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KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian police officer has
become the first member of the force to be charged with money
laundering, reports said Wednesday. Azmi Osman, former chief of
southern Johor state’s antivice, gaming and secret society
division, was charged in court Tuesday with laundering 1.263 million
ringgit ($368,500), the New Straits Times reported. The 52-year-old
police officer faces a maximum jail term of five years or a fine of
5 million ringgit or both if found guilty. He is attached to the
internal security division at federal police headquarters in Kuala
Lumpur. Azmi is expected to face two further charges of money
laundering in the eastern state of Pahang, with the sums involved
totaling about 4 million ringgit, the paper said.
--AFP
JAKARTA: A lawyer for
three Muslim militants sentenced to death for their role in the
deadly 2002 Bali bombings Wednesday complained that a rejection of
their final appeals had not followed legal procedure. Indonesia’s
Supreme Court announced this month that it had rejected demands for
a case review for the three bombers, Amrozi, Ali Ghufron and Imam
Samudra. Such a demand was their final chance to make an appeal
through the Indonesian legal system. Only a presidential pardon can
now prevent them from facing a firing squad for their role in the
bombings that killed 202 people. Michdan said that the verdicts were
announced during a press conference without going through the normal
process of informing the defendants first.
--AFP
BEIJING: China is
threatening the death penalty for people who steel copper wire,
thereby destroying power lines and disrupting telecommunications,
state media said Wednesday. The stern warning comes amid a wave of
cases in which people have stolen copper wire to sell to recycling
businesses amid desperate demand for the metal caused by a booming
economy, the China Daily reported. It said the Supreme Court had
ruled thieves could receive the death penalty if their actions risk
causing fatal accidents. The death penalty is also an option if
thieves cause blackouts that affect more than 10,000 people for more
than six hours, or result in economic losses of more than one
million yuan ($130,000), the paper said.
--AFP
KABUL: NATO and US-led
troops backed up by warplanes have killed more than 120 Taliban
insurgents in two major battles in southern Afghanistan, officials
said Wednesday. One soldier was killed, a trooper with the
15,000-strong US-led coalition who died during a daylong gun battle
in the restive province of Helmand on Tuesday. Around 60 rebels were
killed in that battle, the coalition said, adding that air power was
also used. The fighting erupted during an Afghan and coalition
patrol aimed at clearing an area near the Taliban-controlled
district center of Musa Qala in Helmand. More than 65 rebels were
killed late Tuesday in a similar battle in the south-central
province of Uruzgan, another hotbed for the Taliban insurgents, said
a separate NATO-led force which has around 40,000 troops.
--AFP
NAIROBI: Fresh rainfalls
and slow relief have deepened the humanitarian crisis caused by
record floods in Africa which have affected more than 1.5 million
people and killed at least 300, aid agencies warned Tuesday. The
worst floods in three decades have now affected 22 countries,
displacing hundreds of thousands and starkly raising the risk of
epidemics since the deluge hit parts of the continent in July. The
worst-hit country since unprecedented downpours swept across the
continent in August has been conflict-wracked Sudan, where the
United Nations said up to 625,000 people could be in need of
emergency aid. The World Food Program said it would begin airdrops
of food next month in areas cut off by the severe flooding. The
United States announced on Monday that it already allocated $500,000
in contributions to the relief effort in Uganda.
--AFP
WASHINGTON: In a move,
which could slow the rate of US executions, the Supreme Court agreed
Tuesday to consider the constitutionality of lethal injections used
in almost all the country’s death penalty cases. Amid growing
controversy over exactly how lethal injections are administered, the
court said it would examine the cases of two men condemned to death
in the Southern state of Kentucky. But despite the announcement,
authorities in Texas said they planned to go ahead and administer a
lethal injection later Tuesday to Michael Richard, 48, sentenced to
death for raping and killing a mother of seven children in 1986.
--AFP
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