Ruling elite, generals, judges, media figures held accountable worldwide-VIII

In April 2009, US President Obama’s half brother, Samson Obama, was stopped from entering UK after lying to police over sex allegations.

“The Daily Mail,” in its April 12, 2009 edition had stated,” The half-brother of President Barack Obama was refused an entry visa to Britain after lying to police officers about an accusation of sexual assault. The deception occurred in November when Samson Obama, who lives in Kenya, was in Britain staying with his mother, who lives in Berkshire.

He was questioned by police about the alleged assault, which he denied but during the investigation he used a false name and he later received a police caution. When he applied for another visa, hoping to visit Britain last week, he was refused.”

The news was embarrassing to the US President, who had given his younger half-brother a personal tour of the White House in January 2009, when he had attended the historic inauguration.

The Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, was under probe by the Swedish police since August 2010 for his alleged involvement in two sexual encounters.

Assange appealed a February 2011 decision by English courts to extradite him to Sweden for questioning in relation to a sexual assault investigation.

A two-day British High Court hearing is scheduled to start on July 12; and till then he remains on bail.

In 2006, famous US comedian and actor Bill Cosby was reported to have settled a lawsuit with a woman alleging he had sexually assaulted her. The woman claimed that Cosby assaulted her at house in early 2004 after giving her some blue pills, which rendered her semiconscious, and that the comedian molested her.

Late singer Michael Jackson was first accused of child sexual abuse in 1993. His passion for having sex with children resurfaced in 2003, for which he was tried and later acquitted.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor-turned-Governor of California, also faced allegations of having sex with a woman at a gymnasium.

A 2001 article in “Premiere” magazine described many instances in which Schwarzenegger had fondled a female interviewer.

Boxing Champion Mike Tyson was convicted of raping an 18-year-old woman. He served three years of his six-year sentence.

Sex scams have also disgraced over a dozen Indian politicians. In 2009, the Governor of Andhra Pradesh, Narayan Dutt Tiwari had to quit for his immorality.

In 2009 again, a Smajawadi party leader Azam Khan was alleged by top actress Jaya Prada of distributing her fake nude pictures. Jaya was contesting polls at that time and had emerged victorious.

In 2008, Manmohan Samal, Minister for Revenue in Orissa, had to relinquish charge after he was found guilty in a similar scandal.

In 2005, Sanjay Joshi of the Bharatia Janata Party was caught ‘red handed’ while he was in the middle of a merry-making act.

In 2003, Amarmani Tripathi, then cabinet minister of Uttar Pradesh, was jailed for murdering his girl friend, Madhumita Shukla.

In 2003, Harak Singh Rawat, a former revenue minister of Uttarakhand state, was found guilty.

In 1997, PK Kunjalikutty, a Kerala politician and in 1998, JB Patnaik, the Chief Minister of Orissa, were reported for their alleged involvement in similar cases.

In 1978, Suresh Ram, the son of the then Indian Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram, was also found involved in an act of adultery.

According to the website of the prestigious “Forbes” magazine, Prince Victor Emmanuel, son of Italy’s last king, was arrested in 2006 for his involvement in a crime ring that recruited prostitutes for a casino in Switzerland.

According to the “Forbes” magazine:” Political sex shenanigans as tabloid fodder date back to at least 1963, when Britain’s Secretary of State for War John Profumo attempted to cover up his affair with a showgirl, who had also been cavorting with a Soviet intelligence officer.

The incident caused outrage in the UK and put a serious dent in the government of Prime Minister Harold MacMillan.”

Forbes adds that Willie Knuckles, a senior Liberian minister and chief of staff to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, had to resign in 2007 after a national newspaper had published a nude photo of him.

Forbes also cited the example of an Indonesian politician Yahya Zaini, who had resigned in 2006 after a video clip of him frolicking nude with his country’s pop singer Maria Eva was circulated on the Internet.

The eminent US magazine further had further stated that in August 2007, China’s Finance Minister Jin Renqing, was reportedly ousted for his alleged involvement in a sex scandal.

In 2006, European Commission Vice President Gunter Verheugen’s nude photographs with his chief of staff, Petra Erler, were published by a German magazine.

Innumerable US Senators like Barney Frank, James McGreevey, Jesse Jackson, Gary Condit, Eliot Spitzer, Jay Reynolds, Gerry Eastman Studds, Frederick Richmond, Neil Goldschmidt, Neil Goldschmidt, Joseph Waggonner and Jerry Springer etc have also been fined, convicted and thrown out in similar incidents.

Global journalists held accountable for wrongdoings:

A few years ago, the Supreme Court of Pakistan had tried to unmask the beneficiaries of the Ministry of Information’s secret fund, but the matter was somehow hushed up.

