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Soldiers seldom punished for attacks on palestinians report

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An Israeli rights group says only six percent of probes into offences allegedly committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank yield indictments.

The report came as the armed forces vowed to investigate the death of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy allegedly shot by Israeli troops during a protest yesterday against Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank.

The Yesh Din human rights group says Of a total of 1,246 investigations by the military police into suspected offences against Palestinians or Palestinian property between 2000 and 2007, only 76 ended in indictments.

A total of 132 people were charged, of whom 110 were found guilty of various offences, four were acquitted, eight indictments were annulled and the trials of 10 others are still under way.

Yesh Din legal advisor Michael Sfadi added that "The figures on the low number of investigations and the minute number of indictments filed reveal that the army is shirking its duty to protect the civilian Palestinian population from offences committed by its soldiers".

According to figures provided to Yesh Din by the army, only a few of the investigations followed complaints from within army ranks.

Sfadi says "The minute number of indictments launched following reports by commanders to military police brings to light the army’s conspiracy of silence over offences against Palestinians."

MRN-AFP

 

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Icty prosecutor to hold a press conference after Karadzic transfer

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The prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia will hold a press conference today following the transfer of Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic.

Serge Brammertz would address journalists at the tribunal’s offices. Brammertz, who succeeded Carla Del Ponte as prosecutor at the beginning of the year, has rarely faced the media.

The 63-year-old Karadzic, arrested in Belgrade on Jul 21, was transferred to the tribunal’s detention unit in The Hague this morning to face charges over atrocities committed during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, which claimed 100,000 lives.

He faces charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, notably for the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.

MRN-AFP

 

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Refugees to appear in court today

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Over 200 male refugees and asylum seekers will appear in the Krugersdorp District Court today to face charges under the Road Traffic Act after they slept on the side of the road for a week.

A police barricade was in place outside the court.

Those arrested allegedly hindered and obstructed traffic on a public road.

The group lived on the verge of the R28 between Krugersdorp and Randfontein for a week after being transferred from a shelter for xenophobia victims in Glenanda, Johannesburg to the Lindela detention
centre in Krugersdorp.

They had refused to register at the Glenanda camp, fearing that the temporary identity cards they would be given would cancel their existing immigration rights.

As a result they were taken to Lindela, a facility which detained foreigners believed to be in the country illegally, then either released or deported them.

But officials discovered that these people were in the country legally and released them to return to their South African homes.

The Department of Home Affairs had validated the documents that allowed them residence in South Africa and says that the refugees were now "on their own".
  
The immigrants stayed on the side of the road, saying they were too scared to return to their communities and would rather be repatriated.

MRN-Sapa

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