Man with ties to Boston bombing suspect admits role in 2011 murders; shot during FBI questioning
John Raoux / AP
An FBI investigator walks to the apartment where a man was shot by an FBI agent, on May 22, in Orlando, Fla.
By Richard Esposito, Pete Williams and Matthew DeLuca, NBC News
Dead Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and another man — who was killed by the FBI on Wednesday — murdered three people in Massachusetts after a drug deal went wrong in 2011, law enforcement sources tell NBC News.
Sources say that what began as a drug ripoff ended in a triple homicide when Tsarnaev and friend Ibragim Todashev realized their victims would later be able to identify them.
Todashev was killed by a federal agent while giving a statement on his role on Wednesday in Orlando, Fla.
The man who was shot, Todashev, 27, allegedly attacked an agent with a knife while confessing to the 3-year-old slayings. He was not suspected of having played any role in the bombing that killed three people and injured scores more in April, but he did confess to being involved in a brutal Boston-area slaying two years ago, investigators said.
AP Photo/Orange County Corrections Department
In this May 4, 2013 police mug provided by the Orange County Corrections Department in Orlando, Fla., shows Ibragim Todashev after his arrest for aggravated battery in Orlando
Law enforcement officials said Todashev was being questioned as part of the FBI’s effort to find and talk to anyone who had any contact with Tsarnaev, the older bombing suspect killed in a shootout with police.
The shooting occurred in the early morning hours on Wednesday, the FBI said in a statement.
“The agent, two Massachusetts State Police troopers, and other law enforcement personnel were interviewing an individual in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing investigation when a violent confrontation was initiated by the individual,” the statement said.
“During the confrontation, the individual was killed and the agent sustained non-life threatening injuries,” according to the statement.
It's not clear who shot Todashev, officials say, because -- while he was being questioned by an FBI agent -- officers from the Massachusetts state police and the Orlando police department were also present in the house where the interrogation was going on.
Todashev, they say, had spent some time in the Boston area, where he was a mixed martial arts fighter, and knew Tsarnaev there. Investigators say he confessed to the agent in Florida that he played a role in a triple murder in 2011 in which three men were discovered slain in an apartment in Waltham, Mass.
Brendan Mess, 25; Raphael Teken, 37; and Eric Weissman, 31, were found with their throats cut in September of 2011, and their bodies were covered with marijuana. No suspects had been arrested in that case.
A spokesperson for the Middlesex County District Attorney’s office, which is investigating the three deaths, said that the office does not discuss ongoing investigations. Relatives for the three men did not immediately return requests for comment.
Officials say FBI agents were questioning Todashev on Tuesday. He was cooperative at first, they say, but later that night, he attacked the agent with a knife, who shot and killed him. Officials say Todashev became violent as he was about to sign a written statement based on his confession.
A man officials say knew the bombing suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was shot and killed in Orlando, Fla., when he allegedly attacked an FBI agent who traveled to Orlando to interview him. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
The officials say Todashev had some connections with radical Chechen rebels, but they say it's not clear whether he had any role in radicalizing Tsarnaev.
A friend of Todashev told NBC News affiliate WESH that he was being questioned along with the man who was shot due to their connections to the mixed martial arts community in Boston.
“They were talking to us, both of us, right? And they said they need him for a little more, for a couple more hours, and I left, and they told me they’re going to bring him back. They never brought him back,” friend Khusn Taramiv, 27, told WESH.
Todashev was arrested for aggravated battery on May 4, 2013 after getting into a fight over a parking spot with another man at Premium Outlets in Orlando, according to an Orange County Sheriff’s Office arrest affidavit.
Todashev said that he pushed the other man after he “got into his face,” according to the affidavit. The man’s son then “came at him swinging,” Todashev told police. The 5’9”, 160-pound Todashev admitted to police that he was a former mixed martial arts fighter, according to the arrest affidavit.
“This skill puts his fighting ability way above that of a normal person,” the arresting officer wrote in the affidavit.
Todashev was transported to the booking and release center without incident, according to the affidavit. His Miranda warning was read but not invoked, the document says. He was released May 5 on a $3,500 surety bond, according to the Orange County Corrections Department.
The man was born in Russia and had U.S. citizenship, according to the affidavit.
A spokesman for the Orlando Police Department referred all questions regarding the shooting to the FBI.
An FBI incident review team was dispatched from Washington, D.C., and was expected to arrive in Orlando within 24 hours, FBI Special Agent Dave Couvertier said on Wednesday morning.
Todashev was also arrested in downtown Boston in 2010 following a fender bender involving his van and a car carrying two women. Todashev had to be restrained by witnesses after he aggressively confronted the women, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office told NBC affiliate WHDH. Witnesses said Todashev was clearly the aggressor, and there was physical contact between everyone involved.
However, authorities say there were no injuries and no charges were pressed.
Meanwhile Muslim grooming trials continue. From the BBC. the first day of evidence in the Operation Ribbon trial
A young girl was repeatedly raped and sexually abused by 10 friends over a five-year period, a court has heard.
The victim was just 11 when she was groomed and raped by Iblal Fiaz, 21, who plied her with alcohol and drugs, Oxford Crown Court was told. Iblal Fiaz and his brother Khasim Fiaz, 23, both of St Georges Close, High Wycombe, deny multiple rape charges.
The pair appeared in court with eight other men accused of offences in connection with the abuse.
The girl - who cannot be named for legal reasons - believed she was in a relationship with Iblal Fiaz despite only being 11, Eleanor Laws QC said.
The barrister said after gaining her trust and after she turned 12, Iblal Fiaz made her perform sex acts on his brother Khasim Fiaz and at least eight other men.
Warning the jury they would find the facts "difficult to hear", Miss Laws said: "Once he had gained her confidence Iblal Fiaz introduced her to alcohol and drugs, and soon after to sex with other men."
There are 44 charges against 10 defendants but the complainant told detectives she was also forced to have sex with several other men who are not on trial. The court heard that on 29 October 2011 Iblal Fiaz drove her to a hotel and dropped her off with an unknown man who raped her. Despite bleeding, she was then raped by two other men, the prosecutor said, Mudassar Hussain, 19, and Jubroin Khan, 21.
Mr Hussain, of Abbey Barn Road, and Mr Khan, of Rutland Avenue, both in High Wycombe, deny rape.
The remaining defendants, who all deny rape and are also from High Wycombe, are: Ammar Rafiq, 19, of Castleview Gardens; Mohammed Adnan, 21, of Upper Green Road; Kasam Dad, 23, of Gibbs Road; Rameez Ali, 21, of West End Street; Janaid Sharif, 26, of Cambridge Crescent and Asif Hussain, 21, of Plummer.
