Arrest warrant issued for brother of Manchester Arena bomber

Arrest warrant issued for brother of Manchester Arena bomber
Police arrested Ismail Abedi the day after the attack and questioned him for 14 days before releasing him without charge. (Screengrab BBC)
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Updated 02 August 2022

Arrest warrant issued for brother of Manchester Arena bomber

Arrest warrant issued for brother of Manchester Arena bomber
  • The judge said that 28-year-old Ismail Abedi was made aware of the hearing and given the opportunity to attend
  • IT worker Abedi left his home in Manchester last August and is believed to be in Libya with his parents and three younger siblings

LONDON: A judge has issued a warrant for the arrest of the older brother of the Manchester Arena bomber after he refused to testify in the bombing inquiry before fleeing the country, Sky News reported.

The judge said that 28-year-old Ismail Abedi was made aware of the hearing and given the opportunity to attend.

IT worker Abedi left his home in Manchester last August and is believed to be in Libya with his parents and three younger siblings.

On Tuesday, Manchester Magistrates Court conducted a final search to ensure he was not present.

In May 2017, Salman Abedi blew himself up at the arena, killing 22 men, women, and children. His younger brother Hashem, 24, who was extradited from Libya, is serving life in prison for helping him make the bomb.

The inquiry wanted to question Ismail because his DNA was discovered on a hammer in a car that his two younger brothers used to transport and store the explosive they had made.

The families of the victims also wanted to question him about his brothers’ radicalization, especially since extremist propaganda was discovered on Ismail's phone when he returned from his honeymoon 20 months before the bombing.

Police arrested Abedi the day after the attack and questioned him for 14 days before releasing him without charge.

He had moved out of the family home by the time of the attack, and he told police that he had called his parents and asked them to return the brothers to Libya because he was concerned they had dropped out of school.

On Aug. 28, 2021, he was subject to a schedule seven stop under the Terrorism Act 2000 at Manchester Airport but told police he would return to the country in mid-September.

He missed his flight but returned the next day to Manchester Airport and left the country.

Ismail was found guilty of refusing to comply with a section 21 notice under the Inquiries Act 2005 in his absence at a hearing last month.

Prosecutor Sophie Cartwright QC said a notice of Tuesday's hearing was sent to him at his last known address, informing him that he had been found guilty of an offense under section 35 of the Inquiries Act in his absence.

“He was separately emailed notice of today's hearing," she said. "We would submit there is adequate notice of this hearing, and we would submit that he has not attended today. As a result, we would submit that this is an offense which carries imprisonment and you do have the power to issue a warrant."

Judge Jack McGarva told the hearing: “Not only has he been emailed, but there has been a great deal of publicity. I am sure he will have followed what has happened in this court.

"I would have issued the warrant at the last hearing, but the Magistrates Court Act did not allow me to do this. I am now allowed to issue a warrant and do so under section 13 of the act.”

The judge said there was an interest in ensuring that others in similar situations attended and fulfilled their obligations and that a warrant would allow Interpol to post a “wanted” notice.

“If he crosses any of the countries we cooperate with, he will make his way (here),” the judge added.

Nick de la Poer QC told the hearing that Abedi had “thrown up every obstacle he could think of, and when those failed he fled the jurisdiction.”

The families asked if Ismail would ever be apprehended and accused him of “truly despicable contempt.”

“Whilst we welcome the conviction of Ismail Abedi today we remain sorely disappointed that the conviction had to take place in his absence,” said solicitor Kim Harrison, who represents 11 of the victims.

“We remain gravely concerned as to how Abedi was able to leave the country before giving evidence to the inquiry in the first place. His leaving the country should never have happened and despite the conviction, he is unlikely to face any real justice until he is apprehended, if at all.

“The families deserve to know the truth about what happened that night, and the contempt Ismail Abedi has shown them is truly despicable.”


UK deputy PM criticized for suggesting ‘safe and legal’ routes for Afghan migrants exist

UK deputy PM criticized for suggesting ‘safe and legal’ routes for Afghan migrants exist
Updated 11 sec ago

UK deputy PM criticized for suggesting ‘safe and legal’ routes for Afghan migrants exist

UK deputy PM criticized for suggesting ‘safe and legal’ routes for Afghan migrants exist
  • PM Rishi Sunak says he will ask Home Office to reassess case of pilot facing deportation
  • Migrants could be housed offshore on ships to end ‘perverse incentive’ of hotel stays 

LONDON: The UK government has been criticized after the deputy prime minister claimed it had established safe routes for refugees and asylum-seekers to enter Britain.

