{{A young jihadist who ran a French website where he published al Qaeda propaganda was scheduled to appear Tuesday before the Paris Criminal Court for glorifying and inciting terrorism.}}
Roman L., a 27 year old Muslim convert who used the pseudonym Abu Siyad Al-Normandy on the Internet, was arrested on September 17 in Calvados, where he lives.
His arrest was the first under a law passed in December 2012 following a series of shootings in the south of France by Islamist gunman Mohamed Merah, which made incitement to terrorism an offence punishable by five years in prison and a fine of up to 45,000 euros.
The accused man admitted that he was the administrator of the jihadist site Ansar Al-Haqq a radical Islamist platform. He was also charged with having translated and released two editions of the al-Qaeda magazine “Inspire” which calls for jihad.
“Inspire” is published in English in Yemen and was written by Samir Khan, an American of Pakistani origin. An influential American imam of Yemeni origin, Anwar Al-Awlaqi, was a frequent contributor. Both were killed by US drones in Yemen.
“I’m sorry…I take responsibility,” Romain L said in court on February 14 during a hearing at which he unsuccessfully requested his release. With his black hair pulled back and sporting a long beard, he spoke of “error” and “negligence.”
“I did not intend to break the law or incite people to do wrong,” Romain L. said at his hearing, asking to be allowed to rejoin his family and “resume a normal life.”
“He is the only person being held in France at the moment” for such acts, said his lawyer, Thomas Klotz. Klotz said that the charges were contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.
{{Egypt’s state news agency is reporting the youngest son of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi has been detained by police on suspicion of drug possession.}}
The MENA news agency said police detained son Abdullah Morsi, a university freshman, on Saturday after a police patrol found a suspicious car parked on the side of the road in el-Obour city, east of Cairo.
The agency said officers found two rolled hashish cigarettes in the car.
A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to reporters, said the car’s passengers were Morsi’s youngest son and a friend.
He said prosecutors are questioning the two men.
Morsi was toppled in a popularly backed military overthrow in July and has been in detention since, facing a number of trials.
{{US authorities have released jailed Cuban agent Fernando Gonzalez from prison after he completed his sentence.}}
He is the second of a group of spies who became known as the Cuban Five to be freed. They were convicted in 2001 on charges including conspiracy.
Gonzalez is expected to be deported within days to Cuba, where he and his fellow spies are considered heroes.
Prosecutors said the five had sought to infiltrate US military bases and spied on Cuban exiles in Florida.
{{International campaign}}
Since their conviction, the men have been at the centre of a vociferous campaign by the Cuban government to free them.
Fernando Gonzalez, 54, was arrested in 1998 along with Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero and Rene Gonzalez.
The five were found guilty in 2001 of conspiracy and failure to register as foreign agents in the US.
Cuba has always maintained they posed no threat to the United States as they were only monitoring anti-communist exiles in Florida with the aim of preventing attacks by exiles on the communist-run island.
{{Hero’s welcome}}
Fernando Gonzalez was originally sentenced to 19 years but his jail term was later reduced. At the time of his release in the early hours of Wednesday he had served more than 15 years in prison.
He is the second of the group to be freed after the release in 2011 of Renee Gonzalez.
Renee Gonzalez returned to Cuba to a hero’s welcome and has been campaigning for the release of his fellow detainees.
Antonio Guerrero is set to be released in September 2017, while Labanino’s release is due in October 2024.
Hernandez is serving a double life sentence as he was also convicted of conspiracy to commit murder over the shooting down in 1996 of two planes flown by a Cuban exile group, Brothers to the Rescue.
The pilots were on a mission searching for Cubans trying to flee the island by crossing the Florida Straits in home-made rafts. Cuba accused the planes of violating Cuban airspace.
The case of the Cuban Five has long been a source of tension between the US and Cuba.
{{An Egyptian court has sentenced 26 people to death for founding a “terror group” with the aim of attacking ships using the Suez Canal.}}
Judges said the men were also accused of manufacturing missiles and explosives, local media report.
The defendants were tried in absentia, Reuters news agency says.
The sentencing comes a day after the new Prime Minister designate, Ibrahim Mahlab, vowed he would “crush terrorism in all the corners of the country”.
Mr Mahlab has been put in charge of forming a new government following Monday’s surprise resignation of interim Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi and his cabinet.
