Download - Kuwait Times

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2012
LONDON: Britain’s independent police
watchdog launched an investigation
yesterday into claims that a senior officer
passed information to Rupert
Murdoch’s News International during a
probe into phone hacking at one of its
newspapers. The inquiry is examining
whether details passed by the
unnamed officer to an executive at
News International, the British newspaper
arm of Murdoch’s News Corp,
during the police’s 2006 investigation
constituted a criminal offence or misconduct.
London’s Metropolitan Police (MPS)
launched that investigation when senior
royal aides reported their suspicions
that voicemails on their mobile
phones had been illegally accessed by
journalists from the News of the World
Sunday tabloid.
The investigation led to the conviction
of the paper’s royal reporter and a
private detective.
News International claimed the
practice was limited to that “rogue
reporter” but last year admitted phone
hacking had been widespread, causing
a scandal that shook Murdoch’s
empire and rocked the British press,
police and political establishment.
The officer who headed the original
inquiry told lawmakers last July that
News International chiefs had deliberately
hindered their investigation.
Police are now carrying out three new
criminal investigations and it was
information from one of these that led
to the Independent Police Complaints
Commission (IPCC) probe into the senior
officer.
“The allegation of an inappropriate
disclosure of information from an MPS
officer to an executive at News
International raises important issues of
public confidence in the MPS,” IPCC
Deputy Chair Deborah Glass said in a
statement. “I believe it is right that we
independently investigate this to
determine if there was any wrongdoing.”The
MPS said after “careful consideration”
it had decided not to suspend
the officer, who is based within the
Specialist Operations unit which han-
INTERNATIONAL
Senior UK police officer faces phone hacking probe
Missile strike kills four
Shebab rebels in Somalia
Shebab a ‘global enemy, not only a Somali enemy’
MOGADISHU: A missile strike killed four
Al-Qaeda allied Shebab rebels in wartorn
southern Somalia, officials and witnesses
said yesterday, as the extremists
are squeezed on three fronts by regional
forces. “An Al-Qaeda commander was
targeted in Lower Shabelle early yesterday
morning, a missile struck and
destroyed his vehicle, killing him and
several colleagues,” said a Somali government
official on condition of
anonymity.
The missile strike 60 kilometres (37
miles) south of the Somali capital
Mogadishu-an area known as K60 —
was confirmed by local residents.
Residents said an aircraft fired a missile
at a Land Cruiser with four passengers,
reportedly including foreigners fighting
with the Shebab.
Britain’s security think tank, the Royal
United Services Institution, estimates
the total number of foreign fighters
within the Shebab to be around 200.
Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli
Mohamed Ali said Wednesday he would
welcome Somalia’s international allies
to launch air strikes against the Shebab,
who have been battling to topple his
weak Western-backed government.
He called the Shebab a “global ene-
TOUBA: A picture shows electoral cards in Touba, central
Senegal, on Thursday. The world community is appealing
for calm ahead of Senegal’s February 26 presidential election
which some opposition leaders want postponed amid
protests over incumbent Abdoulaye Wade’s third term
candidacy. — AFP
my, not only a Somali enemy”. The strike
comes a day after international powers
meeting in London pledged to boost
efforts against instability in Somalia and
vowed action against anyone obstructing
the country’s peace process.
“There was a missile strike near K60
this morning, the missile targeted a
vehicle belonging to Al-Shebab,” said
Mohamed Ali, a resident in a nearby village.
“We are not sure who exactly was
the target but four people apparently
died and the vehicle was destroyed.”
There were conflicting reports about the
nationalities of those killed in the strike,
and it was not immediately possible to
establish their identities.
“We heard a very loud explosion, and
people are saying the target was a vehicle
of the Al-Shebab,” said Ahmed
Moalim, another resident.
Kenyan military, which has carried
out air raids against the Shebab in
southern Somalia, said they were not
behind yesterday’s missile strike.
“That air strike is not from our end,”
Colonel Cyrus Oguna, a Kenyan army
spokesman, told AFP.
In October, the United States
acknowledged flying drones out of
Ethiopia under a counter-terrorism cam-
paign in the Horn of Africa but said the
aircraft were unarmed and not carrying
out raids.
Last month the hardline Shebab
insurgents said a missile fired from a
drone killed a fighter of Lebanese origin,
about 13 kilometres south of
Mogadishu.
