Month: October 2023

Real Madrid star Vinicius Junior was received by a judge in Valencia on Thursday, as part of an investigation into racist attacks made against him during a league match held in the same city on May 21.

The hearing took place by video-conference from a court in Madrid, where the player went Thursday morning

Dressed in a white shirt and dark suit, Vinicius left following his testimony, without speaking to the waiting press.

According to local media, the Brazilian player said that he felt “offended” by the insults he received that day at the stadium, repeating that they were “about his skin colour”.

While not denying the facts, the Valencia club expressed its “surprise” and “indignation” regarding the player’s statement, demanding that he “rectify it publicly”, so as not to stigmatize the entire Valencian public.

“Racism has no place in football or in society, but we cannot fight it with false ideas and unfounded lies,” wrote the club, which considers that Vinicius is unfairly targeting “the entire stadium of Mestalla” in his statement.

The striker, who has often been the target of racist attacks, said he was insulted by the stadium crowd on May 21.

Around the 70th minute of the game, he pointed his finger at a fan, and then some of the players went and reported the incident to the referee. Vinicius said he had been called a “monkey” by the opposing supporters.

The match was interrupted for several minutes.

Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti said he heard the cry “mono” (monkey in Spanish), which prompted the referee to “open the racism protocol”.

Following the match, the 23-year-old player took to Instagram to say it wasn’t the first, second or third term such an attack had occurrred and that “racism is normal in La Liga”.

“The league that once belonged to Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Cristiano and Messi now belongs to the racists,” he continued, saying he was “strong” and wanted to fight “the racists to the bitter end”.

The following day, a court in Valencia opened an investigation into a “hate crime” following complaints lodged by the Liga public prosecutor’s office.

Three young men were arrested on suspicion of being the perpetrators of the insults. They admitted the offences but denied any hateful or racist intent towards the player.

One of them had been named directly by the player in the stadium. The other two were identified from CCTV footage.

Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a self-described gangster who police and prosecutors say masterminded the shooting death of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas in 1996 made his first appearance Wednesday before a Nevada judge.

“Well, it’s a cold case. It’s been lingering for 27 years. But I felt there was sufficient, legally admissible evidence to move forward. That’s why we presented it to a grand jury. The grand jury agreed that there was probable cause to return an indictment. But this case is like no other case. In a court of law, we have to present sufficient legal evidence to hopefully prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Any case that’s 27 years old, sometimes it presents some challenges, but we feel very confident that the criminal justice system will work in this case,” said Steve Wolfson, District Attorney.

Davis, 60, was arrested Friday during an early-morning walk near his home in suburban Henderson. A few hours later, a grand jury indictment was unsealed in Clark County District Court charging him with murder.

Grand jurors also voted to add sentencing enhancements for the use of a deadly weapon and alleged gang activity. If Davis is convicted, that could add decades to his sentence.

Duane Davis had been a suspect in the case, and publicly admitted his role in the killing in interviews ahead of his 2019 tell-all memoir, “Compton Street Legend.”

“There’s one thing that’s for sure when living that gangster lifestyle,” he wrote. “You already know that the stuff you put out is going to come back; you never know how or when, but there’s never a doubt that it’s coming.”

Davis’ own comments revived the police investigation that led to the indictment, police and prosecutors said. In mid-July, Las Vegas police raided Davis’ home, drawing renewed attention to one of hip-hop music’s most enduring mysteries.

Prosecutors allege Shakur’s killing stemmed from a rivalry and competition for dominance in a musical genre that, at the time, was dubbed “gangsta rap.” It pitted East Coast members of a Bloods gang sect associated with rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight against West Coast members of a Crips sect that Davis has said he led in Compton, California.

The leader of Uganda’s main opposition party, Bobi Wine, was arrested on Thursday on his return to the country, his party’s secretary general announced.

Bobi Wine was arrested by agents of the regime as soon as he landed at Entebbe airport, David Lewis Rubongoya, secretary general of the National Unity Platform, wrote on X, ex-Twitter, with a photo showing the opposition leader surrounded by two people.

Former singer, Bobi Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, was the main rival of President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled the East African country since 1986 in the 2021 presidential election.

The head of state was re-elected for a sixth term with 58% of the vote, according to the official results, ahead of Bobi Wine (35%), who denounced the election as a farce.

Bobi Wine has been arrested several times in recent years, and his supporters’ rallies are regularly dispersed, sometimes violently.

Bobi Wine’s supporters had planned to accompany him en masse to his home north of the capital, Kampala, to welcome him back, but police had said such gatherings were illegal.

Ugandan authorities have a long history of using so-called “preventative arrest” to detain opposition leaders, often holding them for several hours before returning them to their homes to stymie mass demonstrations.

In September, the Ugandan police announced that they were suspending a national mobilization campaign launched by the NUP because of public order disturbances.

A fire at a police headquarters in north-eastern Egypt has injured at least 38 people, according to the country’s health ministry.

The blaze broke out in the early hours of Monday morning and ripped through the multistory building located in the Suez Canal province of Ismailia, according to ministry spokesperson Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar.

12 of the injured were treated on site, while 26 others were taken to hospital, all but two suffering from breathing difficulties.

The fire severely damaged the building and took several hours for firefighters to extinguish.

The Interior Minister Mahmoud Tawfik said an investigation into the cause of the fire will be opened.

The fire is just the latest deadly fire to occur in the country where safety standards are often lax.

In August 2022, a fire at a church in Cairo caused by a short circuit killed 41 worshippers.

Security forces in Madagascar fired tear gas on opposition candidates leading a protest in the capital Antananarivo on Monday, amid rising political tensions ahead of presidential elections next month.

Eleven of the 13 presidential candidates in the running had called on supporters to march on the central May 13 square to protest what they have described as an “institutional coup” to favour incumbent Andry Rajoelina.

But law enforcement officers moved to disperse the crowd of a few hundred people before it reached the planned destination.

Former president and leading opposition figure Marc Ravalomanana, who was among the protesters, was led away to safety by his security detail.

The rally was not given the green light by authorities and hundreds of security forces patrolled the city centre in the morning.

Voters in Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world despite vast natural resources, head to the polls to elect a president on November 9.

Rajoelina, 49, resigned last month in line with the constitution in order to run for re-election.

The president of the Senate was supposed to take over but declined for “personal reasons”, leaving the task to a “collegial government” headed by Prime Minister Christian Ntsay, an ally of Rajoelina.

The move was accepted by the country’s top court, sparking the anger of the opposition.

‘Foment unrest’

The court has also dismissed appeals to have Rajoelina’s candidacy declared void over his dual French nationality.

On Sunday, Rajoelina accused his opponents of creating a political crisis “from scratch” because they were “not ready” for the vote.

“There is no crisis in Madagascar,” he said in a televised address.

“There are people who want to foment unrest in the country… who want to burn down infrastructure, including the City Hall. We do not accept that.”

Last month, the European Union, the United States and others including Britain and France, said they were following the run-up to the vote with the “greatest vigilance”.

Confidence in the electoral process is key for the results to be accepted “by all” and to guarantee the “stability” of the country, they said.

The head of the Constitutional Court has previously dismissed accusations of bias, telling our source that the body could not “force” the head of the Senate to take up the reins.

Rajoelina first took power in 2009 on the back of a coup that ousted Ravalomanana.

After not running in the 2013 election due to international pressure, he was voted back into power in 2018.