criminal

JARED Leto has broken his silence on allegations of criminal sexual conduct, calling them “categorically false”.

Four women including accused the Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman of criminal sexual conduct, with one alleging he raped her as a teenager.

He said: “I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false.”

The allegations against the Oscar winner, 54, date from when the women were aged between 16 and 19.

One accuser alleges she had sex with Leto when she was 17, which under Californian laws would be classed as statutory rape.

The Hollywood star, aged 34 at the time, invited the woman and a friend to his Californian home, the alleged accuser told the BBC.

She claims Leto told her friend to wait in a separate room as the alleged rape took place.

A second woman claims she was sexually assaulted in a “dingy” Las Vegas motel bathroom when she was 17.

Leto, who was in his early 30s at the time, allegedly invited the girl into the bathroom as he showered and made her touch him inappropriately.

A third claims the Dallas Buyers Club star threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19 after the pair were left alone in a hotel room.

The allegations came after a Thirty Seconds to Mars concert at London’s O2 Arena in 2013 when Leto would have been 41.

A fourth accused Leto of grooming her and alleges he once took advantage of his celebrity status by making repeated sexually explicit phone calls to her when she was 16.

He suggested they should have sex on at least one occasion, the alleged victim claims.

The accusations all come from a new BBC documentary titled Jared Leto: Hollywood‘s Dark Secret.

The BBC claims they have seen at least one non-disclosure agreement (NDA) sent to a woman aimed at preventing her from talking about her relationship with Leto.

Another woman also accuses the Morbius lead of ordering a security guard to take her backstage at a music festival when she was 14.

More to follow… For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Sun Online

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July 28 (UPI) — Chad has announced it is withdrawing from the International Criminal Court, days after a U.S. official urged the central African nation to consider doing so and amid a concerted U.S. campaign seeking to dismantle the court.

In an official communique made public Monday, Chad’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it notified United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of its decision to withdraw from the Rome Statute, the treaty establishing the court, following what it described as an “in-depth examination” of its operations.

The ministry said the court’s effectiveness “has remained limited and uneven in light of the expectations that led to its creation,” alleging an anti-African bias and noting that its first nine investigations concerned situations in Africa. The ICC currently lists 17 situations under investigation.

Chad also highlighted that six of the seven people in the court’s custody are being prosecuted in connection with situations in Africa.

“Taken together, these objective factors explain the perception, widely shared among numerous states and their populations, that the court’s judicial activity has remained durably concentrated on the Global South in general and on the African continent in particular, which have consistently been victims of a form of political instrumentalization of the ICC,” the ministry said.

It called on the African Union and member stats to reconsider the future of what it called an “apparently biased system” and to strengthen the African judicial mechanisms instead.

The decision, which is to take effect in one year, comes amid an intensified U.S. campaign against the ICC following the court’s issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a campaign seeking to “dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty.”

The United States is not a member of the ICC, and although the Trump administration has taken a more aggressive stance toward the court, the United States has long rejected the cour’s assertion of jurisdiction of U.S. nationals without Washington’s consent.

Four days before Chad announced its decision to withdraw from the ICC, Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Sabre Fadoul spoke with U.S. Under Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Frank Garcia Jr..

A statement from Chad said the call was made at the request of the United States. During the call, Garcia expressed the United States’ concerns about the ICC’s operation and requested that Chad review its membership, which Fadoul said Chad would.

“The United States welcomes Chad’s decision to withdraw from the ICC and join the growing number of nations reclaiming their sovereignty from this flawed institution,” the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs said in a statement.

“The United States will never surrender its sovereignty to an unaccountable global tribunal, and we are launching a comprehensive, whole-of-government campaign to end the ICC’s illegitimate overreach. We call on all other ICC members to withdraw from the Rome Statute.”

The announcement comes days after Venezuela announced it was withdrawing from the ICC.

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger all announced their withdrawals from the court in June 2026.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani releases a video statement calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to face trial for war crimes, citing the ICC’s arrest warrant. But, after days of speculation, Mamdani says New York does not have the power to arrest Netanyahu.

July 16 (Asia Today) — The South Korean government is considering lowering the maximum age for exemption from criminal punishment from 14 to 13 for juveniles who commit violent, serious or repeated offenses.