Tsarnaev friend Ibragim Todashev questioned about triple homicide before FBI shooting
Mugshot photos of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, left, and Ibragim Todashev, was fatally shot in Orlando, Fla. May 22, 2013 when he initiated a violent confrontation, FBI officials said. /Cambridge Police Department/AP/Orange County Corrections Department
A friend of Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was questioned about an unsolved triple homicide before authorities say he instigated a violent confrontation that resulted in his death early Wednesday morning in Orlando, Fla., CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports.
Authorities have what law enforcement sources described as strong evidence to suggest that Tsarnaev, his brother Dzhokhar and the man, a Chechen identified as Ibragim Todashev, were involved in the 2011 killings in Waltham, Mass.
The Tsarnaev brothers and Todashev apparently knew the three people killed in Waltham on the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the sources said.
The sources also said that authorities have no evidence tying Todashev to last month's deadly terrorist bombing at the Boston Marathon that the Tsarnaev brothers are accused of carrying out.
The sources described the 2011 killings as brutal and grisly, with all three bodies nearly decapitated. The bodies had marijuana and thousands of dollars in cash sprinkled on them.
Sometime after midnight Wednesday morning in Orlando, an FBI special agent from the bureau's Boston field office was accompanied by at least two troopers from the Massachusetts State Police and a Joint Terrorism Task Force agent to question Todashev, the sources said. The questioning primarily focused on the 2011 killings.
While the FBI's investigation into Wednesday's shooting is ongoing, the preliminary details are that Todashev became angered during the questioning and brandished a knife, prompting the officials to feel that their lives were in danger, the sources said. The FBI agent then shot Todashev.
Todashev lived in the Boston area at the time of the killings and was friends with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died in a shootout with authorities in the days after the April 15 attack. It's unclear what kind of a relationship Todashev had with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who remains in federal custody awaiting trial.
Footage from ITV news of one of the jihadist murderers, a young black man with a 'London black' accent, his hands and cleavers dripping blood justifying his actions to a passer by. Here.
We have heard from a man - an attacker, who you see in the ITV News footgage - with blood on his hands, saying "...we swear by almighty Allah, that we will never stop fighting you. Until you leave us alone, your people will never be safe".
He goes on: "...the only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying by British soldiers every day. This British soldier is an eye-for-eye, a tooth-for-a-tooth."
The two men waited for the police to arrive, then attacked the police, who shot them.
Here's the story, with some parts highlighted by me:
Winston Churchill, The River Wars:
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!
Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia
in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many
countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods
of commerce and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the
Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and
refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan
law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as
a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the
faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion
paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde
force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant
and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising
fearless warriors at every step, and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the
strong arms of science, the science against which it (Islam) has vainly struggled,
the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”
Senior Whitehall sources have told the BBC that the Woolwich attackers are thought to have tried to film their attack whilst shouting "Allahu Akbar" - God is Great, says political editor Nick Robinson.
The Prime Minister is expected to speak to the Home Secretary at 18:15 BST from a train to Paris about what is now being treated by government as a suspected terrorist attack, Mr Robinson says.
The two Muslim terrorsts were both shot by the police and are being treated at separate hospitals.
Sky News say that Police have declared this to be a "politically-motivated Islamist terrorist" attack. Teresa May has called an urgent meeting of Cobra.
Two men were shot by armed police after attacking a pedestrian, believed to be a soldier, with a machete-style knife close to military barracks, eyewitnesses have said.
Local MP Nick Raynsford said he had been told the man attacked in the street was a soldier serving at the Royal Artillery Barracks near the attack.
Mr Raynsford said the soldier had been returning to the barracks after a day out when he was attacked.
Several witnesses described seeing a "beheading" while another described seeing a man wearing a Help for Heroes T-shirt being attacked with a machete-style knife and dumped.
One witness, called James, told LBC radio: "We saw clearly two knives, meat cleavers, they were big kitchen knives like you would use in a butcher's, they were hacking at this poor guy, we thought they were trying to remove organs from him"
"These two guys were crazed, they were not there, they were just animals. They then dragged him from the pavement and dumped his body in the middle of the road.
"They took 20 minutes to arrive, the police - the armed response."
He added: "There was only a few people at first then traffic began to build up because people were getting out of their cars to shout at them they were taking no notice, they were standing there, I think they were proud of what they were doing.
"When they dumped the body in the road, these two black guys had the opportunity to hurt other people if they wanted to because there were brave women with the dead guy on the floor, they were shielding and covering him. The attackers with the knives were standing over these women.
"The guy with the gun, the tall guy with the beanie cap on, even a bus had pulled up - he was going over to the bus and asking people to take his photo."
Curse them to hell for what they have done to my city, my country.
As Hugh points out the BBC shows footage of the riots in and around Stockholm but doesn't mention the Muslims.
Al Jazeera, the Islamic TV channel sent their English language section to report. They don't mention the Muslims either. But they show plenty.
They also point out that Husby is NOT a slum; it is a new estate on which a great deal of Swedish money has been spent to provide health centres, youth clubs, a baby clinic and the like.
Not even a year ago, German intelligence predicted Syrian autocrat Bashar Assad's regime would soon collapse. Now, the agency instead believes the rebels are in trouble. Government troops are set to make significant advances, it predicts.
Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), has fundamentally changed its view of the ongoing civil war in Syria. SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that the BND now believes the Syrian military of autocrat Bashar Assad is more stable than it has been in a long time and is capable of undertaking successful operations against rebel units at will. BND head Gerhard Schindler informed select politicians of the agency's new assessment in a secret meeting.
ANZEIGE
It is a notable about-face. As recently as last summer, Schindler reported to government officials and parliamentarians that he felt the Assad regime would collapse early in 2013. He repeated the view in interviews with the media.
At the time, the BND pointed to the Syrian military's precarious supply situation and large numbers of desertions that included members of the officer core. German intelligence spoke of the "end phase of the regime."
Since then, however, the situation has changed dramatically, the BND believes. Schindler used graphics and maps to demonstrate that Assad's troops once again possess effective supply lines to ensure sufficient quantities of weapons and other materiel. Fuel supplies for tanks and military aircraft, which had proved troublesome, are once again available, Schindler reported. The new situation allows Assad's troops to combat spontaneous rebel attacks and even retake positions that were previously lost. The BND does not believe that Assad's military is strong enough to defeat the rebels, but it can do enough to improve its position in the current stalemate.
Severing Rebel Supply Lines
The assessment appears to be consistent with recent reports from Syria, where government troops have been able to regain the upper hand in the region stretching from Damascus to Homs, including coastal areas near Homs. Furthermore, fighters loyal to Assad have expelled rebel fighters from several districts on the edge of Damascus and cut off their supply lines to the south. Currently, the regime is in the process of severing rebel supply lines to the west.
