moscow.

The mother "admitted during questioning that she knew about the drugs" and "probably hoped customs officials could not possibly suspect a 13-year-old of such a serious and dangerous crime", the customs service said.

Officials said a 30-year-old passenger was also arrested after landing at Domodedovo on a different flight from Tajikistan and that more than two kilogrammes of heroin were found hidden in containers in his stomach.

Nguyen's body was flown back to Melbourne for burial
At least 1,000 mourners have attended the funeral in Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral of a man executed in Singapore for drug-smuggling.

Nguyen Tuong Van, an Australian of Vietnamese descent, was hanged last Friday for trafficking heroin despite strong appeals for clemency.

The 25-year-old's body was flown back to Melbourne on Sunday.

A plea for forgiveness written by Nguyen hours before his death was read out at the requiem Mass.

Fr Peter Hansen made a strong condemnation of "retribution and vengeance" in his sermon to the congregation in the Roman Catholic cathedral.

"And I say to these people if you build a world upon these so-called values of retribution and vengeance, then you will build a world in which some people will always seek to take drugs," he said.

All Australians, he told Nguyen's mother Kim as she sobbed, supported her in the face of her pain.

NGUYEN'S FUNERAL

His final words
Appeal Case Update – Syria/Germany/USA - Muhammad Haydar Zammar

Amnesty International continues to be gravely concerned over the fate of Muhammad Haydar Zammar who has been effectively "disappeared" for four years The organisation is reiterating its calls for his whereabouts to be immediately disclosed. Muhammad Haydar Zammar has been detained in Syria since the end of 2001, to where he was deported from Morocco after one or two weeks’ detention. Unconfirmed reports suggest that he may have been held in Sednaya prison on the outskirts of Damascus, at some point, after being transferred from his solitary confinement cell in the Palestine Branch (Far’ Falastin) of Military Intelligence, Damascus, in October 2004.

The United States’ security forces were reportedly involved in Muhammad Haydar Zammar’s arrest and interrogations in Morocco, where he was initially arrested, and in his secret transfer to Syria. After four years, it seems he has still not been charged with any offence but it is reported that his detention is related to his alleged links to al-Qa’ida.

Ahmad Jamal, 22, from Sydney, has been detained by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in northern Iraq, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said today.

The department was notified of his detention by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

"Consular officials in Baghdad have spoken to PUK officials and continue to press for confirmation of his detention and its legal basis," a DFAT spokesman said.

"Our efforts to date have been unsuccessful and we're following up with (Red Cross) officials to obtain further information. We're doing that through our consular official Amman in Jordan."

It was not known when the man was detained, the spokesman said.
  • Click Here for Complete Story

    • Echoes of Corby case in French prisoner's tale
    For five years she has been making daily visits to her son in Kerobokan jail, Bali, and Helene Le Touzey still cries as she tells the story of what happened to him.

As she watched a distressed Schapelle Corby prepare for court this week, the 54-year-old French woman found herself weeping again, this time for Corby's future, which reminds her so much of her son's painful past.

"There are so many similarities between the two," Ms Le Touzey said as she ran through the details of the case of her son, Michael Loic Blanc.

He was 26 when he flew from India into Denpasar on Boxing Day 1999, and put his bag through the X-ray machine, as Corby did with her boogie-board bag. Corby is 27.

When customs officers saw something suspicious, they took him to one room and the dive bag containing two scuba tanks to another, a breach of customs practice like that which Corby has complained about.

Mauritius police said Susan Dalziel, 52, would remain in jail indefinitely until authorities completed their investigation.

She was arrested along with two Mauritians last Friday after customs officials allegedly found 3.5kg of heroin in a hidden compartment of her luggage when she arrived on a flight from Nairobi.

The heroin, which was carefully packed in small sachets, has an estimated street value of $US1.3 million ($1.75 million), officials said.

The online campaign for clemency is escalating as the execution, which the Singaporean Government has set for December 2, draws near.

Australian Kay Danes, jailed with her husband in Laos in 2001 on theft charges, has gathered 940 signatures on an online petition to save Nguyen, while another has gathered 575.

Mrs Danes now runs an advocacy site for Australian prisoners held overseas, and is helping Nguyen because "everyone deserves a second chance". She said the response to the campaign had been significant.

Last year, a dozen states executed 59 prisoners, six fewer than in 2003, according to the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The report also said 125 people, including five women, who were convicted of murder received a death sentence last year. That was the smallest number since 1973.