OTTAWA: Canadian authorities recently foiled an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Irwin Cotler, a former justice minister who has been a strong critic of Tehran, Cotler’s organization said Monday.
The 84-year-old was justice minister and attorney general from 2003 to 2006. He retired from politics in 2015 but has remained active with many associations that campaign for human rights around the world.
The Globe and Mail newspaper reported that he was informed on October 26 that he faced an imminent threat — within 48 hours — of assassination from Iranian agents.
Authorities tracked two suspects in the plot, the paper said, citing an unnamed source.
In an email to AFP, the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, where Cotler is international chair, confirmed the Globe and Mail report.
Cotler “has no knowledge or details regarding any arrests made,” said Brandon Golfman, an organization spokesman.
Tehran late on Monday denied what it described as “the claim of Canadian media that Iran tried to assassinate a Canadian person,” the official IRNA news agency reported, citing Issa Kameli, the director general for the Americas at the foreign ministry.
The Iranian diplomat denounced the report as “ridiculous storytelling and in line with the misinformation campaign against Iran.”
A spokesperson for Canadian Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc declined to comment, telling AFP: “We cannot comment on, nor confirm specific RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) operations due to security reasons.”
Another senior government minister, Francois-Philippe Champagne, called the plot “very concerning.”
Jean-Yves Duclos, the government’s senior minister in Quebec province, where Cotler lives, said it was likely “very difficult for (Cotler), in particular, and his family and friends to hear” about it.
The House of Commons, meanwhile, passed a unanimous motion praising Cotler’s work in defense of human rights and “condemning the death threats against him orchestrated by agents of a foreign regime.”
Cotler has advocated globally to have Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps listed as a terrorist entity.
His name reportedly also came up in an FBI probe of a 2022 Iranian murder-for-hire operation in New York that targeted American human rights activist Masih Alinejad.
Ottawa, which severed diplomatic ties with Iran more than a decade ago, listed the Revolutionary Guard as a banned terror group in June.
It said at the time that Iranian authorities displayed a consistent “disregard for human rights both inside and outside of Iran, as well as a willingness to destabilize the international rules-based order.”
As a lawyer, Cotler also represented Iranian political prisoners and dissidents.
Canada foiled Iran plot to assassinate former minister
https://arab.news/va565
Canada foiled Iran plot to assassinate former minister
- The Globe and Mail newspaper reported that he was informed on October 26 that he faced an imminent threat
- The 84-year-old was justice minister and attorney general from 2003 to 2006
Indian man denies hospital rape and murder of doctor
- The discovery of the doctor’s bloodied body at a government hospital in Kolkata on August 9 sparked nationwide anger
- The gruesome nature of the attack drew comparisons with the 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus
KOLKATA: An Indian man on trial for raping and murdering a 31-year-old doctor has pleaded not guilty, his lawyer said Saturday, a crime that appalled the nation and triggered wide-scale protests.
The discovery of the doctor’s bloodied body at a government hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata on August 9 sparked nationwide anger at the chronic issue of violence against women.
Sanjoy Roy, 33, the lone accused in the case, pleaded not guilty before the judge in a closed court on Friday in Kolkata, his lawyer Sourav Bandyopadhyay told AFP.
“I am not guilty, your honor, I have been framed,” Roy told the court, Bandyopadhyay said, repeating his client’s words.
Roy, a civic volunteer in the hospital, was arrested the day after the murder and has been held in custody since.
He would potentially face the death penalty if convicted.
The court began hearings on November 11, listening to evidence from some 50 witnesses, but it was on Friday that Roy took the stand.
“Judge Anirban Das questioned him with more than 100 questions during the six-hour-long in camera deposition, that continued until late in the evening,” Bandyopadhyay said.
Roy had earlier proclaimed his innocence to the public while screaming from a prison van outside the court before a hearing in November.
Doctors in Kolkata went on strike for weeks in response to the brutal attack.
Tens of thousands of ordinary Indians joined in the protests, which focused anger on the lack of measures for female doctors to work without fear.
