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Bangladeshi student burned to death by fellow students for reporting sexual harassment by head teacher

A Bangladeshi teenager who braved the shame and taboo of being sexually harassed by reporting her ordeal to officials, has been doused with kerosene at school and burned to death.

Nusrat Jahan Rafi, 19, filed a complaint with local police in late March after allegedly being touched inappropriately by the head teacher at her Islamic school, also known as a madrasa, according to the BBC.  A police officer filmed her distraught testimony on his mobile phone and it was leaked after the teacher was arrested.

Despite the increasing threats of violence against her, Rafi continued going to class and on April 6, reportedly was lured to a building rooftop at her school. She was then surrounded by several burqa-clad individuals who demanded that she retract her police report.

After refusing, the Police Bureau of Investigation Chief told the BBC, the student was doused in kerosene and set alight –but their plan to “make it look like a suicide” failed after the severely injured Rafi was rescued.

GRUESOME RAPE, MURDER OF KASHMIR GIRL RAISES TENSIONS

She suffered burns to more than 80 percent of her body, and died ten days later. But while being rushed to hospital via ambulance and in one final act of courage, Rafi recorded a statement on her brother’s phone exposing some of her attackers as fellow students.

“The teacher touched me,” she reportedly said. “I will fight this crime till my last breath.”

“When a woman tries to get justice for sexual harassment, she has to face a lot of harassment again,” Salma Ali, a human rights lawyer and former director of the Women Lawyers’ Association, told the BBC. “The case lingers for years, there is shaming in society, a lack of willingness from the police to properly investigate the allegations. It leads the victim to give up on seeking justice.”

NUNS SEXUALLY ABUSING MINORS COULD BECOME NEXT CATHOLIC CHURCH SCANDAL, EXPERTS SAY

But given the wave of media attention and the outpouring of anger that has arisen in the wake of Rafi’s murder, some remain hopeful that at least some justice might be served. The case is under investigation and authorities have already determined law enforcement negligence in the initial response to her complaints.

More than a dozen arrests reportedly have been made related to her murder.

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At a news conference this week, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) also took aim at the Islamic school for a long track record of ignoring previous grievances against the headmaster’s behavior toward female students.

“If the administration from the district level to madrasa acted responsibly, then the incident would never have taken place,” noted Kazi Reazul Haque, the NHRC chairman. “We questioned how (the head teacher) was appointed as the principal despite having this kind of past.”

Source: Fox News World

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Pope leads Catholics into Easter with vigil Mass

Easter vigil Mass in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican
Pope Francis leads the Easter vigil Mass in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, April 20, 2019. REUTERS/Remo Casilli

April 20, 2019

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis led the world’s Roman Catholics into Easter at a vigil Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday night, urging the faithful to live not for transient things like wealth and success but for God.

The largest church in Christendom was dark at the start of the long service as the pope carved into a candle the numbers of the year 2019 and the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet – Alpha and Omega – signifying that God is the beginning and end of all things.

Easter, the most important day in the Church’s liturgical calendar, commemorates the day Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead.

Francis, marking his seventh Easter season as pope, wove his homily around the Bible account of the women who went to Jesus’ tomb only to find it empty and the large stone that had sealed it had been cast away.

“God takes away even the hardest stones against which our hopes and expectations crash: death, sin, fear, worldliness,” he said.

“There is another stone that often seals the heart shut: the stone of sin. Sin seduces; it promises things easy and quick, prosperity and success, but then leaves behind only solitude and death. Sin is looking for life among the dead, for the meaning of life in things that pass away,” he said.

During the Mass, Francis welcomed eight adult converts into the Church, conferring on them the sacraments of baptism and confirmation. They were from Italy, Albania, Ecuador, Indonesia and Peru.

On Sunday, the 82-year-old leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics is due to say a Mass in St. Peter’s Square and read the traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (To The City and The World) message.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Source: OANN

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Jordan PM says economy strengthening, on track with growth

Jordan's Prime Minister Omar al-Razzaz speaks during a news conference in Amman
FILE PHOTO: Jordan's Prime Minister Omar al-Razzaz speaks during a news conference in Amman, Jordan June 19, 2018. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

February 26, 2019

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) – Jordan’s Prime Minister Omar al Razzaz said his country’s economy has begun to strengthen less than a year after embarking on tough fiscal reforms needed to bring down debt crucial to spur growth hit by conflict in the region.