Speaking to the BBC, Dominic Raab claimed there were “safe and legal” ways for people fleeing Afghanistan to reach the UK.

The UK deputy leader was responding to questions about a former Afghan Air Force pilot facing deportation to Rwanda after having arrived in Britain via countries deemed safe. 

The pilot, who has not been identified out of concerns for the safety of his family in Afghanistan, claimed there were no safe routes, and that he was forced to enter the UK illegally in a small boat across the English Channel.

Raab said: “I don’t want to comment on individual cases. It’s sensitive, it’s not right.”

But asked if it was right to deport people who had fought alongside coalition forces against the Taliban, he added: “That’s why we created a safe and legal route. Getting out of the country has been difficult in Afghanistan. Thousands have; we set up the flights before the evacuation of Kabul, but others can do it via neighboring countries. So there is a safe and legal route for Afghans.”

Raab’s fellow Tory MP and the chair of the UK’s Defense Select Committee, Tobias Ellwood, disagreed, telling The Independent there was “no functioning process” for Afghans to reach the UK, and adding that Britain had a “duty” to those who had worked alongside it in the country — a sentiment echoed by the former head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Lord West.

The UK has two schemes for Afghans seeking asylum. The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy for those who assisted British forces in Afghanistan has brought over 11,000 people, while the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme is for general applications. 

The latter has managed to resettle just 22 people since the end of the UK’s military-led evacuation process, Operation Pitting, in 2021, while the ARAP scheme has over 4,300 eligible people still stuck in Afghanistan.

Afghans, meanwhile, make up the largest single cohort of people crossing the English Channel illegally in small boats, with over 9,000 making the journey in 2022.

Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow home secretary, told The Independent: “The UK government made a solemn promise to the Afghans who helped our armed forces that it would help them and give them sanctuary from the Taliban.

“The failures of this Conservative government to help those that helped us is a source of national shame.”

The pilot, who flew over 30 combat missions against the Taliban and was praised by his Western colleagues as a “patriot to his nation,” believes he has been “forgotten” by his US and UK comrades, adding that it was “impossible” to reach the UK safely and legally under either of the present schemes.

Questioned about the case by a parliamentary committee on Tuesday, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described the pilot and others like him as “exactly the sort of people we want to help,” adding that he would “happily” ask the Home Office to reassess the case.

Raab, UK foreign secretary during the period when the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan following the withdrawal of coalition forces, also suggested on Wednesday that the UK could house asylum-seekers offshore on giant ships to end the “perverse incentive” of putting people up in hotels indefinitely.

The now deputy PM notoriously initially refused to curtail a holiday as the chaotic situation in Kabul unfolded in 2021, leading to a backlash against the UK’s handling of the withdrawal at home. The UK Foreign Affairs Committee later found that he had attempted to shift the blame for the “disaster” in its aftermath.

 

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MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Russia’s confrontation with hostile states and what it called a “hybrid war” being waged against it by the West would last a long time.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made the prediction when asked how long what Russia calls it “special military operation” in Ukraine would last.
“If you are referring to a war in a broader context, a confrontation with hostile states, a hybrid war against our country, then it is going to last for a long time,” Peskov told reporters.
“And here we need to be resolute and self-confident and to consolidate around the president,” he said.


Philippine police seize large stash of drugs in tea bags

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Updated 29 March 2023

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  • Drug seizure had an estimated street value of $74 million, one the the largest in recent years

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines: Philippine police seized more than 500 kilograms (more than half a ton) of suspected methamphetamine concealed in tea bags Wednesday and arrested a suspected Chinese drug dealer in a northern mountain resort city, police officials said.
The drug seizure in Baguio city had an estimated street value of $74 million (4 billion pesos) and was one of the largest in recent years, officials said.
A drug syndicate apparently hid the suspected drugs, locally known as shabu, in Baguio, a popular tourism destination known for its mountain scenery and pine trees, and not in metropolitan Manila due to an ongoing anti-drugs crackdown in the capital region, Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos and police officials said.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who took office in June, has vowed to press on with his predecessor’s crackdown against illegal drugs, which left thousands of mostly petty drug suspects dead, but said it would be done differently and focus more on rehabilitating drug dependents.


