victims

WASHINGTON  — The Constitution protects the rights of Americans but normally does not allow them to sue federal agents for violating those rights.

This rights vs. remedies dispute has divided the Supreme Court for nearly 50 years.

It did so again Monday when the justices heard arguments on whether to throw out a lawsuit brought by a federal prison inmate in Hawaii who suffered a broken tailbone in a gang fight.

Kekai Watanabe said he told prison nurse Francis Nielsen he was in intense pain. He was given only an over-the-counter pain medication. Seven months later, an X-ray finally revealed the damage from the fracture and the source of his continuing agony.

Acting on his own, Watanabe sued Nielsen for cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8th Amendment.

A federal judge dismissed his suit, citing the Supreme Court’s decades of skepticism over such lawsuits. However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived his claim and pointed to a 1980 ruling that allowed a similar suit brought by a mother whose son died of an asthma attack in a federal prison.

It was the last time the high court had upheld a lawsuit for money damages against a federal agent for violating a constitutional right.

But the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal in Nielsen vs. Watanabe. And during Monday’s arguments, the justices debated whether to further narrow such lawsuits or to reject them entirely.

The court’s conservatives say only Congress can authorize lawsuits for money damages against federal agents and employees. And they noted that in the Federal Tort Claims Act, Congress authorized damage suits against the United States for such claims.

“The power to create damages remedies belongs to Congress, not federal courts,” said Lucas Walker, an attorney for the prison nurse. “It’s time to end the Bivens experiment.”

He was referring to a 1971 decision in which the Supreme Court for the first time authorized such a constitutional claim for money damages against federal agent. In that case, known as Bivens, the suit was against several FBI agents for an unreasonable search during a drug raid in violation of the 4th Amendment.

Walker argued the court should overturn the Bivens case as well as the later ruling allowing a suit involving gross medical negligence.

But Joshua Wesneski, an attorney for Watanabe, said the prospect of being sued for wrongdoing “has a powerful deterrent effect.”

This issue has taken on new significance because of the aggressive and sometimes violent actions of federal immigration agents. They may be charged with a crime but they are not subject to being sued for damages by victims or their families.

After the Civil War, Congress passed an enforcement law that authorized suits against state and local officials acting under color of law who violated constitutional rights. But there is no comparably broad law for federal officers and agents.

That’s why a Los Angeles police officer who uses excessive force can be sued in a federal court, but the same is not true of a federal immigration agent.

Democrats in the Senate may try to change that in the year ahead.

Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have proposed an “Accountability for Federal Law Enforcement Act” to allow victims to sue for “damages for constitutional and civil rights violations committed by federal law enforcement agents.”

They said Congress needs to extend the same legal accountability to federal agents that has long applied to police and other state and local officials.

“Recent incidents — from violent ICE and CBP raids to abuses by federal task forces — have underscored this gap in accountability,” Padilla said. “These events have eroded public trust and shown how federal officers can act with impunity even when their conduct clearly violates constitutional protections.”

RUSSELL Brand has been found guilty of sex attacks on a string of victims as part of a depraved campaign to sleep with 5,000 women.

The 51-year-old became a “ruthless, calculated and manipulative” predator as he sought to satisfy his “voracious” sexual appetite.

Brand preyed on women between 1999 and 2009 and used his growing fame – from presenting Big Brother’s Big Mouth and Hollywood movies – to target the victims in a range of locations.

The three counts he was found guilty of today include a sexual assault at a Soho bar, where Brand was accused of touching a woman’s breasts while they were talking about Big Brother in 2004.

Brand has also been found guilty of sexual assault at a radio station in a “violent, sloppy and frenzied” attack in 2005.

He raped a woman at his Hampstead townhouse in 2009, telling her to “clean up after herself” afterwards, it was found.

The jury also found him guilty of sexually assaulting a Channel 4 worker in 2009, who was forced to give him a massage.

He was found not guilty on three other counts – attempted indecent assault and two counts of rape.

The trial at Southwark Crown Court was told the offences took place when Brand’s “public profile was taking off”.

Instantly recognisable by his trademark skinny jeans, back-combed hair and heavy eye make up, Brand became known for falling out of nightclubs with female admirers draped from his arm.

Some of his victims were lulled into a false sense of security by Brand and believed the comedian was gay as part of his “strategy” to dupe women.

Once they were behind closed doors, the fiend’s mask would drop and he’d become a “monster” hell-bent on fulfilling his rapacious quest to bed 5,000 women.

Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC said the star was “childlike in his expectation that his every desire should be met” and only cared about his “birth right to orgasm”.

She told jurors all the women were “wholly unconnected” but each “described a pattern that resonates with who Brand was in the period 1999 to 2009”.

Ms Karmy-Jones added: “Six women who have nothing to gain, who have not sought the limelight, who have not looked out for some form of publicity, who have not taken part in a documentary, not made claims for compensation.

“There is no benefit to them, apart from perhaps some closure by coming before you and telling you their accounts of what happened to them so long ago.”

One woman who Brand raped at his home told how the comedian made her feel like a “piece of meat”.

She told she had met the celeb after seeing his show at the Hammersmith Apollo in London with a friend in 2009.

He told her his age range was from “16 to death” before she was invited to a backstage bar where they kissed and had a threesome, it was said.

The woman said she went to his home the next day where Brand told her: “Your hair smells funny”.

He then made her take a shower and wash her hair while he watched through a glass shower cubicle.

Once in the bedroom, the woman said they had consensual sex after he told her: “This is the best decision you’ve ever made, well done”.

She told the court Brand raped her and looked “absolutely f***ing horrified” – making her think he would apologise.

But the woman added: “But actually what he said was ‘you need to clear up the mess that you’ve made’.”

Another woman was in her 20s working at a radio station in the mid-2000s when Brand sexually assaulted her.

She told the court Brand was a “perfect stranger” to her at the time and said his assault was “violent”, “sloppy” and “frenzied”.

The woman also said she had locked eyes” with one of his entourage and was “pleading with her” to stop what was happening.

One victim said Brand “lunged” at her and grabbed her breasts when they were talking about Big Brother in a Soho bar in July 2004.

At the time, he had a “big, weird grin” on his face and “quite strongly” pulled her into the toilet where he orally raped her, she told cops.

When she protested, Brand told her: “Oh come on don’t be a spoil sport, you want to.”

The sixth woman worked for Channel 4 when she met Brand while he was filming a project.

She said she was informed Brand was “unhappy” and the situation would not improve unless she gave him a massage.

The woman said he walked up to a chair she was sitting on and placed his head directly into her groin area.

During his evidence, Brand wore a crucifix and wrung his hands together as he claimed his “promiscuous” past had been twisted into the allegations made against him.

He had admitted having an “obsession” with sex when he was younger but claimed consent is “non-negotiable” and “more important than sex itself”.

Brand added: “I do recognise I have been a very determined and focused man and with regard to the latter, with women, of course, which is the subject of my trial.

“I’ve been persuasive, seductive, begging and flirting, and dedicated a lot of my life to what seems now beyond-reckless philandering and idiocy.”

He admitted it had been “wrong” of him to use his fame for sex but denied he had ever forced himself on a woman.

Brand also tried to paint himself as someone who had reformed but whose life had been “consumed” by the allegations.

He moaned about how he had lost friends and said he was unable to persuade anyone to give evidence on his behalf.

But Brand had one supporter in the public gallery – his wife Laura Gallacher – sister of sports presenter Kirsty – who took to the stand herself after weeks of walking into the court hand-in-hand with Brand each day.

The mum gushed over the star – calling him an “amazingly attentive husband” and a “kind and a wonderful father”.

She told jurors “I love him very much” and claimed they always have sex “at my pace”.

Discussing when they began dating in 2007, Laura added: “I was not experienced, I had only had one partner before Russell.

“I felt entirely cared for and looked after by Russell.”

She told jurors Brand “respected my view” if she said she did not want to do something.

Laura said she was 19 when she met Brand, who was 31 at the time, at Edinburgh Festival.

The mum, who shares three children with the comic, revealed they broke up in summer 2007 when she became “very aware” of Brand’s promiscuity.

She added: “When I met him I was aware that he liked women, and I was aware towards the latter half of that year that he was engaging with other women.

“I wasn’t interested in having a relationship with him if he was sleeping with other people.

“I was invested, we both had told each other we loved each other but it was clear it was difficult for him to be monogamous.”

She said they got back together again as a couple in 2015 and married in 2017.

Brand, who displayed little emotion during the trial, was seen in the dock beaming as his wife spoke on his behalf.

He even laughed when she told the court: “We do have many friends and there are colleagues, and we are grateful for those people.”