Ahead of a major London donors conference on Thursday, Razzaz told Reuters on Tuesday the kingdom would be presenting its policy steps and commitment in proceeding with IMF-backed fiscal and structural reforms crucial to rejuvenate the economy.

King Abdullah appointed Razzaz last June to defuse the biggest protests in years over tax hikes pushed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce Jordan’s large public debt.

Razzaz, whose task was to revive confidence, succeeded in prodding parliament last November to pass a new tax law, a main plank of austerity measures to ease a fiscal crunch and spur stagnant growth hovering at around 2 percent in recent years.

Razzaz said the widened tax base alongside cuts in public expenditure had raised state revenues and reduced strains on state finances struggling to curb a public debt of around $40 billion.

“The fundamentals of the economy are all starting to look better, the macro-economic and fiscal indicators are better,” said Razzaz, who will be leading his country’s delegation to the London conference.

A recent IMF statement this month at the end of its last mission to review a three-year program to support Jordan’s economic and financial reforms said the country’s economic outlook showed “renewed momentum despite persistent challenges”.

Jordan has navigated years of instability at its borders, including wars in Iraq and Syria and conflict in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

But the instability has hit the economy of a country that is poor in resources and hosts close to over one million Syrian refugees. Unemployment among Jordanians stands at 18.4 percent, according to Jordan’s department of statistics.

The country’s fiscal consolidation plan aims to reduce public debt to 77 percent of gross domestic product by 2021 from 95 percent now.

“The bitter medicine that we needed to take we have done. Jordan has done everything it can on the fiscal front to allow for growth to happen,” Razzaz said, adding that the onus was now on the international donor community to push the country to “realize sustainable growth”.

Razzaz said Jordan had for a while been negotiating with major donors and the World Bank for new concessionary loans, grants and guarantees that repay maturing debt to reduce high debt servicing that weighed heavily on its $13 billion budget.

“These together make Jordan’s debt sustainable and we can bring it down further,” Razzaz added.

The IMF also called on the London conference to unlock much-needed budget grants and concessional financing to support Jordan’s reforms and large financing needs, accentuated by accommodating the many Syrian refugees.

The economy was set to recover steadily in the coming five years beyond a forecast 3 percent growth this year, helped by a pickup in exports and the reopening of border crossings with its war-torn neighbors, Iraq and Syria.

Credit agencies and analysts say the economy is underpinned by strong Western donor support and geopolitical factors that provide an economic and political cushion for the country.

Razzaz said there were already signs that exports were rising as the kingdom regained markets lost during the years of conflict along its borders.

“Even our export numbers are starting to show now, month after month, a move up, especially with Iraq,” Razzaz said.

The country’s macro-economic fundamentals and political stability had allowed it to escape relatively unscathed from the turmoil that spread across the region in recent years.

“Jordan has proved how resilient it is in withstanding external shocks, surviving and turning them into opportunity while hosting refugees and doing it right,” Razzaz said.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Source: OANN

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Fed’s Quarles: More rate hikes likely needed ‘at some point’ given outlook

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman for Supervision Randal Quarles addresses the Economic Club of New York in New York
FILE PHOTO: Federal Reserve Vice Chairman for Supervision Randal Quarles addresses the Economic Club of New York in New York City, U.S., October 18, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

March 29, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Influential Federal Reserve Vice Chair Randal Quarles, setting aside recent data weakness and complaints from the White House about interest rate hikes, on Friday gave a bullish view of the U.S. economy and said more rate increases may be needed if recent positive trends in productivity and investment continue.

Quarles said he agreed it was “prudent” to put further hikes on hold while the Fed waits for overseas risks to play out, and to see if recent disappointing retail sales and job figures were an anomaly or the leading edge of a slow down.

But Quarles said he was inclined to dismiss the recent data as “a bit odd” and “inconsistent” with underlying strength, wage gains that should be boosting households, and a rise in productivity he feels could be “persistent” and lead to stronger growth down the road.

While the Fed remains on hold for now, “my sense is that further increases in the policy rate may be necessary at some point,” Quarles said at a Manhattan Institute monetary policy conference. It was a view he said was “consistent with my optimistic view of the economy’s growth potential and momentum.”

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Stretch your retirement with this tax-saving strategy

Retirees fish from a public dock on the Sacramento River in the Sacramento San Joaquin River Delta in Rio Vista, California
Retirees Gene Bloczynski (L) and Eric Vannieuwburg fish from a public dock on the Sacramento River in the Sacramento San Joaquin River Delta in Rio Vista, California September 4, 2013. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

February 20, 2019

By Gail MarksJarvis

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Retirement strategy is about more than just how you will spend the money you have saved – it matters where that money is coming from too.

