prison

The decision follows Castillo’s failed 2022 bid to dissolve Congress and avoid a third impeachment attempt.

A court in Peru has sentenced former President Pedro Castillo to 11 years, five months and 15 days in prison for seeking to dissolve Congress.

The decision on Thursday came nearly three years after Castillo sought to disband the legislature on December 7, 2022, as he faced a third set of impeachment hearings.

The first two attempts to impeach Castillo had been unsuccessful. But after he appeared on television to impose a state of emergency and suspend the legislature for eroding the rule of law, Congress swiftly voted for his removal. He was arrested the same day.

Castillo, a former teacher and union leader, was charged with rebellion and conspiracy against the state for his alleged power grab, which some have described as a “self-coup”.

A left-leaning, socially conservative politician from Peru’s rural north, Castillo had faced up to 34 years in prison at his sentencing.

Prosecutors in the case argued that Castillo aimed to undermine Peru’s Constitution with his actions. But at trial last week, Castillo denied the charges against him. Addressing his televised 2022 speech, he said he merely read out “a document without consequence”.

Castillo is part of a series of presidents in recent decades to face investigations and criminal charges in Peru. The country has had eight presidents within the last 10 years alone.

After his surprise victory in the 2021 presidential election, Castillo, now 56, was dubbed the country’s first “president of the poor“, given his working-class roots in the northern city of Puna. He had never previously held elected office.

His brief tenure, which lasted only around 16 months, was defined by frequent shake-ups among his top ministers and clashes with the opposition-led Congress.

Castillo’s arrest in 2022 sparked pushback from Indigenous residents and his rural base, members of which blocked roads, particularly in Peru’s south.

The unrest fuelled widespread, years-long protests across the country. His successor, former Vice President Dina Boluarte, oversaw a brutal crackdown of those demonstrations that left at least 50 people dead.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has accused the government of using “disproportionate, indiscriminate and lethal use of force” in its response to the protests.

Boluarte, the country’s first female president, was subsequently impeached in October, amid concerns about rising crime and investigations into her behaviour. She has been replaced by the right-wing politician Jose Jeri, who previously was the head of Peru’s Congress.

Thursday’s sentencing caps a nine-month trial punctuated by a diplomatic rift.

During the court proceedings, the Mexican embassy granted asylum to Castillo’s former prime minister, Betssy Chavel, who was also facing charges related to the former president’s effort to consolidate power.

Peru’s government subsequently labelled Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, a vocal supporter of Castillo, “persona non grata”.

Castillo has been denied the possibility of serving his sentence under house arrest. Instead, he is slated to join several other former presidents at Barbadillo Prison in the capital Lima. The prison, situated at a police academy, was set up to hold convicted leaders who might face safety hazards in other detention facilities.

Detainees at Barbadillo include Ollanta Humala, who served as president from 2011 to 2016 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison this year for money laundering.

Alejandro Toledo, who served from 2001 to 2006, was sentenced last year to 20 years in prison for taking bribes. He too is at the prison.

And Martin Vizcarra, who was sentenced on Wednesday to 14 years in prison for bribery, was transferred there this week.

A special counsel team on Wednesday demanded a 15-year prison term for former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo on charges of abetting former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s imposition of martial law.

Special counsel Cho Eun-suk’s team made the request during the final hearing of Han’s trial at the Seoul Central District Court, making him the first of dozens of defendants in the martial law case to receive a sentencing recommendation.

“Though the defendant was, in fact, the only person who could have stopped the insurrection situation of this case, he abandoned his duty as a servant of the entire nation and took part in the insurrection crime through a series of acts before and after the declaration of martial law,” a member of the special counsel team said.

Han has been indicted on charges of abetting the ringleader of an insurrection, playing a key role in an insurrection and perjury, all in connection with the martial law imposition.

In addition to attending a Cabinet meeting shortly before Yoon declared martial law on Dec. 3, he allegedly revised the proclamation afterward to enhance its legitimacy, discarded it and lied under oath at the Constitutional Court.

The special counsel team asked the court to consider the immense damage to the nation and the people and his uncooperative attitude in the investigation process.

