Region

BAGHDAD — Attacks including a spate of suicide bombings killed 57 people on Monday as soldiers and policemen cast their votes in Iraq’s first parliamentary election since US troops withdrew.

The bombings in Baghdad and the north and west raise serious concerns about the security forces’ ability to protect ordinary voters on polling day on Wednesday, when more than 20 million are eligible to take part.

They come amid a protracted surge in violence and fears the country is edging towards all-out conflict.

Nine attackers wearing suicide belts mostly targeted polling stations in Baghdad and cities north of the capital, while roadside bombs struck military convoys and targeted journalists covering the election.

The deadliest attack struck northeast of Baghdad in the mostly-Kurdish town of Khanaqin, near Iraq’s border with Iran.

A suicide bomber killed 30 people who had gathered to celebrate the release of a video purporting to show ailing President Jalal Talabani casting his vote in Germany, where he is receiving treatment for a stroke.

At least 50 others were wounded in the attack, which struck near the offices of Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in the town.

Two suicide bombers also struck the capital.

At one polling station in west Baghdad where a militant armed with an explosives-rigged vest killed seven policemen, ambulances ferried off the wounded as soldiers cordoned off the street, an AFP journalist reported.

Five members of the security forces were killed by another suicide bomber at a polling station in the city’s north.

Attacks elsewhere in the country killed 15 members of the security forces, officials said. Overall, more than 120 people were wounded in the bloodshed.

In the main northern city of Mosul, six Iraqi journalists were wounded as a bomb exploded while they were in a military vehicle to cover the vote.

The blasts shattered an early morning calm as soldiers and policemen queued outside polling stations amid tight security, before leaving with the traditional purple ink-stained finger indicating they had voted.

No group claimed responsibility for the bloodshed, but Sunni militant groups have been accused of carrying out previous suicide bombings in an attempt to derail the political process.

Government officials did not publicly comment on the attacks.

Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, who hails from Iraq’s Shiite Arab majority and is accused by critics of monopolising power and targeting minority groups, is seeking a third term in Wednesday’s election.

But there is widespread public frustration over poor basic services, rampant corruption and high unemployment, as well as the persistent violence.

‘Iraqis want change’ 

The month-long campaign has seen Baghdad and other cities plastered with posters and decked out in bunting, as candidates have taken to the streets, staged loud rallies and challenged each other in angry debates.

“All Iraqis have a desire for change,” said Jawad Kadhim, a police sergeant.

“There should be a change from the previous government which has failed in all senses of the word. The parliament did not do anything.”

Along with more than 800,000 members of the security forces eligible to vote at upwards of 500 polling stations nationwide, hospital and prison staff, patients and inmates were also voting on Monday.

Polls officially closed at 6:00pm (1500 GMT) for special balloting and overseas voters.

Attacks on candidates and their campaign staff and rallies have cast a shadow over the election, and parts of Iraq that have been out of government control for months will not see any voting.

Authorities announced a week-long public holiday to try to bolster security for the election.

The unrest is the latest in a months-long surge in violence that has claimed nearly 3,000 lives already this year, while anti-government fighters have held the town of Fallujah a short drive from Baghdad since the beginning of the year.

Although voters have a long list of grievances, in addition to the near-daily violence, the election has centred on Maliki’s efforts to stay in power.

His opponents, who span the communal spectrum, accuse him of shoring up his power base, and Sunni Arabs in particular say the 63-year-old incumbent discriminates against them.

Maliki contends that foreign interference is behind deteriorating security and complains of being saddled with a unity government of groups that snipe at him in public and block his efforts to pass legislation.

Analysts and diplomats say that with a fractious and divided opposition and no clear replacement, Maliki remains the frontrunner.

No single party is likely to win an absolute majority, and as with previous elections, coalition talks are expected to take months.

MINYA, Egypt — An Egyptian court sentenced 682 alleged Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie to death Monday, a lawyer and prosecutor said, after two brief sessions the defence partly boycotted.

