W O R L D

Taseer’s killer gets death sentence 
Islamabad, October 1
A Pakistani anti-terrorism court today convicted and sentenced to death a police guard who assassinated outspoken Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer in January for calling for changes in the country’s controversial blasphemy law.

A supporter of Mumtaz Qadri  the confessed killer Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, chants slogans next to burning tyres during a rally to condemn the court decision against Qadri in Rawalpindi on Saturday. — AP/PTI

Senior Haqqani leader held in Afghanistan
Kabul, October 1
A senior commander of the Taliban-allied Haqqani network in Afghanistan who is also the uncle of its leader has been captured, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said today.

Taseer’s killer gets death sentence 
Assassin’s supporters take to streets

Islamabad, October 1
A Pakistani anti-terrorism court today convicted and sentenced to death a police guard who assassinated outspoken Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer in January for calling for changes in the country’s controversial blasphemy law.

Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, the policeman who gunned down Taseer outside a restaurant in the heart of Islamabad on January 4, was awarded two death sentences on two counts of murder and terrorism by Judge Parvez Ali Shah during in-camera proceedings at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.

Qadri, whose counsel confirmed he had been found guilty and given the death sentence by the court, has seven days to file an appeal, state-run PTV reported.

Special security arrangements were put in place at Adiala Jail before today’s proceedings. The case was being heard in the prison for security reasons. After sentencing Qadri, the judge left through the back door.

Roads leading to the jail were closed to the public and private vehicles, and a large police contingent was deployed in the area. A high alert was sounded in the jail to thwart any untoward incidents, officials said.

Hundreds of Qadri’s supporters, carrying banners and posters with the policeman’s photograph, gathered outside the jail and shouted slogans against the sentence.

“By punishing one Mumtaz Qadri, you will produce 1,000 Mumtaz Qadris!” a protester shouted. Members of the hardline Sunni Tehrik, who were part of the crowd, vowed not to accept the verdict.

Qadri had confessed to killing Taseer shortly after the crime. Qadri subsequently confessed to the crime on two more occasions, when a magistrate recorded his confessional statement and when he was given a questionnaire by the anti-terrorism court judge.

Despite confessing to the crime, Qadri had contended that he killed Taseer as he was a ‘murtad’ or apostate and had allegedly committed blasphemy by seeking changes in the blasphemy law.

Qadri also sought to justify his crime by citing Islamic laws. During the trial, witnesses testified that Qadri had specifically asked his superiors to include him in Taseer’s security detail on the day of the assassination.

Taseer, one of the most liberal leaders of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, had angered Islamic hardliners when he called for changes in the blasphemy law and championed the cause of a Christian woman sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammed.

His assassination and Qadri’s arrest divided Pakistani society as some viewed the policeman as a “hero.” During initial court appearances, Qadri was feted by madrassa students and lawyers, who showered rose petals on him.

While hundreds of lawyers offered to represent Qadri, the trial was delayed for several weeks as no prosecutor was prepared to argue the case.

Hardline Islamic clerics urged people not to offer funeral prayers for Taseer and the cleric who led the slain Governor’s ‘namaz-e-janaza’ recently fled Pakistan after receiving threats.

Nearly two months after Taseer’s killing, Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, another vocal critic of the blasphemy law, was gunned down. — PTI

Senior Haqqani leader held in Afghanistan

Kabul, October 1
A senior commander of the Taliban-allied Haqqani network in Afghanistan who is also the uncle of its leader has been captured, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said today.

The announcement of Haji Mali Khan's capture comes as the US steps up pressure on Afghanistan's neighbour Pakistan to act against the Haqqanis, linked to Al-Qaida and blamed for a string of attacks on Western targets.

The group's leadership is based in Pakistan's border regions and last week, the retiring chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, charged it was a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's intelligence service.

"Security forces detained Haji Mali Khan, uncle of Siraj and Badruddin Haqqani and the senior Haqqani commander in Afghanistan," the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement. Khan was captured close to Afghanistan's porous border with Pakistan in Paktiya province Tuesday, it added. — AFP

Obama: Awlaki’s death major blow to Qaida

President Barack Obama bids farewell to Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in Arlington on Friday. — AP/PTI

Washington, October 1
Describing the death of Al-Qaida’s top spiritual leader Anwar al-Awlaki as a “major blow” to the terror group, US President Barack Obama has said it marks another significant milestone in the broader effort to defeat the outfit and its affiliates.

“The death of Awlaki is a major blow to Al-Qaida’s most active operational affiliate. Awlaki was the leader of external operations for Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. In that role, he took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans,” Obama said.

He made the remarks yesterday at an event held to bid farewell to Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hours after Awlaki, a Yemeni-origin American engineer, was killed in a US drone attack in Yemen.