Bill Reichenstein spent his career teaching finance and creating strategies that help people maximize the amount coming from Social Security. The Baylor University finance professor is a principal in Social Security Solutions, Inc., a software firm that helps people work the system.

But since Reichenstein, 66, retired a few months ago, he has been thinking about how to orchestrate the rest of his retirement accounts and he came up with a plan.

Each year until he is 70, he will convert some of the money that is in his IRA and 401(K) accounts into a Roth IRA. He will pay income tax on whatever he withdraws, but once the money is in the Roth, he never will owe on it again, as the growth is tax-free.

Reichenstein figured out that the conversions will give him more than a couple hundred thousand dollars more than he would have had for retirement because of those tax savings.

At a recent Financial Planning Association Conference, Reichenstein urged financial planners to get retirees in their 60s to adopt the same practice; especially if they have put virtually all their retirement savings into 401(k)s and IRAs.

The driver for this strategy is to protect as much money as possible from taxes that can jump sharply after age 70-1/2. This is when individuals are required by the government to withdraw prescribed sums from IRAs and 401(k)s each year and pay taxes on the distributions, known as required minimum distributions (RMDs). Roth IRAs are not subject to these requirements, and also have easier rules for heirs.

“It makes most sense [to convert] when you quit working and before starting Social Security,” said David Oransky, a certified public accountant and financial planner who serves on the American Institute of CPA’s Personal Financial Planning Executive Committee.

For example, Frank Corrado, a Holmdel, New Jersey financial planner and president of the Alliance of Comprehensive Planners, is helping a retired couple do Roth conversions every year for 12 years before hitting 70 and starting Social Security. The couple had adjusted gross income of $141,105 when working, but after retiring at 58 it dropped to about $69,600 as they live on pensions and investments.

With their relatively low income now, they are in the 12 percent tax bracket and can stay within it even though they are converting $32,000 a year to Roths. Over the 12 years before age 70, they will convert about $384,000 of their original $2 million IRA into a Roth. During retirement that should leave them with about $50,000 more to spend, Corrado said.

MORE SAVINGS

The tax saving is about more than just income. Social Security benefits are taxed each year based on a retiree’s other income. So if a person must take a large withdrawal from an IRA, his income will rise and likely lead to more taxes on Social Security benefits.

Medicare premiums are affected too. Most people pay $135.50 a month to have Part B Medicare coverage for doctors and medical tests. But after an individual’s income goes above $85,000 or a couple’s over $170,000, the premium jumps to $189.60 a month per person. As income rises, premiums become as high as $460.50 a month.

During tax season, Oransky suggested thinking about conversions and finishing them the following November when annual income is clear. But people who are planning to move from high tax states to no-income tax states in retirement, may delay a conversion until after the move.

(This story corrects that he will finish conversions at 70, not retire then in paragraph 4 and corrects Oransky’s title in paragraph 8)

(Editing by Beth Pinsker and Susan Thomas)

Source: OANN

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Lucky loser Jarry stuns Alexander Zverev in Barcelona Open

ATP - Qatar Open
FILE PHOTO: Tennis - ATP - Qatar Open - Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex, Doha, Qatar - January 2, 2019 Chile's Nicolas Jarry in action during his second round match against Switzerland's Stanislas Wawrinka. REUTERS/Ibraheem Al Omari

April 23, 2019

BARCELONA (Reuters) – Alexander Zverev crashed out of the Barcelona Open in the second round on Tuesday, continuing his troubled start to 2019.

The German, who joined the tournament on a late wildcard, was beaten 3-6 7-5 7-6(5) by lucky loser Nicolas Jarry.

German world number three Zverev, who is looking to improve on his disappointing start to 2019, came back from a double break down in the third set but blew a match point at 6-5.

It was the biggest win of the Chilean Jarry’s career. The world number 81 will now face either Grigor Dimitrov or Fernando Verdasco in Thursday’s third round.

Zverev’s brother Mischa Zverev was also eliminated, going out 6-3 6-1 to David Ferrer in the first round, while Kei Nishikori eased to a 7-5 6-2 win over Taylor Fritz to secure a place in the third round.

Top seed and world number two Rafa Nadal begins his campaign to win the Barcelona Open for a record 12th time on Wednesday against Leonardo Mayer.

(Reporting by Rik Sharma; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Source: OANN

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The Latest: DA disagrees with verdict, respects process

The Latest on the homicide trial of a white Pennsylvania police officer in the shooting of an unarmed black 17-year-old (all times local):

10:30 p.m.