“This case was an act of terror on the democracy of the Republic of Korea, and the nation and the people as a whole were the victims,” the team member said.

“By strictly punishing the defendant, we must ensure this unfortunate history of the Republic of Korea does not repeat itself,” he added.

Han is expected to be the first to receive a verdict in the martial law case as the court previously stated plans to deliver its ruling on Jan. 21 or 28 next year.

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Bogota, Colombia – Santiago Uribe, the brother of former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, has been sentenced to 28 years and three months in prison for aggravated homicide and conspiracy to commit a crime while leading a paramilitary group.

In Tuesday’s verdict, a three-judge panel in the northwestern province of Antioquia ruled that, in the early 1990s, Uribe “formed and led an illegal armed group”.

Under Uribe’s leadership, the group allegedly “carried out a plan to systematically murder and exterminate people considered undesirable”.

Uribe has denied having any associations with paramilitary groups. His defence team plans to appeal.

The ruling reverses a lower court’s acquittal last year. The case will now pass to Colombia’s Supreme Court for a final verdict.

The conviction is the latest twist in a longstanding criminal investigation into the Uribe family and its alleged paramilitary ties.

Critics have accused Uribe and his brother, the former president, of maintaining ties to groups involved in grave human rights abuses during Colombia’s six-decade-long internal conflict.

Tuesday’s conviction relates to activities that took place on and around the Uribe family’s La Carolina cattle ranch, located in Antioquia.

In its 307-page ruling, the court detailed how the ranch was used as a base for The 12 Apostles, a far-right paramilitary group formed by ranchers in the early 1990s to combat leftist rebels, notably the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The court described The 12 Apostles as a “death squad”, saying it performed “social cleansing” by killing “undesirables” including sex workers, drug users, people with mental illnesses and suspected leftist sympathisers.

Not only did the paramilitary group hold meetings at La Carolina, but training and weapons distribution were also carried out on site, according to the ruling.

Those were “acts with which crimes against humanity were committed”, the judges wrote.

Describing Uribe as the leader of The 12 Apostles, the court found him responsible for ordering the murder of Camilo Barrientos, a bus driver who was shot near La Carolina in 1994 for being a suspected rebel collaborator.

Tuesday’s ruling also highlighted collusion between paramilitaries and state security forces, saying the militia “enjoyed the cooperation, through action and inaction, of agents of the State”.

Uribe was first investigated for his involvement with The 12 Apostles in the late 1990s, but the investigation was dropped in 1999 due to a lack of evidence.

Colombian authorities resumed their investigation in 2010, detaining Uribe in 2016 on charges of homicide.

While the trial ended in 2020, the lower court announced its verdict years later, in November 2024. The judge overseeing the case at the time, Jaime Herrera Nino, ruled there was insufficient evidence and acquitted Uribe.

Tuesday’s decision overturns that verdict. Human rights advocates applauded the ruling as a step towards accountability, even at the highest levels of power.

“The sentence is extremely important,” said Laura Bonilla, a deputy director at Colombia’s Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (Pares). “It shows the level of penetration that paramilitarism had in Colombian society.”

Gerson Arias, a conflict and security investigator at the Ideas for Peace Foundation, a Colombian think tank, said the complexity of the case reflects the power structures involved.

“Paramilitarism was deeply rooted in the upper echelons of society, and therefore clarifying what happened takes years,” he said.

“It is therefore likely that many of the collective things we know about paramilitarism are still pending resolution and discovery.”

The defendant’s brother, former President Alvaro Uribe, led Colombia from 2002 to 2010.

The ex-president himself was found guilty earlier this year of bribing former paramilitary members not to testify to his involvement with them.

The ruling was overturned in October, after a court ruled the evidence was gathered through an unlawful wiretap. It also cited “structural deficiencies” in the prosecution’s arguments.

The former president remains a powerful figure in right-wing politics in Colombia, and he has pledged to form a coalition to oppose a left-wing government in the 2026 elections.

“I feel deep pain over the sentence against my brother. May God help him,” the ex-president wrote on the social media platform X following Tuesday’s ruling.

Brazil’s former president, convicted of a foiled coup, is under arrest after taking a soldering iron to the monitoring device.

