Jan. 6
MAURITANIA:
Death penalty sought for Mauritania coup plotters
A state prosecutor in Mauritania has requested the death penalty for the
alleged ringleader of three attempted coup plots as well as for 16 accused
accomplices.
The prosecutor, who made his recommendations to a court in the West
African country late on Wednesday, also asked for 3 opposition leaders to
be jailed for 5 years, accusing them of having bankrolled the coup
attempts.
Among the 3 politicians is Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla, a former military
ruler who was the main challenger to President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya
in a 2003 election.
A total of 195 people, most of them from the military, are on trial in the
coup-prone Islamic republic, a poor, mostly desert country hoping to get
rich from the recent discovery of offshore oil.
Their alleged ringleader, former army officer Saleh Ould Hanenna, came
close to toppling Taya in June 2003 during 2 days of street fighting in
the capital Nouakchott, before the president's loyalists regained control.
Mauritania's government says it foiled two more coup attempts in 2004 by
dissidents linked to Hanenna, who was arrested last October.
Hanenna, who has pleaded guilty for the June 2003 attempted putsch, had
earlier been removed from the army after being accused of stirring
discontent over Mauritania's links with Israel. The country is one of only
three Arab League members to have full relations with the Jewish state.
Taya, who first seized power in a coup in 1984, has angered many Arabs in
a nation straddling black and Arab Africa by shifting support over the
past decade from former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to Israel and the
United States.
Critics say the 2 latest alleged coup bids -- for which the government has
also blamed Burkina Faso and Libya -- were a pretext to justify a
clampdown on political opponents.
Nine of the people for whom the death penalty has been requested -- all
suspected members of a group of renegade soldiers calling itself "Knights
of Change" -- are at large. The prosecutor has also recommended life
imprisonment for 49 of the defendants and forced labour for another 87
people.
The trial started in November in the desert town of Ouad Naga, 50 km (31
miles) east of Nouakchott.
(source: Reuters)
MALAYSIA:
Death Row convicts donate to victims
Some 800 Malaysian prisoners, including those awaiting execution, have
dipped into their savings to help victims of the tsunami disaster,
officials said.
The total of around RM3,000 may be paltry but it was a major sacrifice for
the inmates at the Taiping Prison in Perak, said Prison Director Narander
Singh.
"The money is what they have saved to help them start a new life after
being released. But they decided to donate that money after reading about
the plight of the victims," he told AFP.
Singh said the inmates earned between 40 and 80 sen a day for 7-hour
shifts, depending on the work they do ranging from gardening to painting.
He said some of them had wanted to give up their entire savings but the
prison felt it was unfair to them and told them to only donate 1/3 of
their collection.
Some 800 inmates, including 18 on Death Row, contributed to the fund, he
added. The scale of the December 26 tsunamis that devastated many
countries on the Indian Ocean has moved people around the world to dig
deep to help victims, with more than 145,000 people dead and millions
homeless.
While Malaysia lies closer to the epicentre of the earthquake than many
countries harder hit, it was protected from the full force of the waves by
Indonesia's Sumatra island. A total of 68 people died in Malaysia.
Meanwhile, national carrier Malaysia Airline said it would give a 50 %
discount on humanitarian aid cargo bound for tsunami-hit countries out of
Newark airport in New York.
The carrier would also offer discounted fares to aid workers, medical
teams, volunteers from non-governmental organizations and journalists
heading to the disaster zone.
(source: Daily Express)
