Headline

Trump Pleads Not Guilty In Federal Classified Documents Case

Published

2 years ago

June 14, 2023

Former U.S. president Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 felony charges on Tuesday in connection with his handling of classified documents and alleged attempts to prevent the government from recovering them.

It marks the first time an American president has been charged with a federal crime.

If found guilty in the case, he could face a lengthy prison term.

Trump was brought in about 15 minutes before the hearing began and sat slumped over in his chair, hands clasped in his lap, as he waited for the judge to arrive, ABC News reported.

He looked down at the floor for most of the hearing and his lawyer waived a reading of the 49-page indictment.

Special counsel Jack Smith sat in the front row watching Trump closely, but didn’t speak, CBS News reported.

“We most certainly enter a plea of not guilty,” Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche told federal Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman, who oversaw the arraignment.

Trump was released on his own recognisance, wasn’t asked to surrender his passport and is still allowed to travel internationally, according to news reports.

Goodman ordered Trump not to discuss the case with his personal aide and co-defendant Walt Nauta or witnesses.

Trump, who is again seeking the Republican presidential nomination, was scheduled to return to his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Tuesday night for a private fundraiser, where he planned to deliver live remarks.

It was not immediately clear whether the date of his next hearing had been set.

After a year-long investigation, the Justice Department on Friday unsealed the indictment of the former president, charging that he improperly took classified documents when his presidency ended and obstructed the government’s efforts to retrieve hundreds of secret documents – some of them related to U.S. nuclear weapons operations and national defense vulnerabilities.

The indictment states that Trump kept them in unsecured areas of his Florida estate, including a bathroom, ballroom, and storage room.

The Mar-a-Lago property is a private club that hosts thousands of people each year.

According to the indictment, top-secret and other classified records the FBI recovered after a subpoena and a search of the property included details on U.S. and foreign nations’ nuclear and other defense and weapons capabilities, potential vulnerabilities of the U.S. and its allies to military attack, and plans for possible retaliation in response to such an attack.

The indictment also details two instances in which Trump discussed and showed classified documents to people who did not have security clearances.

Trump is charged with willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding documents or records, corruptly concealing documents in a federal investigation, scheming to conceal, and making false statements and representations.

In a Truth Social post hours before his appearance, Trump called Smith a “thug” and accused him, his friends, and his family of planting evidence in the case.

Trump also questioned why Smith had not reviewed allegations against President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which Smith doesn’t have the authority to review.

Nauta faces charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding documents or records, corruptly concealing documents in a federal investigation, scheming to conceal, and making false statements and representations.

His arraignment was delayed for several weeks after he was unable to secure local counsel.

This is the second time this spring that Trump has been in court to enter a not-guilty plea.

He was indicted in New York City in March on charges related to an alleged hush money payment made to a porn actor in the final days of the 2016 campaign.

He also faces two ongoing criminal probes into his role in 2020 election interference.

The magistrate judge refused a request by media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, to allow photos and videos of the unprecedented proceedings.

Chief U.S. Judge for Southern District of Florida Cecilia Altonaga separately banned reporters from carrying any electronics into the courtroom.

Outside the courthouse, supporters of the former president chanted, “Free Donald Trump!” and “USA!” while waving “Make America Great Again” flags.

Opponents held up signs that read, “Trump, you are not above the law” and “31 counts of espionage; lock him up!”
(tca/dpa/NAN)

Headline

Militia Attack On DRC IDP Camp, Kills 10, Mostly Women, Children

Published

5 hours ago

June 27, 2025

Editor

An armed group at the centre of a long-running ethnic conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s northeast attacked a camp for displaced people on Friday, killing 10, local sources told AFP.

Bordering Uganda, Ituri province has for years been the scene of pitched battles between the Lendu, a group mainly made up of settled farmers, and the Hema people, typically nomadic herders.

The fighting has led to the deaths of thousands of civilians and the mass displacement of many more.

Friday’s assault on the Djangi displaced persons camp was carried out by the self-proclaimed Cooperative for the Development of Congo (Codeco), a Lendu-aligned militia responsible for previous civilian massacres, the camp’s head told AFP.

“They were many and armed with firearms and machetes. They surprised us, they killed 10 displaced people, most of them women and children,” said Richard Likana.

