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‘Enemies of Allah’ – Chechen leader Kadyrov slams ‘knife attackers’ who killed police officer and left another injured
31 Dec 2020 14:49
FILE PHOTO © Sputnik / Sergey Guneev
The leader of Russia’s Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, has struck out at relatives of two men who his administration say were killed during a fatal attack on police officers in the regional capital, Grozny.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, the head of the Republic criticized family members of the deceased who had sought to deny their involvement in the incident. “One of our comrades was violently killed and another was wounded,” he said. “The enemies of Allah have committed this act of violence, and still their relatives think that it is acceptable to make irresponsible statements.”
Earlier that day, relatives of the two men demanded the authorities grant them access to their bodies in order to prepare them for burial. A spokesman for those involved, Sarazhdin Sultygov, insisted that “those killed in Grozny are our people. If they really were terrorists, then publish evidence. Surely there would be a video?”
Police say the men were shot dead in the city center on Monday, during an assault on officers that left one official dead and another injured. Both suspects were said to be from the neighboring Republic of Ingushetia, and had moved to Chechnya several years prior.
The majority-Muslim region has been historically known for a series of bloody wars, with a number of separatist leaders agitating for a break away from Russia. However, over the past two decades, the situation has stabilized and Grozny has sought to affirm its ties with Moscow.
Killers of Egypt’s Maadi girl handed down death penalty
Convicts killed the victim as they snatched her bag in a Cairo street
Published: December 31, 2020 07:16
Samir Salama, Associate Editor, Gulf News
Abu Dhabi: Two Egyptian men were sentenced to death after they were found guilty of dragging a young woman to death following a drive-by theft, a Cairo Criminal Court ruled on Wednesday.
The murder occurred in October (4th story on link) has triggered massive outrage in the nation.
The court, which sought religious opinion from the Egyptian Grand Mufti on executing the two men, also acquitted a third defendant, who was held on charges of aiding and abetting the murderers.
The girl clung to her bag as the vehicle sped off, lost her balance, her head crashed into the front of a parked car and she was run over by the minibus of the convicts'.
Two of the men were charged with premeditated murder and forced robbery. The third was charged with complicity for having provided the prime defendants with the minibus, while aware of the crime plan, prosecutors said.
However, the court found that the third man was unaware of the convicts’ plans.
The prosecution said charges were based on testimonies of seven witnesses and confessions of the defendants.
The accused said they had committed the crime with the intention of stealing the victim’s bag, in which they found 85 Egyptian pounds (Dh19.8) and some make-up tools, Egyptian media reported.
Footage retrieved from surveillance cameras at the scene showed that the minibus had passed on the road at high speed.
Police investigations revealed that the offenders’ vehicle had dragged Mohammed, who was returning home from work, for several metres. She worked at a state-owned bank.
U.N. agency condemns Iran's execution of child offender
By Sommer Brokaw
The Iranian flag is shown. File Photo by Mohammad Kheirkhah/UPI | License Photo
Dec. 31 (UPI) -- The United Nations Human Rights Office condemned the execution of an Iranian man Thursday for a crime allegedly committed when he was 16 years old.
Mohammad Hassan Rezaiee was executed in Iran in the early morning even though execution of child offenders is strictly prohibited under international law. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said the execution was the fourth confirmed for a child offender.
"The UN has repeatedly urged Iran to cease the appalling practice of executing child offenders, but we understand that at least 80 child offenders remain on death row," Shamdasani said in a statement. "The High Commissioner urges Iranian authorities to halt all executions of child offenders and immediately review their cases in line with international human rights law."
Rezaiee, who turned 30 this month, was arrested in 2007 at age 16 in connection with a group fight where a man was fatally stabbed. Human rights groups allege violations of his right to a fair trial and torture.
His conviction was based on "confessions" extracted under torture, his trial was "grossly unfair" and authorities failed to investigate the torture allegations, Amnesty International Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa Diana Eltahawy said in a statement earlier this month.
"Despite his young age, the authorities held him in prolonged solitary confinement, without access to his family and lawyer," Eltahawy's statement said. "They repeatedly tortured him to 'confess,' including by beating him with sticks, kicking and punching him, and whipping him with pipe hoses. In 2008, the trial court relied on his forced 'confessions' to convict and sentence him to death -- even though he retracted his 'confessions' at trial and said they were given under torture."
Shamdasani said that along with the "deeply troubling allegations" Rezaiee was forced to confess through torture, there were numerous other serious concerns about violations of his fair trial rights, and failure to pursue legal avenues to grant Rezaiee a retrial.
On Wednesday, United Nations experts urged members states to condemn a separate violation of international law in the United States. The U.N. experts said President Donald Trump's pardon last week of four former Blackwater Worldwide military contractors convicted of killing 14 Iraqis in 2007 violates U.S. obligations under international law. They urged member states to condemn the presidential action.
Of course, the entire operation in Iraq was a war crime, so, how could the President condemn only a few, as evil as they probably were. They were probably being paid by the Pentagon.
This, unfortunately, reminds me of Ahmed, the Dead Terrorist...
Spain: On Christmas Day, knife-wielding Muslim migrant screams
‘Allahu akbar, I’m going to kill you’ at passersby
DEC 31, 2020 2:00
“Police investigate a Christmas day street event as jihadism,” translated from “La Policía investiga como yihadismo un suceso callejero del día de Navidad,” by Óscar López-Fonseca, El País, December 28, 2020 (thanks to Breitbart):
The arrest took place around 4:00 p.m. on December 25, after the police received a notice that an individual was walking through the streets of Castellón with a knife in his hand and threatening to kill the people who crossed him, according to what the Ministry of the Interior said in a notice on Monday. Upon arriving at the scene, two uniformed Citizen Security agents encountered Mohamed Q., who, armed with a 35-centimeter machete, attacked them. The two policemen, who suffered bruises, were able to immobilize him and proceed to arrest him. In addition to the machete, the arrested man carried a knife.
The first investigations revealed that Mohamed Q., who had legal residence in Spain, had a lengthy criminal record, including a crime of sexual abuse of minors, but also that he was a relative of a Foreign Terrorist Fighter (Foreign Terrorist Combatant) who moved to Syria to fight in ISIS. The latter is Mhammed Q., a Moroccan citizen who had lived in Castellón before moving to conflict zones, and who was arrested by the Turkish police in January of this year in Istanbul when he tried to return to Europe together with other jihadists. Mhammed Q. was deported by the Ankara authorities a few days later to Morocco, where he is currently imprisoned, according to sources close to the investigation.
In the register of Mohamed Q.’s home in Castellón, the agents located two mobile phones, whose content is being analyzed. The judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz ordered this Monday his admission to prison, accused of a crime of terrorist threats, as confirmed by judicial sources. With this arrest, there are already 37 alleged jihadists arrested in Spain in 2020, according to statistics from the Interior Ministry.
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