The same court in the southern province of Minya also reversed 492 of 529 death sentences it passed in March, commuting most of those to life in prison.

The court, presided over by Judge Said Youssef Sabry, had sparked an international outcry with its initial sentencing last month amid an extensive crackdown on supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

The crackdown has extended to secular-leaning dissidents who supported Morsi’s overthrow but have since turned on the army-installed regime.

In Cairo, a court banned the April 6 youth movement that spearheaded the 2011 revolt which toppled strongman Hosni Mubarak, following a complaint accusing it of defaming Egypt and colluding with foreign parties.

In Minya, judge Sabry is set to confirm the death sentences on June 21.

Under Egyptian law, death sentences are referred to the country’s top Islamic scholar for an advisory opinion before being ratified. A court may choose to commute the sentences, which can later be challenged at an appeals court.

Of the 683 sentenced on Monday, only 73 are in custody, prosecutor Abdel Rahim Abdel Malek said. The others have a right to a retrial if they turn themselves in.

Monday’s hearing lasted just 10 minutes, said Khaled Elkomy, a defence lawyer who was in court.

The verdict was the first against Badie, spiritual head of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, in the several trials he faces on various charges along with Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders.

Some female relatives waiting outside the courtroom fainted on hearing news of the verdict.

“Where is the justice?” others chanted.

A fugitive from the trial who only identified himself as Gamal and a member of the Brotherhood lashed out at the court.

“This is a political trial against those who oppose the military,” said the 25-year-old who was among the 683 sentenced Monday but who is in hiding.

“My cousin has also been condemned, but we will continue our lives and this process will not stop the youths” from demonstrating, he said.

The Brotherhood urged the world to act against “gross human rights violations and injustice committed by the military junta in Egypt against its own people”.

It said in a statement it would “continue to use all peaceful means to end military rule and achieve justice”.

‘Industrial scale’ sentencings 

Those sentenced on Monday were accused of involvement in the murder and attempted murder of policemen in Minya province on
August 14, the day police killed hundreds of Morsi supporters during clashes in Cairo.

Defence lawyers boycotted the last session, branding it “farcical” after the mass death sentencing, which the United Nations denounced as a breach of international human rights law.

Amnesty International condemned Monday’s death sentences.

“Egypt’s judiciary risks becoming just another part of the authorities’ repressive machinery, issuing sentences of death and life imprisonment on an industrial scale,” Amnesty’s Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui said in a statement.

Lawyer Elkomy claims 60 per cent of the 529 defendants sentenced in March, including teachers and some doctors, have evidence that “proves they were not present the day they were accused of attacking the Matay police station” in Minya, said the Avaaz rights group.

Defence lawyers and relatives of defendants said those sentenced to death in March also included a man who was killed on August 14.

The government has defended the court’s handling of the first mass death sentences, insisting they were issued only “after careful study” and were subject to appeal.

Prosecutor Abdel Malek defended the charges against the 529, saying the prosecution compiled videos and witness testimony.

“We have strong evidence that incriminates all those sentenced to death,” he told AFP.

Last month’s death sentences sent a chill through opponents of the military-installed regime, which has held mass trials of thousands of alleged Islamists since Morsi’s ouster.

Amnesty says more than 1,400 people have been killed in the police crackdown since the army overthrew Morsi, Egypt’s first elected and civilian leader.

TEHRAN — The payment of “blood money” spared 358 Iranians from execution last year, the country’s prosecutor general said on Monday.

The practice, made possible under the Islamic Sharia Law of diya (restitution), allows a convict to be pardoned by a victim’s family if they receive financial recompense.

The 358 cases fell in the last Iranian calendar year, between March 2013 and March 2014, the Fars news agency quoted prosecutor general Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie as saying.

According to the United Nations, more than 170 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2014.

