UN Court

Mayor of Smederevo found guilty in corruption case

BELGRADE -- The Higher Court in the town of Smerevo has found Mayor Jasna Avramović guilty on charges of "extended criminal act of accepting bribes."

The court said that Avramović, a medical doctor by trade, enabled the granting of illegal pensions, and received money in return.

A court in Larissa, central Greece, ordered on Saturday that the children’s charity Smile of the Child should have custody of Maria, a five-year-old girl found at a Roma camp in nearby Farsala last October.

As you read this piece, a 27-year-old woman named Meriam Yahya Ibrahim will be awaiting her death in Sudan. For on May 15, she was sentenced to death by a court who found her guilty of “apostasy.” Her “crime,” in other words, was simply to abandon Islam and adopt Christianity.

Four of 11 suspects who were sent to court after anti-terror raids on May 26 in Istanbul’s Okmeydanı neighborhood were arrested late May 29 on charges of “committing crimes on behalf of a terrorist organization.”

Sofia City Court will hold a first hearing in the case against ex-interior minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov and three former heads of the surveillance agency for illegal wiretapping. 

The four are accused of failing to control the legal application of special surveillance devices. 

Stockbrokers, finance executives, bank officials and pension fund managers are among the 13 people who were handed jail sentences of up to 25 years on Thursday for their part in the 2007 sale of 280 million euros in structured bonds that led to the funds paying around 20 million euros over the odds for the paper.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Wednesday granted early release to Ranko Cesic, who was convicted of torturing, raping and murdering Bosniak and Croat detainees at the Luka detention camp in 1992.

Israeli officials denounced as "political" Wednesday attempts by a Turkish court to secure an international arrest warrant for four former Israeli military commanders over a deadly 2010 maritime assault.
      

Bulgaria's Grigor Dimitrov drew a fairly difficult opponent, Ivo Karlovic, for the first round of the French Open.

Dimitrov has played the 211-cm Croatian twice so far, each of them winning once. Their previous meeting was just last week in Rome, when the Bulgarian won 7:6, 6:4.

The Finance Ministry said on Thursday that it would appeal a court ruling ordering the temporary rehiring of hundreds of cleaning staff who were suspended eight months ago as part of a civil service overhaul.