underworld

Customs inspector associated with variety of known criminals

2012-01-10T11:39:00.001Z

If she were to be judged based solely on the company she kept, Marilyn Béliveau would be in deep trouble. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of her ongoing trial is the fact that while she was under investigation, the Canada Border Services Agency inspector associated with a variety of known criminals. While testifying during her trial in December, Béliveau, 32, explained that a few of those men were people she has known since high school. As part of her defence, she also claims most of them manipulated and used her. Much of the evidence presented during the trial has involved wiretapped conversations between the men Béliveau knew. By listening to the hundreds of conversations, she has learned what some of them really thought of her. They referred to her in degrading terms like "booze," a Haitian term for a prostitute, or "that broad." "It was very painful, especially on the part of those I considered my friends," she said. Here is a short list of some of the people Béliveau associated with before her arrest in 2006: Fitzgerald (Fritz) Dorsainvil, 34, of Montreal: He is currently serving a two-year prison term for his role in a theft ring that stole nearly $1 million worth of computer equipment from 27 businesses in and around Montreal. Dorsainvil helped carry out some of the breakins weeks after he and Béliveau shared an apartment. But even before they moved in together, Dorsainvil had a criminal record. Béliveau said she was introduced to Dorsainvil during the spring of 2005 at a club. She testified she made a very hasty decision to move in with him so she could get away from what she described as her overly protective parents. "(I did this) even though I knew he was a bad person, not the best person." she testified. "I knew he sold drugs, that he sold pot." Béliveau said she thought she was in love with Dorsainvil and that she could change him. They moved in together in October 2005 and she left the apartment three months later. She said it took a while for her to realize Dorsainvil had no interest in a relationship and was using her to pay his rent. Béliveau said she refused to accept the truth, even when her best friend pulled her aside one day and told her it was obvious. Jean Philippe Guerette, 31, of Montreal: A cousin of Dorsainvil, he received a sentence of nearly five years for being part of the same computer theft ring. Béliveau said that one day while eating at a Rockaberry's in 2005, when she was still with Dorsainvil, Guerette told her he wanted to make "a big score" by bringing drugs in through a shipping container. She said Guerette expected her to turn a blind eye when the container arrived. "It was out of the question," Béliveau said of her reaction to what Guerette proposed. As part of her defence, Béliveau testified she did not have the power to get a container through customs with a guarantee it wouldn't be searched. Béliveau said she panicked and that, in an effort to get out of the situation, she "invented" a story and told Guerette and Dorsainvil she was already involved in another smuggling project. She said she also made up the story "to seduce" Dorsainvil. During one wiretapped conversation, Dorsainvil was recorded telling Béliveau she should demand $100,000 from the people she was helping. She insisted, during her trial, that this was a reference to the scenario she had fabricated. She testified that she feels the only thing she did wrong while being investigated in Project Colisée was to fabricate a false report that a container had been seized to back up her lies to Guerette and Dorsainvil. "It has always been in my personality. Whenever I feel cornered, I make things up," she said while testifying. The statement could seriously damage the credibility of her entire testimony, and her lawyer Charles Montpetit appeared to realize this immediately. His next question was whether she thought of herself differently today. "It's certain if I were in the same situation today, I would do things differently. I wouldn't make the same mistakes," Béliveau said. Eric Semino, 32, of Montreal: Currently serving a four-year prison term for possessing three loaded firearms seized in his Aylwin St. apartment, including a shotgun he kept under his mattress. Semino was once part of a gang, called the K-Crew, that was involved in a dispute with the Hells Angels over heroin trafficking in Montreal. On April 12, 2007, he fired a shot into the window of a bar on St. Laurent Blvd. while Normand Marvin (Casper) Ouimet, a member of the Hells Angels, was inside. Semino already had several convictions, for assault and weapons offences, long before Béliveau was investigated in Colisée. When they were both in their early teens, Semino's family lived in a house directly behind Béliveau's. Béliveau said Semino and his brother were often left on their own for days while their mother travelled. She said her mother took pity on the boys and fed them whenever they were on their own. "For me, Eric was like my big brother - the big brother I never had, because I was an only child," she said. "Even if he took another path in life, me and my friends at the time did not abandon him. We did not judge him." She said that while she worked for CBSA, she sent Semino letters whenever he was in prison - which was often - and didn't hide the friendship from her colleagues. Ray Kanho, 35, of Laval: One of the principal organizers of the smuggling effort Béliveau is charged with, as well as several others uncovered by Project Colisée. He is currently serving a 14-year sentence for a series of crimes he pleaded guilty to in 2009, including drug trafficking and corrupting Béliveau as well as Nancy Cedeno, another CBSA employee. Béliveau testified she knew Kanho from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry high school in St. Léonard. She knew him through Rony Bardales, 34, a close friend who attended the same school and a co-accused in the current trial. She testified she remained friends with Bardales until their arrests in 2006. She said she was impressed by how Kanho and Bardales flaunted their wealth, and that she assumed it was generated through legitimate businesses they claimed to own. Béliveau said Kanho and Bardales would spoil her and her friends whenever they went out for drinks or dinner. "They were an example of people who had accomplished things. They were people who drove around in luxury cars, who had money. To me, they were successful," Béliveau said. She described Kanho as someone she considered to be a "big teddy bear" before her arrest.

Comancheros jailed over Sydney Airport brawl

2012-01-10T11:32:00.001Z

Two Comanchero bikie gang members have each been jailed for at least three years for their involvement in a fatal brawl at Sydney Airport. Usama Potrus and Ishmail Eken, who is also known as Canan Eken, were 26 at the time of the brawl in March 2009. Hells Angels associate Anthony Zervas was murdered during the melee involving the rival gangs. Potrus and Eken, now both 29, were found guilty of riot in November and faced sentencing in the New South Wales Supreme Court this morning. Justice Robert Hulmes said the brawl was "brazen and arrogant" and that it left many witnesses deeply distraught. He said a woman with a baby who witnessed the fight - which lasted less than one minute - described being frozen with fear. He sentenced each of the men to five years in prison, with a non-parole period of three years. But Potrus and Eken could both both be released within months as they have been held in custody since being arrested. Eken will be eligible for release in April, while Potrus could be freed in July.

Bikies jailed over Sydney Airport brawl

2012-01-10T11:28:00.001Z

Two Commanchero bikies involved in the "shockingly vicious" fight with members of the rival Hells Angels outlaw motorcycle gang at Sydney Airport in 2009 have each been sentenced to three years' jail. With time already served, Ishmail Eken, 29, will be eligible for parole on April 18, while Usama Potrus, 29, will be eligible on July 13. In the NSW Supreme Court today, Justice Robert Allan Hulme said the two men were involved in the brutal brawl in which Hells Angel associate Anthony Zervas was bludgeoned and stabbed to death in front of dozens of witnesses in the departure hall. Both men had offered to plead guilty to manslaughter, but Justice Hulme said the Crown "surprisingly" rejected the pleas and they were put on trial for murder. A jury found Commenchero boss Mahmoud "Mick" Hawi guilty of murder but found Eken and Potrus not guilty of murder and manslaughter. They were convicted of riot. The court heard members of both motorcycle clubs were called to the airport after Hawi and Hells Angels boss Derek Wainohu boarded the same Sydney-bound flight in Melbourne. Justice Hulme said Eken and Potrus would have been aware of the likelihood of violence, given the two clubs were "at war" with each other. He said the Commencheros, who outnumbered the Hells Angels, were the aggressors and nine members or associates have been found guilty or pleaded guilty to offences, while just two of seven Hells Angels have been held criminally responsible. Eken and Potrus were both given a maximum sentence of five years.

