Gaddafi cousin arrested in Cairo

Ahmed Gaddaf al-Dam, a cousin and close aide of Muammer Gaddafi, the late Libyan dictator, was arrested in Cairo on Tuesday after a siege which lasted several hours in the upmarket district of Zamalek.

Mr Gaddaf al-Dam is wanted by the Libyan authorities, who accuse him of crimes against humanity and had issued an Interpol warrant for his arrest.

He was for many year’s Mr Gaddafi’s liaison man in Egypt, though he announced he was cutting relations with the Libyan regime in February 2011 soon after the start of the Libyan revolution. It was never certain if that was a genuine defection or a ploy to allow him to continue serving the Libyan leader from outside the country.

Police surrounded Mr Gaddaf al-Dam’s home before dawn but he refused to surrender for several hours, reportedly barricading himself in a room with metal doors. Shots were fired, but it is not clear if police opened fire or if Mr Gaddaf al-Dam fired in the air to drive them away.

Apart from serving as Mr Gaddafi’s special envoy to Cairo, he was reported to have managed Libya’s investments in Egypt.

His arrest should help improve ties between the neighbours, which have a long history of ups and downs, but have been somewhat strained since the Libyan revolution. Both countries appear to be still coming to terms with the momentous changes in the region.

The presence of wanted Libyans from the Gaddafi regime in Egypt remains a sore point with Tripoli, officials and analysts say.

“The arrest will contribute to improving relations between Egypt and Libya,” said a spokesman at the Libyan embassy in Cairo. “There are still seventeen of Gaddafi’s people here in Egypt.”

The move against Mr Gaddaf al-Dam came shortly after a visit to Cairo by Ali Zidane, the Libyan prime minister.

Earlier this week, the Libyan embassy shut its doors for two days as tensions rose between the two countries over the arrests of scores of Egyptian Christians in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

Libyan militias accused them of spresading christianity and one of the detainees died while being held, his family says, after being tortured. The Libyans say he died of natural causes.

The Egyptian government protested over the arrests, and Coptic Christians held protests in front of the embassy sparking the brief closure.

Iconic Princess Diana dresses fetch $1.2M at auction

                                                         

A collection of some of Princess Diana's most memorable evening gowns -- including the one she wore when she danced with John Travolta at a White House dinner -- fetched more than 800,000 pounds ($1.2 million) at a London auction on Tuesday.

Diana famously wore the deep navy, figure-hugging velvet gown to a gala dinner hosted by President Ronald Reagan, during her and Prince Charles' first joint state visit to the U.S. in 1985. Photographs of her taking to the White House dance floor with Travolta have become some of the most celebrated images of the princess.The Victor Edelstein gown was sold for 240,000 pounds, Kerry Taylor Auctions said. It came slightly below the expected maximum price of 300,000 pounds.

Nine other of Diana's dresses were sold to bidders, which came from around the world and included three museums, the auction house said.

Two dresses by Catherine Walker, one of Diana's favorite designers, went for 108,000 pounds each. They were a black velvet, beaded gown worn for a Vanity Fair photo shoot by Mario Testino at Kensington Palace in 1997, and a burgundy crushed velvet gown the princess wore to the film premiere of "Back to the Future" in 1985.

Diana sold dozens of her dresses at a New York charity auction at the suggestion of her son Prince William in 1997 -- just three months before she died in a Paris car crash. Florida-based socialite Maureen Dunkel bought about a dozen of the dresses and put them up for auction in Canada in 2011, but the prices were set too high and many didn't sell.

In January, a photo of a teenage Diana Spencer before she became the Princess of Wales that was marked "not to be published" was also sold at auction, where it went for more than $18,000.

The auction house did not disclose the identity of the buyer, only saying it was sold to a "British gentleman as a surprise to cheer up his wife."

Muslims attack Christians in Egypt's south over allegations that girl was abducted

Hundreds of Muslim villagers in Egypt's south have attacked Christian-owned stores in search of a girl whose family claims was abducted.

The villagers assaulted the stores Tuesday and surrounded two churches in the city of al-Wasta in Bani Suef province in Egypt's south. Security forces guarded the churches. No casualties were reported.

The college-aged girl disappeared around one month ago. The crowd accused local Christian of kidnapping her.

Bani Suef's prosecutor, Hamdi Farouk, said there was no reason to believe Christians were involved in her disappearance.

Security chief Ibrahim Hudeib said the girl left her house with her gold and passport in hand and may have fled with a local Muslim boy.

Past clashes have been sparked by rumors of conversion, Muslim-Christian love affairs and the construction of churches.

Bus Falls Off Bridge in India, Killing at Least 37

A bus packed with passengers crashed through a guard rail and fell off a bridge in western India early Tuesday, killing at least 37 people and injuring another 15, police said.

The overnight bus was carrying passengers from the beach resort state of Goa to Mumbai when it crashed in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra, said Mahendra Singh Pardeshi, a police official present at the site. The area is about 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of Mumbai.

The cause of the accident was not immediately clear.

