Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts
An American man, who was arrested over 1,500 times during his life, spent another Thanksgiving Day behind bars.
Henry Earl has spent over 6,000 days in prison during his lifetime, mainly as a result of public intoxication and disorderly conduct.
Jams this time was the reason for the arrest of 64-year-old who has even nicknamed 'James Brown'.
For the first time, he was arrested in July 1970 when he was 20 years old. Since then, the number of arrests grew rapidly, while during the eighties was arrested 230 times.
Given the large number of arrests in the last year the judges are starting to become tougher against him, so that for every arrest suffers from two to three months in prison (for acts for which others would pass only 24 hours behind bars)
SHQIP
Një burrë amerikan, i cili është arrestuar mbi 1.500 herë gjatë jetës, ka kaluar një tjetër Ditë të Falënderimeve prapa grilave.
Henry Earl ka kaluar mbi 6.000 ditë në burg gjatë jetës së tij, kryesisht si pasojë e dehjes publike dhe sjelljes së çrregullt.
Edhe kësaj radhe dehja ishte arsyeja e arrestimit të 64-vjeçarit që ka edhe nofkën ‘James Brown’.
Për herë të parë, ai është arrestuar në korrik të vitit 1970 kur ishte 20 vjeç. Që atëherë, numri i arrestimeve u rrit me shpejtësi, ndërsa gjatë viteve të tetëdhjeta u arrestua 230 herë.
Duke pasur parasysh numrin e madh të arrestimeve, në vitin e fundit gjykatësit kanë filluar të bëhen të ashpër kundrejt tij, ashtu që për çdo arrestim vuan nga dy deri në tre muaj burg (për vepra, për të cilat të tjerët do t’i kalonin vetëm 24 orë prapa grilave).
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Henry Earl has spent over 6,000 days in prison during his lifetime, mainly as a result of public intoxication and disorderly conduct.
Jams this time was the reason for the arrest of 64-year-old who has even nicknamed 'James Brown'.For the first time, he was arrested in July 1970 when he was 20 years old. Since then, the number of arrests grew rapidly, while during the eighties was arrested 230 times.
Given the large number of arrests in the last year the judges are starting to become tougher against him, so that for every arrest suffers from two to three months in prison (for acts for which others would pass only 24 hours behind bars)
SHQIP
Një burrë amerikan, i cili është arrestuar mbi 1.500 herë gjatë jetës, ka kaluar një tjetër Ditë të Falënderimeve prapa grilave.
Henry Earl ka kaluar mbi 6.000 ditë në burg gjatë jetës së tij, kryesisht si pasojë e dehjes publike dhe sjelljes së çrregullt.
Edhe kësaj radhe dehja ishte arsyeja e arrestimit të 64-vjeçarit që ka edhe nofkën ‘James Brown’.
Për herë të parë, ai është arrestuar në korrik të vitit 1970 kur ishte 20 vjeç. Që atëherë, numri i arrestimeve u rrit me shpejtësi, ndërsa gjatë viteve të tetëdhjeta u arrestua 230 herë.
Duke pasur parasysh numrin e madh të arrestimeve, në vitin e fundit gjykatësit kanë filluar të bëhen të ashpër kundrejt tij, ashtu që për çdo arrestim vuan nga dy deri në tre muaj burg (për vepra, për të cilat të tjerët do t’i kalonin vetëm 24 orë prapa grilave).
Sources from the Ministry of Finances say for Top Channel that the obligations reported by the Ministries reach 27 billion ALL.
Deloitte has verified 80% of the agreements, which are the biggest on the list. After handing over the report, the Minister of Finances will verify it and then it will be made public. But the agreements verified by the Deloitte are only one part of the debt that the state owes to private operators. A huge debt is that of the VAT reimbursement, energy debts and those related to the expropriations, together with a series of other debts that could bring the total at 500 million EUR.
But besides Deloitte, the Ministry of Finances is seeing the issue of identifying the due debts with the International Monetary Fund. An International Monetary Fund mission will arrive in Tirana on December 3rd to give the final approval on the debt and the new tax package.
the late hour
deeply outragUkrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has said he is "ed" by events at opposition protests in Kiev.
