(AFP) On February 14, 1989, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for British writer Salman Rushdie to be killed for writing “The Satanic Verses,” which the cleric said insulted Islam. In a fatwa, or religious decree, Khomeini urged “Muslims of the […]
(AFP) After years of waiting for his son to come home from Syria, Jacques Le Brun is cautiously hoping that day may be nearing — along with the chance to meet three grandchildren who have never seen France. “He’ll certainly go to prison, […]
(AFP) Geneva residents on Sunday voted for a controversial new “secularism law,” which will among other things ban elected officials and public employees from wearing visible religious symbols. More than 55 percent of voters in the Swiss canton backed the law, final […]
(AFP) Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban launched his European elections campaign Sunday calling for voters to defend “Christian” nations against immigration, which he said led to the “virus of terrorism.” He also announced a seven-point package of tax breaks and subsidies to […]
(AFP) The support for a boycott of Israel by the first two Muslim women in the US Congress has opened a breach in the Democratic Party and threatens to create a fissure in the ironclad US-Israeli alliance. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib […]
(AFP) Two French journalists on Thursday told a terrorism trial in Brussels that they had “no doubt” the accused Jewish museum killer is the man who imprisoned and tortured them in Syria. The former hostages came to Brussels to testify against Mehdi […]
(AFP) US-backed forces in Syria said Wednesday they were detaining foreign Islamic State group fighters on a “daily basis,” days after confirming the capture of German jihadist Martin Lemke. AFP reported Lemke’s capture last week after speaking to two of his wives […]
(AFP) Outwardly, Komotini looks like other Greek cities, but there is a major difference: it has nine mosques whereas there are none in Athens. The northeastern city has existed from the second century and was captured by Ottoman-era Turkey in the 14th. […]
(AFP) France has raised the prospect of repatriating around 50 jihadists detained in Syria, creating a domestic political storm that highlights the difficulties posed by bringing extremists home. Successive French governments had insisted citizens who left to live or fight under the […]
(AFP) A young Frenchwoman on Monday pointed to Mehdi Nemmouche as the gunman at the Jewish museum in Brussels on May 24, 2014, the first witness at his trial to do so. Nemmouche, a 33-year-old Frenchman, faces life in prison if convicted […]
(AFP) Three men were Friday charged with supplying the weapon used by the gunman in the Christmas market attack in the French city of Strasbourg and placed in pre-trial detention, a judicial source said. The three suspects, from the same family and […]
(AFP) Four years after leaving Germany to live under the Islamic State group, 19-year-old Leonora has fled the jihadists’ last bastion in eastern Syria and says it’s time to go home. “I was a little bit naive,” she says in English, wearing […]
(AFP) US-backed Kurdish-led forces have detained German jihadist Martin Lemke after he fled the last pocket held by the Islamic State group in Syria, two of his wives said Thursday. His third wife, a German national who gave her name as Leonora, […]
(AFP) Three Americans hailed as heroes for thwarting a jihadist attack on a train between Amsterdam and Paris were officially welcomed as French citizens on Thursday in a ceremony in the US state of California. Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone, […]
(AFP) The Israelis orphaned by the murderous gun attack on Belgium’s Jewish Museum testified on Thursday in the trial of the accused attacker. The defendant, Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche, 33, appeared in the dock to insist that he was not behind the four […]
(AFP) The French alleged jihadist accused of carrying out a gun massacre in Belgium’s Jewish Museum denounced any attempt to intimidate trial lawyers and jurors Thursday. Appearing in the dock in Brussels main criminal court, 33-year-old Mehdi Nemmouche again denied shooting dead […]
(AFP) Two young Israeli women will Thursday face for the first time the alleged killer of their parents when they attend his trial for the Jewish museum attack in Brussels. The daughters of murdered Israeli couple Miriam and Emmanuel Riva will be […]
(AFP) German aid group Sea Watch said Tuesday it has filed a case at the European Human Rights Court against Italy for refusing to allow its ship carrying 47 rescued migrants to dock. The German NGO’s spokesman Ruben Neugebauer said the group […]
(AFP) France on Tuesday opened the door to repatriating more than a hundred jihadists being held in Syria, in a marked change in stance brought about by the planned withdrawal of US troops from the country. Paris is worried that French prisoners […]
(AFP) Italy’s interior minister Matteo Salvini said Sunday he was considering legal action against the crew of a Dutch-flagged rescue ship as calls grew for 47 migrants to be allowed to land. “We have concrete elements to declare that the captain and […]
(AFP) A painting in homage to terror victims by famous street artist Banksy has been stolen from the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, where 90 people were killed in 2015 in a jihadist attack. The white stencilled oeuvre showing a sad-faced girl […]
(AFP) The Belgian authorities have arrested two men suspected of plotting a terrorist attack and charged them with terrorism offences, federal prosecutors said Thursday. The main suspect was arrested in the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek while his alleged accomplice was arrested near […]
(AFP) Denmark has seized just over 25,000 euros from migrants arriving in the country in the three years since passing a controversial law allowing for the confiscation of valuables, police said Thursday. Since the law was passed on January 26, 2015, officials […]
(AFP) German prosecutors Wednesday announced child rape and murder charges against a rejected Iraqi asylum-seeker in a case that fuelled a heated debate about immigrant crime. The accused in the “Susanna case,” 21-year-old Ali Bashar, had fled Germany after the crime for […]
(AFP) A German appeals court Wednesday lengthened the jail term for a Syrian refugee found guilty of war crimes and taking part in the kidnapping of a Canadian UN peacekeeper. The defendant, named only as Suliman al-S., 28, was sentenced to four […]
