The Washington Post - 14.03.2020

A4 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SATURDAy, MARCH 14 , 2020

against Kosovo’s recognition as a

country.

South African police arrest

traditional king for ax attack: A

controversial king of South

Africa’s AbaThembu, the

traditional clan of founding

president Nelson Mandela, was

arrested after allegedly attacking

family members with an ax at

their royal homestead. South

African police confirmed Friday

that King Buyelekhaya

Dalindyebo has been charged

with malicious damage to

property and assault by threats.

He allegedly attacked his son

Azenathi, who had been acting

on his behalf while he was in

prison for assaulting some

members of his clan and setting

their homes alight.

— From news services

Kosovo not ready to lift t ariff on

Serbian, Bosnian goods: K osovo

will not lift its 100 percent tariff

on goods from Serbia and Bosnia

any time soon because the

coalition government could not

agree on whether the t axes

should be phased out or

abolished a t once, the country’s

prime minister said Friday.

Prime Minister Albin Kurti said

his left-wing Self-Determination

Movement, or Vetevendosje,

wanted to lift the tariff in phases,

starting Sunday with raw

materials imported from Serbia,

as a goodwill gesture. T he party’s

main governing partner, the

Democratic League of Kosovo, or

LDK, wants the import taxes

dropped completely. Kurti wants

abolishment of the tariffs made

conditional on Serbia stopping

an international campaign

was caused by a series of errors

and not political corruption.

Northern Ireland’s Catholic-

Protestant power-sharing

administration collapsed in

January 2017 because of

wrangling between the political

parties over the Renewable Heat

Incentive, a program that

rewarded business and farmers

for using environmentally

friendly fuel. F laws in the

scheme meant subsidies for the

wood-pellet fuel were higher

than their cost, making it

profitable to heat empty

buildings to earn more money.

Retired judge Patrick Coghlin,

who led the inquiry, said

“corrupt or malicious activity”

was not responsible for the

design flaws that saw applicants

“perversely incentivized” to burn

excess heat to turn a profit.

houses collapsed on them.

Since the rains hit late

Wednesday and early Thursday,

social media has been inundated

with images and video showing

flooded roads and villages as well

as water-filled apartments in

some of Cairo’s richest

neighborhoods.

Chaos always accompanies

bad weather in Egypt, raising

questions about the country’s

poor infrastructure and

dilapidated sewage and drainage

systems.

— Associated Press

Corruption didn’t cause

Northern Ireland eco-scandal,

judge finds: A public inquiry

concluded Friday into whether a

green-energy scandal that

triggered the breakdown of

Northern Ireland’s government

Luxembourg and Portugal have

offered to take them in, and

Johansson said that at least two

other countries expressed an

interest in getting involved

during a meeting Friday of E.U.

interior ministers.

— Associated Press

EGYPT

Toll at 21 as s torms,

flooding enter 2nd day

Thunderstorms and flooding

around Egypt entered a second

day Friday, interrupting daily life

in much of the country, including

the capital Cairo, as the death

toll rose to 21, authorities said.

Most of the victims were in

rural areas and slums. At least

six children died either from

electrocution or when their

EUROPEAN UNION

5 countries to take in

1,600 migrant children

A group of European Union
countries has agreed to take in at
least 1,600 migrant children in
Greece traveling without their
parents, with the first
unaccompanied minors likely to
find homes in Luxembourg as
soon as next week, E.U. Home
Affairs Commissioner Ylva
Johansson said Friday.
There are m ore than 42,
migrants living in crowded
camps in the Greek islands,
including about 5,
unaccompanied minors.
According to the police agency
Europol, about 10 percent are
younger than 14.
Finland, France, Germany,

The World

DIGEST

BY EMANUEL STOAKES

CHRISTCHURCH, New ZealaNd
— A year after a gunman slaugh-
tered 51 worshipers at two New
Zealand mosques, the nation’s
quest for answers about how the
killer was able to carry out the
attacks is unfolding largely in
secret, fueling concerns among
some experts and in the Muslim
community.
The March 15 massacre in
Christchurch prompted a top-lev-
el inquiry, known as a royal com-
mission, and sweeping change in
New Zealand’s s ecurity landscape
through an expansion of surveil-
lance, the banning of assault
weapons and a government gun
buyback.
The attacks revealed a “cata-
strophic failure of security intelli-
gence” akin to “our version of
September 11,” said Alexander
Gillespie, a law professor at Wai-
kato University. As a result, he
said, security agencies will face
questions during the inquiry that
“will go to the heart of a lot of
their processes, to which secrecy
will be justified in some parts.”
Ye t with much of the inquiry’s
deliberations shielded from pub-
lic view, N ew Z ealanders lack firm
answers about whether state
agencies missed warning signs or
failed to investigate tips about
accused gunman Brenton Ta r-
rant. It is still unknown whether
the Australian national, who fac-
es trial in June on murder and
terror charges, had help or en-
couragement in planning his al-
leged attacks or had links with
violent white-supremacist net-
works.
The inquiry’s recommenda-
tions are due next month, and
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s
center-left government — which
faces elections in September —
will determine how much to

bringing the probe into disrepute.

