US soldier convicted in killing of four Iraqis

LONDON: A US soldier has been convicted of murder for his involvement in the killing four Iraqis who were shot and dumped in a Baghdad canal in 2007, a British news channel reported.

A military court at a US Army base in Vilseck, Germany, late Friday convicted Sgt. Michael Leahy following his confession that he shot an Iraqi in the back of the head from close range.

The victims were a group of Iraqis who were detained briefly and questioned over an attack on a Baghdad military base.

Leahy was one of a group of soldiers who took detainees away after it was decided there was not enough evidence to charge them. Blindfolded and gagged, the four were then shot and dumped in a canal, the report said.

The soldier faces a possible sentence of life without parole. The military court has not yet handed down a sentence.

Meanwhile, his lawyers argued that the stress of being in a conflict zone for so long meant he was unable to reason properly.

Last year, two other soldiers were sentenced to seven and eight months prison as accomplices in the murder of the four Iraqis.Two more suspects in the crime are still to be tried by the US military court.

source : jang.com.pk

Germany temporarily to allow forced bank nationalization

BERLIN: The German government is set to adopt a law allowing it to temporarily seize shares from troubled banks to prevent them from collapsing, according to a draft nationalization text to be agreed Wednesday.

Germany names envoy for Afghanistan, Pakistan

BERLIN: Germany on Monday followed the lead of the US and Britain in announcing the appointment of a special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The appointment of Bernd Muetzelburg, currently Germany’s ambassador to India, to the role will “further intensify Germany’s diplomatic engagement in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the foreign ministry in Berlin said.

Germany is currently raising troop levels in Afghanistan to around 4,500 under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Most of Germany’s soldiers are based in the relatively peaceful north.

Last Monday Britain appointed Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles as its envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

G7 powers head to Rome as crisis rages

ROME: G7 finance ministers headed to Rome to discuss the global economic crisis on Friday with a warning from Germany that the world could be plunged back into the dark days of the 1930s, if governments resorted to protectionism.

The G7 industrialised economic powers, all in recession, are under pressure to prove they can work together to stop the rot rather than engaging in a battle of “beggar-thy-neighbour”, and Berlin made it clear the latter was an increasingly real risk. “We will have to do everything to ensure history does not repeat itself,” German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck told parliament a few hours ahead of the Rome meeting.

“Right now, I think Germany has a huge interest in ensuring, at international meetings, that the world does not make the same mistakes it made in the 1930s.” He cited the “buy American” clause in an economic stimulus package the U.S. Congress is due to vote on just as the finance ministers of the G7 powers — the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada — meet over dinner in Rome.

source : jang.com.pk