The judge said, “The convict has confessionally confirmed the occurrence of the offence, as well, his written statements also confirmed. By these two confessional statements, the court passed the judgement. On that fateful day, the convict took late Fatima to his room and for about 40 minutes, he raped her which led to her death, after the establishment of all the evidence of committing the crime,” Vanguard quoted him as saying.
He further stated that the convict has the right to appeal the judgement within the next 90 days.
Reacting on the judgement, Father of the victim, Malam Zakariya Ya’u Dahiru, expressed happiness over the decision.
Police Crackdown After Kerala Sees
120% Rise In Online Child Sex Abuse
Kerala: "There has been a 120 per cent increase in child sexual abuse material online during the lockdown period in the state,"
by Sneha Mary Koshy
Thiruvananthapuram:
As part of a covert operation to crack down against online child sexual abuse material or CSAM, the Kerala Police have arrested 47 people, including young professionals in the state. In total, 89 cases have been filed as part of the raids on Saturday.
"There has been a 120 per cent increase in child sexual abuse material online during the lockdown period in the state," Additional Director General of Police Manoj Abraham told NDTV.
"Operation P-Hunt_20.1" involved inter-district and inter-department coordination among senior police officers after 117 locations were identified based on an analysis by the Kerala Police's Countering Child Sexual Exploitation or CCSE team of the Cyberdome.
"Abuse of children locked up in their homes is evident from the pictures and videos being uploaded and shared during this period... Many obscene pictures, videos inside houses and flats have been uploaded in recent times, which clearly show that most of the pictures have been taken and uploaded in the said period," Mr Abraham said.
"Besides, based on the content, background and language used, it appears that there is CSAM that has been recorded locally," Mr Abraham told NDTV.
This worrying trend is seen across the country, police officers have said.
In Kerala, a dedicated team of the Cyberdome works in close contact with the Interpol's Crimes Against Children Unit and the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.
IP addresses were collected using special software and people were tracked with different tools, which also help in location identification, after directions from the state police chief Loknath Behera. The simultaneous raids under the operational supervision of Inspector General S Sreejith involved district police chiefs.
"These are very sensitive cases, involving children. Even parents might not be aware. We will be conducting confidential inquiries involving child line and a few others and focus on rescue, where needed," Mr Abraham added.
Police bid to reinstate child sex abuse charges
against Aussie circus operators fails
A decision to withdraw more than 100 charges alleging child sex crimes by members of a Blue Mountains circus school will stand, after a request by NSW Police to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions was rejected.
Therese Ann Cook, 58, her brother Paul Christopher Cook, 52, Clarissa Meredith, 23 and Yyani Cook-Williams, 29, were among seven people charged in 2018 for the alleged sexual abuse of three young boys at The Arcade Circus at Katoomba over a two-year period.
Arcade Circus's Therese Ann Cook and Yyani Cook-Williams. CREDIT:FACEBOOK
A 17-year-old girl, an 18-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman were also taken into custody over the alleged child sex offences. All pleaded not guilty in 2018 and have maintained their innocence.
In February, the DPP sensationally withdrew 126 offences against all seven people at Penrith Local Court, prompting an urgent call for a review by the police. The DPP did not give reasons for dropping the charges.
At the time a police spokeswoman said
it was "the strong recommendation of the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad that the matters proceed before the court".
On Monday, the Herald confirmed the DPP conducted the review and rejected the request by police to reinstate the charges.
Police had originally alleged the group subjected the young victims to sexual assault and kidnapping, and other acts involving defecation and blood.
All three alleged victims were under the age of eight and were allegedly made to abuse each other and to appear in child abuse material. Police had also alleged they were cut with knives, their tongues were bitten and needles were stuck in their eyes.
The charges were the result of almost 40 hours of interviews between the children and investigators.
Therese Cook as Madam Green. CREDIT:DAVID HILL
Defence lawyer for the accused Bryan Wrench said the decision by the DPP was "vindication" for his clients.
"The police should not have to be told twice that there is no case."
Mr Wrench has previously described the case as "a total concoction" against his clients who were "totally innocent", and he said there were inconsistencies in the case.
Both NSW Police and the DPP declined to comment.
The previously accused adults spent 206 days in custody over the charges before they were granted bail.
During their application for release the court was given medical advice that claimed the "impossibility and implausibility" of some of the alleged physical offences, suggesting no evidence of injury could be found on the boys.
Last year it also emerged that
a "record" of a conversation had allegedly been kept by the mother of one of the alleged victims, describing an admission from the child that he had been "lying about the whole thing".