The driver was among those injured in the pre-dawn accident.

The bus had a capacity of 55 passengers, but Pardeshi said it was not known how many people were on board.

Early, blurred video if the accident showed that the bus broke through the guard rail on the bridge and fell several meters to the bank of the Jagbudi River below.

Jonathan pardons homosexual rapist, triggering fresh controversy

President Goodluck Jonathan enters the second week of his controversial pardon set to contend with a flurry of new issues and criticism from many who are trying to make sense of his reasoning for letting off former army Major, Bello Magaji, convicted and sentenced to five years jail term for sodomy, another name for homosexuality, by a military Court [General Court Martial] in 1996.

Mr. Magaji, a former military police officer attached to the Lagos Garrison Command, was convicted for serial homosexual intercourse with four students of the Army Cantonment Boys Secondary School in Ojo Cantonment in Lagos. The teenagers were Mohammed, Joseph, Emmanuel, and Isaac, according to court records obtained by PREMIUM TIMES.  We are witholding the surnames names of the victims since they were teenagers at the time of the incident.

The documents spoke of how Mr. Magaji intoxicated the young men, all from poor background, with alcohol, making them dizzy and then forcing them to have homosexual intercourse. He would then offer them token financial inducement to meet family obligations.

One of the teenagers recalled that: “He said I shouldn’t worry that I should go and bath. After my bath he gave me N1500.00k and said I should give Oscar N500.00k for bringing me. Then when I came out I gave Oscar N500.00k and it remained N1000.00k. Out of the N1000.00k Oscar collected N100.00k and it remained N900.00k. From the N900.00k, I bought things paid small small credit I was owing and bought school uniform for myself.”

Mr. Bello Magaji whose reasons for making the list remains puzzling, was one of about a dozen convicts that earned President Jonathan’s pardon Tuesday after a Council of State meeting in Abuja along with the president’s disgraced former boss, Mr. DSP Alamieyeseigha, a one-time governor in Bayelsa State where the president served as his deputy.

Mr. Magaji’s pardon, coming at a time that legislative and religious institutions in the country are bracing for a stormy confrontation with the local and international gay and lesbian communities is bound to shock many observers of the Jonathan presidency.

In November 2011, the Nigerian Senate passed a stunning anti-gay legislation which criminalizes homosexuality and gay marriage with a 14-year jail term. Although the move drew sharp international rebuke from both western and American political leaders, the Senate President, Mr. David Mark, in February this year, went ahead to defend the move, promising a delighted conference of Catholic bishops that the senate will lead the fight against homosexuality in the country. Mr. Mark was however at the meeting where Mr.Magagi got his pardon but was not on record to have uttered a voice against the move.

A similar bill to prohibit gay marriage also popularly passed through a second reading in the House of Representatives last november. House Majority leader, Mulikat Akande-Adeola (PDP-Oyo), said the proposed law will return sanity to the institution of marriage. If both law chambers pass the bill, Mr. Jonathan will be forced to sign a law that is bound to test his will against the temper of the international community.

The mood of the Supreme Court regarding the rights of homosexual people was best rendered in the case of the same Mr. Magaji when in their appeal ruling in 2008, they characterized the practice as a “beastly, barbaric and bizarre offence.” A panel of five Justices lead by Justice Niki Tobi subsequently threw the appeal of the former military police major to the trashcan and affirmed his five-year jail term.

Justice Niki Tobi also proposes, in his judgement that “Carnal knowledge with the male sex is against the order of nature and here, nature should mean God and not just the generic universe that exists independently of mankind or people.” The order of nature is “carnal knowledge with the female sex” he argued in the judgement.

With the Supreme Court, the National Assembly, and the religious order already walking a direct route from the president on the matter, he has, it appears, lost the court of popular morality to lean on for his queer decision on the Magaji pardon. As the Supreme Court records indicated, but failed to developed in depth, Mr. Magaji was not only engaged in gay sex which would have been consensual, but actually he was engaged in a homosexual rape.

“The common evidence of Emmanuel and Joseph is that they were asked to drink a bottle each of small stout which intoxicated them; it was in their state of intoxication that the appellant performed the dirty act of sodomy on Emmanuel, and others, the Supreme Court report narrated.

The Court report offers, in many of its lines, chilling narratives of Mr. Magaji as a sex pervert. The following testimony of one of the teenagers project a horrifying experience, one that will worry many who are trying to understand President Jonathan’s mind with respect to this particular pardon.

“When I went inside, I saw Joseph with Oga Magaji. Then Oga asked me my name, and then I told him my Joseph (sic) said yes so he asked Joseph if he knew me and Joseph said yes so he said I should go inside and sit down. Then when we went inside, I saw Mohammed and he said it has been long he was inside, he overslept. Then I asked Joseph the time they came there. Joseph said it has been long, that Mohammed took a bottle of Gulder that’s why he went asleep.

“By then, Sam came in, brought a bottle of small stout and gave me to drink, but I said I didn’t want to drink because I was not used to it, but he said if I don’t drink it I wouldn’t work for Oga, he will not accept me. Then he opened the small stout for me. I took a little out of it and it was bitter, I couldn’t take it, so I gave it to Joseph Unigbe who took the rest.