Meanwhile, the BND believes that rebel forces, which include several groups of Islamist fighters with ties to al-Qaida, are facing extreme difficulties. Schindler reported that different rebel groups are fighting with each other to attain supremacy in individual regions. Furthermore, regime troops have managed to cut supply lines for weapons and evacuation routes for wounded fighters. Each new battle weakens the militias further, the BND chief said.
Should the conflict continue as it has in recent weeks, says Schindler, government troops could retake the entire southern half of the country by the end of 2013. That would leave only the north for insurgent fighters, where Kurdish rebels have tight control over their areas.
Lowering Expectations
Schindler's report on the state of the rebel groups allows little room for hope that serious talks between the insurgents and the Assad regime will take place soon. The BND says there is no functional chain of command between opposition leaders abroad and the militias inside of Syria. The fighters on the ground simply don't recognize the political leadership, says the BND.
The United Nations is currently doing all it can to encourage both sides to engage in peace talks in Geneva, though no date has been set. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is once again travelling to the Middle East on Wednesday to plan for such negotiations.
At a meeting of the "Friends of Syria" in the Jordanian capital of Amman, Westerwelle is set to meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry among others. But over the weekend, he sought to lower expectations, saying that it isn't clear yet whether the Assad regime is even prepared to engage in talks.
Police arrested eight people on Tuesday night as more cars were torched in several areas around Stockholm, with rioters terrorizing the streets for the third night in a row.
Rioters lit fires in cars in western and southern Stockholm, and threw stones at police officers and fire fighters. Cars were torched in Rinkeby, Skarpnäck, Norsborg, Kista, Fittja, Bredäng, Flemingsberg, Edsberg, and Tensta.
"These are places that have not been affected by this before and this is sad to hear. It feels like people are taking the opportunity in other areas because of the attention given to Husby," Kjell Lindgren of the Stockholm police told the Aftonbladet newspaper.
"I'm scared that it will get worse. It's going to become like France," one Kista resident told the Aftonbladet newspaper.
Tuesday night's activities mark the third consecutive night of unrest around Stockholm, where over one hundred cars were burned out on Sunday night, and more than one hundred people rioted on Monday.
"...It's not the first time something like this has happened, and it's not the last. This is the kind of reaction when there isn't equality between people, which is the case in Sweden," Rami al-Khamisi, a law student and founder of local youth organization Megafonen, told The Local.
On Monday, local newspaper editor Rouzbeh Djalaie said the shooting probably provided the spark. "There's frustration in Husby and it risks spiralling out of control."
The man who was shot was aged 69 and was holding a woman prisoner in one of the flats while wielding a machete. He refused to surrender to police. One school of thought ponders whether the police prevented an 'honour' murder.
The areas affected have a high immigrant population, over 85% in Husby where the riots started on Sunday night. Eye witnesses in the Swedish language publications report that many rioters were in Islamic dress and crys of Allah Akbar could be heard as the police were attacked and cars exploded.
The escalation of the violence to a second night was blamed on the police failure to treat the ethnic differences with the respect they require. The police officer's language should have been dealt with by an official complaint; it did not justify burning cars, schools and shops.
Like every major Islamic terror attack, the Boston Marathon bombing of April 15, should have been the occasion of serious reflection and reconsideration of national policies concerning terrorism. However, it was quite disconcerting to note that the whole issue in fact evoked little valuable reactions and did not in the least spark a debate among the larger public; the Americans - apart from the counter-jihad movement that could point out the usual failings of the intelligence services and the lethal consequences of the political correctness pervading government institutions - seem to have grown weary of analyzing terrorism as well as of terrorism itself. This is noteworthy, because some ten years ago many analysts remarked how advanced American views on the Islamic threat were, while Europeans were still struggling to form their first properly anti-Islamic (and not simply anti-immigration or pseudo-fascist) movements.
Today the roles are reversed, and of course in the long term this was destined to happen since the Islamic problem is so much more acute in Europe. In the case of the recent attacks in Boston, this equivocal American response to Islamic terrorism is also caused by an attitude that, ironically, guaranteed American strength in the past: namely, the tendency not to seek the blame with oneself when enemies oppose the country, as opposed to the European tendency to “internalize” guilt. As The Economist noted, this has led to a certain smugness among American public opinion, because in this case neither the work of the intelligence agencies nor the approach of the government were questioned, and while Americans certainly did not blame themselves, the equally problematic attitude began to prevail that in fact nobody was to blame and that such attacks (and the appearance of the “lone wolves” who carry them out) simply can’t always be avoided. In Europe, on the contrary, it is highly probable that the by now familiar phenomenon of “education by terror” got a boost after the Boston attacks, especially now that more and more Europeans are connecting their day-to-day negative experiences with Muslim immigrants with events in the wider world. The European public, excepting the willfully neglectful political elite and the bien-pensant sections of the middle class who are behaving like tourists in their own countries, are gradually forming their own coherent overview of the nature of the Islamic threat and of Islam itself.
But Europe cannot save the west on its own, because while its population is speedily waking up to the dangers of Islamic immigration, this danger in itself needs a forceful response that is unthinkable in the current political landscape, and, moreover, is compounded by three non-European factors, namely the role the United States will play in the coming conflict with Islam; the question if Turkey, now an openly Islamist country, will stand by idly in the confrontation between Europe’s non-Islamic and Muslim populations, and, almost unnoticed, but probably the most important and unnerving question: what will be the fate of Russia in the coming decades? In terms of intensity, the Boston attack was not noteworthy, and probably that was one of the reasons why the American public saw it as kind of anti-climax: it didn’t constitute real proof of a great jihadist threat in most people’s opinion, and in a country like America with a relatively small Muslim population, a link between Islamic immigrants’ behavior and mentality did not come as readily to mind as in Europe. Nevertheless, the incident was revealing in other senses, first of all because it laid bare this dangerous American tendency no longer to analyze such events carefully, but secondly because it offers us a perfect view of the worrying enmity that exists between two of the countries that should at this moment be joining forces to combat the rise of Islam: the United States and Russia.