He was speaking after police violently dispersed an opposition camp on Saturday. Protesters were set to return to the capital again on Sunday.
Opposition parties are angry Mr Yanukovych refused to sign an EU association agreement and have called for early elections.
But Kiev's authorities say they will ban rallies in the heart of the city.
Ukrainian TV reported that a bid to prevent mass gatherings in Independence Square until next month was granted by a court on Saturday night.
Riot police had stormed the square in the early hours of Saturday when several hundred people were there. At least 31 people were taken into custody and a number of people were treated for injuries.
Kiev police chief Valery Koryak admitted afterwards that the "police did not come out of it looking good," but argued that missiles had been thrown at officers by some demonstrators.
In a statement read out on Ukrainian TV on Saturday night, President Yanukovych demanded an immediate investigation into the violence.
"I am deeply outraged by events that took place on Independence Square overnight. I condemn the actions which led to a confrontation and people's suffering."
He called for those responsible to be brought to account, but did not explicitly blame police. He also insisted that Ukrainians were "united by our choice of our common European future".
Several Western countries condemned the police intervention. US state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki condemned "the violence by government authorities against peaceful demonstrators".
Jailed opposition leader and ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko urged Ukrainians "not to leave the authorities' actions unanswered" and preparations were made for a big rally on Sunday at 12:00 (10:00 GMT).
In a message read by her daughter on Saturday, Tymoshenko urged Ukrainians: "Fly, drive, walk to Kiev from all parts of Ukraine, but gather everyone on 1 December."
By Saturday evening demonstrators had regrouped in another square in the city centre, outside St Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery.
Another opposition party leader, Vitaly Klitschko, told people in the square that thousands of supporters were travelling from the western city of Lviv and other Ukrainian cities to take part in Sunday's rally.
Groups of protesters spent the night in front of St Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery
Police had dispersed protesters in the early hours of Saturday from Independence Square
A number of protesters were injured in the scufflesOpposition parties say a "national resistance" HQ is to be set up, followed by a nationwide strike.
Members of Ukraine's political opposition had met for emergency talks after the dispersal from Independence Square.
"We have made a joint decision to form a national resistance taskforce and have begun preparing for an all-Ukrainian national strike," former Economy Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told reporters.
"Our demands are the resignation of [Interior Minister Vitali] Zakharchenko, an investigation of his actions and his trial, the resignation of the government and the president and early presidential and parliamentary polls.
"We... are calling on all civic activists, civil society and all those who care about Ukraine's future to fight the Viktor Yanukovych regime together." SHQIP
A young woman has told the Old Bailey that when she was 12 years old she was branded with the initial of a man so other men who raped her would know she "belonged" to him.
The jury was earlier told that the woman, now 19, had been sold to the man as an 11-year-old. She told the court that until she was 15 he repeatedly and brutally raped her, organising for other men to have sex with her.
The woman, known as girl D for legal reasons, said on several occasions Mohammed Karrar and his brother Bassam Karrar forced her to have sex with one of them while performing a sex act on the other.
The woman is the fourth witness to give evidence at the Old Bailey in the trial of nine men accused of offences including rape, trafficking and child prostitution against children as young as 11 in Oxford.
Appearing in court via video link, the woman struggled to control her emotions on several occasions, fighting back tears and taking deep breaths as she gave her evidence.
She earlier told the court that Mohammed Karrar would rape her in her own home as her parents were deaf. On one occasion after sex she was on her sofa wearing only knickers when he took one of her hairpins, stripped the paint off it with a knife, bent it into a M and heated it up with a lighter. He then burned it into her bottom, she said. "He was branding me so people knew that I was his … if I had to have sex with someone else."
Earlier she described a "honeymoon period" with Mohammed Karrar when she believed he loved her and they were in a romantic relationship. She told the court earlier in the week that she had become pregnant and he had taken her to have an illegal abortion.
She met Mohammed Karrar and his brother Bassam Karrar as an 11-year-old and was forced to have sex with both of them, she said. She described one occasion when she said Mohammed Karrar had followed her into the bathroom and gagged her with her own scarf before raping her.
