Al Jazeera: S Africa police to face murder charges
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Eight South African police officers seen on video handcuffing a taxi driver to a police van and dragging him through a busy Johannesburg street are to face murder charges.
The policemen were arrested on suspicion of murder following the incident which was broadcast around the world, a government watchdog said on Friday.
The video-recorded treatment of the Mozambican taxi driver has further damaged the reputation of the police force in South Africa where more than 1,200 people a year die in police custody.
Mido Macia, 27, died in custody shortly after the footage was filmed.
He was found dead in detention with signs of head injuries and internal bleeding, according to an initial post-mortem report released by the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) police watchdog.
'Horrific'
"They will answer to a charge of murder when they appear in court on Monday," Moses Dlamini, spokesman for the IPID, told the Reuters news agency.
The video of Tuesday's incident shows Macia scuffling with police, who subdue him. He is then bound to the back of
pick-up truck by his arms before the vehicle drives off in front of scores of witnesses in the east Johannesburg area of
Daveyton.
President Zuma condemned the "disturbing" incident
"We would like to assure the country and the world that what is in the video is not how the South African Police Service in a democratic South Africa goes about its work," Commissioner Riah Phiyega told a news conference.
Before the arrests, she said the eight officers had been suspended and the station commander would be removed from his duties.
President Jacob Zuma and opposition politicians have condemned the incident, which was broadcast nationwide on
Thursday.
"The visuals of the incident are horrific, disturbing and unacceptable. No human being should be treated in that manner", Zuma said.
Police told media they had detained Macia after he parked illegally, creating a traffic jam, and then resisted arrest.
The incident is the latest in a series of scandals to hit South Africa's police force, already dogged by a reputation for
brutality, corruption and incompetence.
The lead detective in the murder case against Olympic and Paralympic star Oscar Pistorius was removed from the
investigation last week when it emerged he was facing seven attempted murder charges for allegedly opening fire on a minibus full of passengers.
Police shot dead 34 striking workers at a platinum mine in August last year - the deadliest security incident since
apartheid ended in 1994.-www.shfaqna.com/English
The body of Russian MP found cemented in a barrel
The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that Pakhomov went missing on February 12. It was established in the course of investigation that Pakhomov had been kidnapped and possibly killed.
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation said that the body of the deputy of the municipal council of the city of Lipetsk, Mikhail Pakhomov, was found cemented in a metal barrel. "In the course of the criminal investigation into the abduction and murder of a deputy of the Lipetsk City Council, Mikhail Pakhomov, in the basement of a private garage in the village of Obukhovo, the Moscow region, the body of the victim was found in a metal barrel filled with cement. Investigators have collected enough evidence to confirm Pakhomov's violent death. A legal expertise will be conducted to establish circumstances of the crime." The official said.
The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that Pakhomov went missing on February 12. It was established in the course of investigation that Pakhomov had been kidnapped and possibly killed. "It was established that he could be kidnapped by a group of persons, five members of the group were identified. They are aged 24-30 years. They were detained and charged with kidnapping," the officials said. "It was revealed during investigation that the deputy had been kidnapped on the order from a Moscow resident, who previously served as Deputy Minister for Housing of the Government of the Moscow Region, Yevgeny Kharitonov. Kharitonov has been arrested along with four perpetrators of the crime." It is thought that the deputy was murdered because of his business, as he was in charge of the company engaged in repairs and construction of railways.
Asian doctors murdered in northeast Nigeria
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Three Asian doctors have been murdered in their flat in Nigeria's northeastern town of Potiskum, a military source said on Sunday.
The medics, who were either Chinese or South Korean, had their throats cut by unknown attackers who got into their shared apartment late on Saturday or early Sunday morning, the source added.
Northeast Nigeria is the base of Islamist sect Boko Haram, a group that killed hundreds last year in its effort to carve out an Islamic state in a country split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims.
Criminal gangs have taken advantage of the general state of unrest caused by Boko Haram's low-level insurgency, prompting a rise in robberies and violent attacks in the region.-www.shfaqna.com/English
Source:Reuters
Gay Saudi prince who killed his servant in Britain to serve rest of sentence in his country
Prince Saud bin Abdulaziz Bin Nasir, a grandson of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah II, was jailed in 2010 for killing Bandar Abdullah Abdulaziz at a five-star hotel in London. At his trial, the court heard he had subjected his servant to a ‘sadistic’ campaign of violence and sexual abuse, which led to the ‘brutal’ assault.
