Osama bin Laden doctor to appeal treason sentence

Pakistani surgeon Shakeel Afridi, who was working for CIA to help find Osama bin Laden

Pakistani lawyers will appeal the conviction for treason handed to Shakeel Afridi, the surgeon recruited by US intelligence to help find Osama bin Laden. 

The archaic form of justice that governs Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt on Wednesday jailed Afridi for 33 years for agreeing to try and collect DNA for US intelligence in their bid to locate bin Laden.

Afridi ran a fake vaccination programme designed to collect bin Laden family DNA from the compound in the town of Abbottabad, where the al-Qaeda leader was shot dead in a US raid in May 2011.

"We have requested the Khyber administration to provide us with the documents related to the trial and conviction, and once we get them, we will file an appeal in the office of the commissioner of the Frontier Crimes Regulation," lawyer Samiullah Afridi told AFP.

The lawyer, general secretary of the Peace Movement, a civil society group against militancy, said his organisation did not believe the doctor committed any crime, but had instead worked "to help eliminate terrorism".

The surgeon Afridi's jailing has exasperated the US, where the Senate Appropriations Committee has voted to cut US aid to Pakistan by a symbolic $33 million – $1 million for each year of jail time.

The measure, an amendment to the $52 billion US foreign aid budget, passed in a 30-0 vote in a sign of growing frustration with Pakistan.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the sentence was "unjust and unwarranted", saying Afridi was "instrumental in taking down one of the world's most-wanted murderers".

Source: AFP

Australia and South Africa to share SKA super telescope

Artists impression of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope project

Australia and South Africa will share the location for the SKA, the world's most powerful radio telescope, strong enough to detect extraterrestrial life. 

"We have decided on a dual site approach," said SKA (Square Kilometre Array) board chairman John Womersley at a press conference held at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, following a meeting of the organisation's members in the Dutch capital.

Both South Africa and Australia were competing to win the $2 billion contract for the SKA, an instrument that will be 50 times more sensitive than today's most powerful radio telescopes.

Scientists hope the SKA, a massive radio telescope, will shed light on fundamental questions about the Universe including how it began, why it is expanding and whether it contains life beyond our planet.

The eagerly awaited decision now means that engineers can connect antennas at Australia's core site at Mileura station 60 miles west of Meekathara in Western Australia. Other antennae are distributed across Australia and New Zealand.

South Africa's site in the arid Karoo region will now also be connected by a remote link to a network of dishes stretching across southern and eastern Africa and as far away as Ghana.

Its construction is scheduled to start in 2016, becoming fully operational in 2024.

Scanning the sky 10,000 times faster and with 50 times the sensitivity of any other telescope, it will be used to study the origins of the universe and will be able to detect weak signals that could indicate the presence of extraterrestrial life.

The lobbying has been intense and at times acrimonious, with the Australians raising concerns about the security of such an expensive project in South Africa, which suffers from high rates of violent crime.

South Africa has accused the other side of dirty tricks and selectively leaking data to boost its bid in what are supposed to be secret deliberations.

Campaign for Scottish independence launched in Edinburgh

First Minister Alex Salmond, one of the key speakers at the launch in Edinburgh, said: "We unite behind a declaration of self-evident truth"

The formal campaign for Scottish independence has been launched at a celebrity-endorsed event. 

Organisers of the Yes Scotland movement vowed to stage the "biggest community-based campaign in Scotland's history" in the run-up to the independence referendum which could take place in October 2014.

First Minister Alex Salmond, one of the key speakers at the launch in Edinburgh, said: "We unite behind a declaration of self-evident truth.

"The people who live in Scotland are best placed to make the decisions that affect Scotland.

"We want a Scotland that's greener, that's fairer and more prosperous.

"We realise that the power of an independent Scotland is necessary to achieve these great ends."

A message of support from actor Sir Sean Connery, a long-standing supporter of independence, was read out to the crowd.

Alan Cumming, the Scottish film, television and stage actor, also attended.

Mr Salmond continued: "We don't start from scratch. We have a parliament which has earned its spurs for more than a decade. If the parliament can run education, then why can't it run the economy? If it can be trusted to run the health service, then why can't it represent Scotland internationally?

"If it can be trusted to protect our old people, then why can't we protect the country, and do so without the obscenity of nuclear weapons?"

After a round of applause, the Scottish National Party leader said: "I want Scotland to be independent not because I think we are better than any other country but because I know we're as good as any other country.

"Like these other nations, our future, our resources, our success should be in our own hands."

The campaign will be built "brick by brick" across communities, he said.

"We intend to take our case to the people by community activism and online wizardry," he said.

"By the time we enter the referendum campaign in autumn 2014, our intention is to have one million Scots who have signed the independence for Scotland declaration.

"Friends, if we achieve that, then we shall win an independent Scotland."

The message from former James Bond star Sir Sean was read out by Martin Compston, who starred in the Ken Loach film Sweet Sixteen.

"This is a historic day for Scotland," it said. "The Yes campaign has centred on a positive vision for Scotland. It is rooted in inclusiveness, equality and that core democratic value that the people of Scotland are the best guardians of their own future."

Muslim soldier convicted of plot to kill fellow US troops

Naser Jason Abdo

A Muslim soldier has been convicted of plotting to blow up a Texas restaurant packed with American troops in the hope fulfilling his religious mission to get "justice" for civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Jurors in deliberated a little more than an hour before finding Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo guilty of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, attempted murder of US officers or employees, and four counts of possessing a weapon.

Abdo, 22, did not stand with his attorneys when jurors and the judge entered the room, and he showed no emotion when each of the six guilty verdicts was read by the court clerk. Abdo, who is HIV positive and has been accused of spitting blood at his jailers, wore a mask covering his nose and mouth throughout the trial.

He faces up to life in prison and will be sentenced in July.

Prosecutors said Abdo had already started making a bomb when he was detained at a Killeen motel last year after going absent without leave from Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Authorities also found numerous bomb-making components, a loaded gun, 143 rounds of ammunition, a stun gun and other items in his backpack and motel room.

In a recorded police interview, Abdo said he was planning to pull off an attack in the Fort Hood area "because I don't appreciate what my unit did in Afghanistan."

He told authorities he planned to put the bomb in a busy restaurant filled with soldiers, wait outside and shoot anyone who survived - and become a martyr after police killed him.

Abdo told an investigator that he didn't plan an attack inside Fort Hood because he didn't believe he would be able to get through security at the gates.

During the four-day trial, a recorded jail conversation was played for jurors in which Abdo told his mother his religion inspired his actions and he was seeking justice for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Their suffering is my suffering," he said.

Abdo's lead attorney, Zach Boyd, told jurors during closing arguments that Abdo should be acquitted because his plan never progressed beyond preparation.

