1. Art and Diseño

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2015
I N T E R N AT I O N A L
Auschwitz officer charged with over 3k murder cases
BERLIN: A 93-year-old former Auschwitz
death camp officer will go on trial in
Germany in April charged with at least
300,000 counts of accessory to murder, a
court said yesterday. The German defendant, Oskar Groening, will face charges
over the 425,000 people believed to have
been deported to the camp in occupied
Poland between May and July 1944, at
least 300,000 of whom were killed in the
gas chambers.
The regional court in the northern city
of Lueneburg said the trial, expected to
be one of the last of its kind, would start
on April 21. Fifty-five co-plaintiffs, mainly
survivors and victims’ relatives, will be
represented at the trial. Groening, then a
member of the Nazi Waffen-SS, was
tasked with counting the banknotes
gathered from prisoners’ luggage and
passing them on to the SS authorities in
Berlin, prosecutors in the northern city of
Hanover said when he was charged in
September.
For this reason, he was known as the
“bookkeeper” of Auschwitz. The accused
also helped remove the luggage of victims so it was not seen by new arrivals,
thus covering up the traces of mass
killing, according to the prosecutors. They
said the defendant was aware that the
predominantly Jewish prisoners deemed
unfit to work “were murdered directly
after their arrival in the gas chambers of
Auschwitz”.
Ashamed for decades
Groening told German daily Bild in
2005 that he regretted working at
Auschwitz, saying he still heard the
screams from the gas chamber decades
later. “I was ashamed for decades and I am
still ashamed today,” said Groening, who
was employed from the age of 21 at the
camp, which was liberated 70 years ago
last week. “Not of my acts, because I never
killed anyone. But I offered my aid. I was a
cog in the killing machine that eliminated
millions of innocent people.”
The German office investigating Nazi
war crimes sent files on 30 former
Auschwitz personnel to state prosecutors
in 2013 with a recommendation to bring
charges against them. The renewed drive
to bring to justice the last surviving perpetrators of the Holocaust follows a 2011
landmark court ruling. For more than 60
years German courts had only prosecuted
Nazi war criminals if evidence showed
they had personally committed atrocities.
But in 2011 a Munich court sentenced
John Demjanjuk to five years in prison for
complicity in the extermination of Jews at
the Sobibor camp, where he had served as
a guard, establishing that all former camp
guards can be tried. About 1.1 million
people, mostly European Jews, perished at
Auschwitz-Birkenau, operated by the
Nazis from 1940 until it was liberated by
Soviet forces on January 27, 1945. —AFP
Ex-IMF chief Strauss-Kahn
goes on trial for pimping
Disgraced economist returns to court
LILLE: Ex-IMF chief Dominique
Strauss-Kahn went on trial yesterday for pimping as part of a prostitution ring, four years after a sex
scandal cost him his job and a shot
at the French presidency. The disgraced 65-year-old economist
found himself back in the dock-this
time in the northern French city of
his hands in his pockets in front of
the imposing stone bench, where
over 40 massive files were stacked.
He appeared on edge as he sat,
arms folded, while presiding judge
Bernard Lemaire read out the
charges against him and 13 coaccused, a colorful cast of characters including luxury hotel man-
applications, such as a request by a
lawyer for the former prostitutes
involved for hearings to take place
behind closed doors, were expected to dominate the first day of the
trial.
Lurid details of group sex and
high-end prostitution are likely to
emerge in the trial for “aggravated
LILLE: French-born pimp and defendant Dominique Alderweireld or “Dodo la Saumure” arrives
at the courthouse on the first day of the so-called “Carlton Case” trial. —AFP
Lille-accused of being at the centre
of a vice ring which hired prostitutes for sex parties in Brussels,
Paris and Washington.
A silver-haired Strauss-Kahn,
dressed in a dark suit, slipped past
a throng of journalists to arrive early in the wood-paneled courtroom,
where he paced up and down with
agers, police, and a brothel owner
nicknamed “Dodo the Pimp.”
“You are accused of aiding and
abetting the prostitution of seven
persons between March 29, 2008
and October 4, 2011, and of hiring
and encouraging the prostitution
of these same persons,” Lemaire
told Strauss-Kahn. Procedural
pimping in an organized group”, a
charge punishable by up to 10
years in prison and a fine of up to
1.5 million euros. The trial will be
the latest in a series of legal woes
offering a peek behind the bedroom door of a man once tipped as
a potential challenger to former
French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
The ex-head of the International
Monetary Fund, known in France
as DSK, saw his career implode in
2011 when he was paraded handcuffed in front of the world’s cameras after a New York hotel maid
accused him of sexual assault.
Those criminal charges were
dropped and the case settled in a
civil suit, but six months later
Strauss-Kahn’s name cropped up in
an investigation into a prostitution
ring in nor thern France and
Belgium. Investigators probing the
“Carlton Affair”-named after one of
the swish hotels in Lille where local
businessmen and police officials
organized sex parties-found some
of the prostitutes involved had
been hired to participate in soirees
attended by Strauss-Kahn.
