Court hears that Afghan man strangled his wife after complaining she was 'becoming Australian'

AN Afghan man strangled his wife with her veil after complaining she was "becoming Australian", a jury has heard.

Mother of five Marzieh Rahimi, who was said to be trying to escape a violent arranged marriage, was killed in front of her baby and toddler.

Soltan Ahmad Azizi, 45, has pleaded not guilty to her murder at their Hampton Park home in November 2007.

The Supreme Court heard yesterday that Ms Rahimi, 33, had told social workers her husband had branded her a slave with no rights.

Prosecutor Peter Rose, SC, told the jury Ms Rahimi had complained her husband punched her and said her only purpose was to have babies and raise children.

Ms Rahimi, who spoke little English and communicated through an interpreter, had told a family violence officer and a health worker that she wanted to leave the marriage, but that she felt powerless, unsupported and fearful.

In his opening address, Mr Rose told jurors that when Mr Azizi learned she'd talked to outsiders he told her she was shaming him and must stop.

"I'll kill you because I can't carry the shame," he allegedly said when she spoke of separation or divorce.

The jury heard that about a week before his wife's death, Mr Azizi complained to his sister-in-law that she was "becoming Australian and had changed her religion".

The cousins wed in an arranged marriage and came to Australia as refugees in 2005. Their eldest children were aged 11, nine and six.

Mr Azizi told police he didn't plan to kill Ms Rahimi. He said he punched her, then "choked her with her veil"; he then rang 000, telling the operator, "I killed my wife ... come see. You come. My kids are only little."

Police found Ms Rahimi on the floor with her baby, three months, and toddler, 22 months, nearby.

"I'm ready for the handcuffs," he allegedly told them.

Defence lawyer Stratton Langslow urged the jury to consider whether Ms Rahimi's claims of domestic violence were prompted by post-natal depression.

He said they should examine the source of the abuse complaints and whether there was any independent evidence of ill-treatment.

Mr Langslow said Mr Azizi admitted killing his wife, but the issue was whether he'd meant to.

The jury heard that after one incident, in which she said Mr Azizi repeatedly punched her, she locked herself in a room for several days with her youngest children. He then began to treat her better, she'd said.

The trial, before Justice Betty King, is continuing.

Herald Sun

UAE President's brother avoids torture charge

A COURT in the United Arab Emirates has acquitted the UAE President's brother of charges of torturing an Afghan as seen on US television but convicted five co-defendants, including two Americans, his lawyer said.

The court acquitted Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahayan "after establishing he was not responsible" for the torture of the Afghan merchant in 2004, lawyer Habib al-Mulla said.

Allegations against the sheikh emerged after the video, aired in April, appeared to show him beating a man with whips, electric cattle prods and a wooden plank with protruding nails.

Assisted by police, Sheikh Issa is seen to pour salt in the man's wounds and run over him with a four-wheel drive.

The victim needed months of hospital care following the incident.

He was reportedly an Afghan trader who lost a consignment of grain worth $US5000 ($5450).

However, the UAE court accepted the sheikh's defence that he was "under the influence of drugs that left him unaware of his actions", his lawyer said.

The court ordered two co-defendants to pay a "temporary compensation" of 10,000 dirhams ($3000) to the Afghan victim, who can file a new lawsuit to claim full compensation, the lawyer said.

The two US defendants of Lebanese origin, brothers Ghassan and Bassam Nabulsi, were sentenced to five years in jail each in absentia for having drugged the sheikh.

The lawyer said the Afghan victim had demanded compensation from the brothers rather than from Sheikh Issa.

Bassam Nabulsi reportedly leaked the video which exposed the case.

The court also sentenced three other workers at the farm where the torture took place to between one and three years in jail for drugging the sheikh, likewise in absentia, according to Mulla.

A guard at the farm was acquitted.

Mulla said Sheikh Issa, 40, who has been in detention for the past seven months, would be released.

The verdict, however, is not final as it will have to be reviewed by a higher court if the public prosecution decides to challenge the ruling.

Sheikh Issa, who is the brother of UAE President and oil-rich Abu Dhabi's ruler, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, pleaded not guilty at a hearing last month.

The lawyer told the hearing in December the sheikh had been drugged against his will during the incident and had no recollection of what had happened.

"We submitted medical reports showing that the drugs that the two co-defendants administered to him left him unaware of his actions," the lawyer said on December 15.

In a rare trial of a high-ranking member of the ruling family, Sheikh Issa was charged at an opening hearing last October with endangering life, causing bodily harm and with rape for the incident.

The lawyer told the court that one of the sheikh's co-defendants was responsible for Sheikh Issa's medications and had drugged him, then videotaped the incident and tried to blackmail him.

The Australian

Militants attack Pakistan army checkpoint

By Hafiz Wazir in Wana, Pakistan

UP to 40 militants have attacked an army checkpoint, killing one soldier, a security official said today, after suicide bombers and gunmen killed dozens at a mosque near Pakistan's military headquarters.

