ASEAN leaders tell Myanmar coup maker to end killings, resume dialogue

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Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gather in Jakarta on April 24, 2021. (Indonesian Presidential Palace photo via AFP)
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Indonesian President Joko Widodo delivering his speech at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Jakarta on on April 24, 2021. (Indonesian Presidential Palace photo via AFP)
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Updated 25 April 2021
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ASEAN leaders tell Myanmar coup maker to end killings, resume dialogue

  • Daily shootings by police and soldiers since the Feb. 1 coup have killed more than 700 mostly peaceful protesters and bystanders
  • Myanmar senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing told that a dialogue between contending parties in his country should immediately start

JAKARTA, Indonesia: Southeast Asian leaders demanded an immediate end to killings and the release of political detainees in Myanmar in an emergency summit Saturday with its top general and coup leader, Indonesia’s president said.
The leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations also told Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing during the two-hour talks in Jakarta that a dialogue between contending parties in Myanmar should immediately start, with the help of ASEAN envoys, President Joko Widodo said.
“The situation in Myanmar is unacceptable and should not continue. Violence must be stopped, democracy, stability and peace in Myanmar must be returned immediately,” Widodo said during the meeting. “The interests of the people of Myanmar must always be the priority.”
Daily shootings by police and soldiers since the Feb. 1 coup have killed more than 700 mostly peaceful protesters and bystanders, according to several independent tallies.
The messages conveyed to Min Aung Hlaing were unusually blunt and could be seen as a breach of the conservative 10-nation bloc’s bedrock principle forbidding member states from interfering in each other’s domestic affairs. But Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said that policy should not lead to inaction if a domestic situation “jeopardizes the peace, security, and stability of ASEAN and the wider region” and there is international clamor for resolute action.
“There is a tremendous expectation on the part of the international community on how ASEAN is addressing the Myanmar issue. The pressure is increasing,” Muhyiddin said, The current ASEAN chair, Brunei Prime Minister Hassanal Bolkiah, and the regional bloc’s secretary general should be allowed access to Myanmar to meet contending parties, encourage dialogue and come up with “an honest and unbiased observation,” he said.
Such a political dialogue “can only take place with the prompt and unconditional release of political detainees,” the Malaysian premier said.
A formal statement issued by ASEAN through Brunei after the summit outlined the demands made by the six heads of state and three foreign ministers in more subtle terms. It asked for the “immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar” and urged all parties to “exercise utmost restraint,” but omitted the demand voiced by Widodo and other leaders for the immediate release of political detainees. It said ASEAN would provide humanitarian aid to Myanmar.
It was not immediately clear if and how Min Aung Hlaing responded to the blunt messages.
It was the first time he traveled out of Myanmar since the coup, which was followed by the arrests of Aung San Suu Kyi and many other political leaders.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi expressed hopes on the eve of the summit that “we can reach an agreement on the next steps that can help the people of Myanmar get out of this delicate situation.”
ASEAN’s diversity, including the divergent ties of many of its members to either China or the United States, along with a bedrock policy of non-interference in each other’s domestic affairs and deciding by consensus, has hobbled the bloc’s ability to rapidly deal with crises.
Amid Western pressure, however, the regional group has struggled to take a more forceful position on issues but has kept to its non-confrontational approach.
Critics have said ASEAN’s decision to meet the coup leader was unacceptable and amounted to legitimizing the overthrow and the deadly crackdown that followed. ASEAN states agreed to meet Min Aung Hlaing but did not treat or address him as Myanmar’s head of state in the summit, a Southeast Asian diplomat told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for lack of authority to discuss the issue publicly.
The London-based rights watchdog Amnesty International urged Indonesia and other ASEAN states ahead of the summit to investigate Min Aung Hlaing over “credible allegations of responsibility for crimes against humanity in Myanmar.” As a state party to a UN convention against torture, Indonesia has a legal obligation to prosecute or extradite a suspected perpetrator on its territory, it said.
Indonesian police dispersed dozens of protesters opposing the coup and the junta leader’s visit. More than 4,300 police fanned out across the Indonesian capital to secure the meetings, held under strict safeguards amid the pandemic.
The leaders of Thailand and the Philippines skipped the summit to deal with coronavirus outbreaks back home. Laos also canceled at the last minute. The face-to-face summit is the first by ASEAN leaders in more than a year.
Aside from Myanmar, the regional bloc is made up of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

 