The district attorney in Pittsburgh says he disagrees with a jury's decision to acquit a former police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager as he ran from a car involved just minutes earlier in a drive-by shooting.

But Stephen Zappala Jr. says it is the people of Pennsylvania who decide guilt in criminal cases, and "they have spoken."

A jury deliberated fewer than four hours Friday before clearing ex-East Pittsburgh Officer Michael Rosfeld of homicide in the shooting of Antwon Rose II last year.

Rosfeld's lawyer called him "a good man." During the trial he said the officer feared for his life and had to make a split-second decision.

Zappala said that in the interest of justice, he'll continue to bring charges where charges are appropriate.

__

9:45 p.m.

The family of a black teenager who was shot in the back and killed by a white police officer outside Pittsburgh remained stoic after the man was acquitted.

Antwon Rose II's sister had tears streaming down her face after the jury cleared former East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld of a homicide charge late Friday. Her mother urged her not to cry.

The jury deliberated fewer than four hours before reaching its verdict. There were tears and gasps from black people gathered in an overflow courtroom, and several broke out in song: "Antwon Rose was a freedom fighter, and he taught us how to fight."

Rosfeld's wife burst out sobbing as the verdict was announced. She and Rosfeld were hustled out of the courtroom by deputies.

Rosfeld's attorney, Patrick Thomassey, told reporters that Rosfeld is "a good man."

___

9:25 p.m.

A jury has acquitted a white former police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teenager outside Pittsburgh.

Former East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld was charged with homicide for killing 17-year-old Antwon Rose II last June. Rose was riding in an unlicensed taxi that was involved in a drive-by shooting. Rosfeld pulled the car over and shot Rose in the back, arm and side of the face as the teen ran away.

Rosfeld testified that he thought Rose or another passenger in the car had a gun pointed at him.

The jury saw video of the fatal confrontation. The verdict came Friday after fewer than four hours of deliberations.

The shooting triggered protests in the Pittsburgh area last year.

___

8:25 p.m.

The jury has reached a verdict in the homicide trial of a white former police officer charged with shooting an unarmed black teenager as he fled a high-stakes traffic stop outside Pittsburgh.

Former East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld fired on 17-year-old Antwon Rose II last summer in a killing that sparked weeks of unrest.

Jurors informed the court Friday night they have reached a verdict. They can convict Rosfeld of murder or manslaughter, or return an acquittal.

The ex-cop shot Rose in the back, arm and side of the face after pulling over an unlicensed taxi that had been used in a drive-by shooting. Rosfeld ordered the driver to the ground, but Rose and another passenger got out and began running away. Rosfeld says he thought one of the suspects was pointing a gun at him.

___

5:10 p.m.

A jury has started deliberating in the homicide trial of a white former police officer charged with killing an unarmed black teenager outside Pittsburgh last summer.

Jurors got the case Friday afternoon.

A prosecutor says former East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld acted as "judge, jury and executioner" when he killed 17-year-old Antwon Rose II. Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Fodi tells jurors that Rose didn't deserve to die.

Defense attorney Patrick Thomassey says that Rosfeld was justified in shooting the fleeing teenager because the officer believed he was in danger.

Rosfeld shot Rose in the back, arm and side of the face as he ran from a traffic stop. Rose had been riding in a car that Rosfeld pulled over because he correctly suspected it was involved in a drive-by shooting.

___

4:10 p.m.

Closing arguments have been delivered in the homicide trial of a white former police officer charged with killing an unarmed black teenager outside Pittsburgh last summer.

A prosecutor says former East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld acted as "judge, jury and executioner" when he killed 17-year-old Antwon Rose II. Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Fodi said Friday that Rose didn't deserve to die.

Defense attorney Patrick Thomassey said in his closing argument that Rosfeld was justified in shooting the fleeing teenager because the officer believed he was in danger.

Rosfeld shot Rose in the back, arm and side of the face as he ran from a traffic stop. Rose had been riding in a car that Rosfeld pulled over because he correctly suspected it was involved in a drive-by shooting.

The jury is expected to begin deliberating Friday.

___

1:20 p.m.

An attorney for the family of Antwon Rose II says a jury should conclude that the unarmed black teenager was "murdered" by a white police officer last summer.

S. Lee Merritt spoke to The Associated Press on Friday as closing arguments were getting underway in the homicide trial of former East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld.

