Mumbai attack 'leader' wins Pakistan appeal

The alleged leader of the 2008 militant attacks on Mumbai has won an appeal against his detention in Pakistan.

Lawyers for Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi said a government detention order issued last week infringed his rights, as he had been granted bail by another court.
Analysts say he could be freed as soon as the paperwork is completed.
India says a Pakistani militant group carried out the attacks, which killed 165. Pakistan has not convicted anyone suspected of planning the attacks.
Mr Lakhvi is among seven suspects who have been in jail awaiting trial for six years. Nine others have been charged in absentia.
Analysts say the decision to grant him bail came at an embarrassing time for the Pakistani government.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif recently promised to crack down on militancy after the Taliban killed 141 people at a school in Peshawar
Mr Lakhvi was granted bail by an anti-terror court on 18 December, but hours later the government imposed a three-month detention order and said it would appeal against the bail decision.
Mr Lakhvi's lawyers argued in Islamabad's High Court that the detention infringed his rights.
The judge accepted the arguments and quashed the detention order.
The suspect is now technically free to leave jail, but has been ordered to appear in court for every hearing concerning his case.

 

 

Mr Lakhvi was accused of heading the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was blamed for the Mumbai attacks.

Correspondents say the charges brought against Mr Lakhvi and other suspects held in Pakistan were mainly based on a confession given by the only gunman captured alive after the attacks.
Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab was executed in 2012.
The attacks severely strained relations between India and Pakistan.
India has repeatedly criticised Pakistan for failing to prosecuted any of the suspects, and has summoned the Pakistani high commissioner to discuss Mr Lakhvi's case.

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Pakistan's Ajmal to miss World Cup

Off-spinner Saeed Ajmal has withdrawn from Pakistan's World Cup squad as his bowling action is yet to be cleared by the International Cricket Council.

Ajmal, 37, Pakistan's top wicket-taker for the past three years, was suspended from bowling by the ICC in September.
Banned Pakistan all-rounder Mohammad Hafeez is to undergo checks before potentially applying to the ICC for an official test on his bowling action.
Teams have to name their final 15-man World Cup squads by 7 January.
Ajmal, who had been named in Pakistan's preliminary squad, will continue remedial work on his action and play domestic cricket until he has satisfied himself he can take the ICC test.
Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Shaharyar Khan said: "Ajmal withdrew himself.
"We were aware that if he took the official ICC test in a bid to make the World Cup squad and failed it he could be suspended from playing for one to two years and that would mean the end of his career."
Ajmal was Worcestershire's leading wicket-taker last season with 63 wickets to help them win promotion from Division Two of the County Championship.
Meanwhile, Naveed Akram Cheema has been appointed Pakistan's team manager for a second time for their upcoming tours, including the World Cup, in place of Moin Khan, who will remain as the chief selector.
The 2015 cricket World Cup takes place in Australia and New Zealand from 14 February to 29 March.

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Pakistan bomb hoax man gets 26 years

A Pakistani man has been given a 26-year jail term for making two hoax bomb threats in two public places in Punjab province in July, prosecutors say.

The threats were made against a crowded market and children's park in the central city of Multan on the first day of the Islamic festival of Eid al-Fitr.
Police managed to track the man, named Rana Yousuf, via the sim card he used, which belonged to one of his friends.
They said Yousuf was trying to set up his friend over a business rivalry.
The hoax phone calls led police, bomb disposal experts and emergency workers to rush to the scene and search the area for several hours before discovering the warnings were fake.
Over 2,000 people were gathered in Shams park at the time of the call, Pakistan's Express Tribune reports.
The other man, whose sim card was used, was reportedly cleared of all charges due to lack of evidence.
In addition to the jail term, Yousuf was also fined 100,000 Pakistani rupees ($993; £638).

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Hitler's secret Indian army

In the closing stages of World War II, as Allied and French resistance forces were driving Hitler's now demoralized  forces from France, three senior German officers defected.

Legionnaires were recruited from German POW camps

 
The information they gave British intelligence was considered so sensitive that in 1945 it was locked away, not due to be released until the year 2021.
Now, 17 years early, the BBC's Document programme has been given special access to this secret file.
It reveals how thousands of Indian soldiers who had joined Britain in the fight against fascism swapped their oaths to the British king for others to Adolf Hitler - an astonishing tale of loyalty, despair and betrayal that threatened to rock British rule in India, known as the Raj.
The story the German officers told their interrogators began in Berlin on 3 April 1941. This was the date that the left-wing Indian revolutionary leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, arrived in the German capital.
Bose, who had been arrested 11 times by the British in India, had fled the Raj with one mission in mind. That was to seek Hitler's help in pushing the British out of India.