Backpacker held over 'drug fuelled' Costa Rica murder

2012-01-02T00:43:00.001Z

Alfred Alexandros Mill Saunders, 20, was arrested in Costa Rica after allegedly being found emerging from a tent where a Czech woman had been subjected to a knife attack. He is understood to be the son of a leading London psychoanalyst. Local police said Mr Saunders, thought to be from west London, had blood stains on his face and clothes when he was detained by the manager of the isolated eco-farm, who heard screams coming from the victim’s tent late on Wednesday night. Alexandra Drbohlavova, 20, from the Czech Republic, died after receiving up to 15 stab wounds to her face, chest and neck, police said. Police chief Johnny Fernandez Morales said detectives believed the attack may have been sexually motivated. “Mr Mill told us he can’t remember anything about what happened,” said Mr Morales. “He has now been remanded in jail while an investigating judge looks into what’s happened. “The manager of the farm, who is a British man, heard screaming and shouting and as he approached the woman’s tent saw Mr Mill coming out with a torch in his hand. “He shone his torch at him and saw blood on his clothes and face. He managed to apprehend him and tie him up with the help of his wife.” Mr Saunders is believed to have arrived at the farm, near the town of Colonia la Libertad in Upala region of the country the day before the incident occurred. Local news reports allege that the assailant was under the influence of drugs at the time of the attack. Mr Morales said: “The mystery is what he was doing at the farm. He turned up the day before the incident with no luggage and virtually just the clothes he was wearing. “We believe he came from Nicaragua. We know from his passport he was well travelled and had been in places like Mexico and China before. “The farm manager says he doesn’t know him and he hadn’t arranged to do volunteer work, and it appears him and his wife have taken pity on him and allowed him to borrow a tent and stay.” The organic farm, Finca La Libertad, in the north west of Costa Rica, near the border with Nicaragua and close to the Rincon de La Vieja, a national park which contains a volcano and rainforest and which is popular with visitors to the country. The farm is so remote it has no postal or telephone services. It offers working holidays for tourists. It borders a network of national parks and the farm’s website details its conservation and “sustainable living” programmes. According to its website, “Finca La Libertad strives to support local conservation efforts through sustainable living and farming practices and sustainable forest management and aims to create a replicable model of these practices for local people and international visitors. “Some of the ways we do this is by applying permaculture design, organic farming, natural building and composting.”

Alleged hitman not guilty but woman gets 12 years in prison for ordering her husband's death

2011-12-27T12:49:00.001Z

Charles Michael G.C. has served three years in prison on remand and has now been found not guiltyThe accused in court - EFE A 22 year old woman has been given a 12 year prison sentence for ordering the death of her husband with a hitman. María Dolores M., a lawyer from Ciempozuelos, Madrid, contracted Eloy S. to act as a mediator with the hitman. Eloy S. the owner of a private security company, has been given a 12 year six month sentence for his role, and has been found guilty of murder. However the man originally accused of being the hitman, Charles Michael G.C., and who would have carried out the killing of Miguel Ángel S.P., was found not guilty. He was released on December 12 after being held on remand in the Alcalá Meco prison since May 2008, accused of being the material author of the three shots which did away with the ex husband of the lawyer at garage of their home in Ciempozuelos in May 2007. The prosecutor had called for a 45 year sentence for the alleged shooter.

British drug smuggler pardoned from life sentence in Philippines after 20 years in jail

2011-12-27T12:32:00.001Z

A BRITISH thalidomide victim jailed for drug smuggling 20 years ago has been pardoned by the president of the Philippines. Billy Burton, born with shortened arms and twisted hands, got a life sentence after trying to take 12lb of cannabis out of the country. Benigno Aquino III’s decision came after a campaign for release on the grounds of Mr Burton’s poor health. Advertisement >> The 48-year-old, of Rufforth, North Yorks, will now return home and pay a £294 fine. He will never be allowed to return to the Philippines. Campaign leader Guy Tweedy said: "I've been campaigning for 20-odd months now. While we don't condone what he did, he's deteriorated as a Thalidomider and we had to get him out." Freddie Astbury, the president of Thalidomide UK, also welcomed the news. He said: "We were very concerned about his health because his health had deteriorated rapidly since being in prison. "Obviously, nobody supports why he was there but, at the end of the day, his health's deteriorated and he needs to be in a safe environment now and get all the help that he needs." Mr Astbury added: "The main thing is, get him back, get him treated and get him the health he deserves and as quickly as possible." Jago Russell, chief executive of Fair Trials International, said: "Thousands of people have spent this Christmas in jails all over the world, far from home. We are delighted that the Philippine government has shown compassion for Billy and that, for him, this ordeal is finally over." Mr Burton’s cousin, Angela Morris, said it was “the best present you could ask for”

Britons win case against Spanish developers

2011-12-09T00:03:00.001Z

Peter and Benjamin Schmidt were found guilty by an Alicante court of fraud, sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to repay the £50,000 deposit taken from Keith and Marilyn Brown in 2004. A total of 60 people, mostly British, paid deposits in excess of £50,000 for property sold off-plan via the German father and son company Construciones Monte Puchol S.L. Within the space of a year the expectant homeowners began to realise that building licenses had not and would not be granted to the Schmidts, who had illegally earmarked 'rustic' land on which to build the 60 properties. It remains to be seen whether the decision will set a legal precedent and enable remaining victims, not just of the Schmidts, but of all fraudulent developers in Spain, to claw back their losses. Despite the allegations of fraud and the evidence against the Schmidts, the Browns were required to fund the six-year legal action themselves – something that has left a bad taste in the mouth of Mr Brown, particularly as there is no guarantee that the Schmidts will actually pay back what they owe. "In the UK, if a fraud is committed the police investigate the case and the Crown Prosecution Service pays the cost of the action," he said. "Here we have had to pay for everything ourselves. "Many of the other victims of this scam lost everything and were unable to pay legal fees so just had to walk away. From meeting and talking to other people who were involved there has been an immense amount of heartache and distress caused. I wonder why the Spanish authorities do not provide a legal system that is responsive to the need for a quick legal remedy." Mr Brown said that if it had happened in the UK, UK law would allow an action to sue the conveyancing lawyer directly for not checking the validity of the building licence. Under Spanish law they were unable to take that action. "It is about time the Spanish authorities and lawmakers woke up to the fact that the delay in getting a fair and just outcome is seriously detrimental to the Spanish economy," he said. Despite the positive result there is still the possibility of the Browns having to pay legal fees for an appeal hearing in Madrid and further fees for recovering their losses from the Schmidts and/or the lawyers from Javea. "Our resolve continues to be tested but we intend to continue in our search for justice," said Mr Brown. The Schmidts have been linked to a number of similarly bogus developments along the southern Spanish coastline during the early 2000 boom years of Spanish development and construction. When it became clear to investors that their homes would never materialise, the Schmidts attempted to maintain the fraud by offering to transfer investors' interest to their other property developments in Sagra and Benidoleig. At one stage the Browns were sent a cheque from the Schmidts to cover the airfare to visit one of their alternative developments, only for the cheque to bounce. After that, the Browns decided to instruct a new firm of lawyers to recover their deposit on the original development. Telegraph Expat's Spanish Planning Scandal campaign is supporting the thousands of expats who have been affected by the illegal homes crisis in Spain. You can find all the latest news on the situation here. Share: inShare 1 Expat Property Overseas Property » Expat » Expat News » Spanish Planning Scandal » Spanish planning scandal campaign The Telegraph Weekly World Edition Expat Directory Expat picture galleries

On the run, U.S. financier finds Spanish refuge

2011-12-08T23:59:00.001Z

He's wanted for contempt of court in Arizona. He is under investigation by Italian police over his connection with an international bond scandal exposed by Reuters in August and totalling at least $500 million (320 million pounds). And he is named as a key player in one of the first criminal indictments following the collapse of Iceland's economy. But last week you could find David Spargo in a holiday resort on the Spanish island of Majorca. He's a regular at La Batucada cocktail bar, where he might be drinking anything from a cocktail to a beer or whisky. Locals say he also enjoys playing on the 95-euro-a-round (81 pound) Alcanada golf course, which overlooks the sparkling Mediterranean. Since he arrived in Majorca early this year he has even tried to issue more bonds, one source told Reuters. Spargo's case shows how tough it is for regulators and law enforcement agencies to track and punish alleged financial crimes across borders. Networks of 'shell companies' -- paper-only firms with few real operations -- make it hard enough to identify suspects. Even if regulators can identify them, they are often hard to bring to justice. Spargo may be of interest to officials in at least four jurisdictions around the world but police and civil guard officials on Majorca said they were unaware of the fraud investigation. The 44-year old American is sought by U.S. Marshals for failing to repay $5.5 million to investors in Texas and Virginia who had bought bonds issued by his company. But because the charges against him are civil ones, the United States is not able to extradite him and the U.S. embassy in Madrid says they are not aware of Spargo's presence in Spain. Iceland and Britain (whose top financial services regulator recently called $500 million of bonds Spargo issued in 2008 a "fraudulent instrument") have also not tried to extradite him. A prosecutor in Italy declined to say whether authorities had tried to extradite anyone in connection with the case. "There are likely to be hundreds of suspected white-collar criminals who have moved to other countries and are now living off the proceeds from their alleged crimes," says Andrew Gordon, forensic services partner at accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Police in the City of London say more and more criminals are trying to hide their operations in different countries, using myriad bank accounts to siphon off the profits. Spargo himself denies any fraud. "A lot of your information is extremely incorrect," he told a Reuters reporter from the balcony of his second-floor apartment on November 28. "You'll find out in the next three days."