(AFP) Judges investigating the Jewish museum attack in Brussels rejected on Tuesday defence claims that Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency may have played a role. Lawyers defending Mehdi Nemmouche deny charges that he shot dead four people at the museum in May 2014, […]
(AFP) Victims of the Jewish museum attack in Brussels were shot with “surgical” precision, first responders said Monday at the trial of French national Mehdi Nemmouche. Nemmouche, 33, the alleged jihadist gunman, faces life in prison if convicted of the charges of […]
(AFP) French anti-terror judges have recommended that 14 people be tried in connection with the January 2015 jihadist attacks in and around Paris, a judicial source told AFP Friday. The attacks against the Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, a […]
(AFP) The mother of a victim of Belgium’s Jewish museum attack faced her son’s alleged killer for the first time on Friday, as the terror trial turned harrowing when the court was shown footage of the anti-Semitic murders. The accused gunman, Mehdi […]
(AFP) A man on trial as the alleged accomplice to the Jewish museum murders in Brussels denied any role in the 2014 shootings and said he was not a jihadist. Prosecutors told the court that Nacer Bendrer had been flagged years before […]
(AFP) The Frenchman on trial accused of murdering four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium denied Tuesday he was the gunman and alleged the court had robbed him of defence witnesses. Asked by the judge whether he accepted the evidence linking […]
(AFP) The Frenchman accused of murdering four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium had links with other jihadists, including those behind the Brussels and Paris attacks, investigators say. At least one lawyer wants to see if defendant Mehdi Nemmouche sheds more […]
(AFP) Spanish police staged a counter-terrorism operation in Barcelona and a nearby city on Tuesday against a cell suspected of plotting an attack, a police spokesman said. Fourteen people had been arrested in Barcelona and Igualada, 60 kilometres (40 miles) west of […]
(AFP) A Frenchman on trial for shooting dead four people at a Jewish museum in Brussels left his fingerprints and DNA on the weapons used in the terror attack, prosecutors said Friday. Mehdi Nemmouche, 33, listened to the case unfolding against him […]
(AFP) A Frenchman accused of shooting four people dead at a Jewish museum in Brussels went on trial on Thursday, allegedly the first Syria jihad veteran to stage a terror attack in Europe. Mehdi Nemmouche, 33, who was in court, faces a […]
(AFP) Belgian authorities have arrested another suspect in connection with the Paris terror attacks of November 2015, charging him with participating in the activities of a terrorist group, prosecutors said Wednesday. The suspect is believed to have been involved in the supply […]
(AFP) Six Uzbek and Kyrgyz nationals living in Sweden went on trial in Stockholm on Monday accused of financing terrorism, three of them also charged with planning a terror attack. “If the terrorist crime had been carried out, it could have seriously […]
(AFP) A French jihadist appeared in court on Monday as a jury was chosen for his trial for shooting dead four people at a Jewish museum in Brussels in 2014. Mehdi Nemmouche, the first jihadist to return from Syria’s battlefields to allegedly […]
(AFP) Mehdi Nemmouche stands accused of carrying out Europe’s first attack by an Islamist fighter returning from the war in Syria. But his journey from a French foster home to a Brussels court began not in a Middle Eastern desert but in […]
(AFP) Dutch security forces arrested four people in the port city of Rotterdam on Saturday on suspicion of preparing for a “terrorist crime,” police said, while a fifth suspect was detained in Germany. Elite counter-terrorism units and police arrested the men and […]
(AFP) One of France’s most wanted jihadists, considered a potential source of valuable information by Western intelligence agencies, is set to return to prison Thursday following seven years on the run. Peter Cherif, 36, was close to the brothers who massacred staff […]
(AFP) An alleged French jihadist accused of returning from Syria and shooting dead four people in an attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium in central Brussels appeared in court Thursday. Mehdi Nemmouche, allegedly the first foreign fighter to return to stage […]
(AFP) Denmark’s ruling coalition has approved a controversial plan to put some 125 “unwanted” migrants on Lindholm, an uninhabited island, sparking outrage at home and abroad. Those selected will live in buildings once used by scientists for research on infectious diseases in […]
(AFP) Undocumented migrants living in makeshift camps in northern France have been subjected to an “unprecedented” violation of their basic rights over the past three years, the country’s human rights ombudsman said in a report Wednesday. Jacques Toubon said that migrants camped […]
(AFP) Berlin crime gangs of Arab origin have long earned infamy with violence and brazen robberies but now, police warn, they have targeted a new generation of refugees for recruitment. Known in the media as Berlin’s “clans,” whose founders themselves fled war […]
(AFP) A French anti-terrorist court on Monday charged a man arrested for allegedly supplying a revolver used in a mass shooting at a Christmas market in Strasbourg last week, a judicial source said. The 37-year-old, who was not immediately identified, was ordered […]
(AFP) Four family members of the gunman who went on a deadly shooting spree at a popular Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg were released from custody on Saturday, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. Three more people close to the […]
(AFP) Several thousand people marched in Rome Saturday in protest at Italy’s tough new anti-migrant law which makes it easier to expel new arrivals. The protesters waved flags and donned yellow vests emblazoned with the slogan “Get up! Stand up! for your […]
(AFP) Thousands of protesters in Vienna braved snow and icy temperatures Saturday to protest Austria’s ruling coalition between the conservatives and the far-right a year after they came to power. Some 17,000 people took to the streets of the capital despite the […]
(AFP) A group of Amazon workers in Minnesota who are Somali refugees resettled in the Midwestern US state demanded better working conditions Friday during a protest outside one of the retailer’s warehouses. Dozens braved frigid temperatures to demonstrate outside of the Amazon […]
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