07:47
Marbella Times
Gunmen have abducted Saudi Arabia's deputy consul from outside his residence in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden, a Yemeni security official has said. Police in the city's Mansoura district said on Wednesday that armed men abducted Abdallah al-Khalidi as he was about to get into his car, and sped off with him in another vehicle. "Abdullah al-Khalidi was kidnapped while leaving his home in the Mansoura neighbourhood of Aden," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He has some personal conflicts with people in Aden" - Yemeni police official He said police had launched an investigation into the kidnapping. "He was taken to an unknown location and we are searching from him," he said. Saudi officials have confirmed the attack. "It happened this morning. The embassy already contacted the highest security authority in Yemen. They are investigating and trying to find out the reason," a Saudi foreign ministry spokesman told Reuters news agency, also requesting anonymity. Another Yemeni police official told AFP news agency that Khalidi's abduction was not politically motivated. "He has some personal conflicts with people in Aden," the official said, adding that in recent months, the deputy consul had been threatened and unknown assailants had even "thrown a grenade at his home in Aden". The official did not give further details.
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Wednesday 28 March 2012
Saudi deputy consul abducted in Yemen
Sunday 25 March 2012
Whitney Houston full autopsy report to offer more details
Whitney Houston’s full autopsy report may offer more clues about whether the singer suffered a heart attack before her drowning death, officials said Friday. The full report, which is expected to be released in a few weeks, may include test results and physical descriptions of the singer’s heart that will show whether she suffered a heart attack, Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said. The report is being compiled and Winter said he did not have access to its findings, which might show whether there were any obvious signs such as discoloration of her heart that would suggest Houston had a heart attack before slipping underwater in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Feb. 11. Houston’s death has been ruled an accidental drowning, with heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing factors. The report also will include detailed toxicology results that will show how much cocaine and its byproducts were in Houston’s system when she died. Coroner’s officials said Thursday that the results showed the singer used cocaine shortly before her death, and there were indications of chronic use. Beverly Hills police detectives will use the full coroner’s report to complete their investigative file, which is not expected to be publicly released. The department has said there were no signs of foul play in connection with Houston’s death. Houston’s death on the eve of the Grammy Awards stunned the music industry and fans worldwide. The singer had battled addiction for years, but friends and family have said she appeared committed to making a comeback in the months before her death.
Pakistani Taliban training Frenchmen
Pakistani intelligence officials say dozens of French Muslims have been training with the Taliban in northwest Pakistan. The officials said on Saturday they were investigating whether Mohamed Merah, a Frenchman of Algerian descent suspected of killing seven people in southern France, had been part of this group. Merah traveled to Pakistan in 2011 and said he trained with al-Qaida in Waziristan. He was killed in a gunfight with police Thursday in the French city of Toulouse. The officials said 85 Frenchmen have been training with the Pakistani Taliban in the North Waziristan tribal area for the past three years. Most have dual nationality with France and North African countries. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Saturday 24 March 2012
Sex is a multibillion-dollar industry in Spain, with colorfully lit brothels staffed mainly by poor immigrant women from Latin America, Africa and eastern Europe lining highways throughout the country
Pimps Arrested in Spain for 'Barcoding' Women
Police in Spain arrested 22 alleged pimps who purportedly tattooed women with bar codes as a sign of ownership and used violence to force them into prostitution. Police are calling the gang the "bar code pimps." Officers freed one 19-year-old woman who had been beaten, held against her will and tattooed with a bar code and an amount of money — €2,000 ($2,650) — which investigators believe was the debt the gang wished to extort before releasing her. The woman had also been whipped, chained to a radiator and had her hair and eyebrows shaved off, according to an Interior Ministry statement.All those arrested were of Romanian nationality and had forced the women to hand over part of their earnings, the statement said. The women were tattooed on their wrists if they tried to escape, the statement said. Police also seized guns and ammunition. It was not immediately clear when the raids took place. Police seized €140,000 ($185,388) in cash, which had been hidden in a false ceiling, a large amount of gold jewelry and five vehicles, three of which were described as luxury cars. The gang was made up of two separate groups, referred to as "clans" in the statement, each dedicated to controlling prostitution along fixed stretches of a street in downtown Madrid. One of the alleged ringleaders who was identified only by the initials "I.T." is wanted by authorities in Romania for crimes linked to prostitution, the statement said. The women were controlled at all times to ensure "money was taken off them immediately," the statement said. Sex is a multibillion-dollar industry in Spain, with colorfully lit brothels staffed mainly by poor immigrant women from Latin America, Africa and eastern Europe lining highways throughout the country. Prostitution falls in legal limbo: it is not regulated, although pimping is a crime. The northeastern city of Barcelona plans to introduce regional legislation in coming weeks banning prostitution on urban streets.
