The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Thursday, October 18, 2012 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
LANSING
State Senate OKs
bills attacking
child pornography
The Michigan Senate has
unanimously passed three
Republican-introduced bills
that supporters say would make
it easier to prosecute people for
child pornography.
The bills approved Wednes-
day go to the state House for con-
sideration.
Attorney General Bill Schuette
says the bills help update laws
written in the 1990s when he
says "the Internet was still in its
infancy."
A bill by Tom Casperson of
Escanaba amends criminal pro-
cedures to make it easier for
prosecutors to use evidence
gathered in undercover police
operations against child preda-
tors at sentencing.
NEW YORK
Feds: One arrested
in plot to attack
Federal Reserve
A Bangladeshi man who came
to the United States to wage jihad
was arrested in an elaborate FBI
sting on Wednesday after attempt-
ing to blow up a fake car bomb out-
side the Federal Reserve building
in Manhattan, authorities said.
Before trying to carry out the
alleged terrorism plot, Quazi
Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan
Nafis went to a warehouse to help
assemble a 1,000-pound bomb
usinginertmaterial, accordingto a
criminal complaint. He also asked
an undercover agent to videotape
him saying, "We will not stop until
we attain victory or martyrdom,"
the complaint said.
Agents grabbed the 21-year-old
Nafis - armed with a cellphone he
believed was rigged as a detonator
- after he made several attempts
to blow up the bomb inside a
vehicle parked next to the Federal
Reserve, the complaint said.
JERUSALEM
Israeli religious
activist arrested
at Western Wall
Israeli police say they have
arrested a female Jewish activist
leader for wearing a traditionally
male prayer shawl at a Jerusalem
holy site, an act police prohibit
because of Orthodox Jewish sen-
sitivities. She was with an Ameri-
can Jewish women's group.
Police spokesman Micky
Rosenfeld says police detained the
activist for causing a public distur-
bance and wearing the garment.
Police say they seek to prevent
scuffles with Orthodox Jewish
worshippers at the Western Wall,
one of Judaism's holiest sites.
Anat Hoffman leads the liberal
Jewish group Women of the Wall.
She was arrested while leading
prayers for 200 American Jewish
women from the Hadassah orga-
nization.
She said police strip-searched
her and detained her over-
night. She says she was released
Wednesday after agreeing to stay
away from the site for a month.
LARISSA, Greece
Brothels rescue
cash-strapped -
Greek soccer team
The world's oldest profession
is giving a whole new meaning to
love of the game.
Players on a cash-strapped
Greek soccer team now wear
pink practice jerseys with the
logos "Villa Erotica" and "Soula's
House of History," two bordel-
los it recruited as sponsors after
drastic government spending
cuts left the country's sports
clubs facing ruin.
Other teams have also turned
to unconventional financing. One
has a deal with a local funeral
home and others have wooed
kebab shops, a jam factory and
producers of Greece's trademark
feta cheese.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
Report: Libyan
rebels 'executed'
Gadhafi, loyalists
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed sits at a defenseotable wearinga camouflage vest in front of military judge U.S. Army Col. James Pohl
Accused 9 11 plotter speaks
to tribunal about hypocrisy
50-page report
says militias
took revenge on
prisoners
CAIRO (AP) - Libyan reb-
els appear to have "summar-
ily executed" scores of fighters
loyal to Moammar Gadhafi,
and probably the dictator him-
self, when they overran his
hometown a year ago, a human
rights group said Wednesday.
The report by Human Rights
Watch on alleged rebel abuses
that followed the October 2011
capture of the city of Sirte in
the final major battle of the
eight-month civil war is one of
the most detailed descriptions
of what the group says were
war crimes committed by the
militias that toppled Gadhafi,
and which still play a major
role in Libyan politics today.
The 50-page report, titled
"Death of a Dictator: Bloody
Vengeance in Sirte," details
the last hours of Gadhafi's life
on Oct. 20, 2011, when he tried
to flee the besieged city. The
longtime leader's convoy was
struck by NATO aircraft as it
tried to escape and the survi-
vors were attacked by militias
from the city of Misrata, who
captured and disarmed the dic-
tator and his entourage.
Misrata was subjected to a
brutal weeks-long siege by Gad-
hafi's forces that killed hun-
dreds of residents, and fighters
from the city became among
the regime's most implacable
foes. HRW says it seems the
Misratans took revenge against
their prisoners in Sirte.
"The evidence suggests that
opposition militias summarily
executed at least 66 captured
members of Gadhafi's convoy
in Sirte," said Peter Bouck-
aert, emergencies director at
Human Rights Watch.