Both sides have engaged in slandering each other, and the common view is that the Russians are to blame to the largest degree. A virulent, irrational anti-Americanism has survived the collapse of their Soviet dream, and therefore this country – or at least its leaders - will always be opposed to US interests as well as the American goal of safeguarding democracy and human rights in certain countries. To a large extent this is true: a significant segment of the Russian population, including the current leadership, suffers from Stockholm syndrome, feeling nostalgia for the times when under barbaric, inhuman despotism, their country was one of the two superpowers; they will always see the USA, under whatever government, and whatever policies they pursue, as the incarnation of pure evil. This tendency has indeed poisoned Russian-American relations since the end of the Cold War, and has prevented reaching a relation of understanding between the two countries. This anti-Americanism goes hand in hand with a reversion from free market economics and the western idea of democracy and rule of law: the Putin administration has effectively appealed to the authoritarian mentality engrained in Orthodox civilization and played the demagogue instead of making the effort needed to transform his country into a modern nation. Moreover, this anti-western mentality has, not surprisingly, resulted in some foreign policy blunders which will only become obvious within the coming decades, such as Russia’s support of Iran, the Assad regime, and North Korea; and in general, its cooperation in the forming of a world-wide anti-western bloc.
But that does not mean that the United States is not to blame for the increasingly sour relations between Washington and Moscow, and the Boston bombing was a case in point. For a while it seemed as if the Russians were simply indulging in their characteristic obsession with conspiracy theories, when some of their media reported that the Chechen brothers had in fact been American spies, but in the aftermath of the attack compromising information became available about American involvement in the Chechen conflict – information that not only discredits American neoconservative criticism of Russian foreign policy, but also sheds new light on the relations between the US and the Putin administration’s enemies. Americans and especially the hard-line American neoconservatives of the nineties, have morally supported the Chechen uprising since its beginning in 1994, but apparently the support was not only moral: American NGO’s have sluiced funds to the Chechen rebels in order to destabilize Russia or at least prevent the rebirth of a militarily powerful Russia. Shockingly, but hardly surprising if one comes to think of the whole affair in its totality, one of the brothers was briefly trained in an American-funded camp on Georgian soil for terrorist activities against Russia.
We are clearly dealing with a case of “blowback” here; but unlike in the eighties when the US bankrolled the Taliban, there are no softening circumstances here; the US government was perfectly aware of nature of Islamic terrorism in the Northern Caucasus and the possible threat it could eventually come to pose to other countries than Russia, but most importantly, the US was not fighting a totalitarian country in this case. That the Chechen cause was interpreted as the desperate struggle for freedom of a suppressed nation, is only symptomatic of the naivete of the neoconservatives, who stuck to the Afghan scenario and believed that every people fighting the malign and godless Russian was necessarily in the right and freedom-loving; that there was no such thing as the political religion of Islam that did not fit in their pattern of universal establishment of democracy, according to which all peoples’ discontent necessarily meant discontent with lack of human rights.
A remark on the Chechen question. In the West it is often claimed that this conflict only became “jihadist” in the later years of the second Chechen War, but this is clearly a misinterpretation that stems from the common failure of western apologists to understand that there are several types of Islamic extremism, and that in fact most Islamic extremists at the moment are trying to achieve their goals peacefully, and not by terrorism. The Chechen conflict did not suddenly become jihadist because the Chechen Muslims resorted to terror as a means of achieving their goals; the conflicts in the Northern Caucasus have been linked to Islam since their beginnings in the late eighteenth century. It nonsense that Russia was the initial “imperial aggressor”: although the wars derailed and expanded in later decades, the primary cause were the raids carried out by Islamic tribesmen on Russian farm-land to the North. The Chechen cause cannot be seen loose from a jihadist cause, because Chechnya as a nation was shaped and defined by Islam of a radical Sunni brand. Moreover, one can wonder whether those idealistic Chechens –not only their leaders- who claim the right to live according to their own customs and free from Russian interference, would also exhort their compatriots in Russian cities to respect the Russian way of life, religion, and government, or indeed, would even want to concede that Islam is not eventually destined to rule the world. An then again: a brutal theocracy of the sort which many Chechens are dreaming of, does not have any rights since a country that does not respect the rights of its own citizens, especially of women, minorities, and homosexuals, cannot appeal to international law on any conceivable grounds.
Bearing in mind these considerations, it seems somewhat cynical to blame Russia for its “tyrannical” or irresponsible behavior in foreign policy, and Chechnya is only the example that drew my attention to the overall picture. Russia is certainly making a great mistake and behaving cruelly in supporting Iran and other rogue states, but at the same time the US and the EU are bankrolling the Morsi regime in Egypt, supporting the Gulf monarchies, notorious for their role in the spread of Islamist propaganda and their funding of terrorism, and shamefully ignoring the ordeal through which Christians and other minorities in the Islamic world are going at the moment. It seems there are no really “moral” players in the Islamic world, only potentially moral players; rather, two power blocs are exploiting conflicts in the Middle East, the most prominent of which is the Sunni-Shiite divide, and are preoccupied with attempting to offset each other’s influence and diminish each other’s power. But both blocs, namely the western and the Russian-dominated bloc, are in fact destroying themselves in trying to destroy each other, since the only winner in this rivalry is emergent Islam (although, of course, on the western side policies are now more determined by genuinely pro-jihadist and anti-Zionist, anti-western ideology than by simple rivalry with Russia and China, or just by neglect and lack of will-power.)
There is some confusion about the term “blowback”, which must be resolved before we further analyse the Russian case in its implications for Europe – a confusion which is exploited to the full by progressives and libertarian peaceniks, like Justin Raimondo, who collected some useful evidence about the attacks but drew idiotic conclusions from it. It is basic knowledge that military actions, whether justified or not, will always lead to some sort of reaction. However, the fact that a reaction occurs in itself does not tell us anything about whether the reaction is justified or the original actions are unethical, and this distinction is slyly avoided by the anti-American apologists of Islam: the fact that, according to their own statements, the Chechen brothers (as well as numerous terrorists, not least among them Bin Laden and his accomplices) were taking revenge for America’s role in the Islamic world, is reason enough from the progressives to fool the American public into thinking that our foreign policy is immoral and thus the real cause of Islamic extremism and terrorism. First of all, however, Islamic extremism (or simply, Islam shorn of its 19th century embellishments) would be on the rise whatever the infidel powers would be doing; also, the number of people killed by American intervention pales into insignificance compared to the semi-genocides inflicted upon Muslims by their own rulers (no calls for “justice” to be heard then, if the topic is even discussed). Secondly, the Muslim world only has itself to blame for American (and Russian) involvement, since this civilization has been backward and unstable for far longer than only the twentieth century. The USSR intervened in the Middle East not only because of its imperialist ambitions but simply because they were invited by many groups and regimes; others then sought the alliance of the US, or America was simply forced to counter Soviet influence. But the instability was of the making of the Muslims themselves. While terrorism is certainly a reaction to American policies, this does not in the least mean that the US is committing moral errors, but it just learns us the vital lesson the progressives want to conceal from us: that an irrational Islamic totalitarianism is on the rise, and that it is bent on destroying every civilization that does not comply with its own rules.