Italy blames badly drafted ICC warrant for Libyan suspect’s release

Updated 55 min 52 sec ago
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Italy blames badly drafted ICC warrant for Libyan suspect’s release

  • Justice Minister Carlo Nordio told parliament Wednesday that Najim had been arrested on a warrant “that I do not hesitate to define as characterised by inaccuracies “
  • Najim was freed after an appeals court refused to validate his arrest

ROME: Italy’s government shifted blame Wednesday for its much-criticized release of a Libyan war crimes suspect to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which it said had presented a poorly written arrest warrant.
Osama Almasri Najim, the head of Libya’s judicial police, was arrested in the northern Italian city of Turin on January 19 on an ICC warrant, only to be released and flown home to Tripoli two days later on an Italian air force plane.
Opposition parties have denounced the decision to free a man wanted on charges including murder, rape and torture relating to his management of Tripoli’s Mitiga detention center.
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio told parliament Wednesday that Najim had been arrested on a warrant “that I do not hesitate to define as characterised by inaccuracies, omissions, discrepancies and contradictory conclusions.”
Najim was freed after an appeals court refused to validate his arrest.
The justice minister said the court had noted discrepancies concerning dates within the arrest warrant, with crimes attributed to Najim in places dated to February 2011 and others to February 2015.
“An irreconcilable contradiction emerges regarding an essential element of the criminal conduct of the arrested person, regarding the time of the crime committed,” said Nordio, citing “patent, gross and serious contradictions” within the warrant.
The ICC six days later sent a “corrected version” of the arrest warrant, Nordio said, including the dissenting opinion of a judge who had questioned a lack of jurisdiction by the court.
AFP asked for comment from the ICC, but did not immediately receive a response.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni revealed last week that she, Nordio and Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi were under investigation over the case.
A complaint had been made to a Rome prosecutor, who passed it onto the special court that considers cases against ministers.
Elly Schlein, leader of the center-left opposition Democratic Party, said Wednesday that Italy’s “international credibility has been tarnished” by the case.
And she called again for Meloni to come to parliament herself to explain what she said was the government’s “deliberate choice... to free and escort home a Libyan torturer.”
“What kind of country do we want to be, colleagues? On the side of the tortured or on the side of the torturers?” Schlein asked in parliament.
Piantedosi spoke to MPs shortly after Nordio, where he repeated that once Najim had been released from custody, he was deemed too dangerous to remain in Italy.
He denied suggestions that Italy had bowed to pressure from Libya in repatriating Najim.
Some opposition politicians have alleged the suspect was sent home to avoid jeopardizing relations with Libya.
Italy has a controversial agreement dating from 2017 with the UN-backed Libyan government in Tripoli in which Rome provides training and funding to the Libyan coast guard for help deterring the departures of migrants, or returning those already at sea back to Libya.
“I deny in the most categorical manner that... the government received any act or communication that could even remotely be considered a form of undue pressure,” Piantedosi said.


Belgian police hunting two suspects after Brussels metro shooting

Updated 05 February 2025
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Belgian police hunting two suspects after Brussels metro shooting

  • Police initially launched a manhunt in the tunnels of the metro system
  • Broadcaster VRT said the shooting was probably drug-related and said the shooters

BRUSSELS: Belgian police were hunting two suspects on Wednesday after a shooting near the Brussels South international railway station, the city’s prosecutor’s office said.
Nobody was injured in the shooting, which happened around 6.00 am (0500 GMT), at the Clemenceau metro station in central Brussels, prosecutors said, adding there were no indications of a terrorist motive in the incident.
Police initially launched a manhunt in the tunnels of the metro system, which was partially closed after two men carrying machine guns were seen fleeing into the Clemenceau station.
Broadcaster VRT said the shooting was probably drug-related and said the shooters had aimed at one person but had missed.
VRT showed on its website images of two people walking into Clemenceau metro station in central Brussels and opening fire with automatic weapons. The station along with several others around the station were shut for hours after the incident.
Another video showed a large group of heavily armed police assembling at the Clemenceau station, as a massive search for the suspects got underway.
The incident crippled traffic on the heavily used metro system in Brussels, which hosts many European Union institutions and NATO’s headquarters.
By 2 p.m. (1300 GMT) the whole city metro system had reopened, including the stations around the Gare du Midi international train station, the arrival point for Eurostar trains from Paris and London.


