Saudi activist: 5 women detained for driving (AP)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – A Saudi activist says at least five women have been taken into custody accused of defying the men-only driving rule in the ultraconservative Arab kingdom.

The detentions mark the first major backlash by Saudi authorities since a campaign was launched nearly two weeks ago to challenge the driving restrictions.

Dozens of women have since driven through the capital Riyadh and other cities.

Saudi-based rights activist Eman al-Nafjan says police detained a woman Tuesday while driving in Jiddah on the Red Sea coast. Al-Nafjan says four other women accused of driving were later detained in the city.

Al-Nafjan spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday. She says there has been no new information on the status of the detainees.

Yahoo! News

Man detained in Pentagon security case had prior arrest

Bond in a previous grand larceny case is revokedYonathan Melaku was detained last week in Arlington National CemeterySuspicious behavior set off a security scare that jammed Washington area traffic

Washington (CNN) -- A U.S. Marine reservist detained in a security scare last week around the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery had his bond from a prior criminal case revoked, a local sheriff's office spokesman said Monday.

Yonathan Melaku, who was detained Friday after being found acting suspiciously before dawn in the national cemetery, was arrested in May in Leesburg, Virginia, during a vehicle tampering investigation, said Kraig Troxell of the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office.

In the earlier case, Melaku, 22, was charged with four counts of grand larceny and released on a $5,000 bond, Troxell said. Melaku's detention last week caused that bond to be revoked, and Melaku was moved Friday to the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center, according to Troxell.

No federal charges have been filed against Melaku so far regarding his detention last week. After he was taken into custody, Melaku provided information that led authorities to a car parked in bushes on the side of a road near the Pentagon and prompted explosives experts to examine the red 2011 Nissan, according to an FBI statement.

A security perimeter set up to divert traffic from the area closed Route 27 and other roads around the Pentagon and national cemetery in northern Virginia just across the Potomac River from Washington, snarling morning rush-hour traffic.

No explosives or other suspicious material were found in the vehicle, FBI Special Agent Brenda Heck said. A backpack Melaku was carrying held bags of a "nonexplosive unknown material" that was being investigated, she said.

At the White House, press secretary Jay Carney said Friday that "there were no dangerous materials or explosives found."

The FBI said Melaku, of nearby Alexandria, Virginia, was detained for trespass in Arlington National Cemetery when it was closed.

"At this time, law enforcement believes Melaku acted alone and that there were no other locations or activity involved," an FBI statement said.

According to the U.S. Marine Corps, Melaku joined the Marine Corps Reserve in September 2007 and currently is listed as a Marine Corps reservist lance corporal and a motor vehicle operator with the Combat Engineer Support Company of the 4th Combat Engineer Battalion in the 4th Marine Division.

He has been awarded the National Defense Service Medal and the Selected Marine Corps Reserve Medal, and he was not deployed overseas, said the information from the Marine Corps.

A source in the military said Melaku had "fallen off the radar as a Marine." He has failed to pass required fitness tests, and records show that he was given a nonrecommendation for promotion, according to the source.

CNN's Carol Cratty contributed to this report.

CNN

Detained Mexican gambling magnate walks free (AP)

By ELLIOT SPAGAT and E. EDUARDO CASTILLO, Associated Press Elliot Spagat And E. Eduardo Castillo, Associated Press – Wed Jun 15, 1:41 am ET

TIJUANA, Mexico – Former Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon's 10-day legal odyssey left him rumpled but with his reputation intact: He is an eccentric gambling tycoon with suspected ties to organized crime who appears to be untouchable by the law.

Wearing a sweat shirt and a smile, Hank Rhon walked free Tuesday after winning two rounds against Mexican authorities as separate judges dismissed federal weapons charges against him, then refused to back state prosecutors' attempts to detain him in a murder investigation.