Rosfeld shot Rose in the back, arm and side of the face as the 17-year-old ran away from a traffic stop. Rose had been riding in a car that Rosfeld pulled over because he correctly suspected it was involved in a drive-by shooting.

Rosfeld told jurors that he thought Rose or another fleeing suspect had pointed a gun at him. Neither teen had a weapon on him at the time.

Merritt says "it's pretty obvious" Rose was not a threat to Rosfeld.

___

11:30 a.m.

The defense has rested its case in the homicide trial of a white police officer charged with shooting and killing an unarmed black teenager near Pittsburgh.

Former East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld is charged with gunning down 17-year-old Antwon Rose II last summer.

Rosfeld's lawyer rested Friday.

Rosfeld testified that he thought Rose had a gun. The defense also called a use-of-force expert who says Rosfeld did nothing wrong.

The jury will hear closing arguments Friday afternoon and then begin deliberating.

Rose was riding in a car that had been involved in a drive-by shooting. Rosfeld pulled the car over and shot Rose in the back as he fled.

One juror, a white woman, was dismissed from the panel Friday and replaced with a white man.

___

10 a.m.

A judge has lifted a gag order in the trial of a white police officer charged in the on-duty shooting of an unarmed black teenager near Pittsburgh.

Judge Alexander Bicket lifted the gag order he imposed on parties in the case Friday at the request of the defense. Defense attorney Patrick Thomassey says while he and prosecutors have abided by the judge's order, the attorney for Antwon Rose II's family has made comments to the media.

Bicket made his ruling Friday morning.

Former East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld is on trial for homicide after gunning down the 17-year-old Rose last summer. Rose was riding in a car that had been involved in a drive-by shooting. Rosfeld shot him in the back as he fled.

Rosfeld says he thought Rose or another passenger had a gun.

___

1 a.m.

An expert in police use of force says a former officer did everything by the book in a fatal encounter with an unarmed black teenager outside Pittsburgh last summer.

Retired Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Clifford W. Jobe Jr. testified for the defense at the homicide trial of former East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld, who's charged with gunning down 17-year-old Antwon Rose II.

Rosfeld fired three bullets into Rose after pulling over an unlicensed taxi that had been used in a drive-by shooting. Rose, a passenger in the car, was shot in the back as he fled.

Jobe told jurors Thursday that Rosfeld followed proper procedure. Prosecutors say Rosfeld gave inconsistent statements about the shooting, including whether he thought Rose had a gun.

The trial resumes Friday with Jobe back on the stand for cross-examination.

Source: Fox News National

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Tiger woods celebrates after winning the 2019 Masters
FILE PHOTO: Golf – Masters – Augusta National Golf Club – Augusta, Georgia, U.S. – April 14, 2019 – Tiger Woods of the U.S. celebrates on the 18th hole after winning the 2019 Masters. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

April 26, 2019

Tiger Woods is sending a message that he thinks he still has enough left, emotionally and physically, to win three more major championships to tie Jack Nicklaus’ record 18 titles.

Speaking to GolfTV in his first sit-down interview since the Masters, Woods said he has taken some time off since his victory at Augusta National, which still doesn’t feel real.

“Honestly, it’s hard to believe,” Woods said. “I was texting one of my good friends last night … that I couldn’t believe that I won the tournament. That it really hasn’t sunk in. I haven’t started doing anything. I’ve just been laying there. And every now and again, I’ll look over there on the couch and there’s the jacket.”

That’s the fifth green jacket for the 43-year-old Woods, who hadn’t won a major tournament since the 2008 U.S. Open. Along the way, four back surgeries, a divorce and other personal issues derailed him.

He said he has been spending time with his children – daughter Sam, 11, and son Charlie, 10 – who weren’t born when their father was the most dominant golfer on the planet.

“They never knew golf to be a good thing in my life and only the only thing they remember is that it brought this incredible amount of pain to their dad and they don’t want to ever want to see their dad in pain,” Woods said. “And so to now have them see this side of it, the side that I’ve experienced for so many years of my life, but I had a battle to get back to this point, it feels good.”

He said he hopes – maybe expects — they’ll see this side again.

And no one will take Woods for granted at the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black Course on Long Island, N.Y., which starts May 16.

Woods said he’ll be ready for a course he already conquered once in a major: the 2002 U.S. Open.

“I’m doing all the visual stuff, but I haven’t put in the physical work yet. But it’s probably coming this weekend,” he said.

Before Woods encountered health and personal problems, it was expected that topping Nicklaus’ major mark was “when” and not “if.” Then the certainty went away, but Woods thought he still had a chance.