Knowing he carried a knife in his coat pocket, she grabbed it, she told the court. "I kind of took the knife and threatened him. I said I would stab him but I didn't do anything. He was quite mad with me, even threatening him and taking the knife," she said.
He dragged her to the living room and told the other people there to leave. Then he grabbed a baseball bat, she said. "I was whacked around my head. I remember whistling in my ears, my head felt really heavy and pounded," she said.
When she regained consciousness he was assaulting her with the handle of the baseball bat, she told the court. "I hated him when he done that", she said. "I thought it was my own fault because I shouldn't have threatened him with the knife."
She told the court she had "no choice" but to have sex with the brothers. If she tried to stop Mohammed Karrar "sometimes he would get angry, sometimes give me a guilt trip". Asked how he would react she said he would "shout, hit, or just take it into his own hands".
She described one occasion when he hit her with the back of his hand and she "flew into the sofa". If she refused to have sex "he would force himself upon me, he would whisper in my ear saying you know this is what it's meant to be like, baby, I love you", she said.
Mohammed Karrar had total control over her and would force her to dress up and perform roleplays, she told the court. "If he wanted me to do something I would do it. [He said] If he wanted me to eat shit, I would eat shit."
Mohammed Karrar also organised for other men to have sex with her and took payment for it, the woman told the court. She met other men in hotel rooms or in flats, sometimes alone or in twos and threes, and up to three times a week, she told the court. She was expected to treat the men like "important guests" but said "it was meant to be nice … but I dressed like a slut".
She told the court that on a few occasions she had been able to say no, but more often "they would go mad, or sometimes they would ask very nicely, [saying] 'Please, for me, these are my guests', but eight times out of 10 it was 'You have to do it and you are going to do it'." One man threatened her with a knife before penetrating her with the handle of the weapon, she said. She didn't understand what the men said to each other, as they talked in a different language, but she got the impression they enjoyed scaring her, she told the court.
After the men had left, Mohammed Karrar would force her to have a bath and scrub her so hard that she would, on occasion, bleed, she told the court.
He would say "stuff like I'm a dirty bitch, and I needed to keep clean. Calling me all the names under the sun," she said. He would ask sarcastically if she had enjoyed herself. "He would just make me feel lower and lower and lower, even though it was him making me lower," she told the court.
Kamar Jamil, 27, Akhtar Dogar, 32, Anjum Dogar, 30, Assad Hussain, 32, Mohammed Karrar, 38, Bassam Karrar, 33, Mohammed Hussain, 24, Zeeshan Ahmed, 27, and Bilal Ahmed, 26, face a total of 51 counts between them, including rape, forcing a child into prostitution and trafficking. The men deny all the charges.
It is alleged the men targeted young girls from vulnerable and chaotic backgrounds, and over a period of eight years subjected them to extreme physical and sexual violence, sold some victims for prostitution in Oxford and trafficked others around the country.
The trial continues.
MADRID -- A man has been convicted of beheading a British woman with a knife inside a supermarket on a Spanish resort island and will be sentenced to spend time in a psychiatric institution.
A court in Santa Cruz on the Canary island of Tenerife found that Deyan Valentinov, a 20-year-old homeless Bulgarian man, had committed the act of murder but was not criminally responsible for his actions because he has acute paranoid schizophrenia.
Valentinov will later be sentenced at a later date to between 10 and 15 years in a secure psychiatric unit, court spokesman Gonzalo Perez said Friday.
Valentinov entered the store in May 2011, grabbed a 9-inch (23-centimeter) ham-slicing knife and repeatedly attacked Jennifer Mills-Westley before running into the street still holding her head.
A Utah man claiming that he was sodomized by a hospital worker while he was unconscious is suing a police officer he alleges didn't stop the sexual assault.
Brett Jensen is suing Logan City Police office James Gale, along with the Logan Regional Hospital, its employee Hal Lavaun Weston, and others because of a Jan. 20, 2012 incident at the hospital, where he was taken after passing out drunkenly in a police vehicle.
