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But Robinson still has to go to court again for another hearing, where he could still be found guilty of contempt of court, which would be in breach of his suspended sentence that still stands, for doing the same thing previously.
Tommy Robinson has been freed from prison on bail after judges quashed findings that he committed contempt of court in Leeds.
But the Court of Appeal dismissed the far-right figure’s case against another incident in Canterbury and ordered him to attend a new hearing where he could be jailed again.
Lord Burnett said the court was allowing his appeal only “in respect of the committal for contempt at Leeds Crown Court” and granted Robinson bail ahead of a hearing to take place at the Old Bailey in London.
Supporters who had gathered outside the Royal Courts of Justice cheered as news of the judgment came through, as counter-demonstrators shouted “Nazi scum, off our streets” through a megaphone.
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was released from HMP Onley later on Wednesday.
“I have a lot to say, but not to you,” he told journalists while flanked by two men carrying his luggage, before being driven away.
High-profile backers including the Ukip leader Gerard Batten, Dutch opposition leader Geert Wilders and the former Breitbart London editor Raheem Kassam hailed the verdict as a victory for “freedom of speech”.
But judges did not say Robinson had not committed contempt of court, and accused him of delaying the appeals “for tactical reasons and collateral advantage”.
They dismissed calls to quash findings that he committed contempt at Canterbury Crown Court in May 2017, saying criticism by Robinson’s legal team “had no substance”.
Robinson was handed a three-month suspended sentence for trying to film defendants inside the court during jury deliberations, after being told to stop and warned filming was against the law.
But Lord Burnett, Mr Justice Turner and Mrs Justice McGowan found that procedural failings by a judge who later jailed Robinson for 13 months at Leeds Crown Court “gave rise to unfairness” and meant proceedings were “fundamentally flawed”.
The Court of Appeal previously heard that footage of Robinson discussing the ongoing case caused jury deliberations to be paused, sparking an attempt by defence lawyers to have the case dismissed.
Judges found that while Geoffrey Marson QC was right to bring Robinson before him to have the video deleted and protect jury deliberations, the case was dealt with too fast and did not follow criminal procedure rules.
“There was no clarity about what parts of the video were relied upon as amounting to contempt, what parts the appellant accepted through his counsel amounted to contempt and for what conduct he was sentenced,” the judgment said.
“Whilst the judge was entitled to deal with the contempt himself, the urgency went out of the matter when the appellant agreed to take down the video from Facebook. There should have been an adjournment to enable the particulars of contempt to be properly formulated and for a hearing at a more measured pace, as had happened in Canterbury.”
They ordered the matter to be heard again at the Old Bailey “as soon as reasonably possible”, and bailed Robinson on the condition he attends the new hearing and does not go within 400m of Leeds Crown Court. More here.
Ankara for years has been providing support to Hamas, Iran, ISIS, al Queda and Libya jihadists, yet it’s this incredibly stupid decision to hold an American hostage that has ultimately earned Turkey its first US sanctions.
The U.S. has prepared a list of Turkish entities and individuals to target should it decide to impose sanctions on Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government for imprisoning U.S. citizens and employees of its diplomatic mission, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
The lira slid.
While negotiations to release one of the people, evangelical Pastor Andrew Brunson, are ongoing, the preparation of the so-called “designation packages” shows how close the U.S. has come to imposing unprecedented penalties against a NATO ally. The sanctions are modeled on those against the Russian government and oligarchs close to President Vladimir Putin, the people said, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The U.S. has extended deadlines this week to release Brunson or face sanctions, according to Turkish and U.S. officials familiar with the talks. The people and entities determined in the designation packages would need to be approved by the Treasury secretary and secretary of state.
The sanctions are being prepared under the Global Magnitsky Act of 2016, which allows the U.S. government to target individuals, companies or other entities involved in corruption or human-rights abuses anywhere in the world. Sanctions under the act allow for the seizure of assets in the U.S., travel bans and prohibitions on doing business with U.S. entities.
