(AFP) Migrant crossings through the Mediterranean have reached unprecedented levels as increasingly organised smuggling gangs are producing makeshift boats much more easily, the head of the European Union’s border agency told AFP. In the first four months of 2023, the numbers of […]
(AFP) France’s highest court ruled Friday that the country can try foreign suspects under the universal jurisdiction principle, greenlighting inquiries into two Syrians accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ruling was welcomed by rights groups who said it would also […]
(AFP) Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Germany have been trying to intimidate voters ahead of the country’s crunch election, politicians and voters said on Tuesday. In Berlin’s Neukoelln district, a local chapter of the opposition CHP party has been […]
(AFP) Belgium police have arrested an Iraqi immigrant suspected of belonging to an Al-Qaeda cell that carried out deadly car bombings in Baghdad in 2009-2010, prosecutors said Friday. The man, identified by the initials O.Y.T., born in 1979, was detained on Wednesday […]
(AFP) Belgian police on Thursday arrested seven people suspected of supporting the Islamic State (IS) group and plotting a “terrorist attack,” prosecutors said. Almost all the suspects are ethnic Chechens, and three of them possess Belgian nationality, prosecutors said in a statement. […]
(AFP) Sweden’s parliament on Wednesday passed new legislation to ban activities linked to extremist groups, as it beefs up its terror laws, a key demand from Turkey to approve Stockholm’s NATO membership bid. With 268 votes in favour, the law — which […]
(AFP) German federal prosecutors said Friday they were investigating a 26-year-old Syrian man for two separate knife attacks in the western city of Duisburg, where an Islamist motive was suspected. The federal prosecutor’s office, which generally investigates cases including terrorist incidents, was […]
(AFP) Belgium said Thursday it is studying a request from Iran for the transfer of one of its diplomats who is serving time on a conviction for terrorism offences. “It is true that Iran has officially requested the transfer of Mr Assadollah […]
(AFP) German prosecutors on Thursday charged a stateless man of Palestinian origin with two counts of murder over a knife attack on a train in January that killed two teenagers. Having previously ruled out a “terrorist” motive in the rampage that also […]
(AFP) A Paris court on Friday sentenced a Lebanese-Canadian sociology professor to life in prison in absentia for the 1980 bombing of a synagogue in the French capital that left four people dead. The court followed the prosecutors’ request for the maximum […]
(AFP) A French court has sentenced four men between five and 15 years in jail for plotting an attack on Paris’s emblematic Champs Elysees avenue. A fifth walked free as he had already served his term in pre-trial custody. The five defendants […]
(AFP) A French court has sentenced nine Afghans aged 21 to 39 to jail for illegally smuggling migrants across the Channel to Britain on dinghies in 2021. London and Paris are clamping down on illicit boat crossings into the United Kingdom on the […]
(AFP) Italian minister Francesco Lollobrigida, one of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s closest allies, sparked outrage Tuesday by warning against the “ethnic replacement” of Italians by migrants. “We cannot resign ourselves to the idea of ethnic replacement: Italians have fewer children, so let’s […]
(AFP) Belgium on Tuesday said it had formally asked Iran to repatriate jailed aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele from Tehran, after a disputed prisoner exchange treaty entered into force. Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said she had informed her Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian […]
(AFP) Nine Afghans were on trial in France over allegations of attempting to smuggle migrants across the Channel to Britain in 2021. The case is the latest as Britain and France seek to clamp down on illegal boat crossings into the United […]
(AFP) Defendants on trial over the 2016 Brussels attacks recounted Wednesday the anger they felt at the aerial bombardments of the Islamic State group by an international coalition. Nine defendants are currently on trial over the March 22, 2016, suicide bomb attacks […]
(AFP) Jihadists planned a follow-up attack in France during the UEFA Euro 2016 championships, months after killing 130 people in November 2015 attacks in Paris, a defendant in a Brussels trial said Thursday. But that fell apart when a member of the […]
(AFP) Swedish police said Thursday they had appealed a court ruling which overturned a police decision to block two gatherings where protesters had planned to burn the Koran. “The Police Authority believes that the principles of the issue are important and it […]
(AFP) The main suspect in the trial of nine alleged jihadists accused of taking part in the March 2016 bombings in Brussels denied on Wednesday having any knowledge of the plot. Salah Abdeslam, a 33-year-old Frenchman already jailed over his role in […]
(AFP) French junior minister Marlene Schiappa, who made headlines this week for a clothed Playboy photoshoot, is at the centre of accusations of alleged misuse of cash from an anti-radicalism fund set up after the beheading of a teacher. Schiappa, whose ministerial […]
(AFP) France’s domestic intelligence service on Tuesday arrested a 15-year-old, suspected of preparing an attack in the name of Islamic State ideology, a source close to the case told AFP. The DGSI intelligence service became aware of the teenager because “he was […]
(AFP) The trial of a 69-year-old Lebanese-Canadian charged over a fatal 1980 bomb attack outside a Paris synagogue opened on Monday after more than four decades of legal wrangling. Canada-based Hassan Diab, who denies any involvement in the attack which killed four […]
(AFP) The trial of three French men and two foreigners opened in Paris on Monday for allegedly planning a jihadist attack near France’s presidential palace, the Elysee. The five, two of whom were minors at the time of the suspected plot, are […]
(AFP) Greece on Friday remanded into custody two Pakistani suspects accused of plotting an anti-Semitic attack after they testified before a magistrate, their lawyer said. The two men, aged 29 and 27, admitted exchanging messages concerning a possible attack on a Jewish […]
(AFP) France’s football federation has told referees they must not pause matches to allow Muslim players to break their fast during Ramadan, media reports said Friday. Unlike England’s Premier League which allows it, the practice does not comply with the French Football […]
