Saudi blogger looking at another round of flogging friday

30 January 2015 - 11H52

Saudi blogger Badawi, a fighter for free speech

 
 
 
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© Family Album/AFP/File / by Lynne Al-Nahhas | Saudi blogger Raef Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison, 1,000 lashes and a fine for "insulting Islam"

DUBAI (AFP) - 

Saudi Arabian blogger Raef Badawi, who could face another round of flogging on Friday for "insulting Islam", is a fighter for free speech whose health is worsening, his wife says.

His sentence of 1,000 lashes has drawn worldwide outrage and been dismissed as "cruel and inhuman" by UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein.

The first 50 lashes of his sentence were carried out in public on January 9.

Badawi, born on January 13, 1984, is the father of two girls aged 11 and seven with his wife Ensaf Haidar, his teenage sweetheart.

They married in 2001 and also have a 10-year-old son.

"Raef is very, very respectful. A very tender father. He is an amazing man," Haidar told AFP from Quebec, Canada, where she and the children have sought asylum.

The clean-shaven 31-year-old Badawi, who loves to read, studied economics and ran an English-language and computer learning institute, his wife said.

But he found his calling as a writer, focusing on free speech.

"He wanted dialogue among people. He wanted free speech and rights for women and all human beings. This is what always motivated him" and is why he created the Saudi Liberal Network, Haidar said.

Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) described the Internet site which Badawi co-founded as "an online discussion network whose aim is to encourage political, religious and social debates in Saudi Arabia".

RSF last year named Badawi one of three winners of its press freedom prize.

- 'Day of liberalism' -

He was in jail at the time, serving a 10-year sentence following his June, 2012 arrest under cybercrime provisions.

A judge ordered the website shut down after it criticised Saudi Arabia's notorious religious police.

Argentine Probe Finds Only Prosecutor’s DNA on Gun ?

BUENOS AIRES – The only DNA found on the gun that killed Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman belonged to the deceased, the person directing the investigation said Friday.

Nisman was found fatally shot on Jan. 18, hours before he was supposed to brief Argentina’s Congress about his accusations that President Cristina Fernandez and other officials sought to conceal the involvement of Iran in a deadly 1994 terrorist attack targeting a Jewish organization in Buenos Aires.

The prosecutor died of a single shot to the temple, fired at point-blank range from a .22-caliber pistol that was found under his body in the bathroom of his apartment.

Nisman, who had a 10-person police security detail, borrowed the gun from a colleague.

Laboratory analysis determined “categorically” that all of the DNA found on the gun, ammunition cartridge, bullets and shell-casings belonged to Nisman, prosecutor Viviana Fein said Friday in a statement.

At the time of his death, Nisman was seeking to indict Fernandez, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and five other people in connection with his probe of the car-bomb attack that left 85 dead at the offices of the Jewish organization AMIA.

Investigators have labeled the case a “suspicious death.”

Fein said her office’s technical staff have informed her that the stairways of Nisman’s apartment building do not have security cameras, while the camera mounted in the elevator was out of service the day of the prosecutor’s death.

She said she took statements on Friday from the people who manage the computer network in the office of the special prosecutor for the AMIA case.

Nisman, 51, was laid to rest Thursday at a Jewish cemetery on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

The Argentine government rejected on Friday a U.S. lawmaker’s call for an international enquiry into Nisman’s death.

Argentina “is an autonomous and independent country,” Cabinet chief Jorge Capitanich said during his daily press briefing, calling Sen. Marco Rubio’s proposal the expression of an “imperial vision” that “ignores the principal of national self-determination.”

Rubio, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, sent a letter Thursday to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, saying that he was “deeply concerned about the ability of the government of Argentina to conduct a fair and impartial investigation.”

The senator’s call for an international investigation is an “unwarranted intrusion appropriate to an imperial attitude that represents the most recalcitrant Republican right,” Capitanich said.

The charges against Fernandez and Timerman were based on intercepts of telephone conversations about efforts “to erase Iran from the AMIA case,” Nisman’s office said Jan. 14 in a statement.

The government wanted to eliminate any obstacle to forging closer trade and economic ties with Tehran, the prosecutor said.

Timerman – himself a member of Argentina’s Jewish community – reacted angrily to the accusations, labeling Nisman a liar and saying that the prosecutor allowed himself to be unduly influenced by Jaime Stiuso, recently fired as chief of operations for the intelligence service.

Many in the Argentine Jewish community believe the AMIA bombing was ordered by Iran and carried out by Tehran’s Hezbollah allies.

Both the Iranian government and the Lebanese militia group deny any involvement and some have pointed out that the accusation relies heavily on information provided by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad spy agency, both with an interest in blackening the reputation of Tehran.

To the indignation of many, both in Argentina and abroad, prosecutors have yet to secure a single conviction in the case.