“I always thought it was possible, if I had everything go my way. It took him an entire career to get to 18, so now that I’ve had another extension to my career – one that I didn’t think I had a couple of years ago – if I do things correctly and everything falls my way, yeah, it’s a possibility. I’m never going to say it’s not.

“Now I just need to have a lot of things go my way, and who’s to say that it will or will not happen? That’s what the future holds, I don’t know. The only thing I can promise you is this: that I will be prepared.”

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Maria Butina, the Russian woman who was accused of being a secret agent for the Russian government, was sentenced to 18 months in prison Friday by a federal judge in Washington after pleading guilty last year to a conspiracy charge.

Butina, who has already served nine months behind bars, will get credit for time served and can possibly get credit for good behavior, the judge said. She will be removed from the U.S. promptly on completion of her time, the judge added, and returned to Russia.

MARIA BUTINA, ACCUSED RUSSIAN SPY, PLEADS GUILTY TO CONSPIRACY

An emotional and apologetic Butina said in court Friday she is “truly sorry” and regrets not registering as a foreign agent.

“I feel ashamed and embarrassed,” she said, adding that her “reputation is ruined.”

Butina has been jailed since her arrest in July 2018. She entered the court Friday wearing a dark green prison jumpsuit and spoke in clear English, with a slight Russian accent.

“Please accept my apologies,” Butina said.

Butina’s lawyer, Robert Driscoll, said after the sentencing they had hoped for a “better outcome,” but expressed a desire for Butina to be released to her family by the fall.

Prosecutors had claimed Butina used her contacts with the National Rifle Association and the National Prayer Breakfast to develop relationships with U.S. politicians and gather information for Russia.

Prosecutors also have said that Butina’s boyfriend, conservative political operative Paul Erickson, identified in court papers as “U.S. Person 1,” helped her establish ties with the NRA.

WHO IS MARIA BUTINA, THE RUSSIAN WOMAN ACCUSED OF SPYING ON US?

In their filings, prosecutors claim federal agents found Butina had contact information for people suspected of being employed by Russia’s Federal Security Services, or FSB, the successor intelligence agency to the KGB. Inside her home, they found notes referring to a potential job offer from the FSB, according to the documents.

Investigators recovered several emails and Twitter direct message conversations in which Butina referred to the need to keep her work secret and, in one instance, said it should be “incognito.” Prosecutors said Butina had contact with Russian intelligence officials and that the FBI photographed her dining with a diplomat suspected of being a Russian intelligence agent.

Fox News’ Jason Donner, Bill Mears, Greg Norman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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An official Sri Lankan police Twitter account was deleted after it misidentified an American human rights activist as a suspect in the country’s Easter Sunday terrorist attacks.

On Thursday, police posted the names and photos of six people that they said were at-large suspects in the bombings that killed more than 250 people.

However, one of the names on the list was Muslim U.S. activist Amara Majeed, who quickly tweeted that she had been falsely identified.

“I have this morning been FALSELY identified by the Sri Lankan government as one of the ISIS terrorists that committed the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka. What a thing to wake up to!” she wrote.

SRI LANKA AUTHORITIES SAY EASTER ATTACK LEADER KILLED IN ONE OF NINE HOTEL BOMBINGS

She wrote in a follow-up tweet that the claim was “obviously completely false” and asked social media users to “please stop implicating and associating me with these horrific attacks.”

“And next time, be more diligent about releasing such information that has the potential to deeply violate someone’s family and community,” she continued.

Later, she wrote an update saying police apologized for wrongly mistaking her as a suspect.

Police said in a statement: “However, although one of the released images was identified as one Abdul Cader Fathima Khadhiya in the information provided by the CID, the CID has now informed that a) the individual whose image was labeled as Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya is not in fact Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya b) the individual pictured is not wanted for questioning c) Abdul Cader Fathima is the correct name of the suspect wanted by the CID.”

On Friday, the account, @SriLankaPolice2 was deleted with no explanation. Police did not release more information regarding the mistake.

Majeed, who founded “The Hijab Project” when she was 16 years old, told the Baltimore Sun that it was hurtful to be linked to the attacks.

“Sri Lanka is my motherland,” the Brown University student said. “It’s very painful to be associated with [the bombings].”