Killeen police began investigating Abdo on July 26 after a gun store employee reported a young man bought nearly 3kg of smokeless gunpowder, shotgun ammunition and a magazine for a semiautomatic pistol, while behaving in an odd manner and seeming to know little about his purchases.

Officers also learned that Abdo bought a US Army uniform and a "Smith" name patch from another store, and jurors saw surveillance footage showing him leaving the store wearing the uniform he just bought.

He was detained on July 27, 2011, after police tracked him to the motel in Killeen, about 150 miles southwest of Dallas.

"A disaster was averted because somebody picked up the phone and made a call," prosecutor Mark Frazier told the Associated Press after the trial, when the judge's gag order was lifted.

"The people who work in businesses like this are vigilant ... and risked being embarrassed if their suspicions turned out to be nothing, but that's what we want people to do."

Abdo went AWOL from the Kentucky base over the Fourth of July weekend, about two months after he was charged with possessing child pornography, which put his conscientious objector status on hold.

Abdo then went to Nashville, bought a gun from an online seller and kept traveling until he ended up in his Dallas-area hometown. He paid cash for food, motel rooms and bus and cab fare and used his roommate's ID card. When his Dallas friends didn't help him, he wanted to go to South Texas but chose Killeen because he remembered news reports of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting rampage in which a Muslim soldier is charged, according to testimony.

Major Nidal Hasan faces the death penalty in the Fort Hood shootings if convicted at his trial, which starts in August.

Abdo became a Muslim when he was 17. He enlisted in the military in 2009, thinking that the service wouldn't conflict with his religious beliefs. But according to his essay that was part of his conscientious objector status application, Abdo reconsidered as he explored Islam further.

In that essay, which he sent to the AP in 2010, Abdo said acts like the Fort Hood shootings "run counter to what I believe in as a Muslim."

Chen Guangcheng: my suffering was beyond imagination

Chen Guangcheng, the blind dissident, described his suffering during 20 months of house arrest in China as "beyond imagination". 

In his first major interview since arriving safely in the US six days ago, Mr Chen said that the Chinese government's campaign of persecution against his family and supporters had stepped up since he left the country.

"I'm very worried. We can see their retribution against my family since my escape has continued and been intensified," he told CNN.

Mr Chen escape from house arrest and decision to seek refuge in the US Embassy in Beijing led to a major diplomatic struggle that reached the highest levels of the US and Chinese governments.

The 40-year-old's older brother, Chen Gangfu, was reportedly tortured after he escaped in April and on Tuesday also fled his village, dodging a series of guards to reach Beijing.

Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng arrives in New York. (REUTERS)

Mr Chen's nephew, Chen Kegui, has been charged with attempted murder after he drew a knife against security officials who raided his home.

"When dozens of men break into someone's house with weapons in the middle of the night, taking away your parent with a hood over his head and detain him without any legal basis and then go back to assault my nephew, he only reacted when he could no longer bear the beatings, and his actions would be self defense according to any Chinese law," Mr Chen said in his nephew's defence.

He claimed that Chen Kegui, 32, had suffered severe head injuries and been repeatedly beaten during the incident.

Mr Chen also praised the small band of supporters who helped him escape from his home village of Dongshigu in northeastern China.

"When a group of people come together and accomplish something, they often fight for credit. In my case, all those people who went to Shandong to pick me up, when the news broke, they were fighting for risk instead of credit," he said. "They were all trying to claim responsibility to make others safer."

Mr Chen was also asked about his long crusade to expose forced abortions carried out by the Chinese government under the one-child policy.

"It was natural for me, it was very natural for me. I feel it's in people's nature to want to stop evil and embrace the good," he said.

Court case over drone strike 'could force Britain to reveal intelligence exchanges with US'

A boy stands at the site of suspected U.S. drone attacks in the Janikhel tribal area in Bannu district of North West Frontier Province in Pakistan, November 19, 2008

A court action brought by a Pakistani student whose father was killed in a suspected US missile strike last year could force Britain to reveal whether it gives America intelligence for drone attacks on terrorist suspects. 

Human rights lawyers acting on behalf of Noor Khan are seeking a judicial review aimed at forcing the Foreign Secretary to say whether there is such a policy, in a case which threatens to expose ministers to allegations of war crimes, it was reported.

The US has used hundreds of drone strikes against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban targets in Pakistan since 2004 – a tactic it has also deployed to attack militants based in Yemen.

It has been seen to have played a key role in thwarting terror plots against the West.

Michael Clarke, director of the Royal United Services Institute, told a newspaper he would be “astonished” if British agents were not giving their US counterparts information to help them locate terrorist suspects.

“I believe it to be true that our intelligence information in certain cases has pinpointed targets for attacks and those attacks do amount to extra-judicial killing,” Mr Clarke said.

“From a political point of view the whole question of our intelligence involvement in drone attacks is a political hot potato.”

Mr Khan, whose father is one of hundreds of civilians who say they have lost innocent friends or relatives in the drone attacks in the Waziristan region of Pakistan.

Daud Khan and at least 40 other people from the same tribe died when a meeting of elders was struck by a missile thought to have been fired from a CIA drone on March 17, 2011.

Speaking via his lawyer in Islamabad, Mr Khan told The Times: “I want to achieve justice. I would like those to be on trial who were responsible for the killing of my father.”

There is no indication that British intelligence was used in this strike, but Mr Khan’s application to the High Court – which may be heard as early as July – will go to the heart of a “grey area” in the intelligence-sharing contacts between the US and UK.

Among those killed are believed to be seven British passport holders – raising the possibility of the UK being accused of complicity in the deaths of its own citizens, whether they were suspected of terrorist activity or not.

Clive Stafford-Smith, director of legal charity Reprieve, which is backing the application, said the UK “should be worried because there is no question that they are complicit in war crimes”.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “It is the UK’s longstanding policy not to comment on intelligence matters.”

Israeli anti-immigration riots hit African neighbourhood of Tel Aviv

Bracing themselves for a second round of nationalist protests on Thursday evening, the residents of Hatikva are struggling to resume normal life

Tel Aviv has been hit by the most violent protests in its recent history after more than 1,000 Israelis took to the streets in the city's south to demand the deportation of African immigrants and asylum seekers. 

The predominately black neighbourhood of Hatikva was ransacked by groups of nationalist protesters who had attended a demonstration on Wednesday night against illegal African migrants.

The protesters claim the Africans are responsible for a rise in crime, bearing signs saying "This is not Africa" and "Stop talking, start expelling".

"Blacks out!" shouted demonstrators in the crowd, while others yelled "Send the Sudanese back to Sudan", as other protesters derided the "bleeding-heart leftists" working to help them.