“After 5 minutes my eyes were turning me Joseph said me and Mohammed should go inside the bedroom to take a bath so that our eyes will stop turning us we accepted took our bath and when we wanted to put our cloths on, Joseph brought out one Army singlet, shirt and nicker, and a night gown and he said we should put them on we asked him why. He said we could not go home that patrol will hold us, that we had to sleep till the following day so we accepted and put them on. Then he showed us the guest room that we should go inside that that is where we were going to sleep.

“All of us went inside the guest room, suddenly, Joseph went outside saying he was going to collect something from the sitting room. When he went out, just immediately he went out then Maj. Magaji came inside the room.”

Gay sexual activity is illegal in Nigeria, both among male and female same-sex partners. In the 12 northern states that have  adopted sharia law maximum punishment is death by hanging. In the southern states, the maximum punishment is 14 years imprisonment

EFCC arraigns ex-Kogi Governor, Audu, over N10bn fraud

EFCC, on Monday arraigned the former Governor of kogi state, Abubakar Audu, alongside a former Director General of the Directorate of Rural Development in his administration, Alfa Ibn Mustapha, before an Abuja Court.

The men were arraigned on a 36-count charge bordering on criminal breach of trust and misappropriation of public funds of about N11 billion before Justice A.O. Adeniyi of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

Mr. Audu and his co-accused pleaded not guilty to the charge when it was read to them, prompting the prosecution counsel, Rotimi Jacobs, to request a date for the commencement of trial.

One of the charges read, “That you Prince Abubakar Audu and Alfa Ibn Mustapha between 2000 and 2002 at Abuja in the Abuja judicial division of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory while being the governor of Kogi state and Director General of Kogi State Directorate of Rural Development respectively and in such capacities entrusted with dominion over certain property, to wit, an aggregated sum of N2, 877, 487,690.88 meant for rural development in Kogi State committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said sum which you falsely claim to be payment made to Aresanmi Technical Industries Limited in respect of the contract allegedly awarded Kogi State Directorate of Rural Development to the said Aresanmi Technical Industries Limited and you thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 315 of the Penal Code, CAP 532, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990.”

The counsel to the first accused, Mike Ozekhome, asked the court to allow his client to return home on bail pending trial. He argued that the accused would be available for trial and would not jump bail. Counsel to the second accused, Orji Nwafor Orizu, also made the same plea for bail saying the two accused have been on administrative bail. But prosecution counsel, Rotimi Jacobs, opposed the oral application, insisting that a formal application should be presented before the court.

Justice Adeniyi however granted bail to the accused persons in the sum of N100million and a surety in like sum. The surety must have a property within the jurisdiction of the court with proof of ownership. The surety must also produce evidence of tax payment for the past 3 years, and must be resident within the jurisdiction of the court.

The judge adjourned the case to May 2 and 3 for trial.

Bill Gates confirms cancellation of trip to Nigeria but denies Alamieyeseigha’s link

The headquarters of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has confirmed America’s richest man, Bill Gates, has cancelled his scheduled March 27-28 visit to Nigeria as exclusively reported by this newspaper this morning.

“Yes he has cancelled it,” a spokesperson for the foundation told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone. “As you know he goes there once a year and he is actively engaged there. But this time, we have to rework his schedule. Nothing is certain yet about when next he will visit. As soon as we are able to arrange a new schedule, we will let you know.”

When asked whether the cancellation of the visit had anything to do with the diplomatic row between Nigeria and the U.S. over the controversial pardon granted ex-convicts Diepreye Alamieyeseigha  and Mohammed Bulama,  the official said, “No” and then added that she would request one of her colleagues to get back to us.

Almost immediately, James Whittington, a 
senior communications officer, (Africa and Middle East) with the foundation called to say the reasons our sources gave for the cancellation of Mr. Gates’ visit are false.

“Changes to Bill’s travel schedule sometimes happen for a variety of reasons,” Mr. Whittington said. ” As you know, he has visited Nigeria often, he follows closely Nigeria’s polio eradication and routine immunization efforts and is always keen to see the work of our partners in the field. He looks forward to visiting Nigeria when his schedule will permit.”

He however did not say why the billionaire’s schedule has changed at this time.

Mr. Gates  had planned to be in Nigeria March 27 and 28 this month to meet President Goodluck Jonathan, state governors and officials of the Federal Ministry of Health concerning the aggressive polio eradication campaign his Bill and Melinda Foundation is undertaking in the country.

But the trip, authoritative diplomatic sources said, was cancelled, two days after the U.S. government expressed disappointment with its Nigerian counterpart for pardoning convicted money launderers and warned it might cut aid meant for the country.

When we put the claim by the Bill and Mellinda Gates Foundation to our sources, one of them said, “This is a sensitive issue, so you don’t expect the foundation to admit to you that Bill is staying off because Washington requested him to do so. Americans are smarter than that.”