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  The anti-graft arm of China’s Communist Party began a probe of a former top aide to retired President Hu Jintao as the nation pushes ahead with a campaign to root out corruption that’s brought down high-level officials.   Ling Jihua, 58, a vice chairman of China’s top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, is under investigation for alleged serious disciplinary violations, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a statement dated Dec. 22.   The probe signals that Hu’s successor, President Xi Jinping, is pressing ahead with the anti-graft campaign at the highest levels of the Communist Party even after netting officials including Zhou Yongkang, a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee. Xi has warned that corruption risks undermining the party’s legitimacy.   “The detention of Ling shows Xi’s campaign has reached…

  Billionaire Thomas Kwok, the former Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. co-chairman, was sentenced to five years in jail and fined HK$500,000 ($64,460) for conspiring to corrupt Hong Kong’s No. 2 official.   Rafael Hui, 66, the city’s chief secretary from 2005 to 2007, was sentenced to 7 1/2 years for five charges including taking HK$8.5 million from Kwok to be favorably disposed to Sun Hung Kai, the world’s second-most valuable real estate firm. Thomas Chan, a former executive director of the company, was jailed for six years while Francis Kwan got five years.   Hong Kong’s biggest graft trial ended last week with a nine-member jury finding the four men guilty and Kwok stepping down from the company he headed with his younger brother Raymond Kwok since 2011. Raymond was…

  13 de los 18 magistrados que componen la Sala de lo Penal del Tribunal Supremo han remitido este jueves una carta al presidente del Supremo y del Consejo General del Poder Judicial, Carlos Lesmes, denunciando las declaraciones del ministro de Interior, Jorge Fernández Díaz, en contra de la resolución favorable del Tribunal a la acumulación de penas de los terroristas.   Se trata de una resolución que, de acuerdo con una nueva normativa europea, considera que se debe sumar el tiempo de contena cumplido en un país de la Unión Europea para computar la condena en España. La resolución, fue la base de la decisión Sala Primera de la Audiencia Nacional de liberar a los etarras Santiago Arrospide Sarasola y Alberto Plazaola Anduaga, y que ya provocó ágrias críticas del gobierno, esta vez en boca de la…

El magistrado de la Audiencia de Barcelona Santiago Vidal ha solicitado este viernes al promotor de la Acción Disciplinaria del Consejo General del Poder Judicial (CGPJ) Jesús Fonseca-Herrero, que archive el expediente disciplinario abierto contra él por participar en la redacción del borrador de una Constitución catalana porque ya han pasado con creces los seis meses de plazo que la Ley Orgánica del Poder Judicial (LA LEY 1694/1985) (LOPJ) otorga para tramitar este tipo de asuntos. Tras permanecer algo menos de una hora en la sede del órgano de gobierno de los jueces, donde había sido citado a declarar por el promotor de la Acción Disciplinaria, Vidal ha explicado que la Ley otorga seis meses de plazo desde que se inicia el expediente hasta la resolución definitiva.   «El expediente se inició…

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  T-Mobile USA agreed to pay $90 million to resolve federal and state claims that it charged consumers for extra services without authorization, a practice known as “cramming” that has become a target of regulators, the New York attorney general said.   The fourth-largest U.S. wireless carrier, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE), was accused by the U.S. and all 50 states of tacking on third-party charges not requested by customers, such as $9.99-per-month premium text message subscriptions for horoscopes, celebrity gossip and sports scores.   In October, AT&T Inc. (T) agreed to pay $105 million to resolve similar allegations. U.S. officials said earlier this week that regulators were planning to seek an equal penalty from Sprint Corp.   As part of the deal revealed today, Bellevue, Washington-based T-Mobile must pay $67.5…

  Just when the justice secretary could do with a stick to beat the European court of human rights, it delivers two judgments in the government’s favour and refuses an appeal against the government in a third. Chris Grayling must be gnashing his teeth.   The first unsuccessful claim, brought by the would-be London bombers and an accomplice over the delay in allowing them legal advice, is well covered by Owen Bowcott. This piece is about the second government victory and the public dialogue on hearsay evidence between the human rights court in Strasbourg and the supreme court in London.   Our story begins in May 2005 when Peter Rice, an alcoholic, was badly beaten at his flat in Birkenhead. He recovered in hospital and was able to make a statement…

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  For years, supporters of the CIA’s harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects have insisted the tactics were essential to preventing attacks and leading investigators to Osama bin Laden.   Yesterday, the agency’s chief said he’s not so sure.   In his first public appearance since Senate Democrats released a scathing assessment of the Central Intelligence Agency’s “enhanced interrogation techniques,” Director John Brennan simultaneously defended the measures while conceding they may not have been necessary.   “There was useful intelligence, very useful, valuable intelligence that was obtained from individuals who had been, at some point, subjected” to the harsh tactics, Brennan said yesterday in a press conference at the CIA’s headquarters. “Whether that could have been obtained without the use of those EITs is something, again, that is unknowable.”   Brennan’s nuanced defense of…