However, Iranian media have in recent weeks published details of several capital cases in which blood money spared the killers from execution.

The most high-profile case involved a blindfolded murderer known only as Balal being pictured with a hangman’s noose around his neck.

The convict escaped the gallows at the last minute when his victim’s mother pardoned him, and only administered a slap on his face as punishment.

The blood money in the Balal case had been raised from the proceeds of a film director’s special screening, amounting to 3 billion rials ($90,000).

After Balal dramatically escaped death, media reported several other cases in which the victim’s family pardoned the killer at the very last minute, with one being pardoned even after he was hanged for a few minutes.

Another fundraising event was the screening of a film called “Sensitive Floor” which was held by famous actors and artists on Sunday.

The organisers managed to raise 7,000,000,000 rials ($200,000) as blood money which is needed for three convicts on death row.

Meanwhile, Ahmed Shaheed, the UN’s human rights rapporteur on Iran, has urged Iranian authorities to conduct a re-trial of a woman on death row, to “ensure the defendant’s right to due process which is guaranteed under both Iranian law and international law”.

Reyhaneh Jabbari, 26, was sentenced to death for the murder of a former intelligence official, and it has been suggested that her execution could be imminent.

TEHRAN — Iran’s former president Mohammad Khatami has called for the release of political prisoners and urged an end to house arrest for two leaders who alleged fraud after the 2009 election.

In remarks published by ISNA news agency, Khatami, in office between 1997 and 2005, said such steps would benefit the country.

He was referring to Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, reformists held incommunicado since February 2011, after they urged massive street protests following the election.

Thousands of protesters, reformists and journalists were arrested after demonstrations that became known as Iran’s green movement.

“The lift on house arrests and the release of all those who are in prison is beneficial for the country, establishment and everyone,” Khatami said, referring to the prisoners.

“Although the release has been already delayed for too long, many of them will be free soon providing that no other case is being built against them,” Khatami was quoted as saying.

Khatami said a “change” in the country’s political atmosphere was among expectations from the administration of self-declared moderate President Hassan Rouhani, who won a first-round electoral victory over conservatives last year.

“Even if they were freed one day earlier, it would be an auspicious matter and in regards with the lift on the house arrest, I hope it happens,” Khatami added.

The fate of Mousavi and Karroubi — both of whom are reportedly suffering health problems — has attracted global attention and triggered heated debate at home.

ALGIERS — Abdelaziz Bouteflika was sworn in as Algeria’s president for a fourth term Monday, a year after suffering a mini-stroke that was expected to end his 15-year grip on power.

Sitting in a wheelchair and dressed in a navy three-piece suit and crimson tie, Bouteflika placed his right hand on the Koran as he repeated in a frail voice the oath read out by Supreme Court chief Slimane Boudi.

The 77-year-old, who was also in a wheelchair when he cast his ballot in the April 17 election, has hardly been seen in public since the mini-stroke that confined him to hospital in Paris for three months last year.

Official results showed he won 81.5 per cent of the votes in the election marred by low turnout and claims of fraud by his opponents, including main rival Ali Benflis, who received just 12.18 per cent.

In a brief inauguration speech before senior Algerian officials, diplomats and other delegates, Bouteflika stumbled on his words as he thanked the security forces and observers for “ensuring the election was run smoothly”.

Bouteflika also paid tribute to voters and other candidates in the election, which he hailed as a “day of celebration and democracy for Algeria”.

At the start of the ceremony, Bouteflika had placed his hands on his knees as he inspected soldiers following a display of their weapons outside the beachfront Palace of Nations resort.

After shaking hands with the head of a constitutional panel, Mourad Medelci, and members of his government, Bouteflika was greeted by celebratory ululation.

The inauguration ceremony wrapped up after 30 minutes with a standing ovation for Bouteflika and a rousing rendition of the Algerian national anthem.

The opposition boycotted Monday’s swearing-in ceremony, including five parties that had called on their supporters to stay away from the election.