Ukraine brings back 150 POWs in latest swap with Russia, Zelensky says

Updated 05 February 2025
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Ukraine brings back 150 POWs in latest swap with Russia, Zelensky says

  • “Some of the boys were held captive for more than two years,” Zelensky said

KYIV: Ukraine has brought back 150 troops from Russian captivity, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday, announcing the latest prisoner swap with Russia.
“All of them are from different sectors of the front... Some of the boys were held captive for more than two years,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.


Frenchman returns home after Indonesian death row reprieve: airport source

Updated 05 February 2025
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Frenchman returns home after Indonesian death row reprieve: airport source

  • Serge Atlaoui, 61, was to be driven from the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris to court and then on to jail
  • Atlaoui’s lawyer Richard Sedillot has said he would work to have his client’s sentence “adapted” so that the father of four could be released
Serge Atlaoui, 61, was to be driven from the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris to court and then on to jail
Atlaoui’s lawyer Richard Sedillot has said he would work to have his client’s sentence “adapted” so that the father of four could be released

BOBIGNY, France: A Frenchman reprieved after 18 years on death row in Indonesia for alleged drug offenses landed back in France on Wednesday, an airport source said.
Serge Atlaoui, 61, was to be driven from the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris to court and then on to jail, according to a source close to the case and the prosecutor’s office in the nearby town of Bobigny.
Under an agreement last month between both countries for his transfer, Jakarta has left it to the French government to grant him either clemency, amnesty or a reduced sentence.
France abolished capital punishment in 1981.
A prosecutor in Bobigny would inform Atlaoui “of his imprisonment in France in execution of his sentence,” the public prosecutor’s office there said before he landed.
He will then immediately be taken to prison, it added.
Atlaoui’s lawyer Richard Sedillot has said he would work to have his client’s sentence “adapted” so that the father of four could be released.
Atlaoui was arrested in 2005 at a factory in a Jakarta suburb where dozens of kilogrammes of drugs were discovered, with Indonesian authorities accusing him of being a “chemist.”
A welder from Metz in northeastern France, he has always denied being a drug trafficker, saying that he was installing machinery in what he thought was an acrylic factory.
Atlaoui had left Jakarta for Paris on Tuesday evening on board a KLM flight via Amsterdam.
His return was made possible after an agreement between French Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin and his Indonesian counterpart, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, on January 24.
In the agreement, Jakarta said it had decided not to execute Atlaoui and authorized his return on “humanitarian grounds” because he was ill.
Atlaoui was tight-lipped and wore a face mask at a news conference at Jakarta’s main airport, after he was driven there in a black van from the capital’s Salemba prison and handed over to French police officers.
Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws and has executed foreigners in the past.
The Southeast Asian country has in recent weeks released half a dozen high-profile detainees, including a Filipino mother on death row and the last five members of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug ring.
According to French association Ensemble contre la peine de mort (“Together Against the Death Penalty“), at least four other French citizens are on death row around the world: two in Morocco, one in China, and a woman in Algeria.

Philippine lawmakers vote to impeach VP Sara Duterte

Updated 05 February 2025
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Philippine lawmakers vote to impeach VP Sara Duterte

  • Duterte is first sitting vice president to face impeachment in Philippine history
  • Final decision to remove her from office is now with the upper house

MANILA: The Philippine House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte, following a petition signed by the majority of legislators.

House of Representatives Secretary-General Reginald Velasco told a plenary meeting of the lower house that more than two-thirds of lawmakers had endorsed a complaint seeking to remove Duterte from office.

“The total number of House members who verified and swore before me this impeachment complaint is 215 House members,” he said.

In the Philippines, an impeachment complaint requires at least one-third of support from the 306-member House of Representatives before it can be transmitted to the upper house, where the 23 senators would serve as jurors in a process that could result in Duterte’s removal from office and her lifetime disqualification from holding office.

“There is a motion to direct the secretary-general to immediately endorse to the Senate … the motion is approved. The secretary-general is so directed,” House Speaker Martin Romualdez said.

Duterte is the first sitting vice president to face impeachment in the country’s history. She has been embroiled in a row with Marcos, following the collapse of a powerful alliance between their families that brought them a landslide victory in the 2022 election.

She has faced at least four impeachment complaints by a number of legislators and activist groups over a range of issues, including a death threat that she publicly made against Marcos, his wife and the House speaker last year, betrayal of public trust, as well as misusing millions of dollars in public funds.

The daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte has consistently denied wrongdoing, describing the moves against her as a political vendetta.

She is expected to stay in office until the Senate delivers its judgment. A trial date has not yet been set.