Spanish royal family hit by fraud scandal

2011-12-08T23:54:00.001Z

The once squeaky-clean Spanish royal family has become immersed in a growing fraud scandal that reveals how members of King Juan Carlos's family may have cashed in on the monarchy's good name. At the centre of the scandal is the king's son-in-law Iñaki Urdangarin, a former Olympic-medal-winning handball player who became the Duke of Palma after marrying Juan Carlos's sporty daughter, the infanta Cristina. Urdangarin and his business partners are the subject of daily leaks from a fraud investigation involving millions of euros of public money as Spain's royal family struggles to hold on to its popularity. Police have raided the offices of his private companies and of a foundation he once presided over, taking away documents. El País newspaper reported this week that prosecutors believe Urdangarin, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing, will be named as a formal suspect in the case within two months. That could be a first step towards formal charges being placed. The royal palace, meanwhile, added fuel to the scandal this week by suggesting Juan Carlos planned to cut the official royal family down to a nuclear core – in effect casting off his son-in-law and daughter. On Thursday morning the palace press office appeared to have received a royal ticking off and publicly backtracked, saying "it deeply regretted having contributed to the fact that some media outlets reported this erroneously". Urdangarin himself, who now works for Spain's Telefonica phone company in Washington DC, has said he is innocent. "When I know the details of the investigations being carried out … I will be able to comment on their contents," he said last month. "My professional behaviour has always been correct." Queen Sofia, meanwhile, has showed public support for her beleaguered daughter and son-in-law, allowing the latest edition of Hola magazine to publish pictures of her visiting them at their home in the US. Speculation in Spanish newspapers has included predictions that Urdangarin will drop his aristocratic title so he can continue as a businessman or that Cristina will renounce her position as seventh in the line to the throne. Within a few years of abandoning his sports career in 2000, and after studying at a prestigious business school, Urdangarin became the owner of a €6m (£5m) house in Barcelona. He set up various companies and became president of a nonprofit foundation, the Nóos Institute. The institute boasted that its patrons included Urdangarin, his wife, an accountant described as an "assessor to the royal household" and professors from two of the world's top business schools, the Barcelona-based Iese and Esade schools. Nóos landed multimillion-euro contracts to organise events for regional governments in the Balearic Islands and Valencia. But public prosecutors in Palma, the capital of the Balearics, have said there is evidence the institute was a front, charging hugely inflated fees and siphoning money off to Urdangarin's private companies. A €1.2m contract with the Balearic Islands was, prosecutors told investigating magistrate José Castro, "totally disproportionate to the task … based exclusively on a fictitious budget which did not analyse a single cost". They said evidence pointed to the foundation being used exclusively to channel money to other companies – many in the names of Urdangarin or his business partners. "That was the sole aim," they said. At least €3.2m out of €5m was passed on from Nóos to Urdangarin's companies, according to Publico newspaper. The scandal comes as the royal family loses support among ordinary Spaniards. A regular poll by the state-run Centre for Sociological Investigation shows that, for the first time since polling started 17 years ago, trust in the royals has fallen below the halfway mark. Spaniards now place greater trust in the press.

The alleged members of the Dominican-based Trinitarios gang all face charges of racketeering, narcotics conspiracy and gun trafficking

2011-12-07T23:26:00.001Z

Suspects accused of selling guns and drugs.

Authorities collared 38 Bronx and upper Manhattan gangbangers Wednesday after a two-year probe into a notorious crew, officials said.

The alleged members of the Dominican-based Trinitarios gang all face charges of racketeering, narcotics conspiracy and gun trafficking, authorities said.

The undercover investigation — which involved officers from the NYPD, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Homeland Security — netted about $25,000 worth of drugs and 12 firearms in Wednesday’s raid, police said.

One weapon recovered, a Mac-11 machine gun, was painted the same shade of green the gang uses in its colors.

Federal prosecutors said the crew committed and planned violent acts, including murder, to protect its turf from rival gangs that include the Bloods, Crips, the Latin Kings and Dominicans Don’t Play.

“We believe we put a big dent in the Trinitarios gang,” said Capt. Lorenzo Johnson, the commanding officer of the NYPD’s Bronx gang squad.

Six people who were connected to the gang members were also arrested, police said. Authorities were still looking for about 12 other members of the gang.

Prosecutors said the Trinitarios sold firearms, including semiautomatic rifles, a shotgun and handguns, and transported them across state lines.

Numerous members of the Trinitarios who were arrested are also members of a smaller splinter gang, the Bad Boys, prosecutors said.

Johnson said most of suspects were already “known to the department in some manner,” and had long terrorized several blocks in Washington Heights and parts of the Bronx, including Marble Hill.

“Anytime we can help the community feel safer is a good day,” he said.

Glenn Mulcaire, the private eye at the centre of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, has been arrested

2011-12-07T23:15:00.001Z

Glenn Mulcaire, the private eye at the centre of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, has been arrested by Scotland Yard detectives pursuing a fresh investigation into phone intercepts, according to a person familiar with the inquiry. Officers working on Operation Weeting – the Metropolitan Police’s second probe into phone hacking at News International, which owned the now-defunct Sunday tabloid – announced on Wednesday that they had arrested a 41-year-old man who was being held on suspicion of conspiracy to hack voicemail messages and perverting the course of justice. Mr Mulcaire is the 16th person to be arrested under the new operation, and has already served a six-month prison sentence in 2007 after pleading guilty to intercepting phone messages. He was arrested at his home in Surrey in a dawn swoop and held in a south London police station. Detectives on Operation Weeting have used the private investigator’s notebooks – which contain the names of nearly 5,800 potential victims and run to around 11,000 pages – as the basis for their investigation, trawling through the documents to identify those who may have been hacked. The hacking scandal was reignited this summer when it was revealed that the News of the World had hacked into the voicemail messages of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler after she went missing in 2002, leading her parents to believe that she was still alive. Last month, Mr Mulcaire released a statement through his lawyer, denying that he had deleted voicemail messages on Ms Dowler’s phone. “[He] did not delete messages and had no reason to do so,” the statement read. The Financial Times could not reach Mr Mulcaire’s lawyer for comment on Wednesday. Chris Bryant, a Labour MP and suspected hacking victim, told the FT he was “quite encouraged” that Mr Mulcaire had been taken in for questioning. “I always thought this was a logical next step, but not one [the police] would take unless they had sufficient fresh evidence to put to [Mr Mulcaire], and it seems now they do,” he said. News of the arrest came as lawyers for Andy Coulson, the News of the World’s former editor, argued in the High Court on Wednesday that the tabloid’s parent company should continue to pay Mr Coulson’s legal bills arising from the criminal investigation into phone hacking. It emerged during the course of Mr Coulson’s evidence that News Group Newspapers – a subsidiary of News International – had continued to reimburse Mr Coulson for legal fees relating to his involvement in the judge-led phone hacking inquiry and parliamentary select committee hearings. The court heard that Mr Coulson had received a letter from Tom Mockridge, the chief executive of News International, in August informing him of an “immediate cessation” of payments in relation to criminal legal fees.

co-defendant in the Hells Angels trial last week was found not guilty on several charges.

