A Hertz branch in Seattle has fired 26 Muslim employees because they didn’t clock out during prayers. The car rental firm says it’s trying to be fair to other workers, but one fired employee tells KOMO News , “We feel like we’re being punished for what we believe in.” Prayers are…
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Islamist party leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, said extremists can be contained by being given a place in a democratic system Rachid Ghannouchi, head of the Islamist party tipped to take the biggest share of the vote in Tunisia’s first free elections, has said his party is not harbouring fundamentalist elements and that extremists can be contained by giving them a place in the democratic system. Voters hope that the historic election on Sunday will end nine months of fragile and discredited interim governments – and lay to rest fears that the corruption, police brutality and crooked legal system of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s despotic regime has largely remained in place since the revolution of 14 January . The An-Nadha party is expected to take the biggest share of the vote — a political earthquake in the midst of the Arab spring. Once outlawed and brutally repressed, it was only legalised months ago, after Ghannouchi’s triumphant return from exile in London. . Well-funded and with strong grassroots support in the poorest areas, An-Nahda has positioned itself as a moderate Islamist voice which emphasises democracy, consensus politics, family values, including lowering Tunisia’s high divorce rate. It has promised to respect Tunisia’s secular civil society upholding women’s rights, the most advanced in the Arab world. Ghannouchi, whom followers call the Sheikh, has hammered home a moderate discourse. But critics have raised concerns about the party rank and file, veterans of Ben Ali’s prisons and years of clandestine activity who are more militant, and more fundamentalist. Many complain of a “double discourse”‚ suggesting Ghannouchi says things to ensure the party’s victory but will act differently once in power. “In all their formal appearances the Nahda people sound really moderate,” says Alya Ghribi of Afeq Tunes. “The same guy will wear a nice western suit and then show up later in tribal clothes and use religious language.” Ghannouchi said his was “a broad umbrella party” but rejected the notion that a fundamentalist strain could come to the fore after the election. He said any counter-currents were “in the minority, not the majority … No one in my party rejects the principles of democracy or believes there a contradiction in Islam and democracy. Nor does anyone reject the equality of the sexes.” Nor do they think “that Mr Ghannouchi is a representative of Islam or a spokesman of Islam or infallible,” he added. After demonstrations last week mainly by Salafists, against the screening of animated film Persepolis caused tensions, Ghannouchi said the minority of Salafist hardliners could be contained if allowed a political voice. “Democracy is capable of absorbing extremism,” he said, citing far-right parties in Europe. “Tunisian society has firmly established moderate religious traditions,” he said, rejecting radical religiosity as imported from the Arabian peninsula. The elections will appoint a short-lived assembly to rewrite the constitution before parliamentary and presidential elections. A complex proportional representation system means that no one party can take a majority. Ghannouchi said this was “unfair” but he had accepted it because Tunisia needed a broad coalition government at this transitional stage. This week, Ghannouchi was accused of stoking tensions by saying An-Nahda would take to the streets if the election was rigged. “I did not issue a threat,” he said, but added that all Tunisians, regardless of party, “were prepared to go back on to the streets in another revolution” if the vote was not transparent and fair. Tunisia Africa Islam Religion Angelique Chrisafis Ian Black guardian.co.uk
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Islamist party leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, said extremists can be contained by being given a place in a democratic system Rachid Ghannouchi, head of the Islamist party tipped to take the biggest share of the vote in Tunisia’s first free elections, has said his party is not harbouring fundamentalist elements and that extremists can be contained by giving them a place in the democratic system. Voters hope that the historic election on Sunday will end nine months of fragile and discredited interim governments – and lay to rest fears that the corruption, police brutality and crooked legal system of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s despotic regime has largely remained in place since the revolution of 14 January . The An-Nadha party is expected to take the biggest share of the vote — a political earthquake in the midst of the Arab spring. Once outlawed and brutally repressed, it was only legalised months ago, after Ghannouchi’s triumphant return from exile in London. . Well-funded and with strong grassroots support in the poorest areas, An-Nahda has positioned itself as a moderate Islamist