Veteran Brazil international striker Robinho on Thursday had a nine-year sentence for the rape of a young woman upheld by a court in Italy. Judges of the Milan Court of Appeal confirmed the sentence for both Robinho and one of his friends for group sexual violence dating back to January 2013. Robinho was playing for AC Milan at the time of the attack and was tried in absentia in November 2017. The pair were among a group of six men accused of taking part in the gang rape of a 22-year-old Albanian woman in a Milan nightclub. They were both ordered to jointly pay the woman damages of 60,000 euros ($ 73,000). The case against the four other accused has been suspended. Robinho, 36, who has denied the charges, has the right to again appeal the sentence within 90 days. Robinho was forced to pull...
The head of a leading Egyptian human rights group who was held for two weeks on terrorism charges said Saturday he hoped the campaign to secure his release would help others still jailed on similar Allegations. Activists saw the detention last month of Gasser Abdel Razek, executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), and two of the group’s other staff, as the latest escalation of a broad crackdown on political dissent under President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi. Egypt’s foreign ministry had said EIPR was operating illegally, an accusation the group denies. There has been no official statement from public prosecutors since Abdel Razek’s release, and officials could not be reached for comment. The arrests, which came after EIPR hosted a briefing on human rights for 13 s...
A journalist has been shot dead in crime-ridden northern Mexico, authorities said Friday, the sixth such murder this year in one of the world’s most dangerous countries for reporters. Chihuahua state governor Javier Corral condemned the “cowardly” killing of Arturo Alba Medina in Ciudad Juarez near the US border. Corral said on Twitter that he had told prosecutors to ensure the perpetrators are punished, adding: “Justice will be done.” The 49-year-old journalist and television news show host was assassinated a few minutes after the end of his program on Thursday night, according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. “This was clearly an execution and his media colleagues where he worked are afraid and don’t know the reason for the crime,” Balbina Flores, RSF representative in Mexico...
A court in Lagos throws out a case against men charged with public displays of affection with members of the same sex. A judge in a Nigerian court has thrown out a case against 47 men charged with public displays of affection with members of the same sex, ending what had widely been seen as a test of the country’s laws banning homosexual relationships. The Nigerian law banning gay marriage, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, and same-sex “amorous relationships”, prompted an international outcry when it came into force under former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014. The men were arrested in a police raid on a Lagos hotel in the city’s Egbeda district in 2018. Police said the men were being initiated into a gay club, but the defendants said they were attending a birthday party. Prosec...
French prosecutors have launched an arson investigation following a major fire at a 15th-century Gothic cathedral in the western city of Nantes on Saturday. The blaze spewed smoke from the front windows of the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, but the damage was mostly limited to the large pipe organ inside. The organ was “completely destroyed”, said the head of the local fire department, Laurent Ferlay. The public prosecutor’s office is now investigating whether arson was the cause and experts from Paris are expected to provide support. The fire broke out in three places, which is probably not a coincidence, Nantes prosecutor, Pierre Sennes, told local radio station France Bleu Loire Ocean. However, no signs of a break-in have been found so far, Sennes said, according to news agenc...
Fresh facts have emerged that the prime suspect in the gruesome murder of Gokada founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fahim Saleh, bought an electric saw and some cleaning supplies seen at the scene of the incident. Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said Closed Circuit Television showed 21-year-old Tyrese Haspil buying the electric saw suspected to have been used in the grisly murder. Manhattan prosecutors revealed the details in a criminal complaint filed against Haspil, who was arraigned on a second-degree murder charge on Saturday, according to The Wall Street Journal. The video surveillance from a hardware store showed Haspil purchasing the saw and cleaning supplies found at the seventh-floor apartment on the Lower East Side, according to the complaint. Haspil, a former personal ass...
Olalekan Ponle, a Nigerian held in the United States for alleged multi-million-dollar fraud, has been indicted by the grand jury, a group of lawyers empowered to conduct legal proceedings and investigate potential criminal conduct. Ponle, popularly known as Woodberry, alongside Ramoni Abbas, also known as Hushpuppi, was arrested in the United Arab Emirate on June 10 for multiple fraud charges after a raid by operatives of the Dubai crime unit. According to the complaint, an unnamed Chicago company was defrauded into sending wire transfers totalling $15.2 million. Companies based in Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, New York and California also were victims of the fraud, prosecutors say. Newsmen reported how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) nabbed Ponle through details accessed from his What...