An Australian terrorism suspect soon to be repatriated by US authorities after three years at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba was the victim of atrocities fit for a concentration camp, his lawyer claimed in reports yesterday.
Stephen Hopper, in comments reported yesterday in the Sydney Morning Herald, alleged that Mamdouh Habib was tied to the ground while a naked prostitute menstruated on him.
Hopper also claimed that interrogators told the Egyptian-born Sydney resident that they had killed his wife and three children.
"The Americans used prostitutes as tools in their interrogations," Hopper said.
Habib was arrested in October 2001 in Pakistan and accused of aiding Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Attorney General Philip Ruddock said earlier this month that Habib would be released by US authorities and would not be charged under Australian law on his return.
He would escape prosecution because anti-terrorism legislation did not come into force until 2002 and could not be applied retrospectively.
"Mr. Habib remains of interest in a security context because of his former associations and activities," Ruddock said.
The release of Habib would leave one Australian at Guantanamo Bay.
David Hicks, 29, is one of only four detainees to be charged and to have faced court. He is on trial before a US military tribunal for terrorism offenses. He will not get a death sentence and would serve his jail term in Australia if found guilty.
Hicks was captured in November 2001 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, fighting with the Taliban and has been inside the Guantanamo Bay prison since then.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
RSS