He wanted 500 volunteers who would be trained in Germany and then parachuted into India. Everyone raised their hands. Thousands of us volunteered Lieutenant Barwant Singh

Six months later, with the help of the German foreign ministry, he had set up what he called "The Free India Centre", from where he published leaflets, wrote speeches and organised broadcasts in support of his cause. By the end of 1941, Hitler's regime officially recognised his provisional "Free India Government" in exile, and even agreed to help Chandra Bose raise an army to fight for his cause. It was to be called "The Free India Legion".
Bose hoped to raise a force of about 100,000 men which, when armed and kitted out by the Germans, could be used to invade British India.
He decided to raise them by going on recruiting visits to Prisoner-of-War camps in Germany which, at that time, were home to tens of thousands of Indian soldiers captured by Rommel in North Africa.
Volunteers
Finally, by August 1942, Bose's recruitment drive got fully into swing. Mass ceremonies were held in which dozens of Indian POWs joined in mass oaths of allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

Chandra Bose did not live to see Indian independence

These are the words that were used by men that had formally sworn an oath to the British king: "I swear by God this holy oath that I will obey the leader of the German race and state, Adolf Hitler, as the commander of the German armed forces in the fight for India, whose leader is Subhas Chandra Bose." I managed to track down one of Bose's former recruits, Lieutenant Barwant Singh, who can still remember the Indian revolutionary arriving at his prisoner of war camp.
"He was introduced to us as a leader from our country who wanted to talk to us," he said.
"He wanted 500 volunteers who would be trained in Germany and then parachuted into India. Everyone raised their hands. Thousands of us volunteered."
Demoralised
In all 3,000 Indian prisoners of war signed up for the Free India Legion.
But instead of being delighted, Bose was worried. A left-wing admirer of Russia, he was devastated when Hitler's tanks rolled across the Soviet border.
Matters were made even worse by the fact that after Stalingrad it became clear that the now-retreating German army would be in no position to offer Bose help in driving the British from faraway India.
When the Indian revolutionary met Hitler in May 1942 his suspicions were confirmed, and he came to believe that the Nazi leader was more interested in using his men to win propaganda victories than military ones.
So, in February 1943, Bose turned his back on his legionnaires and slipped secretly away aboard a submarine bound for Japan.

Rudolf Hartog remembers parting with his Indian friends

There, with Japanese help, he was to raise a force of 60,000 men to march on India. Back in Germany the men he had recruited were left leaderless and demoralised. After much dissent and even a mutiny, the German High Command despatched them first to Holland and then south-west France, where they were told to help fortify the coast for an expected allied landing.
After D-Day, the Free India Legion, which had now been drafted into Himmler's Waffen SS, were in headlong retreat through France, along with regular German units.
It was during this time that they gained a wild and loathsome reputation amongst the civilian population.
The former French Resistance fighter, Henri Gendreaux, remembers the Legion passing through his home town of Ruffec: "I do remember several cases of rape. A lady and her two daughters were raped and in another case they even shot dead a little two-year-old girl."
Finally, instead of driving the British from India, the Free India Legion were themselves driven from France and then Germany.
Their German military translator at the time was Private Rudolf Hartog, who is now 80.
"The last day we were together an armoured tank appeared. I thought, my goodness, what can I do? I'm finished," he said.
"But he only wanted to collect the Indians. We embraced each other and cried. You see that was the end."
Mutinies
A year later the Indian legionnaires were sent back to India, where all were released after short jail sentences.
But when the British put three of their senior officers on trial near Delhi there were mutinies in the army and protests on the streets.
With the British now aware that the Indian army could no longer be relied upon by the Raj to do its bidding, independence followed soon after.
Not that Subhas Chandra Bose was to see the day he had fought so hard for. He died in 1945.
Since then little has been heard of Lieutenant Barwant Singh and his fellow legionnaires.
At the end of the war the BBC was forbidden from broadcasting their story and this remarkable saga was locked away in the archives, until now. Not that Lieutenant Singh has ever forgotten those dramatic days.
"In front of my eyes I can see how we all looked, how we would all sing and how we all talked about what eventually would happen to us all," he said.

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Pakistan judge issues arrest warrant for Abdul Aziz

A judge in Pakistan has issued an arrest warrant for a cleric at a radical mosque in Islamabad who has refused to condemn the massacre of children at an army-run school.