The rapid-fire developments — he was freed around dawn from federal custody, held by state prosecutors in the afternoon at a hotel and home safe by dinner — dealt a blow to Mexico's attempts to fight organized crime and fueled claims that the strike against the controversial magnate was politically motivated.

"I'm free, I'm in my house with my family," Hank Rhon, 55, said late Tuesday through his spokesman, Francisco Ramirez.

While Hank Rhon was reveling in his newfound freedom, federal authorities were smarting after a judge ruled that the story of his arrest during an army raid last week just didn't hold up.

The man U.S. authorities have long suspected of ties with money laundering had supporters demonstrating in the streets for his freedom, and Roman Catholic bishops calling for his speedy release. He has strenuously denied ties to organized crime.

Federal prosecutors said they would appeal the judge's ruling, while the state said it would continue the investigation into his possible links to three homicides, including that he ordered the 2009 killing of his son's former girlfriend.

Assistant Attorney General Patricia Bugarin said that on June 8, the judge had ruled the arrests were legal.

"I don't know what reasons she had to change her mind," Bugarin told Milenio television. "I don't think the evidence was adequately analyzed."

Hank Rhon was Tijuana's mayor from 2004 to 2007, when he staged a failed run for governor. He has long figured large on the national political scene, and not only because of the wealth amassed from his Caliente gambling empire.

His father was one of Mexico's best-known politicians, leader of a faction in the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, that ruled Mexico from 1929 until 2000. National polls indicate that the man with the best chance to oust Calderon's National Action Party and recover the presidency for the PRI in 2012 is Enrique Pena Nieto, who has political ties to Hank Rhon.

Federal Judge Blanca Evelia Parra Meza ruled early Tuesday that there wasn't enough evidence to order Hank Rhon and eight others to stand trial on charges of possessing weapons restricted to military use, according to a statement from the court office. Parra said that the story told by soldiers about the pre-dawn raid in which they found weapons at Hank Rhon's home didn't hold up.

Soldiers raided his elaborate compound, which includes a racetrack, a casino and a private zoo in the early morning of June 4, seizing 88 weapons and nearly 10,000 rounds of ammunition during the raid.

Federal prosecutors said only 10 were licensed and two were traced to two other Tijuana murders, of a security guard in December 2009 and an alleged car thief in June 2010.

Hank Rhon's lawyers said the raid was illegal because soldiers didn't have a search warrant.

The army had said the soldiers didn't need a search warrant to enter the house because they got a tip about weapons being stored there, saw armed men at the residence and followed them inside. But Parra, the federal judge, said, "There was evidence of several inconsistencies, in regard to the times, distances and places referred to in the soldiers' report," according to the statement.

Hank Rhon was then turned over to state prosecutors, who announced they were investigating his link to the August 2009 killing of 24-year-old Angelica Munoz after the assassin testified that he acted under orders from Hank Rhon.

A state judge then refused to order him held for 40 days without charges while prosecutors completed the investigation.

Prosecutors' spokesman Marco Vinicio Blanco said a Baja California state judge cited a lack of evidence in deciding not to hold him in the killing, in which the woman was shot in the head.

U.S. authorities have long suspected Hank Rhon of links to money laundering, but no accusations have been documented. Two of his bodyguards were convicted of killing investigative journalist Hector Felix Miranda in 1988, but they denied the attack was linked to their boss, and no charges were filed against him.

Despite the accusations, Hank Rhon's reputation for generosity won him support in Tijuana.

Bertha Guadalupe Diaz, a 66-year-old street vendor who regularly attends Hank Rhon's massive, free parties on Mother's Day and other holidays, recalled being summoned to City Hall when Hank Rhon learned she couldn't afford a hearing aid. He offered to pay the bill.

"Thanks to him, I hear," she said.

Virginia Mora, 66, said she met Hank Rhon in her hardscrabble neighborhood when he campaigned for mayor and stopped by for two servings of homemade soup. He paid her with a huge delivery of cement and other building materials.