UN human rights chief calls for ‘decisive steps’ to clarify fate of missing Syrians

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Updated 29 March 2023

UN human rights chief calls for ‘decisive steps’ to clarify fate of missing Syrians

UN human rights chief calls for ‘decisive steps’ to clarify fate of missing Syrians
  • Volker Turk urges nations to establish a new entity to address issue
  • Hopes Syrian government realizes nation’s future depends on resolution

NEW YORK: The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk on Tuesday called on the international community to take “decisive steps” to help clarify the fate and whereabouts of missing people in Syria, seek the release of those still detained in the country’s prisons, and provide their families with adequate support.

He urged UN member states to consider establishing a new, dedicated entity that would help bring answers and support to the families of the many thousands of disappeared, and to survivors — “bringing clarity about what has happened to all the people of this wounded and exhausted country.

“We owe the people of Syria no less,” Turk told an informal meeting of the General Assembly to hear a briefing by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on missing people in Syria, adding that the pursuit of justice for missing persons is a prerequisite for lasting peace and reconciliation in the country.

Syria’s permanent representative to the UN Bassam Sabbagh had last week, during a security council meeting, attacked the pursuit of such an international institution, describing it as a “hostile” campaign by the West that is weaponizing the issue of missing people. And to “launch another politicized international mechanism, whose sole aim is to distort facts and increase pressure on a country that has been fighting terrorism on behalf of all the peoples of the world.”

But Turk told Arab News after the meeting he still hopes “the realization will set in with the Syrian government” that there can be no future for the country without addressing the issue of the missing people.

“We have heard from five countries (at the GA meeting) that have gone through conflict, who have had the experience of missing people, who all emphasize one point: You cannot go into any addressing of grievances of your population if you don’t address the fate of missing people.

“I myself having worked for Syrian refugees for many years, I know how important it is for them.”

More than 100,000 Syrians have gone missing or forcibly disappeared at the hands of both the Syrian regime, opposition forces, and terrorist groups since the war began 12 years ago.

A large number of nongovernmental, international, humanitarian, and family organizations work on the Syria missing persons issue, collecting information and following up on cases, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Commission on Missing Persons, and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic. But the lack of coordination leaves victims and survivors and their families in a state of uncertainty, searching for any evidence of their loved ones, and not knowing where to give data and information.

Families have been pushing for a dedicated, independent international institution to clarify their loved ones’ fate that is commensurate with the scale and complexity of the crisis.

Guided by their views and advice, the UN secretary-general issued a report last year that concluded that such an international institution – tasked with a robust mandate to clarify the fate of the missing and provide support for their families — would be the cornerstone of a comprehensive solution to the crisis.

Speaking at the meeting, Guterres urged member states “to act” and work on resolving “this deeply painful situation with determination and urgency,” and called on the Syrian government and all other parties to the conflict to cooperate.

Describing the crisis of missing persons in Syria, Turk painted for the gathering a picture of despair that is “crushing in its enormity,” where children are growing with a “gaping absence where their father should be,” where associating with the family of a missing person could bring on more violence on the community. And where searching for loved ones exposes families to risks of exploitation, physical threat and extortion, demands for payment for information about their whereabouts that may later prove to be false.

He said survivors who have been released after arbitrary detention in Syria have spoken of rampant torture and sexual violence, where “death has been a close and constant neighbor.” After their release, Turk added, many women and girls are shunned by their families on the assumption that they have been raped and so are seen as bringing dishonor on their relatives.

“This harrowing accumulation of trauma has led many women survivors of disappearance to disappear again — by leaving the country — or even to try to kill themselves.”

“The pain, the loss, and the injustice are simply too great.”

The new entity’s tasks will include consolidating existing data and claims, advocating for access to detention sites, and providing support to victims, survivors and their families, to address their psychosocial, legal, administrative and economic needs.  


