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Tuesday, September 11, 2012
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International
Daughter of slain BritishIraqi couple back in UK Associated Press Writer
REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
A woman walks past graffiti on a wall of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (C), his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi (R) and former head of the Libyan Intelligence Service Abdullah Al-Senussi in Tripoli November 20, 2011.
Gaddafi son’s Libya trial to be delayed by five months: official Reuters
TRIPOLI - The trial of Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam will be delayed by five months to include any relevant testimony obtained via the interrogation of Libya’s former spy chief who was arrested last week, the prosecutor general office said on Sunday. Government officials said in August Saif al-Islam’s trial on charges of war crimes - the most high-profile prosecution of a figure from his late father’s entourage to date - was due to begin in September. But the arrest on Wednesday of Abdullah al-Senussi, the former spy chief known as “Gaddafi’s black box”, has pushed that date back, postponing a trial a lawyer from the International Criminal Court (ICC) has already said is unlikely to be fair. “We were ready to try Saif al-Islam this month but after bringing back Senussi to Libya, new information will come to light which will delay the trial for at least five months,” Milad al-Zintani, lawyer at the prosecutor general’s office, told a news conference. Senussi was handed over to Libya by Mauritanian authorities on Wednesday after being captured in the West African state
in March, triggering a tug of war between Libya, France and the ICC for his extradition. The announcement from the prosecutor general’s office comes amid criticism of the trials of other former Gaddafi officials by the Libyan Council on Freedom and Human Rights. “The law usually supports justice, but we are now facing an exceptional justice system which lacks the basis of a fair trial,” Mohammed al-Alagy, a former interim justice minister who now heads the human rights council, told reporters. Without naming any specific cases, he said trials were being ordered while bypassing necessary legal steps to ensure suspects are treated fairly. So far, former spy chief Buzeid Dorda has appeared in the dock, and on Monday former foreign minister Abdel-Ati al-Obeidi and former secretary general of the General People’s Congress Mo-
hammed Zwai will stand trial. Libya’s new rulers, who aim to draw up a democratic constitution, are keen to try Gaddafi’s family members and loyalists at home to show the country’s citizens that those who helped Gaddafi stay in power for 42 years are being punished. Human rights activists worry a weak central government and a relative lack of rule of law mean legal proceedings - both for Senussi and for Saif al-Islam - will not meet international standards. On Wednesday, rights groups called on Libya’s government to hand over Senussi to the ICC where an arrest warrant for him remains in force. In July, a war crimes lawyer who was detained in Libya for three weeks on spying allegations said her experience had shown it was impossible for Saif al-Islam to get a fair trial in his home country.
PARIS — The younger daughter of a British-Iraqi couple slain while vacationing in the French Alps has returned to Britain, while her badly wounded older sister has come out of an artificial coma, authorities said Sunday. Four-year-old Zeena and 7-year-old Zaina survived a vicious shooting that killed their parents, Saad and Iqbal al-Hilli, as well as a stillunidentified older woman and a French man who apparently happened to be passing by on his bicycle. French police have been scrambling to hunt down leads since Wednesday’s rampage, while relatives of the couple arrived in France to take care of the girls. Authorities say they are probing whether an alleged financial dispute between Saad al-Hilli and his brother Zaid played a role, though the surviving brother has denied any conflict. Eric Maillaud, the prosecutor for Annecy near where the shootings occurred, told The Associated Press in a text message that Zeena had returned to Britain along with two relatives. The older daughter, Zaina, was shot in the shoulder and took violent blows to the head during the attack. She underwent two operations and had been placed in a medically induced coma. She has come out of the coma but remains on sedatives and cannot yet talk to investigators, Maillaud wrote Sunday. Depending on what she remembers, the 7-year-old could prove crucial to the investigation.
Iraq’s fugitive VP convicted as attacks kill 82 Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s fugitive Sunni vice president was sentenced Sunday to death by hanging on charges he masterminded death squads against rivals in a terror trial that has fueled sectarian tensions in the country. Underscoring the instability, insurgents unleashed an onslaught of bombings and shootings across Iraq, killing at least 82 people in one of the deadliest days this year. It appeared unlikely that the attacks in 13 cities were all timed to coincide with the afternoon verdict that capped a monthslong case against Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a longtime foe of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Still, taken together, the violence and verdict could energize Sunni insurgents bent on returning Iraq to the brink of civil war by targeting Shiites and undermining the government. Al-Hashemi fled to Turkey in the months after the Shiite-led government accused him of playing a role in 150 bombings, assassinations and other attacks from 2005 to 2011 — years in which the country was mired in retaliatory sectarian violence that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein’s Sunni regime. Most of the attacks were allegedly carried out by al-Hashemi’s bodyguards and other employees, and largely targeted government officials, security forces and Shiite pilgrims. The vice president declined to immediately comment on the verdict after meeting with the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara. He said he would “tackle this issue in a statement” in coming hours. The politically charged case — which was announced the day after U.S. troops withdrew from the country last December — sparked a government crisis and fueled Sunni Muslim and Kurdish resentment against al-Maliki, whom critics say is monopolizing power. Violence has ebbed significantly, but insurgents continue to stage highprofile bombings and shooting rampages. Al-Qaida’s Iraq branch has promised a comeback in predominantly Sunni areas from which it was routed by the U.S. and its local allies after sectarian fighting peaked in 2007. “These attacks show al-Qaida’s ability to hit any place in Iraq and at any time,” said Ali Salem, 40, an elementary school teacher in Baghdad. “The lack of security could take us back to zero.” The worst violence on Sunday struck the capital, where bombs pounded a half-dozen neighborhoods — both Sunni and Shiite — throughout the day. The deadliest attacks in Baghdad hit Shiite areas Sunday evening, hours after the al-Hashemi verdict was announced. In all, 32 people were killed in the capital and 90 wounded, according to police and hospital officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information to reporters.
