Foreign News
Rudy Giuliani must pay more than $148m over false election claims
Rudy Giuliani, a longtime associate of former President Donald Trump, has been ordered to pay more than $148m (£116m) to two women over false claims they tampered with votes in 2020.
A judge had already found Mr Giuliani liable of making defamatory claims about Georgia poll workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss.
Ms Moss said after the verdict that the past few years had been “devastating”. The verdict came after a four-day trial to determine the penalty.
On Friday, the eight-person jury ordered $20m payments for defamation to be made to each victim. They were also each awarded over $16m for emotional distress, the jury ruled. Another payment of $75m in punitive damages was ordered to be split between them.
They had originally sought between $15m and $43m in damages from Mr Giuliani, Mr Trump’s former personal lawyer.
Addressing reporters outside the court, Mr Giuliani said: “I don’t regret a damn thing.”
Michael Gottlieb, the lawyer for Ms Freeman and Ms Moss, said during closing arguments on Thursday that Mr Giuliani was “patient zero” of the misinformation.
He said that, during three days of evidence and testimony, the jury had “experienced a sliver of the unspeakable horror that Ms Freeman and Ms Moss suffered”. He said a stiff financial penalty was necessary to “send a message” to Mr Giuliani and to “any other powerful figure with a platform”.
Mr Giuliani had been expected to testify in his own defence on Thursday, but those plans were abruptly cancelled. “Honestly, I didn’t believe it would do any good,” Mr Giuliani said after the verdict on Friday, adding that he planned to appeal the “absurd” penalty.
Mr Giuliani is worth about $50m, according to an estimate by CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.
His lawyers earlier urged the jury to be measured as they considered the penalty. They said that, although the former mayor of New York did spread lies after the 2020 presidential election, he was not as responsible – or as malicious – as lawyers for the two women argued.
In courtroom testimony in Washington DC on Wednesday, Ms Freeman recounted having to flee her home after a group of Trump supporters gathered outside and the FBI told her she was in danger.
The incident happened after Mr Giuliani shared a video of them, which he falsely said showed evidence of ballot tampering.
“I took it as though they were going to hang me with their ropes on my street,” Ms Freeman said. “I was scared. I didn’t know if they were coming to kill me.”
Ms Freeman said that she was left isolated by Mr Giuliani’s actions. Friends and acquaintances grew afraid to be linked to her, she said, and she has felt forced to live a life of seclusion because of lingering fears she will be recognised publicly.
Addressing reporters on Friday, the women said that more lawsuits may be forthcoming for other public figures that had spread lies about them. “They must be held accountable too,” said Ms Freeman. “Money will not solve all of my problems,” she continued. “I can’t move home, I will always have to be careful. I miss my home, I miss my neighbours and I miss my name.”
The trial in Washington DC was just one of the legal cases Mr Giuliani is facing.
In Georgia, Mr Giuliani faces criminal charges, including making false statements, in an election-subversion case against Mr Trump. Mr Giuliani has pleaded not guilty.
A former business associate is also suing him for $10m over sexual harassment claims.
And according to recent court filings from the Internal Revenue Service, Mr Giuliani owes more than half a million dollars in federal taxes.
In September, Mr Trump reportedly hosted a $100,000-a-plate dinner at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, to raise money for a legal defence fund for Mr Giuliani.
Back in 2018, Mr Giuliani’s divorce case heard claims of his lavish spending. His ex-wife, Judith Giuliani, said that in a five-month period he spent nearly a million dollars.
This was said to include $12,012 on cigars, $7,131 on fountain pens, $286,000 on an alleged mistress, $447,938 “for his own enjoyment” and $165,000 on travel.
(BBC)
Myanmar’s governing military has declared a unilateral, temporary ceasefire in the country’s civil war to facilitate rescue efforts after last week’s powerful earthquake, as state television reported the death toll from the disaster had surpassed 3,000.
MRTV said that the truce would last from Wednesday until April 22 and was aimed at making quake relief efforts easier.
The announcement followed unilateral temporary ceasefires announced by armed resistance groups opposed to military rule. Those groups must refrain from attacking the state, or regrouping, or else the military will take “necessary” measures, the army said in a statement.
The death toll from the earthquake in Myanmar rose to 3,003, and more than 4,500 were injured, MRTV reported late on Wednesday.
In neighbouring Thailand, the death toll from the quake rose to 22, with hundreds of buildings damaged and 72 people missing.
In an incident underlining the challenge of delivering relief at a time of civil war in Myanmar, the military said its troops fired warning shots after a Chinese Red Cross convoy failed to pull over as it travelled in a conflict zone.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the media that its rescue team and supplies were safe after the incident on Tuesday.
Guo Jiakun, a ministry spokesperson, said at a news conference that Beijing hoped “all factions and parties in Myanmar will prioritise earthquake relief efforts, ensuring the safety of rescue personnel and supplies from China and other countries”.
“It’s necessary to keep transportation routes for relief efforts open and unobstructed,” Guo said.
Military government spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said the Chinese Red Cross had not informed authorities it was in a conflict zone on Tuesday night, and a security team fired shots in the air after the convoy, which included local vehicles, failed to stop.
The military has struggled to run Myanmar following its coup against the elected civilian government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, reducing the economy and basic services, including healthcare, to tatters after civil war broke out.
The United Nations said more than 28 million people in the six regions were affected by the earthquake and that it put in place $12m in emergency funding for food, shelter, water, sanitation, mental health support and other services.
As hopes of finding more survivors were fading on Wednesday, rescuers pulled two men alive from the ruins of a hotel in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, and a third from a guesthouse in another city – five days after the magnitude 7.7 quake. But most teams were finding only bodies.
The rural parts of the hard-hit Sagaing region, mostly under the control of armed resistance groups fighting the military government, are among the most challenging for aid agencies to reach.
Earlier, Human Rights Watch urged the military government to allow unfettered access for humanitarian aid and lift curbs impeding aid agencies, saying donors should channel aid through independent groups rather than only the authorities.
“Myanmar’s junta cannot be trusted to respond to a disaster of this scale,” Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a report. “Concerned governments and international agencies need to press the junta to allow full and immediate access to survivors, wherever they are.”
[Aljazeera]
Three Americans convicted for their role in a failed coup in Democratic Republic of Congo last year have had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment, the presidency has said.
They were among 37 people sentenced to death last September by a military court.
The three were accused of leading an attack on both the presidential palace and the home of an ally of President Félix Tshisekedi last May.
The overturning of the sentences comes ahead of a visit to DR Congo by the newly appointed US senior advisor for Africa, Massad Boulos.
Boulos, father-in-law to President Donald Trump’s daughter, Tiffany, is expected to arrive in Kinshasa on Thursday on a trip that will also take him to Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda.
The US has not declared the three Americans to be wrongfully jailed in DR Congo but the State Department said previously there have been talks between the countries over the matter.
The three were convicted of criminal conspiracy, terrorism and other charges, which they denied.
[BBC]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has nominated a former Navy commander to head the country’s domestic security services, despite the courts having blocked his bid to fire the previous head of Shin Bet.
Netanyahu’s office announced on Monday that he had nominated Vice Admiral Eli Sharvit to lead the agency, which surveils attacks from abroad and at home, including by armed groups based in Palestine and Lebanon. However, a halt to the sacking of Ronen Bar as head of Shin Bet, ordered by the Supreme Court, remains in place.
[Aljazeera]
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