The mob set cans of rubbish on fire, smashed the windows of shops owned by Eritrean migrants and beat up Africans walking through the streets.

TJ, a 29-year-old migrant from Nigeria, watched the violent chaos from his rooftop having been chased and pelted with rocks when he attempted to leave his house.

"There were protesters everywhere smashing shop and car windows," he said. "A group of about 10 or 15 boys stopped one black kid cycling on his bike. They pulled him off and were punching and kicking him in his head. The police just stood and watched until it got really out of control."

Other witnesses described a gang assaulting a mother carrying a young baby so violently that she was forced to drop her child. Others stopped shuttle buses to search for migrant workers among their passengers.

The Israeli police confirmed they had arrested 17 suspects involved in "a protest against illegal African immigrants". Extra police units were positioned to prevent further violence in the area last night.

Peace Now, an Israeli human rights organisation, is calling for an investigation into whether the speakers at Wednesday night's rally, including Knesset ministers Miri Regev, Danny Danon, Yari Levin and Michael Ben-Ari, are guilty of incitement.

During her address, Ms Regev described illegal immigrants as a "cancer in our society".

Danny Danon, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, wrote in a Facebook status later the same evening: "Israel is at war. An enemy state of infiltrators was established in Israel, and its capital is south Tel Aviv."

According to Israeli government figures, there are currently 60,000 African asylum seekers in Israel.

The vast majority come from Eritrea and Sudan and were smuggled into the country by foot through Israel's southern border with Egypt, many having been beaten and tortured by their smugglers in camps in the Sinai en route.

Israel terms any illegal immigrant through this border an 'infiltrator' and estimate 90 per cent are economic migrants coming to Israel to look for work – a stark contrast to the figures in England and Canada, where 66 per cent and 96 per cent of Eritreans who arrive illegally are granted refugee status.

The Israeli government currently does not deport Eritreans or Sudanese however Yehuda Weinstein, Israel's attorney general, will appear before the Jerusalem District Court next week to argue that there is no longer a legal obstacle to expelling 700 Southern Sudanese refugees. If approved, Israel will be the first country to have reached this decision.

Defending her position on Thursday, Ms Regev insisted that while she does not condone violence, African immigrants pose a grave demographic threat to Israel. "Israel should adopt the US protocol of returning infiltrators to the border within 72 hours ... Jews and Israelis are scared of living in their country," she said.

Mr Danon's proposition to prevent further violence was to deport the city's African residents " to detention facilities and remove Africans from population centres".

Bracing themselves for a second round of nationalist protests on Thursday evening, the residents of Hatikva are struggling to resume normal life.

'TJ' says he is among the few who has left his home following the violence: "Black people have been too afraid to leave their homes to go to work today. Racism in Tel Aviv is not only getting worse it's getting out of hand and the police are no help. We are terrified."

Israeli anti-immigration riots hit African neighbourhood of Tel Aviv

Bracing themselves for a second round of nationalist protests on Thursday evening, the residents of Hatikva are struggling to resume normal life

Tel Aviv has been hit by the most violent protests in its recent history after more than 1,000 Israelis took to the streets in the city's south to demand the deportation of African immigrants and asylum seekers. 

The predominately black neighbourhood of Hatikva was ransacked by groups of nationalist protesters who had attended a demonstration on Wednesday night against illegal African migrants.

The protesters claim the Africans are responsible for a rise in crime, bearing signs saying "This is not Africa" and "Stop talking, start expelling".

"Blacks out!" shouted demonstrators in the crowd, while others yelled "Send the Sudanese back to Sudan", as other protesters derided the "bleeding-heart leftists" working to help them.

The mob set cans of rubbish on fire, smashed the windows of shops owned by Eritrean migrants and beat up Africans walking through the streets.

TJ, a 29-year-old migrant from Nigeria, watched the violent chaos from his rooftop having been chased and pelted with rocks when he attempted to leave his house.

"There were protesters everywhere smashing shop and car windows," he said. "A group of about 10 or 15 boys stopped one black kid cycling on his bike. They pulled him off and were punching and kicking him in his head. The police just stood and watched until it got really out of control."

Other witnesses described a gang assaulting a mother carrying a young baby so violently that she was forced to drop her child. Others stopped shuttle buses to search for migrant workers among their passengers.

The Israeli police confirmed they had arrested 17 suspects involved in "a protest against illegal African immigrants". Extra police units were positioned to prevent further violence in the area last night.

Peace Now, an Israeli human rights organisation, is calling for an investigation into whether the speakers at Wednesday night's rally, including Knesset ministers Miri Regev, Danny Danon, Yari Levin and Michael Ben-Ari, are guilty of incitement.

During her address, Ms Regev described illegal immigrants as a "cancer in our society".

Danny Danon, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, wrote in a Facebook status later the same evening: "Israel is at war. An enemy state of infiltrators was established in Israel, and its capital is south Tel Aviv."

According to Israeli government figures, there are currently 60,000 African asylum seekers in Israel.

The vast majority come from Eritrea and Sudan and were smuggled into the country by foot through Israel's southern border with Egypt, many having been beaten and tortured by their smugglers in camps in the Sinai en route.

Israel terms any illegal immigrant through this border an 'infiltrator' and estimate 90 per cent are economic migrants coming to Israel to look for work – a stark contrast to the figures in England and Canada, where 66 per cent and 96 per cent of Eritreans who arrive illegally are granted refugee status.

The Israeli government currently does not deport Eritreans or Sudanese however Yehuda Weinstein, Israel's attorney general, will appear before the Jerusalem District Court next week to argue that there is no longer a legal obstacle to expelling 700 Southern Sudanese refugees. If approved, Israel will be the first country to have reached this decision.

Defending her position on Thursday, Ms Regev insisted that while she does not condone violence, African immigrants pose a grave demographic threat to Israel. "Israel should adopt the US protocol of returning infiltrators to the border within 72 hours ... Jews and Israelis are scared of living in their country," she said.

Mr Danon's proposition to prevent further violence was to deport the city's African residents " to detention facilities and remove Africans from population centres".

Bracing themselves for a second round of nationalist protests on Thursday evening, the residents of Hatikva are struggling to resume normal life.

'TJ' says he is among the few who has left his home following the violence: "Black people have been too afraid to leave their homes to go to work today. Racism in Tel Aviv is not only getting worse it's getting out of hand and the police are no help. We are terrified."

Chinese 'serial killer' farmer suspected of killing 17 people

In January, 13,000 police officers were deployed to search for Zeng Kaigui, after he shot dead his latest victim in the city of Nanjing. Zeng is suspected of killing six people in a rash of armed robberies since 2004, and has yet to be caught

A 56-year-old farmer has been arrested for murder in a southern Chinese village where 17 people, almost all teenagers, have vanished in recent years. 

