Signature was taken on blank paper: Kasab

NEW DELHI: Ajmal Kasab, under-trial in Mumbai terror attacks, on the fourth consecutive day today denied all charges framed against him in the case. He told the 26/11 trial judge M L Tahiliyani in Mumbai that his signature was taken on a blank sheet of paper by police with regard to his confessional statement. “The confession recorded by magistrate was not read out to me and it does not contain the truth," he said. He again told the special Mumbai court that he did not arrive in Mumbai by fishing trawler, Kuber but by Samjhauta Express. He also denied that he had talked to Abu Hamza from satellite phone. “If I had talked to him, then my voice would have been recorded,” he said. When asked about Abu Ismail, Kasab asked “who is he, I do not Know...I was not with him”.

CNG dealers plan indefinite strike from Dec 30

ISLAMABAD: CNG dealers have announced an indefinite strike across the country from Dec 30 in protest against the government’s decision to raise CNG prices and curtail gas supplies to CNG stations. Transporters have also announced their support for the strike. Addressing a press conference after a meeting of CNG dealers who had gathered in Islamabad on Wednesday, CNG Association of Pakistan chairman Ghayas Paracha said the government was bent upon destroying the CNG sector. It is not only a matter of CNG stations, the government will have to consider the overall impact of its decision which could lead to the collapse of the entire industry,” he added. He said the government had gone back on its commitment made in 1992 that the price difference between CNG and petrol would be 50 per cent. “They wanted to encourage CNG at that time and made us invest in the new field. We took the risk of importing equipment. Some parts are now being manufactured in the country. We will not allow the price of CNG to be near that of petrol,” Mr Paracha said. There are about 2,500 CNG stations in Punjab and the NWFP and 542 in Sindh and Balochistan. More than 2.5 million vehicles are operating on CNG. Dealers said that an investment of Rs185 billion had been made in the CNG sector. Mr Paracha said that any further increase in CNG prices would severely affect the industry which provided jobs to half a million people. He said the CNG price would go up to Rs57 per kilogram after the 13.6 per cent increase in electricity tariff from January. The government has already raised the tariff by six per cent in October. The dealers also criticised an offer made by the textile sector at a recent meeting with officials to buy all CNG stations. “Instead of getting into the CNG business, the textile sector should focus on giving up subsidies and grants given to it by the government,” they said. They said that even Rawalpindi Chambers of Commerce and Industry president Kashif Shabbir had stated that the decision to increase the CNG price was not helpful of any sector. Immediately after the dealers’ call for strike, office-bearers of the transport association announced complete support for the strike.

SC refuses to accept Rehman Malik’s verbal statement

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Thursday stopped Interior Minister Rehman Malik from making a speech inside the court and ordered him to submit a written reply to a contempt of court charge. Rehman Malik appeared before the apex court without a lawyer and tried to personally explain his position with regard to the allegations that he violated the apex court order by changing the investigative team probing into allegations of corruption in Pakistan Steel Mills. ‘You should go and file a written reply to the show cause notice as required under Supreme Court rules,’ Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary told the interior minister before adjourning the hearing for one month

Suicide attack on Imambargah in Rawalpindi

RAWALPINDI: A suicide bomber has struck an Imambargah in Rawalpindi, police sources said. The blast took place at the enterance to the Imambargah. Initial reports suggest that at least two people have been killed in the attack. Three others were wounded including a policeman. Security has been heightened across the country during the month of Muharram in wake of the recent upsurge in militant attack

Zardari breaks all records of keeping foreign gifts

SLAMABAD: President Asif Zardari has set a new record within a year by taking one-third of all the expensive gifts presented to all Pakistani presidents and prime ministers. Of the gifts totalling Rs160 million, Zardari has taken gifts worth Rs62 million during the first year of his presidency.

In his foreign visits so far, Zardari has been given 27 gifts worth Rs62 million,which is one-third of the accumulated cost of the 3,039 gifts, which were given to presidents and prime ministers in three decades.

Zardari is said to have got two BMWs and two foreign manufactured Toyota Jeeps as gift by Libyan leader Colonel Qadafi during his visit to Libya, which he took to his home, after paying a sum of only Rs9.3 million as retention cost.

These shocking figures were produced before the Senate standing committee on cabinet division by the cabinet secretary on Monday during a presentation to its members. Zardari is now richer by Rs50 million within one year in the presidency, without doing a single rupee irregularity as this all was done under the law as he paid 15 per cent of the total cost of two BMWs and two jeeps and retained them.

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SBP list submitted in court includes Nawaz period

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave a final warning to those who have managed to get their loans written off from financial institutions during the last 38 years and directed the State Bank to furnish a list of loan defaulters right from 1971 to date.

