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Corruption cases against Pak PM’s wife withdrawn

September 6, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Karachi, Sep. 5 (ANI): The corruption cases filed against Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s wife have been withdrawn.

Fouzia Yousuf Gilani and five others were accused of obtaining two loans from the Agricultural Development Bank for their companies in the late 1980s and not returning the money, The Dawn reports.

But the National Accountability Bureau which had filed the cases against Gilani, Syeda Samina Abrar, Anwar Nasreen, Ziaur Rehman, Khalid Hussain and Nasreen Munawar Chaudhry in 2000 told the court that the matter has been settled and charges withdrawn.

According to the prosecution, the accused, who were directors of the Pakistan Green Fertiliser, had obtained a loan of 71.163 million rupees from the ADBP in November 1987 and not returned the amount after which the National Accountability Bureau had filed a reference against them.

The second reference pertained to a loan of 100 million rupees taken from the bank in July 1989 for the Multan Edible Oil Extraction Company.

The court had dismissed applications for acquittal in July.

The MD of the firms, Munawar Hussain Sindhu, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on March 10, 2001, while Gilani and others were awarded three-year terms in absentia for failing to appear before the court. (ANI)

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MI5 spent over 10 yrs in fruitless hunt for Nazi Martin Bormann

September 1, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Sept 1 (ANI): British agents spent more than 10 years in the fruitless hunt for Adolf Hitler’s trusted private secretary, Martin Bormann, following false reports that he survived the war, secret intelligence files have revealed.

Bormann’s whereabouts was one of the biggest mysteries after the Second World War, reports Times Online.

MI5 believed that he died trying to escape the Reich Chancellery in Berlin after Hitler committed suicide in April 1945.

However, no remains were found until 1972 and rumours persisted for years that Fuhrer’s private secretary was still alive.

The senior Nazi, who was also head of the Party Chancellery, was sentenced to death in absentia at the Nuremberg trials in 1946.

The files show how intelligence chiefs were bombarded with alleged sightings of Bormann for years afterwards.

Among the places where he was allegedly spotted were various towns in Switzerland, a Franciscan monastery in Italy and even a mountainside in Brazil.

One man who approached the British Embassy in Paris in 1947 even claimed that Hitler was alive and living with monks in Tibet.

Documents and memos from the security services, released by The National Archives, trace the Bormann trail until 1958, with members of MI5 pouring scorn on increasingly unlikely sightings and press reports.

Possible hideouts also included the Middle East and Russia, where he was said to have defected.

Bormann’s remains were, however, cremated in 1999, a year after DNA tests finally convinced doubters that he had died more than five decades earlier. (ANI)

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Dhaka court indicts Huji leader, 13 others for blast in 2001

April 19, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Dhaka, April 17 (IANS) A Bangladesh court has indicted Mufti Abdul Hannan, leader of the banned Islamist outfit Harkatul Jihad Islami (Huji), and 13 others for causing the 2001 blast at a city rally that killed 10 and injured scores of people.

The blast occurred in 2001 at Dhaka’s Ramna Batamul area during Pahela Baisakh, the Bengali New Year celebration.

Metropolitan Sessions Judge A.N.M. Bashir Ullah Thursday rejected the discharge petitions submitted by the counsels for Hannan and five others and framed charges against all 14 accused.

Five of the accused produced before the court amid tight security pleaded not guilty after the charges brought against them were read out, The Daily Star said Friday.

Moulana Tajuddin, younger brother of former Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu, and seven other accused are absconding. Charges were framed against them in absentia.

The chargesheet said Ramna Batamul, where thousands of people gather to celebrate the Bangla New Year, was chosen as the target because Huji considers Pahela Baishakh celebrations anti-Islamic.

Moulana Tajuddin supplied the bombs. He also supplied grenades for carrying out the attack on an Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue Aug 21, 2004, the media report said.

Huji is one of the four organisations banned by then Khaleda Zia government (2001-06) after the activities of Islamist militant bodies raised protests at home and among the international community.

Media reports have said these organisations have managed to regroup and step up their activities despite the ban.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Thursday sought the cooperation of Islamic leaders and scholars in finding out terrorists and troublemakers.

‘Islam is a religion of peace, but a vested quarter is undermining the image of this religion,’ she said while exchanging views with a delegation of madrassa and Islamic leaders.

The government wants to bring under its control the quami madrassas (seminaries) that belong to different schools of Islamic theology to monitor their activities and keep a check on their misuse by militants.

The government move comes after the discovery of arms, ammunition and explosives in a British NGO funded madrassa on Bhola island in southern Bangladesh.