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Mohamed Zahran, the suspected leader of the attacks which targeted six hotels and churches, killed himself in a suicide bombing at the Shangri-La hotel. Police also said they had arrested the second-in-command of the group, called National Towheed Jamaat. Catholic churches in Sri Lanka canceled all Sunday Masses until further notice over concerns that they remain a top target of Islamic State-linked extremists.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday, in Colombo
FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, five days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Catholic churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam

KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka (Reuters) – Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran was 12 years old when he began his studies at the Jamiathul Falah Arabic College. He was a nobody, with no claim to scholarship other than ambition.

Zahran and his four brothers and sisters squeezed into a two-room house with their parents in a small seaside town in eastern Sri Lanka; their father was a poor man who sold packets of food on the street and had a reputation for being a petty thief.

“His father didn’t do much,” recalled the school’s vice principal, S.M. Aliyar, laughing out loud.

The boy surprised the school with his sharp mind. For three years, Zahran practiced memorizing the Koran. Next came his studies in Islamic law. But the more he learned, the more Zahran argued that his teachers were too liberal in their reading of the holy book.

“He was against our teaching and the way we interpreted the Koran – he wanted his radical Islam,” said Aliyar. “So we kicked him out.”

Aliyar, now 73 with a long white beard, remembers the day Zahran left in 2005. “His father came and asked, ‘Where can he go?’.”

The school would hear again of Mohamed Zahran. And the world now knows his name. The Sri Lankan government has identified him as the ringleader of a group that carried out a series of Easter Sunday suicide bombings in the country on April 21.

The blasts killed more than 250 people in churches and luxury hotels, one of the deadliest-ever such attacks in South Asia. There were nine suicide bombers who blew apart men, women and children as they sat to pray or ate breakfast.

Most of the attackers were well-educated and from wealthy families, with some having been abroad to study, according to Sri Lankan officials.

That description does not, however, fit their alleged leader, a man said to be in his early 30s, who authorities say died in the slaughter. Zahran was different.

INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS

Sri Lanka’s national leadership has come under heavy criticism for failing to heed warnings from Indian intelligence services – at least three in April alone – that an attack was pending. But Zahran’s path from provincial troublemaker to alleged jihadist mastermind was marked by years of missed or ignored signals that the man with a thick beard and paunch was dangerous.

His increasingly militant brand of Islam was allowed to grow inside a marginalized minority community – barely 10 percent of the country’s roughly 20 million people are Muslim – against a backdrop of a dysfunctional developing nation.

The top official at the nation’s defense ministry resigned on Thursday, saying that some institutions under his charge had failed.

For much of his adult life, Zahran, 33, courted controversy inside the Muslim community itself.

In the internet age, that problem did not stay local. Zahran released online videos calling for jihad and threatening bloodshed.

After the blasts, Islamic State claimed credit and posted a video of Zahran, clutching an assault rifle, standing before the group’s black flag and pledging allegiance to its leader.

The precise relationship between Zahran and Islamic State is not yet known. An official with India’s security services, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that during a raid on a suspected Islamic State cell by the National Investigation Agency earlier this year officers found copies of Zahran’s videos. The operation was in the state of Tamil Nadu, just across a thin strait of ocean from Sri Lanka.

“LIKE A SPOILED CHILD”

Back in 2005, Zahran was looking to make his way in the world. His hometown of Kattankudy is some seven hours’ drive from Colombo on the other side of the island nation, past the countless palm trees, roadside Buddha statues, cashew hawkers and an occasional lumbering elephant in the bush. It is a town of about 40,000 people, a dot on the eastern coast with no clear future for an impoverished young man who’d just been expelled.

Zahran joined a mosque in 2006, the Dharul Athar, and gained a place on its management committee. But within three years they’d had a falling out.

“He wanted to speak more independently, without taking advice from elders,” said the mosque’s imam, or spiritual leader, M.T.M. Fawaz.

Also, the young man was more conservative, Fawaz said, objecting, for instance, to women wearing bangles or earrings.

“The rest of us come together as community leaders but Zahran wanted to speak for himself,” said Fawaz, a man with broad shoulders lounging with a group of friends in a back office of the mosque after evening prayers. “He was a black sheep who broke free.”

Mohamed Yusuf Mohamed Thaufeek, a friend who met Zahran at school and later became an adherent of his, said the problems revolved around Zahran’s habit of misquoting Islamic scriptures.

The mosque’s committee banned him from preaching for three months in 2009. Zahran stormed off.

“We treated him like a spoiled child, a very narrow-minded person who was always causing some trouble,” said the head of the committee, Mohamed Ismail Mohamed Naushad, a timber supplier who shook his head at the memory.