voice which emphasises democracy, consensus politics, family values, including lowering Tunisia’s high divorce rate. It has promised to respect Tunisia’s secular civil society upholding women’s rights, the most advanced in the Arab world. Ghannouchi, whom followers call the Sheikh, has hammered home a moderate discourse. But critics have raised concerns about the party rank and file, veterans of Ben Ali’s prisons and years of clandestine activity who are more militant, and more fundamentalist. Many complain of a “double discourse”‚ suggesting Ghannouchi says things to ensure the party’s victory but will act differently once in power. “In all their formal appearances the Nahda people sound really moderate,” says Alya Ghribi of Afeq Tunes. “The same guy will wear a nice western suit and then show up later in tribal clothes and use religious language.” Ghannouchi said his was “a broad umbrella party” but rejected the notion that a fundamentalist strain could come to the fore after the election. He said any counter-currents were “in the minority, not the majority … No one in my party rejects the principles of democracy or believes there a contradiction in Islam and democracy. Nor does anyone reject the equality of the sexes.” Nor do they think “that Mr Ghannouchi is a representative of Islam or a spokesman of Islam or infallible,” he added. After demonstrations last week mainly by Salafists, against the screening of animated film Persepolis caused tensions, Ghannouchi said the minority of Salafist hardliners could be contained if allowed a political voice. “Democracy is capable of absorbing extremism,” he said, citing far-right parties in Europe. “Tunisian society has firmly established moderate religious traditions,” he said, rejecting radical religiosity as imported from the Arabian peninsula. The elections will appoint a short-lived assembly to rewrite the constitution before parliamentary and presidential elections. A complex proportional representation system means that no one party can take a majority. Ghannouchi said this was “unfair” but he had accepted it because Tunisia needed a broad coalition government at this transitional stage. This week, Ghannouchi was accused of stoking tensions by saying An-Nahda would take to the streets if the election was rigged. “I did not issue a threat,” he said, but added that all Tunisians, regardless of party, “were prepared to go back on to the streets in another revolution” if the vote was not transparent and fair. Tunisia Africa Islam Religion Angelique Chrisafis Ian Black guardian.co.uk
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Bob Lambert, who ran a network of police spies in the protest movement, suspected of having been prosecuted under his alias Scotland Yard says it is reviewing the case of a second undercover police officer who stands accused of using a false identity in a criminal trial after being sent to infiltrate protest groups. Bob Lambert, who ran a network of police spies in the protest movement after living deep undercover himself, is suspected of having been prosecuted for distributing animal rights leaflets under his alias. The Metropolitan police have referred the case of the first officer, Jim Boyling, to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, three days after the Guardian and BBC Newsnight revealed evidence he lied under oath about his real identity . In a statement on Friday night, the Met said: “The referral relates to allegations that he gave evidence using a pseudonym and attended meetings with defence lawyers.” But the Met has also said it is “reviewing similar allegations about a retired officer, with a view to referring it to the IPCC”. The Guardian told the Met on Thursday it had obtained a letter, written by Lambert, in which he tells another activist he has been “backwards and forwards to Camberwell Green magistrates court for distributing ‘insulting leaflets’ outside a butchers shop”. Asked if this meant he had been prosecuted under his false identity, and therefore misled the court, Lambert declined to comment. Lambert spent years living under a false identity with animal rights and environmental activists in the mid-1980s, before being promoted to a position in which he controlled a network of spies. Among his team was Boyling, who pretended for years to be an environmental activist and was accused this week of giving false evidence under oath and concealing his real identity in court. It is alleged that he had been given permission to deceive the courts by senior officers. The revelation threw a major inquiry into undercover policing of protest groups into disarray on Wednesday, when the publication of a report on the controversy was hurriedly cancelled. The review, conducted by Bernard Hogan-Howe in his role at Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) before he became commissioner of the Met, was expected to rule out calls for a more robust system of oversight. It is now being reconsidered. Police chiefs have been accused of authorising undercover officers to hide their real identities when they were being prosecuted over offences arising out of their undercover roles. It is alleged that being prosecuted was “part of their cover” as it helped to boost their credibility among the campaigners they had infiltrated. The controversy surrounding undercover policing, which began with revelations about a third officer, Mark Kennedy, who lived for seven years with environmental activists, has resulted in nine separate judicial and disciplinary inquiries. Hogan-Howe will be asked on Thursday to conduct an audit of all the Met’s undercover policing operations to discover whether officers “lied in court”. The question, tabled by Jenny Jones, a Green member of the London assembly who sits on the Metropolitan police authority, is one of a number of issues expected to be raised with the commissioner. Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, said he would be calling on the head of HMIC, Sir Denis O’Connor, to give evidence to parliament. “I am very concerned by allegations that undercover officers have been authorised to give false evidence to courts,” Vaz said. “The activities of police officers, whether undercover or on the beat, must be regulated and be held to account.” Lambert assumed the fake persona of “Bob Robinson” to penetrate animal rights and green campaigns for four years in the 1980s. The letter, written by Lambert in January 1986, has come to light since he was unmasked after being confronted last Saturday by one of the groups he had infiltrated. He had sent it to Martyn Lowe, an activist with an environmental group known as London Greenpeace. Lowe said Lambert had been trying to persuade him to get involved in the environmental group again, and was passing on his news. He said that by telling him about his court appearances, Lambert “must have been hoping to bolster his image as an activist. It was not a surprise”. He added that Lambert cultivated the idea that he was involved in militant, possibly illegal, protests. “Bob gave off the impression he was doing a lot of direct action but one could never put one’s finger on it. He never talked about it directly.” At the time, animal rights activists were targeting butchers. Lambert had gone undercover as part of covert police unit known as the special demonstration squad, which monitored and disrupted political groups that it believed caused public disorder. Asked if he had authorised Boyling to conceal his real identity from the court, Lambert declined to comment. In the latter part of his 26 years as a special branch detective, Lambert set up a Scotland Yard unit to improve relations between police and Muslim community groups to stop Islamist terrorist attacks. In recent years, he has become an academic and spoken out against Islamophobia. Metropolitan police Police London Mark Kennedy Independent Police Complaints Commission Rob Evans Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk
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Obama announces the full withdrawal of troops from Iraq but fails to persuade Nouri al-Maliki to allow US to keep bases there The US suffered a major diplomatic and military rebuff on Friday when Iraq finally rejected its pleas to maintain bases in the country beyond this year. Barack Obama announced at a White House press conference that all American troops will leave Iraq by the end of December, a decision forced by the final collapse of lengthy talks between the US and the Iraqi government on the issue. The Iraqi decision is a boost to Iran, which has close ties with many members of the Iraqi government and which had been battling against the establishment of permanent American bases. Obama attempted to make the most of it by presenting the withdrawal as the fulfilment of one of his election promises. “Today I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over,” he told reporters. But he had already announced this earlier this year, and the real significance today was in the failure of Obama, in spite of the cost to the US in dollars and deaths, to persuade the Iraqi president Nouri al-Maliki to allow one or more American bases to be kept in the country. Obama was formally told of Maliki’s final decision on Friday morning in a video conference. Speaking later to reporters, Obama glossed over the rejection, describing it as Iraq shaping its own future. He told reporters that the “tide of war is receding”, not only in Iraq but in Afghanistan and in Libya. “The United States is moving forward to a position of strength. The long war in Iraq will come to an end by the end of this year. The transition in Afghanistan is moving forward and our troops are finally coming home,” he said. Obama rose to political prominence on the back of his opposition to the Iraq war. “Over the next two months, our troops in Iraq, tens of thousands of them, will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home,” he said. “The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops,” he said. “That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end.” But Republicans criticised the failure to secure a deal with the Iraqis, describing it as a setback for the US. John McCain, one of the leading foreign affairs specialists in the Senate and Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2008 White House race, said: “Today marks a harmful and sad setback for the United States in the world. I respectfully disagree with the