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South Africa’s top prosecutor said Thursday he has enough evidence to bring corruption charges against new African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma, a case that could derail his election as the country’s next president. Zuma responded: “Take me to court.”
The possibility that Zuma could face trial upstaged his first public speech since he defeated President Thabo Mbeki in a bitter ANC leadership contest Tuesday.
Public prosecutor Mokotedi Mpshe said he would announce in the new year the next step in the investigation against Zuma.
Mpshe is investigating allegations that in the 1990s, Zuma accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from the French company Thint to stop investigations into a multibillion-dollar arms deal with the government. The contracts were suspected of being secured through bribes.
A main suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway wrote in a chat session that she was dead – a key clue for investigators, but one that fell short of assuring a conviction in court, Aruba’s chief prosecutor said Thursday.
The prosecutor, Hans Mos, insisted his office has done its best to learn what happened to Holloway, an 18-year-old who went missing in Aruba on May 30, 2005.
The Aruban prosecutors say they cannot prove a crime was committed without a body.
Attorney General Nico Jorg said the case against the three main suspects could be reopened if additional evidence surfaces.
A U.S. military judge has denied prisoner-of-war status to a Guantanamo detainee, putting the former driver for Osama bin Laden in line to be one of the first to face a war crimes tribunal at the base.
The judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, rejected defense arguments that Salim Ahmed Hamdan was a POW and thus beyond the jurisdiction of the Guantanamo tribunals under international law.
Allred said there is credible evidence the Yemeni prisoner was bin Laden’s personal driver from 1997 to 2001, occasionally was a bodyguard for the al-Qaida leader, and sometimes picked up and delivered weapons.
The decision clears the way for a trial that could start by spring or early summer.
A strong earthquake struck New Zealand on Thursday night, collapsing at least three older buildings in one coastal city on North Island, sparking small fires and forcing authorities to declare a state of emergency there.
Only 10 minor injuries were reported in the port city of Gisborne, which was hit hardest by the quake and suffered the most property damage, although it was felt all over the country, officials said.
The magnitude 6.8 quake, which struck at 2:55 a.m. Fort Wayne time, was centered in the Hikurangi undersea trench off North Island, 25 miles below the surface, and about 30 miles southeast of Gisborne, the GNS Science geological agency reported.
The temblor did not trigger a tsunami warning.
A 38-year-old electrician accused in the worst bombing in the long history of violence in Northern Ireland was acquitted Thursday by a judge who decried what he called sloppy and deceptive work by investigators.
Justice Reg Weir said slipshod handling of the forensic evidence made it impossible to rise beyond reasonable doubt in the case of Sean Hoey. The defendant was charged with 29 counts of murder in the 1998 bombing of the shopping district in Omagh that left 31 dead, including unborn twins, and 370 injured.
The ruling, which came after the judge deliberated for nearly 11 months, ends most hopes of a conviction in the case that marked a turning point in the region’s 30 years of violence between predominantly Catholic republicans seeking a united Ireland and Protestants loyal to the union with Britain.