Myanmar junta dissolves Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, much of opposition

Myanmar junta dissolves Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, much of opposition
Updated 29 March 2023

Myanmar junta dissolves Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, much of opposition

Myanmar junta dissolves Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, much of opposition
  • Ousted leader’s party governed Myanmar with overwhelming majorities in Parliament from 2015 to 2021
  • The army said it staged its 2021 takeover because of massive poll fraud

BANGKOK: Myanmar’s military government took another major step in its ongoing campaign to cripple its political opponents on Wednesday, dissolving dozens of opposition parties including that of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi for failing to meet a registration deadline ahead of elections.
Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, or NLD, was one of 40 parties ordered dissolved in an official announcement by the election commission published Wednesday in the state-controlled press. The NLD governed Myanmar with overwhelming majorities in Parliament from 2015 to 2021 before being overthrown by the military.
The NLD had already announced that it would not register, denouncing the promised polls as a sham.
The party, and other critics, say the still-unscheduled polls will be neither free nor fair in a military-ruled country that has shut free media and arrested most of the leaders of Suu Kyi’s party.
The NLD won a landslide victory in the November 2020 election, but in February 2021, the army blocked all elected lawmakers from taking their seats in Parliament and seized power, detaining top members of Suu Kyi’s government and party.
The army takeover was met with widespread popular opposition. After peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country are embroiled in conflict.
Suu Kyi, 77, is serving prison sentences totaling 33 years after being convicted in a series of politically tainted prosecutions brought by the military. Her supporters say the charges were contrived to prevent her from participating in politics.
Kyaw Htwe, a member of the NLD’s Central Working Committee, said on Tuesday night that the party’s existence does not depend on what the military decides, and it “will exist as long as the people support it.”
His statement was a reference to a message Suu Kyi sent to her supporters through her lawyers in May 2021 when she appeared in court in person for the first time after the military seized power, she said “Since the NLD was founded for the people, the NLD will exist as long as the people exist.″
“The party will continue to fulfill the responsibilities entrusted by the people.” Kyaw Htwe said in a text message.
The army said it staged its 2021 takeover because of massive poll fraud, though independent election observers did not find any major irregularities. Some critics of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who led the takeover and is now Myanmar’s top leader, believe he acted because the vote thwarted his own political ambitions.
The new polls had been expected by the end of July, according to the army’s own plans. But in February, the military announced a six-month extension of its state of emergency, delaying the possible legal date for holding an election. It said security could not be assured. The military does not control large swaths of the country, where it faces widespread armed resistance to its rule.
“Amid the state oppression following the 2021 coup, no election can be credible, especially when much of the population sees a vote as a cynical attempt to supplant the landslide victory of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy in 2020,” said a report issued Tuesday by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank.
“The polls will almost certainly intensify the post-coup conflict, as the regime seeks to force them through and resistance groups seek to disrupt them.”
The military government enacted a new political party registration law in January that makes it difficult for opposition groups to mount a serious challenge to the army’s favored candidates. It sets conditions such as minimum levels of membership and candidates and offices that any party without the backing of the army and its cronies would find hard to meet, especially in the repressive political atmosphere.
The new law required existing political parties to re-apply for registration with the election commission by March 28.
Ninety parties ran in the 2020 election, of which just under half have been dissolved. The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Wednesday published the election commission’s list of 50 existing parties that had registered by the Tuesday deadline, and 40 that had not, meaning they would be dissolved as of Wednesday.
The surviving parties are unlikely to pose a meaningful electoral challenge to the junta: they won only a handful of seats in the 2020 election, and most will not mount national campaigns.
“Among these 63 parties, 12 parties will launch election campaigns across the nation and 51 parties only in one region or state,” the state-run paper reported.
The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, which ran a distant second to the NLD in 2015 and 2020, registered again. The Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, and NLD ally that won the third largest number of seats in 2020, did not.
Thirteen new parties registered, and the announcement said the opportunity for new parties to register was still open.
The National League for Democracy was founded in 1988 in the wake of a failed uprising against military rule. It won a 1990 general election that was invalidated by the country’s military rulers. It was technically banned after it boycotted a 2010 election held under military auspices because it felt it was not free or fair, but was allowed to register when it agreed to run in 2011. It took power after a landslide victory in the 2015 general election.