president: this decision will be viewed as a strategic victory for our enemies in the Middle East, especially the Iranian regime, which has worked relentlessly to ensure a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.” Mitt Romney, front-runner in the race to take on Obama in the 2012 White House race, said: “The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government.” One of the sticking points in the negotiations with Iraq was a US demand that American forces remaining in the country after December would enjoy the same immunity from prosecution as they do now. The Iraqi government, conscious of public anger over many controversial incidents involving US troops and defence contractors over the last decade, refused. The Pentagon had wanted the bases to help counter growing Iranian influence in the Middle East. Just a few years ago, the US had plans for leaving behind four large bases but, in the face of Iraqi resistance, this plan had to be scaled down this year to a force of 10,000. But even this proved too much for the Iraqis. Denis McDonough, the White House deputy national security adviser, speaking to reporters after Obama’s press conference, denied that the withdrawal was a sign of growing Iranian influence. “You see an Iran that is weaker and more isolated,” he said, noting various incidents such as a sense of international outrage over an alleged plot by Iran to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Although the US is pulling out all troops, it will keep its embassy in Baghdad and two consulates. There will also be about 4,000-5,000 defence contractors, White House aides said. Since the invasion in 2003, 1 million members of the US military have been deployed to Iraq, of whom 4,482 have been killed and 32,200 wounded. Obama said there were 180,000 troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan when he took office in January 2009, and that number has been halved and will continue to fall. A few US military personnel will be based in Iraq temporarily from time to time, just as they are in other countries with links to the US such as Egypt and Jordan, White House aides said. These would primarily be trainers helping out with new equipment bought from the US, such as F-16 fighters Iraq purchased last month. Maliki, though he has been criticised in the past for being too close to Iran, had wanted to keep some US troops in Iran to help train Iraqi security forces and to help in the event of a resurgence of sectarian violence. But he had to bow to pressure from pro-Iranian politicians and others in his coaliton government who wanted all US troops out. Obama was ambivalent on the issue, seeing a total withdrawal as a good sell to a US public tired of war. But the Pentagon had wanted the bases, and the president reluctantly sided with the military staff. It will be a major logistical exercise, moving not only the remaining 39,000 US troops but mountains of equipment from bases that are the size of small American suburbs, complete with coffee-shops, bowling alleys and cinemas. The Pentagon is wary of a final attack as the final pullout gets under way. US foreign policy Barack Obama Iraq US military United States Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk
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Julian Pike from Farrers law firm said he had known NoW executives were making misleading statements about scandal The BBC has referred the royal solicitors, Farrers, to the profession’s disciplinary body over their work for the News of the World during the phone-hacking scandal. Julian Pike, a partner at the firm, admitted to a parliamentary committee on Wednesday that he had known all along that News of the World executives had been making misleading statements to parliament and the public when they claimed a single “rogue reporter” was to blame for the hacking. But it has emerged that Farrers sent a letter to the BBC in March threatening to sue for libel when Panorama suggested News International executives had made misleading statements – a letter Pike has since defended. In correspondence seen by the Guardian, the BBC had alleged: “NI executives made statements, that have subsequently shown to be misleading and untrue, that Clive Goodman was ‘one rogue journalist’ at the News of the World who commissioned [private detective] Glenn Mulcaire to ‘hack’ into voicemail messages.” Pike replied from the offices of the law firm in Lincoln’s Inn Fields that NI had “made it clear that at no stage has any executive of the company made public statements knowing them to be misleading or untrue … if you make any suggestion in the programme that any NI executive has made a statement knowing it to be misleading and/or untrue this will be highly defamatory and the relevant individual(s) will be entitled to commence proceedings in respect of which they will be unquestionably successful”. The BBC said in a statement on Friday the Panorama team “were surprised to hear Mr Pike’s testimony … since, on the face of it, it seems to contradict one aspect of what he’d written in a letter to the programme.” It added: “As a result, we have written to the Solicitors Regulation Authority today seeking advice in relation to their rules