Among the absentees was Benflis, who has refused to recognise Bouteflika’s reelection, saying that doing so would make him “complicit in fraud”.

LONDON — The Qatar-based satellite network Al Jazeera served Egypt with a $150 million compensation claim on Monday for what it said was damage to its business inflicted by Cairo’s military rulers, a step likely to worsen Qatari-Egyptian relations.

In a move aimed at drawing attention to what Al Jazeera calls Egypt’s unacceptable treatment of it and its journalists, a lawyer acting for the pan-Arab channel told Reuters he had handed a legal document detailing the claim to a representative of the Egyptian government.

Egypt had begun a “sustained campaign” against Al Jazeera and its journalists after the army toppled Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July last year, said Cameron Doley, a lawyer at London law firm Carter-Ruck, which is handling the case.

“Al Jazeera invested substantial sums in Egypt,” said Doley. “The effect of this recent campaign by the military government is that this investment has been expropriated. Egypt is bound by international law to pay Al Jazeera just and effective compensation.”

Cairo had six months to settle the claim, filed in the context of a bilateral investment treaty, he said, or face an international tribunal. There was no immediate comment from the Egyptian authorities.

Qatar, a Gulf Arab monarchy that funds Al Jazeera, backs Morsi’s deposed Muslim Brotherhood, which Cairo has declared a “terrorist” group. Qatari ties with Egypt have been strained since the army ousted Morsi after mass unrest against his rule.

Three Al Jazeera journalists are being tried in Egypt on charges of aiding members of a “terrorist organisation”, in a case that human rights groups say shows the authorities are trampling on freedom of expression.

All three deny the charges and Al Jazeera has said the accusations are absurd. Egyptian officials have said the case is not linked to freedom of expression and that the journalists raised suspicions by operating without proper accreditation.

The trio — Peter Greste, an Australian, Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian-Egyptian national, and Baher Mohamed, an Egyptian — were detained in Cairo on December 29.

Earlier this year, an Egyptian prosecutor said Al Jazeera journalists had published lies harming the national interest and had supplied money, equipment and information to 16 Egyptians. The foreigners were also accused of using unlicensed broadcasting equipment.

Both state and private Egyptian media have fanned anti-Brotherhood sentiment, suggesting anyone associated with the veteran movement is a traitor and threat to national security.

Egyptians often ask journalists in the streets whether they work for Al Jazeera. Saying yes could mean a beating.

The Brotherhood renounced violence as a means of political change decades ago and says it remains committed to peaceful activism, denying any association with the surge in Islamist insurgent violence since Morsi’s downfall.

The crackdown on dissent has raised questions about Egypt’s democratic credentials three years after an uprising toppled veteran autocratic president Hosni Mubarak and raised hopes of greater freedoms. Morsi won power in a free election in 2012.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s state prosecution is seeking a jail term of five to seven years for former premier Ehud Olmert who was convicted in March of bribery, a judical source said Monday.

Olmert was convicted on March 31 on two counts of receiving bribes in connection with a sprawling Jerusalem property development, in one of the biggest corruption scandals in Israeli history.

“The state is intending to seek five to seven years of prison time for Ehud Olmert for the first count and between two and four years for the second,” a source at the justice ministry told AFP after sentencing deliberations got under way at Tel Aviv District Court.

Press reports said the prosecution was also seeking to fine Olmert 1.2 million shekels ($345,000/250,000 euros).

The 68-year-old has vowed to appeal.

The sentencing process which began on Monday is likely to last several weeks, legal sources said.

MINYA, Egypt — Doctor Badawi was killed on August 14, but he was among 37 people whose death sentences were confirmed on Monday by an Egyptian court which sentenced another 683 to the gallows.

His case is not unique — lawyers said two other defendants sentenced to death by the court in the central city of Minya for demonstrating in support of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi were already dead on the day of the protest last year.