"He likes to help people out, give gifts," said Mora, 66.

___

Associated Press writer Mariana Martinez contributed to this report.

Yahoo! News

Turkey: 10 suspected al-Qaida affiliates detained (AP)

ANKARA, Turkey – Police on Tuesday arrested 10 people suspected of links to an al-Qaida terrorist network in southern Turkey, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

Police captured nine of the suspects in simultaneous raids in the southern city of Adana and another one in the city of Hatay, near the Syrian border, it said. Police would not say whether the suspects were preparing to stage an attack but no weapons or explosives were seized in the raids.

Adana is home to the Incirlik Air Base, which is used by the United States for the transfer of non-combat supplies to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Authorities have said Islamic militants tied to al-Qaida planned to attack Incirlik in the past but were deterred by high security.

Homegrown Islamic militants tied to the al-Qaida attacked the British consulate, a British bank and two synagogues in Istanbul, killing 58 people in 2003. In 2008, an attack blamed on al-Qaida-affiliated militants outside the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul left three assailants and three policemen dead.

Turkish authorities have said dozens of Islamic militants have received training in Afghanistan.

However, Al-Qaida's austere and violent interpretation of Islam receives little public backing in Turkey.

Several other radical Islamic groups are also active in Turkey, a predominantly Muslim but officially secular country.

Yahoo! News

Libyan rebels free detained French: France (AFP)

PARIS (AFP) – Four French employees of a private security firm detained by Libyan rebels in Benghazi after an incident on May 11 when their boss was shot dead have been freed, the French foreign ministry said on Saturday.

"They were taken to Egypt today and taken into the care of our consular authorities," a ministry statement said.

The rebels said Friday they would soon deport the four after arresting them on suspicion of spying for Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.

The fifth Frenchman, ex-paratrooper Pierre Marziali, was "accidentally" shot dead by the rebels in a murky incident at a checkpoint.

Marziali was the founder of private security firm Secopex which had opened an office in Benghazi and his four companions were also working for the firm.

The rebels charged that the five were not private security contractors but were in Benghazi to sabotage the uprising against Kadhafi.

Secopex Vice President Robert Dulas dismissed the accusations of espionage, insisting that the French authorities and the rebels were aware of the company's activities in Libya.

Yahoo! News

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Libyan rebels release 4 Frenchmen detained May 12 (AP)

PARIS – France's foreign ministry says four Frenchmen held by Libyan rebel forces on suspicion of spying have been released and are now in Egypt.

The four worked for a private security company and were detained by Libya's rebel forces at a checkpoint on May 12 in Benghazi, in eastern Libya. A rebel commander at the time accused them of spying. The fifth member of the group had died of wounds he suffered after being shot at the checkpoint.

The foreign ministry statement Saturday said the four Frenchmen were handed over to French consular officials in Egypt.

A statement from the Libyan rebels' transitional government last week said the Frenchmen were ordered arrested for alleged "illicit activities that jeopardized the security of free Libya."

Yahoo! News

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

American accused of stealing handcuffs detained in UAE

Adam Foster has been detained in Dubai since his arrest on February 26. He is charged with stealing police handcuffs.NEW: Travel advisory warns Americans against carrying any security related items in the UAEInvestigators say Adam Foster stole a pair of handcuffsHe says he found them at a mallFoster says he only confessed after he was tied to a chair and beaten

(CNN) -- An American detained for more than two months in the United Arab Emirates faces up to seven years in prison for stealing police handcuffs, an allegation he says he only confessed to after being tortured.

A judge in Dubai is expected to hand down a verdict next week against Adam Foster, 30, of Burdett, New York, whose case has become the focal point of a grassroots letter-writing campaign via Facebook that calls for his release.

"It's hard to be hopeful at this point," Foster told CNN by telephone Thursday from Dubai, where he has been detained since his February 26 arrest. "I don't want to think I'm going to be getting out of here in a few days and then find I have to stay for seven years."