An employee of the Red Cross, who asked to remain anonymous, confirmed the attack, which took place around 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Bunia.

“They were cut up with machetes while others were shot,” the humanitarian worker added.

Congolese army Colonel Ruffin Mapela, the local administrator for Djugu territory where the camp is located, gave the same toll of 10 dead and put the number of injured at 15.

According to local and humanitarian sources, Codeco was responsible for an attack on February 10 which killed 51 people in Ituri province. Most of the victims were also displaced persons.

That raid was said to be a response to a strike by the rival Hema-led Zaire militia in the same area.

Violence between the Hema and Lendu killed thousands in gold-rich Ituri from 1999-2003, which only ended after European forces intervened.

The conflict erupted again in 2017, killing thousands more.

The violence has led to more than 1.5 million people leaving their homes, according to the UN.

AFP

Headline

Israel Wants Global Action Against Iran’s Nuclear Plans

Published

5 hours ago

June 27, 2025

Editor

Israel’s foreign minister said on Friday that the world was obliged to stop Iran from developing an atomic bomb, days after Israel claimed it had “thwarted Iran’s nuclear project” in a 12-day war.

“Israel acted at the last possible moment against an imminent threat to itself, the region, and the international community,” Gideon Saar wrote on X.

“The international community must now prevent, by any effective means, the world’s most extreme regime from obtaining the most dangerous weapon.”

Israel and Iran each claimed victory in the war that ended with a ceasefire on June 24.

The conflict erupted on June 13 when Israel launched a bombing campaign, stating it aimed to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon—an ambition Iran has consistently denied.

Following waves of Israeli attacks on nuclear and military sites, the United States bombed three key facilities, with President Donald Trump insisting it had set Iran’s nuclear programme back by “decades”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an address to the nation after the ceasefire, announced that “we have thwarted Iran’s nuclear project”.

However, there is no consensus as to how effective the strikes were.
On Friday, Iran rejected a request by UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi to visit the bombed facilities, saying it suggested “malign intent”.

The comments from Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi came after parliament approved a bill suspending cooperation with the UN watchdog.

In a post on X following the move, Saar said Iran “continues to mislead the international community and actively works to prevent effective oversight of its nuclear programme”.

Headline

We Would Have Killed Iran’s Supreme Leader If Given Opportunity – Israel

Published

8 hours ago

June 27, 2025

Editor

Defence Minister Israel Katz told media that Israel would have killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the war between the two countries if the opportunity had presented itself.

“If he had been in our sights, we would have taken him out,” Katz told Israel’s public radio station Kan Thursday evening, adding that the military had “searched a lot”.

“Khamenei understood this, went very deep underground, broke off contact with the commanders… so in the end it wasn’t realistic,” Katz told Kan.

He told Israeli television Channel 13 Thursday that Israel would cease its assassination attempts because “there is a difference between before the ceasefire and after the ceasefire”.

Katz had said during the war that Khamenei “can no longer be allowed to exist”, just days after reports that Washington vetoed Israeli plans to assassinate him.

But on Kan, Katz advised Khamenei to remain inside a bunker.

“He should learn from the late Nasrallah, who sat for a long time deep in the bunker”, he said, referring to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah’s former leader Hassan Nasrallah, who Israel killed in a Beirut air strike in September 2024.

The movements of the supreme leader, who has not left Iran since he took power, are subject to the tightest security and secrecy.

Katz said Thursday that Israel maintained its aerial superiority over Iran and that it was ready to strike again.

“We won’t let Iran develop nuclear weapons and threaten (Israel) with long-range missiles”, he said.

In his Channel 12 interview, Katz admitted that Israel does not know the location of all of Iran’s enriched uranium, but that its air strikes had destroyed the Islamic republic’s uranium enrichment capabilities.

“The material itself was not something that was supposed to be neutralised,” he said of the enriched uranium.

The impact of Israeli and US strikes on Iran’s nuclear programme has been a subject to debate.

A leaked US intelligence assessment estimated the programme to have set Iran back a few months, while Katz and other Israeli and US public figures said the damage would take years to rebuild.

Israel and Iran each claimed victory in a 12-day war that ended with a ceasefire on June 24.

The war erupted on June 13 when Israel launched a bombing campaign that it said aimed to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon — an ambition Iran has consistently denied.