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has told a judge that “hallucinations” provoked by a change in his medication led him to tamper with his angle tag while under house arrest for an attempted coup.

In a custody hearing on Sunday following his detention the previous day over the incident, the far-right former leader told a Supreme Court judge that he experienced a medicine-induced “paranoia” that led him to take a soldering iron to the device.

“[Bolsonaro] said he had ‘hallucinations’ that there was some wiretap in the ankle monitoring, so he tried to uncover it,” said Assistant Judge Luciana Sorrentino in a court document published shortly after the online hearing with the former president.

Bolsonaro was under house arrest while appealing his conviction for a botched military coup after his 2022 election loss, but had been taken into custody on Saturday after police reports he had attempted to violate the ankle tag rendered him a potential flight risk.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the arrest hours after receiving information at 12:08am [03:08 GMT] on Saturday that the tag had been violated.

Bolsonaro denied he was trying to escape, telling Sorrentino that a mix of medicines prescribed by different doctors had led to the episode. He said he began taking one of them only four days before his detention on Saturday morning.

“The witness stated that, around midnight, he tampered with the ankle bracelet, then ‘came to his senses’ and stopped using the soldering iron, at which point he informed the officers in charge of his custody,” the court document said.

Sunday’s meeting was procedural in nature, but provided an opportunity for Bolsonaro’s lawyers to argue that the former president should remain under house arrest due to poor health. De Moraes has previously rejected similar requests.

A panel of Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled in September that Bolsonaro tried to stage a coup and keep the presidency after his defeat by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2022, sentencing him to 27 years and three months in prison.

On Monday, the same panel will vote on the pre-emptive arrest order.

President Lula made his first comments about his predecessor’s jailing at a meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) bloc of nations in South Africa. “The court ruled, that’s decided. Everyone knows what he did,” Lula told journalists.

The former president is taken in the capital Brasilia days before starting his prison time for leading coup attempt.

Brazil’s federal police have arrested former President Jair Bolsonaro, days before he was set to begin his 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup attempt, according to his lawyer and a close aide.

Bolsonaro, who has been under house arrest since August, was transferred to detention on Saturday, his lawyer said.

“He has been imprisoned, but I don’t know why,” Celso Vilardi, one of his lawyers, told the AFP news agency.

A close aide told The Associated Press news agency that the embattled former leader was taken to the police headquarters in the capital, Brasilia.

Bolsonaro’s aide Andriely Cirino confirmed to AP that the arrest took place at about 6am (03:00 GMT) on Saturday.

The force said in a short statement, which did not name Bolsonaro, that it acted on the request of Brazil’s Supreme Court.

Neither Brazil’s federal police nor the Supreme Court provided more details at the time of publication.

Sentenced for coup attempt

The 70-year-old former president was taken from his house in a gated community in the upscale Jardim Botanico neighbourhood to the federal police headquarters, Cirino said.

Local media reported that Bolsonaro, who was Brazil’s president from 2019 to 2022, was expected to begin serving his sentence sometime next week after the far-right leader exhausted all appeals of his conviction for leading a coup attempt.

The 70-year-old Bolsonaro’s legal team had previously argued that he should serve his 27-year sentence for a botched coup bid in 2022 at home, arguing imprisonment would pose a risk to his health.

Bolsonaro was convicted in September over his bid to prevent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking power following the 2022 election, which he lost.

The effort saw crowds of rioters storm government buildings a week after Lula’s inauguration, evoking comparisons with the January 6 riot at the United States Capitol after his close ally, President Donald Trump, lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

Trump has branded the prosecution of his far-right ally a “witch-hunt” and made it a major issue in US relations with Brazil, imposing stiff tariffs on the country as a form of retribution.

Trump and Lula held what Brazil described as a constructive meeting on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Kuala Lumpur last month, raising hope for improved relations after stinging US tariffs.

Lula said the meeting with Trump was “great” and added that their countries’ negotiating teams would get to work “immediately” to tackle tariffs and other issues.

Justice Department prosecutors accused Grammy-winning rapper Pras Michel of betraying his country for money.

A United States district judge has sentenced Prakazrel “Pras” Michel, a member of 1990s hip-hop group the Fugees, to 14 years in prison for illegally funnelling millions of dollars in foreign contributions to former US President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.