The New York-based group's
report says that new evidence
unearthed in its investigation
includes a mobile phone video
clip taken by militiamen show-
ing a large number of prisoners
from Gadhafi's convoy being
cursed and abused by opposi-
tion fighters.
The remains of least 17 of the
detainees in the phone video
were later identified in a group
of 66 bodies found at Sirte's
Mahari hotel, some still with
their hands tied behind their
back. Human Rights Watch
said it used hospital morgue
photos to confirm the victims'
identities.
Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed wears
previously banned
camouflage vest
GUANTANAMO BAY
NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - The
self-styled terrorist mastermind
of the Sept. 11 attacks lectured
a military court on government
hypocrisy Wednesday and wore
a previously banned camou-
flage vest to his pretrial hear-
ing before being rebuked by the
judge for his comments.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
was in court as part of a week-
long hearing focusing largely on
the secrecy rules that will gov-
ern legal proceedings against
him at the U.S. base in Cuba.
Mohammed was allowed to
wear a hunting-style camou-
flage vest with his white tunic
and turban over the objections
of prosecutors, who feared it
might disrupt the proceedings.
It had no apparent effect,
but his five-minute speech
denouncing the government's
arguments about the need to
protect national security trans-
fixed the court and drew a repri-
mand from the judge.
Until that point, the 47-year-
old Mohammed sat quietly
through a day of courtroom
arguments on proposed rules
for handling classified evidence
in the war-crimes case. When
he finally spoke, it was to point
out what he saw as the prosecu-
tion's hypocrisy for seeking to
keep secret some details of what
happened to him during years of
captivity in the CIA's secret pris-
ons.
Mohammed told the judge,
Army Col. James Pohl, that "the
government uses national secu-
rity as it chooses," urging him to
keep that in mind as he considers
requests from defense lawyers
and the American Civil Liberties
Union to scale back the rules for
evidence and testimony.
"Many can kill people under
the name of national security, and
to torture people under the name
of national security," the Ara-
bic-speaking Mohammed said
through a translator. "And detain
theirunderagechildrenunder the
name of national security."
In an apparent reference
to Osama bin Laden, Moham-
med noted that "the president
can take someone and throw
them into the sea in the name of
national security."
He also made an oblique ref-'
erence to Anwar al-Awlaki, the
American-Yemeni militant killed
in a September 2007 U.S. drone
strike, and told the judge not
to be affected by the "crocodile
tears" of prosecutors when they
refer to the nearly 3,000 people
killed in the 2001 attacks.
"When the government feels
sad for the killing of 3,000 on
Sept. 11, we also should feel sorry
that the U.S. government ... has
killed thousands of people,"
Mohammed said, before cor-
rectinghimself to say millions of
people.
"Your blood is not made of gold
and ours is made of water. We are
all human beings," he said.
Pohl had allowed Mohammed
to make the statement, but then
said he wouldn't allow it to hap-
pen again.
"This is a onetime occur-
rence," the judge said. "No mat-
ter how heartfelt, I am not going
to entertain personal comments
of any accused about the ways
things are going."
Mohammed, who has told
authorities he was behind the
hijacking plot, is charged along
with four co-defendants with
crimes that include terrorism
and murder. He has a history
of making inflammatory state-
ments in the handful of times
when he has had an opportunity
to speak.
In a closed 2007 appearance
before a panel of military offi-
cers, he compared bin Laden to
George Washington, boasted
about planning the Sept. 11
attacks "from A to Z," and said he
personally beheaded Wall Street
Journal reporter Daniel Pearl
with his "blessed right hand,"
according to atranscript.
At his first public court hear-
ing in 2008, he chanted verses
of the Quran and said he would
welcome becoming a martyr for
his Sept. 11 role. The following
year he released a written state-
ment callingthe attacks a "noble
victory."
Mohammed, whose bushy
beard is dyed a rust color with
henna, sees himself a prisoner
of war and has sought the same
right to wear a uniform as Japa-
nese and German troops prose-
cuted for war crimes after World
War II. In the defendant's case,
his uniform is similar to what he
wore as a mujahideen fighter in
Bosnia and Afghanistan, said one
of his lawyers, Army Capt. Jason
Wright.
Man pleads guilty in plot
to kill Saudi ambassador
Supposed drug
dealer hired to
carry out bombing
in Washington
NEW YORK (AP) - A Texas
man pleaded guilty Wednes-
day to plotting to assassinate
Saudi Arabia's ambassador to'
the United States, agreeing
to hire what he thought was a
drug dealer in Mexico last year
for $1.5 million to carry out
the attack with explosives at a
Washington restaurant.
