Ship passengers

Ship passengers
panic off Batam

Passengers on the KM Kelud panicked during a stop in Batam, Riau
Islands province, on Friday night when they learned the ship,
bound from Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta to Medan in North
Sumatra, was carrying 6,000 passengers, far more than the maximum
2,600 passengers the craft is officially allowed to carry. The
sale of fake tickets was blamed for the large number of
passengers being carried on the ship. The KM Kelud's captain,
Nunung Wisnu, however, said the ship would depart for Medan as
planned because it was able to take up to five times the
officially allowed number of passengers. -- JP

Tamil Tiger attack
kills 15 sailors

Suspected Tamil rebels exploded a bomb near a navy convoy in Sri
Lanka on Friday, killing at least 15 sailors and wounding 15
more, a defense ministry official said, as the guerrillas warned
of more attacks. The carnage in the northwestern district of
Mannar was the worst since the rebels and the government agreed
to an Oslo-brokered cease-fire in February 2002, officials said.
The head of the Norwegian-led truce monitors, Hagrup Haukland,
said the situation in the island-nation was "alarming" and the
cease-fire that went into effect in February 2002 was in
"jeopardy". --AFP

Court issues EU arrest
warrant for CIA agents

A Milan court has issued a European Union arrest warrant for 22
CIA agents suspected of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric from
Italy's financial capital in 2003, prosecutor Armando Spataro
said on Friday. The case is one of several investigations into
whether U.S. intelligence agents used Europe to illegally
transfer militant suspects to third countries for interrogation.
The renditions have led to tension between Washington and the
European Union. Milan magistrates suspect a CIA team grabbed
Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off a Milan street and flew him for
interrogation to Egypt, where he said he was tortured. --Reuters

Dutchman gets 15 years for
aiding Iraq war crimes

A Dutch court sentenced on Friday former chemicals trader Frans
van Anraat to 15 years in jail for aiding war crimes by selling
chemicals the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein used for deadly gas
attacks on Kurdish villages. Earlier, the court said that
although they felt it was proven that former Iraqi ruler Saddam
Hussein committed genocide against the Kurds in the 1980s, Van
Anraat was acquitted of genocide charges because he did not know
the Iraqi regime's genocidal intentions. The move marks the first
time a court has ruled the Iraqi dictator committed genocide in
Iraq with the 1988 massacre of Kurds in the town of Halabja.
--AFP