When children started disappearing in Nanmen village, near the Chinese city of Kunming, their distraught parents believed they had been kidnapped to work in illegal brick factories.

No one thought, according to the parents of one missing teenager, that Zhang Yongming, a quiet, chess-playing, farmer who lived in a wooden shack on the edge of the village, might be responsible.

But on May 9, police investigating the disappearance of Han Yao, a 19-year-old boy, found his bank and telephone calling cards inside Zhang's home. They arrested the farmer shortly afterwards.

The teenager had gone missing in April, and was last seen near a large cold storage unit a few hundred yards from Mr Zhang's house. As his family asked around the village of a few thousand people, they discovered that at least eight other youths had gone missing in exactly the same area in the last five years, six of whom vanished in the last 15 months.

Now there are suspicions that Mr Zhang may be linked to as many as 17 deaths. As the families of the missing children gathered outside his house earlier this month, they witnessed policemen removing several green plastic bags of evidence, including one that appeared to contain at least one bone.

"I know Zhang. Not a single person in the village doubted him until now," said Li Yudong, 42, whose 12-year-old son Hanxiong went missing on May 1, 2007. "Zhang never spoke to anyone, not even the people who lived next to him. We used to see him every day but we never paid any attention to him. Now, like everyone else, I think he may be responsible for my son's disappearance.

We are all worried in the village, and the children are being escorted to and from school these days."
Mr Li said he had been working on the farm on the day his son had disappeared, and was surprised not to find him at home for lunch. When he did not return by 5pm, he reported the case to the police.

"We searched for him for months. We thought he must have been sent to work in a sweatshop or brick kiln. We spent all of our savings, some 80,000 yuan (£8,000) searching for him".

The local police has now admitted that Mr Zhang was sentenced to life for murder in 1978, in a case where he had dismembered his victim.

However, he was released in 1997.
Then, last December, he was found trying to strangle a 17-year-old, Zhang Jianyuan, with a belt outside his house. At the time, the villagers called the police, but Zhang laughed off the episode, saying that he was just fooling with the boy.

"We reported to the police that Zhang had tried to strangle this boy, but they simply told us he was mentally ill," said Xie Shunsheng, 39, whose 16 year-old boy Haijun went missing in January 2011.

"We are now going to the police station everyday, but they are not releasing any news, so we have no idea how the investigation is going," he added.

A special team has been sent from the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing to carry out the investigation, while the local police chief, Da Qiming, and another police official Zhao Huiyun, have been dismissed for failing to act on so many disappearances. The police declined to comment on the case.

Cai Wen, 40, whose 17-year-old boy Cai Yunwei went missing in February, said the entire village was tensed for the findings of the investigation. "People are nervous. We are begging the government to find our son for us."

Although China has a relatively low rate of violent crime, it has seen a spate of serial killings in recent years. In January, 13,000 police officers and two helicopters were deployed to search for Zeng Kaigui, a former People's Liberation Army soldier, after he shot dead his latest victim in the city of Nanjing. Zeng is suspected of killing six people in a rash of armed robberies since 2004, and has yet to be caught.

Last November, police arrested Yang Shubin and three of his associates. Yang would seduce women in bars before bringing them home, where his gang would tie them up and torture them for their bank details. Later, they chopped up their victims and fed them through a mincing machine.

Between 1998 and 2004, the gang made 2 million yuan (£200,000) from its victims.

In September, a low-level government official in Henan province was found to have set up a sex dungeon in which he had kept several women captive, and killed at least two.

In 2006, Yang Xinhai, the "monster killer" was convicted of killing 65 men, women and children.

Mauritius honeymoon murder accused 'suffocated' before confession

Mrs McAreavey, the daughter of Tyrone Gaelic football manager Mickey Harte, had been enjoying tea with her husband of 12 days in a poolside restaurant

A hotel cleaner accused of murdering honeymoon bride Michaela McAreavey in Mauritius has claimed that he only confessed to the crime after police "suffocated" him with a towel.

Prosecutors said Avinash Treebhoowoon, 30, told detectives that he and co-accused Sandip Moonea, 42, decided to kill Mrs McAreavey after she "caught them red-handed" stealing from her room.

Mr Treebhoowoon claims he was then forced to sign a statement admitting that he had strangled the former beauty queen-turned-teacher, from Ballygawley, Co Tyrone.

The statement was written on January 12 2011, just two days after former beauty queen Mrs McAreavey, 27, was found dead by her husband John in the bath of their room at the island's five-star Legends hotel.

Sanjeev Teeluckdharry, Mr Treebhoowoon's lawyer, said his client was beaten on the face and heels before making it.

Reading from a complaint he made to court authorities shortly after the murder, he said: "I was made to suffocate in a towel." On another occasion, Mr Treebhoowoon alleged, officers mock-drowned him. "I was placed on a table. I was undressed and a pail of water was filled," he said in his statement.

"I was on a chair, I was gripped by the neck and placed in that pail of water.

"On the following day, two officers took me in the morning in a van and I was beaten up."

Jurors were told that police had failed to dress their suspect in an anti-contamination suit when they took him back to the crime scene.

According to a crime-scene photographer, they also neglected to wear the suits themselves.

The case against Mr Treebhoowoon and Mr Moneea is expected to last two to three weeks. Mrs McAreavey was the only daughter of Tyrone Gaelic football manager Mickey Harte. She died on honeymoon, 12 days after marrying Mr McAreavey.

'Imperial should be ditched in favour of metric in time for Olympics'

Lord Howe: “Weights and measures are in a mess. Litres for petrol and fizzy drinks, pints for beer and milk"

Miles, pints and ounces should be abandoned in favour of a fully metric system because visitors to the Olympics will think Britain is living in its “imperial past”, a former Tory chancellor has said. 

Lord Howe of Aberavon, who served in Baroness Thatcher’s cabinet, called on ministers to end the “deeply confusing shambles” of using a mixture of metric and imperial measures.

He said the lack of any attempt by the Government to clarify the arrangements was the “most glaring omission” from the Queen’s Speech.

During debate on the speech in the House of Lords, he said: “Weights and measures are in a mess. Litres for petrol and fizzy drinks, pints for beer and milk, metres and kilometres for athletics and the Ordnance Survey, miles per gallon for cars, the metric system for school, still pounds and ounces for the market.

“This muddle does matter. It increases cost, confuses shoppers, leads to serious misunderstandings, causes accidents, confuses our children’s education and, quite bluntly, puts us all to shame.”

Lord Howe said he was responsible for metrication as consumer affairs minister in the early 1970s, while as a “penny-saving chancellor of the exchequer” from 1979 he had readily accepted the abolition of the Metrication Board.

