Spanish judge to probe Gitmo

MADRID: Spain’s top investigating judge Baltasar Garzon is to probe suspected torture and ill-treatment of inmates at the US prison of Guantanamo Bay, the daily El Pais reported Saturday. The paper gave no sources. It said Garzon would be acting on complaints lodged by a number of associations, focusing on one prisoner, Ahmed Abderraman Hamed, who has Spanish nationality. Three other detainees, Moroccan Lahcen Ikasrrien, Palestinian Jamiel Abdulatif Al-Banna and Libyan Omar Deghayes would also be concerned as they had links with Spain, El Pais said.

Libya, Russia in $1.8bn arms deal

MOSCOW: Libya has signed a deal with Russia to buy weapons worth 1.3 billion euros ($1.8 billion), Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was on Saturday quoted as saying. “Only yesterday we signed a contract worth 1.3 billion euros. And it’s not only small-arms,” Putin said, according to RIA Novosti. The deal was signed after talks with a senior Libyan military official in Moscow.

Sri Lanka shuts anti-govt paper

COLOMBO: A Sri Lankan anti-government newspaper was shuttered Saturday after its editor was arrested on allegations of publishing details of an ongoing investigation against a former Tamil rebel now in custody, police said. The Lanka newspaper, published by the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (The People’s Liberation Front), was raided on Friday and its editor Chandana Sirimalwatte was arrested Saturday for questioning by the Criminal Investigations Department.

Japan protests attack on boats

TOKYO: Japan lodged a protest with Russia on Saturday after two Japanese fishing vessels were shot at by the Russian Coast Guard near four disputed islands. The two countries have a decades-old dispute over the chain of Pacific islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kuril islands in Russia, which has prevented them from formally ending World War Two hostilities. The Japanese Foreign Ministry said in a statement Russian forces fired flares at two Japanese fishing vessels on Friday.

Five die in NY apartment blaze

NEW YORK: Five people died and a baby was critically injured in a fire that engulfed a New York apartment building early Saturday, the fire department said. The blaze erupted during the night, quickly taking over the Brooklyn building, which consisted of a restaurant on the ground floor and apartments on the two floors above. Although firefighters came three minutes after being called, they found “heavy fire on arrival, heavy smoke, heavy flame,” New York Fire Department spokesman Frank Dwyer said. “This fire escalated quickly.” A partial roof collapse hindered the 138 firefighters in their almost two-hour battle to pull out the living and douse the flames, Dwyer said.

— Compiled by Arab News