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| Thursday, February 1, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Libyan held guilty of bombing, Indict Gaddafi: victims’
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| Colombian pilot
overpowers hijacker BOGOTA, (Colombia), Jan 31 — The pilot of a hijacked Colombian aircraft overpowered the hijacker with the help of a passenger and all 32 passengers and crew were safe, a spokesman for the Defence Ministry said. I’m still President, says
Estrada Turkish MP dies in House
feud
Oppn ultimatum to B'desh
Govt Removal of dead kids’ organs LONDON, Jan 31 — A doctor who stripped internal organs from hundreds of dead children, leaving their bodies as little more than shells, will be banned from working in Britain again, the government has said.
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Libyan held guilty of bombing, other acquitted CAMP ZEIST (Netherlands), Jan 31 (Reuters, AFP) — A Libyan was convicted today of murdering 270 people in the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing but his co-accused was freed. Three Scottish judges unanimously found Abdel Basset al-Megrahi (49) guilty of the crime, presiding judge Lord Sutherland told a special court in the Netherlands. The convicted man bowed his head and slumped into his chair. The judges were also unanimous in finding the other Libyan, Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima not guilty of blowing up the London-New York Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. Fahima held his head in his hands when he heard of his fate but did not look at Megrahi. “In view of the verdict of the court, you are now discharged and free to go,” Lord Sutherland told Fahima, who immediately left the courtroom. The guilty verdict drew gasps from bereaved relatives. Jim Swire, who has spearheaded the British families’ quest for justice since his daughter Flora was killed in the bombing on December 21, 1988, collapsed and was carried out from the court. Judges adjourned proceedings until 1 pm (GMT) when they would return to pass sentence, but life imprisonment is mandatory for murder in the Scottish law governing the nine-month trial. “He maintains his innocence, so there is nothing I can say by way of mitigation,” said Megrahi’s Scottish lawyer Bill Taylor. Chief prosecutor Colin Boyd sought to persuade the court of the seriousness of the crime for the purposes of sentencing. “Four hundred parents lost a child, 46 parents lost their only child, 65 women were widowed, 11 men lost their wives, 140 people lost a parent, seven lost both parents. They are also victims of the Lockerbie bombing,” he stressed. “You are now discharged and free to go,” Lord Sutherland told Khalifa Fahima. The tense courtroom was packed with relatives of the 270 people who died, most of them Americans. The verdicts ended 84 days of courtroom drama and could spell the beginning of the end of Libya’s international isolation. The three-judge Scottish court voted unanimously in both cases, but did not specify the mandatory life sentence in the guilty verdict. The two had been accused of planting a suitcase containing a bomb on a flight out of Malta tagged for transfer via Frankfurt on to at London’s Heathrow airport. The hearing was adjourned after the verdicts and the sentencing of Megrahi was postponed until tonight. TUNIS: Libyan state-run television said the convicted Libyan would lodge an appeal. It said defence lawyers would appeal within 14 days against the court’s verdict against Megrahi, A Libyan television reporter read out the verdict and told viewers defence lawyers would lodge the appeal. State television broke into regular programmes and broadcast its report live. Dr Abuzed Dorda, Libya’s U.N. Envoy, denied Libyan involvement in the bombing and told CNN: “Libya had nothing to do with this tragedy at all. Libya as a state had nothing to do with this case.” Asked whether he thought the two had had a fair trial, he said Libya was shocked by the verdict against Megrahi but respected what he called the long history of the Scottish legal system. “We do not mix the political issue that might be behind the accusation and the role of the trial,” he said. Libya wanted normal relations with the outside world. “Let’s forget about the past. Let’s look forward to the future and let’s have normal relations and cooperation in different fields,” he told BBC TV. LONDON: The British Government demanded compensation from Libya for the families of those killed in the Lockerbie airliner bombing. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spokesman told reporters that the conviction of a Libyan man for the bombing “confirms our long-standing suspicion that Libyan officials instigated the bombing”. “We expect the Libyan authorities to take full responsibility for the actions of their officials,” the spokesman said. “We also expect them to pay compensation as awarded by the courts.” Indict Gaddafi: victims’