The UAE has charged Foster with theft of government property, possession of police paraphernalia and theft at night. If found guilty, he faces up to seven years in prison.

The U.S. State Department confirmed that Foster was detained. American consular officers met him on February 28 before UAE authorities released him on bail March 1.

Officials in the UAE did not respond to a CNN request for comment.

But investigators claim Foster stole a pair of official police handcuffs during questioning in an unrelated matter at a Dubai police station the night before was due to leave the city, according to his attorney, Yousuf Khalifa Hammad.

Foster has said it was a coincidence, saying he was brought in for questioning because he was in possession of a bottle of Korean rice wine -- a parting gift from colleagues. He was released without charges.

Foster said he found the handcuffs a day earlier on the ground at a mall parking lot, about a mile and half from the police station where he was questioned.

"I was thinking 'souvenir,'" Foster said. "They were lying on the ground. So I picked them up."

Foster, who was on his way home after a six-week stint as a contractor for Dubai Energy Water Authority, was arrested after authorities found the handcuffs in his luggage during a routine security screening at the Dubai airport.

He said he was pulled off the plane, questioned and taken to a police station, where he was interrogated twice by two officers.

It was during that second round of questioning, after hours of maintaining his innocence, he said he was beaten and forced to confess.

Foster claims he was told to take off his shoes and socks, and handcuffed to a chair while one of two officers used a coil to whip the bottom of his feet. He also said he was punched in the face.

"The pain was unimaginable," Foster said. "So I told them I did it. I told them 'I'm sorry.'"

Foster said he then signed a confession written in Arabic.

"I have no idea what it said," he said.

Hammad said there is little recourse for Foster as there were no witnesses to the alleged torture, though court documents show he initially said he was innocent, confessed and then recanted.

"It is up to the judge to consider this," Hammad said.

Foster said he recanted his confession after he was released from jail. He said he did not tell U.S. consular officials who met with him while he was in jail nor did he file a complaint against the officer in the case because he was afraid he would be beaten again if he professed his innocence.

Robert H. Arbuckle, a public affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi, declined to comment because Foster had not authorized consular officials to act on his behalf with the media.

The U.S. Embassy strongly advises travelers to the UAE and those transiting through the country to avoid carrying any type of law enforcement or security item, including weapons, body armor and handcuffs, according to its web site. It warns that people caught carrying such items will face criminal charges.

"I don't understand how they can do this?" Foster said. "How can they put me away for seven years with no proof whatsoever?"

Foster has been living at a Dubai hotel since authorities released him on March 1. In lieu of bail, UAE officials confiscated his passport to ensure he would appear in court, Hammad said.

Nearly 1,000 people have appealed to Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United States, and Jeffrey D. Feltman of the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to intervene on Foster's behalf.

"I urge you to do everything in your power to ensure Adam is treated fairly on May 19 with consideration of his illegal torture and coerced confession," according to a sample letter posted on Facebook. "Americans all over the world are counting on you and the State Department to speak boldly in opposition to human rights violations."

Hundreds of others have posted messages of support.

"Imagine yourself in his place for about five minutes. Then do something to help him," urges Facebook user Bruce Varner.

Foster said he was hanging on to hope that the letters from friends and family might make a difference in his case.

Last year, UAE authorities detained Nicholas Moody of Nevada for more than three months on charges of possessing weapons accessories -- parts that could accompany a gun, though no firearm itself.

Moody was arrested during an 18-hour layover in Abu Dhabi while heading back from Iraq. A judge later dismissed the charges.

CNN's Jill Doherty contributed to this report.

CNN

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

North Korea says it has detained U.S. citizen

hard labor for crossing into the North from China. He was detained for seven months in all.

In 2009, journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were arrested for trespassing in North Korea and released only after former President Bill Clinton made a similar trip to Pyongyang to plead for their freedom.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters

View the Original article