The debate intensified after President Lee Jae-myung ordered officials Tuesday to reconsider an initial proposal that would lower the age by only one year and apply the change to limited categories of crimes.

Lee questioned whether the proposed change was substantial enough during a Cabinet meeting.

Under South Korean law, children younger than 14 cannot be held criminally responsible. Those ages 10 through 13 who commit offenses may instead receive protective measures under the Juvenile Act.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family presented the Cabinet with the results of a public consultation on the issue. It proposed making some 13-year-old offenders eligible for criminal punishment when they commit particularly serious or repeated crimes.

Cabinet members, however, raised concerns that applying different ages of criminal responsibility depending on the type of offense could create legal problems.

The minimum age of criminal responsibility has remained unchanged since South Korea enacted its Criminal Act in 1953.

A deliberative survey of 212 citizens showed that 46.7% supported lowering the age only for violent, serious or repeated offenses while 30.2% favored lowering it for all offenses.

Among participants who supported a reduction, 55.8% favored lowering the threshold by one year.

The government is expected to conduct a second public consultation to determine whether the change should apply only to specified offenses or to all crimes. The process also will consider whether the current threshold should be lowered from younger than 14 to younger than 13 or younger than 12.

The Ministry of Justice is expected to lead the second consultation because the proposal requires a detailed legal review.

Officials will need to determine which offenses qualify as violent or serious and whether applying different criminal responsibility standards according to the offense would conflict with the purpose of the juvenile justice system.

The second consultation could begin this month and conclude within one or two months.

The government said it would gather additional public input before reaching a final decision.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family also plans to pursue revisions to the Criminal Act and Juvenile Act while considering the creation of an interagency committee focused on preventing juvenile delinquency.

Officials said the government would strengthen post-offense management and rehabilitation programs designed to reduce repeat offenses regardless of whether the age threshold is lowered.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260716010006327

Rams offensive lineman Alaric Jackson is not facing charges related to his arrest last month on suspicion of domestic violence, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office confirmed.

“Charges are not filed against the respondent at this time, however, the case stays open throughout the length of the statute of limitations. It can be re-evaluated if there are further developments,” said Ivor Pine, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.

Pine said the matter has been assigned for a City Attorney hearing, a pre-filing diversion that is an alternative to misdemeanor prosecution.

Jackson was arrested on June 9 after police responded to a call at a West Hills home involving Jackson and a pregnant woman.

Jackson, 27, could still face discipline from the NFL if the league determines that he violated its personal conduct policy for the second time.

In 2024, Jackson served a two-game suspension. If the league finds he committed another violation, Jackson could face a six-game suspension or possible banishment for at least one year.

The Rams are scheduled to report to training camp on July 25 in preparation for their Sept. 10 season opener against the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne, Australia.

Staff writer Gary Klein contributed to this report.

Marine Le Pen, the far-right French politician, announced Tuesday she is running for president next year after an appeals court shortened her election ban. Le Pen was convicted of embezzlement and ordered to wear a tracking bracelet and banned from running for office for five years.

The National Election Commission’s (NEC) fact-finding committee investigating ballot shortages during the recent local elections called for a criminal probe into the commission’s former chief Friday, citing systemic failures in the election management system.

Cho Hyun-wook, chairperson of the committee, made the announcement during a briefing at the NEC headquarters in Gwacheon, south of Seoul, as the panel wrapped up a weeklong investigation conducted to determine the cause of the ballot shortages.

The committee recommended that former NEC Chairman Roh Tae-ak, who stepped down from his post over the debacle, and other key officials be referred for criminal investigation.

Cho also stressed that the NEC requires a sweeping overhaul tantamount to dismantling the organization.

“Given the systemic failures in the election management system exposed by the ballot shortage incident, the NEC requires sweeping reforms akin to dismantlement,” she said.

According to the committee, 140 of the country’s 14,288 polling stations requested and received additional ballot papers after anticipating shortages on election day. Of those, 91 used the additional ballots they received, while voting was at least temporarily disrupted at 26 polling stations due to ballot shortages.

The committee, launched on June 10, consisted of six members recommended by civic organizations, media, legal and academic communities.

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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a Trump administration appeal and decide if “criminal aliens” may be held indefinitely while they fight deportation.

The case to be heard in the fall could give the administration more power to arrest and hold immigrants, including green card holders, who have criminal records.