2011-12-07T15:51:00.001Z

co-defendant in the Hells Angels trial last week was found not guilty on several charges. Timothy David Hill, 45, of Rock Hill was acquitted on charges of attempted murder, attempted armed robbery, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy by a York County jury Friday. Hill was represented by public defenders Harry Dest and B.J. Barrowclough. The main defendant, 58-year-old William "Spook" Sosebee of Rock Hill, was convicted of attempted armed robbery, kidnapping, possession of a knife during a violent crime and first-degree assault and battery, according to a news release from the 16th Circuit Solicitor's Office. Judge John C. Hayes sentenced Sosebee to 10 years in prison with no parole. Sosebee was accused of stabbing Jim Moye of North Carolina at Wall Bangers Social Club on East Main Street. Moye, 58, is a member of Iron Order, another motorcycle club, and had stopped at Wall Bangers, according to the solicitor's office news release. Evidence at the trial showed that Moye, who had never been to the bar before, did not know that the Hells Angels considered Wall Bangers "their bar," according to the release. After Moye arrived, Sosebee approached him and beat him in the head with the handle of a Bowie knife, according to the solicitor's office. Sosebee put the knife to Moye's throat and demanded he hand over his Iron Order motorcycle vest. Moye refused and repeatedly asked to be allowed to leave. Sosebee then stabbed him in the abdomen. Moye survived after undergoing surgery at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte. Officers were called to the hospital after the stabbing, but Moye would only say "it was a motorcycle thing," according to reports. A witness identified Sosebee to officers. At the time of the stabbing, Hill also had been arrested and charged and was called a member of the Red Devil, a support group of the Hells Angels, in a Rock Hill Police report. However, Hill was found not guilty last week by a York County jury and was released.

The Rise of the Dark Souls, the Black Mask, the Thunder Bikers and the Iron Beast are a sure sign the feared gang is trying to reclaim lucrative territory

2011-12-07T15:47:00.001Z

The Hells Angels, decimated by a series of raids, are reorganizing under the guise of four so-called puppet clubs, QMI Agency has learned. The emergence of the Dark Souls, the Black Mask, the Thunder Bikers and the Iron Beast are a sure sign the feared gang is trying to reclaim lucrative territory, say experts. Three of the four new Hells puppet clubs in Quebec have quietly announced their presence on the Internet. The Black Mask Facebook page says it has a base in Scott, east of Quebec City. Newly established in four regions of the province, the puppet clubs sport colours inspired by the Hells as well as jackets adorned with distinctive logos and marked "MC" for Motorcycle Club. Undercover Montreal police officers gathered information on the clubs by infiltrating a biker meeting at a Montreal bar in November, sources tell QMI Agency. Sixty aspiring bikers were met by three members of the Nomads, the select Hells chapter once run by Maurice (Mom) Boucher and now based in Ontario. Police gathered evidence, but didn't make any arrests. Montreal police and Quebec provincial police declined to comment for this story. But a provincial police investigator last month confirmed the Hells' push-back into Quebec. "The Ontario Nomads have some influence in Quebec that they had not had before 2009," said Insp. Michel Pelletier. He added that Quebec's Hells leadership needed reinforcements to run their rackets because nearly all of its members were nabbed in Project SharQc, a sweeping 2009 biker roundup. Hells clubs virtually disappeared following Operation Springtime 2001, the first of a set of massive raids that crippled Quebec biker gangs and ended a bloody 10-year war that claimed 150 lives, including those of bystanders. A 2003 report by the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada said biker proxy clubs allow higher-ups to stay out of the spotlight. "The outlaw motorcycle gangs will use clubs ... for criminal acts in order to avoid prosecution," said the CISC report. "However, it seems that the clubs are becoming increasingly rare because it is difficult to control and because of the success of (raids)."

Venezuela arrests Colombian drug kingpin

2011-11-29T11:43:00.001Z

The arrest of Maximiliano Bonilla-Orozco at his home in Venezuela's third largest city of Valencia on Sunday was announced, perhaps not coincidentally, during a visit by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. After a five-hour meeting at the presidential palace, Santos thanked Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez for the "welcome gift" of capturing "a very high-value" drug trafficker "who has caused terrible damage to our country." Venezuelan Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami said Bonilla-Orozco, 39, would be extradited to the United States, where he was charged with drug trafficking in a 2008 indictment in a New York court. The United States accuses Bonilla-Orozco of trafficking several tons of cocaine from Colombia to the United States, and transporting more than $25 million in drug-related proceeds from the United States to Mexico. "Maximiliano Bonilla-Orozco is the leader of an extensive transnational narcotics exportation and transportation organisation that distributes thousands of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, to the United States," a US State Department profile says.

Police probe Gold Coast shooting

2011-11-28T10:59:00.001Z

Police say a man shot at Robina on Queensland's Gold Coast had links to an outlaw motorcycle gang. A man fired several shots outside a house at Robina about 10:00pm (AEST) on Saturday night, injuring a 25-year-old man. The man was shot in the shoulder and is in the Gold Coast Hospital. Police say his injuries are not life-threatening. Detective Superintendent Dave Hutchinson says police are still searching for the assailant. He says some of the bullets struck cars and houses. "[The offender] was targeting a particular person, and that person received some injuries from the those gun pellets," he said. "The information we have from witnesses is that there were a number of shots fired. "The victim has an association with an outlaw motorcycle group but he's not a member himself. "At this stage, we're not able to say if it's bikie-related or if it's a personal issue." Police have already interviewed a number of witnesses but no-one has been arrested over the shooting. Detective Superintendent Hutchinson says the injured man, who is an associate of the Bandidos motorcycle gang, is cooperating with police but cannot remember much about the incident.

SCOTLAND'S failure to tackle the scandal of sex trafficking is exposed in a damning report today.

2011-11-28T10:49:00.001Z

Baroness Helena Kennedy believes sex-trafficking victims are being let down by Scots law

The report demands a crackdown on the organised crime gangs behind the vile trade and lifts the lid on how the victims of trafficking and exploitation have been let down.

Leading human rights lawyer Baroness Helena Kennedy, who wrote the report for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, is critical of the Scottish government, the police and other law enforcement agencies.

The report looks into all aspects of human trafficking but focuses explicitly on "commercial sexual exploitation".

A source close to the inquiry said last night: "This is Scotland's dirty little secret."

The report criticises the shortfall in public or professional awareness in Scotland of human trafficking and says police have a "significant" intelligence gap on the problem.

It reveals those who are trafficked are being exploited by organised criminals, often held captive in private flats used as brothels and systematically abused.

Other victims are forced into criminal acts such as benefits fraud or cannabis cultivation, exploited on fruit-picking farms or in the hospitality industry or forced into conditions akin to slavery as domestic servants.

The report's 10 recommendations include the establishment of a task force to take on the gangs behind the misery.

And it also calls for laws to be beefed up to punish the criminals heavily when they are caught.

The source said: "The Scottish government and police have not taken the proper steps to combat human trafficking. The problem exists all over Scotland and is not confined to the sex industry.

"People are being shipped in from all over the world to be used as cheap labour and serious gangsters are behind it.

"We've had prostitutes coming from as far away as Brazil, Nigeria and Bolivia to work in Scottish cities and police don't do anything.

"The recommendations made in the report need to be followed up urgently."

The inquiry's findings and mmendations are based recommendations on written evidence and face-to-face interviews and include statements from victims of trafficking.

Glasgow-born Baroness Kennedy described the nature and extent of human trafficking in Scotland as "a human rights abuse of terrible consequences".

She said: "Human trafficking is one of those pressing contemporary issues which speaks to the societies nature of our societies. It tests the value we attach to the humanity of others.

"That is why it is so important to develop effective strategies to combat trafficking. It speaks to who we are as a people. Confronting it involves collaboration."

She added: "I am hoping Scotland will pioneer a zerotolerance approach, leading the way with new strategies, legislation, and the kinds of multi-agency cooperation that enables the punishment of the traffickers and the identification and recovery of the victims."

Last month, in the first case of its kind in Scotland, Stephen Craig, 34, from Clydebank, was jailed for three years and four months for controlling prostitutes.

His co-accused, Sarah Beukan, 22, from Leith in Edinburgh, was jailed for 18 months.

They were the first people to be convicted in Scotland under new laws covering trafficking within the UK.

The pair admitted moving 14 people to addresses in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff and Newcastle to work as prostitutes.

Equality and Human Rights Scotland Commissioner Kaliani Lyle said: "Trafficking is one of the most severe human rights abuses in the modern world.