Michel declined to address the court before Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced him on Thursday. The trial in Washington, DC, included testimony from former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

This week’s sentencing came after a federal jury convicted Michel on 10 counts, including conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, in April 2023.

Michel obtained more than $120m from fugitive Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho – also known as Jho Low – and steered some of that money through straw donors to Obama’s campaign.

Low is wanted for his leading role in the 1MDB scandal, in which billions of dollars were pilfered from Malaysia’s state investment fund in one of the largest financial frauds in history.

Several senior financial figures and members of Malaysia’s government have been convicted for their role in the scandal, including disgraced former Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was handed a 12-year prison sentence in 2022, which was later halved.

Court documents, filed by Justice Department prosecutors on Thursday, said the 52-year-old Grammy-winning rapper “lied unapologetically and unrelentingly to carry out his schemes” as he syphoned illegal payments from Low to the Obama campaign.

It is illegal in the US for foreigners to donate to election campaigns, as well as to pay someone else to make a campaign contribution.

“Prakazrel Michel betrayed his country for money. He funnelled millions of dollars in prohibited foreign contributions into a United States presidential election and attempted to manipulate a sitting president to serve a foreign criminal and a foreign power,” prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also said Michel had attempted to end a Justice Department investigation into Low and the 1MDB scandal, as well as “tampered with witnesses and then perjured himself at trial”.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly was advised by prosecutors that federal sentencing guidelines recommended a life sentence for such crimes, urging her to take into account the “breadth and depth of his crimes, his indifference to the risks to his country, and the magnitude of his greed”.

Michel’s lawyers downplayed the extent of his crimes, saying Low’s motivation for donating money was not to “achieve some policy objective”.

“Instead, Low simply wanted to obtain a photograph with himself and then-President Obama,” Michel’s lawyers wrote.

Low – who remains in hiding and claims innocence – courted America’s rich and famous during a years-long spending spree allegedly financed by funds stolen from 1MDB.

Notably, he was one of the primary financiers of the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street, starring DiCaprio.

Defence lawyer Peter Zeidenberg said Michel will appeal.

He labelled his client’s 14-year sentence “completely disproportionate to the offence” and “absurdly high” given such terms are typically reserved for deadly terrorists and drug cartel leaders.

Instead, Zeidenberg recommended a three-year prison sentence for Michel.

Michel, a Brooklyn native whose parents immigrated to the US from Haiti, was a founding member of the Fugees along with childhood friends Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean. The group won two Grammy Awards during their peak in the 1990s and sold tens of millions of albums.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge said Wednesday he plans to move ahead quickly on a contempt investigation of the Trump administration for failing to turn around planes carrying Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador in March.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington said a ruling Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit gave him the authority to proceed with the inquiry, which will determine whether there is sufficient evidence to refer the matter for prosecution. He asked attorneys to identify witnesses and offer plans for how to conduct the probe by Monday and said he’d like to start any hearings on Dec. 1.

The judge has previously warned he could seek to have officials in the administration prosecuted.

On March 15, Boasberg ordered the aircraft carrying accused gang members to return to the U.S., but they landed instead in El Salvador, where the migrants were held at a notorious prison.

“I am authorized to proceed just as I intended to do in April seven months ago,” the judge said during a hearing Wednesday. He added later, “I certainly intend to find out what happened on that day.”

Boasberg said having witnesses testify under oath appeared to be the best way to conduct the contempt probe, but he also suggested the government could provide written declarations to explain who gave orders to “defy” his ruling. He suggested one witness: a former U.S. Justice Department attorney who filed a whistleblower complaint that claims a top official in the department suggested the Trump administration might have to ignore court orders as it prepared to deport Venezuelan migrants it accused of being gang members.

The Trump administration has denied any violation, saying the judge’s directive to return the planes was made verbally in court but not included in his written order. Justice Department attorney Tiberius Davis told Boasberg the government objected to further contempt proceedings.

Boasberg previously found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt of court. The ruling marked a dramatic battle between the judicial and executive branches of government, but a divided three-judge appeals court panel later sided with the administration and threw out the finding. The two judges in the majority were appointed by President Trump.