kin CAMP ZEIST (Netherlands), Jan 31 — Relatives of the Lockerbie victims demanded on Wednesday that the USA and Britain follow up the conviction of a Libyan for the 1988 airliner bombing by indicting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. “They have pinpointed the jokers in the pack. Now we want the kings,” said Betty Thomas after a special Scottish court convicted Abdel Basset al-Megrahi of planting the suitcase bomb that blew the Jumbo jet to bits in the air in December 1988. The Welsh woman lost her daughter and grand-daughter in the attack. “This was not the lone man deciding single-handedly to avenge his government,” said Helen Engelhardt Hawkins, an American whose husband died in the blast. In Washington, relatives who gathered to hear the verdict broadcast welcomed the
guilty verdict but said Gaddafi was the real perpetrator and must be held accountable. “This is the beginning. You can’t make friends with someone who blows up an American plane,” said Susan Cohen, who lost her 20-year-old daughter in the tragedy. “This bloody murderer, Gaddafi, has destroyed my life.” She said Megrahi was “really the hand of Gaddafi”. George Williams, who lost his son, said: “We still have Muammar Gaddafi to get...Gaddafi was the godfather. These guys were the hit men.” The prosecution said Megrahi was a Libyan intelligence agent. Judges convicted him of murder, but acquitted co-accused Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima, who worked for the Libyan national airline in Malta, where the device was planted. “I know that the bomb couldn’t have been put on the plane without Fahima’s help,” said Aphrodite Tsairis, from Franklyn Lakes, New Jersey. “My heart sank when he left the court. This is clearly a case of state-sponsored terrorism. It’s now up to the US Government to pursue its policy on state-sponsored terrorism,” she told reporters. Bruce Smith, a former Pan Am pilot who lost his wife Ingrid, criticised the former Clinton administration for obstructing a case against the Libyan government. “The State Department has not been our friend in this process,” Smith said. He also offered a bitter comment on reports that Britain would continue diplomatic relations with Libya even if there was a guilty verdict. “Margaret Thatcher broke off diplomatic relations with Libya over the death of one policewoman. Is Tony Blair prepared to overlook 270 murders,” Smith said. “We need to know the motive. We need to know who was behind this. We need to know who killed our son and why,” said Barry Barkley, whose son was killed. |
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Colombian pilot
overpowers hijacker BOGOTA, (Colombia), Jan 31 (Reuters) — The pilot of a hijacked Colombian
aircraft overpowered the hijacker with the help of a passenger and all 32 passengers and crew were safe, a spokesman for the Defence Ministry said. "The hijacker has been arrested," the spokesman told Reuters. A suspected Left-wing rebel, commandeered the plane belonging to the domestic carrier SATENA yesterday at San Vicente del Caguan airport in the enclave in southeast Colombia, which is controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). He demanded it fly to Bogota, its scheduled destination, where the pilot and passenger overpowered him, the spokesman said. The hijacking came less than 48 hours before President Andres Pastrana was to decide whether to allow the FARC to remain in the Switzerland-sized area that he granted to the rebels two years ago to start peace talks to end a four-decade civil war. Air Force chief Gen, Hector Fabio Velasco said that the hijacker was a rebel defector, but the rebels denied involvement. |
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I’m still President, says Estrada MANILA, Jan 31 (Reuters, DPA) — Deposed Philippine ruler Joseph Estrada told hundreds of cheering supporters today that he was still President but pledged he would not do anything illegal to destabilise Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s new government. “I remain the duly elected President,” Estrada said, referring to Arroyo only as “an acting President.” Speaking at a convention of his party, Estrada denied accusations made by Arroyo yesterday that his supporters were plotting to destabilise her presidency. “We will not commit acts of destabilisation or any other acts outsider of what the Constitution allows us,” he said. Estrada did not say if he would make any active move to reclaim the presidency. Estrada was deposed on January 20 after the Supreme Court stripped him of his title and installed Arroyo as the new President, climaxing five days of a “people power” revolt. Meanwhile Ms Arroyo on Wednesday met a religious sect and urban poor groups that backed Estrada in a bid to shore up support for her new government. The meetings were also seen as part of efforts