"It operates below the radar and is kept there through fear and deception. Our challenge is to rid Scotland of this modern slavery."

Ann Fehilly, of the Glasgow Community and Safety Services TARA Project, said: "If we are able to ensure that protections are in place, then more prosecutions will follow, ensuring that Scotland sends a message to those who traffic and exploit vulnerable women that such abuses will not be tolerated."

Justice secretary Kenny MacAskill said: "The Scottish government welcome this inquiry and the extensive work Baroness Kennedy has undertaken to expose the unacceptable and atrocious practices which allow human trafficking to persist."

He added: "Trafficking is a particularly horrific and brutal violation of human rights. It has no place in modern Scotland and the consequences it brings for victims and communities are incredibly damaging."

Case Study: Evil deeds exposed in Record

THE Daily Record has shone a light on Scotland's seedy underbelly, with senior reporter Annie Brown interviewing victims and those working to beat trafficking.

Last month, Annie met former vice girl Susan, 36, who worked out of flats run by Scotland's only convicted sex traffickers Stephen Craig and Sarah Beukan.

The mum-of-three told how one woman worked for Craig when she was six months pregnant and another was traumatised after having sex with 12 men in a row.

And sadistic Craig threatened to pour boiling water down one woman's throat if she moved on.

Annie also met Ann Hamilton, who established the Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance (TARA) in 2005 to help identify and support women in Glasgow who had been sex trafficked.

Ann said: "We saw there were a lot of foreign women in prostitution in Glasgow and the Met Police in London were warning us about trafficking.

"We had never heard the term but very soon we realised we had an issue and we had to establish a service for the women and I think it has worked very well."

Key Points

1 Scotland needs a comprehensive strategy against trafficking.Recommendation: Scottish government should develop strategic plan.

2 There is little public or professional awareness of human trafficking or its indicators. Recommendation: Holyrood should run an anti-trafficking campaign.

3 Human Scotland and in the UK has developed in a piecemeal fashion.Recommendation: Holyrood should consider introducing comprehensive Human Trafficking Bill.

4 Police service has a significant intelligence gap on human trafficking.Recommendation: Set up multi-agency task force.

5 There have been few prosecutions against suspected traffickers.Recommendation: Review legislation to consider tougher sentences where human trafficking is background to crimes.

6 Law enforcement bodies have disrupted organised crime through asset recovery but there have been few operations against traffickers.Recommendation: Develop strategy for using asset recovery powers against trafficking groups.

7 Recommendation: Scottish and UK governments to help various agencies, such as employers, bring awareness of human trafficking into their operations.

8 Recommendation: Holyrood involve private sector in strategic approach in dealing with awareness and monitoring of trafficking.

9 Recommendation: Home Office should lead review of system for identifying trafficking victims.

10 Scotland does not yet have comprehensive, end-to-end services for victims of human trafficking. Recommendation: Holyrood should develop a trafficking care standard.

Marvel character, Erik Lensherr a.k.a. Magneto, has apparently infringed the copyright of the King of Spain

2011-11-28T10:41:00.001Z

Marvel character, Erik Lensherr a.k.a. Magneto, has apparently infringed the copyright of the King of Spain in Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, with the Zarzuela Palace claiming the X-Men villain's alternate costume is identical to the military uniform worn by King Juan Carlos.

Representitives for the Zazuela Palace have contacted the Spanish distributor of the game in the region, Koch Media, to warn them of possible copyright infringement.

This isn't the first time the Spanish Royal's has stamped their feet over the strong resemblences, as Marvel faced a similar dispute when Magneto first donned the uniform in The Pulse: House of M Special X-Men special.

New ecstasy fears after two dead and one seriously ill following club weekend

2011-11-28T10:31:00.001Z

The clubbers, aged 20 and 21, died within hours of each other at the same hospital after attending separate dance music events at Alexandra Palace in north London over the weekend. Another 20-year-old man, also thought to have attended an event at the venue, is also being treated at the same hospital where he is said to be in a serious but stable condition. Last night Scotland Yard issued a special appeal to any young people who may have taken drugs at or before either of the events to seek immediate medical attention amid fears dealers may have been peddling an ultra-strong batch. It comes just a week after the charity Drugscope, which monitors trends in underground the drug trade, warned of an alarming rise in the popularity of ecstasy which dominated the 1990s rave scene but fell out of fashion. A surge in use follows an influx of a more-potent Chinese variants of the drug which is based on the chemical MDMA, or methylenedioxymethamphetamine.

Ecstasy alert after club deaths

2011-11-28T10:28:00.001Z

wo young clubbers suspected of taking ecstasy died after separate dance music events at London's Alexandra Palace, police said. The men, aged 20 and 21, were admitted to a north London hospital on Sunday and were pronounced dead within seven hours of each other. The 21-year-old is thought to have attended an all-night party called Bass Culture, which started on Friday and continued into Saturday. The 20-year-old is believed to have attended a night called Epic, starting on Saturday night and running into Sunday. A second 20-year-old man who was also believed to have attended the event on Saturday night was admitted to hospital as well and remains in a serious but stable condition. The Metropolitan Police said the cause of the deaths and injury was yet to be established but confirmed that one line of inquiry was that the men may have taken illegal substances, possibly MDMA - the chemical name for ecstasy. They issued an urgent appeal for other clubbers to seek medical attention following the unexplained deaths. Detective Inspector Rita Tierney said: "Although it is too early to say what caused these men's health to deteriorate, we are investigating the possibility that illegal drugs may have been involved. "If you have taken what you believed to be MDMA, or any other substance, during this weekend's events at Alexandra Palace, and are now feeling unwell, I would strongly urge you to attend your nearest hospital as soon as possible."

Man shot in Brunswick

2011-11-28T10:21:00.001Z

A gunman is on the loose after a man was gunned down in a busy Brunswick street late this afternoon. The man was shot several times outside a gym and then stumbled across the Brunswick shopping centre car park where he collapsed beside a vehicle, police say. At least six shots rang out at the Barkly Square Shopping Centre late this afternoon and the 37-year-old man was hit in the upper body.

Mexico army seizes Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman drug lord's $15 million

2011-11-23T23:51:00.001Z

Mexico's army seized nearly $15.4 million from the organization of the country's most powerful drug lord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, officials said Tuesday, marking a rare financial blow to cartels. The seizure was revealed the same day U.S. border police revealed the third discovery in a week of drug-smuggling tunnel under the border with Mexico. In Mexico, the military said it found the cash was found in a vehicle on Nov. 18 in the northern border city of Tijuana and that it was linked to Guzman's operations. The haul marked the second-largest cash seizure by the military since President Felipe Calderon sent the country's armed forces out to battle drug cartels in 2006, the statement said. Some $26 million was captured in September 2008 in Culiacan, the capital of Guzman's home state of Sinaloa. Only on msnbc.com 'Grateful to be alive': Teen rescues woman from fire Mexicans cross US border to sell their plasma Chinese consumers say: Fix this fridge or sledgehammers coming Black Friday 'flash mobs,' sit-ins urged Look out kids, here comes the 'Wolf Daddy' Move to ban alleged insider trading faces pitfalls Will Gingrich's comments haunt him? About 45,000 people have died in the conflict in the last five years and the government has captured or killed dozens of top level drug smugglers.

U.K. tax falls on overseas property investors

2011-11-20T13:06:00.001Z

Overseas property owners based in the UK are about to be targeted by a new HM Revenue & Customs "affluent unit", which has been set up by the British government to address what it sees as tax avoidance by the rich.Photo 20minutos.es What next I wonder?? A new team of 200 taxation investigators and specialists has been established by HMRC to identify wealthy individuals who, amongst other things, own land and property abroad … such as a holiday home. OPP understands that the tax attack unit will concentrate on overseas property assets first, and then switch its attention to UK-based commodity traders (who have been accused of helping to drive up food prices,) before looking into the number of UK residents who hold offshore investment accounts. HMRC says that it will be using sophisticated "data mining" techniques to try and track down people who own overseas properties, but do not pay the right amount of tax. This might include someone who owns a villa in Spain which they are renting out, or an individual who owns a piece of land in France that is being used as business premises, said an HMRC spokesman. The experts will be looking for people who do not seem to be declaring the correct income and gains. The new unit, which has been announced by the UK’s Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, will focus solely on people paying the 50% top tax rate. David Gauke, the exchequer secretary to the Treasury, said there would be "no hiding place" for tax cheats, adding that the UK government “is committed to tackling tax evasion and avoidance across all areas of the economy. That is why we allocated HMRC £917m to reduce the tax gap over the next four years. This new team is part of that investment." Ronnie Ludwig, tax partner at accountancy group Saffery Champness told OPP that “those who have been letting out their foreign property and declaring the rents received have nothing to fear, but those who own foreign property which has never been let out should be prepared to prove to HMRC that they have received no income from the property.” “This will involve producing UK and foreign bank statements and being able to demonstrate that they could afford to purchase and maintain the property out of normal declared sources."