So, when the term “blowback” is used here, it should not be confused with the politically correct use of the word. Blowback occurs when, out of foolishness or negligence, a country helps certain groups or governments who are certain later on the bite the hand that fed them; it does not mean – or at least does not bear any moral connotation of disapproval of the country in question – that extremist enemies of that country may want to take revenge for entirely justified policies of that country which happen to thwart them. Thus, the Chechen case I have discussed here is a genuine case of blowback, but needless to say, it was not the US government that caused radical Islam to flourish in the Northern Caucasus, like it was not the US that made Islam arise in Afghanistan. Islam is an ideology with a dynamism of its own, that simply unfolds all the faster when its enemies make strategic mistakes; but that it will always unfold with all its barbaric implications if it gets the chance, is a given. Similarly, Russia will increasingly be dealing with its own blowback by supporting Shiite terrorism, since of course Hezbollah and the Iranian mullahs just consider the Orthodox Russians as useful idiots the struggle against the US, and will turn upon this kuffir nation as well when they have built up sufficient strength. Both powers are in fact increasingly looking like giants on clay feet, inherently on the moral side of the infidel-Islamic conflict, but constantly making strategic blunders.
It is hard to say on which of the two sides the mistakes made will have the gravest consequences. At the moment, America and the EU are delivering and have already delivered large swathes of territory in the Middle East to the reign of Islam, while Russia is encouraging another type of Islamic revolution in Iran; but I believe the threat to be the greatest on the Russian side, because this threat will also decisively change the course of events in Europe if not properly dealt with.
This threat is mainly connected with a domestic issue of Russia, that has escaped the western public, namely the growth of Russia’s Muslim population. Although Muslims still mainly live in traditionally Islamic areas like the Caucasus, more and more are emigrating northwards to the cities, especially Moscow. Since the fall of the USSR, the Muslim population has grown by forty percent, while the ethnic Russian population is declining at a frightening speed. Even if ethnic Russian birth rates will rise to the level of those in Western Europe, Russia’s Muslims, already numbering more than twenty million, are reproducing at a significantly faster pace than in western countries, and migration to traditionally non-Muslim areas is increasing every year. Tragically, while ethnic Russians have become fed up with the aggressiveness of Muslim immigrants and don not suffer from the western European indoctrination with political correctness, the government seems to have more urgent business to handle, first of all maintaining Russia’s standing as great power that can rival with the United States. In a way, the neglect of the Muslim problem in Russia also stems from this foreign policy imperative: it is well known that Putin does not regard Russia as a western or European country, but as a “Eurasian” empire with multiple identities, which he hopes will gave Russian power a more stable base. Thus, Russia’s Muslims are to a large extend protected by the government, as in western Europe; in essence, one could add, the Eurasian idea, although its origins are different and complex, is simply a variation on the multiculturalism of western Europe. To summarize, Russian politics and society are even more schizophrenic at the beginning of the 21st century than western-European: on the one hand the country is grappling with its domestic Islamic threat, but on the other hand is forced by its foreign policy to support the rise of global Islamism in Iran and elsewhere and to stress its non-western character.
As the Chechen example illustrates, however, American intervention and the automatic antagonism of neoconservatives toward Russia are prolonging this schizophrenia; its seems as if America and the EU are ready to use all their diplomatic weapons to besmear Russia’s image and harm its interests, while dealing supinely with more dictatorial regimes. It cannot be denied that the Russian overture toward the United States after 9/11 was rebuffed by an over-confident, even arrogant America; also, after the revelations about the Boston bombing, we should deal more critically with western media’s reporting of Russia’s human rights violations and its alleged evolution to dictatorship. The main critics of the regime, as well as Chechen “freedom fighters”, draw support from neoconservative circles; and the question here is not whether the Putin government is corrupt and increasingly authoritarian, but whether the alternative offered by certain dissidents will not replace Putin by a European-style politically correct elite. Among Russia’s middle class opposition, Islam in Russia does not even rank as a problem, while an Islamic takeover of Russia, and with it of the “heartland”, to speak in geopolitical terms, is a possibility if the current trend is not reversed; and an Islamic Russia with easy approach to Europe, in combination with Turkey and Europe’s Muslim population, will inevitably mean the fall of one of the two strongholds of western civilization.
Since I only analyze situations and trends, I cannot offer any solution to the tangled web we are currently caught in. Resolving the enmity between Russia and the west, with both sides at fault, will demand a strenuous mutual effort, since in effect it would mean the emergence of either a new type of government in Russia (neither authoritarian and schizophrenic as today, nor politically correct, but a government genuinely committed to western values) that will necessarily have to be endogenous, or a reversal in western mentality and policy leading not only to appreciation of the Islamic problem (which is only the first step), but also to a commitment to save strategically vital Russia. But what is certain, is that Russia, as younger brother of the western civilization, urgently needs to be incorporated in an alliance against Islam, and that in any case a united west will possess more self-confidence and will-power to deal with its greatest problem. Only thus will the survival of the west be ensured. This thesis and advice have already been offered by the French writer Alexandre Del Valle, although I do not include China in an alliance against Islam, and believe Russia has its foreign policy mistakes just like the United States. Russia determines the fate of the west: already, in 1917, the chances of the west to continue to flourish were thrown away with the communist takeover in Russia, which resulted in seventy years of European and later global civil war and chaos; now, once again, the chance to save the west by saving Russia is offered us, but once again, seems to go by largely unnoticed.
Like some of the nation’s prominent chief executives, Apple’s Timothy D. Cook has a simple proposal to help spur the economy and encourage corporate tax compliance: give American companies a tax break to bring to the United States untaxed profits parked overseas.
But much of that money is already home.
Multinationals based in the United States now hold more than $1.6 trillion in cash classified as “permanently invested overseas.” These funds will face the 35 percent federal corporate tax only if it is returned to the country.
In the convoluted world of corporate tax accounting however, simple concepts like “overseas” and “returned to the country” are not as simple as they appear.
Apple’s $102 billion in offshore profits is actually managed by one of its wholly owned subsidiaries in Reno, Nev., according to the Senate report on the company’s tax avoidance. The money is tracked by Apple company bookkeepers in Austin, Tex. What’s more, the funds are held in bank accounts in New York.
Because the $102 billion is technically assigned to two Irish subsidiaries, however, the United States tax code considers the money to be under foreign control, and Apple is legally entitled to avoid paying taxes on it.
Tax experts say that such an arrangement is not uncommon among American multinationals. During the last several years, major companies like Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Google and Abbott Labs have lowered their tax bills by arranging for their billions in profits to flow to subsidiaries that are technically offshore — even though some of the money is placed in United States Treasury bonds and other government securities.
