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Governor of Philippine province, 5 others killed in gun attack
By Patrick Hilsman
killed Saturday in an attack by gunmen. File Photo by Alan Jay Jacalan/Wikimedia Commons
March 4 (UPI) -- Roel Degamo, the governor of the Central Philippines province of Negros Oriental, was assassinated and five others also died Saturday in an attack by gunmen, officials said.
The attackers were dressed in full battle gear when they shot the governor several times in the town of Pamplona, regional police spokesperson Gerard Ace Pelare said in a briefing.
Negros Oriental is in the country's Central Visayas region, located about 500 miles south of Manila.
Degamo's wife, Pamplona Mayor Janice Degamo, confirmed in a social media post that five others died with in the attack while trying to help her husband and called for justice, the Manila Times reported.
Degamo's election as governor last year was complicated by the presence of a candidate, Grego Gaudia, who ran under the name "Ruel Degamo." Degamo initially lost the election to his main opponent, Pryde Henry Teves.
This should never have been allowed!
The Philippines Commission on Elections decided that the 49,039 votes that went to "Ruel Degamo" should instead be added to the 277,462 votes that the real Roel Degamo received, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
The resulting 326,501 votes surpassed the 296,897 votes received by Pryde Henry Teves, and the decision enabled Degamo to replace Teves after the latter had already spent four months in office.
His slaying brought expressions of shock from across the Philippines.
"I condemn the killing of Negros Oriental Gov. Roel Degamo," Philippines Vice President Sara Duterte, a political ally of Degamo, said in a Twitter post. "His death is a tragedy to the province of Negros Oriental, and I am one with the grieving people of the province, his friends, and his family."
Cambodia's opposition leader Kem Sokha jailed for 27 years for treason
By Paul Godfrey
Photo by Kith Serey/EPA-EFE
March 3 (UPI) -- Cambodian opposition politician Kem Sokha was ordered to serve 27 years of detainment for treason on Friday, drawing international condemnation.
The former leader of the Cambodia National Rescue Party was found guilty of conspiring with the United States to oust Hun Sen, the prime minister and president of the ruling Cambodia People's Party. He was ordered to spend 27 years on house arrest.
Sokha, who denies the charges, was also banned from running for office and voting in elections.
"It is not right, unfair and can't be accepted," Ang Oudom, one of Sokha's lawyers said after the sentencing.
Oudom said his client would appeal but suggested the ruling was politically motivated.
"It is a political case and only politicians can decide," he said.
International observers condemned the sentencing as an outrageous attempt by Sen, to silence dissent ahead of elections in July.
U.S. ambassador to Cambodia W. Patrick Murphy said the conviction was a miscarriage of justice, the culmination of a "multi-year process to silence" Sokha based on a "fabricated conspiracy."
"Denying Kem Sokha and other political figures their freedom of expression and association undermines Cambodia's constitution, international commitments, and past progress to develop as a pluralist and inclusive society," Murphy said.
"We call on authorities to allow all Cambodians to enjoy their universal human rights of peaceful assembly and free expression and to participate in building a truly democratic system."
Human Rights Watch, which said Sokha had been subject to arbitrary detention, mistreatment in custody and a ban on participating in any political activity, called on Cambodian authorities to quash what it called Sokha's "politically motivated conviction" and immediately and unconditionally release him.
"It was obvious from the start that the charges against Kem Sokha were nothing but a politically motivated ploy by Prime Minister Hun Sen to sideline Cambodia's major opposition leader and eliminate the country's democratic system," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
"Sending Kem Sokha to prison isn't just about destroying his political party, but about squashing any hope that there can be a genuine general election in July."
Calling for the "fabricated charges" to be dropped and the immediate and unconditional release of Sokha, Amnesty International said the Cambodian justice system had once again shown its "jaw-dropping lack of independence by convicting Kem Sokha on baseless, politically motivated charges."
"This verdict is an unmistakable warning to opposition groups months before national elections. The use of the courts to hound opponents of Prime Minister Hun Sen knows no limits."
The group said Sokha was one of many opposition figures who has been put through physically and psychologically taxing ordeals, a situation that would continue after Friday's unjust verdict.
"There can be no right to a fair trial when the courts have been co-opted by the heavy hand of the government," it said.
The CNRP was dissolved by the country's Supreme Court in 2017 two months after Sokha's arrest, following accusations that the party was plotting to overthrow the government ahead of elections the following year.
Sen's CPP won all 125 seats turning Cambodia at a sweep into a one-party state.
At least 39 opposition politicians are held in Cambodian prisons, according to Amnesty International.
Many more were jailed through the course of last year in mass trials that denied them the right to a fair trial.
Cambodia is already under sanctions from the European Union and the United States for human rights violations and corruption.
In 2020, the EU partially withdrew preferential tariffs on trade granted to Cambodia due to its "serious and systematic violations of human rights principles" while Washington sanctioned two senior Cambodian officials in 2021 for their involvement in serious corruption under its Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.
