ZZ stop.

Abbas and Gaza

The Palestinian leader, President Mahmoud Abbas has called for an international investigation headed by the United Nations Security Council into the recent Israeli attack on the six ship flotilla carrying aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip.

He said that there should be a united Arab stand to end the siege of Gaza.? He also called for international protection of the Palestinian people wondering how long the Israeli occupation would continue.

"We are waiting for world justice," he said. "We waited for a long time but we will not despair."

Today, Mr. Abbas will meet special US envoy George Mitchell, who is heading a ranking US delegation to the investment conference.

Mr. Abbas said he would also travel to Washington on June 9 for a meeting with US President Barack Obama.

Noriega jailed

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, fresh out of a Miami prison where he spent two decades, was sent back behind bars in France on Tuesday to await a new legal battle -- this time on charges he laundered cocaine profits by buying luxury apartments in Paris.

Hours after Noriega arrived in Paris following his extradition from the United States, a judge deemed him a flight risk and dispatched him to La Sante, a grim brick prison in southern Paris. Famous past La Sante inmates include convicted terrorist Carlos the Jackal and Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon.

Noriega lost his first battle on French territory -- he unsuccessfully pressed a judge to send him home to Panama. If convicted in France, he could face another 10 years in prison, a daunting prospect for the 72-year-old. Noriega's French lawyers said they will appeal the decision putting him behind bars and say his detention and transfer are unlawful.

If Noriega had been released in France, even to house arrest, it would have been a victory after a generation in prison. It could also have been an awkward situation for France, where a string of former dictators from Haiti to Africa have settled or bought second homes in the past.

Officials are to set a trial date on May 12 for Noriega, who was deposed after a 1989 U.S. invasion and imprisoned in Florida for drug trafficking. After finishing his U.S. sentence, he was extradited from Miami and sent on a direct flight to Paris, where he was immediately served with an arrest warrant Tuesday.

France already has convicted Noriega and his wife in absentia of laundering some $7 million in cocaine profits through three major French banks and using drug cash to invest in three posh Paris apartments. But France agreed to give him a new trial if he was extradited. Noriega's wife, Felicidad Sieiro de Noriega, is living in Panama and faces no charges there.

In a hearing before Paris judge Jean-Michel Maton, Noriega pleaded to be sent home to Panama, citing his prisoner of war status. "I don't agree with the action against me," he said through a translator.

Noriega spoke little during the hearing and appeared tired. Wearing a white button-up shirt and black jacket, his black hair thinning, he periodically rested his head in one hand during the proceedings.

After the judge denied Noriega's request, he was escorted out a side door of the court by armed guards. Limping, he used a cane.

Yves Leberquier, a lawyer for Noriega, said the former dictator has been partially paralyzed since suffering a mild stroke four years ago.

Another of Noriega's lawyers said his client had seemed resigned to returning behind bars.

"Having been extradited from the U.S., he was not really expecting to be released tonight, even if he hoped for it," Olivier Metzner said.

Noriega's legal team argued that it was illegal to try a former head of state who should have immunity from prosecution.

Other legal objections are that Noriega is considered a prisoner of war, a status Leberquier said French jails aren't ready to accommodate, and that the charges against him are no longer valid because the acts he is accused of happened too long ago, the lawyer said.

Noriega was declared a POW after his 1992 drug conviction by a Miami federal judge. In Miami, Noriega had separate quarters in prison, the right to wear his military uniform and insignia, access to a television and monitoring by international rights groups.

Panama also has an outstanding request for the former dictator's extradition. He was convicted in Panama in absentia and sentenced to 60 years in prison on charges of embezzlement, corruption and murdering opponents.

Panama's foreign minister, Juan Carlos Varela, said Panama respects the U.S. decision to extradite Noriega to France but will still try to get him back to Panama "to serve the sentences handed down by Panamanian courts."