Because the money is nominally held by the offshore companies, the tax code deems the money nontaxable, even if the funds are physically held in the United States. The savings to American companies is huge: the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that if foreign profits of United States corporations were fully taxed it would generate an additional $42 billion this year for the government — about half the amount of the automatic spending cuts enacted as part of the so-called sequester.
The companies say that they need to shield their money overseas, however, because the official corporate rate of 35 percent is the highest in the world and puts them at a competitive disadvantage. And while the offshore money may be in American banks and controlled from home, executives say it would be irresponsible to return the money to their shareholders or invest it in the United States because of the high tax rate.
Just last month, Apple announced it would pay for its dividends to shareholders by taking on $17 billion in debt rather than tap into the untaxed foreign profits. Mr. Cook said it would have been a disservice to shareholders to use the “offshore” earnings and pay the 35 percent federal income tax.
But Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who heads the committee, brushed aside those claims. “You can bring the money home,” he said. “You’d just have to pay your taxes on it.”
Apple is one of about 20 major corporations that have been pushing for a fresh tax break, known as a “repatriation holiday,” which would allow them to bring the money to the United States at a drastically reduced rate. John T. Chambers, chief executive of Cisco, has led a sustained lobbying effort for such a policy, promising that it would act as a stimulus to encourage investment and increase jobs in the United States.
A similar policy was enacted in 2004, which prompted American companies to return more than $300 billion in foreign earnings at the reduced rate of 5.25 percent. But it led to no discernible increase in American investment or hiring. On the contrary, some of the companies that brought back the most money laid off thousands of workers, and a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research later concluded that 92 cents on every dollar was used for dividends, stock buybacks or executive bonuses. A study by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that a similar program would result in $79 billion in forgone tax revenue over a decade.
Opponents of the repatriation tax break say that Apple’s accounting maneuvers show how easily major companies can shield their profits from the government, even putting companies without aggressive tax departments at a competitive disadvantage.
“The offshore companies are a fiction and the statement that the money is offshore is a fiction,” said Edward D. Kleinbard, former staff director for the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. “What they are asking for is a reward for having gamed the system.”
More than 2,400 children and young people were confirmed to have been victims of sex abuse gangs in just 14 months, a Home Office minister has revealed. Lord Taylor of Holbeach said the figure - which he described as “dramatic” - hinted at the true scale of organised sex abuse in Britain. Police found 2,409 children and young people had been confirmed as victims of sexual exploitation in gangs or groups between August 2010 and October 2011, said Lord Taylor.
Lord Morris of Aberavon, the Labour former attorney general, told the House of Lords that more than 50 alleged child grooming gangs were being investigated. He asked: “Is it collective amnesia that has blinded us to the underlying circumstances, whereby at least 27 police forces are investigating 54 alleged child grooming gangs?
“Why has investigating and prosecuting in so many different parts of the country taken so much time?
“Is it the fear of racialism, or is it the fact that many of these vulnerable girls come from care homes?”
LONDON (Reuters) - Two Saudi princes on Tuesday sought to extricate themselves from a London legal battle with a Jordanian businessman who accuses them of laundering money for Hezbollah, an allegation their lawyer called "fanciful".
Prince Mishal bin Abdulaziz al Saud, a brother of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, and his son Prince Abdulaziz bin Mishal, had previously argued they had sovereign immunity from suit but the courts rejected that stance.
They also tried to keep details of the case secret on the grounds that making the allegations public would damage Saudi relations with Britain and the United States, which considers Hezbollah a terrorist organisation, but that failed in the Court of Appeal last week.
The Hezbollah allegation is likely to raise concern in Saudi Arabia, because Hezbollah is backed by foe Iran, and Hezbollah fighters are supporting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria while Saudi Arabia is a major backer of rebel forces.
John Wardell, a lawyer for the princes, told the High Court on Tuesday that Faisal Almhairat, an estranged business partner of Prince Abdulaziz, had fabricated "incredible tales" that were "fanciful", and argued that his clients should not be parties to the case at all.
He said Global Torch - the British Virgin Island company the younger prince is said to control - and not the princes should be the party at the trial when it comes to court in January.
CLAIMS AND COUNTER CLAIMS
The complex legal dispute stems from a tussle between Prince Abdulaziz and Almhairat over control of Fi Call Limited, a joint venture registered in London in 2009 and aimed at developing software to allow free calls over the Internet.
Global Torch, a shareholder in Fi Call, initiated the court proceedings, and Almhairat responded with several counter-claims about the princes. None of the main individuals involved has attended court.
Judge Geoffrey Vos said the allegations may seem "far-fetched" but that did not mean they were untrue. He said it would be for a trial judge to decide that.
In a court document filed in December 2011 and seen by Reuters, Almhairat says Prince Abdulaziz instigated a deal in Beirut in March 2010 whereby Fi Call issued a $5 million bank guarantee to a Hezbollah intermediary named as Abdul Razzak.
Almhairat says this was part of a money-laundering arrangement that earned Prince Abdulaziz $5 million, and that when Almhairat questioned the deal he was threatened with death.
"We deal with whoever we want to deal with, whether it's Hezbollah, the Mafia or even the Jews," Prince Abdulaziz was quoted as saying in a phone call to Almhairat.
"Do as you are instructed. Otherwise your head will be at my feet without your body," the prince was alleged to have said.
Almhairat has said he recorded conversations with the princes on his telephone and made transcripts of what was said, but that the recordings were later stolen.
The document also quotes Prince Mishal telling Almhairat during a separate conversation at a Dubai hotel in April 2011 that he was involved in money-laundering.
Prince Mishal, 86, is a former defence minister and now chairs the Allegiance Council that will oversee the succession to the Saudi throne.
"You know that I move huge amounts of money for people like our friends the Mubaraks. We've been doing this business for years. We can move money for everyone, including the Iranians, because nobody dares to challenge us," Prince Mishal was quoted as saying by Almhairat.
In the document, Almhairat also alleges that in early 2011, Prince Abdulaziz arranged for Fi Call to pay $202,000 for a chartered flight from Nairobi to Amman, supposedly to transport the prince's camping equipment.
Almhairat says he discovered the true purpose was to smuggle minerals and precious stones from Congo worth hundreds of millions of dollars for the benefit of Prince Abdulaziz and possibly his father.
The hearing, scheduled to last three days, continues.
The State Department issued a report denouncing what it called "a spike in anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe and Asia." It said that "Muslims also faced new restrictions in 2012 in countries ranging from Belgium, which banned face-covering religious attire in classrooms, to India[,] where schools in Mangalore restricted headscarves."
The State Department report confuses religious persecution, which is to be condemned, with politicization of religions, which is a matter of debate and includes strategies of which the U.S. government should not be a part. If countries ban the right to pray, broadcast, and write about theology -- any theology -- this would be against human rights. But Belgium and India do not ban religions per se. In fact, they are more tolerant regarding diverse religious practice than most of the members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The Obama administration is not criticizing secular European and Asian governments for deciding to ban prayer or theologically philosophical dissertations, but rather criticizing these countries for banning the hijab or niqab in public places.
