Latest news with #hostagetaking
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Terrified': Supporters fear for prisoners trapped in Iran
As Israel presses its aerial attacks on Tehran, concern is growing over the fate of foreign nationals and Iranians seen by rights groups as political prisoners imprisoned in the capital who have no chance of fleeing to safety. Iran is believed to hold around 20 European nationals, many of whose cases have never been published, in what some Western governments describe as a strategy of hostage-taking aimed at extracting concessions from the West. Rights groups also accuse Iran of holding dozens of political prisoners whose sole offence has been to criticise the Islamic republic's clerical leadership. Most are held in Evin prison, a large, heavily fortified complex notorious among activists for rights abuses that is located in a northern district of the Iranian capital. The prisoners have no means to respond to US President Donald Trump's warning that "everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!" For Noemie Kohler, the sister of French national Cecile Kohler, who has been held along with her partner Jacques Paris since May 2022 on espionage charges their families reject, the wait is agonising. "Since May 30, we've had no news, no sign of life from Jacques and Cecile, and the French authorities haven't been able to obtain any information either," Noemie Kohler told AFP, referring to the date of their last consular visit. "We saw that at least two strikes took place about two kilometres from where they are being held (in Evin prison), so it's extremely close. We suspect they must have heard the explosions, but we have no idea how they are doing, we have no idea what level of information they have access to." - 'Imminent danger' - Their last phone contact was on May 28, when Cecile Kohler's parents spoke to her, she said, describing the mood even then as "desperate", as they "no longer believe that they are going to be released". "We don't know if conditions in the prison have deteriorated in connection with the situation. We're completely in the dark, and we're truly terrified," she said. She called for the couple's "humanitarian exfiltration", warning that "they are in imminent danger of death". French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said in May that 20 Europeans -- a higher number than the total of publicised cases -- are held in similar circumstances in Iran, including "teachers, academics, journalists, tourists". He told parliament on Wednesday that France sent messages to the Iranian and Israeli authorities "alerting them to the presence of our two compatriots in Evin prison and to the need, as far as the Iranian authorities are concerned, to release them without delay to ensure their safety". Among other Europeans known to be held in Iran is Iranian-Swedish academic Ahmadreza Djalali, who was arrested during a visit in April 2016 and sentenced to death in 2017 on charges of spying for Israel, which his family says are false. The current conflict, which has already seen one man, Esmail Fekri, executed on Monday on charges of spying for Israel, has made Djalali's situation especially precarious. Norway-based group Iran Human Rights has warned the lives of Djalali and eight other men convicted on similar charges are at risk. "The risk of execution of these individuals is serious," said its director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, adding they had all been sentenced after "an unfair, non-transparent process, and based on the orders of security institutions". - 'My dad is in prison' - Tehran residents have fled the city en masse. The 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who was serving a prison sentence but was released from Evin last year on medical leave, said she had left Tehran. But Mohammadi's fellow rights activist Reza Khandan, the husband of prize-winning rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, is still jailed in Evin. Khandan, who long campaigned for his wife while she was in jail, was himself arrested in December 2024. "My dad is in prison. Can you tell me, how can my father evacuate Tehran?" their daughter Mehraveh Khandan said in a tearful message on Instagram. The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran urged "all parties to fully comply with international humanitarian law and take immediate steps to safeguard civilians, including those in custody". It published a letter by legal activist Mahvash Seydal, seen as a political prisoner by rights groups, calling on authorities to grant detainees such as herself temporary release "to protect the lives and dignity of political prisoners". pau-sjw/ah/jhb
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Yahoo
Haiti gang leader back on trial in U.S., this time for missionaries' 2021 kidnapping