by Arroyo to strengthen her hold on power amid warnings of attempts by Estrada’s allies to destabilise her 12-day-old administration. Arroyo first held a closed-door one-on-one meeting with Ernano Manalo, the leader of the Church of Christ religious sect, at its headquarters. The meeting was set on the initiative of the President. Church of Christ spokesman Bienvenido Santiago said the sect welcomed Arroyo’s “initiative to consult” with Manalo, but did not disclose what was discussed. Arroya later met with urban poor groups in a government housing project in a slum area in the Manila suburban city of Quezon, where she introduced her new Cabinet members for housing and social welfare. She met 1,000 residents, who politely applauded when she promised to uplift the lives of the country’s impoverished millions. Estrada, a 63-year-old former movie action star, had boasted that he enjoyed the support of the Filipino masses even after he was accused of bribery and corruption that led to his impeachment and downfall. While the military and the police supported Arroyo’s succession to the presidency, there have been widespread rumours that loyal supporters of her disgraced predecessor were plotting a coup d’etat against her. |
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ANKARA, Jan 31 (Reuters) — A parliamentary fist fight that ended in the death of an Opposition deputy sent a shudder through Turkey's political establishment on Wednesday, raising new questions over the House's ability to master urgent reforms. Major newspapers bore front-page photographs of the 56-year-old opposition True Path Party (DYP) deputy Fevzi Sihanlioglu being punched in the head during a brawl in the parliamentary debating chamber on Tuesday night. “Deputy beaten by group of MHP deputies” the liberal Radikal newspaper said in a headline. “What we all feared has come true,” said Hurriyet daily. “Deputy dies in parliament fight.” The fist shown in Radikal newspaper was evidently that of Cahit Tekelioglu, member of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), the Rightist coalition partner of Leftist Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit. Sihanlioglu, head of a powerful south-eastern family based in the town of Sanliurfa, fell to the floor clutching his chest. Little more than an hour later, in a nearby hospital, he was declared dead from a heart attack. The Ankara prosecutor launched an investigation and ordered an autopsy. Sihanliogly was to be buried at a large public ceremony in Sanliurfa on Thursday. The fighting broke out during a tense debate on government plans to hasten the passage of laws, essential to the prosecution of the country's IMF-backed financial reform programme. Many have expressed frustration at the slow pace of legislation. DYP deputies argued, however, that the draft procedural rules for parliament would allow the government to push through important changes without the essential debate. “Democracy has received a martyr tonight,” DYP leader and former Prime Minister Tansu Ciller told reporters soon after Sihanlioglu's death, tears rolling down her face. “Numerical superiority in parliament has been trying to silence the people's rostrum,” she added. The dramatic brawl could raise tensions in the coalition government, whose stability is key to the financial programme. When Mr Ecevit formed his coalition with MHP chief Devlet Bahceli in May,1999, few critics believed it would survive. Memories of the bloody pitched street battles between MHP members and Leftists in the 1970s were still vivid in many minds. Tuesday's outburst was not the first case of violence in Turkey's parliament. In 1989 a member of the Motherland Party, a junior member of the present government, shot dead another MP during a quarrel in the lobby. The victim on that occasion was again from the DYP. |
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Oppn ultimatum
to B'desh Govt DHAKA, Jan 31 — The four-party opposition alliance led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has announced a sit-in strike on February 18 around the Bangladesh Secretariat in Dhaka in a bid to intensify its agitation against the Awami League government of Ms Sheikh Hasina. The BNP Chairperson, Ms. Khaleda Zia, announced the programme at a joint public rally at Bandarban in Chittagong Hill Tract, about 600 km southeast of Dhaka. She gave an ultimatum to the Hasina government to step down from power before the sit-in strike and hand over power to the caretaker government for holding parliamentary polls. The Bangladesh constitution provides for parliamentary polls every five years under a neutral caretaker government headed by the immediate past Chief Justice of the country. Meanwhile, government party leaders said they would not step down before July 13 this year, the day their term would be over. The caretaker government will hold parliamentary polls within 90 days. Treasury bench members criticised the Opposition in parliament yesterday, saying that the Opposition did not have the support to build up agitation for ousting the government. On the other hand, political analysts speculate that it would be a surprise if the alliance could field common candidates in the polls, whenever they are held. The first dispute will be on seat-sharing — the Jatiya Party of Mr H. M. Ershad and the fundamentalist Jamat-e-Islami have demanded 100 seats. The departure for the USA on January 29 of Ms Raushan Ershad, wife of former military ruler and imprisoned Jatiya Party chairperson H. M. Ershad, has created serious mistrust among other partners of the alliance. |