On Friday, a larger panel of judges on the D.C. Circuit said the earlier ruling by their colleagues did not bar Boasberg from moving ahead with his contempt probe. Boasberg’s contempt finding was a “measured and essential response,” Judges Cornelia Pillard, Robert Wilkins and Bradley Garcia wrote.

“Obedience to court orders is vital to the ability of the judiciary to fulfill its constitutionally appointed role,” they wrote. “Judicial orders are not suggestions; they are binding commands that the Executive Branch, no less than any other party, must obey.”

The Trump administration invoked an 18th-century wartime law to send the migrants, whom it accused of membership in a Venezuelan gang, to a mega-prison in El Salvador known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT. It argued that American courts could not order them freed.

In June, Boasberg ruled the Trump administration must give some of the migrants a chance to challenge their deportations, saying they hadn’t been able to formally contest the removals or allegations that they were members of Tren de Aragua.

The judge wrote that “significant evidence” had surfaced indicating that many of the migrants were not connected to the gang “and thus were languishing in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations.”

More than 200 migrants were later released back to Venezuela in a prisoner swap with the U.S.

Their attorneys want Boasberg to issue another order requiring the administration to explain how it will give at least 137 of the men a chance to challenge their gang designation under the Alien Enemies Act.

The men are in danger in Venezuela and fear talking to attorneys, who have been able to contact about 30 of them, but they “overwhelmingly” want to pursue their cases, Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said Wednesday.

Davis said it may be hard to take the men into custody again given tensions between the U.S. and the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Boasberg did not immediately rule on the matter.

Thanawala writes for the Associated Press.

Imprisoned rapper Tory Lanez has failed in his efforts to overturn his guilty verdict for shooting Megan Thee Stallion five years ago.

A three-judge panel from the California 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled against 33-year-old Lanez (legal name Daystar Peterson) on Wednesday, reinforcing his convictions on three felony counts stemming from the violent incident in 2020. Neither representatives for Peterson or Megan Thee Stallion (legal name Megan Pete) immediately responded to requests for comment on Thursday.

Peterson’s legal team can petition to have the California Supreme Court hear the appeal, despite Wednesday’s decision.

Canadian musician Peterson, who rose to popularity in the late 2000s, was convicted in December 2022 of assault and weapons offenses. He was convicted of assault with a firearm, illegal possession of a firearm and negligent discharge of a gun, following a two-week trial that featured tearful testimony from Pete.

He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in August 2023. Peterson is currently carrying out his sentence at the California Men’s Colony near San Luis Obispo. He was relocated there after he was stabbed by a fellow inmate at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi earlier this year.

“Savage” rapper Pete, on the other hand, is currently at the center of two legal disputes. One is a harassment suit filed against her in 2024, from a cameraman who alleges that she forced him to watch her have sex in a car while on tour in Europe. The other is a 2024 defamation lawsuit against blogger Milagro Gramz.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Allison Mack is addressing “the bad things she’s done” as a high-profile member of the “sex cult” NXIVM in a new podcast.

Released Monday, “Allison After NXIVM” is a seven-episode series that features the former “Smallville” star detailing her time as a young actor and how she became involved in the purported self-improvement group, as well as her role in manipulating women into becoming sex slaves for NXIVM leader Keith Raniere and the eventual criminal fallout.

“I don’t see myself as innocent,” Mack says in an early episode as she acknowledges using her success as an actor as “a power tool … to get people to do what I wanted” and that she was “very effective in moving Keith’s vision forward.”

In a later episode, she accepts claims that she was a “harsh monster” during her time at NXIVM.

“I was not kind and I was aggressive and I was abusive,” Mack says. “I was harsh and I was callous and I was aggressive and forceful in ways that were painful for people. [I] did make people feel like they had no choice and was incredibly abusive to people, traumatic for people.”

In 2019, Mack pleaded guilty to racketeering charges related to her role in NXIVM and its subgroup DOS, a so-called “secret society” of women who were branded with Raniere’s initials and forced to have sex with him. Mack was among one of the “masters” in the group, a lieutenant tasked by Raniere with recruiting and coercing other women. She was sentenced to three years in federal prison in 2021 and was released in 2023. (Raniere is currently serving a 120-year sentence after being convicted of sex-trafficking and other charges.)