Manssor Arbabsiar, 57,
entered the plea to two con-
spiracy charges and a murder-
for-hire count in U.S. District
Court in Manhattan, where
Judge John F. Keenan repeat-
edly asked Arbabsiar whether
he intended to kill the ambas-
sador. Arbabsiar, a U.S. citizen
who holds an Iranian passport,
said he did.
Sentencing was set for Jan.
23, when defense lawyers are
likely to cite their claims that
Arbabsiar is bipolar in asking
ag O
for leniency. He faces up to 25
years in prison.
Assistant U.S. Attorney
Edward Kim asked Arbabsiar if
Iranian military officials based
in Iran were involved in the
plot. Arbabsiar said they were.
In a news release issued
after the plea, Attorney Gener-
al Eric Holder cited the efforts
of law enforcement and intelli-
gence agencies in disrupting "a
deadly plot approved by mem-
bers of the Iranian military to
assassinate a sitting foreign
ambassador on U.S. soil."
U.S. Attorney Preet Bhar-
ara noted that the harm
likely would have extended
beyond the ambassador, call-
ing Arbabsiar "the extended
murderous hand of his co-
conspirators, officials of the
Iranian military based in Iran,
who plotted to kill the Saudi
Ambassador in the United
States and were willing to kill
as many bystanders as neces-
sary to do so."
He said Arbabsiar "was in
telephone contact with his
Iranian confederates while he
brokered an audacious olot."
'Binders full of women' effort predated
Romney according to women's coalition
Employees
deny candidate
requested
applications
BOSTON (AP) - Members
of a coalition of Massachusetts
women's groups on Wednesday
disputed Mitt Romney's asser-
tion that he requested the names
of potential female candidates
for high-level, state positions
when he was elected governor.
"To be perfectly clear, Mitt
Romney did not request those
resumes," Jesse Mermell, a
former executive director of
Massachusetts Government
Appointments Project, told
reporters during a conference
call arranged by the Democratic
Party.
Democrats arranged
Wednesday's call to help blunt
the Republican's efforts in the
final weeks of the presidential
campaign to appeal to female
voters. Polls show women favor-
ing President Barack Obama
over Romney.
Romney, responding to a
question during Tuesday night's
presidential debate about equal
pay and opportunities for
women, said that in the process
ofassemblinga cabinet as gover-
nor he was disappointed to find
that most applicants were men.
He said he then asked women's
groups for help finding qualified
female candidates.
"I went to a number of wom-
en's groups and said, 'Can you
help us find folks,' and they
brought us whole binders full
of women," Romney said. The
"binders full of women" remark
sparked an instant wave of social
media parodies of the phrase.
Mermell, a Democrat and
town official in Brookline,
Mass., said Romney did not
request any names after his
2002 election. Instead, she said
MassGAP approached Rom-
ney's team as part of its effort,
begun before the election, to
make sure that more women
were appointed to senior posi-
tions in the new administration.
MassGAP describes itself
as a nonpartisan coalition of
women's groups interested in
boosting the number of women
in top state government jobs.
The coalition said it approached
the nominees of both major par-
ties after the election, Romney
and Democrat Shannon O'Brien,
and secured commitments from
both that, if elected, they would
work with the organization to
identify potential female candi-
dates for senior-level positions.
Romney's campaign declined
to respond to Mermell and
referred questions to Kerry
Healey, who was Romney's lieu-
tenant governor. Healey said
Romney went beyond the ini-
tial contact with MassGAP by
reaching out to acquaintances
in the business world and oth-
ers to help meet his pledge to fill
more administration posts with
women.
Healey served as a liaison
to MassGAP and reviewed the
binders with resumes of poten-
tial candidates.
"Gov. Romney not only sup-
ports equal pay for equal work,
but he goes beyond that by
working to support women to
reach the highest levels of gov-
ernment," Healey said.
Mermell questioned Rom-
ney's commitment to helping
women get ahead in the work-
place.
"The fact that he needed our
help says everything you need
to know about his true com-
mitment to advance women in
office," she said. Mermell added
that it was "shocking that after
25 years of professional experi-
ence at the very highest level of
corporate America, Mitt Rom-
ney needed our help."
In a statement, MassGAP said
the number of women in senior-
level posts climbed from about
30 percent to 42 percent during
the first two years of Romney's
administration.
A 2004 survey by the State
University of New York found
Massachusetts was first in the
nation in the percentage of
women in top state positions.
MassGAP, however, noted the
percentage later dropped to 25
percent in Romney's final two
years in office.
The way it worked was not
quite the way it was described
last night," said Ruth Bramson,
who was hired as Romney's
chief human resource officer
after her resume was spotted in
a binder. "He was half-right."