A policeman accused of killing Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu broke down in court yesterday as he accused 'important witnesses' of lying to pin the full blame on him. Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar also denied shooting Ms Altantuya, 28, and blowing up her body with explosives in a jungle in Puncak Alam here between 10pm on Oct19 and 1am on Oct 20, 2006.
He said he was involved in the matter only because it was a request from a superior officer who is also an aide to Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Sirul, 36, said he had agreed to patrol the house of political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda, when another accused, chief inspector Azilah Hadri, 32, told him that the directive came from Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Musa Safri.
Sirul and Azilah were accused of killing Mr Abdul Razak's former lover, Ms Altantuya. Mr Abdul Razak, a close friend of Datuk Seri Najib, was acquitted of abetting the murder last year. The close affiliations with Mr Najib had given his political enemies opportunities to drag him into the case.
In his testimony on Jan 15, Azilah denied killing Ms Altantuya and said he had never planned to do so.
Azilah also stated that DSP Musa had asked him to help Mr Abdul Razak.
As Sirul read out his 15-page testimony from the dock without taking oath yesterday, he said he never knew Ms Altantuya or Mr Abdul Razak.
He broke down when he appealed to the court to have mercy on him as he had been made a 'scapegoat' in the case to protect those with the cruel intention of killing the Mongolian woman.
'I appeal to this court to take into consideration that throughout the trial, I had followed the proceedings and witnessed how several important prosecution witnesses, especially those from the Kuala Lumpur police headquarters, made up stories, lied and constantly changed their stories during cross-examination.
'I did not have any intention to harm or even take the victim's life with such cruelty,' Sirul said in between sobs.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2009 00:00 ||
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Awwww... Bummer.
Lux Interior, co-founder and lead singer of the pioneering horror-punk band the Cramps, has died, the group's publicist said. He was 60.
Interior -- whose real name was Erick Lee Purkhiser -- died Wednesday of a pre-existing heart condition at a hospital in Glendale, Calif., publicist Aleix Martinez said in a statement.
Interior met his future wife Kristy Wallace -- who would later take the stage name Poison Ivy -- in Sacramento in 1972. The pair moved to New York and started the Cramps with Interior on lead vocals and Ivy on guitar. The group was a part of the late `70s early punk scene centered at Manhattan clubs like CBGB, alongside acts like the Ramones and Patti Smith.
Their unmistakable sound was a lo-fi synthesis of rockabilly and surf guitar staged with a deviant dose of midnight-movie camp. Some called it "psychobilly."
The pale, tall, gaunt Interior appeared shirtless with black hair and tiny, low-slung black pants, looking part zombie, part Elvis Presley as he crawled, writhed and howled his way across the stage.
The group had the raw intensity of punk, but took the music in new directions by incorporating theatrical elements, often horror-themed, in songs like "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" and "Bikini Girls With Machine Guns." Their breakthrough debut EP was 1979's "Gravest Hits."
The band made a notorious appearance at a California mental institution, Napa State Hospital, in 1978. The performance, whose video is still popular on YouTube, was a punk-era echo of the Folsom Prison concert of Johnny Cash, one of the band's influences.
Interior was widely rumored in 1987 to have died from a heroin overdose, and his wife received flowers and funeral wreaths. "At first I thought it was kind of funny," he told the Los Angeles Times at the time. "But then it started to give me a creepy feeling."
The Cramps' lineup changed often through the decades but Interior and Ivy remained the center. Their bluesy, trebly sound -- the group didn't have a bass guitarist -- resonates in modern minimalist groups like the White Stripes and the Black Lips.
The band's last release was the 2004 rarities collection "How to Make a Monster." They were still touring as recently as last November.
Posted by: Formerly Dan ||
02/05/2009 20:07 Comments ||
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#2
"Hold muh beer and watch this...."
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/05/2009 22:02 Comments ||
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#3
when doing maintenance/grooming (and especially when drunk), always use proper tools. In this case, an electric clipper would've been appropriate, but noooooo, he had to use the pruning shears
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/05/2009 22:05 Comments ||
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1999: The first Victoria's Secret online fashion show also becomes the first major webcast, attracting an estimated 1.5 million viewers worldwide. The 21-minute spectacle featured VS supermodel Tyra Banks and a pulchritudinous supporting cast flaunting the latest in boudoir apparel.
Video at the link.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/05/2009 14:51 ||
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A woman in South Korea who has taken the written exam required for a driver's license nearly every day since 2005 has failed again but is hoping attempt No. 772 will be the charm.