It is an extreme example of what the international community has described as the judicial farce of mass trials lasting just two brief sessions and resulting in death sentences for hundreds of defendants, most of them not even in custody.

Monday’s hearing lasted just 10 minutes, said defence lawyer Khaled Elkomy. None of the defendants were brought to court for the session.

Several female relatives of the accused fainted outside the court on hearing of the death sentences handed down by judge Said Youssef Sabry.

Sabry sentenced 683 alleged Islamists, including the leader of the banned Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Badie, to death after convicting them of the murder and attempted murder of several policemen on August 14.

He commuted to life imprisonment 492 death sentences he handed down after a similar rushed mass trial last month but upheld 37 others.

“Among them is Doctor Badawi, who was shot and killed on the day of the incidents which the defendants are accused of,” said Samia Abu Amr, as she held a crumpled sheet of paper listing the names of the 37.

To her relief, her brother’s name was not among them.

Badawi’s family received a court summons on August 23, nine days after his death, said defence lawyer Mohamed Abdel Wahab.

He did not give the doctor’s first name.

Only 73 of the 683 defendants sentenced to death on Monday are in custody, prosecutor Abdel Rahim Abdel Malek said. The others have a right to a retrial if they turn themselves in.

At least three of those convicted were out of the country on the day of the alleged offences and have Saudi visas to prove it, said defence layer Arabi Mabrouk.

“The court has not done even basic checks on the defendants,” his colleague Mohamed Salama said.

Samia said her brother “had never participated in any protests”. She said his name had been added to the list of defendants solely because “he had refused to give money to a police officer”.

Asmaa Abdel Wahab said her husband, a farm labourer, had been convicted even though he had taken his father to hospital on the day of the protest.

He was among those whose death sentences were commuted to life in prison.

“But for me and my children that changes nothing as without his income we are condemned to death,” she said.

MINYA, Egypt — An Egyptian court sentenced Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie and 682 other alleged Islamists to death Monday, a lawyer and prosecutor said, after two brief sessions the defence partly boycotted.

The same court also reversed 492 of 529 death sentences it passed in March, commuting most of those to life in prison.

The court presided over by judge Said Youssef Sabry had sparked an international outcry with its initial sentencing last month, which came amid an extensive crackdown on supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Under Egyptian law, death sentences are referred to the top Islamic scholar for an advisory opinion before being ratified. A court may choose to commute the sentences, which can later be challenged at an appeals court.

Of the 683 sentenced on Monday, only about 50 are in detention. The judge will confirm the verdict on June 21. The others have a right to a retrial if they hand themselves in.

The verdict was the first against Badie, the spiritual head of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, in the several trials he faces on various charges along with Morsi himself and other Brotherhood leaders.

Some female relatives waiting outside the courtroom in the southern province of Minya fainted on hearing news of the verdict.

"Where is the justice?" others chanted.

Several said family members had been unjustly convicted or put on trial.

"My son does not even pray, he does not even know where the mosque is," said one woman, whose son was among the 529 sentenced to death in March.

Those sentenced on Monday were accused of involvement in the murder and attempted murder of policemen in Minya province on August 14, the day police killed hundreds of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi's supporters in clashes in Cairo.

- 'Breach of international law' -

Defence lawyers boycotted the last session, branding it "farcical" after the mass death sentencing which the United Nations denounced as a breach of international human rights law.

Defence lawyer Khaled Elkomy claims that 60 per cent of the 529 defendants, including teachers and some doctors, have evidence that "proves they were not present the day they were accused of attacking the Matay police station" in Minya, a statement released by human rights group Avaaz said.

The government has defended the court's handling of the first mass case, insisting that the sentences were passed only "after careful study" and were subject to appeal.

Prosecutor Abdel Rahim Abdel Malek defended the charges against the 529.

"We have strong evidence that incriminates all those sentenced to death," he told AFP.