Mr Beblawi was appointed in July 2013 after the military overthrew President Mohammed Morsi in the wake of mass protests.
Since then, more than 1,000 people have been killed and thousands of others detained in a crackdown by the security forces on the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement to which Mr Morsi belongs.
Militants based in the Sinai peninsula have meanwhile stepped up attacks on government, police and the armed forces, killing hundreds.
{{‘Harmed unity’}}
In Wednesday’s verdict, the court said the accused had harmed “national unity”, inciting violence against the army, police, and Christians.
The case will now be referred to the mufti, Egypt’s top Islamic official, who has to validate the sentence.
The final verdict is expected on 19 March.
No further details were available about the group on trial, AFP reported.
In a separate development, Mr Mahlab has begun reappointing several ministers in his new government.
{{A judge has ruled that media houses are able to broadcast parts of the murder trial of Oscar Pistorius in the North Gauteng High Court next week.}}
Judge Dunstan Mlambo ruled that audio recordings of all proceedings be allowed, and audiovisual images of only parts of the trial be allowed.
This includes opening and closing arguments and evidence of experts, but excludes evidence of the accused and witnesses.
“It is …in the public interest that, within allowance limits, the goings on during the trial be covered… to ensure a greater number of people in the community who are unable to attend the proceedings are able to follow wherever they may be,” Mlambo ruled.
{{Reaction}}
MultiChoice’s Oscar Channel producer George Mazarakis tweeted: “Thrilled the SA judiciary has matured to this ground breaking decision. It is a seminal moment”.
“This is a great step forward,” said eNCA group news editor Ben Said. “It is a very wide-ranging judgment, and a very important one.”
MultiChoice, eNCA and Eyewitness News brought the application to the court last week.
Last week Frank Snyckers SC, for MultiChoice and Eyewitness News, told the court that media would use technologically advanced equipment that was not obtrusive and was controlled remotely.
Snyckers said media houses had secured the National Prosecuting Authority’s support.
Pistorius’s legal team opposed the application arguing that broadcasting the events would lead to an unfair trial.
Barry Roux SC, for Pistorius, asked why his client’s trial was not being treated like any other trial.
Pistorius is accused of killing Steenkamp, his girlfriend, in February last year. His trial is to be heard in the North Gauteng High Court from 3 to 20 March.
A 24-hour TV channel dedicated to the trial will be launched on DSTV on 2 March.
{{A South African judge is due to rule whether the trial of athlete Oscar Pistorius can be televised.}}
Mr Pistorius shot his girlfriend, the model and reality TV star Reeva Steenkamp, more than a year ago, and his murder trial begins next Monday.
State prosecutors allege the killing was premeditated, but he claims he mistook her for an intruder.
The court in Pretoria will decide how much, if any, of the proceedings can be filmed and broadcast live.
As a result the media are allowed access to courtrooms to cover any case they express interest in – even TV cameras are allowed based on the merits of the case, she says.
But should the application be allowed, it would be the first time a trial would be televised live, setting a precedent in South Africa for future cases, our reporter says.
The application to film proceedings was brought by media groups MultiChoice, eNCA and Eyewitness News, reported Sapa news agency.
It would allow the evidence of experts, police witnesses and any other consenting witness to be televised, along with audio of the full trial, the media groups said in a 18 February media release.
They argue that it is in the public interest for cameras to be allowed into the trial, and have secured the agreement of state prosecutors, who argue that this would allow the world to see that South Africa’s justice system works well.
MultiChoice is even planning 24-hour coverage of the trial on its own dedicated channel – the Oscar Pistorius Trial channel – which is due to begin broadcasting on Sunday.
But defence lawyers vehemently disagree, claiming it could lead to an unfair trial.
Barry Roux SC – lawyer for Mr Pistorius – asked why his client’s trial was not being treated like any other, Sapa reported.
Ms Steenkamp, 29, was shot three times through the toilet door of Mr Pistorius’ Pretoria home in the early hours of Valentine’s Day last year.
Mr Pistorius said he thought she was a burglar and denies prosecution claims that they had an argument in the hours before the shooting.
Much of the case will depend on ballistic evidence from the scene of the shooting, correspondents say.
The arrest of the national sporting hero astounded South Africa.
The 27-year-old double amputee won gold at the London 2012 Paralympic Games and also competed at the Olympics.