Noriega was Panama's longtime intelligence chief before he took power in 1982. He had been considered a valued CIA asset for years, but as a ruler he joined forces with drug traffickers and was implicated in the death of a political opponent.

Noriega was ousted as Panama's leader and put on trial following a 1989 U.S. military invasion ordered by President George H.W. Bush. Noriega was brought to Miami and was convicted of drug racketeering and related charges in 1992.

He finished serving his term in federal prison outside Miami in 2007, but stayed in prison while France sought his extradition.

Sandra Noriega, one of his three daughters, called Noriega's extradition to France "a violation of his rights as a citizen, and a failing by the (Panamanian) government, which is supposed to protect its citizens."

The in-absentia French conviction, obtained by The Associated Press, says Noriega "knew that (the money) came directly or indirectly from drug trafficking." It said he helped Colombia's Medellin drug cartel by authorizing the transport of cocaine through Panama en route to the United States.

The French indictment says Noriega was born in 1938, although his French lawyers say he was born four years earlier. As a youth he claimed to be older so he could enter a military academy.

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AP - 28 April 2010 01:03:48 By PIERRE-ANTOINE SOUCHARD
Associated Press writers Katie King and Alfred de Montesquiou in Paris and Juan Zamorano in Panama City contributed to this report.

“Islam4UK”

I am a great respecter of Islam – in the same sense that I am a respecter of Roman Catholic Priests, Jehovah’s Witnesses, FF bras, Gordon Brown and Disneyworld.

Wootton Bassett has become a bit of a Lourdes-without-miracles but nevertheless, is still a magnet for coachloads of faux-mourners who know that an hour-or-two in the cold and rain may finally help them to achieve fame. You never know, the odd local reporter may walk up the line with his fluffy microphone and ask them what they think of dead soldiers in shiny limos. “I think it’s disgusting.” ” We should bring them back from Afstani…nisst…gan.”

There is little chance of a question about dead Muslims – because we don’t fly coffins full of Muslims back to RAF Lyneham. They might blow up. You can’t be too careful.

Home Secretary Alan “Postman Pat” Johnson was wrong to prevent the procession in the Wiltshire town by Anjem Choudary and the ZZ-Top tribute band currently calling itself Islam4UK. Gordon Brown managed to call the proposed march “abhorrent and offensive” – an opinion without an inquiry! May Allah be praised! (and God too, of course).

Now that senior politicians have had their 15 minutes of outrage- it’s time for them to come into the daylight and smell the Frappuccino: there was never going to be a march.

It shouldn’t take a Max Clifford to work-out that the whole thing was a con, designed to position Islam4UK as a reasonable bunch of bearded guys in frocks and bandaged heads to whom free speech and their inalienable right to protest had been denied by their fascist oppressors – and they succeeded.

If the Prime Minister and his Cabinet don’t wake up, Islam4UK (no-one had heard of them before last Tuesday) will once-again change their name and score yet another PR coup. Thanks to innocent and clueless politicians and with a little help from the Daily Mirror, these Muslim prats are now mainstream. Well done, boys.

Tonight, they must all be sitting around, pissing themselves laughing into their Single Malts. (It’s OK, I have Muslim mates and I understand them).

Postman Pat should have allowed the march to go ahead and asked the media to ignore it. That would have been a “win-win”.

Anjem Choudary is leader of Islam4UK but there’s more.

Enam Chowdhury (coincidence?) and his wife Jasmin own a restaurant is Wootton Bassett and by all accounts, their business is doing well. They have an eight-year-old son named Tahlil who has declared that he wants to join the Army. Why would a nice young Muslim boy wish to join the killing profession?

He thinks that it would be cool that if he was shot or blown up, his body would be paraded through Wootton Bassett and people would pay their respects.

Let’s hope that he’s on our side.

Post Published: 12 January 2010
Author: spygun
Found in section: Politics

Tags: Anjem Choudary, Home Secretary, Islam4UK, Wootton Bassett