"We have videos, witness accounts... documents that prove that the Muslim Brotherhood had called on its supporters to attack police stations and public and private property in case the sit-in at Rabaa al-Adawiya (in Cairo) was broken up, and that's what happened," he said.

Last month's death sentences sent a chill through opponents of the military-installed regime, which has held mass trials of thousands of alleged Islamists since Morsi's ouster.

At least 1,000 people have been sentenced since December, all in groups of 10 or more. Jail terms passed range from six months to life, as well as the death penalty.

Amnesty International says that more than 1,400 people have been killed in the police crackdown since the army overthrew Morsi, Egypt's first elected and civilian leader.

OCCUPIED  JERUSALEM — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the Nazi Holocaust “the most heinous crime” against humanity in modern times, in an apparent bid to build bridges with Israel days after troubled peace talks collapsed.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the overture on Sunday, saying Abbas’ Palestinian power-sharing deal with Hamas, which led Israel to suspend the negotiations on Thursday, put him in partnership with an Islamist group that denies the Holocaust and seeks Israel’s destruction.

“What I say to him very simply is this: President Abbas, tear up your pact with Hamas,” Netanyahu said on the CBS news programme Face the Nation.

Abbas’ message, published in Arabic and English by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, coincided with Israel’s annual remembrance day for the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, and included an expression of sympathy for the families of the victims.

“What happened to the Jews in the Holocaust is the most heinous crime to have occurred against humanity in the modern era,” WAFA quoted Abbas as saying at a meeting a week ago with an American rabbi.

By speaking in superlative terms, Abbas could risk a backlash from Palestinians who draw comparisons between their suffering at the hands of Israeli occupiers and that of Jews under Hitler’s Third Reich.

Abbas has condemned the mass killings of Jews in World War II before and challenged allegations, stemming from a 1983 book he authored, that he is a Holocaust denier.

But the timing of the publication of his latest comments gave them extra significance, a day after he signalled he remained committed to the peace talks and said a future Palestinian unity government would recognise Israel.

‘Shocked’

On CBS, Netanyahu said he and US Secretary of State John Kerry “were both shocked” to learn last Wednesday of the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Abbas’ Palestine Liberation Organisation.

The peace negotiations, championed by Kerry, were facing an April 29 deadline, with little public sign the two sides were making progress towards a US-mediated deal to extend the talks.

Netanyahu said in the TV interview, however, that he had negotiated in earnest for nine months, working closely with Kerry, and “we made some significant progress”.

Palestinian officials have blamed Netanyahu for the peace impasse, noting he failed to carry out a pledged release of Palestinian prisoners and citing Israeli announcements of further construction in settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu has said Abbas’ refusal to recognise Israel as a Jewish state blocked progress in talks aimed at ending decades of conflict and creating a Palestinian state.

The Palestinian unity accord followed seven years of failed reconciliation attempts after Hamas seized the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to Abbas in 2007.

The agreement envisages the formation of a Palestinian government of non-political “technocrats” within five months and new elections six months later.

On CBS, Netanyahu said Abbas “cannot embrace Hamas and say that he wants peace with Israel”. In a separate interview with CNN, Netanyahu reiterated he would never negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by Hamas, a group that both Israel and the United States regard as a terrorist organisation.

Hamas officials were not immediately available to comment on Netanyahu’s Holocaust-denial accusations.

But in an open letter to a senior UN official in 2009, Hamas branded the Holocaust “a lie invented by the Zionists”. Hamas was protesting UN plans at the time to start Holocaust studies for children in Gaza.

Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial, gave a guarded welcome to Abbas’ statement on Sunday.

“Holocaust denial and revisionism are sadly prevalent in the Arab world, including among Palestinians,” Yad Vashem claimed. “Thus the statement, that the Holocaust is the most heinous crime to have occurred against humanity in the modern era, coming from Abbas, might signal a change.”