The Arcade Circus was first launched in 2009 by Ms Cook. In an online profile she described herself as having been "tragically lost from the back of a travelling circus truck shortly after birth".
Inquiry hears of “appalling and degrading abuse” suffered by children in care of Lambeth council
By Grainne Cuffe, Local Democracy Reporter
Town hall officials whose job was to defend children instead dismissed reports of child abuse as “fantasy” and described the children who spoke up as “sexual deviants”, an inquiry into historical abuse cases heard.
Hundreds of children in Lambeth council’s care were subjected to prolonged sexual, racial, and physical abuse over the course of several decades, from the 1930s to the 1990s,
An inquiry into the “horrifying national scandal” heard that already vulnerable children were targeted by paedophiles working at children’s homes controlled by the council.
There were allegations of the filming of sexual abuse against children, the inquiry heard. Some of the abuse is alleged to have been filmed in council buildings, including at the town hall. Despite the widespread abuse, the authorities failed to look into allegations at the time.
Convicted sex offender
Michael John Carroll was allowed to continue working with children even after his record was brought to light, the inquiry heard. He was instead dismissed years later for “financial irregularities”.
The four-week public hearing, which began on Monday, is part of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). It will investigate the scale and nature of sexual abuse experienced by children in Lambeth over many decades, and examine the extent of any institutional failures to protect children.
It will look at five of Lambeth’s children’s homes, including the notorious
Shirley Oaks, the council’s oldest and largest residential care home, with up to 350 children aged two to 17 living there until its closure in 1983.
The inquiry heard from victims’ counsels on Tuesday, who laid bare the “appalling and degrading” abuse the survivors suffered and how it “blighted” the rest of their lives.
It heard that
Lambeth officials would dismiss children’s telling of abuse as “pure fantasy”.
Sam Jacobs, representing one complainant, said:
“Evidently, as far as management at Lambeth council were concerned, it was children who were the sexual deviants.”
Stephen Simblet, representing one of the victims, said there were allegations of filming of abuse.
“There are allegations that council contractors had corrupt relationships with council officers, of secret societies, secret paedophile rings, the production and distribution of filmed sexual assaults on Lambeth children in care, with some of them being filmed in council buildings, even the town hall, it is said.
“These were said to involve prominent politicians, councillors, businessmen and police officers. Sometimes trafficking children from Lambeth care homes and were also used in blackmail to secure contracts and influence.”
Barrister Susannah Johnson, representing
27 victims, said they were relieved the council was taking “responsibility for its failings,” and appreciated the efforts of the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association. But she said they worried that the individual wrongs they have suffered, which were repeated across decades, “might not be put right”.
She added: “Wrongs include social workers who must or ought to have seen that something was very wrong with some of the children, and yet failed to act. “The perpetration of appalling abuse by identified and as yet unidentified abusers.”
Ms Johnson said some, such as Leslie Paul, were doing so “not only for their own gratification, but for commercial gain”.
One victim was at Shirley Oaks in the early 1970s when
she was under five years old.
Ms Johnson said:
“She recalls as a very young child, she was repeatedly hit by adults around her on the head and legs, repeatedly told by the house mother that she was nothing, wanted by nobody, was bad and a bastard child, unloved and unwanted.”
Ms Johnson said
this treatment was common among victims and the “ideal environment for paedophiles”.
She said children from black and minority ethnic backgrounds were racially and sexually abused.
“One core participant was told that most children of mixed parentage ended up in care and that races were not supposed to mix,” she said.
The inquiry heard complaints from children were ignored or they were dismissed as liars.
It heard one survivor, abused by Leslie Hall, agreed to be interviewed by Lambeth about what had happened much later. Ms Johnson added:
“She told them what had happened and believed she was being listened to. But weeks later she received a warning in writing that she would be taken to court for slander if she ever repeated the allegations again.”
She said the conditions under which children suffered “appalling and degrading abuse” caused them long-term harm. “They want to know why these paedophiles were able to continue as they did and flourish,” Ms Johnson said, and why those meant to protect them failed to do so.
She said:
“What happened to these children has parallels in the 18th and 19th centuries, when we had slavery and child labour.
“These children in Lambeth were penned or contained rather than properly homed. They were kept in ignorance rather than being properly educated, abused and neglected rather than being nurtured and cared for, ignored rather than listened to, treated as less than human.
“It’s a scandal and a source of shame that this could have happened,” she said, adding that to prevent this from happening again, a different approach is required.
Iain O’Donnell, representing seven complainants, said the inquiry will hear evidence of how a paedophile ring “effectively infiltrated” Lambeth’s children’s homes from the 1960s, “if not earlier,” where they preyed upon children for decades.