In recent years, Brand had re-invented himself into a born-again Christian influencer – an image he bolstered in court by clutching a bible each day.

But his new life in the US came crumbling down when the allegations came to light in a Channel 4 Dispatches and he was thrust back into the public eye.

Brand is now facing a lengthy prison term when he is sentenced.

Jordan’s prime minister represents king at funeral for eight of the church attack victims as hunt for gunmen continues.

Thousands of mourners have gathered for the funerals of eight of the victims of a deadly attack on a church in southern Jordan, with Prime Minister Jafar Hassan also in attendance.

The burials on Sunday were beside St George’s Greek Orthodox Church in the village of Hamoud, southwest of the capital, Amman, two days after attackers opened fire during another funeral there.

Nine people were killed and dozens wounded in a rare attack on Jordan’s Christian minority, prompting three days of national mourning.

The ninth victim, Mohammed al-Qasous, is due to be buried on Monday, his family told the AFP news agency.

Coffins wrapped in Jordanian flags were carried through crowds gathered around the church in Karak province, as priests led prayers and security personnel stood guard.

Prime Minister Hassan attended the service alongside government ministers and senior military and civilian officials, according to Jordan’s state news agency, Petra.

Thousands of citizens also participated in the funeral procession, Petra said.

Among those caught in Friday’s shooting was Sahar al-Halsa, who told the Reuters news agency from her nearby home that she sheltered behind a pillar as gunfire erupted and people screamed.

When she rushed outside, she found her cousin Assem lying wounded.

“Assem, Assem, my darling, answer me,” she recalled calling to him. He briefly opened his eyes before dying, she said.

Father Yohanna Hamati told AFP that about 170 to 200 people were at the church for Friday’s funeral when firing began outside.

The mourners initially struggled to understand what was happening, he said, before people began rushing into the church to escape.

By Saturday, bullet holes remained in the walls and wooden pews, and windows had been shattered.

Church workers were cleaning away blood as villagers prepared to bury the dead. Jordanian authorities have described the attack as “extremist terrorism”.

King Abdullah, who visited some of the wounded in hospital on Friday, has promised a forceful response and the assailants are still being sought.

Officials say they have not established whether the attackers were connected to an armed group and no organisation has claimed responsibility.

The violence has also drawn expressions of solidarity across religious lines. Christians account for about 3 percent of Jordan’s largely Muslim population and AFP reported that Muslims were among those wounded.

Young volunteers visited a hospital in Karak with flowers and a message reading, “Our loss is one”.

The mourning reached Washington, DC, on Sunday, where members of the Jordanian community lit candles outside their country’s embassy.

Jordan’s ambassador to the US, Dina Kawar, told those gathered that efforts to stir religious division were “bound to fail”. Back in Hamoud, Father Hamati appealed for unity, stressing that Muslims had also suffered in the attack.

“We make no distinction between Muslim and Christian,” he told AFP.

Gambian authorities have announced that funds from the sale of the country’s former president’s mansion in the United States would be used to pay reparations to victims of his rule.

The Gambia Reparations Commission confirmed Tuesday that it received just more than $2.5m from the sale of a property in the wealthy Washington, DC suburb of Potomac, Maryland, belonging to ex-President Yahya Jammeh.

The commission, which was set up to compensate victims of abuses committed during Jammeh’s 22-year rule ending in 2017, said in a statement that “the funds were deposited directly into the Reparations Fund account at the Central Bank of The Gambia and shall only be utilized for the payment of reparations”.

“The Commission is committed to ensuring that the funds are managed responsibly, transparently and accountably, with due regard to the rights and needs of victims and survivors,” it added.

Jammeh currently lives in Equatorial Guinea, after he was forced out under pressure from The Gambia’s West African neighbours following his 2016 election loss to current President Adama Barrow.

He is accused of presiding over the murder of political opponents, disappearances, rape and torture.

A commission of inquiry estimated that between 240 and 250 victims were killed by Jammeh’s forces in the former British colony of two million people.

Proceeds from corruption

President Barrow said in a statement that his government would heed any recommendations by official auditors on how the funds would be allocated to victims.

The US Justice Department filed a civil forfeiture complaint in 2020 alleging that the property was bought with proceeds of corruption. A court ordered its forfeiture in 2022.

The property, it asserted, was purchased through a trust set up by Jammeh’s wife.

The US Justice Department had announced in September that it would return the funds from the mansion sale to The Gambia.