The administration understands the wearing of the hijab as a religious injunction for all Muslims. This is not the case, as senior theologians have decreed, including al Azhar, and the niqab is not a universal Muslim obligation, as one can see in 53 Muslim-majority countries. It is a matter of choice. The organized groups calling for a systematic imposition of the niqab are Islamist forces. This translates politically into an official endorsement on the Obama administration's part of the Islamist political agenda under the camouflage of religious rights.
The Obama administration, by using the charge of Islamophobia against countries that oppose the political agenda of an ideological and political faction comprising those known as Salafists and Khomeinists, has become a partner with these factions against secular, liberal, reformist movements who do not abide by the niqab rule. It is one thing to defend religious communities and something else to defend the agenda of ideological factions. The niqab is part and parcel of the ideological agenda advocated by the Islamists, not a tenet held by all Muslims. If the Obama administration is worried about the Islamist agenda not yet met by European and Asian countries, it should claim so, but the administration cannot claim defense of a religious injunction to all Muslims while the latter have no consensus on the matter.
It has been noted over the past few years that U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle East, the Arab world, and Muslim-majority countries has come increasingly under the influence of pressure groups, identified also as "lobbies," implementing the doctrinal and political agendas of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian Khomeinist regime. The State Department has been made to believe that the Islamist agenda and the beliefs and values of all Muslims are one, which is a grave mistake.
The Obama administration should have learned from recent lessons as well as those from the past. First, it should have learned that popular majorities in the countries of the Arab Spring, particularly in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Yemen, are not necessarily followers of Islamist principles. Rather, strong oppositions representing a vast swath of civil society are demonstrating vividly against the Islamist regimes produced by the Arab Spring.
The issue of hijab and niqab is one of the many that divide Muslim-majority societies. The Brotherhood and the Iranian regime claim that the veil should be a matter of the female's uniform --not only in the region, but also for the women of Muslim communities in the West. This is the reason their lobbies are portraying the hijab and niqab as an obligation to all Muslim women -- and thus a collective religious right above all other considerations in secular societies, including gender equality and public security matters. Yet the veil, as simply an expression, cannot be imposed on all Muslims, nor can it be extrapolated to be understood as a fundamental right to all members of society.
We therefore recommend that the U.S. government and other governments around the world make a basic distinction. The rights of prayer and its offshoots are universal to Muslim communities; such rights should then have consequences in and on Western and other non-Muslim countries. But the matter of hijab and niqab is a political right, not a religious one. And as a political right, it follows the limitations placed on it by the laws of the land. Even political rights can be obtained given hospitable circumstances, but the United States should not be siding with one political faction against another in an ideological debate in the Muslim world and among Muslim communities in the West and Asia.
If Washington espouses the agenda of Islamists, it becomes part of the industry of Islamophobia -- that is, to create fear about religious persecution in order to support the political agenda of authoritarian Islamist factions.
Dr Walid Phares is a professor of international relations and the author of The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East. www.walidphares.com
C’est une très bonne nouvelle pour les Français. Dix mille malades atteints de mécréance pourront bientôt recouvrer une bonne santé, physique et spirituelle. Grâce aux bons soins des musulmans de France.
La mécréance, une maladie très répandue en France et ailleurs en Europe, intéresse au plus haut point les théologiens et les oulémas musulmans. Plus encore, elle les obsède. Les hante. Les musulmans ne peuvent tout simplement pas vivre dans la sérénité tant que des mécréants vivotent dans leur environnement immédiat et lointain.
Aussi se sont-ils mobilisés pour leur apporter leur aide en organisant un événement annuel de type téléthon dont le but est de collecter des fonds pour aider à traiter ce genre de maladie. C’est le Da’wathon. Une campagne de prosélytisme pour un remède simple et efficace : les malades sont invités à rejoindre la religion d’Allah. La guérison est garantie.
Le Da’wathon n’est pas nouveau. Il a déjà tenu une première édition en mai de l’an dernier. La deuxième aura lieu dans quelques jours, du 25 au 27 mai courant.
Il s’agit, expliquent les organisateurs, d’une « campagne de collecte qui vise à récolter un maximum de dons pour financer des supports adaptés à la transmission de l’Islam ». Il faut avouer que c’est très original. Généralement, dans le domaine médical, on récolte des fonds pour stopper la transmission de quelque chose, une bactérie ou un virus. Mais l’islam n’est ni l’un, ni l’autre. Tout le contraire. L’islam, lui, c’est la panacée (même s’il s’apparente lui-même à une déficience spirituelle dégénérative).
La communauté musulmane est appelée à aider à transmettre l’islam à travers un don symbolique de 2,50€. C’est le prix d’un « Coffret Da’wah » qui, précisent les organisateurs, contient « des supports validés par des prêcheurs reconnus qui nous permettent, grâce à l’aide de Dieu, de transmettre notre religion aux moins initiés ». C’est, ajoutent-ils, un coffret « qui, nous l’espérons, sera la cause d’un grand nombre de conversions ».
Chaque coffret contient un fascicule expliquant le but de cette initiative, un CD audio présentant l’islam, un livret reprenant les versets du Coran traitant des fondements de la foi musulmane et, en guise de cadeau, une « surprise ».
La première édition a permis de financer 3.162 coffrets. On peut imaginer qu’il y a eu autant de corniauds guéris par les miracles du coffret…
Cette année, le Da’wathon revient avec « des ambitions et des moyens plus importants ». Les organisateurs ambitionnent de collecter des fonds pour financer et produire 10.000 coffrets. Trois plus que l’an dernier. Soit un potentiel de dix mille mécréants qui vont enfin être soulagés de leurs maux et de leur handicap.
On en a les larmes aux yeux. Comment ne pas être reconnaissants à ces bons samaritains ?
Les organisateurs appellent les musulmans à participer massivement à cette campagne de prosélytisme. « Chacun d’entre nous devrait se sentir concerné par la transmission du message de l’Islam », soulignent-ils.
Les coffrets seront distribués à travers toute la France par les soins d’une association dite « Oumati » (« Ma communauté » ou « Ma nation ») qui a pour but de « sensibiliser les non-musulmans à l’islam par la distribution de supports de communication et l’organisation de conférences et débats ».
Un véhicule de cette association, baptisé « Oumaticar », sillonnera les villes françaises pour faire découvrir l’islam aux malheureux impies de ce pays.
Braves musulmans adorés, sillonnez la France comme il vous sied. Labourez-là selon votre bon désir, elle est à vous. Elle vous appartient.