Now on his own, Zahran began to collect a group of followers who met in what Fawaz described as “a hut”.

At about that time, Zahran, then 23, married a young girl from a small town outside the capital of Colombo and brought his bride back to Kattankudy, according to his sister, Mathaniya.

“I didn’t have much of a connection with her – she was 14,” she said.

Despite being “a bit rough-edged”, Zahran was a skilled speaker and others his age were drawn to his speeches and Koranic lessons, said Thaufeek. He traveled the countryside at times, giving his version of religious instruction as he went.

Also, Zahran had found a popular target: the town’s Sufi population, who practice a form of Islam often described a mystical, but which to conservatives is heresy.

Tensions in the area went back some years. In 2004, there was a grenade attack on a Sufi mosque and in 2006 several homes of Sufis were set afire. Announcements boomed from surrounding mosques at the time calling for a Sufi spiritual leader to be killed, said Sahlan Khalil Rahman, secretary of a trust that oversees a group of Sufi mosques.

He blamed followers of the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam that some locals say became more popular after funding from Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Wahhabism, flowed to mosques in Kattankudy.

It was, Rahman said, an effort “to convert Sufis into Wahhabis through this terrorism”. Rahman handed over a photograph album showing charred homes, bullet holes sprayed across an office wall and a shrine’s casket upended.

ONLINE RADICAL

It was an ideal backdrop for Zahran’s bellicose delivery and apparent sense of religious destiny.

He began holding rallies, bellowing insults through loudspeakers that reverberated inside the Sufis’ house of worship as they tried to pray.

In 2012, Zahran started a mosque of his own. The Sufis were alarmed and, Rahman said, passed on complaints to both local law enforcement and eventually national government offices. No action was taken.

The then-officer in charge of Kattankudy police, Ariyabandhu Wedagedara, said in a telephone interview that he couldn’t arrest people simply because of theological differences.

     “The problem at the time was between followers of different Islamic sects – Zahran was not a major troublemaker, but he and followers of other sects, including the Sufis, were at loggerheads,” Wedagedara said.

Zahran found another megaphone: the internet. His Facebook page was taken down after the bombings, but Muslims in the area said his video clips had previously achieved notoriety.

His speeches went from denouncing Sufis to “kafirs”, or non-believers, in general. Zahran’s sister, Mathaniya, said in an interview that she thought “his ideas became more radical from listening to Islamic State views on the Internet”.

In one undated video, Zahran, in a white tunic and standing in front of an image of flames, boomed in a loud voice: “You will not have time to pick up the remains of blown-up bodies. We’ll keep sending those insulting Allah to hell.”

“HARD TO TAKE”

Zahran spoke in Tamil, making his words available to young Muslims clicking on their cellphones in Kattankudy and other towns like it during a period when, in both 2014 and 2018, reports and images spread of Sinhalese Buddhists rioting against Muslims in Sri Lanka.

In 2017, Zahran’s confrontations boiled over. At a rally near a Sufi community, his followers came wielding swords. At least one man was hacked and hospitalized. The police arrested several people connected to Zahran, including his father and one of his brothers. Zahran slipped away from public view.

That December, the mosque Zahran founded released a public notice disowning him. Thaufeek, his friend from school, is now the head. He counted the places that Zahran had been driven away from – his school, the Dharul Athar mosque and then, “we ourselves kicked him out, which would have been hard for him to take”.

The next year, a group of Buddha statues was vandalized in the town of Mawanella, about five hours drive from Kattankudy. There, in the lush mountains of Sri Lanka’s interior, Zahran had taken up temporary residence.

“He was preaching to kill people,” said A.G.M. Anees, who has served as an imam at a small mosque in the area for a decade. “This is not Islam, this is violence.”

Zahran went into hiding once more.

On the Thursday morning before the Easter Sunday bombings, Zahran’s sister-in-law knocked on the door of a neighbor who did seamstress work near Kattankudy. She handed over a parcel of fabric and asked for it to be sewn into a tunic by the end of the day.

“She said she was going on a family trip,” said the neighbor, M.H. Sithi Nazlya.

Zahran’s sister says that her parents turned off their cellphones on the Friday. On Sunday, when she visited their home, they were gone.

She does not know if Zahran arranged for them to be taken somewhere safe. Or why he would have carried out the bombing.

But now in Kattankudy, and in many other places, people are talking about Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran.

(Reporting by Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam; Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani, Shihar Aneez and Alasdair Pal; Editing by John Chalmers and Alex Richardson)

Source: OANN

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