governing the conduct of solicitors.” According to SRA rules, it may be a disciplinary offence under the code of conduct for a lawyer to do anything that “misled or had the potential to mislead clients, the court or other persons”. The SRA said: “If a complaint was brought to us about anyone regulated by the SRA, we would of course investigate the complaint thoroughly.” In July the SRA announced it was launching a formal investigation into the roles played by a number of solicitors in the phone-hacking affair. Pike denies that he wrote a misleading letter to the BBC. He said his admissions to parliament only concerned the case of Gordon Taylor, one of those whose phones were hacked, and who received £425,000 in a secret settlement. Pike wrote: “The letter to the BBC is headed: ‘Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman.’ The passage which you quote obviously has to be read in the context of this heading, ie in reference to Mulcaire and Goodman. “The evidence given to the select committee yesterday, as you will know, concerned the Gordon Taylor case. It does not relate to ‘Mulcaire and Goodman’, not least because Goodman had no involvement in the Taylor case. Consequently, the conclusion you are drawing is therefore incorrect.” At the Commons hearing, Pike had impressed at least one of the committee members, Labour MP Tom Watson, with what he called his “brutal honesty”. Pike said he knew that MPs being misled by testimony they were hearing, but he had kept quiet. Another MP, Paul Farrelly, said: “You have told us that you were aware from the moment that News International came in front of parliament that it was not telling the truth and did nothing. Does that make you uncomfortable?” Pike conceded that it would be “not ideal” to read headlines saying: “Queen’s solicitors knew News of the World was lying to parliament and did nothing about it.” But he added: “There is no obligation on me as a lawyer to go and report something that I see within a case where there might have been some criminal activity.” Earlier, Pike, who had been released from normal client confidentiality on the issue by the special News International committee seeking to manage the scandal, denied that he had a reputation as a bully. He said he realised in 2008 that the “single rogue reporter” story was untrue. “The advice given in 2008 was that three journalists other than Goodman were involved in phone hacking … It was advised by counsel and ourselves that there was a powerful case to support a culture of illegally accessing information in order to get stories.” But the following year, 2009, when the Guardian revealed there had been a coverup, a succession of NI executives denied in public that any such culture existed. BBC Phone hacking Clive Goodman Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers David Leigh guardian.co.uk
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News Corp chairman and chief executive makes defiant address at annual shareholder’s meeting in Los Angeles Rupert Murdoch has made a defiant and uncompromising address in front of his company’s shareholders in Los Angeles, insisting News Corp’s history was the “stuff of legend” as he prepares to face down the most serious investor revolt in the company’s history. The 80-year-old chairman and chief executive of the media giant said he was “personally determined” to clean up the phone hacking scandal that had led to the closure of the News of the World, but said the issue needed to be set in context at a company that had been under “understandable scrutiny and unfair attack”. He argued that the business had a famous history – from the time he took over a single newspaper in Adelaide in 1953 – which had to be set against the revelations that several reporters at the News of the World had been engaged in hacking into voicemails left for crime victims, their families, public figures and celebrities. Speaking at the start of the company’s annual shareholder meeting, Murdoch offered no fresh concessions. With 40% of the votes in his control, there was no prospect of either Murdoch or his heir apparent and son, James, being voted off the board. However, the scale of the rebellion was expected to exceed 20% of non-family shareholders. Those attending included Edward Mason, secretary of the ethical investment advisory group of the Church of England, which owns about $6m of News Corp shares. “There needs to be decisive action in terms of holding people to account,” he told the Guardian before the event, noting that it was the first time his group had attended a company annual meeting. Later, at the meeting, Murdoch criticised the church’s investment track record, describing it as “not that great”. Julie Tanner, assistant director of News Corp investor Christian Brothers Investment Services (CBIS), which represents more than 1,000 Catholic institutions worldwide, was the first to question Murdoch’s track record at the meeting itself, saying that the “extraordinary scandals” in the UK required corporate overhaul. Tanner proposed a motion that News Corp appoint an independent chairman, “to empower the board in relation to the Murdoch family”, and asked that the company launch a “truly independent investigation” into