The country had been “dithering” on the issue for 150 years and that had led to a split between a “metrically literate elite and a rudderless and bewildered majority”. He added: “The only solution is to complete the changeover to metric as swiftly and as cleanly as possible.”

Stuntman attempts 2400ft skydive without a parachute

Stuntman Gary Connery will attempt the leap from 2400 feet without the use of a parachute

A stuntman, Gary Connery, is set to leap from a helicopter 2,400ft above the ground as he attempts to safely land on a pile of boxes without using a parachute. 

The 42-year-old daredevil will make the death-defying plunge before landing in an area containing 18,600 cardboard boxes.

The father-of-two, a veteran of 880 sky dives, 450 base jumps and dozens of film and television roles, will jump this afternoon above Ridge Wood, Bucks.

If successful, he will become the first person who has jumped from such a height, not deployed a parachute, and lived.

The entire flight of nearly a mile will take less than a minute but was only given the green light because the weather conditions were “perfect”.

Mr Connery, from Henley-on-Thames, Oxon, will drop for three seconds before reaching speeds of more than 80mph in a specially developed wing suit that will "start to fly".

He will then attempt to land on a strip measuring about 350ft (100m) by 45ft (15m) - and at its highest point 12ft off the ground - at Temple Island Meadows, on the Buckinghamshire and Berkshire border.
In order to survive the audacious stunt, he must flare his wing suit about 200ft from his target in order to bring his gliding speed down to 50mph and his vertical falling speed to 15mph.
On Wednesday afternoon final preparations were taking place as officials monitored the wind.
Mr Connery, whose films include Die Another Day, The Beach, Batman Begins and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, insisted he would survive, as performing stunts was "his life".
But he did admit to being “a bit scared”.
“I'm 100 per cent confident I can achieve this jump,” said the former paratrooper, who has trained for the jump in the Swiss and Italian alps.
“I know I can fly, I know I can hit the target, I feel I've assessed the risk that I'm presented with and I've put everything in place to minimise that risk.
"This stunt will get great recognition and will be a post in the runway of aviation history. I'm sure plenty of people will think I'm bonkers but that's OK, I take that as a compliment."
He added: "Now we have the green light, I can't wait to go for it.
"The last few days have been a whirl of activity making sure everything is in place for flight.
"There has been so much interest in my world first attempt and a huge amount of support from the British public."
He admitted his wife Vivienne, and children Kali, 15 and Lydia, 19, were worried.
Mrs Connery, 45, who owns a cafe in Henley, added: “Doubts – maybe not, but I am feeling anxious about the project and the reality of what he is going to be doing.”
He made his first parachute jump as an Army recruit at the age of 23 and has since become a professional stuntman.
He has leapt from the top of London’s Tower Bridge, the London Eye, Nelson's Column and the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Patrick De Gayardon, the French aristocrat inventor of the modern wing suit, died when his parachute malfunctioned over Hawaii in 1998.

Secret Service engaged in 'morally repugnant' behaviour

Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Joe Lieberman Photo: AP

Several small groups of Secret Service employees separately visited clubs, bars and brothels in Colombia prior to a visit by President Barack Obama last month and engaged in reckless, "morally repugnant" behaviour, a US senator has claimed. 

Sen. Susan Collins, speaking as the first congressional hearing on the scandal begins, says the prostitution scandal could have provided a foreign intelligence service, drug cartels or other criminals with opportunities for blackmail or coercion that could have threatened the president's safety.

In remarks prepared for Wednesday's hearing, Ms Collins also challenged early assurances that the scandal in Colombia appeared to be an isolated incident. The senator noted that two participants were Secret Service supervisors – one with 21 years of service and the other with 22 years – and both were married.

"This was not a one-time event," said Ms Collins, the senior Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "The circumstances unfortunately suggest an issue of culture."

The Secret Service is tasked with protecting the president and those close to the presidency.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the committee's chairman, said, "I want to hear what the Secret Service is doing to encourage people to report egregious behaviour when they see it."

Wednesday's hearing was expected to expose sensational new details in the scandal, which became public after a dispute over payment between a Secret Service agent and a prostitute at a Cartagena hotel on April 12. The Secret Service was in the coastal resort before Obama's arrival for a Latin American summit. Collins said several small groups of agency employees from two hotels went out separately to clubs, bars and brothels and they "all ended up in similar circumstances."

"Contrary to the conventional storyline, this was not simply a single, organised group that went out for a night on the town together," Collins said.

A dozen Secret Service officers and supervisors and 12 other U.S. military personnel were implicated. Eight Secret Service employees, including the two supervisors, have lost their jobs. The Secret Service is moving to permanently revoke the security clearance for one other employee, and three others have been cleared of serious wrongdoing.

Images of the woman known only as 'Dania' show her posing for the camera.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that four of the Secret Service employees have decided to fight their dismissals.

Senators were expected to focus on whether the Secret Service permitted a culture in which such behaviour was tolerated. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has testified that she would be surprised if there were other examples, but senators have been sceptical.

In his own prepared remarks, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told senators the behaviour in Colombia was not representative of the agency's nearly 7,000 employees.

Cameron's clangers: the jokes the PM may regret

David Cameron called Ed Balls a "muttering idiot" at PMQs

After Prime Minister David Cameron was forced to apologise for calling Ed Balls a "muttering idiot" in a heated exchange in the House of Commons, the Telegraph remembers his most outspoken moments. 

• In April 2011 he told was criticised for patronising MP Angela Eagle, after he told her to “calm down, dear” during questions on NHS reform.

“Calm down dear and listen to the doctor,” he told her.

The Labour party immediately demanded an apology but Cameron refused, telling Ed Balls: “I said calm down. I’ll say it to you if you like.”

Eagle, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, later said the remark would have "offended 51 per cent of the nation", adding: "I don't think any modern man would have expressed himself in that way."

• In January 2012, he angered disability campaigners by comparing working with Ed Balls in the House of Commons to “having someone with Tourette’s sitting opposite you?”
At the time, one critic noted: “For lots of people, Cameron's casual use of a disability to insult another politician will be shocking.”

• In September 2011, he was accused of humiliating MP Nadine Dorries, labelling her “frustrated” in an apparently unintentional double-entrende.
In an exchange at PMQs, Dorries asked: “Is it time the Prime Minister told the Deputy Prime Minister who’s boss?”
To jeers and laugher from the chamber, Cameron replied: “I know the honourable lady is extremely frustrated…about…err… maybe I should start that again.
“I’m going to give up on this one.”

• In January 2012, he was accused of ageism after calling veteran Labour MP Dennis Skinner a “dinosaur” after he asked a question on the Leveson Inquiry.
“It’s good to see the honourable gentleman on such good form,” he said. “I often say to my children, no need to go to the Natural History museum to see a dinosaur, come to the House of Commons at about half past 12.”