Toxic Smoke fills Hotel Senator in Marbella

2011-11-20T13:00:00.001Z

On Friday the 18th November 2011 our family with a 3 year old toddler and a 15 month old baby checked into the SENATOR Hotel in Marbella for a one night stay. We knew that the Hotel SENATOR had only recently opened and indeed everything seemed brand new and glitzy. After the usual check in fomalities we finally got to our room on the 4th floor which was OK in every respect other than perhaps being a little on the small side. After returning from dinner we immediately went to sleep as we were very tired. At probably between 3 and 4 am I woke up and I thought there was a bad smell in the room. At first I gave it no further attention and went back to sleep only to wake up again and now identifying the smell you get when you turn on an electric heater that has gathered dust. Both my wife and children were completely asleep. As the smell got worse and now clearly was no longer a smell but serious toxic smoke that started to fill the room I woke my wife and she immediately realised that this was smoke from a fire. Then our baby started to cough very badly. I immediately opened our balcony door and to my amazement saw three fire engines and at least three police cars on the front side of the building with firemen entering the Hotel. At this moment images of flames coming out from the balconies entered my head. However only smoke could be seen everywhere. We immediately put on some clothes grabbed essentials and run out of the room only to find that in the hallway smoke was pouring from what seemed to be a fire sprinkler. Another couple opened the safety exit door to the escape staircase and there we found that the smoke was much less apparent. So we went down into the reception which was smoke filled and out into the road. Heavy smoke came out from a basement access into the road. Another guest told us that apparently the fire had started in the newly opened Sauna. By now more guests had decided to leave the hotel for the safety of the street and we were all huddling about in the cold expecting some news about what was going to happen to us. The manager of the Hotel could be seen on top of the Hotel stairs smoking a cigarette. Eventually we requested some explanation and information about the situation as obviously everybody was tired and did not want to remain in the street for ever. The Manager almost casually said that the fire had been put out and that everybody could go back to the rooms as it was now only a simple matter of getting rid of the smoke which he estimated would take about an hour. I made it clear to the manager that both our 3 year old toddler and our baby could not go back into a room where smoke would still be present for at least an hour. He agreed but provided no alternative. So I asked him whether it was safe to retrieve our car from the garage which he said it was and we left. The following questions need answering both by SENATOR Hotels Group and by the local authorities: 1. Why was there no alarm? We might not have woken up perhaps never because as is well known most people do not die from fire but from the toxic smoke it produces. My wife and my children in particular our baby and 3 year old were fast asleep in our smoke filled room. The fact that there was no alarm which was queried by other guests surely implies that either there was a serious breach of procedure or an inadequate safety system in the Hotel. Fire and smoke procedures are subject to extremely serious inspections by the local authorities in all countries. In fact a hotel normally cannot open or will be closed down if any of these procedures are inadequate, faulty or non existent. 2. There were communications over loudspeakers outside the hotel. We could not hear the words spoken on the 4th floor and it seemed that this was more of communications between the police and the firemen. Apart from that we assume that the communications were in spanish and therefore could not be understood by the foreign guests in any case. There seemed to be no call to evacuate the hotel as some guests were still waving from their hotel balconies. 3. That the guests were told to go back ot their rooms even though smoke was still pouring out and would be for at least one hour also indicates a complete lack of understanding of the serious health risks of smoke particularly to children. 4. Nobody gave any explanations or assistance to the guests which included many children. We were all required to stand in the cold of the street for over one hour. You would have thought that a Hotel would have a program in force for such an event including a reciprocal arrangement with another close by hotel for the guests to be able to wait in the reception and be able to use the toilets and get some refreshments in particular for the children. 5. To clear the dining room of thick smoke an industrial fan was brought to the door to literally blow the smoke out of the windows. 6. The penultimate safety question must be: why would a fire in the sauna of the wellness centre of the SENATOR Hotel produce smoke that pours out of every ventilation and airconditioning outlet right up to the top of the hotel? 7. The ultimate safety question must be: why does the SENATOR Hotel in Marbella have no smoke alarms? We are concerned about the possible longterm effects on the health of our children. When cleaning our noses we were worried to notice that our tissues were black. How much of this has gone into our baby's and toddler's lungs? What is the toxic composition of this smoke? We are waiting to hear from the SENATOR Hotel group as to compensation for our nightmare and what they will do to prevent this ever from happening again.

The Government blames the judges for the Málaga drugs theft

2011-11-20T12:54:00.001Z

300 kilos of cocaine was taken from a warehouse in Málaga portPhoto EFE Government sub-delegate for Málaga, Hilario Lopez Luna, has blamed the judges for the theft of 300 kilos of embargoed cocaine from a warehouse in Málaga port. He said that despite requests being made for authorisation to destroy the drugs, that permission had not arrived from the judges, and that was why there was so much drugs being stored. He said that the drugs taken had already been analysed and the judges have samples so no ongoing investigation would be affected. López Luna denied knowing about the security problems at the warehouse, saying he had never received any information on the subject from the Guardia Civil or anyone else. He said the warehouse was manned weekdays between 7am and 3pm by a private security firm, and for the rest of the time the Guardia Civil had the key. The thieves broke into the warehouse on Saturday night last weekend. His comments have been criticised by the judiciary. ’You can’t move the responsibility now from the administration to the judiciary’ said the President of the Andalucia High Court of Justice, Lorenzo del Rio. The judge noted that ‘the law obliges the immediate destruction of seized drugs’, after samples are taken. ‘Until they can show me documents showing that the destruction of the drugs was pending permission, I will think that it was already authorised’, he said.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is pictured sitting in a plane in Zintan after his capture in Libya's rugged desert.

2011-11-20T12:36:00.001Z

Photograph: Ismail Zitouni/Reuters

The man who led the fighters that captured Saif al-Islam has said that the late dictator's son tried to escape arrest by pretending to be a camel herder.

"When we caught him, he said, 'My name is Abdul Salem, a camel keeper,'" said commander Ahmed Amur on Sunday. "It was crazy."

His unit, from Zintan's Abu Bakar al-Sadiq brigade, had been patrolling the vast southern desert of Libya for more than a month when it was given a tip-off late last week that Saif al-Islam was close to the town of Obari.

"We knew it was a VIP target, we did not know who," said Amur, who worked as a professor of marine biology in Tripoli before the war.

He said rebel units with pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns deployed in ambush positions in the desert near Obari, a small town that lies astride roads leading to both Algeria and Niger.

As the informant had predicted, two Jeeps came into view at lunchtime on Friday, surging through the desert near the main highway that leads to Niger.

"When we saw the first car we fired shots ahead of it, not to hit, as a warning. It stopped. Then the second car belonging to Saif came," he said, speaking in English. "We shot warning shots, he (Saif's car) stopped in the sand. Saif and his aide came out of the car."

He said rebel fighters approached on foot, Saif threw himself face down and began rubbing dirt on his face. "He wanted to disguise himself," he said.

Amur raced up to him and ordered him to stand up, finding himself face to face with Saif al -Islam.

But the most notorious son of the late dictator claimed he was not one of the world's most wanted war crimes suspects, but a simple camel herder – Abdul Salem being the equivalent of a British "John Smith".

"His face was covered (with dirt), I knew who he was," said Amur. "Then he said to us, 'Shoot.' When the rebels refused to shoot, and identified themselves, Saif told them: 'OK, shoot me, or take me to Zintan.'