The aspiring driver took her first test in April 2005, according to Choi Young-chul, an official at the North Jeolla Province driver's license agency in Jeonju, 150 miles south of Seoul.
She has taken the test a record 771 times, most recently on Monday, but has yet to pass. She said she plans to take the test again but did not say when, he said Thursday.
The 68-year-old has spent $3,000 on fees for the test, he said. Applicants must score at least 60 on the written exam before they can get behind the wheel for a driving test. Choi says she's scored as high as 50.
"I feel sorry every time I see Cha fail. When she passes, I'll make a memorial tablet myself and give it to her," Park Jung-seok, a traffic police officer at the agency, told the Korea Times newspaper.
No other details about her identity were released other than her family name, Cha.
#4
Perhaps it is unkind but I think it is just as well she has failed the written exam. I suspect she would not pass the practical either. Amusing at first blush BUT....
This woman is 68 and there was no mention of physical or mental problems however I think there has to be some. Note: I had a 75 year old neighbor tear off the corner of my garage a while back and she still wanted to drive. I got new tool boxes, garage door, motorcycle trailer out of that one. Lucky it didn't get the Harley.
Buffalo State College hosts the national teach-in on Global Warming Situations today a day the local temperature bottomed out at minus 6 degrees.
No evidence of global warming here, at least not this morning, when unofficial reports to the National Weather Service listed temperatures as low as 9 degrees below zero elsewhere in Erie County.
"We didn't have temperatures forecast to be quite that cold," weather service meteorologist David Zaff said this morning. "When you have snowpack on the ground and clear skies, temperatures can plummet. It's called radiational cooling."
That cooling phenomenon, under mockingly clear skies, posed a hardship for some morning commuters and some finger-numbing discomfort for others.
"Compared to a normal winter day, our call volume is up about 25 percent, and it's directly related to the cold," said Diana Dibble, public affairs manager for AAA of Western and Central New York.
#1
Program Note: History Channel International will re-broadcast "Little Ice Age, Big Chill" this Saturday. See how Global Warming is causing an Ice Age.
#1
Good for her. Still, the MSM treats this as a typical strong woman vs. the patriarchy story, no mention of the pre-neanderthal islamology that created the mess. Too bad the slobbering liberal sisterhood in the Western world won't condemn the barbaritry hinted at here. It'd be "judgemental," an' you know, we can't have that...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/05/2009 13:11 Comments ||
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Criminal gangs have tried to blackmail shop owners and managers at one of the Stockholm areas most popular shopping centres, according to employees at the mall. Vinny? Vito? Nunzio?
Sven, no doubt.
"The same gang has come to us three times in two months," said an employee from the Kista Galleria mall, located north of Stockholm, to TV4. The employee added that a colleague of his was punched for not giving the gang members money. "He didnt come back to work after that."
The employee, who wished to remain anonymous, added that when he tried to intervene in the matter, he felt that one of the men had a bulletproof vest. He wishes police would do more to counteract the problem. Yeah, well ...
"Just having police walk by means a lot. The police should be a bit tougher, then this wouldnt have been any problem," he said. The police are pretty busy all over Sweden at the moment.
The head of Kista Galleria, Gunnar Mässing, said that the arrival of the gangs is a relatively recent phenomenon. "They first turned up here in 2008. Tenants came to us and said that they were being bothered by organizations and people whom they felt threatened by," Mässing told TV4. Trickle, trickle, torrent ...
Kista Galleria has about 50,000 visitors a day and an annual turnover of 2.2 billion kronor ($264 million).
Mässing said that, as of yet, mall management doesnt know of any criminal gangs that have succeeded in establishing ties to the shopping centres stores. Mall management: "Don't worry, customers!"
Nevertheless he remains concerned that several stores remain vulnerable for extortion."The tenants who are the primary targets for these sorts of visits are restaurants, cafes, dry cleaners; that is to say, stores which have a high volume of cash transactions," he said, adding that he has alerted tenants that mall management will do what it can to help them deal with the unwanted guests.
"Were managing the situation with the utmost seriousness because we know what these types of organizations are capable of doing." Mall management is managing with utmost seriousness. That's a relief when dealing with thugs wearing bullet-proof vests.
But the mall employee remains concerned for his safety.
"Gangs are here all the time. Im worried that theyll be waiting for me in the garage or at home," he said. Yes, that's progress, of a kind ...