• In April 2012, he repeated the sentiments, telling Mr Skinner he should take his pension in reply to a question about Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s employment rights.
Cameron said: “The honourable gentleman has the opportunity at any time to take his pension and I advise him to do so.”

• In March 2009, he told the Commons Gordon Brown wore so much make-up on television that he “resembled Barbara Cartland”.

• In October 2011, Cameron called Ed Miliband a “complete mug” during a heated debate relating to the European Union in the Commons.

• In Novemer 2010, he used a lunchtime speech to journalists to ridicule Speaker John Bercow, musing on how he might behave at the Royal wedding and suggested he might interrupt the ceremony to say:“Order! I want to hear what the Prince is saying!”
He also used the opportunity to relate an anecdote in which junior health minister Simon Burns’s driver reversed into the Speaker’s car in a Parliament courtyard.
Cameron described Mr Bercow told Mr Burns: “I’m not happy!” To which Mr Burns replied: “Well, which one [of the seven dwarves] are you?”

• In 2009, he compared Peter Mandelson to an extra-terrestrial, telling a member of the public in Tynemouth, North Tyneside: “I'm convinced we have been visited by alien life forms - and one of them is the Trade Secretary Peter Mandelson.”

• In June 2011, he crudely inferred he had given “pleasure” to Conservative MP Peter Bones’ wife, in an exchange relating to the Greek bail-out.
Mr Bone had sought assurances from Cameron on behalf of his wife ,that the UK would not be required to participate in a bail-out before 2013, saying that "she would be very happy if he could give her that undertaking".
To roars of laughter, Mr Cameron replied: “I do feel now that a very big part of my life is trying to give pleasure to Mrs Bone.
“I feel on this occasion I can only go so far.”

• In May 2012, he called Ed Balls a "muttering idiot" during an argument about the economy.
The Speaker John Bercow intervened to ask Mr Cameron to withdraw the word "idiot" which he said was "unparliamentary".

Shafilea Ahmed murder: parents 'suffocated teenager in front of their other daughter'

Mr and Mrs Ahmed both deny murder

The parents of a Muslim teenager suffocated her in front of one of their other daughters and later disposed of her body beside a Cumbrian river, a court has heard. 

Shafilea Ahmed, 16, was allegedly murdered at her home in Warrington, Cheshire, because her parents felt her increasingly Western ways, and her rejection of an arranged marriage, had brought shame on the family.

Her younger sister, Alesha, was 15 when she claimed she witnessed the killing on the night in September, 2003, that Shafilea disappeared.

She initially told friends that her father, Iftikhar Ahmed, had murdered her sister and “chopped up” her body.

But she later retracted the claim and kept silent for the next seven years.

Then, in August 2010, she finally gave detectives a detailed account of the murder and her parents’ subsequent efforts to conceal the body.

Iftikhar Ahmed, 52, and Farzana, 49, both of whom were born in the same village in Pakistan, now deny murder.

Andrew Edis, QC, prosecuting, told a jury at Chester Crown Court: “Alesha describes what is an act of suffocation by her parents, acting together – a carrier bag forced into her mouth and then hands over her face to close her airways so she could not breath.

“She gives a description of what she saw, about what effect that had on her sister. She will tell you about that, and you will also be able to hear what a pathologist says you might expect to see in a death by suffocation.

“She then describes how there was activity in the house that night to do with the body. She talks about looking into the kitchen and seeing her mother sorting through a pile of blankets and sheets.

“She saw a roll of black bin bags and two rolls of tape – wide brown tape and some black tape.

“After that had happened she looked out of the window and saw her father with a large object wrapped in bin bags with brown tape wrapped around it. She assumed that was the body of her sister.

“A little later, still only about 10pm, she heard a car driving off. Her father was driving, her mother staying behind.”

Alesha, now 23, was unable to say whether her father was driving his taxi, a white Nissan emblazoned with the name “Warrington”, or his wife’s Toyota Carina.

Police later examined both vehicles but found no evidence that a body had been carried in either. There were no traces of blood, just as there was no blood found in the clothes wrapped around the body when it was found in the Lake District.

Mr Edis suggested that the body was transferred to a white van before being dumped on a riverbank close to the M6.

He asked the jury to consider Alesha’s evidence in the context of the growing conflict between her sister and parents, the injuries Shafilia told friends she had suffered at their hands, the way she was flown out to Pakistan shortly after being “recaptured” by her father, and the way she swallowed bleach while at her grandparents’ home in Pakistan.

He also asked them to consider a question put by Joanne Code, one of Shafilea’s teachers, when she rang the family home about her continuing absence from school.

After a conversation with Iftikhar Ahmed, Mrs Code insisted on speaking to the teenager herself.

She asked: Do I need to be worried about you?”

Shafilia replied: “Yes”.
Mr Edis said Alesha gave her “bombshell” account in August, 2010, a few days after being arrested over a robbery at her parents’ home.

She had pleaded guilty to robbery and was awaiting sentence. However, Mr Edis emphasised that she had received neither promises nor any inducements in relation to the evidence she would give.

He suggested she was either telling the truth or had concocted “a wicked lie” made up to help herself.

Mr Edis said that while at 15 Alesha had referred to Shafilea’s body being “chopped up”, she now accepted she had no knowledge of what happened to it from her own observations.

“Who knows what she might have been told what happened to the body,” said Mr Edis.

“If she is telling the truth her parents would be very keen that she be silent and tell no one.

“So you can imagine the things they might have said to her, such as `The same thing will happen to you if you don’t keep quiet`”

In conversations recorded by a listening device the Ahmeds are heard discussing whether police might have been able to check whether they had gone on a particular journey.

At one point Farzana Ahmed tells her husband: “Who knows, they might have a mileage-checking system”.

Later, she asks him about the possibility of saliva being found in one of the cars.

He replies: “Even if there is saliva, it’s not as if she didn’t sit in the car.”

The couple have another conversation “about how you can get away with murder by getting the support of the newspapers”.

Mr Ahmed tells his wife: “Those are the ones who can save you, but they’re also the ones who can put you inside”.

Later, he says: “Here everything works on proof. Without any proof…they can’t do anything to you”.

Soldier accidentally shot by sniper comrade in Afghanistan, inquest hears

Lance Corporal Michael Pritchard

A British soldier was shot and killed by a sniper comrade who thought he was firing on the Taliban, a coroner has ruled. 

Lance Corporal Michael Pritchard, 22, from Eastbourne, East Sussex, was killed by a gunshot wound to the chest and abdomen fired from a remote observation post.

