Dictator Amin's son convicted in attack

August 4, 2007

Britain
LONDON -- A son of former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin has been jailed for five years after being involved in a gang attack that left a man dead, British prosecutors said yesterday. Faisal Wangita, 25, was part of a 40-strong gang that attacked Somali Mahir Osman, 18, in north London in January 2006. Osman was stabbed 20 times, attacked with baseball bats, bottles, and hammers, and died within a minute, Britain's Crown Prosecution Service said. (AP)

Russia

MAKHACHKALA -- About 50 women occupied a central square in this provincial Russian capital yesterday, declaring a hunger strike and vowing not to leave until authorities tell them what happened to their missing children. Police tried to break up the protest, staged by a group calling itself the Mothers of Dagestan, but the women refused to disband, said Svetlana Isayeva, one of the protesters. She said they will not eat until their demands for information and a meeting with the region's president are met. The Dagestan president, Mukhu Aliev, admitted last month that 76 people have been kidnapped this year. In six of those cases, the abductors wore camouflage uniforms similar to law enforcement officers. (AP)

Italy

ROME -- An 82-year-old priest is under investigation after addicts accused him of sexually abusing them at a rehabilitation center, a spokesman confirmed yesterday. The Rev. Pietro Gelmini insists there was no abuse and that he is being targeted by addicts kicked out of the center, according to his spokesman, Alessandro Meluzzi. Prosecutors in the central town of Terni have been investigating Gelmini for six months based on the men's statements, but no indictment has been sought, Meluzzi said, noting that in Italy officials are obliged to investigate all reports of a crime. (AP)

Singapore

Authorities in Singapore yesterday banned a gay rights forum at which a retired Canadian law professor was to speak, the second time in a week the city-state has forbidden an event that touches on gay issues. The forum was to feature Douglas Sanders, a professor emeritus in law at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and Thailand's Chulalongkorn University, the event's organizer, Alex Au, said. But because the Aug. 7 forum, titled "Sexual Orientation in International Law: The Case of Asia," was deemed contrary to public interest, police canceled the event's license yesterday, and immigration authorities rejected Sanders's visa application, Singapore's Home Affairs Ministry said. (AP)

Sierra Leone

FREETOWN-- Around 50 people were feared drowned and more than 100 were missing after their boat capsized in heavy rain at the mouth of a river in Sierra Leone, police said yesterday. A spokesman for a local boat owners' association said seven bodies had so far been recovered from the sea at the estuary of the Great Scarcies river, near Sierra Leone's northern border. Police in the northern Kambia district estimated around 50 people had died based on accounts from the only two survivors found so far. (Reuters)