Self-confessed ‘libertine’
Prostitution is legal in France
but procuring-the legal term for
pimping which includes encouraging, benefiting from or organizing
prostitution-is punishable by a
hefty jail term. The crux of the case
against DSK is whether he knew
the women lavishing their attention on him were prostitutes and
whether he played a role in organizing their presence.
DSK admits to being a “libertine”
who enjoys orgies but has steadfastly denied knowing the women
were paid. “In these circumstances
one isn’t always clothed, and I challenge you to tell the difference
between a prostitute naked and
any other woman naked,” DSK’s star
lawyer Henri Leclerc, 84, said in
2011. But even prosecutors have
been divided over whether there is
enough evidence to prove DSK was
more pimp than casual consumer.
In 2013 state prosecutor Frederic
Fevre called for the charges to be
dropped, but investigating judges
overruled him and ordered DSK to
stand trial. —AFP
Berlusconi released early
from community service
ROME: Silvio Berlusconi will not have to serve the
final 45 days of a one-year community service
order he received for tax fraud, a judge ruled yesterday. The former prime minister has been serving
the order by helping out with Alzheimer’s patients
at the Sacra Famiglia care home at Cesano Boscone
near Milan every Friday since last May.
The judge’s decision to trim the sentence on
good behavior grounds means he will be freed
and accepted a conviction we continue to regard
as unjust. He has purged his sentence and will continue to visit the Sacra Famiglia.” As of March 8,
Berlusconi will also regain his freedom of movement, which was restricted under the order,
enabling him to resume a higher-profile role in
national politics, despite still being banned from
public office. Media magnate Berlusconi was ousted from his seat in the upper-house Senate in
MILAN: Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi smiles as he leaves the ‘Sacra
Famiglia’ foundation. —AP
from those duties on March 8, although a close
aide said Belusconi, who is 78 himself, would continue to visit the elderly patients. “It is very good
news, his good behavior was there for everyone to
see,” Giovanni Toti told TGCOM 24 television.
“He performed his social service very seriously
November 2013 and banned from public office for
six years under 2012 anti-corruption legislation.
The ‘Severino’ law provides for such bans for any
politician sentenced to prison for two or more
years.
After a series of appeals, Berlusconi was defini-
tively convicted of tax fraud in August 2013 and
sentenced to four years in prison. That was later
reduced to the community service order in line
with Italian judicial practice of not sending non-violent criminals over 70 to jail. As his Forza Italia party
essentially revolves around him with the backing of
his media empire, Berlusconi was able to retain its
leadership. The centre right grouping retains considerable influence in parliament but has slipped
badly in the opinion polls over the time its leader
has been making his visits to the care home.
Renzi pact
Under the terms of the community service,
Berlusconi needed permission to leave his residence over weekends and was subject to a nightly
curfew. That did not prevent him travelling regularly to Rome for negotiations with Prime Minister
Matteo Renzi, with whom he concluded a cooperation ‘pact’ in June 2014. That deal ensured that
Berlusconi delivered vital votes to help Renzi steer a
shake-up of Italy’s labor laws onto the statute book
and a new electoral law through the Senate. Renzi
was however widely seen as having betrayed the
pact last week by ignoring Berlusconi’s reservations
when he successfully pushed for his candidate,
Sergio Mattarella, to become Italy’s new president.
Mattarella, who once resigned as a minister over
a law favoring Berlusconi’s media empire, is due to
be sworn in on Tuesday. Berlusconi was widely seen
as wanting a more accommodating figure in the
hope that his ban from the Senate could be overturned by a presidential pardon. The tax case was
only one of a series of legal cases in which
Berlusconi has been embroiled for years. He was
convicted in 2013 of paying for sex with a minor, a
17-year-old dancer nicknamed “Ruby the
Heartstealer” who allegedly attended what became
known as “bunga bunga” parties at his villa in Milan
and other residences. An appeal court overturned
that conviction last year, saying there was insufficient evidence that Berlusconi knew Ruby was
under age.
The case will finally be concluded in the Court
of Cassation in a fresh hearing due to start in
March. Also still rumbling through the legal system is a case in which Berlusconi is charged with
bribing a Senator to join his party in 2006 as part
of a plot to destabilize the centre-left government
of the time. —AFP
LILLE: Defendant, Beatrice Legrain, partner and associate of French-born
pimp Dominique Alderweireld or ‘Dodo la Saumure’, talks to the press as she
arrives at the Lille courthouse. —AFP
High-end prostitutes used
to close business deals
PARIS: The trial of former French presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn and
several businessmen on pimping charges
shone a light on the world of high-end prostitution in which sex is often used to sweeten business deals.
“I was considered a VIP and offered as a
gift to the heads of companies and politicians,” said Carole, 41, a former prostitute
who worked the champagne bars and
brothels of Belgium, where the trade is legal,
until 2013. She spoke ahead of the high-profile trial in Lille in northern France of StraussKahn, once head of the International
Monetary Fund. He is being tried along with
13 others for their alleged part in a wideranging prostitution ring used by local businessmen and police officials. “Companies,
sometimes big international ones, would
come to see us to ask if a girl could be
offered as a present,” she said.