Jensen, who was later charged with public intoxication, trespass, and public urination, claims that Gale called Emergency Medical Services to take him to the hospital and followed the EMS van in his police cruiser to the hospital.
According to the suit, Gale left him "unconscious and incapacitated" in a treatment room in the care of Weston, who was later arrested for performing "unsolicited oral sex" on Jensen, according to The Smoking Gun.
Jensen is accusing Gale of observing Weston sucking "on plaintiff's penis while plaintiff was unconscious and handcuffed," and not attempting to "stop or arrest Hal Weston even though Officer Gale witnessed him perpetrating a felony sexual offense on plaintiff," according to documents obtained by Courthouse News Service.
The suit also alleges that for 30 minutes after the assault, hospital administrators, employees, contractors, staff and/or security allowed Hal Weston to re-enter plaintiff's room on two occasions and remain unattended.
Weston was later interviewed, arrested and booked into the Cache County Jail on suspicion of forcible sodomy. He was later fired and the hospital told KTVX-TV that officials would cooperate with an investigation of the incident being done by local police.
Jensen is seeking punitive damages for sexual battery, personal injury, emotional distress, negligent hiring, retention, training and supervision and vicarious liability
A judge in Texas has released a teenage murder suspect's confession, in which he says the 2007 film "Halloween," by heavy metal musician and film director Rob Zombie, inspired him in the slaying of his mother and sister.
"While watching it I was amazed at how at ease the boy was during the murders and how little remorse he had afterword [sic]. I was thinking to myself it would be the same for me when I kill someone," 17-year-old Jake Evans wrote in his confession, according to a copy released on Thursday by Parker County Judge Graham Quisenberry.
According to police, Evans killed his 48-year-old mother, Jamie Evans, and his 15-year-old sister, Mallory, inside their upscale Aledo home Oct. 3, 2012. In a four-page written confession police said that Evans wrote hours after his arrest, he said he watched "Halloween" three times that week.
The 2007 film, which is both a prequel and remake of John Carpenter's 1978 film of the same name, highlights the early years of fictional serial killer Michael Myers. In the film, a 10-year-old Myers murders several people, including his older sister, his sister's boyfriend and his mother's boyfriend.
"After I watched the movie I put it back in the case and threw it in the trashcan so that people wouldn't think that it influenced me in any way," Evans wrote, according to police.
The written confession says the teenager spent the earlier part of Oct. 3, 2012 watching the film, playing golf, and contemplating the murder of his mother, grandparents and three sisters.
"My plan was to kill my sister and my mom at my house and then go over to my grandparents and kill my oldest sister, Emily, and my two grandparents. Then I was going to wait until morning and kill my other sister, Audrey, because she was visiting from college," the confession says.
The initial plan, it says, was for Evans to use a folding-knife that belonged to his father. He imagined killing his sister and "causing her pain," but, the confession says, after further consideration he decided he did not want them to "feel anything" so he used a .22 revolver he had stolen from his grandfather.
"I set [the pistol] on the bed and was nervously opening the cylinder over and over again," the confession reads. "I then spent probably over and [sic] hour walking nervously around the house thinking how life will never be the same and how I would never see them again."
It was about 11:15 p.m. when Evans says he finally came up with the courage to kill, police said.
"I knocked on [my sister's] door and told Mallory that mom needed her. She came out and out of the corner of her eye saw me pointing the gun at her. She thought I was joking and told me that I was freaking her out. I shot her in the back and then in the head. I ran down to the study and shot my mom three times," the confession reads.
The confession says he ran into his room after the shootings and screamed at the top of his lungs. Afterward, he began to empty the gun when he heard noises and realized his sister was not dead; he yelled out he was sorry then shot her again. Police said he then went back to his mother's body and fired another shot into her head.
"Very shocked and scared, I placed the gun on the kitchen counter and walked into the living room to dial 911," the confession reads.The 911 call was previously released by police.
"It just kind of happened," Evans told the 911 operator, according to police. "I've been kind of, uh, planning on killing for a while now … I guess this is really selfish to say but, to me, I felt like they were just suffocating me in a way … Obviously, I am pretty, I guess, evil."
Evans has been charged with one count of capital murder and two counts of murder.