the phone-hacking allegations, instead of the work by its London-based internal management and standards committee. The Labour MP Tom Watson, a persistent thorn in Murdoch’s side, who travelled to Los Angeles to attend the AGM, commented on the “deepest irony” of Friday’s opening presentation, which included images of Prince William – who he alleged had been targeted by former News of the World private investigator Glenn Mulcaire – and Kate Middleton, who he claimed had been targeted by another private investigator employed by the now closed Sunday tabloid, Jonathan Rees. Watson warned News Corp investors that they were facing “Mulcaire 2″ in the UK as victims of alleged computer hacking took action against News International. “You haven’t told any of your investors what is to come,” he told Murdoch, although the News Corp boss insisted in response that his company was co-operating fully with police inquiries. Investors, critics and the press were bussed into the high security event from a parking lot in Century City to the Zanuck Theatre at Fox Studios, where a collection of Oscars was on display outside. Investors were deciding whether to reappoint the company’s directors, including Rupert Murdoch and his sons James and Lachlan, whether to endorse a remuneration scheme that paid Murdoch $33.3m last year, and whether to appoint an independent chairman. A few hours before the meeting began, News Corp confirmed it had reached an agreement to pay the family of murdered teenager Milly Dowler £2m in compensation, with Rupert Murdoch personally donating an additional £1m to six charities. The settlement relates to the hacking of the missing schoolgirl’s phone messages by the News of the World after she went missing in March 2002. “Nothing that has been agreed will ever bring back Milly,” the Dowler family said. “The only way that a fitting tribute could be agreed was to ensure that a very substantial donation to charity was made in Milly’s memory.” Rupert Murdoch News Corporation Phone hacking United States Tom Watson Media business Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Dominic Rushe Dan Sabbagh Jason Deans guardian.co.uk
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Libyans queue to see dictator’s body as wounds appear to confirm he was killed in cold blood Bloodied, wearing just a pair of khaki trousers, and dumped on a cheap mattress, Muammar Gaddafi’s body has become a gruesome tourist attraction and a macabre symbol of the new Libya’s problems. Hundreds of ordinary Libyans queued up outside a refrigerated meat store in Misrata, where the dead dictator was being stored as a trophy. A guard allowed small groups into the room to celebrate next to Gaddafi’s body. They posed for photos, flashing victory signs, and burst into jubilant cries of “God is great.” Wounds on Gaddafi’s body appeared to confirm that he was indeed killed in cold blood in the chaotic minutes following his capture on Thursday. He was found in the town of Sirte, hiding in a drainage pipe. There was a close-range bullet wound on the left side of his head. Blood stains showed another bullet wound to his thorax. His body, subsequently driven to Misrata and publicly paraded, was barefoot and stripped to the waist. This display came amid a row inside the Transitional National Council (NTC) over what to do with Gaddafi’s body. Libya’s interim prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, arrived in Misrata to talk with local NTC representatives. They have made it abundantly clear they do not want Gaddafi to be buried in their town. The NTC leadership in Tripoli wants a solution quickly. One popular option is to bury him at sea, as Osama bin Laden was. The dispute threatens to overshadow NTC plans to declare a formal end to Libya’s nine-month uprising . The council will announce from Benghazi, where the Libyan revolution began in February, that the project of national liberation is now complete. It will say a new, democratic post-Gaddafi era has begun. Among ordinary Libyans, there were few regrets about the bloody and preemptive manner of Gaddafi’s demise. Most worshippers at Friday prayers in the capital’s Martyrs Square said they were pleased Gaddafi had been killed. But one young woman said: “Some people do care about the rule of law and don’t think it’s right that he should have been assassinated.” The NTC faces questions from international rights organisations. On Thursday, Jibril claimed that Gaddafi had been killed from a bullet to the head received in crossfire between rebel fighters and his supporters. He was dragged alive on to a truck, but died “when the car was moving”, Jibril said, citing forensic reports. Gruesome mobile phone footage obtained by the Global Post undermines this account. It records the minutes after Gaddafi’s capture, when his convoy came under Nato and rebel attack. He is dragged out of a tunnel where he had been hiding. Blood is already pouring out of a wound on the left side of his head. A group of fighters then frogmarch him towards a pick-up truck. There are shouts of “God is great” and the rattle of gunfire. At one point Gaddafi keels over; a fighter kicks him and scuffs dirt over his bloodstained clothing. The rebels prop Gaddafi back on