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – A homosexual Saudi prince who was jailed for life in Britain for killing his manservant is to serve the rest of his sentence in his home country. Prince Saud bin Abdulaziz Bin Nasir, a grandson of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah II, was jailed in 2010 for killing Bandar Abdullah Abdulaziz at a five-star hotel in London. At his trial, the court heard he had subjected his servant to a ‘sadistic’ campaign of violence and sexual abuse, which led to the ‘brutal’ assault. It was revealed in the court that the brutal attack by the Saudi Prince was fuelled by champagne and ‘Sex on the Beach’ cocktails.
The 36-year-old, a member of the House of Saud was told he must serve a minimum of 20 years. British government sources confirmed that Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary, had approved the prince's transfer to a jail in Saudi Arabia on 06 February 2013. It was not specified when the prince would be transferred, but The Times reported that he was expected to fly home within weeks. He is one of 11 Saudi citizens in British jails that are eligible for the transfers home. Under the prisoner transfer agreement, which came into operation in August last year, five Britons currently in Saudi prisons can ask to serve the remainder of their sentences in the UK.
A British official added: "We have a prison transfer arrangement with Saudi Arabia which allows nationals of either country to serve their prison sentence in their home state." Saudis denied that the Prince was homosexual during his high-profile trial but the jury was told that he had ordered gay escorts in London. He had also frequently looked at websites for gay massage parlours and escort agencies.
Five accused plead not guilty to Delhi gang rape, murder
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Five men pleaded not guilty on Saturday to charges they gang raped and murdered an Indian trainee physiotherapist, in a case that led to a shake-up of laws against sexual crimes after protests about a rising number of attacks on women.
A Reuters witness saw the men file into the court room with their faces covered, where lawyers in the case said they were read thirteen charges including murder, which carries a maximum penalty of death. They left after 15 minutes.
"After the judge read out the charges, the five pleaded not guilty and walked out" said A.P. Singh, a lawyer defending two of the accused, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur.
Singh said the next hearing will be held on February 5, when the prosecution will call three witnesses to the formal start of the trial.
A sixth person police say was part of the gang that attacked the woman and her friend is a juvenile and will be tried separately.
Police say the gang lured the 23-year-old physiotherapy student onto a bus, where they repeatedly raped and assaulted her with a metal bar before throwing her bleeding onto a highway. She died of internal injuries two weeks later.-www.shfaqna.com/English
Source:Reuters
The serial gun killings continue in USA
Officials said that all the victims suffered more than one gunshot wound, and several guns were found at the home, one of which was a semiautomatic military style rifle.
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Police arrested a 15 year old boy for shooting his parents and three of their children who were found dead in a New Mexico home. The shootings happened Saturday night at the home in a rural area southwest of downtown Albuquerque. The victims named as Greg Griego, 51, his wife Sara Griego, 40, and three of their children, a 9-year-old boy, Zephania Griego, and daughters Jael Griego, 5, and Angelina Griego, 2. The arrested boy was identified as Nehemiah Griego.
"Chaplin Griego was a dedicated professional that passionately served his fellow man and the fire-fighters of this community," Fire Chief James Breen said in a statement. "His calming spirit and gentle nature will be greatly missed." The killings come just three days after the US President presented a gun-control package. Obama's package was triggered by last month's school shooting in Connecticut, where a gunman with a legally purchased high-powered rifle left 20 young children and six adults dead.
Officials said that all the victims suffered more than one gunshot wound, and several guns were found at the home, one of which was a semiautomatic military style rifle. "Right now we're to the meticulous points of processing the scene and collecting physical evidence, and this is a vast scene with a lot of physical evidence," one official said. Authorities declined to release details of any conversation that the 15-year-old had with investigators, but they said he was the Griegos' son.
Facebook argues to protect user content in Portland murder case
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- appeared in a Portland courtroom this week to fight what is becoming an increasingly common demand across the country: Turn over user content that lawyers say they need to defend clients accused of murder, robbery and other crimes.
Facebook won't share the pages of more than 1 billion active users, citing a 1986 federal Internet privacy law that it says prevents it from relinquishing the information.
That stance is sure to draw many more legal tussles in coming years as Americans continue to post copious amounts of revealing information online and criminal defense attorneys realize the treasure trove that Facebook and other social-networking sites, including Twitter and Google+, provide.
Criminal defense attorneys contend that withholding the information -- despite what the Stored Communications Act says -- clashes with the constitutional rights of their clients to gather evidence that might exonerate them.