Quisenberry ordered during a Wednesday hearing that the confession should not be sealed and entered it into evidence. The confession was released to the public Thursday. The judge on Wednesday also denied a request by Evans' attorney to have the capital murder charge dropped against him. Quisenberry did, however, OK a request for bond, which he set at $750,000.
During the hearing, Evans' father, who was out of town on business at the time of the murders, told the judge he would not bond his son out of jail.
A trial date has not yet been set.
His confession appears to outline a possible motive in the slayings.
"When I look at people, especially teenagers, I see them as being very cruel to one another emotionally," the confession reads. "It seems that their favorite hobby is picking on someone else. The people who are racists, bullies, and who are full of themselves are the really evil ones and it amazes me because those three qualities are extremely common today. I was very sad because I felt like my own family were becoming the people I hate."
It continues, "I know now that I'm done with killing. It's the most dreadful and terrifying thing I will ever experience and … will haunt me forever."
A 17-year-old who shot dead his mother and sister wrote about how he was inspired by the "at ease" horror movie serial killer.
A Texas teenager has confessed to police that he shot his mother and sister after repeatedly watching a horror film about a boy who kills without remorse.
Newly released evidence in the case includes a four-page document handwritten by Jake Evans.
In it he calmly explained how he planned to kill several members of his family last October - inspired by the 2007 remake of the horror classic Halloween.
The film is about a young boy who knifes to death his sister and others, and escapes a mental hospital years later to continue killing as an adult.
"While watching it, I was amazed at how at ease the boy was during the murders and how little remorse he had," the 17-year-old wrote, just hours after the event.
"Afterward, I was thinking to myself it would be the same for me when I kill someone."
He said in the confession that he initially planned on using a knife to murder his mother Jami and 15-year-old sister Mallory at their home in Aledo.
"I went back upstairs and kept pacing back and forth imagining killing Mallory," he wrote.
"Thoughts of causing her pain kept entering my mind and were really bothering me. But then I'd think about the times she hurt my feelings."
Evans described how earlier that day, he and his sister had argued after he accused her of making a racist comment.
He said he sat on the sofa having a pillow fight with his sister with a knife in his pocket.
But then he changed his mind.
"After a while, I thought to myself that if I were to kill my mom and Mallory, I wouldn't want them to feel anything, so I decided to kill them both with the .22 revolver I stole from my grandpa," he wrote.
"I then spent probably over an hour walking nervously around the house thinking how life will never be the same and how I would never see them again."
Evans described knocking on his sister's bedroom door at about 11.15pm and shooting her in the back and head.
He then went downstairs and shot his mother.
"As I emptied the shells on my bed, I heard noises and realised that Mallory was still alive," he wrote.
"While I loaded the gun back up, I was shouting that I was sorry and then ran as fast as I could to kill her. I made sure my mom was dead and shot her again in the head."
Evans called 911 and told the dispatcher what he had done.
"I know now though that I'm done with killing," he said at the end of his statement. "What happened last night will haunt me forever."
The final words of Pete Barnes, the pilot killed after his helicopter crashed in central London, have been revealed.
Mr Barnes, 50, died from multiple injuries when the helicopter he was flying clipped a high-rise crane at St George Wharf in Vauxhall, south London.
A report by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch said he spoke to air traffic control just before the crash and requested permission to land at a heliport in Battersea.
He asked: "Is Battersea open, do you know?"
After being told it was, he replied: "If I could head to Battersea that would be very useful."
The air traffic controller responded: "Battersea diversion approved, you're cleared to Battersea."
Mr Barnes' final words, spoken seven seconds before he crashed, were: "Thanks a lot."
The report also revealed that Mr Barnes' client, whom he had been due to pick up from Elstree in Hertfordshire, advised him not to make the journey from Redhill Aerodrome in Surrey.
The report said: "At 0718hrs, the client called the pilot to discuss the weather. The pilot said he thought the weather might clear earlier than forecast. The client said he would drive to Elstree and call the pilot to keep him advised.
"At 0731hrs, having noticed how poor the weather was during his journey, the client called the pilot to suggest that he did not take off until he (the client) had reached Elstree and observed the weather. The pilot replied that he was already starting the engines.
