Headline

Several Shot Dead At Jehovah’s Witness Centre

Published

3 years ago

March 10, 2023

Several people have been killed in a shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness centre in Hamburg, with the gunman believed to be among the dead, German police said Thursday.

Police have not given a death toll, but multiple local media outlets reported that the shooting had left seven dead and eight seriously injured.

The first emergency calls were made around 2015 GMT after shots rang out at the building in the city’s northern district of Gross Borstel, a police spokesman at the scene said.

Police tweeted that “several people were seriously injured, some even fatally” in the incident.

“At the moment there is no reliable information on the motive of the crime,” police said, urging people not to speculate.

An alarm for “extreme danger” in the area had been sounded using a catastrophe warning app, but Germany’s Federal Office for Civil Protection lifted it shortly after 3 am local time.

Hamburg police tweeted early Friday: “The police measures in the surrounding area are gradually being discontinued. Investigations into the background of the crime are continuing.”

The port city’s mayor, Peter Tschentscher, expressed shock at the shooting on Twitter.

Sending his sympathies to the victims’ families, he said emergency services were doing their utmost to clarify the situation.

– Bible study group –

In the non-descript, three-storey building, police said an event had been taking place on Thursday evening.

Jehovah’s Witnesses had gathered for a weekly Bible study meeting, according to local daily Hamburger Abendblatt.

There are about 175,000 people in Germany, including 3,800 in Hamburg, who are Jehovah’s Witnesses, a US Christian movement set up in the late 19th century that preaches non-violence and is known for door-to-door evangelism.

The first officers at the scene found several lifeless bodies and seriously wounded people, police said.

Hamburger Abendblatt reported that 17 unhurt people, who had been at the event, were being attended to by the fire brigade.

Officers heard a shot in the “upper part of the building” before finding a body in the area where it rang out, police said.

“We have no indications of a perpetrator on the run,” said the police spokesman.

Instead, officers have “indications that a perpetrator may have been in the building and may be even among the dead.”

The spokesman added that the person uncovered in the upper part of the building was “possibly” the perpetrator.

“We have found a lifeless person in a community centre in [Gross Borstel] which we assume could be a perpetrator,” Hamburg police tweeted early Friday morning.

“According to the current state of affairs, we assume that there is one perpetrator,” police said in a separate tweet.

– Hit by attacks –
Germany has been rocked by several attacks in recent years, both by jihadists and far-right extremists.

Among the deadliest committed by Islamist extremists was a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016 that killed 12 people.

The Tunisian attacker, a failed asylum seeker, was a supporter of the Islamic State jihadist group.

Europe’s most populous nation remains a target for jihadist groups in particular because of its participation in the anti-Islamic State coalition in Iraq and Syria.

Between 2013 and 2021, the number of Islamists considered dangerous in the country had multiplied by five to 615, according to interior ministry data.

But Germany has also been hit by several far-right assaults in recent years, sparking accusations that the government was not doing enough to stamp out neo-Nazi violence.

In February 2020, a far-right extremist shot dead 10 people and wounded five others in the central German city of Hanau.

And in 2019, two people were killed after a neo-Nazi tried to storm a synagogue in Halle on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

AFP

Headline

Court Jails Two For Targeting President With Sorcery

Published

8 hours ago

September 15, 2025

Editor

A Zambian court on Monday sentenced two men to two years in prison with hard labour on charges of attempting to use witchcraft to kill the country’s president.

Mozambican national Jasten Mabulesse Candunde and Zambian village chief Leonard Phiri were arrested in December in possession of charms, including a live chameleon.

Police said they planned to use the charms to harm President Hakainde Hichilema, and they were charged with professing knowledge of witchcraft and possession of charms.

“The motive of the crime was to kill the head of state,” magistrate Fine Mayambu ruled in the capital Lusaka on Monday.

“The convicts were not only enemies of the head of state but all Zambians. I therefore sentence them to 24 months imprisonment with hard labour from the date of their arrest,” he said.

The prosecution said the men had been hired by the brother of opposition MP Emmanuel “Jay Jay” Banda, who is facing trial for robbery, attempted murder and escaping custody.

Headline

Two Nigerians Face Jail Terms In Liberia’s Piracy Trial

Published

8 hours ago

September 15, 2025

Editor

Criminal Court ‘D’ in Monrovia is set to deliver judgment this week in Liberia’s first piracy trial, involving two Nigerian nationals accused of hijacking a cargo vessel in the Gulf of Guinea.

According to court records, the defendants were arrested earlier this year after a Liberia-flagged ship was seized by armed men while transporting goods through international waters. The crew sent a distress signal, prompting international maritime forces to intervene.

The suspects were subsequently transferred to Liberian authorities under global maritime cooperation protocols.

According to Liberia’s news platform, Front Page Africa, the case has attracted attention because Liberia maintains one of the world’s largest open ship registries, yet prosecutions for piracy within its domestic courts have not previously occurred. Under international law, Liberia holds jurisdiction over crimes involving ships registered under its flag.

On Monday, proceedings took a new turn when defense lawyer, Cllr. Bestman Juah, informed the court that the defendants had admitted responsibility for the hijacking and were requesting a plea-bargain arrangement. State prosecutors did not oppose the request, leaving open the possibility of reduced sentences in exchange for full cooperation.

Resident Judge Mameita Jabateh-Sirleaf, who presides over Criminal Court ‘D’, will rule on whether to accept the plea deal and determine the sentencing framework. The ruling could also address deportation measures following imprisonment.

Criminal Court ‘D’ handles cases involving armed robbery, terrorism, hijacking, and other serious crimes, and the piracy trial represents a growing trend of transnational offenses being prosecuted within Liberia’s judicial system.
As of press time, the court has not announced the date for sentencing.

Headline

Spain Cancels $825m Israel Arms Deal Over Gaza

Published

8 hours ago

September 15, 2025

Editor

The Spanish government has cancelled a contract worth nearly 700 million euros ($825 million) for Israeli-designed rocket launchers.

The move comes after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced last week that his government would “consolidate in law” a ban on military equipment sales or purchases with Israel over its offensive in Gaza.

The contract, awarded to a consortium of Spanish companies, involved the purchase of 12 SILAM rocket launcher systems derived from the PULS platform made by Israeli firm Elbit Systems, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance.

First reported by local media and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the cancellation was formalised on Spain’s official public contracts platform on September 9.

The following day, Sanchez unveiled measures aimed at stopping what his leftist government called “the genocide in Gaza”.

It includes the approval of a decree imposing a ban on military equipment sales or purchases with Israel due to its military offensive in Gaza, launched after the Hamas attacks in October 2023.

Spain applied the ban as Israel stepped up its military onslaught.

Spain has also formalized the cancellation of another contract for 168 anti-tank missile launchers, which were to be manufactured under license from an Israeli company.

That contract, valued at 287 million euros, had been first reported by the press in June.

According to Spanish daily La Vanguardia, the government is undertaking a broader review to phase out Israeli weapons and technology from its armed forces.

Sanchez has emerged as one of Europe’s most outspoken critics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Gaza policy.

Relations between the two countries have been tense for months.

Israel has not had an ambassador in Spain since Madrid recognized the state of Palestine in 2024.

Last week, Spain recalled its ambassador to Israel after heated exchanges over Sánchez’s new measures.

The Barcelona-based Delas Centre, a security research institute, estimated in April that since the start of the Gaza war, Spain had awarded 46 contracts worth $1.044 billion to Israeli companies, based on public tender data.