"The question (judges) are going to have to confront is that statutes grant rights, but the Bill of Rights is the most powerful statute in the country," said Ramon Pagan, a Portland defense attorney who has studied the issue.
Unlike virtually any other piece of evidence that defense attorneys can acquire -- medical histories, banking records, employee personnel files, cellphone records -- they say they are unable to access electronic communications.
Adding insult to injury, defense attorneys say the federal act sets up an unfair advantage by carving out an exception for law enforcement. Police and prosecutors can gain access to past and current Facebook content, Tweets, Google search histories, emails and a wealth of other electronic communications that defense attorneys can't get.
"It's so one-sided," said Jim Leuenberger, a Lake Oswego attorney who fought with Facebook this past fall. "They cooperate 110 percent anytime someone in the government asks for information."
Leuenberger subpoenaed Facebook for the records of a high school student in The Dalles who is accusing his client -- another high school student -- of rape. Leuenberger heard that she was denying in Facebook conversations that she'd been raped.
Leuenberger ultimately acquired the girl's Facebook content, but only because the prosecutor wanted it for her case and subpoenaed it from Facebook, then shared it with Leuenberger as required under court rules.
Defense attorneys also can get access to a user's Facebook content if the user agrees. That wasn't the case, however, in Sacramento, Calif., when a defense attorney in a gang-beating trial got wind that a juror may have posted his thoughts about the trial. The defense tried to view the comments, but by then, the juror had deleted them. In February 2011, a judge ordered the juror to tell Facebook to give up the information.
A Deschutes County judge gained national attention when he ordered prosecutors to acquire the Google search history of a Bend woman who was raped in 2011. Prosecutors refused, and the judge let the matter rest.
At issue this week in Multnomah County Circuit Court was whether Facebook would turn over an online conversation between two friends of 17-year-old murder defendant Parrish Bennette Jr., accused of fatally shooting 14-year-old Yashanee Vaughn in March 2011, then dumping her body on Rocky Butte.
Prosecutors aren't interested in acquiring the conversation, and with the trial fast approaching next month, that has left the defense in a predicament.
Bennette's public defender, Thaddeus Betz, was able to get a partial screen grab of the conversation from someone who had access to the page. But Betz wants the text of the entire conversation because he believes it will bolster his client's case.
According to police, Bardy McConnell was one of two of Bennette's friends who said that shortly after the killing, Bennette gave them a gun and told them he'd "served" it. That's street slang for intentionally killing someone with a gun, police say. But months later, McConnell used Facebook to tell a friend he hadn't told police any of that and that police were pressuring him to say it was all true.
Bennette's attorney subpoenaed Facebook for the records. He also got Judge Richard Baldwin to order Facebook to hand over the records.
Betz said Facebook refused to comply with his subpoena.
Betz then asked a new judge assigned to the case to hold Facebook in contempt of court -- meaning under Oregon law, the judge could fine the multibillion-dollar company up to 1 percent of its profits.
Judge Youlee You told two Facebook attorneys who appeared before her Thursday that she thought the Menlo Park, Calif., corporation's response to the earlier court order was "frustrating" and "flippant." She noted that Facebook never responded directly to the judge, but told Betz to pass along its correspondence.
Randy Tyler and Misha Isaak, the Facebook attorneys, said it wasn't their intention to disrespect the court.
"As you can imagine, Facebook gets countless orders and subpoenas like this from courts throughout the country," Tyler said.
Facebook's lawyers argued that the defense hadn't followed proper procedure in filing its subpoena. The lawyers also cited the federal law, and said they thought Betz was going to try to convince prosecutors to acquire the records.
You said she wouldn't hold Facebook in contempt that day. But Betz is free to file his subpoena again, seek another court order against Facebook and ask the judge to order Facebook to hand over the records. And if Facebook declines, Betz could again ask the judge to hold Facebook in contempt.
Tyler told the judge he knows of no other judge -- and there have been hundreds of them -- who has held Facebook in contempt for failing to turn over a user's records on grounds that a defendant's constitutional rights trump the Stored Communications Act.
You said she wanted to see those rulings and told Tyler she'd give him some time to deliver them to her.
So now You, a lone state judge, is weighing the fate of the global social media giant.
Lisa Ludwig, a Portland defense attorney not associated with the Bennette case, said judges such as You are left with some far-reaching decisions to make.