As well as the charge of premeditated murder, Mr Pistorius also faces a charge of illegal possession of ammunition.
{{In Ghana, a Church Protocol Officer, who forged the signature of his church leader and succeeded in siphoning money totaling GHC14,000.00 was on Friday convicted by an Accra Circuit Court.}}
Foster Nii Ayi Smith is said to have forged the signatures of Prophet Stephen Mensah, Founder and General Overseer of Power Miracle International Church at Kaadjanor in Accra and stole monies from the various accounts of the church.
Smith stole cheque book leaflets of Access Bank, Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) and Unibank Ghana Limited in order to carry out his nefarious acts.
Charged with seven counts of forgery and seven counts of stealing, Smith pleaded guilty.
Prosecuting Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP ) Peter Nsoh said the complainant was Prophet Mensah the Founder and General Overseer of Power Miracle International Church at Kaadjaor in Accra.
Smith is a protocol officer of the same church. In January this year, Prophet Mensah asked his secretary to obtain bank statements from Access, ADB and Unibank.
After obtaining the various bank statements, ASP Nsoh said it was detected that Smith had forged the signature of Prophet Mensah and withdrawn GHC14,000.00 on different dates at the various banks without the consent of the complainant.
A report was made to the Police and Smith was arrested. In his cautioned statement Smith admitted withdrawing only GH 6,000 cedis from the various accounts.
Above: {Kenyan Children’s Department official holds the baby who was abducted en route to Juba, South Sudan last year.}
{{A Kenyan baby stolen from its mother just four days after birth returned to the country Friday after a court ordered that he be brought back.}}
The boy who was in the company of Kenya Mission in South Sudan and Children’s Department officials remained playful, at one time grabbing a journalist’s microphone, but his parents are yet to be identified.
The baby looked healthy. He had been in the custody of the Kenyan Embassy for four months, before he was finally flown in.
His story begun on September 30 when a woman in her forties boarded a Simba Coach bus destined for Juba in from Nairobi.
The woman, who has since been jailed for child abduction, took on the bus indicating that she was the real mother of the infant.
But in a road journey that takes more than 20 hours, the cat was always going to get out of its bag.
The abductor passed through Kenya-Uganda border but got arrested after crossing into Uganda-South Sudan borders without notice.
{{CRYING BABY}}
The baby had been crying. The passengers got concerned that despite the yelling, the mother was neither feeding it nor cuddling it to calm down.
The following day at the Namule border point in South Sudan, the passengers notified the police who questioned the woman. Here is when she started speaking from two sides of her mouth.
“She initially said she was the mother, but later she changed saying she had only been given the baby to bring to South Sudan. Through the South Sudanese authorities, we arrested two other women, one woman from Kenya and another South Sudanese national,” Lawrence Chemonges, the Foreign Affairs Senior Assistant Secretary for Diaspora service told reporters at the airport.
The ministry had been notified of the incident in October, but relied on South Sudanese authorities to trace the woman’s movements. It appears her phone records helped.
“The passengers in the bus had suspected that the child is stolen because the baby had been crying all the way from Nairobi and she was not breastfeeding him,” a dispatch from the Kenyan Embassy in Juba describes how the Mission got wind of the information.
One Kenyan woman on the bus who had talked to her later called the Mission in Juba to report the incident.
According to the narrative, when they asked her why she was neither cuddling nor breastfeeding the baby, she told them she had only adopted it.
It is a curious incident given that normally, an adult travelling in the company of a minor across the borders must declare the identity of the child.
Foreign Affairs could not determine whether she had declared her details at the Kenyan border.
Border officials later demanded that her breasts be checked to determine if she had breastfed at all. It is from here that they updated their National Security agencies in Juba.
The Mission further updated Nairobi that the suspect, only identified as Hellen Syokau, had initially indicated that she was from Tanzania before her identification documents betrayed her.
“She informed the passengers that she was from Tanzania but upon producing her documents, they found out that she is from Kenya, Eastern Province and Kamba by Tribe.”
The baby now identified as Marua Munene alias Baby Lucky Juba, though his real name is yet to be known, was returned to Nairobi by Kenyan Foreign Affairs officials following a court order in Juba that the baby be brought back.
{{ABDUCTORS JAILED}}
According to the Embassy, the baby’s three would-be abductors have since been jailed with the Kenyan getting a year behind bars for abduction and trafficking.
