Georgia Supreme Court reverses contempt ruling against rapper Young Thug's lawyer

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Georgia Supreme Court reverses contempt ruling against rapper Young Thug's lawyer

2024-10-23 00:40 Last Updated At：00:50

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's highest court on Tuesday reversed a judge's contempt ruling against a lawyer for rapper Young Thug who refused to tell the judge how he found out about a meeting between the judge, prosecutors and a prosecution witness.

Defense attorney Brian Steel represents the rapper, who is currently on trial in Atlanta on numerous charges including violation of Georgia’s anti-racketeering and gang laws. Fulton County Superior Court Chief Judge Ural Glanville in June found Steel in contempt and ordered him to spend the next 10 weekends in jail, an order that was put on hold pending Steel's appeal.

Steel argued that his information was subject to attorney-client privilege, that he didn't interfere with the court's proceedings and that Glanville was required under due process to recuse himself from the contempt proceeding since Steel was accusing the judge of wrongdoing.

The Supreme Court justices agreed with Steel that due process required Glanville to remove himself from the handling of the contempt issue.

“Because the court delayed punishment, the alleged disobedience was directed toward the court, and the court was involved in the controversy that formed the basis of the contempt, due process required the judge to recuse from the contempt proceeding. We therefore reverse the contempt imposed by the trial court,” Presiding Justice Nels Peterson wrote in the unanimous opinion.

Young Thug, a Grammy winner whose given name is Jeffery Williams, was charged two years ago in a sprawling indictment accusing him and more than two dozen other people of conspiring to violate Georgia’s anti-racketeering law. He also is charged with gang, drug and gun crimes and is standing trial with five of the others indicted with him.

Jury selection in the case began in January 2023 and took nearly 10 months. Opening statements were in November and the prosecution has been presenting its case since then, calling dozens of witnesses.

In open court on June 10, Steel told Glanville that he had learned of a meeting in the judge's chambers that morning and proceeded to move for a mistrial. In an order finding Steel in contempt and ordering him jailed, Glanville wrote that he had “serious concern with how this information was improperly disclosed” to Steel.

While the judge asserted that Steel had information he shouldn't have had, Steel had argued that the information hadn't been declared confidential by any court order.

Glanville was removed from the long-running case in July over that meeting that he held with prosecutors and a state witness. Another judge granted motions from two defendants seeking Glanville's recusal, saying she did not fault Glanville for holding the meeting but that “the ‘necessity of preserving the public’s confidence in the judicial system’ weighs in favor of excusing Judge Glanville” from the case.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker has taken over the case, which is expected to extend into next year.

Israeli strike destroys building near Beirut as Blinken presses for Gaza cease-fire

2024-10-23 00:39 Last Updated At：00:40

BEIRUT (AP) — The Israeli military leveled a building in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday that it said housed Hezbollah “facilities,” sending smoke and debris into the air a few hundred meters (yards) from where a spokesperson for the militant group had just briefed journalists about a weekend drone attack that damaged the Israeli prime minister's house.

The airstrike came 40 minutes after Israel issued an evacuation warning for two buildings in the area that it said were used by Hezbollah. The Hezbollah press conference nearby was cut short, and an Associated Press photographer captured an image of a missile heading towards the building moments before it was destroyed. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Hezbollah’s chief spokesman, Mohammed Afif, said the group was behind the Saturday drone attack on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in the coastal town of Caesarea. He hinted that it might attempt future strikes on Netanyahu's home. Israel has said neither the prime minister nor his wife were home at the time of the attack.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Tuesday with Netanyahu as part of his 11th visit to the region since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. After Israel's killing last week of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Blinken is trying to revive efforts to secure a cease-fire in Gaza. So far, both Israel and Hamas appear to be digging in.

Netanyahu called his meeting with Blinken, which lasted more than two hours, “friendly and productive.”

Blinken landed hours after Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets into central Israel, setting off air raid sirens in populated areas and at its international airport, but causing no apparent damage or injuries.

An Israeli airstrike late Monday in Beirut night destroyed several buildings across the street from the country’s largest public hospital, killing 18 people and wounding at least 60 others. The Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah target, without elaborating, and said that it hadn’t targeted the hospital itself.

Associated Press reporters visited the Rafik Hariri University Hospital on Tuesday. They saw broken windows in the hospital’s pharmacy and dialysis center, which was full of patients at the time.

Staff at another Beirut hospital feared it would be targeted after Israel alleged that Hezbollah had stashed hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold in its basement, without providing evidence.

The director of the Sahel General Hospital denied the allegations and invited journalists to visit the hospital and its two underground floors on Tuesday. AP reporters saw no sign of militants or anything out of the ordinary.

The few remaining patients had been evacuated after the Israeli military's announcement the night before. The rest had left earlier because of repeated airstrikes in the surrounding neighborhood.

“We have been living in terror for the last 24 hours,” hospital director Mazen Alame said. “There is nothing under the hospital.”

Many in Lebanon fear Israel could target its hospitals in the same way it has raided medical facilities across Gaza. The Israeli military has accused Hamas and other militants of using hospitals for military purposes, allegations denied by medical staff.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that 63 people have been killed over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to 2,546.

During his meeting with Netanyahu, Blinken underscored the need for a dramatic increase in the amount of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza, according to U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. The need for more aid in Gaza is something Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made clear in a letter to Israeli officials last week.

Miller said Blinken also stressed the importance of ending the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which escalated earlier this month when Israel launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

The State Department said ahead of Blinken's visit that he would focus on ending the war in Gaza, securing the release of hostages held by Hamas and alleviating the suffering of Palestinian civilians.

The United States, Egypt and Qatar have brokered months of talks between Israel and Hamas, trying to strike a deal in which the militants would release dozens of hostages in return for an end to the war, a lasting cease-fire and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

But both Israel and Hamas accused each other of making new and unacceptable demands over the summer, and the talks ground to a halt in August. Hamas says its demands haven't changed following the killing of Sinwar.

Israel said it launched its ground invasion of Lebanon to try to stop near daily rocket attacks from Hezbollah since the start of the war in Gaza. Israel has said it plans to strike Iran — which backs both Hamas and Hezbollah — in response to its ballistic missile attack on Israel earlier this month.

Blinken's visit to the region is likely to include stops in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has been crisscrossing the region in recent days to try and build support before Israel’s threatened retaliatory strike. Speaking in Kuwait on Tuesday, he said that Gulf Arab countries had assured him that they wouldn't allow their territory to be used for any Israeli strike.

The Arab Gulf countries haven't publicly offered such assurances.

Gulf Arab nations like the UAE and Qatar host major military installations, and there are concerns that an all-out regional war could draw them in. Iran has repeatedly vowed to respond to any Israeli strike.

The U.S. has also tried to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, but those efforts fell apart as tensions spiked last month with a series of Israeli strikes that killed the militant group’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his senior commanders.

Israel is waging another major operation in the already devastated northern region of Gaza. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed over the last two weeks, according to local health authorities.

In Lebanon, Israel has carried out waves of heavy airstrikes across southern Beirut and the country’s south and east, areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets, missiles and drones into Israel over the past year, including some that have reached the country’s populous center.

Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and took another 250 hostage. Around 100 of the captives are still held in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded tens of thousands, according to local health authorities, who don't say how many were combatants but say more than half were women and children. It has also caused major devastation across the territory and displaced around 90% of its population of 2.3 million.

Sarah El Deeb reported from Beirut. Kareem Chehayeb, Sally Abou AlJoud and Bassem Mroue contributed to this report from Beirut.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war