The government’s lawyers say immigration laws call for deporting non-citizens with “aggravated felonies” on their records. And in such cases, they say these people may be held for months or even years while their claims are before the immigration courts.

Judges have been split on whether non-citizens fighting deportation have a right to a bond hearing and a chance to go free if they pose no risk to public safety.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled for a pair of green card holders who faced deportation to the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Both had been convicted of assaults that were characterized as aggravated felonies under the immigration laws.

However, the appeals court said their “prolonged detention” was unconstitutional if they were given no bond hearing and no chance to go free.

They were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, whose lawyers urged the court to turn down the appeal.

“For the first time in this litigation, the government argues that civil detention ‘does not implicate any fundamental rights’ and so the Due Process Clause affords the detained men no protections—substantive or procedural,” they wrote.

In the past, they said the Supreme Court had accepted the “bedrock principle” that detained persons may have a right to seek their release on bond.

One of the two men had left this country and returned to Jamaica, the ACLU lawyers said. But Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer urged the court to rule on the issue.

The detained men “have no procedural due-process right to a bond hearing on whether they are a flight risk or danger to the community,” he told the court. “Individualized findings about flight risk and danger are irrelevant” under the immigration laws which called for “mandatory detention based on their aggravated-felony convictions alone.”

Shimon Peres, who passed away Wednesday aged 93 after suffering a stroke on 13 September, epitomised the disparity between Israel’s image in the West and the reality of its bloody, colonial policies in Palestine and the wider region.

Peres was born in modern day Belarus in 1923, and his family moved to Palestine in the 1930s. As a young man, Peres joined the Haganah, the militia primarily responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages in 1947-49, during the Nakba.

Despite the violent displacement of the Palestinians being a matter of historical record, Peres has always insisted that Zionist forces “upheld the purity of arms” during the establishment of the State of Israel. Indeed, he even claimed that before Israel existed, “there was nothing here”.

Over seven decades, Peres served as prime minister (twice) and president, though he never actually won a national election outright. He was a member of 12 cabinets and had stints as defence, foreign and finance minister.

He is perhaps best known in the West for his role in the negotiations that led to the 1993 Oslo Accords which won him, along with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, the Nobel Peace Prize.

Yet for Palestinians and their neighbours in the Middle East, Peres’ track record is very different from his reputation in the West as a tireless “dove”. The following is by no means a comprehensive summary of Peres’ record in the service of colonialism and apartheid.

Nuclear weapons

Between 1953 and 1965, Peres served first as director general of Israel’s defence ministry and then as deputy defence minister. On account of his responsibilities at the time, Peres has been described as “an architect of Israel’s nuclear weapons programme” which, to this day, “remains outside the scrutiny of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).”

In 1975, as secret minutes have since revealed, Peres met with South African Defence Minister PW Botha and “offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime.” In 1986, Peres authorised the Mossad operation that saw nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu kidnapped in Rome.

Targeting Palestinian citizens

Peres had a key role in the military regime imposed on Palestinian citizens until 1966, under which authorities carried out mass land theft and displacement.

One such tool was Article 125 which allowed Palestinian land to be declared a closed military zone. Its owners denied access, the land would then be confiscated as “uncultivated”. Peres praised Article 125 as a means to “directly continue the struggle for Jewish settlement and Jewish immigration.”

Another one of Peres’ responsibilities in his capacity as director general of the defence ministry was to “Judaise” the Galilee; that is to say, to pursue policies aimed at reducing the region’s proportion of Palestinian citizens compared to Jewish ones.

In 2005, as Vice Premier in the cabinet of Ariel Sharon, Peres renewed his attack on Palestinian citizens with plans to encourage Jewish Israelis to move to the Galilee. His “development” plan covered 104 communities – 100 of them Jewish.

In secret conversations with US officials that same year, Peres claimed Israel had “lost one million dunams [1,000 square kilometres] of Negev land to the Bedouin”, adding that the “development” of the Negev and Galilee could “relieve what [he] termed a demographic threat.”

Supporting illegal settlements in the West Bank

While Israel’s settlement project in the West Bank has come to be associated primarily with Likud and other right-wing nationalist parties, it was in fact Labor which kick-started the colonisation of the newly-conquered Palestinian territory – and Peres was an enthusiastic participant.

During Peres’ tenure as defence minister, from 1974 to 1977, the Rabin government established a number of key West Bank settlements, including Ofra, large sections of which were built on confiscated privately-owned Palestinian land.