India’s Supreme Court has ordered a national task force to examine how to bolster security for health care workers, saying the brutality of the killing had “shocked the conscience of the nation.”
The gruesome nature of the attack drew comparisons with the 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus, which also sparked weeks of nationwide protests.
The trial continues. The next hearing is set for January 2, 2025.
Russia’s UK embassy denounces G7 loans to Ukraine as ‘fraudulent scheme’
- Britain said in October it would lend Ukraine 2.26 billion pounds as part of a much larger loan from the Group of Seven nations backed by frozen Russian central bank assets
LONDON: The Russian embassy in London on Saturday described Britain’s planned transfer to Ukraine of more than 2 billion pounds ($2.5 billion) backed by frozen Russian assets as a “fraudulent scheme.”
Britain said in October it would lend Ukraine 2.26 billion pounds as part of a much larger loan from the Group of Seven nations backed by frozen Russian central bank assets to help buy weapons and rebuild damaged infrastructure.
The loans were agreed in July by leaders of the G7 — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US — along with top officials from the European Union, where most of the Russian assets frozen as a result of the war are held.
“We are closely following UK authorities’ efforts aimed at implementing a fraudulent scheme of expropriating incomes from Russian state assets ‘frozen’ in the EU,” the Russian embassy in London said on social media.
British Defense Minister John Healey said the money would be solely for Ukraine’s military and could be used to help develop drones capable of traveling further than some long-range missiles.
The embassy added: “The elaborate legislative choreography fails to conceal the illegitimate nature of this arrangement.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry last week described the US transfer to Ukraine of its share of the G7’s $50 billion in loans as “simply robbery.”
Death toll in German Christmas market car-ramming rises to five, more than 200 injured
- Source: Saudi Arabia had warned German authorities about the attacker
- Germany’s domestic intelligence agency declined to comment on the ongoing investigation
MAGDEBURG, Germany: At least five people were killed in a car-ramming attack at a German Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg that also left more than 200 injured, officials said, and a Saudi man was arrested on suspicion of driving a car into the crowd.
The Friday evening attack on market visitors gathered to celebrate the pre-Christmas season comes amid a fierce debate over security and migration during an election campaign in Germany, where the far right is polling strongly.
“What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in the central city, part of the former East Germany, where he laid a white rose at a church in honor of the victims.
“We have now learnt that over 200 people have been injured,” he added. “Almost 40 are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them.”
German authorities are investigating a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who has lived in Germany for almost two decades in connection with the car-ramming. Police searched his home overnight.
The motive remained unclear and police have not yet named the suspect. He has been named in German media as Taleb A.
A Saudi source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia had warned German authorities about the attacker after he posted extremist views on his personal X account that threatened peace and security.
Der Spiegel reported that the suspect had sympathized with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The magazine did not say where it got the information.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.
Germany’s FAZ newspaper said it interviewed the suspect in 2019, describing him as an anti-Islam activist.
“People like me, who have an Islamic background but are no longer believers, are met with neither understanding nor tolerance by Muslims here,” he was quoted as saying. “I am history’s most aggressive critic of Islam. If you don’t believe me, ask the Arabs.”
Andrea Reis, who had been at the market on Friday, returned on Saturday with her daughter Julia to lay a candle by the church overlooking the site. She said that had it not been for a matter of moments, they may have been in the car’s path.
“I said, ‘let’s go and get a sausage’, but my daughter said ‘no let’s keep walking around’. If we’d stayed where we were we’d have been in the car’s path,” she said.
Tears ran down her face as she described the scene. “Children screaming, crying for mama. You can’t forget that,” she said.
Scholz’s Social Democrats are trailing both the far-right AfD and the frontrunner conservative opposition in opinion polls ahead of snap elections set for Feb. 23.
The AfD, which enjoys particularly strong support in the former East, has led calls for a crackdown on migration to the country.
Its chancellor candidate Alice Weidel and co-leader Tino Chrupalla issued a statement on Saturday condemning the attack.