But while she acknowledges that “100% all those allegations are true,” she also contends that she is “someone who cares deeply and wanted very much to grow and wanted very much for everybody that I was involved with to grow. … [B]oth of those things are true about me.

“I definitely recognize and admit that I was abusing my power,” Mack says. “But I also can’t negate the fact that there was a part of me that was altruistic and was desperate to help people. [I] wanted to be better, and I was willing to do anything to be better in myself and to help other people be better.”

The podcast series also touches on what Mack has been up to since being released from prison. She is pursuing a master’s in social work and looking into PhD programs in expressive arts therapy. She is also working at a nonprofit to help bring creative arts such as music, theater and poetry to prisons.

Over the summer, Mack got married to Frank Meeink, a prominent former neo-Nazi who now speaks out in support of racial diversity and acceptance. The couple met in a dog park not long after Mack’s release from prison in 2023. According to the podcast’s host, Natalie Robehmed, Mack now goes by Allison Meeink.

Robehmed also mentions that “Allison After NXIVM,” which is the latest installment of the true crime podcast “Uncover,” came to be after Mack reached out to journalist Vanessa Grigoriadis following her release from prison, hoping to tell her own story for the first time. Grigoriadis, who serves as an executive producer on the series, had interviewed Mack before her arrest.

NXIVM also has been the subject of the 2020 documentary series “The Vow” and “Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult.”

Prominent members of Tunisia’s political opposition have announced they will be joining a collective hunger strike in solidarity with jailed politician Jawhar Ben Mbarek, whose health they say has severely deteriorated after nine days without food.

Ben Mbarek, the cofounder of Tunisia’s main opposition alliance, the National Salvation Front, launched a hunger strike last week to protest his detention since February 2023.

Ben Mbarek’s father, veteran activist Ezzeddine Hazgui, said during a news conference in the capital Tunis on Friday that his son is in a “worrisome condition, and his health is deteriorating”.

Hazgui said his family would launch a hunger strike in solidarity with his jailed son.

“We will not forgive [Tunisian President] Kais Saied,” he added.

The leaders of Tunisia’s major opposition parties also declared on Friday that they would go on hunger strike in solidarity with Ben Mbarek.

Among them is Issam Chebbi, the leader of the centrist Al Joumhouri (Republican) Party, who is also behind bars after being convicted in the same mass trial as Ben Mbarek earlier this year. Wissam Sghaier, another Al Joumhouri leader, said some party members would follow suit.

Rached Ghannouchi, the 84-year-old leader of the Ennahdha party, who is also serving a hefty prison sentence, announced he was joining the hunger protest.

Ghannouchi was convicted in July of “conspiring against state security”, adding to previous convictions, including money laundering, for which he has been sentenced to more than 20 years in prison and for which he claims innocence.

A post on his official Facebook page said Ghannouchi’s hunger strike sought to support Ben Mbarek, but he was also taking a stand to defend “the independence of justice and freedom in the country”.

Ben Mbarek was sentenced in April to 18 years behind bars on charges of “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group”, in a mass trial slammed by human rights groups as politically motivated.

Rights groups have warned of a sharp decline in civil liberties in the North African country since Saied won the presidency in 2019.

A sweeping power grab in July 2021, when he dissolved parliament and expanded executive power so he could rule by decree, saw Saied jail many of his critics. That decree was later enshrined in a new constitution – ratified by a widely boycotted 2022 referendum – while media figures and lawyers critical of Saied have also been prosecuted and detained under a harsh “fake news” law enacted the same year.

Most recently, lawyer and outspoken Saied critic Ahmed Souab was sentenced to five years in prison on October 31 under Decree Law 54, as the legislation is known.

The Tunisian League for Human Rights said there have been “numerous attempts” to persuade Ben Mbarek to suspend his hunger strike, but he has refused, saying he is “committed to maintain it until the injustice inflicted upon him is lifted”.

Prison authorities denied on Wednesday that the health of any of its prisoners had deteriorated because of a hunger strike.

The Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK said questions have been raised regarding the prison administration’s compliance with laws governing medical care for detainees on hunger strike and the “safeguarding of their right to physical safety and human dignity”.

“Tunisian law explicitly stipulates the state’s responsibility to protect the life of any prisoner, even if that person chooses hunger strike as a form of protest,” the rights group said in a statement on Friday.

“The prison administration is therefore obliged to ensure appropriate medical care and regular monitoring,” it said, adding that Ben Mbarek’s protest reflects “a broader climate of political and social tension that transcends his personal situation”.

“His action represents a form of protest against detention conditions and judicial processes that many view as influenced by current political polarisation,” the group said.

“Ultimately, the case of Jawhar Ben Mbarek exposes a deeper crisis concerning respect for the rule of law and the principle of accountability,” it added.

يواصل أستاذ القانون الدستوري جوهر بن مبارك إضرابه المفتوح عن الطعام في محبسه منذ 29 أكتوبر الماضي داخل السجن المدني ببلي (ولاية نابل)، احتجاجاً على اعتقاله فيما يُعرف بقضية “التآمر على أمن الدولة”.

وتظهر المعطيات المتوفرة أن الحالة الصحية لبن مبارك تزداد هشاشة مع استمرار… pic.twitter.com/HrHwe14juE

— المنظمة العربية لحقوق الإنسان (@AohrUk_ar) November 7, 2025

Translation: Constitutional law professor Jawhar Ben Mbarek continues his open-ended hunger strike in his place of detention since October 29 inside the civil prison of Belli (Nabeul Governorate), in protest against his arrest in what is known as the “conspiracy against state security” case.

Available data show that Ben Mbarek’s health condition is becoming increasingly fragile with the continued complete abstention from food, which places his physical state in a critical phase requiring precise and constant medical monitoring.

Brazil’s top court rejects Bolsonaro’s coup sentence appeal, affirming his 27-year penalty for post-election power grab.

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.

Brazil’s large conservative electorate is currently without a champion heading into 2026 presidential elections, in which Lula, 80, has said he will seek a fourth term.

Colombian fighters Alexander Ante, 48, and Jose Aron Medina Aranda, 37 were each sentenced to 13 years in prison for serving with Ukrainian forces.

A court run by Moscow-installed authorities in Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk region has sentenced two Colombian nationals to 13 years in prison each for fighting on behalf of Kyiv.

The ruling, announced on Thursday, is the latest in a series of lengthy sentences handed to foreign fighters accused by Moscow-backed prosecutors of being “mercenaries”.

“For participating in hostilities on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” – Alexander Ante, 48, and Jose Aron Medina Aranda, 37 – “were each sentenced to 13 years in prison”, the prosecutor’s office said on the Telegram messaging app.

According to reports, the pair fought for Ukraine in 2023 and 2024 before disappearing in July while transiting through Venezuela, a close ally of Russia, on their way home to Colombia after serving in the war.

Colombian newspaper El Tiempo reported in July 2024 that the men were detained in the Venezuelan capital Caracas while still wearing Ukrainian military uniforms.

A month later, Russian authorities said they had taken custody of the two, who both hail from the western Colombian city of Popayan.

Footage released by Russia’s FSB security service showed the men handcuffed and dressed in prison uniforms as masked officers escorted them through a court building.

News of the pair’s sentencing on Thursday was widely covered in Colombian media.

“I don’t know if we will see them again one day. That’s the sad reality,” said Medina’s wife, Cielo Paz, in an interview with the AFP news agency, adding that she had not heard from her husband since his arrest.

#Colombia 🇨🇴🇷🇺 Alexander Ante y José Medina fueron condenados por participar como “mercenarios” en las hostilidades del lado de las Fuerzas Armadas de Ucrania.

👉Lee la nota completa en: https://t.co/UrlDjv6Tnp pic.twitter.com/1kiEl1rlU2

— RTVC Noticias (@RTVCnoticias) November 6, 2025

Translation: Alexander Ante and Jose Medina were convicted for participating as “mercenaries” in the hostilities on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In June, Russian state news agency TASS reported that Pablo Puentes Borges, another Colombian national, was handed a 28-year prison term by a Russian military court on charges of terrorism and mercenary activity for fighting alongside Ukrainian forces.

