Category Archives: International

World News Legal developments from around the world. The following is a collection of the most recent posts from other blogs addressing topics of international law.

The Supreme Court hears two cases that could ruin the internet

Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh seek to conscript big tech into the war on terror; the results could be disastrous.

By Ian Millhiser  Feb 16, 2023, 6:00am EST

In 2015, individuals affiliated with the terrorist group ISIS conducted a wave of violence and mass murder in Paris — killing 129 people. One of them was Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old American student who died after ISIS assailants opened fire on the café where she and her friends were eating dinner.

A little more than a year later, on New Year’s Day 2017, a gunman opened fire inside a nightclub in Istanbul, killing 39 people — including a Jordanian national named Nawras Alassaf who has several American relativesISIS also claimed responsibility for this act of mass murder.

In response to these horrific acts, Gonzalez’s and Alassaf’s families brought federal lawsuits pinning the blame for these attacks on some very unlikely defendants. In Gonzalez v. Google, Gonzalez’s survivors claim that the tech giant Google should compensate them for the loss of their loved one. In a separate suit, Twitter v. Taamneh, Alassaf’s relatives make similar claims against Google, Twitter, and Facebook.

The thrust of both lawsuits is that websites like Twitter, Facebook, or Google-owned YouTube are legally responsible for the two ISIS killings because ISIS was able to post recruitment videos and other content on these websites that were not immediately taken down. The plaintiffs in both suits rely on a federal law that allows “any national of the United States” who is injured by an act of international terrorism to sue anyone who “aids and abets, by knowingly providing substantial assistance” to anyone who commits “such an act of international terrorism.”

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FBI Most Wanted List – OMAR ALEXANDER CARDENAS

Featured News Item:

July 20, 2022

Omar Cardenas Added to Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List

Omar Alexander Cardenas, wanted for his alleged involvement in the murder of a man and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, has been added to the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.


Additional News


Date(s) of Birth UsedMarch 23, 1995
Place of BirthCalifornia
HairDark Brown
EyesBrown
HeightApproximately 5’6″ to 5’7″
WeightApproximately 240 to 300 pounds
SexMale
RaceWhite (Hispanic)
NationalityAmerican

Reward:

The FBI is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of Omar Alexander Cardenas.

Remarks:

Cardenas often has a beard and wears prescription glasses.

Caution:

Omar Alexander Cardenas is wanted for his alleged involvement in the murder of a man that occurred on August 15, 2019, in a large outdoor shopping center in Sylmar, California, immediately next to Los Angeles.  It is alleged that he fired several rounds from a semi-automatic handgun at the victim, striking him in the head and causing his death.  A local arrest warrant was issued for Cardenas on April 3, 2020, in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County after he was charged locally with murder.  A federal arrest warrant from the United States District Court, Central District of California, was issued for Cardenas on September 2, 2021, after he was charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

Mafia boss found working as pizza boss after 16 years on the run

By Barbie Nadeau, CNN

Updated 11:44 PM ET, Fri February 3, 2023

Rome (CNN)Italian anti-Mafia police have arrested another mobster on the run, just two weeks after the sensational arrest on January 16 of Sicilian Cosa Nostra superboss Matteo Messina Denaro at a health clinic in Palermo, Sicily.

This time it was Edgardo Greco, 63, who was apprehended in Saint-Etienne, France, where he was working under the alias Paolo Dimitrio as a pizzaiolo — or pizza chef — at the Caffe Rossini Italian restaurant.

Greco, associated with the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, was convicted in absentia in 1991 for the double homicide of brothers Stefano and Giuseppe Bartolomeo, who he is alleged to have killed with iron bars before dissolving their bodies in acid, according to court documents. He had evaded Italian law enforcement officials since his conviction.

Described as a “dangerous fugitive” by Nicola Gratteri, the anti-Mafia prosecutor who led the investigation as head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Catanzaro, Calabria, Greco was also convicted of the attempted murder of several prison officials, earning him the nickname “prison killer.”

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Malta, the Mafia’s paradise

The EU’s smallest member state, Malta, has become the Mafia’s El Dorado. This was the shocking conclusion of a study commissioned by the European Parliament’s Martin Schirdewan.

The report shows how Italian mafia clans laundered billions of euros through online gaming platforms in Malta between 2015 and 2022.

Four billion euros of assets were confiscated through investigations into online gaming related to Malta. The study found that “criminals, including those from Calabria’s ‘Ndrangheta and Sicily’s Cosa Nostra, have become part of the Maltese gaming sector through companies they set up and which they used to launder huge sums of money”.

Why is Malta so attractive to criminal organisations? Why are Mafia bosses so keen on Malta? What makes Malta such a haven for some of the most feared tough guys in the criminal world?

The answer was spelt out by Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri.  He was compelled to admit that there wasn’t a single applicant for the vacant post of Deputy Police Commissioner.

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Cadaver dogs scour suspected serial killer’s former Westfield property in renewed push to find remains

Cadaver dogs found several areas Sunday where investigators will check further for human remains. Those areas are marked with red flags.

WESTFIELD, Ind. — Police renewed an effort Sunday to find human remains at Fox Hollow Farm in Westfield, where the decomposed and charred remains of at least two dozen people were found 26 years ago. 

For the first time, cadaver dogs on Sunday searched the property that once belonged to suspected serial killer Herb Baumeister. They did it because many of Baumeister’s victims have never been identified. 

Investigators believe Baumeister targeted gay men, killing at least 25 people in the 1990s. In 1996, police found 10,000 bone fragments in the woods surrounding his home. 

To date, eight victims have been identified. But, over the past 15 years, the current owner of Fox Hollow Farm has found more bones and bone fragments.

“We don’t go looking for them, but they do turn up and I take them to the University of Indianapolis,” said Robert Graves, who has lived on the property for the last 15 years. 

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