Arraignment is a formal reading of a criminal charging document in the presence of the defendant. In response to arraignment, the defendant is expected to enter a plea. Acceptable pleas vary among jurisdiction but generally include peremptory, not guilty, guilty, the Alford and nolo contendere.
Pine Gap is the commonly used name for a U.S. satellite surveillance base or Australian Earth station approximately 18 kilometres (11 mi) south-west of the town of Alice Springs, Northern Territory in the centre of Australia which is operated by both Australia and the United States. Since 1988, it has been officially called the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG); previously, it was misleadingly known as Joint Defence Space Research Facility.
The Stephen Downing case involved the conviction and imprisonment in 1974 of a 17-year-old council worker, Stephen Downing, for the murder of a 32-year-old legal secretary, Wendy Sewell, in the town of Bakewell in the Peak District in Derbyshire, central England.
Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, is a convicted criminal and Muslim cleric of the Sunni Islam faith, currently serving an Australian custodial sentence of fifteen years, with a non-parole period of twelve years for intentionally being the leader and a member of a terrorist organisation. Benbrika was one of 17 men arrested in the Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne in November 2005, charged with being members of a terrorist organisation and of planning terrorist attacks on targets within Australia. Benbrika is alleged to be the spiritual leader of the group. All 17 men pleaded not guilty. On 15 September 2008 Benbrika was found guilty as charged and subsequently sentenced.
False evidence, fabricated evidence, forged evidence or tainted evidence is information created or obtained illegally, to sway the verdict in a court case. Falsified evidence could be created by either side in a case, or by someone sympathetic to either side. Misleading by suppressing evidence can also be considered a form of false evidence, however, in some cases, suppressed evidence is excluded because it cannot be proved the accused was aware of the items found or of their location. The analysis of evidence may also be forged if the person doing the forensic work finds it easier to fabricate evidence and test results than to perform the actual work involved. Parallel construction is a form of false evidence in which the evidence is truthful but its origins are untruthfully described, at times in order to avoid evidence being excluded as inadmissible due to unlawful means of procurement such as an unlawful search.
In some countries, resisting arrest is a criminal charge against an individual who has committed, depending on the jurisdiction, at least one of the following acts:
The 2006 Islamist demonstration outside the Embassy of Denmark in London took place on 3 February 2006, in response to controversy surrounding the publication of editorial cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005. The extremist UK-based Islamist groups al Ghurabaa and The Saviour Sect staged a controversial protest march from London Central Mosque near Marylebone Station to the Danish Embassy near Knightsbridge Underground station.
John Howard Amundsen was the first Queenslander to be charged under national anti-terrorist laws in Australia. These charges were later dropped.
Terrorism in Australia deals with terrorist acts in Australia as well as steps taken by Australian governments to counter the threat of terrorism. In 2004 the Australian government has identified transnational terrorism as also a threat to Australia and to Australian citizens overseas. Australia has experienced acts of modern terrorism since the 1960s, while the federal parliament, since the 1970s, has enacted legislation seeking to specifically target terrorism.
The Ćuška massacre was the killing of 41 Kosovo Albanian civilians, all men aged 19 to 69, by Serbian security forces, the Yugoslav Army and paramilitaries on 14 May 1999 during the Kosovo War. On 13 March 2010, the Serbian war crimes prosecutor announced that nine men had been arrested for their role in the massacre and stated that a total of 26 men were under investigation for murder and theft at Ćuška.
Edward Sapiano is a Canadian defence lawyer, based in Toronto, Ontario, notable for his role in many high-profile criminal cases. He initiated Canada’s largest criminal investigation of police, resulting in the arrest and prosecution of several Toronto police officers and was also involved in the so-called Toronto 18 terrorism trial. Edward Sapiano is also noted for demanding immediate DNA testing of his client shortly following the 1996 arrest of the suspected "North York serial rapist", leading to his client Jeremy Foster's full vindication, despite a false confession to the crime. In his quest to get illegal guns off the street, Sapiano also created the only lawyer-operated gun amnesty program available in North America, Piece Options. He is also known for starting a database of rulings and judgements to track alleged misconduct among Toronto-area officers which was then retrievable for cross-examinations in other cases by other lawyers. Edward Sapiano, after putting his practice on hold for two and a half years due to kidney failure, is set to return to court on 2017 for the Andrea White murder trial, and is cited to be the first lawyer in Canada to practise while undergoing 10 hours of daily dialysis. He is regularly featured by media outlets, including The Globe and Mail, CBC, and the New York Times commenting on criminal law issues.
The 2007 New Zealand raids were a series of armed police arrests conducted on 15 October 2007, in response to the discovery of an alleged paramilitary training camp in the Urewera mountain range near the town of Ruatoki.
The Exeter bombing was a failed bombing attempt taking place on 22 May 2008, at the Giraffe cafe and restaurant in Princesshay, Exeter, United Kingdom. Nicky Reilly, 22, from Plymouth, pleaded guilty on 15 October 2008 to launching a failed suicide attack. The attacker was the only person injured.
The 2005 Sydney terrorism plot concerned a group of five men arrested in 2005 on charges of planning an act of terrorism targeting Sydney, Australia's most populous city and the capital of New South Wales. The group was found guilty on 16 October 2009 and were sentenced on 15 February 2010 for terms up to 28 years.
The December 2009 Kurdish protests in Turkey were five days of protests in Turkey that ensued after a December 11, 2009 ruling by the Constitutional Court of Turkey that banned pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), after finding them guilty of having links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and spreading "terrorist propaganda."
Bryan Joseph Law (1954–2013) was an Australian peace activist who became well-known after breaking into Pine Gap in 2005 as a passive protest against the Iraq War, and again for breaking into a military base at Rockhampton in 2011 and hammering a hole in a military helicopter prevent it from operating. Law and his wife Margaret Pestorius coordinated the Cairns Peace by Peace organisation. Law also disrupted logging activities on the World Heritage site Fraser Island.
On the morning of 18 September 2014, police in Australia carried out the biggest counter-terrorism operation in the nation's history, with over 800 heavily armed officers targeting households in the cities of Sydney and Brisbane. It came days after the Australian government raised the terror threat from medium to high due to concerns about Australian citizens returning to the country after fighting with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Following the raids, two people were charged, one with terrorism offences and the other for possession of an unauthorised firearm. One of the two arrestees became one of only two men on remand at the highest security prison in Australia, as he is considered an "AA" security risk.
Tiahleigh Alyssa Rose Palmer was a 12-year-old Australian girl who lived in Logan City, Queensland. She was murdered on 30 October 2015. Her remains were found six days later and her foster father, Rick Thorburn, was charged on 20 September 2016 with her murder. Thorburn pleaded guilty to the murder before the Supreme Court of Queensland on 25 May 2018.
Islamic terrorism in Europe has been carried out by the Islamic State (ISIS) or Al-Qaeda as well as Islamist lone wolves since the late 20th century.