La France est omniprésente dans l’esprit des musulmans. Dieu n’a-t-il pas dit : « la France est pour vous un champ de labour. Allez à votre champ comme (et quand) vous le voulez » ? D’accord, ce n’est pas tout à fait au sujet de la France qu’il a dit ça, mais à entendre les musulmans tout le temps crier « Nique la France », on est bien tenté de le penser.
L’opération Da’wathon est organisée en partenariat avec « Islamic Deal », un site qui propose des produits et services à des prix réduits « dans le respect des règles islamiques » et de « bons plans adaptés à la communauté musulmane ».
Ce qui est le plus alléchant dans cette affaire, c’est la « surprise » contenue dans le coffret. On a bien envie d’en prendre un. Juste pour la surprise. Connaissant les cadeaux offerts par nos concitoyens musulmans, avec un peu de chance on pourrait tomber sur un ticket aller simple pour Damas. Ou Tombouctou. Ce sont de hauts lieux de tourisme actuellement. Ou, avec un peu plus de chance, sur un ticket aller-retour dans les régions exotiques d’Afghanistan ou du Pakistan…
C’est une opération réellement courageuse qui suscite l’admiration. Surtout qu’elle tombe au moment même ou ailleurs, comme au Maroc, on promet de raccourcir d’une tête toute personne qui s’aventurerait à quitter le chemin d’Allah.
L’islam tient l’affiche. Ici, vous êtes invités à y entrer. Là-bas, vous êtes sommés de ne pas en sortir. Deux opérations bien synchronisées et bien harmonieuses. Le tout dans un grand silence. Le silence du Vatican. A quand une « fatwa » de Sa sainteté interdisant aux catholiques de se convertir à l’islam ? Juste par réciprocité amicale.
L’auteur de ces lignes, musulman de par ses parents, païen de par ses aïeux et enfin singe animiste de par ses origines, a promis d’acheter deux coffrets Da’wathon. Pas pour lui, mais pour les offrir. A Mélenchon et Désir. Ils continuent aussi à figurer parmi les « moins initiés »…
Oui, il veut bien leur offrir ces coffrets, à Mélenchon et Désir.
THE trial of ten men accused of sexually exploiting a young girl for more than four years has begun. Proceedings in the Operation Ribbon trial began at Oxford Crown Court on Monday afternoon.
The case continues today but no evidence will be heard as barristers discuss a number of legal points for the trial, which is expected to last between six and eight weeks.
A jury will be sworn in on Wednesday morning before the Crown opens its case against the defendants, who are mostly from High Wycombe.
The ten men deny the charges against them. They are:
Iblal Fiaz, 21, of St George’s Close – Four counts of rape of a child under 13, seven counts of rape, two counts of conspiracy to rape, eight counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation, two charges of sexual activity with a child and one count of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.
Khasim Fiaz, 22, of St George’s Close – two counts of rape of a child under 13, one count of rape, two counts of conspiracy to rape and one count of trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Ammar Rafiq, 19, from Kent Road in west London – four counts of rape.
Mohammed Adnan, 21, of Upper Green Street – two counts of rape.
Mudassar Hussain, 29, of Abbey Barn Road –three counts of rape.
Jubrion Khan, 21, of Rutland Avenue – one count of rape and two counts of conspiracy to rape.
Khasim Dadd, 23, of Gibbs Close – one count of rape and one count of conspiracy to rape.
Rameez Ali, 21, of West End Street – two counts of rape.
Janaid Sharif, 26, of Cambridge Crescent – two counts of rape.
Asif Hussain, 21, of Plumber Road – one count of rape
Watch the Somali journalist, her face brimful of intelligence, and then watch, and compare, the smooth mendacity of the Swedish female prize-winning journalist who it is clear, participated in a campaign against the Somali for daring to expose a connection between an Islamic preacher in Rinkeby and Somalis who then took Islam to heart, and the consequence was their leaving to help Al-Shebaab in Somalia. The awful Swedish journalist, con una faccia da schiaffi (the kind of face you want to smash in), is a parody of herself, with her "we [the Royal We, or the Swedish left-wing We?]never judge anything" repeated for emphasis, for what, in her little world, could be worse than judging Nazis, Communists, those who take the hatred of Infidels that Islam so obviously inculcates, to heart? The name of that Swedish journalist -- she's forgettable, but remember her name just in case -- is Randi Mossige-Norheim.
Let's join right now in judging her -- summary judgmeent is called for, in the case of Randi Mossige-Noheim. IWe've weighed her, and found Randi Mossige-Norheim wanting.
RIO DE JANEIRO — The Brazilian police have arrested a businessman listed by the United States as a member of Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militant group, under suspicion of operating a fraudulent scheme in the clothing industry — a far cry from the arms, drugs, explosives and counterfeit bills that American officials have suspected him of trafficking in during the past.
Officials with Brazil’s Civil Police said the suspect, Hamzi Ahmad Barakat, 50, a Lebanese citizen with ties to the Triple Frontier region of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, was arrested Thursday in the city of Curitiba in southern Brazil in connection with creating a network of front companies to defraud Lebanese immigrants who had recently arrived in Brazil.
The arrest focuses new attention on the Triple Frontier, a smugglers’ haven that has long been under the scrutiny of intelligence agencies from the United States, Israel and South American nations. In 2006, the Treasury Department designated Mr. Barakat as a member of Hezbollah and said he owned and managed a store in Paraguay that “served as a source of funding” for the group, which the United States considers a terrorist organization.
Cassiano Aufiero, the police investigator in charge of the case, said officials were aware that Mr. Barakat had been linked to Hezbollah, but added that their investigation was in connection to other activities. Mr. Aufiero said charges against Mr. Barakat would include embezzlement and the creation of false documents in schemes involving the resale of clothing.
“He was preying on his own countrymen, using their identities to create companies to carry out schemes,” Mr. Aufiero said. He said Mr. Barakat had been held in a state penitentiary in Curitiba since his arrest.
John Sullivan, a spokesman for the Treasury Department in Washington, said the description of Mr. Barakat as a Hezbollah member still stood.
After the Treasury Department described the links of Mr. Barakat and eight others in the Triple Frontier region to Hezbollah, Brazil’s government responded by saying there were no signs of terrorism financing in the border region, which has long attracted large numbers of immigrants from the Middle East.
In 2004, the Treasury Department called Mr. Barakat’s brother, Assad Ahmad Barakat, one of Hezbollah’s “most prominent and influential members,” and said he used an electronics wholesale store in the Triple Frontier as a cover for raising funds for Hezbollah. The Brazilian police arrested Assad Ahmad Barakat in 2002 and deported him to Paraguay, where he went to prison for tax evasion.
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