Swedish telecom giant Ericsson agrees to plead guilty to bribe scheme
By Adam Schrader
File Photo by Alex Plavevski/EPA-EFE
March 2 (UPI) -- Ericsson, the Swedish telecommunications giant, has agreed to plead guilty to charges in the United States for a "long-running" scheme that included paying bribes, prosecutors said Thursday.
The U.S. Justice Department said in a news release that Ericsson had breached a deferred prosecution agreement reached in 2019 to resolve violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act after a probe from the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation division.
Ericsson used consultants to bribe government officials and manage "off-the-books slush funds" in Djibouti, China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Kuwait from 2000 until 2016.
"These agents were often engaged through sham contracts and paid pursuant to false invoices, and the payments to them were improperly accounted for in Ericsson's books and records," prosecutors said.
Ericsson entered into the agreement with the Justice Department in 2019, allowing the company to evade prosecution while committing to paying more than $520 million in criminal penalties.
The company has now agreed to plead guilty to the "underlying criminal conduct" after Ericsson was found to have violated the deferred prosecution agreement, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said that Ericsson violated the agreement by failing to truthfully disclose all factual information and evidence related to the company's schemes in Djibouti and China, which hindered the United States from prosecuting certain individuals tied to the scheme.
"Ericsson will plead guilty to engaging in a long-running scheme to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by paying bribes, falsifying books and records, and failing to implement reasonable internal accounting controls in multiple countries around the world," prosecutors said in the news release.
The company has also agreed to pay a $206 million criminal penalty, the Justice Department said.
"Ericsson repeatedly failed to fully cooperate and failed to disclose evidence and allegations of misconduct in breach of the agreement," Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite Jr. said in a statement.
"As a result of these broken promises, Ericsson must plead guilty to two criminal offenses and pay an additional fine."
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100 MEPs may be involved in Qatargate corruption scandal
engulfing EU parliament, says Polish MEP
Polish MEP Dominik Tarczyński says that 100 MEPs could be embroiled in the
Qatargate corruption scandal currently engulfing the European Parliament
February 28, 2023
editor: REMIX NEWSauthor: GRZEGORZ ADAMCZYK
Former European Parliament Vice-President Eva Kaili. (Source: EP)
More and more EU politicians are getting dragged into the Qatargate bribery investigation, said Dominik Tarczyński, an MEP from Poland’s ruling conservatives, while speaking with public Polish Radio 3.
“As many as a hundred MEPs could be involved,” said Tarczyński.
The corruption scandal, which shocked Europe and made headlines across the world, has seen a number of MEPs and former EU officials land in handcuffs after Belgian police raided offices and residences, where they reportedly found €1.5 million in bribe money stuffed in papers bags and suitcases.
According to Tarczyński, Poland’s Internal Security Agency, the ABW, played a key role at the beginning of the investigation and handed over information to Belgian investigators. He also revealed that new information on the scandal has been procured as a result of revelations regarding the arrest warrant issued against MEP Eva Kaili, the former vice-president of the European Parliament.
The Polish MEP said that new names are appearing all the time and that two more MEPs have now been arrested, according to a report from Radio Szczecin. Moreover, there is now “information that Kaili received more than €10 million in total, whereas back in December, it had been reported that this figure was between half a million and 1.5 million (euros),” said Tarczyński.
The information regarding the bribes was reportedly obtained from law enforcement surveillance of Kaili’s phone calls.
Tarczyński argued that there is now a need to review the whole legislative process in the European Parliament and that all those involved in this scandal must be named. After that, there must be an investigation into who instigated the bribery plot, as many trails lead not only to Qatar and Morocco but to Russia as well.
Hungary’s PM Orbán mocks EU corruption scandal: ‘If they continue like this in Brussels, soon enough MEPs will be behind bars to form their own football team’
The Qatargate bribery scandal continues to rock Brussels, and Hungary’s conservatives are rubbing salt in the wound
“The scandal will run and run, with more names emerging and new leads too,” said Tarczyński. Given that those who were allegedly bribed by Qatar helped influence a number of key votes related to Qatar, such as on the issue of allowing Qataris visa-free travel to Europe, the Polish MEP said he thinks there will now be moves to review and overturn some past resolutions of the European Parliament. There is concern that the Qatargate bribery case was only the tip of the iceberg and that many past votes and resolutions in Europe were influenced by foreign money and outright bribery.
The present corruption scandal emerged in December 2022, which involved accusations that countries such as Qatar and Morocco had bribed MEPs to ensure political and economic decisions taken by the European Parliament went their way. A former MEP, Pier Antonio Panzeri, a key figure emerging in the scandal, has admitted that he handed over €120,000 to Belgian MEP Marco Tarabelli. Panzeri is now cooperating with the investigators in return for a reduced sentence for his role in the crimes.
The scandal has hit the socialist grouping the hardest. Eva Kaili a Greek socialist MEP who was a vice-president of the European Parliament, has lost her post and been charged with corruption.
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