Defector admits ‘fabricating’ crucial Iraq WMD intel: report

LONDON: The defector whose claims that Iraq had biological weapons were used to justify the 2003 US invasion has admitted that he lied to help get rid of Saddam Hussein, the Guardian newspaper said Tuesday.

Iraq’s elected Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki speaks at a ceremony to mark the birth anniversary of Prophet Mohammed at Um al-Qura mosque in Baghdad February 15, 2011.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials, told the BND, Germany’s secret service, that Iraq had mobile bio-weapons trucks and had built clandestine factories.

Even after he went back on his story after being confronted with denials from another source, his former boss, the BND continued to take him seriously, he told The Guardian.

The false information formed the cornerstone of former US secretary of state Colin Powell’s key address to the United Nations on February 5, 2003.
During the speech, Powell described Janabi as “an Iraqi chemical engineer” who “supervised one of these facilities.”

“He actually was present during biological agent production runs and was also at the site when an accident occurred in 1998,” Powell told the UN.

“Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right,” Janabi told the British newspaper.

“They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy.

“I had to do something for my country, so I did this and I am satisfied because there is no dictator in Iraq any more,” he added.

The Iraq war resulted in more than 100,000 civilian deaths and destroyed the political reputations of the then US president George W. Bush, his defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and their ally British prime minister Tony Blair.

Rumsfeld admitted in memoirs released last week that he “made a misstatement” when he claimed Hussein had weapons of mass destruction sites round Baghdad and Tikrit.
Janabi told The Guardian he was “shocked” by Powell’s speech, but played down his role in the conflict.

“Powell didn’t say I was the only reason for war, he talked about three things: Uranium, Al-Qaeda in Iraq and my story (biological weapons),” he said.

And he accused the BND of having broken an agreement that they would not hand over his information to other countries. A German official, named “Dr Paul,” approached Janabi in 2000 after identifying him as a Baghdad-trained chemical engineer with possible inside intelligence of former leader Hussein’s regime.

“He said it was very important, that Iraq had a dictator and I needed to help,” the defector told The Guardian.

Janabi, who fled Iraq in 1995, lied to the BND, telling them Hussein had acquired mobile bio-weapons trucks and built weapons factories.

Later however, the BND confronted Janabi with a statement from Bassil Latif, his former boss at the Military Industries Commission in Iraq, who said there were no trucks or factories.

Janabi told the BND: “OK, when (Latif says) there no trucks then (there are none),” according to the paper.

Despite his admission, Janabi said security officials continued to take his claims seriously.

They told him in 2002 that his pregnant wife might not be allowed to join him in Germany if he refused to cooperate.

But the defector denied that he had lied to the BND in order to secure asylum, claiming he did it purely to topple Hussein.

“I was granted asylum on March 13, 2000. The story…had nothing to do with my asylum claim,” Janabi told the paper during a meeting in Germany.

“I had a problem with the Saddam regime, I wanted to get rid of him. I tell you something when I hear anybody, not just in Iraq but in any war, (is) killed, I am very sad. But give me another solution. Can you give me another solution?”

“Believe me, there was no other way to bring about freedom to Iraq. There were no other possibilities,” he added.

Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief in Europe, said Janabi’s “fascinating” admissions “makes me feel better.”

“I think there are still a number of people who still thought there was something in that, even now,” Drumheller told The Guardian.

Lahore shooting: Three more Americans barred from fleeing Pakistan

By Zahid Gishkori

ISLAMABAD: The government has barred three more Americans from travelling outside Pakistan on allegations that they were in the vehicle that crushed a man to death in Lahore immediately after Raymond Davis, a detained US citizen, was involved in a shootout that killed two other men.

The Punjab government has asked the federal government’s assistance in securing the custody of the three American men who are accused of trampling a motorcyclist to death while they drove to try and rescue Raymond Davis, who is accused of killing two men in Lahore.

“The interior ministry has placed the name of the three Americans, including the driver of the US consulate in Lahore, on the exit control list,” said one federal interior ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Putting a name on the exit control list (ECL) legally empowers the government to prevent that person from leaving the country. Raymond Davis is currently in the custody of the Punjab police in Lahore and awaiting trial for murder.

“We have sought access to get custody of these accused because they are wanted by the Punjab police in connection to the Raymond Davis case,” said Special Assistant to Chief Minister Punjab Senator Pervez Rashid. He added that the preliminary investigation report has been sent to the federal government.