She recalls a car company that wanted to
sell three trucks to a local business: “I had to
do whatever was necessary to make sure he
signed,” she said. Eric Dupond-Moretti, a
lawyer for one of the defendants in this
week’s trial, says “call-girls are 80 percent,
maybe 70 percent of the time solicited” to
conclude business deals.
Used to exert pressure
The practice is particularly prevalent in
professions where corruption and bribes are
common, said Jean-Sebastien Mallet, an
expert on the prostitution sector, highlight-
ing “construction, import-export and the
energy sector”. “In some Arab countries, a
businessman who doesn’t have a girl in his
bedroom will refuse to sign a contract,” he
said. Sex can also be used to exert pressure.
Carole said she was often sent as a “honeytrap” to seduce men in their hotels, creating
the possibility of blackmail down the line.
The girls for these top-end clients tend to
come from relatively comfortable backgrounds. “They are clearly not poor young
Romanians. Most work for networks of
brothels or Internet escort companies,” said
Yves Charpenel, head of anti-prostitution
group Fondation Scelles. “But even if the
prices are higher, 75 percent goes to the
traffickers.” Strauss-Khan’s trial is not the first
high-profile trial for pimping.
In 1995, renowned Italian designer
Francesco Smalto was convicted after sending a number of suits to Gabon’s President
Omar Bongo along with a group of call girls.
But getting prosecutions can be difficult,
since it tends to rely on prostitutes coming
forward as witnesses. Gregoire Thery, from
Mouvement du Nid, a support network for
sex workers, says the girls giving evidence in
this week’s trial have faced threats and pressure to back out. He adds that the common
practice of using prostitutes to conclude
business deals has an added pernicious
effect: creating another obstacle to gender
equality in the workplace. “When contracts
are being concluded in a brothel or a hotel
bedroom, it’s a job for the guys.” —AFP
All talk but no peace as
South Sudan stumbles
ADDIS ABABA: After 13 months of fighting
and six failed ceasefires, diplomats are being
forced to accept that any deal to end the war
in South Sudan will, at best, result in a return
to the status quo that precipitated the carnage in the first place. The latest peace proposal drafted in Addis Ababa by regional bloc
IGAD and seen by AFP would leave Salva Kiir
as president and re-install rebel leader Riek
Machar as his deputy, a position he held until
July 2013 when his sacking planted the seed
of a war that erupted five months later. Kiir
and Machar agreed a new ceasefire late
Sunday, but failed to reach agreement on the
power-sharing deal proposed by IGAD to end
a conflict that has left tens of thousands dead.
The ceasefire provides for a cessation of hostilities from Monday, with negotiations to
resume on February 20.
Hopes of formulating a comprehensive
peace deal that addresses South Sudan’s
underlying problems and tribal divisions have
faded. “That moment has passed,” a European
diplomat involved in the talks said before the
interim agreement was signed. “More and
more it’s moving towards an elite compromise, but at least that will stop the killing,”
said another Ethiopia-based diplomat.
Regional and international peace efforts have
repeatedly squeezed out promises of peace
from Kiir and Machar, but each one has been
broken within days, if not hours. South
Sudan’s Sudd Institute think-tank describes
the talks as “frustratingly slow”, gloomily
recalling a “plethora” of deals that had been
“subsequently dishonored” by one side or the
other. “The two parties will sign anything to
get out of Addis, but they have never given
up on the idea of solving this on the battlefield,” a diplomat said.
Hard drinking
Earning a reputation as slow talkers and
hard drinkers, the South Sudanese delega-
tions at the European Union-funded talks
held in luxury hotels in Ethiopia have already
cost at least 20 million euros, according to
diplomatic sources. Talks were first held at
the plush Sheraton Hotel, an imposing chunk
of beige stone on a hillside in the Ethiopian
capital. Delegates could choose from 11
restaurants and bars, bathe in a pool that
plays music underwater, visit the spa or simply enjoy the indoor fountains, decorative
ponds and mini-palm trees. Rooms cost
around $300 a night.
As the bills piled up as fast as the bodies
back home and progress proved glacial, the
talks were moved to a nearby hotel where
rooms are half the price. Delegates continue
to claim a 220 euro per diem for attending.
“The waste has been enormous,” a European
diplomat said, signaling that patience was
wearing thin.
“One could be forgiven for having the
impression that they’re interested in the per
diem, the luxury hotel, the bar and the minibar, enjoying the nightclubs of Addis Ababa,
and not peace,” said another European diplomat observing the talks.
“They don’t seem to have any sense of
urgency or responsibility to the people on
the ground who are dying. They have displayed total contempt for their own people.”
No overall death toll for the war has been
kept by the government, rebels or the United
Nations, but the International Crisis Group
says it estimates that at least 50,000 people
have been killed. South Sudanese are exasperated too. “Some people sit in Addis Ababa
discussing politics while on the ground other
people are fighting and dying,” the Catholic
bishops of South Sudan said in a statement.
“This war is about power not about the good
of the people.” A diplomat in Addis Ababa
echoed the bishops’ dim view. “It’s all about
two people and their cronies fighting to steal
the wealth of South Sudan,” he said. —AFP