“This level of suppression of

evidence and correspondence ap-

pears unprecedented,” he wrote.

He declined to comment for this

article.

A spokeswoman for the com-

mission said investigators had

“conducted a private process for

good reasons, including needing

to protect [Tarrant’s] fair trial

rights, national security and al-

lowing people to come forward

and provide evidence freely.”

The inquiry, led by a senior

judge and former diplomat, was

“working on the assumption that

after the report has been made

public, evidence and information

gathered will be made public un-

less it is subject to issues of priva-

cy, confidentiality, natural justice

or national security,” she said.

The offices of Ardern and Jus-

tice Minister Andrew Little did

not respond to requests for com-

ment. Little has said that in the

months before the massacre, offi-

cials had been discussing closer

monitoring of far-right extrem-

ism.

There is frustration in the Mus-

lim community over alleged fail-

ures by the authorities in the

lead-up to the mosque slaughter.

A submission to the inquiry by

the Islamic Women’s Council of

New Zealand contends that if

officials had acted more rigorous-

ly in response to Muslims’ calls

for protection from elements

threatening their community, the

gunman would likely “never have

got to the door of the mosques.”

Aliya Danzeisen, a council

member who sits on the Muslim

reference group to the inquiry,

has said that just a day before the

attacks in Christchurch, she

signed a police statement con-

cerning a threat against her com-

munity.

But the secrecy has meant that

the inquiry process may not be as

open to challenge as it should be,

she said. “The suppressions and

the limited terms of reference

mean that we can’t access any

testimony and challenge it, or say

whether or not it fits with our

experience. There is definitely a

power imbalance here, but that’s

not the fault of the commission —

it’s on the government.”

A spokesman for New Zea-

land’s intelligence agencies said

the commission’s scrutiny was

vital for the victims’ families and

for maintaining public confi-

de nce in intelligence work. “We

must learn from this tragedy, and

we will,” he said, adding that

intelligence officials were cooper-

ating with the process despite

being restricted in what they

could say publicly.

Police, too, said they had been

working closely with the commis-

sion.

Without a U.S.-style constitu-

tional guarantee of free speech,

constraints on reporting in New

Zealand can be wider than would

be allowed under U.S. law, said

Andrew Geddis, a professor of

law at the University of Otago.

Despite the secrecy, Abdul

Aziz, a survivor of the attacks,

said he had faith in the process.

“I’m sure the government are

doing their best; not everything

can be made public yet,” he said.

“Once the [Tarrant] case is fin-

ished, I expect the government

will lift restrictions.”

Security remains a live issue

for New Zealand’s Muslim com-

munity. This month, a man was

arrested in connection with an

alleged threat against one of the

mosques attacked in

Christchurch.

“I’m over apologies from the

government,” Danzeisen said. “I

want to see change.”

[email protected]

make public. With Ta rrant’s hear-

ing approaching, authorities say

they need to prevent public dis-

closure of details that could jeop-

ardize a fair trial or the prospect

of a conviction.

“The general approach is that

criminal charges should be tried in

court, not in the media, and New

Zealand doesn’t have U.S.-style

questioning of jurors in high-pro-

file cases, instead limiting what

information can be made public.

The royal commission will be care-

ful to avoid publicly saying things

that would suggest that Brenton

Ta rrant is guilty,” said Graeme Ed-

geler, a Wellington-based lawyer

and legal commentator.

Suppression orders cover evi-

dence given to the inquiry by New

Zealand’s police, intelligence and

other state agencies, leading to

worries this balancing act pro-

vides scope for officials to conceal

missteps.

“There is a distinct possibility

that the inquiry report will be, if

not a whitewash, a watered-down

overview that does not attribute

specific blame at the systemic,

institutional or individual levels,”

said Paul Buchanan, an Auck-

land-based consultant and com-

mentator on security affairs who

has worked with U.S. national

security agencies.

In a letter to the inquiry last

year, New Zealand’s former race

relations commissioner, Joris de

Bres, criticized the secrecy provi-

sions and warned that they risked

Inquiry into New Zealand

attacks shrouded in secrecy

A year after mosque massacres, suppression orders mask evidence in case

CARL COURT/GETTY IMAGES

Flowers and tributes are left in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 19, 2019, after the massacre of worshipers at two mosques. The incident was the worst mass shooting in New Zealand’s history.

CARL COURT/GETTY IMAGES

Posters erected in the aftermath of the attack are seen in Christchurch on March 21 last year.