The federal interior ministry, through the Foreign Office, has also written to the US consulate asking for the three accused Americans to be handed over to the Punjab police, said the interior ministry official. He declined to name the three individuals, however, saying that it might compromise the investigation.

Meanwhile, the US embassy in Pakistan said that they were not aware of these developments.

“We have not received any such information on the issue as yet,” said Courtney Beale, acting spokesperson of the US embassy in Islamabad.

Both the United States and Pakistan governments are handling the situation with some caution, given the popular reaction against Raymond Davis. While the US government claims that Davis has diplomatic immunity, the court in Lahore has yet to adjudicate on the matter.

Gaza’s fallen women: doing time for ‘moral’ crime

World.Down.com

GAZA CITY: Najwa Abu Amra cries inside a Gaza jail as she explains how she got here. Struggling to care for two sons and a drug-addicted husband, she agreed to sleep with a man for about 50 dollars.

A Palestinian Hamas policewoman unlocks a door at a women’s prison run by Hamas in Gaza City on December 9, 2010. The prison consists of two rooms that house 19 women, some doing time for “moral” crime, and a handful of children.

She had resisted prostitution in the past, but she was getting desperate.

“My husband isn’t normal, he was telling me to sleep with men because they would give him money,” She said. “He did what he liked and he didn’t give me anything. I didn’t know what to do”.

Her husband showed no interest in caring for their two boys, one aged nine, the other just three. When she walked out, trying to prod him into better behaviour, he married a second wife.

“I had two sons, one of them is deaf, I didn’t have a choice,” she explains as the other women prisoners look on, some of them clutching their own children.

Out of desperation, she dialed the number of a man she had met months earlier, and agreed to sleep with him for 200 shekels (54 dollars or 41 euros).

Not long afterwards, Abu Amra was arrested on suspicion of immoral behaviour.

She was hauled before a judge and ordered to attend 30 days of pre-trial detention at the Training and Reform Centre for Women, Gaza’s only prison for women.

The facility is run by Hamas, which has been in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007. The group won legislative elections in 2006, and a year later seized control of the coastal enclave after deadly confrontations with rival Fatah.

Since coming to power, the Islamist group has sought to bolster Gaza’s conservative religious mores, although it has rescinded some controversial measures, including one banning women from publicly smoking the water pipe.

The prison, such as it is, consists of two rooms that house 19 women and a handful of children. The rest of the building, which is still under construction, houses a men’s prison and administration offices.

Inside one of the rooms, 11 women sit on foam cushions and thick rugs, their thin blankets piled in a corner. One nurses a child in the dimly-lit room, which has only one tiny window letting in very little light.

In the other, eight women sit chatting with their female prison guard, Umm Ahmed, who treats them with a mixture of sympathy and revulsion.

‘Moral’ crimes are rarely sentenced

Abu Amra’s two boys are still with her husband, but another woman, a tired and scared-looking prisoner who refuses to give her name, is rocking her newborn son in her arms.

He was born just three days earlier and doesn’t yet have a name. His mother was transferred to a hospital for the birth then returned to jail shortly after. His father is a man she slept with for money, Umm Ahmed says. But the new mother claims otherwise, describing the man as her husband.

She says her family arranged the marriage while she was in jail, hoping it would be enough to get her out and minimise some of the public disgrace they face. Umm Ahmed says the family has done no such thing.

It is a common solution, said Nasser Deeb Suliman, director of prison security, especially when the man in the question is someone the family knows.

“If it was with a neighbour or a friend, usually the family will decide to marry them, and then the woman can be released,” he said.

The woman’s sister, who also refused to give her name, is in a similar situation. She is heavily pregnant and due to give birth this month, after spending almost half of her pregnancy in prison.

Suliman said the women are divided between the two rooms according to the severity of their crimes, but 21-year-old Tahrir, who was convicted of murder, is in the same room as women accused of prostitution and pick pocketing.

In the next room sits Rihab, a quiet and pale 34-year-old whose arms are covered in scars from cutting herself. She talks openly but without pride about how she ended up in prison.

She didn’t need money; she had a job at a local hospital. Her crime was to choose to sleep with two men, both of whom ended up in prison as well.

“I did it, I’m not going to lie, I did it twice,” she said. Her family was furious at first, but her father has forgiven her.

