2A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 30, 2004 NATION/WORLD Cole bombers get death sentence NEWS IN BRIEF SAN'A, Yemen (AP) - A Yemeni officials in Yemen. AI-Nashiri is also suspected of help- ers Ibrahim al-Thawr and Hasaan judge sentenced two men to death and The other five defendants were pres- ing direct the 1998 bombings of U.S. al-Khamri, who went by the alias of J 4 four others to prison terms ranging from five to 10 years yesterday, the first convictions and sentences for the 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole, an attack blamed on Osama bin Laden's terror network. Saudi-born Abd al-Rahim al- Nashiri, who is in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location, and Jamal al- Badawi, a 35-year-old Yemeni, were both sentenced to death for plotting, preparing and involvement in the bombing, which killed 17 U.S. sail- ors as their destroyer refueled in the southern Yemeni port of Aden. Al-Nashiri, believed to be the mas- termind of the Oct. 12, 2000, bombing, was tried in absentia, and it was not clear how the ruling would affect his detention. Four American officials who attended the sentencing refused to com- ment on the trial, as did U.S. Embassy ent in the heavily guarded court to hear the sentences. In reading the verdict, Judge Najib al-Qaderi pointed to the prosecution's statement that Badawi and al-Nashiri bought the speedboat that the bombers used to ram the Cole. "This verdict is an American one and unjust," al-Badawi yelled from behind the bars of a courtroom cell after the judge sentenced him to death. "There are no human rights in the world, except for the Americans. All the Muslims in the world are being used to serve Amer- ican interests." The United States announced al- Nashiri's arrest in 2002. He was detained in the United Arab Emirates and transferred to American custody. U.S. officials believe he is a close asso- ciate of Saudi-born bin Laden, who is believed to have masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Death sentences are routinely handed down by Yemeni courts. Execution is carried out by a firing squad. Mohammed al-Badawi, brother of the Yemeni condemned to death, denounced the decision and told The Associated Press that his brother and the four other Yemenis sentenced yesterday would appeal their sentences. Al-Badawi's father, also called Mohammed, urged Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh to overturn the judge's decision, which he claimed was made "under heavy American pressure." "It is a ready-made verdict and we will appeal," the father said. The six men were all charged with belonging to al-Qaida and playing various roles in the attack on the Cole, which was carried out by suicide bomb- Abdullah al-Misawa. The two Yemenis rammed an explosives-laden boat into the destroyer. "The evidence obtained by the court affirms the collaboration of the defen- dants in the case ... which harmed the country, its reputation and threatened its social stability and security," al-Qaderi told the court before issuing his sen- tences. Al-Qaderi sentenced Fahd al-Qasa to 10 years in jail for filming the bombing, which left a gaping hole in the side of the destroyer, which was later repaired and returned to service. The court heard evidence that al- Qasa had traveled to Afghanistan in 1997 to train at an al-Qaida terrorist camp, but it was unclear how long he spent there before returning to Yemen, a tribal-dominated country located at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. WASH INGTON Economy growing, but still weakly@ The economy grew at a faster pace this spring than previously thought, but was at its weakest level in more than a year, providing ammunition to both candidates in the final weeks of the presidential race. The 3.3 percent annual growth rate of gross domestic product in the April to June period was stronger than the 2.8 percent pace estimated last month, the Commerce Department said yesterday. GDP is the country's total output of goods and services. Still, the improvement was significantly lower than the first quarter's 4.5 percent annual rate. The second-quarter boost to the nearly $11.7 trillion economy came from expanded business inventories and investments, an increase in imports and a drop in exports. "The economy is doing better than many anticipated,"said Sung Won Sohn, economist at Wells Fargo & Co. "And the better news is that economic growth will accelerate." The report sent stocks higher, with the Dow Jones closing up nearly 59 points and the NASDAQ up 24 points. Private spaceship leaves atmosphere ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Pakistan claims success in al-Qaida fight Pakistan has "broken the back" of al-Qaida in this country by killing a key network operative reportedly involved in every major terror attack here in recent years, including the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, an official said yesterday. Amjad Hussain Farooqi was killed Sunday by security forces after refusing to surrender at his home in Nawabshah in southern Pakistan. Farooqi was wanted for his alleged role in the 2002 kidnapping and beheading of Pearl and in two failed assassination attempts on President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Since his death, authorities have tagged Farooqi with involvement in major ter- ror attacks in recent years, including the March 2002 attack on a church in the capital, Islamabad, and a June 2002 car bombing outside the U.S. Consulate in the port city of Karachi that left 12 people dead. Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao told a Cabinet meeting that secu- rity forces have "broken the back of al-Qaida in Pakistan" by killing Farooqi. 