“Only one chance will be given to defaulters to return the loans and strict action will be taken against them without any discrimination,” Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry observed while heading a three-member bench of the apex court hearing a suo moto case of Rs 54 billion written-off loans.

“If anyone said that the court has crossed its limits we are ready to take the blame in the best interest of the nation,” the chief justice remarked, adding the court would look into the State Bank Circular 29 regarding writing off loans under Article 25 of the Constitution.

Guantanamo ‘hell on Earth’, says Somali detainee

Wednesday, December 23, 2009
A Somali just home from eight years in the US jail at Guantanamo Bay told AFP the prison was “hell on Earth”, and alleged torture there had scarred some of his fellow inmates.

Mohamed Saleban Bare, who arrived in his hometown of Hargeisa on Saturday, said he was innocent of any charges that would have caused security forces to arrest him in Pakistan in 2001 and transfer him to the US jail via Afghanistan.

“Guantanamo Bay is like hell on Earth,” he said in an interview on Monday with an AFP reporter who visited him at his hotel in Hargeisa, capital of the northern breakaway state of Somaliland.

“I don’t feel normal yet but I thank Almighty Allah for keeping me alive and free from the physical and mental sufferings of some of my friends,” he said.

Sporting short hair and a long scrawny beard, Bare says he is in good physical health but looks dazed, speaks very softly and walks gingerly. Bare, 44, was among a dozen Guantanamo detainees from Afghanistan, Yemen and the breakaway Somalia region who were sent home at the weekend, bringing the number of detainees at the “war on terror” prison in Cuba to below 200.

He and another Somali, 45-year-old Osmail Mohamed Arale, were handed over to their relatives in Hargeisa by the International Representative Committee of the Red Cross in the presence of Somaliland authorities.

“Some of my colleagues in the prison lost their sight, some lost their limbs and others ended up mentally disturbed. I’m OK compared to them,” he said.

Bare said he was picked up in Karachi in December 2001, weeks after the United States launched its “war on terror” following the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York.

He claims he had been there for some time with several relatives who had fled the violence in Somalia and were hoping to find asylum in a western state. After about four months he was transferred to US military prisons in Kandahar and Bagram in Afghanistan, he said.

“At Bagram and Kandahar, the situation was harsh but when we were transferred to Guantanamo the torture tactics changed. They use a kind of psychological torture that kills you mentally,” he said.

This included depriving prisoners of sleep for at least four nights in a row and feeding them once a day with only a biscuit, he said.

“And in the cold they let you sleep without a blanket. Some of the inmates face harsher torture, including with electricity and beating,” he said. Bare was reluctant to answer questions about his alleged ties with Al-Ittihad Al-Islamiya, a Somali Islamist movement which produced many of the current leaders of the al-Qaeda-linked Shebab. “Guantanamo is a place of humiliation for Muslims. All the inmates are Muslims but they (Americans) claim the prison is for terrorists. Why don’t they arrest non-Muslims belonging to these so-called terror groups?”

“No human rights convention stands in Guantanamo. Interrogators force inmates to confess crimes they didn’t commit by torturing them and sullying their religion,” Bare said.

“They would desecrate the Holy Qura’an and raise the volume of their music during prayers,” he recounted. Bare said the US authorities had never told him why he was arrested.

“They used to ask many questions, most of them relating to my background like what I was doing in Somalia and about the people I know. It was all about suspicions and not a clear case,” he said.

US President Barack Obama has vowed to close down the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention facility by January with some of the inmates to be moved to a maximum-security prison in the state of I

Ponting fitness to be assessed tomorrow

SYDNEY: Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting will try to prove his fitness on Thursday ahead of the Boxing Day Test against Pakistan.

Ponting was restricted to fielding practice on Wednesday at the MCG as his team mates had a session in the nets.

He is nursing a left elbow injury after he was hit while batting during last week’s third Test against the West Indies in Perth.

Ponting will bat in the nets on Thursday, and if he does not come through, opener Phil Hughes will take his place in the national squad.

Aafia’s mother casts doubts on US lawyer Panel

KARACHI: Imprisoned doctor Aafia Siddiqui’s mother Asmat Siddiqui has said she does not trust the panel of American lawyers.

Addressing a press conference at Karachi Press Club, she said that she has sent a formal letter to the judge of a US court, stating her serious concerns on the panel of American lawyers. While copies of the letter have also been sent to President Asif Ali Zardari and Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhmamad Chaudhry.

“Dr Aafia has already spent enough time in jail, and even if we accept that the case against her is correct, she has completed her sentence,” Asmat Siddiqui added.

During the press conference, International Bar Association’s (London) member and head of a Human Rights organization Qadir Khan Mandokhail Advocate said, with the permission of Dr Aafia’s family and the government of Pakistan, he is offering his services free of cost for the case.