(AFP) Greece is questioning eight additional suspects from Pakistan over an alleged plot to carry out anti-Semitic attacks in Athens, a police source said Thursday. “The investigation to determine if additional persons are involved is ongoing,” the police source told AFP. The […]
(AFP) Iran’s embassy in Greece on Wednesday denied any connection to an alleged plot for anti-Semitic attacks in Athens using Pakistanis of Iranian origin. “The embassy of the Republic of Iran strongly denies the rumours spread by Zionist sources and their baseless […]
(AFP) Seven people were imprisoned in Belgium Wednesday in two investigations into “possible terrorist attacks,” the federal prosecutor’s office said. The seven, five Belgians as well as a Turk and a Bulgarian, were charged with participation in the activities of a terrorist […]
(AFP) Belgium on Tuesday launched an investigation into how a Syrian man arrested last week on suspicion of carrying out war crimes for the Islamic State group was granted refugee status. The 38-year-old, who left Syria in 2015, was detained over the […]
(AFP) Police have detained eight people during investigations into an alleged jihadist plot to commit “terrorist attacks” in Belgium, authorities said Tuesday. Raids were conducted late Monday on homes in the capital Brussels, the port city of Antwerp and the border town […]
(AFP) Norway said Tuesday it was repatriating from Syria two sisters who went there as teenagers as well as their three children, citing abysmal conditions in the refugee camp where they were housed. “The living conditions in the camps are extremely bad […]
(AFP) Hundreds of refugees protested against Greece’s tough migration policies in Athens on Saturday, accusing the conservative government of “murdering” asylum seekers through illegal pushbacks. “Stop pushbacks, down with the government of murderers,” read one of the banners at the rally in […]
(AFP) France and Britain are working on a new deal to thwart migrants crossing the Channel, which could be agreed at a summit between leaders Emmanuel Macron and Rishi Sunak later this week, a French official said Wednesday. Macron is set to […]
(AFP) A teenage girl who lost both her legs in a 2016 Brussels suicide bombing, and fought back to become a Paralympian, was the first victim to testify on Monday at the trial of those accused of plotting or aiding the attacks. […]
(AFP) Under-fire Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Saturday rejected any responsibility of her government for a devastating shipwreck off Italy’s southern coast last weekend which left at least 69 people dead. “The situation is as simple as it is tragic: We […]
(AFP) A convicted Islamic State member allegedly linked to the group’s notorious “Beatles” kidnap-and-murder cell appeared in a UK court ahead of the planned start Monday of his terror trial. Aine Davis sat in the dock at London’s Old Bailey criminal court, […]
(AFP) Italian authorities have detained a migrant rescue vessel run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) for allegedly breaking new government rules on life-saving missions in the Mediterranean, the charity said Friday. The Geo Barents ship was impounded late Thursday for 20 days […]
(AFP) Fifteen EU states on the migration front line on Friday called for stronger borders and agreements to be struck with third-party countries to accept migrants. “It is worthwhile exploring the possibility of, and where relevant legally enabling, safe third-country arrangements with […]
(AFP) Police on Wednesday arrested the father of two Pakistani sisters living in Spain who were lured back to their homeland last year and killed by family members in a suspected honour killing. The man, whose identity was not given, was arrested […]
(AFP) Bulgarian prosecutors indicted six people on Saturday over the deaths of 18 Afghans who suffocated in a truck later left abandoned outside the capital Sofia. The discovery Friday was the deadliest incident linked to people smuggling in Bulgaria as the country […]
(AFP) Bulgarian authorities on Friday found the bodies of 18 people who suffocated in a truck smuggling them through the country. Bulgaria’s deadliest such incident comes as the Balkan nation struggles with an increase in illicit border crossings. The truck was transporting […]
(AFP) President Joe Biden promised to abolish capital punishment for federal crimes, but the US government is due to argue, beginning Monday, that an Uzbek man should get the death penalty for killing eight people in New York half a decade ago. […]
(AFP) Bulgaria faces mounting accusations that it is abusing people trying to cross its border with Turkey, with asylum seekers saying they have been pushed back, locked up, stripped and beaten. The EU member serves as a gateway into the bloc and […]
(AFP) Swedish police on Wednesday denied permission for a protest involving the burning of a Koran, following a January demonstration that angered Turkey, putting Sweden’s pending NATO application on hold. Protests are rarely banned by Swedish police as they are considered as […]
(AFP) An alleged member of the Islamic State (IS) group’s “Beatles” kidnap-and-murder cell will face trial in the UK this month on terrorism charges, a judge said on Monday. Aine Davis is accused of belonging to the notorious group of hostage-takers, who […]
(AFP) Danish lawmakers decided Friday to investigate the case of a man who says he spied for Denmark in Syria, but wound up jailed by Spain over alleged IS group ties. Ahmed Samsam, 34, a Danish national, claims he was working for […]
(AFP) US computing giant Microsoft said Friday that it had identified Iranian state actors as those behind the recent cyberattack on French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Clint Watts, the general manager of Microsoft’s Digital Threat Analysis Center, said that the hackers, who […]
(AFP) Sweden’s government on Thursday proposed new legislation to ban activities linked to extremist groups, in a move to toughen anti-terror laws, a key demand from Turkey to approve Stockholm’s NATO bid. The proposed legislation widens the scope of activities that can […]
(AFP) The Moroccan suspect held in connection with a machete attack on two Spanish churches, killing a verger and badly injuring a priest, will undergo psychiatric testing, a court said Tuesday. The case is being handled by the Audiencia Nacional, Spain’s top […]
(AFP) A Spanish court ordered Monday a Moroccan man accused of storming two churches with a machete to be remanded in custody without bail on murder and terrorism charges. Yassine Kanjaa, 25, is accused of killing a verger and seriously injuring a […]
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