In countries like India, China and United Kingdom, ugly faces in media have never been treated as sacred cows and the long arm of law has often clutched them in case of any felony.

This research piece might pinch many of this correspondent’s friends and foes in the profession due to its timing, but fact has it that recently in April 2016, a US federal judge had sentenced journalist Matthew Keys to two years in prison after he was convicted last year of three counts of conspiracy and criminal hacking.

In March 2016, a journalist was sentenced to five years in a Saudi Arabian prison for “insulting the rulers of the country” and “ridiculing Islamic religious figures,” British newspaper “The Independent” had reported.

Alaa Brinji was convicted by Saudi Arabia’s counter-terrorism court for tweets he had posted in support of Saudi Arabian women’s right to drive cars, human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience.

Not so long ago in November 2012, two senior journalists at an esteemed Indian television channel “Zee News” were arrested on charges of extortion.

The BBC online edition of November 27, 2012 had stated: “Sudhir Chaudhary, head of news, and Samir Ahluwalia, head of business at the channel, are accused of trying to extort millions of dollars from the Indian business firm Jindal Group. They are alleged to have sought cash in exchange for not running reports on a coal scam linked to the firm. Both the journalists and the channel have vehemently denied the charges. Zee News called the arrests “a crude and direct attack on the freedom of the press”.

The BBC had further written: “They have threatened to launch a defamation case against Naveen Jindal - managing director of the Jindal Group and a politician with the governing Congress Party - who, along with his officials, made the complaint. The two journalists are accused of asking Jindal officials for about $18m (£11m) in exchange for suppressing news reports about the firm’s alleged links to a high-profile corruption scandal involving the allocation of coal mining concessions. The officials say they secretly filmed the meetings, and released the footage last month.”

In 2007, the jail term of a Chinese journalist Meng Huaihu was extended by a local court to 12 years from the previous seven-year sentence.

He was accused of bribery and of extorting money from private companies using the threat of negative news reports.

Meng Huaihu was the former Bureau Chief for the “China Commercial Times,” a Beijing-based business paper published by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce.

The court had ruled that since the journalists were actually performing a public duty, therefore, Bureau Chief Meng was guilty of the common executive offense of bribery, a far more serious crime than extortion.

Journalist Meng was quietly removed from his position in 2005 after allegedly trying to force an advertising contract from China Petroleum and Chemical Company by threatening to write a negative news report.

In May 2009, another Beijing reporter was facing up to seven years jail after he had allegedly accepted money from two whistleblowers with a tip off on airport construction quality.

Fu Hua, a former “China Business News” reporter, had been charged with accepting 30,000 yuan ($4,400) from two employees of Changchun Longjiapu Airport in 2005.

The alleged bribers— Zhang Guangtao, then deputy director of airport construction and Li Shen, Zhang’s subordinate,-had offered money to reporter Fu to expose “problems” on their projects.

Speaking to the prestigious “China Daily,” journalist Fu said he had only accepted 15,000 yuan and insisted the money was not a bribe. Fu said he did not know why he had been charged with accepting a 30,000 yuan bribe.

He alleged police had tortured him until he said he accepted 40,000 yuan - a confession he later withdrew.

And now look at the other side of the coin.

Not long ago, some top-ranking employees of the “News of the World,” once the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, were sent behind the bars in the United Kingdom.

The newspaper was consequently closed down.

“The News of the World” was the same newspaper that had alleged three Pakistani cricketers (Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir) in August 2010 of spot-fixing during Pakistan’s 2010 tour of England.

Before its closure on July 7, 2011 this 1843 newspaper had gained a lot of notoriety for its cheque-book journalism.

It was often discovered attempting to buy stories about private affairs of key politicians, celebrities and high-profile criminals.

In 2006, this newspaper was accused of illegally gaining access to hundreds of mobile phone voicemail accounts across England. It had hired private investigators for this purpose.

In April 2011, attorneys for the victims alleged that as many as 7,000 people had their phones hacked by the News of the World.

One hacked voicemail account had belonged to Milly Dowler, then missing, but later found to have been murdered.

The paper’s editor, Andy Coulson, had resigned two weeks earlier but was arrested on July 8, 2011.

The publication’s former executive editor Neil Wallis was handcuffed on July 15, 2011 and another former editor, Rebekah Brooks, held in custody on July 17, 2011.

The paper’s royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, was also jailed for four months and so were other reporters like Ian Edmondson, Neville Thurlbeck and James Weatherup.

Even the paper’s owner and an eminent global media tycoon Rupert Murdoch was accused of pressurizing the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to hush up the probe in his “Phone-hacking scandal.”

(Concluded)