"The client stated that he repeated his suggestion that the pilot should not take off."
He sent the client another message at 7.29am which stated: "I'm coming anyway will land in a field if I have to."
Mr Barnes' aircraft hit the crane and plummeted to the ground close to Vauxhall station.
He narrowly missed a new apartment block called The Tower, in St George's Wharf, to which the crane was attached as he crashed in Wandsworth Road.
An inquest into his death at Southwark Coroner's Court was earlier told he had been flying from Redhill to Elstree when he requested permission to divert.
Pedestrian Matthew Wood, 39, was also killed as he was walking to work.
Police in New York City have arrested the mother of a seven-year-old boy who took a gun and ammunition to school in his rucksack.
Deborah Farley was arrested on Friday on several charges including criminal possession of a weapon and endangering the welfare of a child.
Police say the 53-year-old's son had taken the handgun to his Queens elementary school on Thursday.They said it was not clear whether the boy initially knew it was in his bag.
Police said when the mother learned about the gun she rushed to school and told officials her son had a dental appointment.
The boy said he had given the weapon to a friend, at which point she alerted the principal.
The school, which has been practising for security drills since the Sandy Hook massacre, was immediately locked down.
The seven-year-old's rucksack was searched and the semi-automatic pistol, a magazine containing ten rounds and a plastic bag with bullets in it was found.
A flare gun was found in the second boy's bag, police said.
Police investigating a horrific attack on a woman on the Philadelphia subway have arrested a man.
Surveillance video shows the 23-year-old woman being viciously punched and then dragged across the platform.
She is then pushed onto the railway track at the station in the city's Chinatown neighbourhood.
The attack happened around 3.30pm on Tuesday, after the suspect initially approached the victim and asked for a light.
The woman miraculously suffered only cuts and bruises and managed to climb off the tracks onto the opposite platform.
Police say they arrested the man around 2.30pm on Thursday, identifying him by his distinctive, multicoloured jacket with an image of the Taj Mahal on the back.
"It was so distinct that we tried to keep the description of that jacket in law-enforcement circles, because it was our best lead on clearing this," transport police Chief Thomas Nestel said during a news conference.
Officers said a mobile phone belonging to the woman was also recovered.
However the police decision to keep quiet about the attack was criticised by some for leaving a potentially dangerous suspect at large with no public warning.
Unlike two recent fatal subway attacks in New York, the woman was not thrown in front of an approaching train, Chief Nestel said.
However, he advised subway passengers to "always be aware of their surroundings" and avoid standing close to the edge of the platform.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pashtun Tribesmen from northwest Pakistan dumped 15 bloody bodies in front of government offices Wednesday, protesting against what they said were extra-judicial killings by security forces in the latest challenge to the government's authority.
The protest in the northwestern city of Peshawar follows a three-day sit-in by members of the Shiite community alongside the bodies of 96 people killed in a sectarian bomb attack in the southwestern city of Quetta, and coincides with a protest against corruption in the capital that has attracted thousands of people who have set up tents in front of parliament.
The Supreme Court also ordered the arrest of Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf Tuesday in connection with a corruption investigation, compounding a sense of crisis for the government.
In Peshawar, the protesters said members of the security forces had arrested the victims Tuesday after the beheading of six paramilitary forces in the area three days ago.
Their bullet-riddled bodies were later dumped in their village in the in Alamgudar area of the Khyber region, the protesters said.
The Frontier Corps, the paramilitary force chiefly responsible for the area, did not give an official comment. Privately, officers denied responsibility.
In an echo of the Quetta demonstration last week, the protesters laid out the bodies on blankets in front of the governor's house in the provincial capital and insisted they would not bury them until their demands were met.
Those include an impartial inquiry and punishment for those responsible. A committee of the protesters demanded that the government stop a military operation in their area, withdraw a five-year-old curfew and compensate the victims.
"Where we should go to seek justice?" asked protester Gulajab Afridi.
"There is dark night in Khyber Agency. There is no one to check the barbarism of the Frontier Corps against local people. Our blood is worth nothing."
