Category World News

A five-member panel of Brazil’s Supreme Court has formed a majority to reject former President Jair Bolsonaro’s appeal challenging his 27-year prison sentence for plotting a coup to remain in power after the 2022 presidential election.

The 70-year-old far-right firebrand was found guilty by the same court in September of attempting to prevent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking power. Prosecutors said the plan failed only because of a lack of support from the military’s top brass.

Justices Flavio Dino, Alexandre de Moraes and Cristiano Zanin voted to reject the appeal filed by Bolsonaro’s legal team. The remaining members of the panel have until November 14 to cast their votes in the Supreme Court’s system.

The former president will begin serving his sentence only after all appeals are exhausted.

Bolsonaro has been under house arrest since August for violating precautionary measures in a separate case. His lawyers are expected to request that he be allowed to serve his sentence under similar conditions due to health concerns.

Bolsonaro’s lawyers argued there had been “profound injustices” and “contradictions” in his conviction, and sought to have his prison sentence reduced.

Three of the Supreme Court judges weighing the appeal voted to reject it on Friday.

However, the result is not considered official until the court-imposed deadline at midnight on November 14.

Alexandre de Moraes, who presided over the trial, was the first to cast his vote electronically and wrote that arguments by Bolsonaro’s lawyers to have his sentence reduced were “without merit”.

Moraes, in a 141-page document seen by AFP, rejected defence claims they had been given an overwhelming amount of documents and digital files, preventing them from properly mounting their case.

He also rejected an argument that Bolsonaro had given up on the coup, saying it failed only because of external factors, not because the former president renounced it.

Moraes reaffirmed that there had been a deliberate coup attempt orchestrated under Bolsonaro’s leadership, with ample proof of his involvement.

He again underscored Bolsonaro’s role in instigating the January 8 assault on Brazil’s democratic institutions, when supporters demanded a military takeover to oust Lula.

‘Ruling justified’

Moraes ruled that the sentence of 27 years and 3 months was based on Bolsonaro’s high culpability as president and the severity and impact of the crimes. Moraes said Bolsonaro’s age had already been considered as a mitigating factor.

“The ruling justified all stages of the sentencing process,” Moraes wrote.

Two other judges voted in the same way shortly afterwards.

Because of health problems stemming from a stabbing attack in 2018, Bolsonaro could ask to serve his sentence under house arrest.

The trial against Bolsonaro angered his ally, US President Donald Trump, who imposed sanctions on Brazilian officials and punitive trade tariffs.

However, in recent months, tensions have thawed between Washington and Brasilia, with a meeting taking place between Trump and Lula and negotiations to reduce the tariffs.

An initiative from Bolsonaro supporters in Congress to push through an amnesty bill that could benefit him fizzled out after massive protests around the country.

The United States has removed Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa from a “terrorist” sanctions list before a meeting between the country’s new leader and President Donald Trump next week.

The US Department of the Treasury removed al-Sharaa, a former fighter linked to al-Qaeda, from the Specially Designated Global Terrorist list on Friday. The United Nations Security Council also removed al-Sharaa from a largely symbolic sanctions list on Thursday.

The official removal of al-Sharaa from the list is the latest move meant to remove potential barriers to Syria’s pursuit of economic and political integration after years of devastating civil war and former leader Bashar al-Assad’s removal from power in December 2024.

Washington and the UN also removed Anas Hasan Khattab, a former fighter linked to al-Qaeda but now serving as Syria’s interior minister, from the list.

“With the adoption of this text, the council is sending a strong political signal that recognises Syria is in a new era since Assad and his associates were toppled in December 2024,” Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the UN, said in his statement after the UNSC vote on Thursday.

The US president is expected to host al-Sharaa, who, as a former fighter, once battled US troops in Iraq, at the White House on November 10, the first Syrian president to make the trip.

Trump met al-Sharaa for the first time in May during a summit in Saudi Arabia, where he announced an end to some US sanctions on Syria put in place during the Assad regime that some analysts said would have made it difficult for the country to rebuild its economy.

A former British soldier wanted by Kenyan authorities has appeared in a London court after being arrested in connection with the alleged murder of a woman near a UK army training camp in the East African country more than a decade ago.

