8 theSun | FRIDAY JULY 24 2009

news without borders

briefs Susilo under fire for bomb response ‘rant’

Wave of corruption arrests
made in New Jersey
NEW YORK: FBI agents arrested politicians,
rabbis and community leaders yesterday in a
major anti-corruption drive across New Jersey,
local reports said. NBC television showed foot-
age of agents bringing a stream of handcuffed
suspects into custody in the city of Newark.
These included the mayors of Hoboken and Se-
caucus, television and local press reports said.
They also included the deputy mayor of Jersey
City, other officials and several rabbis, WABC
television reported. The sweep was believed
to be one of the biggest such actions in a state
long associated with corruption. – AFP
Man admits killing,
mutilating two Filipinas
JAKARTA: Indonesian President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s
leadership has been called into
question after the rattled leader
appeared to link political rivals
with the deadly suicide bombings
in Jakarta.
Critics have denounced as an
“excessive rant” a teary speech by
Susilo after Friday’s attacks, when
he suggested the bombings could
be linked to alleged plots by rivals
to overturn his re-election the
week before.
But supporters say the nor-
mally taciturn president may have
evidence to back up his claim or
at least be making a sophisticated
ploy to shut down elements of the
political and military elite with
dark pasts and high ambitions.
Hours after the attacks on the
JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton ho-
tels killed seven people – widely
suspected to be the work of Islam-
ist extremists – Susilo made an
emotional address to the nation.
He denounced the attackers
as “Draculas and spreaders of
death” and appeared visibly upset
as he described plots to violently
overturn the July 8 polls, which he
won with over 60% of the vote.
“This morning I heard from
several parties who have an un-
settling theory that this terror act
is related to the presidential elec-
tion,” he said.
He dramatically held up a pho-
tograph of himself which he said
had been used as target practice
by a “terrorist group”.
“There are video recordings
and pictures. This is not slander,
this is not a rumour,” he said.
“There are likely those among
us who in the past have carried out
crimes, murdered, made people
disappear, and these perpetrators
have maybe been able to slip
away from the reach of the law,”
he said.
Analysts have been left scratch-
ing their heads about what exactly
the usually uncontroversial presi-
dent was talking about. Susilo’s
performance was an “excessive
rant” that bore “shades of a despotic
regime bent on blacklisting politi-
cal opponents through espionage,”
The Jakarta Post daily said in a
damning editorial on Tuesday.
“We saw another side of the
soon-to-be-confirmed president-
elect. A side that was unnecessarily
menacing. A side that the nation
need not see again,” the Post said.
Susilo’s defeated election op-
ponents have taken it personally.
The president’s comments were
an attempt to “scapegoat other can-
didates” who had complained of
poll irregularities, said Sony Keraf,
a spokesman for the defeated cam-
paign of Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Megawati’s team has alleged wide-
spread irregularities in the poll and
has threatened to challenge the
results, which still have not been
officially released. – AFP

REUTERSP[IX
TOKYO: A Japanese man pleaded guilty
yesterday to murdering two Philippine
women and chopping up their bodies, media
reports said. He was charged in court over
the murders of Elda Longakit Yoneda, 27,
and Honiefaith Ratilla Kamiosawa, 22. Both
were strangled to death inside apartments
– Yoneda in 1999, and Kamiosawa in 2008.
Previous media reports said Nozaki burned
Yoneda’s body and flushed its parts down
a toilet, and that he washed Kamiosawa’s
body parts in a laundry machine before hid-
ing them in a suitcase in a coin locker. Pros-
ecutors said Nozaki killed the two women
after they rejected his advances. – AFP

Actor Law denies hitting

photographer: Lawyer
LONDON: British actor Jude Law denied
yesterday having deliberately hit a female
photographer taking his picture as he left a
London restaurant, his lawyer said. Law was
accused by Harsha Gopal, 28, of striking her
early yesterday. “He hit me full in the face. It
was a real stinger, it was very sore,” she said. Fire scare...
Meanwhile, British singer Amy Winehouse A bush fire threatens
told a court that she pushed a woman after residences in the French
a charity ball last September because she city of Marseille yesterday.
had been scared of her, but denied punching More than 300 people
dancer Sherene Flash in the face. – Agencies were evacuated from

