Mon Apr 2, 2007
HYDERABAD, India (Reuters) - Unable to come to terms with the death of their pet dog, an elderly couple in southern India committed suicide by hanging themselves, police said on Monday.
The bodies of 67-year-old retired soldier C.N. Madanraj and his wife, Tarabai, 63, were found on Sunday in their home in a suburb of Hyderabad.
Police said the childless couple had held a burial ceremony for their dog of 13 years, called "Puppy," and hosted a feast for friends before hanging themselves in their bedroom.
By AMIR SHAH
Associated Press Writer
10/5/05
KABUL, Afghanistan - The editor of an Afghan women's rights magazine was jailed after a presidential adviser accused him of publishing un-Islamic material — including an article critical of the practice of punishing adultery with 100 lashes, officials said Friday.
Minority Shiite Muslim clerics in Kabul objected to that article and another in the monthly Haqooq-i-Zan — or Women's Rights — that argued that giving up Islam was not a crime, Police arrested the magazine's editor, Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, on Saturday.
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
Associated Press Writer
Tue Oct 4
BELFAST, Northern Ireland - One of Northern Ireland's most high-profile Protestant militants was shot to death outside his home Tuesday night, more than six months after he was ousted by his outlawed group.
Two gunmen fired several shots at Jim Gray after he answered his door in Protestant east Belfast, his longtime power base, police said. Detectives covered his body with a white sheet as they searched outside his home for evidence.
No group claimed responsibility for his assassination, but a previous assassination attempt in 2002 came during a feud among Protestant militants involved in Belfast's thriving drug trade.
Gray, 43, had been free on bail while awaiting trial on charges of money laundering, concealing stolen property and other offenses connected to his past ownership of two Belfast pubs and other property.
Gray had been one of the six regional commanders of the outlawed Ulster Defense Association, Northern Ireland's largest outlawed group, until March 30, when colleagues ousted him. Police arrested him a week later in a car containing more than $60,000 in cash.
Gray was both a much-feared and much-lampooned figure. With his year-round tan, shock of bleach-blond hair and penchant for Hawaiian shirts, he was known widely — although rarely to his face — by the nickname "Doris Day."
But those who crossed him could suffer severe beatings or death. While a UDA commander he often confronted personal enemies with his bodyguards; an Associated Press reporter witnessed one such attack in June 2002, when Gray and an underling bludgeoned a man in full view of thousands of Belfast concert-goers.
Gray was grazed in the head with a bullet, but didn't suffer any serious injuries, in September 2002 during a feud between the UDA and another illegal Protestant gang, the Loyalist Volunteer Force.
The UDA, which has an estimated 2,000 members in this British territory of 1.7 million, was founded in 1971 as a loose umbrella for neighborhood vigilante groups in working-class Protestant areas. It was responsible for killing about 400 people, mostly Catholic civilians, before calling a 1994 cease-fire.
By BEN FOX
Associated Press Writer
Tue Oct 4
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Army Capt. James Yee had just arrived at the U.S. prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay when he got his first hint of trouble.
The man Yee would replace as Muslim chaplain showed him around the high-security base on the eastern edge of Cuba, and gave him a warning.
"This is not a friendly environment for Muslims, and I don't just mean for the prisoners," Yee recalled hearing from the outgoing chaplain. "You need to watch your back."
The exchange, which Yee recounts in a new book on his experiences at Guantanamo, would prove to be prophetic.
The new chaplain soon grew increasingly disturbed by the treatment of prisoners and what he perceived as military hostility to Muslim personnel at the base. Yee's biggest shock came later, when he was arrested on suspicion of espionage and held in solitary confinement for 76 days.
The case unraveled and authorities eventually dismissed the charges. Yee received an honorable discharge from the service and now lives in Washington state, but he was left with deep concerns about the treatment of prisoners in the U.S. war on terror and anger over his own treatment at the hands of military authorities.
"What happened to me was a gross miscarriage of justice," he said Tuesday in a phone interview from New York, where he was promoting his book, "For God and Country," which went on sale this week. "I don't want what happened to me to ever happen to anyone else."
Since the dismissal of the criminal charges in March 2004, Yee, 37, has appeared at events around the country to promote racial and religious tolerance, but he has avoided discussing details about his experiences in Guantanamo, his arrest and eventual exoneration.
In the book, Yee wrote that his concern about the conditions at the prison developed within weeks of his arrival in November 2002 after he became acquainted with the detainees — who confided in him because of their shared faith.
"I had the unique position of being very close to the detainees, on a personal level, a level no one else had with the detainees," Yee said.
The guards would harass prisoners, mock their religion and use unnecessary force at the slightest infraction. The detainees, he wrote, were also not provided with enough books or other activities, given inadequate opportunities to shower considering the harsh tropical heat and subjected to bodily searches that violated their religion.
In response, Army Col. Joseph Curtin said Yee has the right to publish his book but the military would not comment on such a personal account.