“He told the neighbours I’m in Egypt, he’s going to get a lawyer for me,” she said. The two men have already been released, after hiring attorneys to argue their cases.

Those accused of “moral” crimes are rarely sentenced, Suliman says.

Instead, a judge extends their 30-day detention period several times, releasing them between four and eight months later – less if a woman gets married, and more if she is a repeat offender.

Some women are more reluctant than Rihab to admit why they are in jail.

Kholud, 18, and her mother, who declines to give her name, have been in prison for two months, and say they were jailed over a family dispute.

Umm Ahmed openly contradicts them, but they refuse to change their story.

Outside the cell, the guard takes a visitor aside, her face sad but her voice filled with disgust as she describes the women as part of a brothel.

“The whole family was rotten. They were all involved. The father was in charge. The guy who was with the daughter was also with the mother,” she says.

“Don’t believe everything they say.”

SCBA chief to appear in Sialkot lynching case

KARACHI: Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) President Qazi Muhammad Anwar will appear in the case of lynching of two brothers in Sialkot to represent not only the bereaved family, but also to the sentiments of the citizens of Pakistan.

This was announced by the Convener of the Human Rights Committee of Supreme Court Bar Association, Zia Ahmed Awan, here on Monday. He said the tragic incident of Sialkot has shocked the whole nation. It has exposed the tall claims of upholding law and provision of security to the citizens.

Welcoming the suo moto notice of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, he said this kind of judicial activism is needed by the nation and country. He said the Bar would fully support and back this pro-people judicial activism.

Zia Awan said the lynching of two real brothers in the presence of police officers is not a lone case, but the incidents of police torture are rampant in our society. Quoting the research-based data of Madadgaar, Pakistan’s first helpline for women and children, he said during last nine years (2001-2009) as many as 2,530 cases of police torture against women and children were reported in the country. During the first seven months of current year 451 cases of police torture of women and children have been recorded. The number of police torture cases on males during this period is 207.

He said the Sialkot tragedy shows the country is being virtually ruled by the law of the jungle. He said the citizens are totally dissatisfied with the performance of police and demand immediate police reforms and purging the department from the black sheep. He regretted the government is still reluctant to introduce the police reforms, adding the Police Order Ordinance is yet to be implemented.

He said the drastic reformation in our police system is the need of the hour.

Zia Ahmed Awan said he had contacted the President of Sialkot District Bar Association, Rana Nasrullah, who has already deputed lawyers to conduct an inquiry into the incident. He said the report of this fact-finding mission would be made public soon. He said that SCBA President Qazi Muhammad Anwar and he (Zia Awan) himself will appear in the case to represent the victimized family and also to the sentiments of the Pakistani citizens.

Awan said the citizens have overwhelmingly condemned the brutal lynching of two real brothers in Sialkot and now the political parties and Parliament have to show their role in taking solid and serious steps to ensure that no such inhuman incidents ever repeat in this country in future.

N.Korea says to sever all ties with S.Korea

SEOUL – North Korea said Tuesday it was severing all ties with South Korea and cutting communications links in protest at claims that it had torpedoed one of Seoul’s warships.

South Korean navy personnel stand guard next to the wreckage of the naval vessel Cheonan, which sank …

The North said it would expel all South Korean personnel from a jointly-run industrial estate at Kaesong north of the border, and ban South Korean ships and planes from its territorial waters and airspace.

The state Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said South Korea’s claims that it had sunk the warship were tantamount to a declaration of war.

In a statement on the official news agency, it said it was freezing relations and abrogating a non-aggression agreement.

The statement further heightened regional tensions sparked by a report last week from a multinational investigation team.

The team said there was overwhelming evidence that a North Korean submarine had sunk the South Korean corvette on March 26 with the loss of 46 lives.

The US said Pyongyang’s reaction was totally contrary to its self-interest. “I think it’s odd,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.

“South Korea is one of the most dynamic economies in the world… North Korea is unable to care for its citizens. It’s unable to feed its people.”

“I can’t imagine a step that is less in the long-term interest of the North Korean people than cutting off further ties with South Korea,” Crowley said.

Seoul Monday announced a package of reprisals, including a halt in most trade. It plans to refer the sinking to the United Nations Security Council.

The North said it would not talk to the South again for the remainder of President Lee Myung-Bak’s term of office.

The conservative leader began a five-year term in February 2008, adopting a tougher line towards the North than his liberal predecessors.