"We don't kill or harm a captured man, we are Islam," said Amur, still clad in the green combat jacket he wore when making the arrest. "We have taken him here to Zintan. After that, our government is responsible."

Zintan was on Sunday hemmed-in by checkpoints set up by its fighters, whose units fought some of the toughest battles of the war, ending in their attack on Tripoli in August.

Omran Eturki, leader of Zintan council, says Saif must face trial in Zintan's own courthouse. "We can try him, it will not take too long, we don't need any new laws," he said, referring to questions over Libya's current legal limbo. "They are Zintanis who captured him so they will have to have him here."

Eturki said it was better to try him in Libya than send him to the international criminal court, which has indicted Saif for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"The judicial authorities can appoint the judges and the lawyers, but the trial must be here. As long as there is justice, that is it."

He said Saif would get a fair trial. "There is no point to make a revolution for justice, and then you become the same killers. All the people of Zintan want to see him have a proper trial. We don't like to harm him. If we wanted to kill him we could kill him. We captured him so I think we have the right to try him."

Former Royal Marine Carl Davies was raped before being stabbed and his body hurled into a roadside ravine

2011-11-20T11:45:00.001Z

Brutal: Ex-Marine Carl Davies was raped before being killed and dumped in a ravine, a new post mortem has revealed

Former Royal Marine Carl Davies was raped before being stabbed and his body hurled into a roadside ravine close to a military barracks on the paradise island of Reunion, a new post-mortem has confirmed.

A second examination of the body of the Kent man revealed he had been sexually assaulted prior to being beaten about the head and knifed in the stomach.

The first bungled autopsy put his death down to an accident.

As revealed by MailOnline yesterday, his family believe his murder was covered up to protect tourism there, which accounts for 70per cent of GDP.

A team of British detectives is due to arrive on the island to assist investigations, sources indicated at the weekend.

On the night of his death on November 9, Mr Davies had been out drinking in St Denis, the capital of Reunion, with two sailors who were serving on board the Cyprus-registered MV Atlantic Trader.

Mr Davies, 33, was employed on the container ship as a guard against Somali pirates who regularly prey on ships in the Indian ocean.

shiny Audis and BMWs that still line the narrow streets of Benalup are a reminder that this Andalucían country town once boasted the greatest number of luxury cars per head in the south-western province of Cádiz.

2011-11-20T11:31:00.001Z

Photograph: Tracey Fahy /Alamy

The shiny Audis and BMWs that still line the narrow streets of Benalup are a reminder that this Andalucían country town once boasted the greatest number of luxury cars per head in the south-western province of Cádiz.

These days this charming place, set bull-rearing countryside inland from Gibraltar, holds a different kind of record: not only the worst unemployment rate in the country, but the worst in Europe.

"I don't know whether they can fix this," said 19-year-old Juan Carlos Gutiérrez, one of hundreds of young people who dropped out of school and now drift between part-time work, training courses and the dole queue. "I've picked asparagus and worked in a packing factory, but the jobs never last. The future is screwed."

"Everyone our age is out of work," agreed Nora Pérez, 22, as she waited for the hearse bringing her grandmother to her funeral in the picturesque square of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. "My father went to Germany when he was young. Our generation may emigrate as well. Some of my friends have already left."

A grey-bearded, bespectacled man grins from a campaign poster overlooking the tiny ornamental gardens and bandstand on San Juan Street and calls on the people of Benalup to "sign up to change". He is Mariano Rajoy, the conservative People's party (PP) leader set to become Spain's prime minister at the general election on Sunday.

Rajoy will inherit a country in crisis. Growth is zero and unemployment has hit 23%. In Cádiz province, one in three is jobless. In Benalup 1,500 adults are without work. In a country where 46% of the under-25s cannot find employment, Benalup's unqualified youngsters are getting desperate.

"Many got into debt when times were good, buying houses and cars and starting families," says Ricardo Jiménez, who runs the local branch of the Catholic charity Caritas. "Families are very close and help one another out, but we already help 80 families and more come every month. Some are asking for help to feed their babies," he said. That means almost 5% of the town needs church handouts.

Others are handed money by the town hall or given whatever jobs local politicians can invent. "If we have to dig a ditch we do it by hand, rather than with a digger, because that way we employ more people," said councillor Manuel Moguel.

When Luis Moreno, 23, left school five years ago there was no need to worry about finding a job. All you had to do was walk on to a building site. "It was very simple," he says.

Now he receives €526 (£450) a month to attend a training course designed to turn a dozen locals into graphic designers, though design jobs are not plentiful in Benalup. "We have to learn new skills," he says. He is one of the lucky ones. Courses like this are heavily oversubscribed.

As markets demand ever higher interest payments for lending Spain money, and the European Union instructs its politicians to slash its deficit, public money is drying up. Yields on Spanish debt have now overtaken Italy's and soared to the same levels at which Greece and Portugal needed to be bailed out. And if Spain – a much larger economy – fails, then it may bring down the euro.

Spain's biggest problem remains the money owed to banks for property or land bought during a decade-long boom fuelled by cheap credit. The rows of unsold new homes in Benalup are evidence of Spain's housing bubble, which burst in 2008, leaving 700,000 unsold new houses on the market.

By 2004, more than 80% of Benalup's labour force worked in construction, building homes or holiday apartments along the nearby Mediterranean coast.

"Kids left school at 16 because they could earn €3,000 a month working a three-and-a-half-day week," says Moguel. "I had university-trained engineers working in my company who were earning less than that."

As money poured into people's pockets, the number of banks in town doubled. La Caixa, a newly arrived savings bank, started a local lending war – its manager winning awards. "Kids were buying houses and cars with the loans. And those who already had a house bought another one," says Moguel.

Now the town is plastered with "For Sale" signs from Servihabitat, the real estate branch of La Caixa, which is repossessing properties – though owners must still pay off their full debt after homes have been taken away. "That's unfair. You can't have a bank saying your home is worth €180,000, lending you the money and then repossessing it at half that price," says Moguel, a Socialist. He is uncomfortably aware that Spain's torrid affair with speculative capitalism happened largely on the watch of the Socialist government led by outgoing prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

Even in Benalup, where the Socialists once won 90% of the vote and which still remembers the bloody suppression of an uprising by local anarchists in the 1930s, the vote is now sliding to the right. "It used to be tough in this town to be from the People's party, but we won 43% of the vote at municipal elections in May," says Vicente Peña, a 40-year-old veterinarian who heads the party's local branch.

Peña delivers the same diagnosis of Benalup's ills as his Socialist opponents. "Too many people dropped out of school to become bricklayers. They can't even write a sentence properly."

Vicente Ruiz, owner of the El Buyí bar, will vote for Rajoy. "When Caritas is the biggest employer in town, things are really bad," he says. "It is shameful to have to ask for charity. What we need is a Mrs Thatcher."

Public money is being spent on silly projects, clients in his bar agree. "I've had 60-year-old women coming to bricklaying courses," says one, Nicolás. "It is ridiculous, but they each get their own overalls and hammer."

Peña says that, among other things, people will have to go back to the land. But even there things are going badly. Local horses, bred at stud farms set up as a trophy hobby by nouveau riche local builders, are now being sacrificed for meat and exported to dinner tables in northern Spain.

Pura Raza Española ponies are going for €150. Even fighting bulls are on the decline. "Town halls subsidised many bullfights," says rancher Salvador Gaviria. "But now they have no money, so the market is sinking." The number of bullfights across Spain has fallen by a third as a result.

Benalup is too far inland from the beach to attract tourists. A golf resort set up by a Belgian company, Fairplay, is said to be struggling. The Hotel Utopia, a boutique-style establishment that opened recently, was almost empty this week.

Spaniards hope Rajoy, who has been deliberately ambiguous about his austerity programme and liberal reform plans, can fix their problems. "If changing to Rajoy is going to solve everything, then why haven't the markets – which know he is going to win — shown they trust him?" asks Moguel.

Rajoy will come under immediate pressure to reveal how he plans to square a budget that needs some €41bn of savings next year. Those must come on top of austerity measures already imposed by Zapatero, who cut civil service pay and froze pensions.

Alberto Ruíz Gallardón, PP mayor of Madrid and a probable minister, has called on the socialists to hand over power quickly. "It could be dangerous to prolong the caretaker period," he says.