Foreign Affairs declined to identify the other Kenyan woman and her south Sudanese accomplice saying further investigation was going on.
“We still don’t know the baby’s parents because there was no identification or birth certificate on the woman. We managed to trace other suspects using the woman’s previous telephone calls and she later admitted to have stolen the baby in Kenya,” Mr John Mariera, the Secretary in the Kenyan Mission in Juba said.
Foreign Affairs could not name the children’s home the baby will be hosted, but have asked anyone who lost a baby of this age to report the matter to the police or contact the ministry urgently.
{{A court in the Democratic Republic of Congo has imposed a life sentence on a British former soldier for killing a fellow convict in jail last year.}}
Joshua French, who is already on death row, denied killing Norwegian Tjostolv Moland in the cell they shared.
The men had both received death sentences in 2009 for spying and the killing of their Congolese driver – charges which they denied.
The UK Foreign Office said it was “very concerned about Mr French’s welfare”.
A spokesman said the government would continue to make the “appropriate representations” to the DRC authorities about Mr French’s case.
“We remain very concerned about Mr French’s welfare and will continue to provide full consular assistance at this difficult time, especially as he continues to face the death penalty following his previous conviction,” the spokesman said.
Legal charity Reprieve said Mr French had been suffering from “severe mental illness” throughout his trial.
Maya Foa said: “He is acutely psychotic and should never have been put on trial – his best friend’s death was proven to be suicide.
“The UK government must do everything they can to get him transferred to a hospital where he can receive the medical attention he so desperately needs.”
Ambush claim
Mr Moland was found dead in prison last August.
He had worked with the Norwegian military until 2007, at which point he and Mr French started working for private security companies in Africa.
They claimed they were in DR Congo to research setting up their own security company.
The men said they had hired Abedi Kasongo as a driver after their motorbike broke down, and that he was killed when they were ambushed by gunmen in the jungle.
Their original convictions were overturned by a high military court in early 2010, before a new panel of judges convicted them in a retrial later the same year.
The Norwegian government, which denied that the men had been spying for Norway, asked the Congolese authorities to allow them to serve their sentences in Norway.
A joint UK-Norwegian national, Mr French was born in Norway to a British father and Norwegian mother, and lived in Margate, Kent, as a child.
He moved back to Norway when his parents divorced, but returned to the UK aged 20 and served in the British army’s Parachute Regiment.
{{French industrialist billionaire and Senator Serge Dassault was detained Wednesday for alleged vote-buying in his former fiefdom south of Paris. He faces renewed questioning Thursday after having been released for the night.}}
The 88-year-old manufacturer of fighter jets is suspected of buying votes in Corbeil-Essonnes, where he was mayor from 1995 to 2009.
Dassault is ranked by Forbes magazine as the fourth-richest man in France and the 69th-richest in the world, with an estimated fortune of 13 billion euros ($18 billion).
French judges suspect him of operating an extensive system of vote-buying which influenced the outcome of three mayoral elections in the Paris-area suburb of Corbeil in 2008, 2009 and 2010.
Those votes were won either by Dassault or his successor and associate, Jean-Pierre Bechter.
Formal charges against Dassault now look inevitable, experts say.
{{Allegations of bribing immigrants}}
Bechter has already been charged, as has Cristela de Oliveira, a former official in the mayor’s office suspected of giving council flats to families in exchange for supporting Dassault or Bechter.
Dassault heads the Dassault Group, which owns the country’s main conservative daily newspaper, Le Figaro, and holds a majority stake in Dassault Aviation, which makes business and military aircraft (including the Rafale fighter jet).
A member of former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party, Dassault admits using his vast personal wealth to help residents of Corbeil, but denies any payouts were made in return for votes.
But at least two men who claim to have been paid by Dassault to help organise the alleged vote buying have described an efficient electoral machine which targeted poorer families from immigrant backgrounds.
In return for casting their ballots for Dassault or Bechter, residents were promised help with paying for driving lessons and finding subsidised housing.
In addition to vote-buying, Dassault could be charged with money laundering and misuse of public assets. Those charges are serious enough to warrant prison time.
In 1998, Dassault received a two-year suspended prison sentence in Belgium for bribing members of the country’s Socialist Party in order to secure an army helicopter contract in what became known as the “Agusta scandal”.