He said villagers were trapped between the military and the militants.
"The militants of Lashkar-e-Islam wanted us to stay in our homes and don't want us to vacate our villages, but when we stay there, the security forces arrest us on charges of supporting the militants," said 45-year old Haji Gul Jabbar Afridi.
Human rights groups have for years accused the security forces of abductions and killings. The security forces deny that.
The rights group Amnesty International said in a recent report that civilians in the ethnic Pashtun areas along the Afghan border, where Taliban and al-Qaida militants operate, are frequently abducted, tortured and executed by either the military or the militants.
The military strongly refuted the report.
While the Frontier Corps declined to comment, a force official speculated that the killings might have been done by militants in disguise.
"They were the militants who wear Frontier Corps uniform and kidnap people and later kill them just to create hatred among the people against Pakistani security forces," he said.
Writing by Katharine Houreld
Two people were killed and 12 were hurt when a helicopter crashed into a crane on a building in central London.
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he helicopter hit the crane on top of The Tower, One St George Wharf beside the Thames at about 08:00 GMT.
Cars and two buildings caught fire after the burning wreckage fell into Wandsworth Road in South Lambeth. Eighty firefighters tackled the blaze.
The pilot, Capt Pete Barnes from charter firm Rotormotion, was killed, along with a person on the ground.
Mr Barnes, 50 and from near Reading, Berkshire, had asked to be diverted to a nearby heliport because of bad weather.Metropolitan Police Commander Neil Basu told BBC News it was "miraculous" the crash was not much worse.
Enormous bang'
Mr Barnes is understood to have piloted helicopters in action scenes for films Die Another Day, Tomb Raider II and Saving Private Ryan.According to his LinkedIn profile he had also operated flights for the BBC and ITN during the Athens and London Olympics.
Capt Philip Amadeus, managing director at Rotormotion, said Mr Barnes was a highly qualified commercial pilot with more than 12,000 flying hours. He had worked for the firm for more than 15 years.
Mr Amadeus said: "We are devastated by the loss of a highly valued colleague and very dear friend. Our thoughts and condolences are with Peter's wife and children.
"His death is a very great loss to the aviation community and Rotormotion."
Two foreign nationals, one of them British, have been killed and more than 20 taken hostage in an attack by Islamist militants on a gas facility in eastern Algeria, state media report.
Several people were wounded when a bus was targeted as it carried workers from the facility, near In Amenas,
After being repelled, the militants travelled to the facility's residential area, where they seized other workers.
Militants linked to al-Qaeda claim to have been behind the incident.
They initially said they were holding six people hostage. But an alleged spokesman later told two Mauritanian news websites they were holding 41 foreigners, including US, French, British and Japanese citizens.
Algeria's state-run APS news agency, citing local officials, said "slightly more than 20" foreign nationals were being held. Algerian workers at the facility had been released in small groups, it added.
Norwegian public broadcaster NRK quoted the oil company Statoil as saying there had been 17 personnel in total, including 13 Norwegians, at the gas facility when it was taken over by the militants.
The In Amenas gas field is operated by the Algerian state oil company, Sonatrach, along with Statoil and the British oil company BP. It is about 1,300km (800 miles) south-east of the capital, Algiers, and about 60km west of the Libyan border.
The attack came after militants vowed to avenge France's military intervention in Mali, where its forces have been battling Islamists linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) for the past week. Algeria has been allowing French aircraft to use its air space.
'Sensitive situation'The Algerian interior ministry said a heavily-armed "terrorist group" using three vehicles had attacked the bus carrying workers from the In Amenas gas field at about 05:00 (04:00 GMT).
The attack was "repelled by the escort units", but one foreign national was killed and six people - two foreigners, two police and two security personnel - were wounded, a statement said.
"After their failed attempt, the terrorist group headed to the complex's living quarters and took a number of workers with foreign nationalities hostage," the ministry added.
"The forces of the People's National Army and security services arrived at the scene and immediately took all necessary measures to make the area secure and seek a rapid resolution of the situation, which is being very closely followed by the national authorities."
