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Africa Subsaharan

27 on trial for apostasy in Sudan

2015-12-04

KHARTOUM: Some 27 Sudanese are standing trial in a Khartoum court accused of apostasy, risking the death penalty if they are convicted, their lawyer told AFP on Thursday. The men are accused of taking the Holy Qur'an as the sole source of religious legitimacy and rejecting other Islamic texts. “The court in Kalakla in south Khartoum has started the trial of 27 defendants brought before it under Article 126 of Sudanese criminal law, apostasy from Islam,” defense lawyer Ahmed Ali Ahmed told AFP. They are also charged with disturbing the public order, Ahmed said. Ahmed said investigators told the court that police arrested five of the defendants on Nov. 2 inside a market in the southern Khartoum neighborhood of Mayo “when they were talking to people about their conviction in the belief in the Qur'an and how they don’t recognize” other religious texts. He said that others were arrested the next day for the same reasons. The defendants are accused rejecting the authority of the Sunnah, traditions attributed to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) The trial of the 27 started last Sunday and went through four sessions during which the judge heard the investigators’ case against the men before it adjourned on Wednesday. It resumes on Dec. 8.

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Iraq

Truck bomb kills at least 60 in Sadr City

2015-08-13

[Reuters] At least 60 people were killed and 200 injured in an explosion on Thursday at a market in Baghdad's Sadr City district. Police officer Muhsin al-Saedi said, "A refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up inside Jamila market at around 6 a.m. Many people were killed and body parts were thrown on top of nearby buildings." Smoke rose from charred debris. Rescuers pulling bodies from the rubble waded through sheet metal that had formed the roofs and walls of vendors' stands. Angry people gathered at the site of the blast, some crying the names of their missing relatives and others cursing the government. "We hold the government responsible, fully responsible," witness Ahmed Ali Ahmed said, calling on the authorities to send army and Shi'ite militias to man checkpoints in the capital.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Israel arrests Arabs wanted for Qaeda-inspired attacks

2010-06-29

Israel has arrested seven Arab citizens on suspicion of planning attacks against Jews and Christians that were inspired by the speeches of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, officials said Monday. According to documents released by the district court in Nazareth, northern Israel, three of the men were charged with the murder of a 54-year-old Jewish taxi driver and the attempted killing of another man. The suspects were arrested two months ago, but the news was blocked by a court gag order which was lifted on Monday. Police said six of the men were from Nazareth, the largest Arab city in Israel, and the seventh from a nearby village. Regional police chief Aviv Elgrisi said the group was uncovered after two of its members went to east Africa, hoping to join Islamic militants there. "Two Nazareth residents travelled to Kenya with the intention of reaching Somalia and fighting alongside the Muslims against the infidel and the American enemy," Elgrisi told Israeli public radio. "These two aroused the suspicions of the security services in Kenya who sent them back here and informed our security service. Elgrisi said Israel's Shin Bet internal security service arrested the men upon arrival and interrogated them, which led to the arrest of the five other suspects. "Their intention was to harm any non-Muslim," he said. Court documents charge Ahmed Ali Ahmed, 21, with the fatal shooting last year of cab driver Yefim Weinstein and name Ghaleb Ghanaim, 25, and Haider Zaidana, 21, as accessories, accused of helping him flee the scene. The charge sheet also accuses members of the group of kidnapping and wounding a man from the Jewish suburb of Upper Nazareth and attempting to murder a Christian who they believed had cursed the prophet Mohammed. They also allegedly torched a Nazareth business owned by a Christian Arab. The accused shouted "Long live Osama bin Laden" and "God is greatest" as they were led into the courtroom, according to the radio. Members of the group were arraigned on different charges, including murder, kidnapping, assault and weapons offences. They were then remanded in custody for six weeks, with no trial date set.

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Iraq

Iraq to execute al Qaeda leader in bishop murder

2008-05-19

A leader of al Qaeda in Iraq has been sentenced to death for the killing of Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, whose murder in March drew worldwide condemnation, the Iraqi government said on Sunday. The Iraqi Central Criminal Court imposed the death sentence on Ahmed Ali Ahmed, known as Abu Omar, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement. Rahho, the archbishop of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, was abducted on Feb. 29 after gunmen attacked his car and killed his driver and two guards. His body was found in a shallow grave two weeks later. At the time, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed al Qaeda and vowed to bring the bishop's killers to justice. Dabbagh said Ahmed was a leader of Sunni Islamist al Qaeda and had been sought for his involvement in a number of "terror crimes against the people of Iraq". He described Rahho as an advocate of peace and tolerance among Iraqis. When Rahho's body was found on March 13, police said it was not clear whether the 65-year-old clergyman, known to be in poor health, had been killed or died of other causes. A number of Christian clergy have been kidnapped and killed and churches bombed in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. A former archbishop of Mosul, Basile Georges Casmoussa, was kidnapped in 2005 but later released after a day in captivity.

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