In September 2004, 22 people accused in the bombing were acquitted after a process plagued with delays, irregularities and tales of witnesses’ being paid for their testimony.

The attack against the AMIA building was the second terrorist strike against Jewish targets in Argentina. In March 1992, a car bomb was detonated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people and wounding more than 100 others

Iran News in Brief - 31 January 2015

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Chadian soldiers recapture Nigerian town from B’Haram

Chadian soldiers have smoked out the Boko Haram insurgents out of Malumfatori town in north-eastern Nigeria, a top security source said.

One of our correspondents gathered on Thursday that the recapture of the town, which lies near the borders of Chad and Niger, followed two days of fighting between the insurgents and the soldiers.

Both ground and air forces are reported to have been used in the assault.

It was learnt that the Chadian soldiers moved into the town which was earlier seized by the Boko Haram sect after crossing Lake Chad. It is not known if the operation was approved by Nigeria.

However, the Nigerian military confirmed that the town had been recaptured but said that the feat was performed by soldiers from the Multinational Task involved in the ongoing operation against the insurgents in the North-East.

Ogun: Woman accuses Lebanese couple of torture

A woman, Mrs. Grace Okpara, has reported to the police that she was allegedly tortured by her bosses, who are Lebanon nationals.

Our correspondent gathered that Grace worked as a cleaner at a logistics company in Ibafo, Ogun State, where the Lebanese couple - Joseph and Hala Yasbek - were members of the management.

It was learnt that on Wednesday, January 14, Grace, who claimed she was dragged on the ground by her bosses during an argument, reported the matter at the Ibafo Police Division.

Speaking with PUNCH Metro, 37-year-old Grace who hails from Ishan, Edo State, said she was assaulted for alleged dereliction of duty.

She said, "I work as a cleaner at the Lebanese company, and I earn N20,000 as salary. The incident happened on January 14 at about 11.30am. We were three working as cleaners in the company.

"That day, Hala said I did not clean the premises very well, but as I tried to explain, she kicked me and I fell. Minutes later when the husband showed up, I reported Hala to him, but he also slapped me.

"I fell ill after the incident and went to the hospital for treatment. I was treated at a private hospital in Ibafo. I was discharged on Thursday and then went to report to the police. The fee for my treatment was paid by the police at Ibafo."

Grace's husband, Uzoma, said they had also reported the matter to the National Human Rights Commission.

35 years in prison for Saudi man in Vegas case

LAS VEGAS: A Saudi Arabian air force sergeant who arrived in Las Vegas for New Year’s Eve two years ago may never get to leave Nevada after being sentenced Wednesday to a minimum of 35 years in state prison for kidnapping and sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy at a Las Vegas Strip hotel.
Mazen Alotaibi, 25, stared at the courtroom floor as the boy’s mother sobbed that her son’s life was ruined and Judge Stefany Miley imposed the mandatory sentence for sexual assault with a minor under the age of 14.
Alotaibi didn’t testify at trial in October 2013, and he didn’t speak Wednesday. With time already served, he will be 57 before he is first eligible for parole.
“This idea that you can come in here and ... do the things you want and then you get to leave, and ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ is wrong,” prosecutor Jacqueline Bluth said. “That’s all about show. It’s not real life.”
Defense attorney Dominic Gentile said he intends to appeal Alotaibi’s conviction and sentence.
Gentile, a prominent Nevada criminal defense and constitutional lawyer and adjunct law school professor, said he’ll also argue that world events made it impossible for Alotaibi to get a fair trial.
“Mazen Alotaibi is an Arab Muslim,” Gentile said. “I don’t believe he can get a fair trial in America today because of overwhelming bias and prejudice.”
The Associated Press is withholding the boy and his mother’s name to avoid identifying a victim of a sex crime. The boy is now 15 and lives with his family in California.
Alotaibi came to the US for military training at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, and Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas.
Bluth acknowledged the boy made a bad decision to seek marijuana from Alotaibi as they passed in a Circus Circus hotel hallway shortly after dawn Dec. 31, 2012.
The boy testified at trial that he was lured by the smelled of pot smoke.
Bluth said Wednesday that Alotaibi was lured by Las Vegas’ marketing as Sin City, and recklessly capitalized on the boy’s decision.
Alotaibi’s trial lawyer, Don Chairez, later maintained that the boy traded sex for the promise of marijuana. But Nevada state law says a child under 16 can’t consent to sex.
Gentile lost a bid to get the judge to reconsider Alotaibi’s conviction on grounds that Alotaibi was too drunk to know he was committing a crime.
The defense attorney said he intends to appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court for a new trial, arguing that Alotaibi was badly represented by Chairez.
Reached by telephone, Chairez defended his work as “excellent.” He said he also discussed appeal strategy with Gentile.
“For Mr. Alotaibi’s sake, I hope this is one of the grounds that will be successful and the court grants him a new trial,” Chairez said.