The one-time 'king' of one of Haiti's most violent criminal gang, already looking at spending 35 years in a U.S. prison for his role in a gunrunning conspiracy that funneled high-powered weapons to gang members using kidnapping proceeds, will soon learn if he will face more prison time in the United States for his alleged role in the abduction of 17 Christian missionaries, including five children. Germine Joly, better known as 'Yonyon,' who served as leader of the 400 Mawozo gang in Port-au-Prince, was sentenced last year after pleading guilty to a 48-count indictment related to weapons smuggling and money laundering. For the last week, he's been back on trial in front of the same federal judge, John D. Bates, inside a Washington, D.C., courtroom, charged with 16 counts of hostage taking. On Wednesday, closing arguments are expected in the case where federal prosecutors accuse Joly of targeting the group in order to use them as a bargaining chip to win his release from a Haitian prison, from where he conducted arms purchases and ran kidnappings and extortion rackets. The incident involves the 2021 abduction of 16 U.S. citizens and a Canadian national with Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries. Missionaries working in Haiti, the group was taken at gunpoint after returning from visiting an orphanage on the outskirts of Haiti's capital. At the time, Joly was leader of 400 Mawozo, a post he held from August 2020 through May 2022. Unfolding three months after the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, the brazen abduction thrust 400 Mawozo into the global spotlight and showed how even foreigners, long isolated from Haiti's vexing crises, were no longer immune from the violence. The gang demanded $1 million per hostage before they were eventually let go after an undisclosed ransom amount was paid. Their release was made to look like an escape by 400 Mawozo co-leader Lanmò Sanjou, aka Joseph Wilson. The decision caused a rift between Lanmò Sanjou and Joly, and temporarily weakened the gang, which has since emerged as a powerful force inside the Viv Ansanm coalition that has been wreaking havoc across Port-au-Prince. In the run-up to the trial, Joly tried to get the kidnapping charges dismissed, arguing that he was illegally extradited to the U.S. by Haitian authorities and the kidnapping accusations were not part of the extradition request. He also tried to suppress information at his trial, including his previous role in the kidnapping of several U.S. citizens in the summer of 2021, his leadership role in 400 Mawozo's kidnapping-for-guns scheme and his imprisonment in Haiti. The kidnappings, prosecutors say, were part of a conspiracy by Joly and 400 Mawozo that 'provided the gang with proceeds that they transferred to the United States in order to purchase weapons,' which the gang then used to take more hostages. As part of the scheme, prosecutors say Joly instructed Lanmò Sanjou on the gangs' hostage-taking operations, and ransoms paid to Lanmò Sanjou were eventually sent to Joly. He then directed the gang's bookkeepers on how to disburse the proceeds. Bates, who presided over Joly's previous trial, agreed to keep the jury from hearing the exact count — 48 — of Joly's previous charges. However, he declined to dismiss the case and agreed to allow the government to admit evidence related to 400 Mawozo's structure, organization and 2021 hostage takings. Bates also allowed the government to present evidence showing how Joly was the 'primary facilitator' of the gang's kidnappings-for-guns scheme: Joly not only chose which weapons that associates in Florida bought, he oversaw the purchase of at least 24 semi-automatic firearms in Florida between March and November 2021 for shipment to 400 Mawozo In the case of the missionaries, federal prosecutors contend that during the two months most of them were being held hostage, 400 Mawozo members 'made ransom demands or negotiated ransom with representatives' of the 16 Americans on at least 18 occasions. 'The gang also made repeated threats about the necessity of the ransom payments, claiming they would kill or stop feeding the hostages absent payment,' the court document says. The idea that the hostages were a bargaining chip for Joly's release from prison was also repeated throughout the two-month ordeal, prosecutors say. For example, after Joly had authorized the release of two hostages for medical reasons, he instructed the gang that 'no additional hostages would be released unless [he] was released from prison.' Joly has argued that the U.S. tricked the Haitian government into extraditing him and that its 'outrageous conduct' violated his due process. He also argued that there is no evidence that the Haitian government held a hearing or other judicial inquiry to ensure his extradition was in line with any treaty with the U.S. U.S. authorities said Joly wasn't extradited under a treaty and instead was transferred by Haitian authorities through 'deportation expulsion, or any other lawful means.'