An inquest into his death, at Eastbourne Town Hall, heard the shot had been fired by Lance Corporal Malcolm Graham, of The Royal Scots Borderers, 1st Battalion, who thought he was shooting at Taliban insurgents.

Coroner Alan Craze said a number of factors including poor communication had played a part. The basic reason for the tragedy, he said, was the failure of organisation which would have prevented “blue on blue contact” between British troops.

L/Cpl Pritchard parents have today paid tribute to their “beautiful boy” and called for lessons to be learnt from his death.

His mother, Helen Perry, said: “Nobody has taken any responsibility for Michael’s death and he has received no apology.

“Michael sadly no longer has a voice and so it’s up to us, his family, to ensure that he has one and to do all we can to avoid a similar repetition of such an event.

“The grief we feel at the loss of our beautiful boy is too much to bear and we hope that this shocking chain of events never happens to another soldier or another family.

“Michael is missed so very much and we will carry him forever in our hearts.”

His father Gary Pritchard added: “We hope and trust that the army will take steps to ensure that this event should not happen again. It’s clear to me that there are lessons to be learnt.”

The inquest has heard L/Cpl Pritchard, of the 4th Regiment, Royal Military Police, was killed in the Sangin area, in central Helmand Province, Afghanistan, on December 20 2009 while on secondment with 4th Battalion The Rifles.

He had been deployed to a patrol base on the roof of a building to watch a blind spot on a main road, Route 611, and ensure Taliban insurgants did not plant improvised explosive devices.

The shot was fired over a Restricted Fire Line, the court was told. The demarcation is intended to prevent friendly forces firing upon one another.

The inquest has already heard that permission had to be obtained for a sniper to fire a shot at a target unless there was an immediate threat to him or someone else.

Major Richard Streatfield, officer commanding 4 Rifles, told the inquest: "From the radio log there was not permission to fire that shot."

Mr Craze said that L/Cpl Pritchard's death was an accident, albeit an avoidable one, despite erroneous decisions being made.

He added that the circumstances the soldiers had found themselves in were not calm or rational and had left them tired and facing heightened vulnerability.

He said: "I am inclined to the view that there were no insurgents there at all.
"There was an overriding sense that they had arrived in a hornets' nest in a war zone and that they had to win.

"So although there was no gung-ho or snap happy attitude they were there to engage insurgents."

He said he could not blame the accident entirely on a communications failure, but that it would never be known if messages were sent and not received.

An inadequate briefings system and lack of understanding about where the restricted firing line was had exacerbated the situation, he said.

A post-mortem examination carried out on L/Cpl Pritchard at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, in January 2010, showed that he died of a single gunshot wound to the chest and abdomen which penetrated vital organs including his heart, spleen and one of his kidneys.

Speaking after the inquest, his mother Helen Perry paid tribute to her “beautiful, honourable and honest young man”, and said she believed better information would have made Michael’s death avoidable.

She said: “My precious son’s life and very promising career cut tragically and cruelly short in the most unexpected of circumstances.

“During the course of this inquest we have heard that a series of errors relating to command and control, communication and identification resulted in Michael’s death, where the most information and the best information available would have made Michael’s death avoidable.

“We recognise that a number of people were involved in this incident but there was an onus on those higher in the chain of command to take control rectify the situation and save Michael’s life.

“We remain convinced that the consequences of all of the above were tragically all too predictable.”
Gary Pritchard, who is separated from Michael’s mother, said he was “very proud” of his “happy, caring” son who had always wanted to join the army.

He said: “We have heard in great detail at this inquest how Michael was killed. This confirms our understanding of what happened.

“It has been an exceptionally gruelling time for us. We would like this chapter now to be closed.
“We will cherish Michael’s memory and will always remember the happy times he spent with us. We will never forget him.”

Lieutenant Colonel Nadine Parks, Commanding Officer, 4th Regiment Royal Military Police, said: "L/Cpl Pritchard was a brave and professional soldier whose tragic death deprived the Royal Military Police of a promising young junior non-commissioned officer and loyal friend.

"He made a huge impact on our regiment in the short time he served with us, and his loss has been felt most keenly by those who worked alongside him.

"Often the source of humour, his easy charm belied an inner integrity and sincerity that made him committed to his duty as a military policeman and quickly endeared him to colleagues within the 4th Battalion The Rifles.

"All our thoughts and prayers remain with L/Cpl Pritchard's family through this traumatic time."
An Army spokeswoman said: "Our thoughts remain with Lance Corporal Michael Pritchard's family and friends at this difficult time.

"A full investigation and review was carried out into the circumstances which led to the sad death of L/Cpl Pritchard.
"Lessons have been learnt from this tragic incident and changes have been made to the standard operating procedures used by soldiers on operations in Afghanistan."

Black farmworker acquitted of murdering Eugene Terreblanche

Chris Mahlangu, left, and Patrick Ndlovu during the hearing at a South African court in Ventersdorp Photo: REUTERS

A black teenage farm worker has been acquitted of murdering Eugene Terreblanche, South Africa’s far-Right leader in a case that has polarised racial groups in the country. 

Patrick Ndlovu, who was 15 at the time of the killing, confessed his role in the crime to police but a lack of forensic evidence and a failure by detectives to treat him as a minor saw a judge rule in his favour.

However a second man, farm worker Chris Mahlangu, 29, was found guilty of murder, attempted robbery and housebreaking.

During the day, as the verdict was read out at a court in the farming town of Ventersdorp, there were clashes between hundreds of uniform-clad white supremacist groups and local supporters of the two defendants which were broken up by riot police wielding batons and shields.

Mr Terreblanche rose to prominence in the 1980s with angry speeches calling for a separate Boer nation. He was beaten to death with a machete and an iron bar in the bedroom of his farmhouse in April 2010, shortly before South Africa hosted the World Cup. Following his death, Mr Ndlovu and Mr Mahlangu handed themselves in to police. Mr Terreblanche was found lying on his bed, with deep wounds to his head and body. His trousers were undone and his genitals exposed and blood covered the walls and floors of the room.

Mr Mahlangu claimed that he had killed Mr Terreblanche in self-defence after the rightwinger sexually assaulted him.

Judge John Horn dismissed the suggestion, along with others that Mr Terreblanche was killed because of his political views. “There was no conspiracy, no political intrigue, no racial undertones and no hidden agenda,” he told the packed courtroom.

Judge Horn said there was no forensic evidence linking Mr Ndlovu to the scene, despite the fact that Mr Mahlangu was covered in blood spatters. He said that because the teenager, now 18, was also deprived of sleep and proper counsel by police, he would give him the “benefit of the doubt".

His decision provoked the ire of Mr Terreblanche’s family and supporters.
Andre Nienaber, Mr Terreblanche’s nephew, said they were “disappointed” by the judge’s decision not to convict both men.