01 Soaring toward a $10 million bounty MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) - Ignoring a warning to abort the flight, a test pilot took a stubby-looking rocket plane on a corkscrewing, white-knuckle ride past the edge of the atmosphere yesterday, completing the first stage of a quest to win a $10 million prize. As spectators and controllers ner- vously watched from the ground, SpaceShipOne rolled dozens of times as it hurtled toward space at nearly three times the speed of sound. It reached an altitude of 64 miles over the Mojave Desert. Spaceship designer Burt Rutan said he asked pilot Michael Melvill to shut down the engine, but Melvill kept going until he reached the altitude specified under the rules for the Ansari X Prize, a bounty offered to the first privately built, manned rocket ship to fly in space twice in a span of two weeks. "I did a victory roll at the top," Mel- vill joked from atop the spaceship after it glided safely to a landing.. The problem was being analyzed by the spacecraft's builders, who must decide whether to proceed with anoth- er flight Monday in order to win the X Prize. But Rutan and Melvill were confident the flight would go on as planned. Rutan said rolling occurred during flight simu- lations, and it was not a complete sur- prise when it happened on yesterday. "I've looked at it, and I think we just change out the engine and fill it with gas and let it go," Melvill said. The test pilot said he may have caused the rolling himself. "You know, you're extremely busy at dation is offering the bounty in hopes of inspiring an era of space tourism in which spaceflight is not just the domain of government agencies such as NASA. Rutan, with more than $20 million from Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, secretly developed SpaceShipOne and is well ahead of two dozen teams building X Prize contenders around the world. During its 81-minute flight, Space- ShipOne climbed to 337,500 feet - nearly 10,000 feet above its target, said Gregg Maryniak, executive director of the X Prize Foundation. The craft made more than two dozen unexpected rolls as the fat fuselage and spindly white wings shot skyward. Rutan said controllers asked Melvill to shut the engine down early because of the rolling, but Melvill kept going until he was certain he would reach the target altitude. "We actually were asking him to go ahead and abort, to shut it off to where he wouldn't have gone the (62 miles). He stayed in there just for a handful of seconds more," Rutan said. Melvill said he did shut down the engine 11 seconds earlier than planned after determining the craft would reach its target. The mission began when a specially designed jet with the ship under its belly took off from the desert north of Los Angeles. At 47,000 feet, Space- ShipOne was released, and Melvill fired its rocket motor and pointed the nose toward space. A crowd of VIPs watched from below the airport control tower. The mission was televised live. The Ansari X Prize was modeled on the $25,000 prize that Charles Lind- bergh won in his Spirit of St. Louis for the first solo New York-to-Paris flight across the Atlantic in 1927. Astronaut Mike Melvill celebrates on SpaceShipOne yesterday after landing as the Mojave Aerospace Ventures Team attempts to win the Ansari X Prize. BAGHDAD, Iraq British hostage filmed pleading for rescue A weeping British hostage was shown pleading for help between the bars of a makeshift cage in a video that surfaced yesterday, a sobering reminder of the grim reality for at least 18 foreign captives still held by Iraqi militants. There is wide speculation that ransoms were paid for the freedom of a dozen hostages, including two Italian aid workers. The new footage, first broadcast on the Arab news network Al-Jazeera and then posted on the Internet, showed Kenneth Bigley begging British Prime Minister Tony Blair to meet his captors' demands. "Tony Blair, I am begging you for my life," the 62-year-old Bigley said between sobs. "Have some compassion. Only you can help me now." NEW YORK Stewart to do time in West Virginia prison Martha Stewart will do her time farther from home than she had hoped, at a remote West Virginia prison where inmates sleep in bunk beds and rise at 6 a.m. to do menial labor for pennies an hour. The millionaire celebrity homemaker said yesterday that she has been assigned to the minimum-security women's prison at Alderson. Stewart, convicted in March of lying about a stock sale, had asked to serve her five-month prison term in Danbury, Conn., close to her 90-year-old mother and her own home in nearby Westport. But a source familiar with the government's decision, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that Alderson was selected because it was more remote and less accessible to the media than Danbury or Stewart's second choice of Coleman, Fla. - Compiled from Daily wire reports MARKET UPDATE WED. CLOSE CHANGE DOW JONES 10,136.24 + 58.84 NASDAQ 1,893.94 + 24.07 S&P 500 1,114 +4.74 www.michigandaily.com The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Mondays during the spring and summer terms by students at the University of Michigan. Subscriptions for fall term, starting in September, via U.S. mail are $110. Winter term (January through April) is $115, yearlong (September through April) is $195. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. Yearlong on-campus subscriptions are $40. Subscriptions must be prepaid. The Michigan Daily is a member of The Associated Press and The Associated Collegiate Press. ADDRESS: The Michigan Daily, 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109- 1327. E-mail letters to the editor to tothedaily@michigandaily.com. that point," he said. "Your feet and your hands and your eyes and everything is working about as fast as you can work them, and probably I stepped on some- thing too quickly and caused the roll." SpaceShipOne, with Melvill at the controls, made history in June when it became the first private, manned craft to reach space. The Ansari X Prize will go to the first craft to safely complete two flights to an altitude of 328,000 feet, or 62 miles - generally considered to be the point where the Earth's atmosphere ends and space begins - in a 14-day span. The St. Louis-based X Prize Foun- Luxury Living At A Great P rice! 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