WESTERN EUROPE

FRANCE OPENS PEDOPHILIA TRIAL, WITH 66 DEFENDANTS

ANGERS, France – French authorities opened one of the nation’s most horrific pedophilia trials yesterday, charging that nearly four dozen babies and children were raped, sexually abused, and prostituted by their parents for a little cash, food, alcohol, or even cigarettes.

Sixty-six defendants, some facing up to life imprisonment, were brought into a blue-carpeted courtroom specially built in this western city to hold them all.

Many of the 39 men and 27 women shifted uncomfortably in their seats, shoulders hunched, looking down at their shoes. Most replied timidly when asked, one by one, to stand, give their age, profession, and address.

In French trials, defendants do not plead guilty or innocent at the start of proceedings. Court officials said about half of the accused had admitted involvement in the alleged crimes during questioning.

Investigators say 45 children – from 6 months to 14 years old – were raped or sexually abused from 1999 to 2002 by their parents or people close to them who paid money, food, cigarettes, or liquor. A grandfather of some of the children allegedly filmed rapes and other abuse.

– Associated Press

COUNTERTERRORISM CHIEF: MADRID BOMBERS PLOTTED FOLLOW UP ATTACK

Islamic insurgents blamed for last year’s commuter train bombings in Madrid were plotting more bloodshed – a string of suicide attacks in the months after the massacre, Spain’s counterterrorism director said yesterday.

The revelation adds a chilling what-if element to Spain’s national trauma as it prepares to mark the anniversary of the March 11 bombings, the country’s worst ever terrorist attack.

The counterterrorism chief, Fernando Reinares, said the insurgents most likely to have carried out such suicide attacks in Spain – which would have been the first ever in Western Europe – were seven men who blew themselves up April 3 as special forces moved in to arrest them.

“According to data collected so far, it can be deduced that those terrorists were probably planning suicide attacks in the months or weeks after” the train bombings, which killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500, Mr. Reinares told AP.

– Associated Press

SINN FEIN SUSPENDS SEVEN MEMBERS

DUBLIN, Ireland – Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, announced yesterday it has suspended seven members for alleged involvement in a fight in a crowded Belfast pub that ended with the murder of a Catholic man.

The announcement by Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams came on the eve of the party’s annual conference – and followed weeks of criticism from the victim’s family in Short Strand, a hard-line Catholic neighborhood that is normally an IRA power base.

“If any of these seven are found to have been involved in the events surrounding the death of Robert McCartney, or if they do not provide truthful accounts at this time as the McCartney family have requested, Sinn Fein will take further internal disciplinary action,” Mr. Adams said.

Last week, the IRA announced it had expelled three members allegedly involved in the January 30 attack on McCartney, during which he was fatally slashed in the throat and stomach. One of his friends, Brendan Devine, suffered similar wounds but survived.

Police have arrested 10 people and raided 18 homes, largely in the Short Strand area, but they haven’t charged anybody.

– Associated Press

WEST AFRICA

RIOTERS BURN POLICE STATIONS IN NIGERIA

MAKURDI, Nigeria – Thousands of rioters wielding sticks and broken bottles burned down a police station Thursday, protesting the police killing of a bus driver who apparently refused to pay a bribe equivalent to 14 cents, officials said.

Rioting engulfed the capital of Nigeria’s Benue state, Makurdi, on Wednesday night and continued yesterday, said Benue police chief Ibrahim Mohammed. The rioters burned down one police station on Wednesday and another yesterday, he said.

Witnesses said the rioting ended by last night. Dozens of black-uniformed armed policemen patrolled streets littered with smashed-up, abandoned luxury cars.

Mr. Mohammed confirmed a policeman shot and killed a bus driver, but he would not give details.

A Benue students’ group said the driver was killed because he “lawfully refused to part with his hard-earned 20 naira.”

Dr. Daniel Ior, at Makurdi’s main hospital, said he had treated 60 people for minor injuries. Officials reported no serious injuries or deaths.

Local state radio called for calm last night. Benue’s union leader, Boogal Abuul, said the policeman who shot the driver was arrested and would face trial.

– Associated Press

SOUTHEAST ASIA

U.S., AUSTRALIA CRITICIZE LIGHT SENTENCE FOR ALLEGED TERROR CHIEF

America denounced a 2 1/2-year sentence for a rebel Islamic cleric yesterday, calling the Indonesian court’s ruling too lenient for the man alleged to head a regional terror group behind a string of deadly bombings.

The verdict by a five-judge panel could see Abu Baka Bashir freed as early as next year and was another setback for the Indonesian government’s campaign to prove the cleric is responsible for attacks in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Officials contend Bashir is the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, an Al Qaeda-linked group blamed for bombings in Bali’s nightclub district that killed 202 people in 2002, a suicide bombing at the J.W. Marriott hotel in Jakarta that killed a dozen in 2003 and other attacks.

The judges convicted Bashir of conspiracy in the Bali attack, but they acquitted him on the more serious charges of planning the Marriott bombing and of inciting followers to stage terrorist attacks.

The 30-month sentence was decried by the governments of America and Australia, which were hoping for a lengthy prison term to deter terrorism in Indonesia. “We respect the independence and judgment of the Indonesian courts, but given the gravity of the charges on which he was convicted, we are disappointed at the length of the sentence,” said American Embassy spokesman Max Kwak. Seven Americans died in the Bali attack.

– Associated Press

VIETNAM REPATRIATES REMAINS OF U.S. SOLDIER IN DANANG

The suspected remains of an American soldier killed during the Vietnam War were flown home yesterday, four decades after American troops first landed in the country to fight.

Under rainy skies, an American military honor guard loaded a flag-draped aluminum coffin onto an Air Force C-130 at Danang International Airport, in central Vietnam, before it headed off to a forensics laboratory in Hawaii for further identification.

“We want to continue the commitment” to account for all the missing in action from the war, said Lieutenant Colonel Lentfort Mitchell, commander of the office for missing American servicemen in Vietnam.

In addition to the remains, two boxes of artifacts were also shipped back, he said. The remains were recovered during excavation efforts in central and southern Vietnam.

Next week marks the 40th anniversary of American troops landing in Danang on March 8, 1965, the official start of a decade-long war that ended in 1975. The war took the lives of 58,000 Americans and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese.

Also yesterday, an American military team of about 100 people flew into Danang as part of continuing American efforts to locate about 1,800 soldiers still listed as missing. Since 1973, more than 700 sets of remains have been recovered and identified.

– Associated Press

SOUTH ASIA

PAKISTAN COURT OVERTURNS CONVICTION OF SUSPECTED RAPISTS

A Pakistani court yesterday overturned the conviction of a village elder and four other men who had been sentenced to death for allegedly ordering a woman gangraped as punishment for her brother’s illicit sex with a woman from another family, a defense lawyer said.

The rape of the woman in 2002 in a mud-brick house in a village in central Pakistan made world headlines, and led the government to promise sweeping changes to end centuries of so-called “honor” killings and attacks.

Six men, including village council chief Faiz Mastoi, were later convicted and sentenced to death. But the court overturned the sentences yesterday, citing a lack of evidence. Mr. Mastoi and four others were ordered released and the sixth man’s death sentence was reduced to life in prison, said a lawyer for the woman, Ramzan Joya. The woman, Mukhtar Mai, was in court and wept upon hearing the court’s decision.

– Associated Press