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UK blacklists doctor LONDON, Jan 31 (Reuters) — A doctor who stripped internal organs from hundreds of dead children, leaving their bodies as little more than shells, will be banned from working in Britain again, the government has said. Dr Dick van Velzen, a Dutch pathologist from alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool, northern England, lied to parents and doctors, stole medical records and falsified reports to cover up his activities, Health Secretary Alan Milburn told Parliament yesterday. “He (Van Velzen) systematically ordered the unethical and illegal stripping of every organ from every child who had had a post-mortem,” Milburn said. “It is hard to imagine the trauma and anguish which each of the affected parents faced when, many years later, they discovered that their child’s body had not been buried intact as they believed, but had been stripped of their entire internal organs, leaving the body as a shell.” Milburn, detailign an inquiry into organ removal at the hospital, said that retaining the hearts of more that 2,000 children, pathologists at Alder Hey had also removed and stored “a number of children’s heads and bodies; — large number of brain parts, eyes taken from foetuses — and more than 15,000 stillborn babies of foetuses.” The Health Minister promised to change the law to ensure that no organs could be removed from patients without informed consent and to make it a criminal offence to ignore consent. He said Van Velzen, who worked at Alder Hey between 1988 and 1995, would never work again in Britain. |
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Cold kills 110
refugees: UN ISLAMABAD, Jan 31 (AP) — In just one night 110 persons, most of them women and children with only plastic sheets to keep them warm, died this week in refugee camps in western Afghanistan when temperature plummeted to -25°C, the United Nations said today. An emergency UN appeal for $ 3.5 million to house and clothe an estimated 80,000 Afghans driven from their homes by a devastating drought and living in desperate conditions in camps in western Afghanistan seems to have been ignored. According to a UN statement issued in Afghanistan barely $ 200,000 had been pledged, while Erick de Mul, the UN humanitarian coordinator, pleaded for $ 3.5 million just to buy blankets and tents. |
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Senate panel okays
Ashcroft name WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (AFP) — The US Senate judiciary committee voted to confirm President George W. Bush’s controversial Conservative nominee for Attorney-General, John Ashcroft. The approval by the committee’s nine Democrats and nine Republicans, in a 10-to-8 vote yesterday, sets the stage for a full Senate vote, which could come as soon as Thursday. Mr Russ Feingold, a Democrat from Wisconsin, whose support for ashcroft was critical, said: “Although Democrats are being asked to follow the political golden rule ... I certainly think that the line must be drawn at some point on the politicisation of political appointments.” While most of Mr Bush’s Cabinet nominations have won confirmation — including Mr Gale Norton as Interior Secretary and Mr Christine Todd Whitman as Environmental Protection Agency chief yesterday — his choice of Mr Ashcroft, a former Senator and Missouri Governor, has run into opposition from Democrats who have questioned his commitment to civil rights. |
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Chart Thai Party to join Thaksin Govt BANGKOK, Jan 31 (Reuters) — Thailand’s Chart Thai (Thai Nation) Party, led by former Prime Minister Banharn Silpa-archa, said today that it would join a three-party coalition government led by Thaksin Shinawatra. A senior Chart Thai official told reporters that the party had agreed to ally itself with Thaksin’s populist Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) Party because they had similar policies. Thaksin, whose party won a landslide victory in the January 6 general election, may not get an absolute majority in the 500-seat parliament on his own, according to latest unofficial results. |
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