Today's other stories in brief
Feared British gangster gets seven years
LONDON - One of Britain's most feared gangsters, who prosecutors said had amassed tens of millions of pounds from drugs and extortion, was jailed for seven years yesterday after agreeing to admit to money-laundering.
Terry Adams (52), head of London's Adams crime family, pleaded guilty to a £1.1 million (€1.6m) money-laundering scam, which prosecutors described as a tiny proportion of an illicit fortune. - (Reuters)
Iraq police missing in Baghdad attack
BAGHDAD - Ten Iraqi policemen were missing after insurgents attacked a police station north of Baghdad yesterday, killing one policeman and wounding three more, a police source said. A group of insurgents stormed the police station in Hibhib, in Diyala province, setting fire to vehicles and destroying the building. - (Reuters)
Palestinian killed by Israeli troops
GAZA - Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian man near the Gaza border yesterday, the first such incident in weeks, Palestinian hospital officials said. - (Reuters)
Saddam's judge seeks UK asylum
DUBAI - The Iraqi trial judge who sentenced former
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to death has asked for asylum in Britain, al-Jazeera television said yesterday.
Its London reporter said Raouf Abdel Rahman had asked for asylum after going to Britain with his family in December on a visitor's visa. - (Reuters)
Kidnap victims 'safe' in Ethiopia
MEKELE - Five Europeans and eight Ethiopians kidnapped by gunmen in remote northern Ethiopia are safe and in a good condition, the Ethiopian government and a local community leader said yesterday.
"Last evening, I heard that they are safe and secure. They are in good condition," said Ethiopia's foreign minister Seyoum Mesfin. - (Reuters)
Lottery fortune rescued from bin
BERLIN - A 79-year-old grandmother in Germany rescued a fortune from oblivion after she realised a lottery ticket she had thrown in the bin was worth more than €13.7 million.
"She searched and searched, turned the house upside down, but couldn't find the ticket," said Elmar Bamfaste, a spokesman for the WestLotto lottery. "Finally, she looked in the rubbish bin, and there it was. She was lucky."
- (Reuters)
Winslet wins libel case on diet claim
LONDON - British actress Kate Winslet, an outspoken critic of what she sees as Hollywood's obsession with being skinny, has won a public apology and undisclosed libel damages from Grazia magazine which reported she visited a diet doctor. - (Reuters)
Guilty of Armenian massacre denial
GENEVA - A Turkish politician was found guilty yesterday by a Swiss criminal court of denying that mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 amounted to genocide, the first such conviction under Swiss law.
Dogu Perincek, head of the leftist-nationalist Turkish Workers' Party, called the Armenian genocide "an international lie" during a speech in Lausanne in July 2005. - (Reuters)