Lira Plunges
Turkey’s lira plunged to a record low of 4.9985 after Bloomberg News reported the possible sanctions, extending its decline to 4.5 percent since July 26, when Vice President Mike Pence threatened sanctions over the Brunson case. Yields on Turkey’s 10-year debt hit a record 18.86 percent on Tuesday. The Borsa Istanbul 100 index has lost 36 percent in dollar-adjusted terms this year, the second-worst performance in the world after Venezuela.
A U.S. Treasury spokesman didn’t immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.
The scope of the sanctions highlights the disconnect between Washington and Ankara as they try to negotiate a way out of the deadlock, with Turkish officials still apparently believing the Trump administration is bluffing.
Bankers who have met with Turkish officials say the sanctions threats are not being taken seriously in Ankara, even as they risk cutting off financing to an economy dependent on imported capital. For their part, U.S. officials’ patience with Turkey’s negotiating tactics is wearing thin.
‘Hostages’
Within the State Department, Brunson and other prisoners including NASA scientist Serkan Golge and three Turkish employees of the U.S. mission to Turkey are referred to as “hostages.” The U.S. says they’re innocent and being held by Turkey for the sole purpose of extracting concessions on other points of tension in the U.S.-relationship.
The two countries have quarreled over a panoply of foreign policy issues that have driven the onetime allies to outright hostility. Foremost among them are differences over policy in Syria and Iran, Turkish suspicions about the U.S. response to a 2016 coup attempt against Erdogan, and the Turkish leadership’s budding friendship with Putin.
The Magnitsky sanctions under consideration could be just the start of what would look like a U.S. assault on Turkey’s vulnerable economy. The U.S. is also considering a hefty fine on state-run lender Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS for its role in evading U.S. sanctions targeting Iran’s nuclear program, and it would impose sanctions on Turkey when it receives delivery of a missile defense system from Russia, expected in 2019.
Deal Fails
As of last week, the Americans thought they had a deal that would bring Brunson home, according to accounts by officials on both sides of the matter. In return for the release of evangelical pastor, who’s been imprisoned for almost two years on charges including involvement in the failed coup, the U.S. administration would recommend a lenient fine on Halkbank. The U.S. also offered to send Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a former executive at the bank who’s been jailed in the U.S., back to Turkey to serve out the rest of his term.
As a final sweetener to the Turks, U.S. President Donald Trump said he’d get Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to release a Turkish citizen, Ebru Ozkan, who’d been arrested in Israel on accusations of abetting Hamas. Netanyahu did it, and Ozkan was sent back to Turkey on July 16.
The Americans waited for Erdogan to deliver on his side of the deal: Brunson was to be released and then deported at a hearing on July 18. Instead, Turkey changed the conditions of the agreement at the last minute, with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu interjecting to demand that any probe of Halkbank be dropped, according to Turkish and U.S. officials. The deal fell apart and Brunson was moved to house arrest.
The Americans had been carrying out the negotiations through a backchannel with a person close to Erdogan, according to people familiar with the matter. But they have had a difficult time gauging whether or not the Turkish side fully comprehends the possible consequences of U.S. sanctions on Turkey’s economy.
That’s made it harder for the U.S. to take decisive action as the U.S. is reluctant to take action that could risk tanking the economy of a nominally allied country, or bringing down its banking system. Turkish companies and banks depend on foreign capital to plug one of the world’s largest current-account deficits, which requires about $200 million a day in foreign financing.
Ironically, the damage that U.S. action could do to Turkey makes it more hesitant to act and strengthens Turkey’s negotiating position, according to Asli Aydintasbas, an Istanbul-based senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“I have seen this over and over in this relationship going back two decades, on a much smaller scale,” Aydintasbas said. “The price of actually doing something is so big that Turkey has a psychological advantage. It’s as if they have more power, whereas it’s the other way around.”
Kremlin Hackers Take Aim at the Swiss Lab That’s Working the Skirpal Poisoning Case
The group that attacked Ukraine’s power grid is phishing a chemical-weapons lab critical to the Skripal case.
A state-backed Russian hacking group has is targeting a Swiss laboratory that’s helping investigators solve the March poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in London.