Pakistan's army, which heavily supported militant groups in their war against Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, now faces a stubborn Taliban insurgency on its own soil and mounting US pressure to root out Islamist fighters in tribal border areas.

Soldiers at the checkpoint on a bridge in Wana, the main town in the Islamist bastion of South Waziristan, retaliated after coming under fire today, said the security official.

"There were 30 to 40 militants who first fired rocket- propelled grenades at our post and then opened fire with AK-47 rifles which killed one of our soldiers. But we retaliated and killed six militants," a security official in the region, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

An intelligence official said helicopter gunships also hit militant positions in the battle.

The military said it made gains in a major offensive in October in South Waziristan, a global Islamist hub.

But militants have carried out retaliatory bombings since then, killings hundreds of people and pressuring increasingly unpopular Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to neutralise the insurgency as he fights for his political survival.

The attack near army headquarters today, which killed at least 40 people, was the biggest challenge to the writ of the state since October.

Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a mosque frequented by military officials in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, just a 30-minute drive from the capital Islamabad, and two other militants fired on worshippers.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik described the attackers as the enemy of Islam and the country. But the army may have to find a new strategy to fight the Pakistani Taliban, disparate groups united by a common goal of taking over the nuclear-armed country and imposing their strict brand of Islamic rule.

US President Barack Obama highlighted Pakistan's struggle against militants this week in outlining his plans to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

In one of his most important speeches, he called on Pakistan, the third largest recipient of US aid, to crack down harder on militants to help US troops fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. He warned that Washington would not tolerate Pakistan allowing its territory to be a safe haven for militants.

Ultimately, it is Pakistan's all-powerful military that calls the shots on setting foreign policy on Afghanistan or responding to US requests for greater cooperation on militants.

The generals have been at odds with Mr Zardari, and his weak government has little influence. US attempts to boost cooperation have backfired in some ways.

A new $7.5 billion assistance package signed in October which reserves the right to cut off aid if Islamabad does not crack down on militants angered the military and ordinary Pakistanis who see it as a humiliating violation of Pakistan's sovereignty.

The Australian

Queens terror raids part of FBI probe into Denver-based cell plotting attack on 9/11 scale

The massive FBI probe that triggered raids in Queens is focused on a Denver-based terror cell plotting another attack on the scale of 9/11, the Daily News learned Tuesday.

Hundreds of FBI agents are on the ground in Colorado, conducting round-the-clock surveillance on five suspects - including a man who recently visited Queens, sources told The News.

New York authorities searched three Flushing apartments and detained several men - later released - after getting a warrant to look for bomb-making components, explosive powders and fuses.

"The FBI is seriously spooked about these guys planning another 9/11," a former senior counterterrorism official told the News. "This is not some ... FBI informant-driven case. This is the real thing."

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters it's an ongoing investigation with plenty of "substance."

The 24-7 counterterror operation included Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants used to intercept calls and e-mails, as well as overseas-linked wiretaps to eavesdrop on Arabic and Pashto-speaking targets.

Sources said the investigation's targets are Afghans - an unusual development. Al Qaeda prefers Arabs and Pakistanis as there overseas operatives.

FBI officials are furious at Kelly over Monday's raids because the NYPD seemed intent on scaring off the cell - which is believed to be plotting a New York attack.

The FBI hoped to wait and determine what the Colorado cell was planning.

Two other sources confirmed the FBI-NYPD rift. An investigator involved in the case said Kelly prefers to "act too soon rather than act too late."

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said it is "an utter fabrication that the FBI is furious with Kelly or that Kelly fought to shut down the action early."

Source: NY Daily News

New York homes raided in terrorism probe

New York City police and the FBI raided homes in the borough of Queens early on Monday as part of an investigation into suspected terrorism, focusing on one man who has been under surveillance, officials said.

Authorities searched at least two apartments including one shared by five Afghan men, taking some of them in for questioning, said one man who was questioned.

Members of U.S. Congress briefed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation said there was no imminent danger.

"There was nothing imminent, and they are very good now at tracking potentially dangerous actions and this was preventive," said Charles Schumer, a U.S. Senator from New York who was among those briefed by FBI officials.

A man who identified himself as Amanullah Akbar, a 30-year-old taxi driver, said the FBI raided the apartment he shares with four other Afghan men at 2:30 a.m. (1630 GMT)

He was brought in for questioning and released and said he had no idea why his home was targeted, adding that he believed one of his roommates was arrested.

A neighbor said she saw FBI agents armed with what she called machine guns storm the apartment building, and that one of them emerged carrying a box.

"It was scary. I wasn't going to stop the FBI and ask them what was going on," said Melissa Khan, 28.

NYPD and FBI officials provided few details, calling it part of an ongoing investigation of the joint terrorism task force.

Source: Reuters

H/T: JihadWatch