Later, the APS news agency cited local officials as saying two foreigners had been killed in the attack, one of them a British national. A local source earlier told the Reuters news agency a Frenchman had died.
The UK government confirmed that "several British nationals" had been involved in a "terrorist incident".
Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore said one of its nationals had been abducted, adding that his government was "ready to use all the resources available to us to ensure that our citizen is released as soon as possible".A Japanese contractor at the In Amenas gas facility, JGC Corp, confirmed that Japanese staff had been seized, according to Japanese media.
The wife of a Norwegian gas worker was quoted as saying by the Bergens Tidende newspaper as saying: "I received a phone call from my husband this morning and he said he had been kidnapped."
BP confirmed that there had been a "security incident".
"The site was attacked and occupied by a group of unidentified armed people," a statement said. "Contact with the site is extremely difficult, but we understand that armed individuals are still occupying the In Amenas operations site."
WarningA man claiming to be a spokesman for the militants told BBC Arabic that al-Qaeda had carried out the attack.
The Algerian military has reportedly launched an operation to rescue the hostagesHe claimed that they had allowed Algerian workers to leave the gas facility and were only holding foreign nationals.
A list of demands had been sent to the Algerian authorities, and the hostages would be killed if troops attempted to rescue them, the spokesman added.
''Storming the gas complex would be easy for the Algerian military, but the outcome of such an operation would be disastrous," he warned.
Earlier, a group known as the Khaled Abu al-Abbas Brigade told the AFP news agency that it had kidnapped the workers.
The Khaled Abu al-Abbas Brigade is believed to be led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar - also known as Abu al-Abbas - who was a senior commander of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb before late last year, when he set up his own armed group after apparently falling out with other leaders.
His new group is also known as the Signed-in Blood Battalion, a spokesman for whom told the Mauritanian Sahara Media website that it had "captured 41 Westerners, including seven Americans, two French citizens, two British citizens and two Japanese".
Manslaughter charges have been dropped against Geoffrey Counsell after seven people died in a pile-up on the M5 during thick fog.
The 50-year-old was in charge of a firework display in a field close to the motorway, at Taunton Rugby Club, at the time of the crash on the night of November 4, 2011.
The pile-up, which involved 34 vehicles and left 51 people injured, was described as one of Britain's worst motorway crashes.
Witnesses afterwards spoke of thick smoke causing visibility problems for motorists.
Anthony and Pamela Adams, Maggie and Michael Barton, Malcolm Beacham, Terry Brice and Kye Thomas all died.
Counsell, from Somerset, was charged with seven counts of manslaughter on October 19 last year.
But when he appeared at Bristol Crown Court, he was told the manslaughter charges were being dropped and he would instead face a charge under the Health and Safety at Work Act of failing to ensure the safety of others.
Peter Blair, prosecuting, said they had reviewed the decision after meetings with a range of experts in different disciplines.
"The outcome of the review that took place and developments, including the additional charge of failing to ensure the safety of others under the Health and Safety Act, was the decision that the prosecution will not be pursuing the manslaughter charges," he said.
Adrian Derbyshire, defending, told the court his client should "never have been charged with manslaughter".
But he added the prosecution told him it was the right decision at the time and new evidence had come forward that prompted the decision to review the case.
Terence Brice, whose lorry driver son Terry died in the crash, told Sky News outside court: "I don't think the man did it intentionally ... he lit a fire, the wind blew, blew to the motorway.
"If it had blown the other way none of us would be standing here would we? That's my opinion."
Senior investigation officer for the collision, Detective Superintendent Mike Courtiour, of Avon and Somerset Police, said: "Our investigation was meticulous and complex. We took hundreds of witness statements, examined 34 vehicles and consulted several experts, including meteorologists, pyrotechnic and forensic specialists.
"Based on this evidence the Crown Prosecution Service took a decision to charge. However, following further consideration in recent weeks they have decided to drop the manslaughter charges."
He added that while health and safety proceedings are continuing, police are not able to comment further.
The charge alleges Counsell failed to ensure he operated the firework display so as to ensure, as far as was reasonably practicable, that others who might be affected were not exposed to risks to their health and safety.
This offence carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison.