In September, Kenya issued an arrest warrant and requested the extradition of a British citizen over the murder of 21-year-old Agnes Wanjiru near a UK army training camp in 2012, a case which has strained relations between the two countries.

Wanjiru was found in a septic tank at the Lion’s Court Hotel in the Kenyan town of Nanyuki in 2012, having last been seen at the hotel with a group of British soldiers.

A Kenyan magistrate concluded in an inquest in 2019 that she had been murdered by the soldiers, and in September, Kenya made a formal request to extradite a suspect.

The United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said the suspect was a former soldier who was arrested on Thursday by specialist officers after the warrant was issued.

“Robert James Purkiss, 38, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court today for extradition proceedings to begin,” the NCA said on Friday.

“He was remanded into custody until his next appearance at the same court on November 14.”

The delay in securing justice has sparked outrage in Kenya, with Wanjiru’s family and rights groups arguing that the killers were being shielded by a defence cooperation agreement that complicates the prosecution of British soldiers training in Kenya.

Wanjiru, the single mother of a then four-month-old baby, was beaten and stabbed, and was probably still alive when she was thrown into the septic tank, a magistrate said in the 2019 inquest report.

Purkiss’s lawyer David Josse said that his client “vehemently denies” murder and that he has received funding from the UK’s Ministry of Defence to pay for his defence.

The case was a source of contention between Kenyan authorities and the UK’s previous Conservative government, and was in limbo for years.

Purkiss, a married father of two, told Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London that he did not consent to being extradited, the Press Association news agency reported.

The Labour party, which removed the Conservatives from power in a July election last year, has promised to support the Kenyan investigation and “secure a resolution to this case”.

Since Kenya gained independence in 1963, the UK has kept a permanent army base near Nanyuki, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of the capital Nairobi.

Talks in Istanbul between Pakistan and Afghanistan are at a deadlock, Islamabad said, a day after both sides accused each other of mounting border clashes that risked breaching a ceasefire brokered by Qatar.

The update on the talks by Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar on Friday came after an Afghan official said four Afghan civilians were killed and five others wounded in clashes between Pakistani and Afghan forces along their shared border despite the joint negotiations.

There was no immediate comment from Kabul about the Pakistani claim.

In a statement thanking Turkiye and Qatar for mediating the talks, Tarar maintained that the Afghan Taliban has failed to meet pledges it made with the international community about curbing “terrorism” under a 2021 Doha peace accord.

Tarar said that Pakistan “will not support any steps by the Taliban government that are not in the interest of the Afghan people or neighboring countries.” He did not elaborate further, but added that Islamabad continues to seek peace and goodwill for Afghans but will take “all necessary measures” to protect its own people and sovereignty.

Ali Mohammad Haqmal, head of the Information and Culture Department in Spin Boldak, blamed Pakistan for initiating the shooting. However, he said Afghan forces did not respond amid ongoing peace talks between the two sides in Istanbul.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said Afghanistan initiated the shooting.

“Pakistan remains committed to ongoing dialogue and expects reciprocity from Afghan authorities”, Pakistan’s Ministry of Information said.

The ministry said the ceasefire remained intact.

Andrabi said Pakistan’s national security adviser, Asim Malik, is leading the Pakistani delegation in the talks with Afghanistan. The Afghan side is being led by Abdul Haq Wasiq, director of general intelligence, according to Mujahid.

He said that Pakistan had handed over its demands to mediators “with a singular aim to put an end to cross-border terrorism,” and that “mediators are discussing Pakistan’s demands with the Afghan Taliban delegation, point by point.”

Strained ties

Islamabad accuses Kabul of harbouring armed groups, particularly the Pakistan Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP), which regularly claims deadly attacks in Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban deny sheltering the group.

Many Pakistan Taliban leaders and fighters are believed to have taken refuge in Afghanistan since the Afghan Taliban’s return to power in 2021, further straining ties between the two countries.

Turkiye said at the conclusion of last week’s talks that the parties had agreed to establish a monitoring and verification mechanism to maintain peace and penalise violators.

Fifty civilians were killed and 447 others wounded on the Afghan side of the border during clashes that began on October 9, according to the United Nations. At least five people died in explosions in Kabul that the Taliban government blamed on Pakistan.