Teenager's racist killer fails with appeal bid

A GANG member who was jailed for life for the racially motivated murder of Glasgow teenager Kriss Donald has lost his bid to overturn the conviction.

Judges have rejected claims that new evidence would clear Imran Shahid - known as Baldy - and called for an investigation, believing the evidence was "fabricated" as part of a plot to fool the Court of Criminal Appeal.

Kriss was 15 when he was snatched from the street in Pollokshields in March 2004.

After taking him across Scotland, his captors returned to the Clyde Walkway near Celtic's training ground in the city's east end.

There Kriss was hauled from the car, stabbed, doused in petrol and set on fire.

Shahid, 34, was said to have snatched Kriss because he was white, and Shahid wanted to avenge some insult outside a Glasgow city centre nightspot.

Shahid's hopes of early freedom finally ended when appeal judges threw out the last of his challenges last month.

However, a gagging order imposed during lengthy appeal meant that the judges' rulings could not be reported until it was lifted yesterday.

Shahid was jailed for life after a trial in November 2006 and ordered to serve at least 25 years in jail before he can apply for parole. Two other Glasgow men, Mohammed Faisal Mushtaq and Zeeshan Shahid, Shahid's brother, were also jailed for life for their part in the murder.

But he went back to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh claiming that text messages on a mobile phone hidden in an attic would reveal the identity of the true killers.

Appeal judges Lord Hamilton, sitting with Lords Reed and Emslie, became suspicious because the texts spelt Kriss Donald's unusual first name correctly. Examination of the phone also cast doubt on the story.

Source: Scotsman

17-Year-Old Scottish Girl Raped by an Algerian in Nice

Last Sunday a 17-year-old Scottish girl was raped by an Algerian while on holiday in France. The incident occurred in a public garden in Nice.

While she was lying on the grass with her friends, several strangers appeared and insinuated their way into the group. One, an Algerian man said to be in his 20s, lured the girl away to a spot where they could not be seen then raped her and stole her mobile phone.

The Algerian was arrested on Tuesday, still in possession of the stolen mobile phone. On Wednesday evening he was brought before a court and charged with aggravated rape and theft.

Source

Sex predator who posed as cabbie is jailed for three years

A SEX attacker who preyed on young women in his car while pretending to be a taxi driver was jailed for more than three years yesterday.

Sajjad Hussain, who picked up his victims as they waited for taxis after nights out with friends, will be supervised in the community for three years after his release.

His two victims, aged 23 and 39, who cannot be named for legal reasons, got inADVERTISEMENT

to his car, believing it to be a taxi. Once they were inside, Hussain sexually assaulted them.

The 39-year-old woman told police: "I will never forget what happened in the car for the rest of my life."

Hussain, a former taxi driver, is already on the sex offenders register. When he was questioned by police, he claimed that he was at home with his brother on both occasions last year.

But the jury rejected his alibis and convicted him of the assaults on 7 July and 5 November, 2010.

Passing sentence, Sheriff Sam Cathcart told Hussain that due to the "gravity of the crime" a custodial sentence was appropriate.

He also placed Hussain on the sex offenders register indefinitely.

The court heard from both of Hussain's victims who described each of the incidents in his car. The younger of the two women told the jury Hussain's car was a "private hire looking car" and was waiting outside the Casino in Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street around 6am last July.

She said when she heard the driver would charge her only a few pounds to get home and opened the passenger door for her she got in.

But, after reaching her destination only a short distance away in Tradeston, Hussain pounced on his passenger.

The woman said she attempted to push Hussain away, threw the taxi fare at him and ran away. She told the jury that she now felt "stupid" for paying him.

Hussain's next victim got in to his car a few months later at Battlefield Road, Glasgow, believing it to be the taxi she thought her friend had called.

But, while driving her home his hand brushed her leg. She said she thought it was an accident and his hand accidentally touched her while changing gears. Ms Henderson asked: "What happened after that?"

The woman replied: "It was almost immediately after that he touched my leg again with his left hand."

She was asked: "How did he touch your leg?"

The witness replied: "Kind of like a grope of the leg, like a squeeze."

She added that Hussain moved his hand up her body and touched her chest over her clothes.

The court heard the woman escaped from the car when it stopped at traffic lights and she reported the incident to the police.

Source: Scotsman

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Sad, Just Sad

Source

Humza Yousaf: the Hamas Connection

In a post yesterday, I mentioned that Humza Yousaf had been a director of the Scottish Islamic Foundation and that the Scottish Islamic Foundation had ties to Islamic extremists and had even introduced a man alleged to have been involved in terrorism, Mohammed Sahalwa, to officials of the Scottish government.

Now we have the proof that Humza Yousaf himself was personally involved in this. The graphic shows a screen capture documenting a meeting between SIF personnel, including Humza Yousaf, and Mohammed Sawalha. This establishes that Humza Yousaf had a personal acquaintance with Sawalha. The original web page is here.

This page has some excellent information on Mohammed Sawalha's background, some of it reproduced below.

In 2005, the Sunday Times reported:

Sawalha’s link with Hamas emerged after he was named as a co-conspirator in an American court case involving racketeering and conspiracy. Last week the cleric, who arrived in Britain 15 years ago and has been given indefinite leave to remain, said that he still supported Hamas, notorious for its suicide attacks in Israel.

Asked whether he supported the military activities of Hamas, he replied: "I have no comment on the question of military activity."

...According to US court documents, Sawalha was a leading militant in the early 1990s “in charge of Hamas terrorist operations within the West Bank”. The documents, from the federal court in Chicago, claim he met two of the three “conspirators” accused of laundering millions of dollars to finance Hamas activities, including the purchase of weapons.

Hamas was classified as a terrorist organisation by the UK government in 2003.

On Panorama, the BBC reported:

From London, Sawalha is said to have master minded much of Hamas’ political and military strategy. Wanted by Israel, he fled to London in 1990… In London, Sawalha is alleged to have directed funds, both for Hamas’ armed wing, and for spreading its missionary dawah. Then, in January 1993, an operation Sawalha was involved in went badly wrong. Hamas would be forced to reorganise its funding arrangements. A senior Hamas man from America flew into London for instructions from Sawalha. Sawalha’s visitor was en route to the Palestinian territories. The two men travelled to Sawalha’s home. His visitor’s name was Mohammed Salah. Salah’s mission was to distribute funds. Sawalha told him who to meet in the Palestinian territories…. With Sawalha’s agreement Salah began distributing about a quarter of a million dollars to local Hamas operatives. Some was ear marked for military activities. Some for missionary dawah. More money was in the pipe line from his bank in Chicago. But the Israeli’s had been tracking him. Stopped at a check point as he left Gaza, Salah was arrested.’

How can Humza Yousaf complain about being stopped at airports when he has associations with known extremists?