The rebels on Wednesday lost control
of their strategic base of Baidoa after
truckloads of Ethiopian soldiers and progovernment
Somali forces seized the
town, the second major loss for the
rebels in six months.
Baidoa was one of the Shebab’s main
bases and its capture leaves the group’s
fighters in central Somalia increasingly
isolated, with African Union (AU) troops
also chasing them out of the capital
Mogadishu. The Shebab, thought to
number no more than 5,000 gunmen,
are close to collapse, with reports that
foreign fighters are fleeing to Yemen,
the commander of the 10,000-strong AU
force in Somalia said Thursday.
“In the last few days, close to 300
people, mainly foreign fighters, are
streaming out of Somalia taking the
direction of Yemen-these are signs of
defeat,” said Ugandan Major General
Fred Mugisha. — AFP
Christian’s death in
Nigeria inflames tensions
MAIDUGURI: Police discovered the body of a 79-year-old
Christian woman killed in northeast Nigeria, with a note in
Arabic left on her chest reading: “We will get you soon,” a witness
said. The slaying raises religious tensions in Nigeria as a radical
Islamist sect increasingly targets Christians in its bloody
attacks. While police said Thursday they knew of no immediate
suspects in the killing, witnesses blamed the attack on the sect
known as Boko Haram, which has been blamed for killing at least
305 people this year alone, according to an Associated Press
count.
The dead woman was identified as Shetu Haruna Malgwi, a
Christian living in the city of Maiduguri in Nigeria’s Muslim north.
Assailants apparently attacked Malgwi on Wednesday, a day after
she returned home from receiving an eye treatment in the city of
Kaduna, Borno state police spokesman Samuel Tizhe said. Her killers
slit the woman’s throat, then wrote a note with red pen they left on
her chest, witness Audu Ibrahim said. Ibrahim said the woman’s
family believes the message is for her son, who is a pastor of a local
church where the 79-year-old sang in the choir. — AP
dles counter-terrorism and royal protection
and which handled the original
hacking inquiry.
It said the information which
prompted the investigation had been
passed to detectives by the
Management and Standards
Committee set up by Murdoch which
is trawling through 300 million emails
to hunt for any evidence of criminality.
Information it has uncovered has
led to the arrest of some of the most
senior journalists on Britain’s top-selling
Sun tabloid newspaper as well as
a number of serving and former
police officers over claims they were
paid for passing information to
reporters. —Reuters
LECH: In this Feb. 19, 2011 file photo Netherland’s Prince
Friso, left, and his wife Princess Mabel, right, pose with
their daughters Luana and Zaria for photographers during
a photo session in the Austrian skiing resort of Lech.
Austrian doctors treating the Dutch Prince Johan Friso
said yesterday, he suffered massive brain damage after
being buried by an avalanche last week and he may never
regain consciousness. — AP
Dutch prince may never
regain consciousness: Doctors
INNSBRUCK: Dutch Prince Johan Friso, the second son of
Queen Beatrix, suffered massive brain damage in an avalanche
in Austria and might never regain consciousness, his
doctors said yesterrday. “It can’t be said with certainty at this
point whether Prince Friso will ever regain consciousness
again,” Wolfgang Koller, head of the trauma unit at Innsbruck
University Hospital, told a press conference.
“In any case, a neurological rehabilitation will be required
that will take months, if not years.” The 43-year-old father of
two young daughters was caught in an avalanche while skiing
off-piste with a friend in the posh Austrian ski resort of Lech a
week ago. He was quickly evacuated by helicopter to
Innsbruck University Hospital but nevertheless spent some 25
minutes under the snow, according to the doctors.
“Due to the amount of time spent under the snow, his
brain was not supplied with sufficient oxygen,” Koller said.
“This resulted in a heart attack that lasted about 50 minutes.
During this whole time, the patient had to be resuscitated,”
he said. “Fifty minutes of reanimation is very, very long,
one might even say too long.
“Our hope was that the patient’s mild hypothermia would
provide some protection for the brain. This hope was not
realised.” Doctors were able to do an MRI scan on the prince
for the first time on Thursday and “it’s clear that the lack of
oxygen caused massive damage in the patient’s brain,” Koller
said. “The family of Prince Friso will now look for an appropriate
facility for the rehabilitation,” he added.
Kollar was giving the first official details on the prince’s
health since his accident last Friday. Until now, the Dutch
Royal House had limited itself to saying he was “stable, but not
out of danger,” with the hospital refusing to comment. — AP