The North also vowed an “all-out counterattack” against the South’s decision to resume an official cross-border propaganda campaign including loudspeaker broadcasts.

It did not give details but had earlier threatened to open fire at the loudspeakers.

The North also said all inter-Korean issues would be handled “under a wartime law” but did not elaborate.

“There is no need to show any mercy or patience for such confrontation maniacs, sycophants and traitors and wicked warmongers as the Lee Myung-Bak group,” it said.

The statement came hours after the North’s military accused South Korea’s navy of trespassing in its waters around the disputed Yellow Sea border and threatened military action.

The communist North denies involvement in the sinking of the corvette, despite widespread international condemnation. It threatens full-scale war if there is any attempt to punish it.

In an apparent show of strength, the South’s defence ministry said the navy would stage an anti-submarine drill in the Yellow Sea on Thursday. The military also said a destroyer was stationed in the Jeju Strait off the south coast to stop the North’s cargo ships using it.

The South shut its sea lanes to the North as part of the reprisals announced Monday.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due in Seoul Wednesday to show support to Washington’s close ally South Korea during its confrontation.

The United States has backed Seoul’s punitive measures and announced it would soon hold anti-submarine and other naval exercises with it.

Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters Washington backs Seoul’s decision to refer the sinking to the UN Security Council.

Clinton, during two days of talks in Beijing, had pressed China to get tougher on its ally North Korea.

China — which could veto any UN move for new sanctions — has not blamed the North for the sinking but called for restraint by all sides.

“The two sides believe that ensuring peace and stability in east Asia and the Korean peninsula is critical,” State Councillor Dai Bingguo said in Beijing Tuesday at a joint press appearance with key US officials.

Clinton said the two sides share the objective of peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. “Now we must work together again to address the serious challenge provoked by the sinking of the South Korean ship.”

Financial markets across Asia responded nervously to the escalating crisis, with one unconfirmed report from a group of North Korean defectors claiming that the North had placed its armed forces on combat alert.

The North says the South’s “puppet” authorities have faked evidence of its involvement as part of a plot to ignite conflict.

Man bypasses airport security, sneaks in weapon

* Mehmoodul Hassan was carrying disassembled handgun in luggage
* Passenger says airports around the world have scanners to detect weapons
* ASF claims such technology not available to them

Staff Report

LAHORE: A man managed to sneak a disassembled handgun right up to the domestic flight counter at the Allama Iqbal International Airport on Sunday, despite the tall claims of elaborate security measures put in place by the Airport Security Force (ASF).

Mehmoodul Hassan was scheduled to Karachi onboard Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight PK 315 at 7am. He arrived at the airport at 6am, nearly an hour early. However, after he made it past initial checking, security staff deputed at the luggage scanners discovered the dismantled parts of handgun of Spanish make in his luggage. According to airport sources, the parts were spread out in the man’s luggage.

This is the second incident of its kind reported at the Lahore aiport. On February 19, Farhan Saeed Butt, a passenger on Karachi-bound PIA flight PK 317, was stopped for body search at the first checking counter, where security personnel discovered a Japanese pen pistol concealed in his trousers.

This latest incident raises fresh questions about the effectiveness of the security measures in place at the airport. Talking to Daily Times, passenger Muhammad Talha, a UK-based Pakistani businessman, said, “The number of visitors and tourists coming to Pakistan is steadily diminishing due to the growing number of terrorist attacks. They feel unsafe coming here, because most people enter the country through its airports.”

When asked how he would reconcile added security with the inconveince to passengers that would result if security personnel began checking each and every person who came into the airport, he said “At airports around the world, high-tech scanners are used to detect any kind of weapon or explosives without having to stop individuals or vehicles. Scanners can be installed here (at the Lahore airport) as well… nothing is more important for us than security right now.” A senior ASF official told Daily Times that metal and explosive detectors were installed at the entry points to the airports, but the equipment currently available was inadequate when it came to detecting disassembled weapons. “For such detailed checking, we need high-tech scanners in the parking… that technology is currently not available in Pakistan… we will definitely install these scanners at the three main airports as soon as we get them.”

ASF had tightened security at the airport after the attack on Tipu Truckanwala, when the killer had managed to carry a handgun into the parking lot. At the time, ASF had said the that weapon could not be detected in spite of the thorough checking that each incoming vehicle is subjected to.