Syrian army lays siege to northwestern town
Syrian troops shelled rebellious areas in central and northern Syria on Saturday in the latest push to quash the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, but faced fierce resistance from army defectors, activists said. Much of the day's fighting focused on the northeastern town of Saraqeb, which activists said regime troops and tanks entered from the north amid heavy shelling. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighting reached the central market district where army defectors damaged a tank and three armoured personnel carriers. Late Saturday, it said 2 rebel fighters and 9 government troops had been killed in the clashes. "Large numbers of residents are fleeing the town," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, which has a network of activists inside Syria. "People have been leaving the town for some time but after today's attack the process intensified." Government troops also shelled parts of the central city of Homs and the nearby town of al-Qusair. Activist videos posted online Saturday showed explosions in residential neighbourhoods sending up balls of flame and huge plumes of black smoke.
Russian banker shot six times had testified over murder plot
The banker was left for dead by a lone gunman as he returned to his home in Canary Wharf on Tuesday evening. Scotland Yard detectives are investigating the attempted assassination, which Mr Gorbuntsov’s lawyer believes was a retaliation attack after the banker gave evidence in a 2009 attempted murder case. Mr Gorbuntsov, who fled to London because of his fear of reprisals, had recently submitted new evidence to Russian police about the attempted murder of Alexander Antonov, another Russian banker. The case was closed three years ago when three Chechen men were jailed for attempted murder. But police have never discovered who organised the attempted hit. Officers re-opened the case on March 2 this year after Mr Gorbuntsov submitted his new testimony.
Friday 23 March 2012
Serbian mafia 'put gangster in mincer and ate him for lunch'
Gang that assassinated Serbian prime minister admits making 'face mask' out of member's skin
A GANGSTER who helped orchestrate the Serbian prime minister's assassination in 2003 was allegedly made into a stew and eaten by his associates after falling out with his gang leader.
Police believe Milan Jurisic (above) was beaten to death with a hammer, skinned and boned with a sharp knife and then put through a meat grinder at a flat in Madrid in 2009.
The Zemun clan, a notorious faction of the Serbian mafia that once had connections with the Serbian government, police and media, allegedly made a face mask from Jurisic's skin before turning him into stew and eating him for lunch.
It apparently took the gang five days to clean up what is being described as "the house of horrors".
Sretko Kalinic, nicknamed 'The Butcher' and known as the gang's hitman, confessed to the crimes when he was arrested in Croatia last year, according to the Daily Mail. Kalinic admitted that he "literally dismembered" Jurisic and then threw his remains into Madrid's Manzanares river.
This week, Spanish officers discovered documents at the scene of the crime supporting The Butcher's account. They also found 50 bones in the river and are currently awaiting identification from forensics.
Jurisic was one of 12 men found guilty of arranging the 2003 murder of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who was killed by a sniper as he approached a government building in Belgrade.
Jurisic was on the run when he was murdered, having been convicted in his absence to 30 years' jail by the Belgrade Special Court for Organised Crime.
It is believed Jurisic had fallen out with the leader of the Zemun cklan, Luka Bojovic, either over money or a woman.
As the BBC reports, Bojovic himself was arrested in a restaurant in Valencia, Spain last month, wanted for more than 20 murders in Serbia, the Netherlands and Spain. He is also suspected of involvement in the 2003 assassination. ·
Russian banker shooting: 'It looks like a contract hit'
A former Russian banker is in a critical condition in hospital after he was shot several times in east London. German Gorbuntsov was shot by a man armed with a sub-machine gun as he entered a block of flats in Byng Street, Isle of Dogs, on Tuesday. Aleksander Nekrassov, a former Kremlin advisor, told the BBC that Mr Gorbuntsov was a "key witness" in the case of a murder attempt on another Russian banker, Alexander Antonov, in Moscow in 2009. He said: "It looks like a contract hit to be honest because a sub-machine gun is not really a weapon that would be used by some amateur"
Mafia Bosses 'Turn Cannibal': Serbian Gangsters 'Ate Milan Jurisic In A Flat In Madrid' Say Police
A mafia traitor was beaten to death and then eaten by Serbian gangsters, police believe. Milan Jurisic, 37, was killed with a hammer by a gang of criminals from the Zemun Clan, a mafia group from Belgrade, in Madrid. His remains were then ground up with a meat grinder, cooked, and eaten, according to a confession by another Zemun Clan member, Sretko Kalinic, nicknamed "The Butcher". Later the gang reportedly threw the bones into the River Manzanares in the Spanish capital. This week, police found bones in the river and the apartment where the killing apparently took place in 2009. Jurisic is thought to have betrayed his fellow gang members by stealing money from them. He was on the run after being convicted in his absence of assassinating Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003. Kalinic confessed to the murder after he was arrested in the Croatian capital of Zagreb in 2010. Police believe the murder and subsequent cannibalism was led by Luka Bojovic, a Serbian gangster arrested in Valencia last month. Bojovic was also on the run after being accused of assassinating Djindjic. Inside Bojovic's apartment in Valencia police found documents backing up Kalinic's account of the killing. The murder is being investigated by magistrate Fernando Andreu at the National Court in Madrid.