“The terrible attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg in the middle of the peaceful pre-Christmas period has shaken us,” they said.
A leading Social Democrat lawmaker in the Bundestag parliament warned against jumping to conclusions and said it appeared the attacker did not have an Islamist motive.
“Now we have to wait for the investigations. It seems that things are different here than was initially assumed,” Dirk Wiese told the Rheinische Post newspaper.
Eight convicted in France over murder of teacher who showed Prophet caricature
- Eight sentenced for roles in hate campaign against teacher
- Two associates of killer sentenced to 16 years for complicity, the father of pupil sentenced to 13 years for inciting hatred
PARIS: A French court sentenced eight people to prison terms ranging from one to 16 years for their roles in a hate campaign that culminated in the murder of a teacher who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class, local media reported.
Days after Samuel Paty, 47, showed his pupils the caricatures in October 2020, an 18-year-old Chechen assailant stabbed and beheaded him outside his school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, near Paris. The assailant was shot dead by police moments after.
Among those convicted on Friday was the father of a student whose false account of Paty’s use of the caricatures triggered a wave of social media posts targeting the middle-school teacher.
The court sentenced Brahim Chnina to 13 years in prison for criminal terrorist association, according to broadcaster Franceinfo. Chnina had published videos falsely accusing the teacher of disciplining his daughter for complaining about the class, naming Paty and identifying his school.
Abdelhakim Sefrioui, the founder of a hard-line Islamist organization, received a 15-year sentence. Both Sefrioui and Chnina were found guilty of inciting hatred against Paty.
Many Muslims consider any depiction of the Prophet Muhammad to be blasphemous. Sefrioui’s lawyer said his client would appeal the decision, according to French media.
Two associates of Paty’s killer, Abdullakh Anzorov, were also convicted. Naim Boudaoud and Azim Epsirkhanov were sentenced to 16 years in prison for complicity in a terrorist killing. Both had denied wrongdoing, according to Franceinfo.
Last year, a court found Chnina’s daughter and five other adolescents guilty of participating in a premeditated conspiracy and helping prepare an ambush.
Chnina’s daughter, who was not in Paty’s class when the caricatures were shown, was convicted of making false accusations and slanderous comments.
French media reported that the 13-year-old made the allegations after her parents questioned why she had been suspended from school for two days.
Pope Francis slams ‘cruelty’ of strike killing Gaza children
- ‘Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war. I want to say it because it touches my heart’
- The Holy See has recognized the State of Palestine since 2013, with which it maintains diplomatic relations
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis on Saturday condemned the bombing of children in Gaza as “cruelty,” a day after the territory’s rescue agency said an Israeli air strike killed seven children from one family.
Gaza’s civil defense rescue agency reported that an Israeli air strike killed 10 members of a family on Friday in the northern part of the territory, including seven children.
“Yesterday they did not allow the Patriarch (of Jerusalem) into Gaza as promised. Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war,” he told members of the government of the Holy See.
“I want to say it because it touches my heart.”
Violence in the Gaza Strip continues to rock the coastal territory more than 14 months into the Israel-Hamas war, even as international mediators work to negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants.
The Israeli military said it had struck “several terrorists who were operating in a military structure belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization and posed a threat to IDF troops operating in the area.”
“According to an initial examination, the reported number of casualties resulting from the strike does not align with the information held by the IDF,” it added.
Francis, 88, has called for peace since Hamas’s unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, and the Israeli retaliatory campaign in Gaza.
In recent weeks he has hardened his remarks against the Israeli offensive.
At the end of November, he said that “the invader’s arrogance... prevails over dialogue” in “Palestine,” a rare position that contrasts with the tradition of neutrality of the Holy See.
In extracts from a forthcoming book published in November, he called for a “careful” study as to whether the situation in Gaza “corresponds to the technical definition” of genocide, an accusation firmly rejected by Israel.
The Holy See has recognized the State of Palestine since 2013, with which it maintains diplomatic relations, and it supports the two-state solution.
