Jury orders Trump to pay $83 mn for sex assault defamation
New York, (AFP): A jury in New York ordered former US president and 2024 candidate Donald Trump on Friday to pay $83.3 million to compensate the writer E Jean Carroll, whom he was found to have sexually assaulted and defamed.
The civil order, which prompted an audible gasp in the federal court, far exceeds the more than $10 million in damages for defamation that Carroll had sought.
Trump lashed out almost immediately, calling the verdict "ridiculous" in a statement and promising to appeal.
The jury reached its decision after slightly less than three hours of deliberations.
Trump had been in court earlier, storming out at one point but subsequently returning for closing arguments. He was not in court when the level of compensatory and punitive damages were read out by a court clerk.
"This is a great victory for every woman who stands up when she's been knocked down, and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down," Carroll said.
The order was comprised of $65mn in punitive damages after the jury found Trump acted maliciously in his many public comments about Carroll, $7.3mn in compensatory damages and $11mn for a reputational repair programme.
"I was not surprised (by the award) partly because his egregious misbehaviour during the trial could actually have alienated the jury," said Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law.
Trump -- whom a jury found liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a separate federal civil case in New York -- used his Truth Social platform to fire off a spate of insulting messages attacking Carroll, the trial and the judge, whom he called "an extremely abusive individual."
Trump, 77, briefly took the stand on Thursday to deny he instructed anyone to harm Carroll with his statements.
During Trump's testimony, Kaplan limited him to three questions from his lawyers, to which he could only answer yes or no -- a precaution taken to prevent the Republican leader from returning to his custom of disparaging the court or Carroll in public.
"This is not America," Trump said as he left the courtroom following his short appearance.
He was not required to attend the trial or to testify. However, he has used the case, as well as others he faces, to generate heated media coverage and to fuel his claims of being victimised as he campaigns for a return to the White House in November's election.
Trump separately faces multiple criminal cases, including his alleged attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden, and a civil business fraud case.
Jurors were shown Trump's October 2022 deposition during which he confused a picture of Carroll for his former wife Marla Maples, which threatened to cast doubt on his claim Carroll was not his "type." Last year, another federal jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a department store dressing room in 1996 and subsequently defaming her in 2022.
Trump had been in court while he campaigned ahead of the New Hampshire primary, which he won handily over his only remaining challenger Nikki Haley, as he closes in on becoming the Republican candidate in the November election against Biden.
They besieged us, so we fled. We call on the UN to intervene, to stop the war. Enough of fear and terror!
Palestinian Territories, (AFP): Intense fighting raged Saturday in the Gaza city of Khan Yunis. The unabated hostilities came a day after the UN's International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled Israel must prevent possible acts of genocide in the conflict but stopped short of calling for a ceasefire.
Tensions rose between Israel and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees after Israel alleged several UNRWA staff were involved in the Hamas attack of October 7, leading key donor countries to suspend funding.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Saturday that Israel wants to ensure the UN agency, with tens of thousands of staff in the territory, "will not be a part of the day after" the bloodiest ever Gaza war.
Alarm has grown over the plight of civilians in Khan Yunis. AFP TV images showed thousands of civilians, among them women and children, fleeing the city on foot as an Israeli tank loomed behind them. "They besieged us, so we fled," said Tahani al-Najjar, who left Khan Yunis with her daughter. "We call on the UN to intervene, to stop the war. Enough of fear and terror!"
Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the displaced endured incessant cold rain and warned of the "spread of contagious diseases".
The health ministry in Gaza said at least 135 people were killed in Khan Yunis overnight. The government said "massive tank bombardment" targeted a refugee camp in the city and its Nasser hospital.
Issuing a highly anticipated ruling on Friday, the UN's top court said Israel must prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and allow humanitarian aid into the narrow strip of land which has been under relentless bombardment and siege for almost four months.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the case as "outrageous" while Gaza's rulers hailed the ruling, saying it "contributes to isolating Israel and exposing its crimes in Gaza". The decision was based on an urgent application brought by South Africa, long a supporter of the Palestinian cause.
"This is the first time the world has told Israel that it is out of line," said Maha Yasin, a 42-year-old displaced Gaza woman. "What Israel did to us in Gaza for four months has never happened in history."
The Israeli military offensive has killed over 26,257 people, about 70 percent of them women and children.
With Gaza's humanitarian crisis growing, the UN says most of the estimated 1.7 million Palestinians displaced by the war are crowded into Rafah.
At Khan Yunis's Nasser Hospital, the largest in the besieged city, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said surgical capacity was "virtually non-existent". The charity said the hospital's services had "collapsed" and the few staff who remained "must contend with very low supplies that are insufficient to handle mass casualty events".
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 350 patients and 5,000 displaced people remained at the hospital as fighting continued. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Israeli tanks targeted the Al-Amal hospital, another of the city's few remaining medical facilities, and that it was "under siege". "There is no longer a healthcare system in Gaza," MSF said.
There were 300 to 500 patients trapped at the Nasser hospital with "war-related injuries such as open wounds, lacerations from explosions, fractures and burns".
CIA chief William Burns is to meet with his Israeli and Egyptian counterparts, as well as Qatar's prime minister, in the coming days in Paris to seek a ceasefire, a security source told AFP.