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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums5 Stories from Europe You May Have Missed
1. Religious Court Rules To Strip Rogue Russian Priest Of His RankYEKATERINBURG, Russia -- An ultraconservative, coronavirus-denying Russian priest who took control of a convent in the Urals with help from Cossack guards last month has been stripped off his religious rank.
The Diocesan Court in the Sverdlovsk region on July 3 ruled that Schema-Hegumen Sergiy (Nikolai Romanov), had shown disobedience toward Russian Orthodox Church authorities and therefore must be punished.
snip
Father Sergiy also publicly condemned the Russian Orthodox Church's order in April to stop church services to prevent the spreading of the coronavirus. Weeks later, the Yekaterinburg diocese barred him from preaching and launched a probe into his conduct, citing his stance on the coronavirus and his interference with church policy during the pandemic.
snip
After forcibly taking over the convent in June, Father Sergiy issued several political statements saying that constitutional amendments offered by President Vladimir Putin "would legalize a slave-owning system."
https://www.rferl.org/a/religious-court-rules-to-strip-rogue-russian-priest-of-his-rank/30704755.html
2. Croatia election: Will the ruling party's early election gamble pay off?
Croatia will hold parliamentary elections on Sunday (July 5) in an early election that is likely to be impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Polls show a close race between the two mainstream parties but its uncertain who will win the most seats or who might be able to form a majority coalition in Croatia's 151-member parliament.
Experts say the elections were brought forward in part because the ruling party thinks they could benefit from their handling of the coronavirus pandemic. There have been just under 3,000 cases and 110 deaths but now cases are on the rise.
snip
"But the decision to lift the lockdown and open the borders too fast came back like a political boomerang: now the epidemiological situation in Croatia is deteriorating day by day."
https://www.euronews.com/2020/07/04/croatia-election-will-the-ruling-party-s-early-election-gamble-pay-off
3. Court In MH17 Trial Grants Defense Request For Additional Investigations
Judges hearing the case against four suspects in the 2014 downing of a passenger airliner over eastern Ukraine have granted a defense request to investigate alternative theories about the incident.
On July 3, the court in The Hague in the Netherlands ordered that defense lawyers and experts be granted access to the partial wreckage of the plane, which is being held at a Dutch military base.
The suspects -- Russians Sergei Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov, and Igor Girkin, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko -- are being tried in absentia for involvement in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, which killed all 298 people on board.
Following a six-year international investigation, prosecutors have argued that the aircraft was shot down by a Russian-made Buk antiaircraft system fired by Russia-backed separatist fighters who had acquired it from a Russian military base on the border between the two countries.
https://www.rferl.org/a/court-in-mh17-trial-grants-defense-request-for-additional-investigations/30704964.html
4. Italy breaks up child abuse ring 'that shared images of babies
ROME (AP) Italian police say they have broken up a child abuse ring used to share illicit material, including photos of newborns, via an instant messaging platform.
Police said on Saturday that the crackdown involved dozens of search warrants and led to the arrest of three people for allegedly possessing what was described in a statement as huge quantities of pornographic material depicting minors. About 50 people are under investigation.
The police statement said investigators had discovered photos of nude minors and other horrifying content, depicting actual sexual violence where the victims were often newborns.
Police said some of the images had been produced at home. Material was exchanged on an instant messaging platform that investigators did not identify except to say it was well-known.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/04/italy-breaks-up-child-abuse-ring-that-shared-images-of-babies
5. François Fillon found guilty of embezzling public funds
The former French prime minister François Fillon and his Welsh wife, Penelope, were sentenced to jail on Monday for embezzling public funds as part of a fake jobs scandal.
A court found the couple guilty of fraud after a trial heard he had paid her and two of the couples children about 1m for non-existent jobs as his parliamentary assistants.
In a scathing verdict, the judge said Fillon, 66, who was prime minister under the centre-right president Nicolas Sarkozy, had eroded trust in Frances political class.
The court said Mrs Fillon, 64, was paid the maximum possible and that the sums were out of proportion to her activities.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/29/francois-fillon-found-guilty-of-embezzling-public-funds
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