International
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
11
INDONESIA Police arrest four terrorist suspects in Ambon Antara
AMBON - Police’s special detachment, known as Densus 88, is holding four suspected members of terrorist networks in this North Maluku capital. The four suspects were nabbed in a raid on Sunday night at the house of one of the suspects later identified as Imran at the Batu Merah sub-district. Chief spokesman of the Maluku police Adj. Sr. Comr Johanis Huwae refused to give the name of the suspects saying, “I have to check first.” Earlier Imran’s wife Nur Ani (30)said her husband and his three friends were arrested when she was in the kitchen. “My husband (Imran) was arrested together with
his friends, called Abdullah and Aten and one whose name was not known,” Nur Ani said. In the raid Densus 88 found firearms of the SS - 1 and MK - 3 types and a hand grenade in the house. A neighbor in the village of Batu Merah, Abdullah Soamolle, expressed surprise that the house dwellers were suspected of being terrorists. “They have been here for a year and never having contact with people in the neighborhood,” Abdullah said.
BI optimistic current account deficit to fall Antara
JAKARTA - Bank Indonesia (the central bank/BI) is optimistic the country’s current account deficit will fall to 2 percent at the end of this year. “Until July the current account deficit improved as expected, with exports going up and imports going down. We expect it will be getting better so it will reach 2 percent at the end of this year,” BI’s director of monetary, statistics and balance of payment Doddy Zulverdi said recently. Earlier, BI recorded the current account deficit until the second quarter of this year reached US$6.9 billion or 3.1 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), meaning that it exceeded the psychological level of 3 percent. “If the deficit falls to 2 percent, the level is safe for investors to enter our country,” he said. Data from the Central Statistic Agency (BPS) show Indonesia’s
exports rose by 4.60 percent to US$16.15 billion in July compared to a month earlier. However, the figure fell by 7.27 percent compared to the same month last year. With the global economy showing no signs of improvement, Doddy said Indonesia’s export growth would still come under pressure next year due to a decline in commodity prices. “It is difficult to record a current account surplus as the global economic growth has not improved. So the current account deficit in 2013 will still reach about 2 percent,” he said. The current account deficit reached 3.1 percent in the second quarter of 2012 because export performance fell while demand for imported goods increased rapidly, he said. Though capital and financial account recorded a significant surplus it was not enough to cover the current account deficit. Consequently, the country’s balance of payment suffered a deficit of US$2.8 billion, he said.
AP Photo/Hardimansyah
Sri Lankan asylum seekers sit on the deck of their boat stranded on the waters in Pagai Selatan, Mentawai Islands, Indonesia, Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012. Human Rights Watch Monday called on Indonesia and Australia to take effective measures to protect child asylum-seekers stranded in Indonesia as they make perilous sea voyages to Australia.
Indonesia, Australia must protect boat children Agence France-Presse
JAKARTA - Human Rights Watch Monday called on Indonesia and Australia to take effective measures to protect child asylumseekers stranded in Indonesia as they make perilous sea voyages to Australia. Hundreds of children, especially unaccompanied ones, from countries including Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Myanmar face detention, mistreatment in custody, no access to education, and little or no basic assistance in Indonesia, the New York-based rights watchdog said citing its recent study. The Indonesian government fails to provide them or their families opportunities to obtain legal asylum status, it added.
“Far too many children take incredibly risky journeys because they face no good choices,” the group’s children’s rights director Zama Coursen-Neff said in a statement. “They can’t go home because of persecution or war, and they can’t stay put, because Indonesia doesn’t assist with basic needs or address their legal status,” she added. “Unaccompanied migrant children attempting to transit Indonesia en route to Australia too often fall into a legal black hole in which their rights are denied and their health and physical safety are put at risk.” Australia is facing a steady influx of asylum-seekers arriving by boat, many of whom use
Indonesia as a transit hub, paying people-smugglers for passage on wooden vessels after fleeing their home countries. Australian Immigration Minister Chris Bowen Monday said he hoped to begin sending asylumseekers to the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru later this week, to deter them from paying people-smugglers to attempt the dangerous sea voyage. Scores of them, many originally from Afghanistan, have drowned while attempting these journeys. In the most recent case, children were among more than 100 people believed to have lost their lives after their boat sank off the coast of Java last month, underscoring the need for better protection for them, HRW said.