The Norwegian government announced Wednesday that it will allow Muslim women police officers if they choose to wear the Islamic head scarf. "After advice from police management, it has been decided that rules on police uniforms will be modified to allow for the wearing of a religious scarf with the uniform," the justice ministry said in a statement.
Previously it was not allowed for Muslim police women to wear the veil because of rules banning the display of any sort of political or religious affiliation.
After months of debate, the police management said it was in favor of permitting the scarf to be worn with the uniform in order to improve the possibility of recruiting in Norway's Muslim community. "We think it's necessary to recruit widely and to develop a police force which reflects all classes in society, regardless of beliefs and ethnicity, which is more important than demanding a neutral uniform," wrote police chief Ingelin Killengreen.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Impartiality is not as important as diversity. Nice. /s
#3
Norway is lost. Only thug states allow for the concealment of the identity of their police forces.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
02/05/2009 10:04 Comments ||
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#4
Of course, it will be timed to coincide with seating a couple of replacements on the Supreme Court so as to make it "Constitutional". That is how it will work out, I do believe.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
02/05/2009 10:38 Comments ||
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#5
How did that happen? The above comment was for the article below! Weird.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
02/05/2009 10:39 Comments ||
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#6
Do they mean the veil, a hijab, or just a scarf of the sort Benzir Bhutto was so fond of? Do they plan to allow modification of the police uniform to meet whatever changing standard of modesty the jihadis decided to claim that day, or will there be a uniform headscarf provided for those who desire to wear it? The article is not clear.
The shop worker from Guangzhou, China, died moments after he put a new battery in his phone, it has been claimed.
It was believed that he may have just finished charging the battery and had put the phone in his breast pocket when it exploded.
China's daily Shin Min Daily News said the accident happened on Friday, Jan 30, at 7.30pm. An employee at the shop told local media that she heard a loud bang and saw her colleague lying on the floor of the shop in a pool of blood. The employee said the victim had recently changed the battery in his mobile phone.
Police are investigating what caused the explosion and whether the phone was counterfeit. The make and model of the phone are not thought to be known.
Local reports said that this was the ninth recorded cellphone explosion in China since 2002.
The Shin Min Daily News published advice for consumers on how to avoid being hurt by exploding mobile phones, following the latest incident.
Some of the tips were:
-- Always use original batteries.
-- Do not expose your mobile phone to high temperatures, and avoid exposing it to direct sunlight.
-- Avoid long phone conversations. - Do not critisize the Chinese Communist Party
Former president Mohammad Khatami, who for two terms led failed attempts to give Iranians more legal freedoms and end Iran's international isolation, has decided to run in upcoming elections, aides, political allies and family members said Tuesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
....because the intrastate and interstate trafficking of firearms are so commingled, full regulation of interstate commerce requires the incidental regulation of intrastate commerce;
#3
A bill submitted to the House of Representatives, and immediately sent to Committee. How often is something like this submitted, without ever once passing out of committee, let alone to a House vote matched by a Senate vote, then a reconciliation bill submitted to both houses of Congress? Let's worry about this if it gets to the reconciliation stage, although you might want to write to your Representative, and possibly even both Senators.
Rush introduced a 1993 bill that would have banned handguns for anyone who was not in law enforcement and added an increase in the licensing fee for gun dealers from $10 to $3,000.
...he volunteered for the Army but went AWOL in 1968 and co-founded the Illinois Black Panthers...
#6
Handguns and semiautomatics which feed from a "detachable device", presumably meaning a magazine, from the text. So sounds like my shotgun's in the clear, and any bolt-action rifle.
It excludes any "antiques". God only knows how you define that.
Horrible bill, but the above stipulations will let the willful & wishful close their eyes and claim that it isn't aimed at "hunters and people with heirlooms".
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
02/05/2009 12:56 Comments ||
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#7
Geee....will ya' look at the size of the nose on that camel?
#8
Why not just house to house through the 'hood and confiscate anything more dangerous than a butter knife? After all, that's where 90% of the problem lies. I volunteer Chicago to be first.
Posted by: ed ||
02/05/2009 13:54 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A woman in South Korea who has taken the written exam required for a driver's license nearly every day since 2005 has failed again but is hoping attempt No. 772 will be the charm.
Talk about great timing.
The shop worker from Guangzhou, China, died moments after he put a new battery in his phone, it has been claimed. 