Earlier, in April, Miguel Angel Cardenas Montilla, also from Colombia, received a nine-year sentence for fighting with Ukrainian forces.

While Russian investigators have labelled foreigners who fight alongside Ukrainian forces as “mercenaries”, the Kyiv Post notes that most foreign fighters serving in Ukraine’s armed forces are formally enlisted and receive the same pay and status as Ukrainian soldiers.

That formalisation of their status in the Ukrainian army means they do not meet the legal definition of a mercenary under international law, the media outlet reported.

But Moscow continues to prosecute captured foreign fighters as “mercenaries” – a charge that carries up to 15 years in prison – rather than recognising them as prisoners of war who are protected under the Geneva Conventions.

Colombia’s government says dozens of its citizens have been killed fighting in Ukraine since the war began in February 2022.

Cecile Kohler, 41, and her partner, Jacques Paris, 72, had been jailed on charges of spying for France and Israel.

Iran has released two French nationals imprisoned for more than three years on spying charges their families rejected, French President Emmanuel Macron has said, though it remains uncertain when they would be allowed to return home.

Expressing “immense relief”, Macron said on X on Wednesday that Cecile Kohler, 41, and her partner Jacques Paris, 72 – the last French citizens officially known to be held in Iran – had been released from Evin prison in northern Tehran and were on their way to the French embassy.

He welcomed this “first step” and said talks were under way to ensure their return to France as “quickly as possible”.

The pair were arrested in May 2022 while visiting Iran. France had denounced their detention as “unjustified and unfounded”, while their families say the trip had been purely touristic in nature.

Both teachers, although Paris is retired, were among a number of Europeans caught up in what activists and some Western governments, including France, describe as a deliberate strategy of “hostage-taking” by Iran to extract concessions from the West.

Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said they had been granted “conditional release” on bail by the judge in charge of the case and “will be placed under surveillance until the next stage of the judicial proceedings”.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told France 2 TV they were in “good health” at the French ambassador’s residence but declined to give details on when they would be allowed to leave Iran.

Their Paris-based legal team told the AFP news agency in a statement that the release had “ended their arbitrary detention which lasted 1,277 days”.

The release comes at a time of acute sensitivity in dealings between Tehran and the West in the wake of the US-Israel 12-day war in June against Iran and the reimposition of United Nations sanctions in the standoff over the Iranian nuclear programme, which the country insists is purely for civilian purposes.

Some Iranians are concerned that Israel will use the sanctions, which are already causing further economic duress in the country, as an excuse to attack again, as it used the resolution issued by the global nuclear watchdog in June as a pretext for a war that was cheered by Israeli officials and the public alike.

The French pair’s sentences on charges of spying for France and Israel, issued last month after a closed-door trial, amounted to 17 years in prison for Paris and 20 years for Kohler.

Concern grew over their health after they were moved from Evin following an Israeli attack on the prison during the June war.

Kohler was shown in October 2022 on Iranian television in what activists described as a “forced confession”, a practice relatively common for detainees in Iran, which rights groups say is equivalent to torture.

Her parents, Pascal and Mireille, told AFP in a statement that they felt “immense relief” that the pair were now in a “little corner of France”, even if “all we know for now is that they are out of prison”.

France had filed a case with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over their detention, saying they were held under a policy that “targets French nationals travelling in or visiting Iran”.

But in September, the ICJ suddenly dropped the case at France’s request, prompting speculation that closed-door talks were under way between the two countries for their release.

Iran has said the duo could be freed as part of a swap deal with France, which would also see the release of Iranian Mahdieh Esfandiari.

Esfandiari was arrested in France in February on charges of promoting “terrorism” on social media, according to French authorities.

Scheduled to go on trial in Paris from January 13, she was released on bail last month in a move welcomed by Tehran.

Barrot declined to comment when asked by France 2 if there had been a deal with Tehran.

Among the Europeans still jailed by Iran is Swedish-Iranian academic Ahmadreza Djalali, who was sentenced to death in 2017 on espionage charges his family vehemently rejects.