“He was with the older one the whole time so I cannot believe he was not involved,” he said. “There were two murder weapons so there must have been two murderers.”

Mr Nienaber said that the fight for a separate nation for Afrikaners would continue despite Mr Terreblanche’s death. He warned of potential violent protests at the murders of white farmers which have claimed more than 3,000 lives since the advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994.

“There will be repercussions for sure – some people feel much more strongly about this than us so we will see what happens,” he said.

“What’s sure is that this has not left us leaderless. We have leaders and this is not the end. Our battle will stop when our coffins are in the ground.”

Mr Mahlangu spoke briefly to reporters afterwards to say that there was little difference between prison and the conditions he had been living in on the farm, but that he was “sorry” for killing Mr Terreblanche. The court heard previously that Mr Terreblanche paid the two men less than the minimum wage and sometimes replaced their wages with alcohol.

Mr Mahlangu will be sentenced on June 18, along with Mr Ndlovu, who was convicted of a minor charge of housebreaking with intent to steal at Mr Terreblanche’s farm.

Eugene Terreblanche co-founded the Afrikaner Resistance Movement Photo: EPA

Protesters scuffled outside the courthouse Photo: EPA

Members of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB) protest outside the court Photo: EPA

Protester shot dead as Yemen remains on knife-edge

Military academy cadets march during a parade marking the 22nd anniversary of Yemen's reunification in Sanaa today

Police have shot dead a protester during clashes in south Yemen where separatists called for a day of civil disobedience to mark the 22nd anniversary of the country's reunification. 

The incident comes after a suicide bomber for a group affiliated to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula killed almost 100 soldiers.

"A man was killed and seven others were wounded, one of them seriously," a medical official told the AFP news agency.

The clashes took place after protesters used rocks to block roads, set tyres alight, and closed shops in the capital of Hadramawt province, witnesses said.

The day of civil disobedience was called by the hardline faction of the Southern Movement, headed by Yemen's former vice president Ali Salem al-Baid, which advocates independence for the south.

The strike was also observed in other provinces in the south – Lahij and Daleh – while a partial strike was observed in the neighbourhoods of Mansoura and Mualla in Aden, the capital of what was formerly known as South Yemen.

South Yemen was independent before merging with former North Yemen in 1990.

Some factions of the Southern Movement want autonomy for the south, but more hardline members are pressing for a return to complete independence.

The coalition, which began in 2007 as a social protest movement of retired officials and soldiers, gradually became more radicalised.

Residents in Yemen's formerly-independent south complain of discrimination by the Sanaa government, citing an inequitable distribution of resources since the 1990 union.

The south broke away again in 1994, sparking a brief civil war that ended with the region being overrun by northern troops.

Baid, who was vice president of Yemen when he declared independence in 1994, went into exile two months later when northern troops entered Aden.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn gang rape investigation launched

Testimony from one of the prostitutes indicated that she had been forced into a non-consensual sex act while in Washington with Strauss-Kahn and the other accused

French prosecutors have opened a preliminary investigation into accusations Dominique Strauss-Kahn took part in a gang rape in the US. 

Prosecutors in Lille, where Mr Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, and three others have been charged in a pimping case, said the investigation centred on an incident "that could be described as gang rape" that took place in Washington, DC in December 2010.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, two businessmen and a police chief have been charged with "aggravated pimping in an organised gang" in Lille for allegedly organising a prostitution ring for orgies in France, the United States and elsewhere.

Earlier this month Lille prosecutors said investigating magistrates in the case had submitted new evidence, based on testimony from two Belgian sex workers, that could also implicate the men in a gang rape.

Testimony from one of the prostitutes indicated that she had been forced into a non-consensual sex act while in Washington with Strauss-Kahn and the other accused. She has not filed a complaint.

In a statement from his lawyers this month Strauss-Kahn denied the accusations, saying he "absolutely contests having committed the slightest act of violence of any nature whatsoever."

The former head of the International Monetary Fund and front-runner for the French presidency, Strauss-Kahn suffered a stunning fall from grace following his arrest last year on accusations he sexually assaulted a New York hotel maid.

The charges were eventually dropped but Strauss-Kahn has since faced a series of criminal and civil actions in connection with alleged sex crimes.

Dozens of aftershocks rattle Italy following earthquake

Destroyed cars are seen in the rubble after an earthquake in Finale Emilia

Dozens of strong aftershocks rattled Italy's industrial heartland overnight as Mario Monti, the prime minister, rushed back from the United States to see for himself the damage caused by Sunday's 6.0 magnitude earthquake. 

Thousands of people, unable or too frightened to return to their homes, spent the night in emergency accommodation, as more than 150 aftershocks shook the affected area in the northern region of Emilia Romagna, between the cities of Bologna, Modena and Ferrara.

Others spent the night sleeping in their cars, in towns and villages badly hit by the quake, which experts said was the strongest in the region since the 14th century.

Their ordeal was made worse by the arrival of miserable weather.

The strongest tremors were felt north of Bologna around the town of Finale Emilia, the epicentre of the earthquake which struck at 4.04am on Sunday, killing seven people and injuring dozens more.

Mr Monti, who was appointed the head of a government of technocrats six months ago after the fall of Silvio Berlusconi, cut short his attendance at the Nato summit in Chicago and is expected to return home today.

He will convene a meeting of the cabinet on Tuesday, which is expected to formally declare a state of emergency in the affected area.

Around 11,000 people have been forced out of their homes by the quake, according to Franco Gabrielli, the head of the Civil Protection Department, which deals with natural disasters.

He said there was a continuing risk of large, powerful aftershocks in the coming days. "We need to be very cautious – one cannot make safe predictions with earthquakes." The quake was felt as far away as Friuli, the Italian region that borders Slovenia, and South Tyrol, the German-speaking part of the country on the border with Austria.

Of the victims, three were women who apparently died of shock while the other four were night shift workers in factories who were crushed when the buildings collapsed.

A five-year-old girl in Finale Emilia was rescued after being trapped on her bed by the bricks of a 14th-century tower that toppled onto her home. A supporting beam protected her from falling rubble – her family said her survival was "a miracle".

The quake caused massive damage to ancient churches, castles and historic palazzi, as well as hitting the food industries for which Emilia Romagna is famous.

Around 200,000 wheels of Parmigiano and Grana Padano cheeses worth 50 million euros were damaged, according to Coldiretti, a national farming organisation.

Three years ago a quake of a similar magnitude hit the central mountainous region of Abruzzo, but the effects were far more deadly.

More than 300 people died and tens of thousands were left homeless. The centre of L'Aquila, the city at the epicentre of the quake, has still not been repaired and lies mostly empty.