Imam Abdul Aziz has been accused of threatening protesters outside the Red Mosque.
The cleric said the charge against him was insignificant.
Last week, Taliban fighters attacked the school in Peshawar, killing 152 people, including 133 children.
Mr Aziz said that the authorities should focus on arresting people accused of more serious crimes.
"My case is very small and even a sub-inspector can grant me bail," he said.
 Mr Aziz is well known for his pro-Taliban views.
Earlier this year, a school run by the cleric renamed its library in honour of the former al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden.
A spokesman for the Red Mosque said they would resist the arrest of Mr Aziz.
Civil society activists had lodged the complaint against Mr Aziz, saying that they had been threatened by mosque employees during a protest about his refusal to condemn the school massacre.
The demonstrators are also being investigated for holding an unlawful protest.
Pakistan has stepped up its anti-terror operations since the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar on 16 December.
Earlier this week, the government announced new measures to tackle terrorism, including the establishment of military courts to hear terrorism-related cases.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Wednesday that there was a "changed Pakistan" since the tragedy and that there would be "no place for terrorism, extremism, sectarianism and intolerance."

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Pope condemns Taliban attack on Pak students

Pope Francis issued a strident call in his Christmas day message to safeguard children who are victims “under our very eyes” of violence and trafficking, while also demanding an end to “brutal persecution” worldwide.
Killings and hostage-takings from the Middle East

to Nigeria and elsewhere must stop, he said in his annual Christmas “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) message.
Denouncing conflicts in Ukraine and Libya, and noting last week’s deadly attack against a school in Pakistan, the pontiff also lamented the thousands of victims of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.
“Truly there are so many tears this Christmas,” he said.
Delivering his second Christmas blessing, the popular Argentine pontiff, visibly moved and departing from his text, noted “the children massacred by bombardments, including where the son of God was born” and their “powerless silence that cries under the sword.”
Denouncing “indifference”, he explicitly condemned abortion, deploring the children “killed before seeing the light”.
“May Jesus save the vast numbers of children who are victims of violence, made objects of trade and trafficking, or forced to become soldiers.” “May he give comfort to the families of the children killed in Pakistan last week” referring to the 150 people, including 134 school-children, killed in Peshawar by the Taliban.
Speaking to a large crowd massed outside Saint Peter’s Basilica, the pope urged Ukrainians to “overcome tensions, conquer hatred and violence and set out on a new journey of fraternity and reconciliation”. He turned too to the violence wrought by Islamic State fundamentalists this year in Syria and Iraq.
“I ask him, the saviour of the world, to look upon our brothers and sisters in Iraq and Syria, who for too long now have suffered the effects of ongoing conflict, and who, together with those belonging to other ethnic and religious groups, are suffering a brutal persecution.”
There were “too many displaced persons, exiles and refugees, adults and elderly, from this region and the whole world,” he said.
He called for peace in “the whole Middle East” and continued efforts towards “dialogue” between Israelis and Palestinians.
The pope too urged peace in Nigeria “where more blood is being shed”, as well as in Libya, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He noted the victims of Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and thanked those who were “courageously” assisting the sick.
The Pope urged people not to be indifferent to the suffering of so many around the world. Pope Francis also appealed for an end to conflicts in African countries and urged dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians.
The 78-year-old pope spoke from the same balcony of St Peter’s Basilica where he first appeared as pontiff on the night of his election on March 13, 2013.
“May indifference be changed into closeness and rejection into hospitality, so that all who now are suffering may receive the necessary humanitarian help to overcome the rigours of winter, return to their countries and live with dignity,” he said, speaking in Italian.
On Christmas eve, Francis made a surprise telephone call to comfort Christian refugees in a camp in Ankawa, Iraq. “You are like Jesus on Christmas night. There was no room for him either ...” he told them.
The pope has a busy year ahead of him, with trips planned to Asia, Africa, Latin American and the United States.
Another key project for 2015 is the reform of the Curia, the Vatican’s central administration. In Christmas greetings on Monday to the Vatican’s top administrators, Pope Francis delivered a stinging critique of Vatican bureaucracy.
In his Christmas message, which was fairly brief, the pope traditionally calls for remedies to the world’s woes.
Francis however has put an end to a longstanding tradition of popes wishing a happy Christmas in dozens of languages.
At a Christmas Eve mass, he urged Roman Catholics to have greater empathy towards family and friends, saying the world needs “tenderness” and “warmth”.
Francis sent a video message to South Koreans recalling his trip to the country in August in which he said: “The great celebration in honour of the (Catholic) martyrs (in the 18th and 19th centuries in Korea), and the encounters with young people remain fresh in my memory.”
In Bethlehem on Christmas Eve hectic preparations preceded celebrations on the West Bank town’s biggest night of the year, culminating in midnight mass at the Church of the Nativity built over the spot where Christians believe the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus.
Scouts playing bagpipes and drums marched to the church in a procession led by Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal, the top Catholic cleric in the Holy Land.
In his homily, Twal called for “peace in Jerusalem”, where violent clashes between Israelis and Palestinians rocked the city for months, and “equality and mutual respect” among all faiths.
He also asked for the rebuilding of Gaza, which was ravaged this summer during a 50-day war between Hamas and Israel in which more than 2,200 people died.

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