Police raid office of MJ’s

Saudi man arrested
after TV sex boast
RIYADH: A Saudi man has been arrested for
boasting about his sex life on television, the
English daily Arab News reported yesterday.
Mazen Abdul Jawad was arrested after he
appeared last week on Red Line, a pro-
gramme on Lebanon-based LBC TV which is
popular in Saudi Arabia. Jawad said he first
had sex with a neighbour when he was 14,
and he also described in detail some of his
later adventures. He explained how he uses
the Bluetooth function on his cellphone to
try to pick up women, the report said. Jawad
could face charges of speaking openly about
vice and engaging in pre-marital sex. – AFP
16 killed in south Yemen
clashes: Witnesses
SANAA: At least 16 people were killed and 30
wounded in shelling and gunfire during clashes
yesterday between government forces and
armed activists at a separatist rally in south
Yemen, witnesses said. The demonstration at
Jinzibar, 50km east of the southern port of Aden,
was called by Tarek al-Fadhli, a former key ally
of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Fadhli recently
switched sides to support the secession of
south Yemen from the north. “The clashes killed
16 people, including six policemen,” a separatist
activist close to Fadhli said. – AFP
their houses as bush
fires started by a military
exercise neared the city.
doctor for manslaughter link
LOS ANGELES: Federal agents and de- star alive at his mansion. “We can confirm that a search warrant
tectives swooped on the offices of Michael The official coroner’s report into the was executed today on Dr Murray’s offices
Jackson’s doctor on Wednesday, as lawyers 50-year-old singer’s demise has deferred in Houston, Texas,” Chernoff said.
for the physician revealed police are treat- the cause of death amid speculation “The search warrant authorised law
ing the star’s death as that powerful prescription drugs he was enforcement to search for and seize items,
possible manslaugh- believed to be taking may have been to including documents, they believed con-
The search warrant ter. A spokeswoman blame. stituted evidence of the offence of man-
authorised law enforcement for the Drug Enforce- Suspicion has also focused on a slaughter.”
to search for and seize ment Administration dangerous sedative – propofol, which is The wording of the warrant provided
items, including documents, (DEA) confirmed that known by the trade name Diprivan – used the clearest indication yet that authorities
they believed constituted a search with the Los to induce unconsciousness in hospital are viewing Jackson’s death as a criminal
Angeles police took patients ahead of major surgery, which matter.
evidence of the offence of place at the offices of reports say was also found at Jackson’s Los Angeles police had previously
manslaughter.” the Armstrong medi- home. Television reports showed several refused to rule out homicide in the case
– Ed Chernoff cal clinic in Houston, law enforcement agents entering Murray’s but had shied away from making any
Texas, where Dr Houston offices in a dramatic new twist to formal announcement that the pop icon’s
Conrad Murray practises. the four-week-old investigation. death could result in criminal charges. In
Murray has emerged as the central fig- Murray’s lawyer Ed Chernoff con- a statement issued by Murray’s lawyers
ure in the mystery surrounding Jackson’s firmed in a statement that the search late on Tuesday, Chernoff said the doctor
death in Los Angeles on June 25 and was warrant served by investigators had been was anxious to assist authorities in their
the last person to have seen the tragic pop seeking evidence of manslaughter. investigation. – AFP

Obama slams police for ‘stupidly’ arresting Harvard scholar

WASHINGTON: President Barack
Obama stepped full throttle into the
divisive issue of US race relations on
Wednesday when he accused police
of acting “stupidly” in arresting a black
Harvard scholar.
Police in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
have already apologised to African-
American professor Henry Louis Gates
(pix) who was arrested after having to
break into his own home because of
a faulty door late on Thursday. “Now, I
don’t know, not having been there, and
not seeing all the facts, what role race
played in this,” Obama told a press con-
ference, when asked about his reaction
to the highly-publicised incident.
“But, I think it is fair to say, number
one, any of us would be pretty angry.
Number two, that the Cambridge police
acted stupidly in arresting somebody
when there was already proof that they
were in their own home.”
Gates, 58, a leading expert on African-
American studies and an Obama friend,
had been seen by a passing woman
attempting to get into his Cambridge
house along with another black man,
according to the police report from July
16. The woman alerted the police, and
by the time a uniformed officer arrived
Gates was inside his home and report-
ing the faulty door to the Harvard Real
Estate office.
Gates tried to tell the police officer
that he lived in the house and showed
him his Harvard University identification
card and his driver’s license.
But when he stepped outside at the
officer’s request, he was handcuffed,
arrested and spent four hours in police
custody before being released. Despite
his election as the country’s first black
president, Obama has sought to steer
clear of directly addressing issues of
race. And he joked that even he would
be shot at if he tried to break into the
White House. – AFP