He said:
“You will hear equally serious evidence suggesting those in positions of power in Lambeth council were aware of the horrific sexual assaults being inflicted on the children in its care.
“They either turned a blind eye or took back-handed payments to bury documentary evidence and ship many of those children off to far flung locations across the country so Lambeth could forget what it had done to them.”
Mr O’Donnell said Lambeth was “corrupt to its core,” with many employees aware of how the abuse had continued.
The inquiry heard that
an assistant director at the council continuously overruled an investigation into a foster carer who was abusing very young children, including a baby.
Imran Khan QC, representing some complainants, held a moment of silence for the victims.
He said
“no place was safe” for the children in Lambeth’s care at the time, who described where they lived as a “hell house”, and that the authorities’ failure to act was “not the result of incompetence or individual neglect, but it was – more likely than not – corruption”.
Mr Khan said
racism “was woven into Lambeth council”.
He said: “It matters not a jot whether Lambeth council or indeed any other institution now publicly announces that it stands in solidarity with Black Lives Matter or that it is now no longer institutionally racist, because the test of whether you are or not, or whether you support the Black Lives Matter movement comes not from what is said, vague platitudes in public relations announcements, but in your action and conduct, for example properly compensating all black victims and survivors in Lambeth for the abuse and racism they suffered as children.
“We must not lose sight of the fact that we have lost a generation of highly intelligent, hardworking, and resilient individuals, because of the abuse they suffered. We have heard accounts from our children as to how they wanted to be pilots, nurses, doctors, teachers and lawyers, but because of the abuse they suffered, those dreams were shattered. The state institutions were collectively responsible for that.”
Lambeth has paid out over £46 million in compensation to more 1,300 victims through its ‘Redress Scheme’. The council said: “We are truly sorry for what happened to children in our care in the past and the consequences for their adult lives.”
David Enright, speaking on behalf of former leader of the council Steven Whaley, told the inquiry: “He has been troubled by the events that took place in Lambeth in the 1980s and 1990s for many years. “Mr Whaley hopes this inquiry will ensure councils learn the lessons from the past to improve the lives of children now and in the future.”
Gerry Boyle QC, speaking on behalf of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), said: “The IOPC will continue to carefully regard the incredibly important work of this Inquiry as it progresses over the next month.”
The inquiry continues.
Pakistan: Gujranwala man sells wife
one day after marriage for Dh6,600
The woman who was sold in Lahore managed to escape after three weeks
Falah Gulzar, Social Media Reporter, Gulf News
A day after their wedding, promising her a trip to Lahore, a man named Usman from Pakistan’s Gujranwala city sold his wife for an amount equivalent to Dh6,600 (1800 USD).
The incident came to light recently through
local media reports after the unidentified woman escaped her buyers and informed the police. The woman escaped after three weeks of staying with the buyers Usman sold her to, Pakistani media outlets reported.
Police said that Usman took his wife to Lahore saying that he was taking her for a tour of the city. However, on arrival, he handed his bride over to the buyers. Further investigations are underway.
While details are unclear, it was reported that she found an opportunity and fled Lahore, back to Gujranwala, to her parent’s home. Upon reaching her home, she managed to tell the police that her husband sold her for an amount equivalent to Dh6,600.
The local deputy superintendent of police said that a case will be registered after a medical checkup is conducted and upon the victim’s request.
Sharing a news report about the incident, Twitter user @wahabspeak used hashtags to advocate for human rights in the country and wrote:
"#Humanity #HumanRights - Man from Gujranwala sells his wife after just one day of their marriage for Rs.Three Lakhs."
Video of three men sexually assaulting Syrian boy
causes outrage in Lebanon
Samir Salama, Associate Editor
Abu Dhabi:
A video of three men sexually assaulting a 13-year-old Syrian boy in Lebanon has gone viral on social media and caused outrage in the country.
The video showed the three young men kidnapping the boy and beating him, before forcing him to engage in sexual acts with them, with rumours also accusing the trio of raping the child.
The boy is seen trying to escape several times in the video.
Boy in the green shirt as he was trying to escape
According to Lebanese media, the incident occurred in the town of Sohmor, Western Bekaa.
One of the men was identified on social media and was forced to deactivate his Facebook account after his profile was circulated, with reports confirming a number of threats made against him.
Twitter users demanded the most severe punishment for the three young men, with some even suggesting the death penalty on them.
Multiple assaults
The boy’s mother told An-Nahar Lebanese newspaper she did not know about the incident, and when she asked her son, he said that
he was subjected to this several times in the past two years.