Called Sandworm, the group has been trying to phish employees of Switzerland’s Spiez Laboratory, a chemical-and biological-weapons facility that is doing forensics work on the Novichok poisoning of the former Russian colonel and double agent, according to Swiss news outlet Sonntags Blick, which reported the attacks on Sunday.
Russia has denied any involvement in Skripal’s poisoning.
Sandworm isn’t as well known as the Russian intelligence (FSB) and military (GRU) entities that stole emails from the Democratic National Committee in 2016, but it has run similar operations. In 2013, the group sent malicious emails to NATO officials and to a Polish energy concern. In 2014, they went after various Eastern European officials working in governments that are critical of Russia, using a version of the BlackEnergy botnet tool originally developed by Russian programmer Oleksiuk Dmytro.
“They’re not going after credentials. They want knowledge that only a few people can use. That’s security-related information and diplomatic information and intelligence on NATO and Ukraine and Poland,” FireEye’s John Hultquist toldWIRED in 2014.
In 2015, Sandworm made history with the first successful attack on a power grid, using a version of BlackEnergy to hit the Ukrainian energy sector. The group struck again in December 2016, disrupting power to as many as 200,000 Ukrainians in the dead of winter.
Sandworm’s recent attack on Spiez was subtler, a return to the highly directed phishing attacks they ran in 2013 and 2014. Impersonating members of the lab’s management, they sent an email inviting researchers to a chemical weapons conference — and encouraging them to click on a malware-laden Word attachment.
Kurt Münger of the Swiss Federal Office for Civil Protection told Blick that authorities had not seen any data theft resulting from the attempt.
*** Meanwhile:
Increasingly alarmed at foreign hacking, DOD and intelligence officials are racing to educate the military and defense contractors.
Officials have begun circulating a “Do Not Buy” list of software that does not meet “national security standards,” Ellen Lord, defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, said Friday.
“We had specific issues … that caused us to focus on this,” Lord told reporters at the Pentagon.
“What we are doing is making sure that we do not buy software that’s Russian or Chinese provenance,” she said. “Quite often that’s difficult to tell at at first glance because of holding companies.”
The Pentagon started compiling the list about six months ago. Suspicious companies are put on a list that is circulated to the military’s software buyers. Now the Pentagon is working with the three major defense industry trade associations — the Aerospace industries Association, National Defense Industrial Association and Professional Services Council — to alert contractors small and large.
Frankly, Britain has a much worse issue, but big hat tip to Senator Rubio. There are cities in America which are pockets of some nasty dark money in real estate.
There needs to be some real reform to CFIUS, Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States.
Crackdown on dirty money shook Miami real estate. Now, Rubio wants to take it national
Washington– In a move with significant implications for the U.S. housing market, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio is seeking to take a Treasury Department crackdown on dirty money in luxury real estate and expand it from a few high-priced enclaves to the entire nation.
Rubio says his proposal is an attempt to root out criminals who use illicit funds and anonymous shell companies to buy homes — a form of money laundering that hides the cash’s tainted origin from law enforcement and banks. The widespread practice enables terrorism, sex trafficking, corruption, and drug dealing by providing an outlet for dirty cash, according to transparency advocates.
Through an amendment to an unrelated major spending bill, Rubio will ask Treasury to study whether government regulators should force shell companies that buy homes priced at $300,000 or more in cash nationwide to disclose their owners. That could be a figure as high as 10 percent of the nation’s real-estate deals.
A similar reporting requirement affecting transactions priced at $1 million or more has already had a chilling effect on all-cash corporatesales in Miami-Dade County, which has been under Treasury’s microscope since 2016.
“Shell companies involved in shady activities are a big problem, especially throughout South Florida,” Rubio said in a statement to McClatchy and the Miami Herald. “With this provision, a study would be conducted to look at requiring all shell companies that make cash transactions, regardless of their area, to disclose their identities.”
The amendment builds on a previous Treasury disclosure order that applied only to certain markets, including South Florida.
That order — which forced shell companies buying homes with cash to reveal their true owners to the government — has been in place in some areas since March 2016 at various price points. Its effects were immediate and stunning. As soon as the order took hold, shell companies buying homes with cash dropped off the map, a recent study by academic economists found. In Miami-Dade, the number of corporate cash sales plummeted 95 percent, although a strong overall market suggests creative buyers found ways to circumvent the rules, researchers said.