Having played a key role in the early days of the settlement enterprise, in more recent years, Peres has intervened to undermine any sort of measures, no matter how modest, at sanctioning the illegal colonies – always, of course, in the name of protecting “peace negotiations”.

The Qana massacre

As prime minister in 1996, Peres ordered and oversaw “Operation Grapes of Wrath” when Israeli armed forces killed some 154 civilians in Lebanon and injured another 351. The operation, widely believed to have been a pre-election show of strength, saw Lebanese civilians intentionally targeted.

According to the official Israeli Air Force website (in Hebrew, not English), the operation involved “massive bombing of the Shia villages in South Lebanon in order to cause a flow of civilians north, toward Beirut, thus applying pressure on Syria and Lebanon to restrain Hezbollah.”

The campaign’s most notorious incident was the Qana massacre, when Israel shelled a United Nations compound and killed 106 sheltering civilians. A UN report stated that, contrary to Israeli denials, it was “unlikely” that the shelling “was the result of technical and/or procedural errors.”

Later, Israeli gunners told Israeli television that they had no regrets over the massacre, as the dead were “just a bunch of Arabs”. As for Peres, his conscience was also clean: “Everything was done according to clear logic and in a responsible way,” he said. “I am at peace.”

Gaza – defending blockade and brutality

Peres came into his own as one of Israel’s most important global ambassadors in the last ten years, as the Gaza Strip was subjected to a devastating blockade and three major offensives. Despite global outrage at such policies, Peres has consistently backed collective punishment and military brutality.

In January 2009, for example, despite calls by “Israeli human rights organisations…for ‘Operation Cast Lead’ to be halted”, Peres described “national solidarity behind the military operation” as “Israel’s finest hour.” According to Peres, the aim of the assault “was to provide a strong blow to the people of Gaza so that they would lose their appetite for shooting at Israel.”

During “Operation Pillar of Defence” in November 2012, Peres “took on the job of helping the Israeli public relations effort, communicating the Israeli narrative to world leaders,” in the words of Ynetnews. On the eve of Israel’s offensive, “Peres warned Hamas that if it wants normal life for the people of Gaza, then it must stop firing rockets into Israel.”

In 2014, during an unprecedented bombardment of Gaza, Peres stepped up once again to whitewash war crimes. After Israeli forces killed four small children playing on a beach, Peres knew who to blame – the Palestinians: “It was an area that we warned would be bombed,” he said. “And unfortunately they didn’t take out the children.”

The choking blockade, condemned internationally as a form of prohibited collective punishment, has also been defended by Peres – precisely on the grounds that it is a form of collective punishment. As Peres put it in 2014: “If Gaza ceases fire, there will be no need for a blockade.”

Peres’ support for collective punishment also extended to Iran. Commenting in 2012 on reports that six million Iranians suffering from cancer were unable to get treatment due to sanctions, Peres said: “If they want to return to a normal life, let them become normal.”

Unapologetic to the end

Peres was always clear about the goal of a peace deal with the Palestinians. As he said in 2014: “The first priority is preserving Israel as a Jewish state. That is our central goal, that is what we are fighting for.” Last year he reiterated these sentiments in an interview with AP, saying: “Israel should implement the two-state solution for her own sake,” so as not to “lose our [Jewish] majority.”

This, recall, was what shaped Labor’s support for the Oslo Accords. Rabin, speaking to the Knesset not long before his assassination in 1995, was clear that what Israel sought from the Oslo Accords was a Palestinian “entity” that would be “less than a state”. Jerusalem would be Israel’s undivided capital, key settlements would be annexed and Israel would remain in the Jordan Valley.

A few years ago, Peres described the Palestinians as “self-victimising.” He went on: “They victimise themselves. They are a victim of their own mistakes unnecessarily.” Such cruel condescension was characteristic of a man for whom “peace” always meant colonial pacification.

MIAMI — Federal prosecutors on Wednesday announced charges against former Cuban President Raúl Castro in the 1996 downing of civilian planes operated by Miami-based exiles as the Trump administration escalated pressure on the socialist government.

The indictment was related to Castro’s alleged role in the shootdown of two small planes operated by the exile group Brothers to the Rescue. Castro, now 94, was Cuba’s defense minister at the time. The charges included murder and destruction of an airplane.

Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche and other top Justice Department officials made the announcement in Miami at a ceremony to honor those killed in the shootdown.

President Trump has been threatening military action in Cuba ever since U.S. forces captured the Cuban government’s longtime patron, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. After ousting Maduro, the White House ordered a blockade that choked off fuel shipments to Cuba, leading to severe blackouts, food shortages and an economic collapse across the island.

Since Maduro’s capture, Trump has ratcheted up talk of regime change in Cuba after pledging earlier this year to conduct a “friendly takeover” of the country if its leadership did not open its economy to American investment and kick out U.S. adversaries.

Trump’s first administration indicted Maduro on drug-trafficking charges and used that to justify removing him from power during a surprise military raid in January that whisked the Venezuelan leader to New York to face trial.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday urged the Cuban people to demand a free-market economy with new leadership that he said will chart a new course in relations with the U.S.

“In the U.S., we are ready to open a new chapter in the relationship between our people,” Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, said in a Spanish-language video message. “Currently, the only thing standing in the way of a better future are those who control your country.”

Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos F. de Cossío lashed out at Rubio on X, saying he “lies so repeatedly and unscrupulously about Cuba and tries to justify the aggression he inflicts on the Cuban people.” Rubio “knows full well that there is no excuse for such cruel and ruthless aggression.”

Raúl Castro believed to wield power behind the scenes

There’s no indication Castro will be taken into U.S. custody anytime soon.

He took over as president from his ailing older brother Fidel Castro in 2006 before handing power to a trusted loyalist, Díaz-Canel, in 2018.

While he retired in 2021 as head of the Cuban Communist Party, he is widely believed to wield power behind the scenes, underscored by the prominence of his grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, who previously met secretly with Rubio.

Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana for meetings with Cuban officials, including Castro’s grandson. Two other senior State Department officials met with the grandson in April.

“The symbolic nature is absolutely crucial,” said Lindsey Lazopoulos Friedman, a former prosecutor at the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami who handled national security cases and crimes involving Cubans.

“Even though Raúl Castro will likely stay and die in Cuba, you can use the indictment as a pressure point, a tactical advantage, to extract other concessions like the release of prisoners or to keep Russia out,” she added.

The investigation into Castro stretches back to the 1990s

Starting in 1995, planes flown by members of Brothers to the Rescue, a group founded by Cuban exiles, buzzed over Havana dropping leaflets urging Cubans to rise up against the Castro government.

The Cubans protested to the U.S. government, warning that they would defend their airspace. Federal Aviation Administration officials also opened an investigation and met with the group’s leaders to urge them to ground the flights, according to declassified government records obtained by George Washington University’s National Security Archive.

“This latest overflight can only be seen as further taunting of the Cuban Government,” an FAA official wrote in an email to her superiors after one intrusion in January 1996. “Worst case scenario is that one of these days the Cubans will shoot down one of these planes.”

But those calls went unheeded and on Feb. 24, 1996, missiles fired by Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets downed two unarmed civilian Cessna planes a short distance north of Havana just beyond Cuba’s airspace. All four men aboard were killed.

Raúl Castro faced earlier indictment

Guy Lewis, who was a federal prosecutor, uncovered evidence linking senior Cuban military officials to cocaine trafficking by Colombia’s Medellin cartel. Following the shootdown, the investigation expanded, and prosecutors pursued charges against Raúl Castro for leading a vast racketeering conspiracy by Cuba’s armed forces.

“The evidence was strong,” Lewis said in an interview.

In the end, the Clinton administration indicted four individuals, including the MiG pilots, the head of the Cuban air force and the head of a Cuban spy network in Miami — the only one to see the inside of a U.S. prison — for providing valuable intelligence about the flights.

The incident led the U.S. to harden its position against Cuba, even though the Cold War had ended and the Castros’ support for revolution across Latin America was a fading memory.

But Castro himself was spared as the Clinton administration — which had quietly sought to expand relations with Cuba prior to the incident — raised foreign policy concerns about such a high-profile indictment.

“Raúl was definitely one who slipped through the noose,” Lewis said. “The crime is notorious. Three U.S. citizens and one legal permanent resident were killed in a premeditated orchestrated murder. That should never be forgotten.”

Goodman and Richer write for the Associated Press. Richer reported from Washington.