Lawyers for the Kurdistan Worker Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence on Turkey’s Imrali island, yesterday filed a request for his retrial, on the grounds that recent changes in the law could pave the way for a fairer trial.

According to Firat News Agency (ANF) and bianet, Öcalan’s advocates have submitted the request to Ankara 11th High Criminal Court, where he was originally convicted, on the grounds of the amended jurisdiction on retrial in Law 6459 Article 21 within the judicial reforms introduced in April.

Source KT

27 July 2013

A car bomb has exploded outside a building housing Turkish embassy staff in the Somali capital Mogadishu, according to officials.

At least two people were killed, one of them the suspected attacker.

The Somali Islamist group al-Shabab said it had carried out the attack.

It said Turkey was one of the countries that supported the Somali government and wanted to stop the establishment of Sharia. The group has in the past targeted Turkish institutions.

A gunman holding hostages inside a South Florida apartment complex killed six people before being shot to death by a SWAT team that stormed the building early on Saturday following an hours-long standoff, The Guardian reports.

Sergeant Eddie Rodriguez told The Associated Press that police got a call around 6.30pm on Friday that shots had been fired in a building with dozens of apartments in Hialeah, a few miles north of Miami. Although a crisis team was able to briefly establish communication with the man, Rodriguez said talks eventually “just fell apart” with the gunman, who was holding two hostages on the fifth floor. Both survived when officers stormed the building, fatally shooting the gunman during an exchange of gunfire.

“They made the decision to go in there and save and rescue the hostages,” Rodriguez said.

The bodies of three women and two men were found at two apartment units inside the building, which Rodriguez said was in a “very quiet neighborhood.”

Another man, who was walking his children into an apartment across the street, also was killed. Rodriguez said it wasn’t immediately clear whether the gunman took aim at him from an upper-level balcony or if he was hit by a stray bullet.

“From up there, he was able to shoot at people across the street, catching this one man who was just walking into his apartment,” Rodriguez said.

The entrance to the neighborhood, which is lined with apartment buildings, remained blocked off early on Saturday, including to those who live in the building where the standoff occurred. Miriam Valdes, 70, said she lives on the fifth floor of the building – one floor above where the shooting began. She said she heard gunfire and later saw smoke entering her apartment. She described running in fear to the unit across the hall, where she stayed holed up as officers negotiated with the gunman. From the apartment, Valdes said she could hear about eight officers talking with the gunman.

She said she heard the officers tell him to “let these people out.” “We’re going to help you,” she said they told him. She said the gunman first asked for his girlfriend and then his mother but refused to cooperate.

Rodriguez said police were still investigating the motive and identifying the gunman and victims.

“Investigators are talking with families of the victims, neighbors, people that were present when all this began,” he said. “That way we can start to piece together this huge puzzle that we’re working with.”

Armenian News – Tert.am

Protesters attacked offices of Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood and the headquarters of a liberal coalition on Saturday, July 27, after demonstrations sparked by assassinations in the eastern city of Benghazi turned violent, witnesses said, according to Reuters.

Hundreds took to the streets overnight to denounce the killing of a prominent political activist and critic of the Brotherhood, Abdelsalam al-Mosmary, who was shot dead on Friday after leaving a mosque following Friday prayers.

Mosmary was an outspoken opponent of the Brotherhood, whose Islamist political wing is the second biggest party in the national congress, and regularly appeared on television criticizing the presence of armed militias on Libya’s streets. Two military officials were also killed in Benghazi on Friday.

Libya’s weak central government is struggling to assert its authority over armed groups that helped topple veteran leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, part of the wave of Arab Spring uprisings that also felled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing, the Justice and Construction Party (JCP) has the second-biggest number of seats in Libya’s legislature, and there has been growing opposition to its increasing influence.

A Benghazi resident, Rami al-Shahibi, said protesters set on fire two buildings – one belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood and another to the JCP – in the city. “They shouted “Gather your belongings. Benghazi wants you out.'”

In Tripoli, a crowd gathered in the central Martyrs Square, saying they were there “in solidarity with Benghazi”.

A group of youths then descended on the offices of the JCP, smashing its windows as well as taking out documents and throwing them in the streets. They also ransacked the headquarters of the liberal National Forces Alliance (NFA), the biggest party in the legislature, Reuters said.