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Al-Qaida ex-spokesman gets life

 
Published Sept. 24, 2014

Al-Qaida ex-spokesman gets life

Defiant to the end, Osama bin Laden's son-in-law was sentenced Tuesday in New York to life in prison for acting as the voice of al-Qaida after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Sulaiman Abu Ghaith — the highest-ranking al-Qaida figure to face trial on U.S. soil since the attacks — told a judge that there would be a price to pay for trying to "bury me alive." He quoted from the Koran, praised Allah and suggested his case would prompt a backlash in the Muslim world. "Today, at the same moment where you are shackling my hands and intend to bury me alive, you are at the same time unleashing the hands of hundreds of Muslim youth," he said. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan told Abu Ghaith his defiance was further proof he deserved life behind bars. Abu Ghaith, 48, was convicted in March on conspiracy charges to recruit new followers for bin Laden.

Birmingham, Ala.

Pastor says UPS shooter had worries

The man who killed two former co-workers and then himself at a UPS shipping center Tuesday had told some people that he was having problems at work but never suggested the situation might turn violent, his pastor said.

Birmingham police identified the shooter as Kerry Joe Tesney, 45, of suburban Trussville. They did not release the slain people's names but said they were part of management. They are investigating the shooting as a double homicide and suicide.

Tesney was married and was the father of two children, said the pastor of NorthPark Baptist Church, Bill Wilks.

UPS spokesman Steve Gaut said Tesney was fired on Monday. Gaut would not say what job duties he had.

Afghanistan

Karzai slams U.S. in farewell speech

Afghan President Hamid Karzai slammed the United States during his farewell address on Tuesday, saying the U.S. war effort had failed to make Afghanistan peaceful.

Karzai, who will be replaced by President-elect Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai on Monday, accused the U.S. government of spending the past 13 years focused on "its own interests" instead of what was best for the Afghan people.

China

Moderate Uighur scholar gets life

China sentenced the prominent Uighur intellectual Ilham Tohti to life imprisonment on Tuesday for advocating separatism and inciting ethnic hatred, criticizing the government and voicing support for terrorism.

The verdict shocked friends, scholars and activists. Tohti is widely respected abroad as a moderate voice within China's minority Uighur community; throughout his two-day trial in the city of Urumqi last week, he insisted he had always opposed separatism, and that he had spent his life trying to promote better relations between Uighurs and China's Han majority.

Elsewhere

Washington: A federal judge in Washington restored Endangered Species Act protection for wolves in Wyoming on Tuesday, ruling that the federal Fish and Wildlife Service accepted a state commitment to maintain the wolf population without requiring adequate safeguards.

Charlottesville, Va.: The man authorities believe was the last person seen with a University of Virginia student before she disappeared has been charged with abduction, police said Tuesday. They are looking for Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr., 32, after obtaining a felony arrest warrant. They also continue to search for Hannah Graham, 18, who vanished Sept. 13.

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Times wires