The Black Hole of Calcutta was a small dungeon in the old Fort William, at Calcutta, India, where troops of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, held British prisoners of war after the capture of the Fort on June 19, 1756.
One of the prisoners, John Zephaniah Holwell, claimed that following the fall of the fort, British and Anglo-Indian soldiers and civilians were held overnight in conditions so cramped that many died from suffocation, heat exhaustion and crushing. He claimed that 123 prisoners died out of 146 prisoners held.
However, the precise number of deaths, and the accuracy of Holwell's claims, have been the subject of controversy.
Well, if he isn't in a small dungeon in the ground where everyone dies, then everything must be just fine...
Padilla's lawyer Michael Caruso responded and got the continuance of the sentencing that he was seeking:
Jose Padilla, the convicted terrorist who once called the Fort Lauderdale-area home before joining the ranks of al-Qaida, won his bid Wednesday to delay his resentencing in Miami federal court.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke granted a defense request to postpone the resentencing from Monday until Jan. 29. His lawyer argued the delay would give Padilla — who seemed more disengaged, gaunt and pale than during his Miami trial more than five years ago — extra time to improve his mental health.
Federal Public Defender Michael Caruso said he believes the government has effectively “tortured” Padilla during his incarceration over the past decade and that he would benefit from visits from his Broward relatives at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami, where he was transferred recently. His mother and two brothers attended Wednesday’s hearing, but did not comment.
Padilla, 42, is serving a 17-year prison at the Supermax prison in Florence, Colo., where he’s held in isolation almost all day. He faces up to life in prison at his resentencing, after a federal appeals court last year rejected the judge’s initial sentence as too lenient.
“Since his arrest in May of 2002, the government has systematically attempted to destroy Jose by psychologically torturing him and imprisoning him under the severest of conditions,” Caruso, who represented Padilla at his 2007 trial, wrote in court papers. “Not surprisingly, this psychological torture has taken a toll on Jose.”
When a man wants to murder a tiger, he calls it sport: when the tiger wants to murder him, he calls it ferocity. The distinction between crime and justice is no greater.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Bernard Shaw
What sayeth you about the recent Lewis, Tein allegations made by their client that the Tribe paid their fees, not him or his daughter as they stated many times to Judge Friedman?
ReplyDeleteRumpole never ceases to amaze me.
ReplyDeleteRumpole has sunk to a new low, even for him, by posting fake comments on the SDFB. No respectable Federal PD would would leave a comment as "sultry fed pd." Seriously.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the "sultry PD" comment resembles all the fake "blonde and sexy bombshell" comments on the Justice Building Blog. No women under 40 uses the word "bombshell." It's so obvious that he posts the majority of those fake comments on his blog himself.
Thank goodness you don't do that, DOM. It makes you all the more respectable and cool.