Before the crackdown, corporate cash sales accounted for roughly a third of home-sale volume in Miami-Dade, which is popular with foreign investors.
The amendment has the support of the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Oregon’s Ron Wyden, as well as Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. Both have tried to widen disclosure of true owners of shell companies, which can be listed in the names of lawyers, accountants, and other fronts. The lack of corporate transparency frustrates law-enforcement officials, who say it stymies their investigations.
A vote is expected on the overall bill as soon as this week, Rubio’s office said.
The powerful real-estate industry has fought attempts from the government to have it act as a watchdog against money laundering, as banks, precious-metals dealers, money-service businesses, and other financial institutions are required to do. Many Realtors and developers say their clients are simply wealthy buyers seeking privacy, not criminals.
But over the past two years, Treasury has moved with force into what had been a largely unregulated sector of the U.S. financial system. Starting in Miami-Dade County and Manhattan two years ago, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) began requiring anonymous shell companies to disclose their true owners when they bought pricey homes with cash.
The temporary directives — called “geographic targeting orders” or GTOs — were later expanded to other housing markets in Florida, New York, Texas, California, and Hawaii where foreign and anonymous investors are gobbling up real estate and driving up prices. The rules require title agents to identify the owners of shell companies buying homes with cash and disclose their names to the federal government.
“The GTOs are working, and it’s time they were expanded. Laundering money through real estate isn’t new, but [what is new is] an effective approach to combat dirty money,” said Clark Gascoigne, deputy director of the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition, a watchdog nonprofit.
Rubio’s proposal to take the project national, Gascoigne added, “sends a strong message that we’re serious about protecting the U.S. financial system, the real-estate market, and communities across the country.”
Stephen Hudak, a spokesman for FinCEN, declined to comment.
Cracking down
The Rubio amendment asks Treasury to consider expanding the FinCEN directive to include all cash real-estate transactions over $300,000 anywhere in the United States.
It would give Treasury 180 days to submit a study to Congress providing details about the data that has been collected by FinCEN since 2016 and how it is being used. The agency is also being asked to determine if it needs more authority to combat money laundering and whether expanding the targeting order would be of use. In addition, FinCEN is asked if a registry of company owners — something supported by a bipartisan cast of federal legislators — would help authorities fight money laundering, tax evasion, election fraud, and other illegal activities.
Previously, the FinCEN disclosure requirement kicked in for corporate cash sales that were priced at $3 million or higher in New York City, $1 million or higher in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach, and at different price points in other states. In May, FinCEN enacted a new directive that secretly lowered the number to $300,000 in all GTO areas. Sources familiar with the agency’s thinking say the new order was kept confidential because regulators don’t want to give money launderers a road map for structuring their transactions to avoid reporting.
Rubio’s amendment would start at that lower price point, covering a major chunk of home sales nationwide. Last year, the median U.S. home sold for a price of $247,200, according to the National Association of Realtors.
A cash transaction is one in which there is no mortgage and the property is purchased outright. Cash doesn’t just mean stacks of greenbacks; it also includes such financial instruments as wire transfers, checks, and money orders. Unlike mortgages, cash deals don’t involve heavy scrutiny from banks, which can identify potential money laundering and file suspicious-activity reports to the feds.
“There’s hardly a metropolitan area in the country that is not experiencing a real public-policy issue regarding affordable housing,” said Ned Murray, a housing expert and associate director of Florida International University’s Metropolitan Center. “The whole focus of the real-estate industry is on … supplying homes for wealthy investors that we don’t know much about. It really is a factor for prices and supply.”
Much of the world has responded to the threat of corruption in real estate by requiring greater ownership disclosure. The United States has done relatively less, although Rubio’s amendment could help close the gap.
Those operating in the shadows of the real-estate market certainly seem aware of the Treasury disclosure requirements — and are working to get around them.