“Yesterday, my brother-in-law showed me the tragedy after it spread online. I couldn’t bare seeing my child suffer,” she said.
When she asked him about what he went through,
“he said he was raped by seven men in the juice shop. They’re all relatives and from the town of Sohmor.”
“Once, one of them held him while the other one raped him,” said the mother, citing what her son told her.
The boy also said that
he was psychologically and physically tortured, in addition to being threatened not to share what happened with anyone.
Celebrities react
The mother called on children's rights organisations to take up her son’s case and called on the state to implement justice and arrest all those involved.
Kinda Alloush, a Syrian actress, said on Twitter that the crime was terrifying and painful to the extreme. “It should not be tolerated. A salute to every free person who defends this issue far from any nationalist, sectarian sentiments,” she tweeted.
Alloush added,
“Lord, have mercy on us from these models of human monsters, their diseases and filth, and inflict the most severe punishment on them.”
Neshan Der Haroutiounian, a Lebanese-Armenian television presenter, tweeted, “The situation is miserable. Yeah. The times are suffocating. And there, on the land of this country, a Syrian child was raped. Photos of the aggressors were published.”
He called for bringing the offenders to justice, because
“the realisation of the right is a duty.”
Lebanese singer and actress Cyrine Abdelnour said offenders of such heinous crime must rot in jail. “May God punish them, they are without conscience,” she tweeted.
Stigma
Local media reported that
the Syrian boy worked in a juice shop and that his Lebanese mother, who is divorced from his Syrian father, owns a vegetable shop.
Pictures allegedly showing the suspects were shared online by social media activists and users, who called on the Lebanese authorities to bring them to justice and punish them.
In an interview with Lebanese television MTV, the head of the Union for the Protection of Juveniles in Lebanon, Amira Sukkar, said that legal action was taken.
“We reported the incident to the police and spoke to the Public Prosecution and began the investigations,” Sukkar said.
“The boy feels some kind of stigma now, he feels like he’s guilty of this crime.”
Joe Maalouf, a representative of the Union told Syria TV that the Lebanese judiciary identified the suspects and began an investigation.
Lebanon, a country of 4.5 million people, says it hosts 1.5 million Syrians, including nearly a million refugees registered with the United Nations. They are frequently subjected to harassment and detention by Lebanese security forces on various pretexts and suffer harsh living conditions.
Lebanese authorities have recently placed increasing pressure on Syrians in the country to return to Syria, saying that it is safe for them to do so.
The United Nations has consistently warned that conditions in the war-ravaged country are not suitable for such returns.
There have been reports of returning refugees being detained, conscripted into the army, or even killed by the Assad regime forces in Syria.
UN suspends two observers in Israel after
viral video of sex in official car
Peacekeepers from the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation (UNTSO) look over the
border between Israel and Syria (FILE PHOTO, July 17, 2018.) © REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Two employees of the United Nations mission in Israel have been suspended without pay after a viral video showed a sex act in their official vehicle, as it drove down a major street in Tel Aviv.
The two men were identified as
staff members of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), a military observer mission in Israel, and were placed on unpaid leave on Thursday.
The 18-second video shows a man in a white uniform, in the back seat of the marked UN vehicle, being straddled by a woman wearing a red dress as another man looks on from the front seat.
The incident took place on
HaYarkon Street, on Tel Aviv’s waterfront. It began making rounds online at the end of June, prompting the UN to open a probe.
The suspensions were appropriate “given the seriousness of the allegations of failing to observe the standards of conduct expected of international civil servants,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, told the BBC on Thursday.
The UNTSO has “re-engaged in a robust awareness-raising campaign to remind its personnel of their obligations to the UN Code of Conduct,” he added. When the video originally emerged, Dujarric told reporters he was “shocked and deeply disturbed” by it.
Reports in Israeli media identified
one of the men involved as an officer from Trinidad. The UN has neither confirmed nor denied this.
A UN report on sexual misconduct lists 175 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse against UN staff members in 2019. Of those, 16 were confirmed, 15 were unsubstantiated, and 144 remain under investigation.
UNTSO was originally established in 1948, to monitor the ceasefire between the newly declared state of Israel and its Arab neighbors. It has somehow remained around even after two major wars in 1967 and 1973 rendered that armistice moot.
It's questionable as to what good UNTSO is doing, but, at least they seem to be having fun.
Documents state that from 1976 to 1979, when they lived together in Sleepy Hollow, New York, Savage, now 52, "would repeatedly rape Miranda Pacchiana and force oral sex upon her, and forced Miranda to perform oral sex on him, along with other forms of sexual abuse."