his feet and propel him onwards. Gaddafi is clearly dazed and wounded – but is alive, conscious, and pleading feebly with his captors. Fighters at the scene said that he was injured in the shoulder and leg when he was found. Fresh blood is also flowing from a head injury. The evidence has prompted Amnesty International to call on the NTC to investigate. It said that if Gaddafi were deliberately killed, this would be a war crime. The NTC’s position is that it will support an investigation because the new Libya is a law-abiding country, but officials seemed sceptical that it was necessary. “Even if he was killed intentionally, I think he deserves this,” Mohammed Sayeh, a senior official, told the BBC. “If they kill him 1,000 times, I think it will not pay back the Libyans what he has done.” Amnesty also called for an investigation into the unexplained, violent death of Gaddafi’s son Mutassim. Video footage that surfaced shows him calmly smoking a cigarette after his capture. Soon afterwards, someone appears to have shot him. His body is now on show in another freezer unit in Misrata. In a televised interview, Gaddafi’s cousin and former bodyguard claimed it was Mutassim, and not the dictator himself, who had been co-ordinating the loyalist resistance inside Sirte. Mansour Dao, who was captured with Gaddafi, also cast doubt on the account of Nato air strikes against the dictator’s convoy. Instead, he said Gaddafi’s convoy had received “heavy, heavy gunfire” from pursuing rebels. “They had us circled,” he said. Gaddafi’s cousin added that their convoy was not escaping from Sirte, as has been reported, but was heading for the village where Gaddafi was born in the nearby Jarif valley. “Gaddafi did not run away, and he did not want to escape,” Dao said. “We left the area [we were staying] towards Jarif, where he comes from. The rebels surrounded all the neighbourhood. “They launched heavy raids on us which led to the destruction of the cars and the death of many individuals who were with us. After that, we came out of the cars and split into several groups and we walked on foot, and I was with Gaddafi’s group that includes Abu Bakr Yunis and his sons and several volunteers and soldiers. I do not know what happened in the final moments, because I was unconscious after I was hit on my back.” One of the rebels who apparently captured Gaddafi told how his brigade had been on its way to support the Tiger Brigade when they spotted a group of “around 15″ Gaddafi loyalists, some running right and left. They arrested them. “At that time, we were standing on top of the hole where Gaddafi was hiding,” he said. The unnamed rebel added: “We saw another two people hiding and fired on them … Our colleague went down and he killed two of them … Later on, we went to the other side and four or five ran out from under the road. And they surrendered themselves and they told us Gaddafi is hiding inside and is injured. “When we entered the hole, I saw his bushy head, and I captured him immediately. Then all the fighters came and surrounded him.” The fighters retrieved Gaddafi’s golden handgun, together with a second gun and a Thuraya phone. Nato’s role in Gaddafi’s death remains controversial. French warplanes and a US Predator drone were involved in the attack on the dictator’s convoy. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, criticised the bombardment. The Kremlin has long complained that it was tricked into not vetoing the security council resolution allowing Nato to enforce a no-fly zone. Lavrov said: “There is no link between a no-fly zone and ground targets, including this convoy. Even more so since civilian life was not in danger because it [the convoy] was not attacking anyone.” The fate of Gadhafi’s one-time heir apparent Seif al-Islam, meanwhile, was unclear. Justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi said al-Islam was wounded and being held in a hospital in the city of Zlitan. But information minister Mahmoud Shammam on Friday that the son’s whereabouts were uncertain. Muammar Gaddafi Libya Middle East Africa Ian Black Luke Harding guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Big banks paying major bucks to settle fraud charges — so where does the money go?
October 21, 2011 No CommentMajor Wall Street banks are handing over some hefty sums to settle charges that they misled investors about those exotic mortgage deals that helped nearly topple the financial system. Citi is the latest to pay up. The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Wednesday that the mega-bank will part with $285 million to settle allegations that
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David Attenborough’s latest TV series, Frozen Planet, is being heralded as his take on climate change. Now 85, he explains why – finally – he’s speaking out on the issue, and shares the joys of a long life spent filming sex and death in the wild ‘I’m not a propagandist, I’m not a polemicist; my primary interest is just looking at and trying to understand how animals work,” says David Attenborough. We are talking in a gigantic BBC sitting room. Attenborough, wearing slacks, shirt and jacket, is a trifle unkempt at 85,
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