When Urdaneta prepared to close on a brand-new, $5.3 million condo at the Porsche Design Tower in Sunny Isles Beach, he was informed by paperwork from the developer that “taking title [to the unit] under a company or trust may trigger FinCEN reporting requirements,” according to a federal indictment filed last week. He was worried enough about the disclosure that he discussed how to avoid it with a government informant.
Ultimately, Urdaneta set up a company in his wife’s name to do the deal, prosecutors allege.
Developer Gil Dezer’s company built the Porsche Design Tower in Sunny Isles Beach, where units sell for millions of dollars to wealthy out-of-towners.
Dezer Development did not say why it alerts potential buyers that they might end up on Treasury’s radar.
“All language relating to legal requirements associated with closings was prepared by Dezer Development’s outside legal counsel,” a spokeswoman wrote in an email to the Herald on Monday.
While overall home sales held steady even after the FinCEN rule went into place, the real-estate study found, luxury home prices were slightly softer in markets affected by the GTO.
That suggests that expanding the GTO could have a dampening effect on the nation’s real-estate market, said Jeff Morr, a luxury real-estate broker at Douglas Elliman and chairman of the Miami Master Brokers Forum, an industry group.
“Does it stop money laundering? Probably, yes,” Morr said. “Is it good for the real-estate market? Probably, no.”
But at least making the rule nationwide might take some of the heat off Miami, he said.
“It may make Florida less unattractive now that it’s everywhere,” Morr said. “We shouldn’t be treated differently than other areas.”
The crane has become the unofficial city bird of Miami during the latest construction boom.
Miami Herald
That was exactly the sentiment of the Miami-Dade County Commission when the rule was first enacted in 2016. At the time, commissioners passed a symbolic resolution asking regulators to stop singling out Miami for special scrutiny. The industry still feels the same way.
Legitimate buyers need privacy, too, said Ron Shuffield, president and CEO of EWM Realty International.
“There are wealthy people who don’t want everyone to know that they live at the end of the block,” Shuffield said. “If someone is determined to launder money, they can pick anywhere in the country to do it, from the smallest city in the Midwest to Miami or New York City. It’s only fair that every area have to report. Otherwise, the rules could be scaring people away from certain markets.”
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) stated on its Korean War website that “on several occasions in the past, [North Korean] officials have indicated they possess as many as 200 sets of remains they had recovered over the years. The commitment established within the Joint Statement between President Trump and Chairman Kim would repatriate these.”
WASHINGTON — All Americans welcome the return of remains from the Korean War.
United Nations Command returned 55 cases of remains from North Korea to Osan Air Base, South Korea, July 27, 2018. Members of the command and the Osan community were on hand at the arrival ceremony. Army photo by Sgt. Quince Lanford
The July 27 honorable carry ceremony at Osan Air Base, South Korea, transferred 55 boxes of remains covered by the United Nations flag. Now the work of identification begins.
These remains are presumed to be American, but many other nations fought in the Korean War, and it’s possible the remains may come from one of those nations.
The 1950-1953 Korean War was incredibly violent, with 36,940 Americans killed and another 92,134 wounded. Some 7,699 American service members are listed as unaccounted-for from the conflict.
Remains Examination
The remains will be examined at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, and experts there will be responsible for identifying the remains. The agency is relatively new — coming into existence in 2015 after the merger of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office.
Many of the fallen service members died in North Korea and were buried by their comrades where they fell. Other U.S. service members were captured and placed in prisoner-of-war camps, where many succumbed to starvation, exposure and torture. Outside those camps are graves of Americans.
The DPAA Laboratory at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, is the first U.S. stop for the recently returned remains. The lab is the largest and most diverse skeletal identification laboratory in the world and is staffed by more than 30 anthropologists, archaeologists and forensic odonatologists, United Nations Command release.
Those experts will sort and examine the remains. In the past, North Korea turned over commingled remains.
The lab experts are painstaking in their examination. The age of the remains — at least 65 years old — will complicate the process. The North Koreans collected the remains, and U.S. investigators will have to do the examination without the forensic information they normally would have, such as the approximate place of the burial and the conditions around it.
Examination of dental charts and mitochondrial DNA will be key technologies used to identifying the remains, and the process may take years to complete, DoD officials said.
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