Lawyers for a group of Pitcairn Island men accused of involvement in decades of sex abuse produced documents dating back to 1838 in an Australian court yesterday to argue that Britain has no jurisdiction over the case.
Thirteen islanders face multiple sex charges with women and girls as young as three years old in a case that is testing London's claim to Pitcairn. Some of the accusations date back 40 years.
The tiny, isolated South Pacific island, 2,160km southeast of Tahiti and 5,300km from New Zealand, is administered by Britain, although residents have resisted British laws since settling there after the 1789 mutiny on the HMS Bounty.
Most of the residents are descendants of the famous mutineers on the Bounty. Defense lawyers claim the islanders severed all ties with Britain when they burned the Bounty on Jan. 23, 1790. They have been arguing that the accused should be tried by the Pitcairn community.
In the Pitcairn Supreme Court, which is sitting in South Auckland, former Australian judge Adrian Cook said that he had uncovered historic documents in England that were "immensely significant."
Cook, who is representing seven of the accused, said the papers included acquisition documents drawn up by Captain Elliott of the British warship HMS Fly, which visited the islands in November 1838.
He described the matter as of fundamental importance and requested more time to study the documents he had found in England last month, adding he also needed to resolve the issue of copyright on the documents and arrange for expert opinion from England.
As well as the documents relating to the Fly's visit, Cook said he would also offer as evidence written reports to the British Admiralty from warships which visited the islands between 1830 and 1910.
The court granted Cook a delay until March 12, when he must file new documentary evidence. Pro-secutors were given until March 26 to reply and the court would deliver a decision on April 19.
Prosecutors want the trial held in New Zealand because it would be virtually impossible on Pitcairn, which has no airstrip or harbor and insufficient accommodation for court officials.
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
China’s military news agency yesterday warned that Japanese militarism is infiltrating society through series such as Pokemon and Detective Conan, after recent controversies involving events at sensitive sites. In recent days, anime conventions throughout China have reportedly banned participants from dressing as characters from Pokemon or Detective Conan and prohibited sales of related products. China Military Online yesterday posted an article titled “Their schemes — beware the infiltration of Japanese militarism in culture and sports.” The article referenced recent controversies around the popular anime series Pokemon, Detective Conan and My Hero Academia, saying that “the evil influence of Japanese militarism lives on in
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
RSS