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2ND LEAD: Former Peruvian leader sentenced to 25 years in jail

April 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Lima – Alberto Fujimori, the former president of Peru, was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in jail on Tuesday for human rights abuses and crimes against humanity, including ordering the massacre of 25 people.

In a historic ruling, the Peruvian court convicted the former democratically-elected president, who fled his own country while still in office, for abuses committed during his presidency.

Fujimori, 70, immediately announced he would appeal the sentence. Earlier he sat in the courtroom and calmly followed the reading of the judgement by chief judge Cesar San Martin.

But outside the courtroom, which was located in a heavily-guarded police barracks, there was pushing and shoving between his supporters and opponents who awaited the ruling.

Fujimori’s fans have threatened massive street protests in the event he was found guilty.

Judge San Martin continued reading the judgement, saying that the charges against Fujimori had been proven. Prosecutors had asked for a 30-year sentence.

The specific charges centred on his ordering the killing of 25 people in two massacres at La Cantuta and Barrios Altos and two kidnappings in 1991 and 1992. Fujimori was found guilty in absentia on a separate set of charges and sentenced to six years in jail.

Fujimori ruled Peru from 1990-2000 before fleeing massive corruption and human rights abuse charges. He faxed his resignation back to Peru from Japan, which gave him refuge because he had Japanese ancestors.

He returned to the region saying he would seek re-election, but was arrested by Chilean officials who then extradited him to Peru in 2007.

The former president has stressed that he is innocent and recounted the difficult context in which he governed the South American country as he combatted an internal terrorist threat.

“I know that I am innocent, and I know I have the majority support of the people,” he said recently. (dpa)

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Trial opens in Paris of three accused of Tunisia synagogue bombing

January 5, 2009 By Rajiv Gupta Leave a Comment

Paris – The man who helped plot the 9/11 terrorist attacks and two others went on trial in Paris on Monday for their alleged involvement in the 2002 suicide bombing of a Tunisian synagogue that killed 21 people.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has admitted being the main architect of the 9/11 attacks, German citizen Christian Ganczarski and Tunisian Walid Nauar, the brother of the suicide bomber, are charged with accessory to murder and face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is currently imprisoned in the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, is being tried in absentia.

All three are suspected of having played a part in the planning and execution of the suicide bombing of an ancient synagogue on the Tunisian island resort of Djerba that took the lives of 14 German tourists, five Tunisians and two French citizens on April 11, 2002.

In the attack, the suicide bomber, Nizar Nauar, a native of Tunisia, drove a fuel tanker up to the synagogue and blew it up.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was allegedly Nauar’s spiritual mentor. Ganczarski – alias Ibrahim ou Abu Mohammed – allegedly helped plan the bombing and spoke with Nizar Nauar by cellphone just hours before it was carried out.

The trial is expected to last one month. (dpa)

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Brussels moot speaks of long-term peace for Kashmir

January 4, 2009 By Rajiv Gupta Leave a Comment

Brussels : A two-day conference held here last month on the cultural heritage of Kashmiris, has declared that there is a need to forge “a peaceful pathway through identifying and implementing a series of steps that will lead to a prosperous and cohesive future for all of the people of Kashmir, wherever they may reside.”

In its eight-point declaration, the conference recognising that, irrespective of their location, all people of the Former Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir share a unique and ancient heritage.

It also welcomed and endorsed the European Parliament resolution on Kashmir passed on May 24, 2007. The resolution was passed by a majority of 522 votes in favour, nine votes against and 19 abstentions.

The conference affirmed that the Kashmiri identity has not faded or been diminished during the several centuries of difficulty, of which the past sixty years have been perhaps the most testing of all, and has on the contrary been strengthened and enhanced by these trails;

It strongly believed that through searching for and practising conflict resolution and conflict avoidance, and by adopting a forward-looking approach regarding today as the beginning of a new pattern of activity, the absolute goal of unity and diversity in Kashmir could be reached.

The signatories included Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri, Charles Graves, Nasir Aziz Khan, Mumtaz Khan, Jamil Maqsood, Sajid Hussain, Abbas Butt, Dr. Shabir Choudhry, M. Hashim Qureshi, Daalat Ali, Zafar Iqbal, Talat Butt, Krishna Bhan, Sikander Abbas, Sardar Nasim Iqbal Advocate JKLF, Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne MEP, Jessica Scout, Christophe Michels, Siddik Bakir, Abdul Hamid Khan, Maroof Khan and Manzoor Hussain in absentia.

The conference, over which Baroness Emma Nicholson presided, was held on December 10 and 11.

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