"(There's) this tension between one person's expectation of a right to privacy and another person's rights to defend themselves," Ludwig said. "It also raises the question: Do you really have the right to expect any sort of privacy in your online life? Some people feel like you should: It's just like your mail. And some people feel like you shouldn't: Anything you put out on the Internet, it's not private."
India gang-rape suspects charged with murder
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Indian police have filed rape and murder charges against five men accused in the gang rape of a woman on a New Delhi bus last month.
Police said on Thursday they plan to push for the death penalty in the case.
A sixth suspect is believed to be a juvenile and is expected to be tried in juvenile court.
The five were charged with raping the 23-year-old woman for hours and beating her companion as the bus drove through the capital.
Police arrested six people in the case and filed charges at a new fast-track court in south Delhi to deal specifically with crimes against women, police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said.
The December 16 attack on the woman, who later died of her injuries, has caused outrage across India and sparked demands for tough new rape laws, better police protection for women and a sustained campaign to change
society's views about women.
Indian Chief Justice Altamas Kabir said the accused should be tried swiftly, but cautioned that they needed to be given a fair trial and not subjected to mob justice.
"Let us not lose sight of the fact that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty,'' he told reporters on Wednesday, while inaugurating the new fast-track court.
"Let us balance things. Let us not get carried away.Provide justice in a fair but swift manner so that faith of people is once again restored that the judiciary is there behind the common man.''
Commission of enquiry
The government is to set up four other such courts in the capital to hold timely trials in sexual assault cases, which often get bogged down for years in India's notoriously sluggish court system.
The new courts will work to provide justice as swiftly as possible "so that the message is sent to all and sundry that these matters are going to be dealt with seriously,'' Kabir said.
The government has set up three separate commissions to look into the incident and suggest changes in the law, with one minister suggesting new anti-rape legislation should be named after the victim.
This sparked a controversy as her name has not been disclosed in line with legal protections given to the victims of sex crime and their families, who face social stigma.
The brother of the victim, speaking from the family's home village in northern Uttar Pradesh state, said they would not object if the government wanted to name a new law after her.
"My father feels if they want to name the new law after her, they can go ahead, it will be like a tribute in her memory," he told the Indian Express newspaper.
The brother also pleaded that the family should be left alone to grieve their loss.
"The public anger is justified but my sister's story should not be made into a spectacle," he said.
A recent poll found India to be the worst in the G20 group of nations for women because of child marriage, abuse and female foeticide, which has led to a badly skewed sex ratio in the country of 1.2 billion people.
Detroit Murder Rate Increases 10 Percent In 2012
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- One of the most regrettable changes Detroit faced in the last year was a significant rise in homicides. 379 murders had taken place in the city as of Dec. 30, the Detroit News reports.
It's about a ten percent increase over the 344 murders that occurred in 2011, a milestone that had already been surpassed by Thanksgiving of 2012.
The figure brings the city's homicide rate to 53 per 100,000 residents, according to the News. That's the second highest for a city of more than 200,000 residents after New Orleans, which had a rate of 54 per 100,000 residents.
A high number of deaths involving children this year prompted local political and community leaders to pledge to curb the violence. The city's high murder rate also caused local funeral home operators to stage a hearse parade through several Detroit neighborhoods this past January.
2012 has seen a decline in some crimes, including rape, burglary and aggravated assault.
Earlier this month, Mayor Dave Bing announced the reopening of thirteen mini stations in coming months to improve policing in neighborhoods.
Still, Detroit police are struggling to get a handle on crime in an economic environment where less funds are available and precinct hours have been cut.
www.shafaqna.com/English
American woman on Muslim hate murder charge
Erika Menendez chose her victim because “she believed him to be a Muslim” Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney, said.
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – A 31 year old American woman was arrested on Saturday and charged with hate related murder causing the death of a man who was pushed onto the tracks of an elevated subway station in Queens, New York and crushed by an oncoming train. Erika Menendez chose her victim because “she believed him to be a Muslim” Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney, said. “The defendant is accused of committing what is every subway commuter’s nightmare; being suddenly and senselessly pushed into the path of an oncoming train,” Brown said.
Brown quoted Ms. Menendez, “in sum and substance,” as having told the police, “I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I’ve been beating them up.” The victim, Sunando Sen, was born in India and, according to a roommate, was raised Hindu. The murdered man “was allegedly shoved from behind and had no chance to defend himself,” Brown said. “Beyond that, the hateful remarks allegedly made by the defendant and which precipitated the defendant’s actions should never be tolerated by a civilized society.”
Source: NY Times
