MIDDLE EAST

EGYPTIAN PARLIAMENT AGREES TO ELECTORAL REFORM

CAIRO, Egypt – Parliament yesterday agreed to amend the constitution to allow for Egypt’s first multicandidate balloting for president – a move opposition supporters denounced as a tactic to ensure that the Mubarak family retains power.

“The amendment is dubious, and will serve the father and his son,” about 200 protesters chanted outside the assembly, referring to widespread expectations that either President Mubarak or his 40-year-old son, Gamal, will stand in the September polls. The 454-member Parliament unanimously approved the president’s request to amend the constitution, the semiofficial Middle East News Agency reported.

The move would enable Egypt to hold its first election for president with more than one candidate since the military overthrew the monarchy in 1952. Until now, Egypt has held presidential referendums, in which people voted yes or no for a single candidate approved by Parliament. Mr. Mubarak surprised the country last month by declaring he had asked Parliament to amend the constitution to allow for multicandidate elections. Only weeks earlier, he had dismissed calls for electoral reform.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

ITALIAN PREMIER SAYS SLAIN AGENT NOTIFIED U.S. AUTHORITIES

ROME – The prime minister yesterday disputed Washington’s version of the events leading to the killing of an Italian intelligence agent by American troops in Baghdad, saying the agent had notified the proper authorities that he was on his way to the airport after winning the release of a hostage. The top American general in Iraq said he had no indication that Italian officials gave advance notice of the route the Italians’ car was taking. In a statement released after the shooting, the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, which controls Baghdad, said the vehicle was speeding and refused to stop.

The statement said an American patrol tried to warn a driver with hand and arm signals, by flashing white lights, and firing shots in front of the car.

But in his first major address since Friday’s shooting strained relations between America and Italy, Prime Minister Berlusconi told lawmakers the car carrying the intelligence agent Nicola Calipari and journalist Giuliana Sgrena was traveling at a slow speed and stopped immediately when a light was flashed.

– Associated Press

U.S. INVESTIGATOR QUESTIONS AL QAEDA SUSPECT’S REMARKS

An American investigator of the September 11, 2001, attacks cast doubt yesterday on statements made by a key Al Qaeda captive, including a remark presented as potentially exonerating an accused aide of the suicide pilots.

Dietrich Snell, a New York prosecutor who helped write the U.S. 9/11 Commission report to Congress last year, told a Hamburg state court, “there’s a questionability” about the statements Ramzi Binalshibh made to American authorities.

Mr. Binalshibh’s statements have been presented in the Hamburg retrial of Mounir el Motassadeq, who is charged with providing logistical support to the Hamburg-based cell that included three of the suicide pilots. Mr. el Motassadeq faces 15 years in prison on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization. In edited interrogation transcripts provided by American officials, Mr. Binalshibh indicated that Mr. el Motassadeq had nothing to do with the plot. Mr. Binalshibh said that in Hamburg, only he and three hijackers – Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah – knew of the conspiracy. But Mr. Snell questioned Mr. Binalshibh’s credibility and cited Mr. Binalshibh’s statements about Zacarias Moussaoui, the only American defendant charged in the Sept. 11 attacks.

– Associated Press

KOSOVO’S FORMER PRIME MINISTER SURRENDERS TO TRIBUNAL

Kosovo’s former prime minister surrendered to the U.N. war crimes tribunal yesterday, a day after the ethnic Albanian resigned to face charges stemming from the province’s fight for independence from Belgrade. Ramush Haradinaj arrived at the U.N. detention unit under police escort following a special flight from Pristina. He is to face charges of atrocities committed during the 1998-99 War between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serb forces.

Tribunal spokesman Jim Landale confirmed Mr. Haradinaj, 36, was in U.N. custody, but declined to give details of his arrival. He is expected to appear in court within days, when he will be asked to plead to the charges in his indictment. Neither Mr. Haradinaj, a former commander of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army, nor court officials gave any details of the specific charges against him.

– Associated Press

SOUTH ASIA

REBELS LAUNCH COORDINATED BOMBINGS IN INDIA

GAUHATI, India – Suspected separatist insurgents launched a series of coordinated bombings yesterday in India’s remote northeastern state of Assam, killing a policeman, wounding six people, and blowing up a gas pipeline, police said.

At least eight bombs exploded in various areas of Assam, including three explosions in the state capital, Gauhati, a police officer said on condition of anonymity.

A bomb planted in a busy market in western Bongaigaon district exploded as a policeman tried to defuse it, killing him and wounding at least one other policeman. Suspected rebels blew up part of a gas pipeline in eastern Assam, causing a fire, but engineers shut off the gas flow, said Prashanta Borkotoki, spokesman of the state-owned Oil India Ltd. Three explosions – one outside a police station, another near a hospital, and a third near Gauhati airport – rocked the state capital, injuring two people, the police officer said. The blast near the airport damaged a portion of the facility’s outer wall, an airport police spokesman said.

– Associated Press