by Norman Solomon | Feb 3, 2015 | News
The leak trial of CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling never got near a smoking gun, but the entire circumstantial case was a smokescreen. Prosecutors were hell-bent on torching the defendant to vindicate Operation Merlin, nine years after a book by James Risen reported that...
by Norman Solomon | Jan 22, 2015 | News
Six days of testimony at the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling have proven the agency’s obsession with proclaiming its competence. Many of the two-dozen witnesses from the Central Intelligence Agency conveyed smoldering resentment that a whistleblower or...
by Giorgio Cafiero | Jan 21, 2015 | News
Last October, Saudi Arabia’s Special Criminal Court sentenced Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr – a popular Shi’ite cleric and outspoken political dissident – to death.This was not an ordinary criminal trial, even considering Saudi Arabia’s liberal use of...
by Norman Solomon | Jan 20, 2015 | News
Midway through the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, one comment stands out. “A criminal case,” defense attorney Edward MacMahon told the jury at the outset, “is not a place where the CIA goes to get its reputation back.” But that’s where the CIA went with...
by Medea Benjamin | Jan 15, 2015 | News
On January 9, two days after the massive Paris march condemning the brutal attack on freedom of the press, a young Saudi prisoner named Raif Badawi was removed from his cell in shackles and taken to a public square in Jeddah. There he was flogged 50 times before...
