sentenced - The African Mirror

Apr

2024

Russian man gets 5 years labour for street interview about Ukraine war

A Russian man was sentenced to five years' forced labour for spreading "deliberately false information" about the army in a street interview with U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in which he talked about the war in Ukraine. The sentence against Yuri Kokhovets, 39, was announced by the Moscow city courts service. RFE/RL journalists had approached him in July 2022 and asked him in a "vox pop" interview if he thought a detente between Russia and NATO countries was needed. "Of course we need (a de-escalation), but it all depends on our government. It is our government that started it all...…

Mar

2024

By BRENDAN O'BRIEN

Former Mississippi police officer sentenced to 20 years in federal assault case

WORLD

A former Mississippi law enforcement officer who was part of a group that called itself the "Goon Squad," according to prosecutors, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on U.S. civil rights charges for brutally assaulting two Black men, including shooting one in the mouth, local media reported. Hunter Elward, who pled guilty last year, was the first of six white former law enforcement officers involved to be sentenced over the next three days in a U.S. District Court in Mississippi. The men are charged with several federal crimes including deprivation of rights and obstruction of justice. "I don’t think…

Dec

2023

By SAM TOBIN

Former UK police officers sentenced for sending racist messages about Meghan, royals

WORLD

SIX former London police officers were given suspended prison sentences for sharing offensive and racist messages on WhatsApp, including references to Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and other members of the royal family. In a statement after the sentencing hearing Commander James Harman, who leads the Metropolitan Police's Anti-Corruption and Abuse Command, said "The racist and discriminatory content of these messages is absolutely appalling". "Given the defendants once served as police officers, we recognise that this case may further damage confidence in policing," Harman said. The six officers, who have all retired, were charged after an investigation by the BBC's…

Jun

2023

By JÖRN POLTZ

Audi ex-boss becomes first VW board member sentenced over diesel scandal

WORLD

FORMER Audi boss Rupert Stadler was handed a suspended sentence of one year and nine months by a Munich court on Tuesday for fraud in the 2015 diesel scandal, becoming the first former Volkswagen board member to receive such a sentence. The ex-boss was fined 1.1 million euros ($1.20 million), which will go to the state treasury and non-governmental organisations, the court said. Further ongoing cases include a criminal case against other former managers of Volkswagen taking place in Braunschweig and a case against former Volkswagen boss Martin Winterkorn on hold due to problems with his health. Stadler's sentence is in the…

Feb

2023

By The African Mirror

Nicaraguan Catholic bishop sentenced to decades in prison, citizenship stripped

WORLD

ISMAEL LOPEZ A Nicaraguan court sentenced Catholic Bishop Rolando Alvarez to more than 26 years in prison, a day after the cleric and critic of President Daniel Ortega declined to be expelled to the United States as part of a prisoner release. Alvarez, bishop of the Matagalpa diocese, was convicted of treason, undermining national integrity and spreading false news, among other charges. During Friday's court hearing, it was also announced that he would be fined and stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship. Originally scheduled for late March, the sentencing of the bishop, widely known by the Catholic honorific monsignor, was sped…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

Jacob Zuma isn’t a man with a cause. Just a wily politician trying to evade the law

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

SOUTH Africa’s Constitutional Court ruling to imprison the country’s former president, Jacob Zuma, was unprecedented. But it wasn’t unexpected. The author of the majority judgment, Justice Sisi Khampepe, captured the inevitability of the outcome somewhere in the middle the ruling, when she noted: For I am not in the habit of playing my cards close to my chest, let me, at this earliest opportunity, state that Mr Zuma has earned himself a punitive sanction of direct and unsuspended sentence. Nor was Zuma’s wrongful behaviour guided by any thought-out, long term strategy. It began as an instinctive reaction to evade accountability…