“The death of Awlaki marks another significant milestone in the broader effort to defeat Al-Qaida and its affiliates. Furthermore, the success is a tribute to our intelligence community and to the efforts of Yemen and its security forces, who have worked closely with the United States over the course of several years,” the President underlined.

Obama said Awlaki had directed the failed attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day in 2009. He had also directed the failed attempt to blow up US cargo planes in 2010.

“And he repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda,” the President said. — PTI

Adonis in race for Literature Nobel

Stockholm, October 1
Predicting the Nobel Literature Prize winner is near-impossible as the Swedish Academy stays tight-lipped and often honours writers off the beaten path-so could it be Syrian poet Adonis this year? Each year the names of popular authors are tossed about-US novelists Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates and Cormac McCarthy to name a few-but their work may actually be too widely read for them to become Nobel laureates.

"The whole idea of the prize is not to be mainstream," Stephen Farran-Lee, senior editor at Swedish publishing house Bonniers, told AFP.

A look at the list of recent winners could prove him right: Mario Vargas Llosa, Herta Mueller, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, Doris Lessing, Orhan Pamuk, Harold Pinter, Elfriede Jelinek, JM Coetzee, Imre Kertesz, VS Naipaul, Gao Xingjian, Guenter Grass, Jose Saramago, Dario Fo, Wislawa Szymborska.

A political choice may thus be more likely when the Academy announces its decision, which it is likely to do on October 6 . Given the current situation in the Middle East, Syrian poet Adonis or even Israeli author Amos Oz could be well-placed this year. Online betting site Ladbrokes tipped Adonis as the favourite on Sept 30, just ahead of Swedish poet Tomas Transtroemer and far ahead of US author Thomas Pynchon and musician Bob Dylan.

Yet exactly that argument has others doubting the Syrian's chance. "The Academy is very keen to point out that they don't have a political agenda," Farran-Lee said, noting that even though a writer such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn won it in 1970, the members have no "political tendency". — AFP

‘Gandhi’s non-violence helped topple tyrannical regimes’

United Nations, October 1
Paying rich tributes to Mahatma Gandhi, UN chief Ban Ki-moon has said the principle of non-violence preached by him helped topple tyrannical regimes from Tunisia to Egypt as people in these countries proved that it is more effective to “fire off a tweet than to fire a gun.” 

Commemorating the International Day of Non-Violence, which is celebrated to mark Gandhi’s birth anniversary on October 2, Ban said “Gandhi ji” lived by the “conviction that only peaceful tactics could usher in a peaceful future, free from recrimination.” For Gandhi, “means and ends were one,” the UN Secretary-General said.

He said the dramatic events of the past year in the Middle East and North African countries showed the immense power of non-violence. “People in Tunisia, Egypt and beyond proved that it is more effective to fire off a tweet than to fire a gun.

They did more than topple long-entrenched governments; they emboldened other oppressed people to think that the path of non-violence might work for them. This is not an easy path,” he said at a special meeting attended by India’s envoy to the UN Hardeep Singh Puri and leading historian Ramachandra Guha.

Ban said the “courageous” individuals who embrace non-violence effectively corner their oppressors.

“Non-violence confounds those who face it - and that is why it works,” he said, recalling King Ashoka who had renounced violence, embraced Buddhism and devoted his life to peace.

“Mahatma Gandhi carried on this great Indian practice when he used the power of non-violence to lead a historic movement for India’s independence.”

Noting that Gandhi’s outlook was shaped by his experiences in South Africa, Ban said his writings inspired people worldwide, including Martin Luther King, who studied the Mahatma’s works intensely.

He said the “timeless and tremendous” power of non-violence has transformed the world in the past year alone.

The transitions that are under way will certainly be difficult since countries have for long “invested” in violence instead of peace.

“But people are choosing non-violence. And if they continue using peaceful means they can shape a better future in all countries-including established democracies.” In his address to the gathering, Guha drew an analogy between September 11, 2001, when the twin towers were attacked in the US and the same date in 1906 when Mahatma Gandhi had led a mass resistance in Johannesburg against a racial law that denied the right of citizenship to non-whites, particularly Asian immigrants.

“May the 9/11 that destroyed the World Trade Centre never be repeated,” Guha said. “But may the 9/11 of 95 years ago whose ripples and echoes helped hasten the end of apartheid, bestowed freedom on India, enabled African-Americans to claim equal rights and ended Communist rule in Eastern Europe live on in public memory.” Guha said over the years Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence and ‘Satyagraha’ have been applied in different ways in India, most recently in the large scale anti-graft movement spearheaded by Anna Hazare that saw thousands of Indians holding rallies and fasts to peacefully demonstrate against corruption in the country. — PTI