But parliament does not meet again until 13 December and it may take another fortnight to appoint Rajoy formally. Even if he takes over immediately, jobs are unlikely to reappear in Benalup.

Fortunately it retains the Cádiz tradition of laughing at adversity. Benalup's carnival musical groups are already practising the typicalchirigota songs that parody the powerful. Rajoy, Angela Merkel and the European Central Bank can all expect to feature in them by the time carnival comes around in February.

Watchdog warns over shooting probe

2011-11-20T11:18:00.001Z

An investigation into the death of Mark Duggan, whose fatal shooting by police triggered riots across the country, has still to establish the sequence of events concerning a handgun found at the scene, the police watchdog said. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said that was a key element in its probe. But it said that the sequence of events was not yet known, despite a report in Saturday's Guardian that the investigation had found no forensic evidence that he was carrying a non-police-issue gun. The newspaper, in a story headlined "Revealed: man whose shooting triggered riots was not armed", said a gun collected by Mr Duggan earlier in the day was recovered 10ft-14ft (3m-4.25m) away, on the other side of a low fence from his body, and that he was killed outside the vehicle he was travelling in, after a police marksman fired twice. On the day Mr Duggan was shot, there is overwhelming evidence that he had obtained a firearm, but the investigation is considering whether he had the weapon in his possession when he was shot, the Guardian said. The IPCC said in a statement on Saturday night that the investigation was examining a range of issues. "This is a complex investigation that involves gathering information including witness statements, pathology, forensics and ballistics analysis and we have stated to the coroner that it will be completed within four to six months," the statement said. "One of the key elements we will seek to establish is the sequence of events concerning the non-police issue firearm found at the scene. That has not been established yet, contrary to what has been written in the Guardian article today. "We would urge people not to rush to judgment until our investigation is complete and they have the opportunity to see and hear the full evidence themselves." The statement said the IPCC believes the headline on the Guardian's article was "misleading, speculative and wholly irresponsible".

British bonds win 'safe haven' tag in eurozone debt storm

2011-11-20T11:07:00.001Z

British government bonds are attracting strong support, in sharp contrast to their troubled eurozone peers as investors seek a safehaven from a debt crisis now spreading to Italy, Spain and even France. British government bonds, or gilts as they are known, are in huge demand largely because the Bank of England is buying them up with newly-created money that it hopes can in turn be used to stimulate an anaemic economic recovery, analysts say. But investors are also reassured by the British coalition government's determined efforts to slash state debt and avoid the severe troubles that have snared the crisis-hit eurozone trio of Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

TWO MILLION EUROS CLAIMED AFTER CANCELLED STONES CONCERT

2011-11-20T10:57:00.001Z

The PP mayor of El Ejido in Almería, Francisco Góngora, has criticized the "negligence" of the former government team and announced that the city council are to begin legal proceedings against the promotions company who were to stage a concert by the Rolling Stones in 2006.

Following the findings of "many irregularities" in the case, the council are now seeking to claim a total of 2,251,000€, which they feel they are owed, in view of the cancellation.

The announcement was made at a press conference in which Francisco Góngora claimed that there was a “contractual obligation” by the promoter to ensure that the concert went ahead and that even if the company were insolvent, then they would seek recompense from the individuals responsible for the incomplete commitment made to the previous government team.

Information indicates that there was a contractual clause that stipulated that insurance must be provided that should the concert be cancelled, then the promoter would be able to repay any money owed, in full, through an insurance claim. It is believed that this insurance was never provided.

Although some money is said to have been returned, it was only about half of the 4.176 million euro that the city had paid for the organisation of the concert.

There also appears to be a lack of information as to where the money actually went and who might be accountable for the cash given to the company by the council. There have also been allegations made that this whole case could be part of a much wider campaign of both political and corporate corruption.

Now, reviewing the clauses of the original contract, it has been found that the rights to claim the money back would expire after 15 years.

Góngora, also stated that there were economic losses of 2.6 million euro recorded after the second concert by the Rolling Stones in El Ejido held in 2007, which were due to "mismanagement" whereas the projected ticket sales were calculated at 60,000 attendees, but only 20,000 tickets were actually sold.

Referring to the award of the second contract by the previous council, Góngora stated that "despite the failed previous contract they rehired the same company for four million euro of which they did not deduct anything owed," continuing that he considered the failings to be down to the complacency of the previous PSOE government.

The Ministry of Interior for Andalusia had already imposed a 60,150 euro fine on the organisers for breaching the rules on show cancellations in failing to return ticket money within the maximum four days which is set out by the governing body. In actual fact, it took several weeks for the organisers to return the money raised on the 50,500 tickets sold for the cancelled concert.

Hunted down: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi looks dejected and withdrawn following his capture

2011-11-20T10:45:00.001Z

Looking haggard and fearful, Saif Al Islam Gaddafi cowers in terror after his capture by Libyan fighters yesterday.

His old swagger gone, the British-educated son of Colonel Gaddafi was clearly terrified that he might encounter the same fate as his father, who was killed a month ago.

Saif could yet face the death penalty for his crimes, but Libyan officials promised he would, at least, receive a fair trial. That trial could prove highly embarrassing for influential British figures – including Prince Andrew and Tony Blair – if Saif reveals details of the close links he enjoyed with them.

The 39-year-old former playboy and womaniser was captured trying to flee across the border into Niger. A mob of angry protesters tried to storm the plane but were beaten back by soldiers under orders to keep their prisoner alive so he could face justice.

Only three weeks ago Saif had vowed to avenge his father’s death, declaring defiantly: ‘I am alive and free and willing to fight to the end.’

But last night he was facing the likelihood of trial in his own country – or extradition to the International Criminal Court in The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity.

Thousands of Libyans celebrated in the streets after hearing that the fugitive, who remained loyal to his father’s murderous regime to the end, had been captured without a struggle.

The dictator’s heir was intercepted near the oil town of Obari as he tried to reach the frontier in a 4x4 vehicle, accompanied by three bodyguards.

Desert fighters acting on a tip-off fired into the air and ground to bring the car to a halt.
As they checked the identity of those inside, Saif told them his name was Abdelsalam – which means ‘servant of peace’ – but he was immediately recognised and taken away by the fighters.

Drug Smuggling Accused Border Guard Baljinder Kandola At Loss For Words At Trial

2011-11-13T12:35:00.001Z

While one former Indo-Canadian border guard got five years for his part in a drug smuggling ring – another is currently on trial for his part in a different operation that brought millions of illicit drugs into Canada. Baljinder Kandola, a former Canadian border guard who was charged with being part of a cocaine-smuggling ring, was at a loss for words during much of his testimony on Tuesday to explain why he risked so much to help a millionaire auto-parts importer for nothing in return. Under cross-examination by Crown counsel James Torrance, Kandola said he agreed to wave his co-accused Shminder Singh Johal and associates in his three automotive companies through the border, helping them avoid inspection, reported the Province newspaper. Kandola — who worked at the Pacific Highway crossing from July 2001 until his arrest on Oct. 25, 2007 — admitted he made unauthorized use of Canadian Border Services Agency databases to come to the conclusion Johal had been subjected to inspections over the years unfairly. “He asked if I was able to wave him through,” Kandola told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Selwyn Romilly, who is hearing the case without a jury. “It would save him time and money, and he wouldn’t be harassed.” Torrance reminded Kandola of his testimony a day earlier, when he said he was risking his job, his pension and his standing in the Sikh community by breaking his oath to protect Canada’s borders. “What was [Johal] offering you in return?” asked the prosecutor. “He didn’t offer me anything,” replied Kandola. “In my mind he was bringing auto parts into Canada.” Torrance asked, “This [waving Johal through] was definitely something you shouldn’t do?” “Yes,” agreed the witness. “Then why would you want to help a successful millionaire businessman?” Kandola replied: “I don’t know, I’ve asked myself the same question.” Torrance turned to Kandola’s illegal use of the databases to come to the conclusion Johal was unfairly harassed. A “lookout” had been placed on Johal’s border crossings after a tip from the RCMP. “Did you not consider [Johal] was previously suspected of smuggling cocaine?” asked Torrance. “No,” said Kandola. “That was all cleared up by your queries [into the databases]?” “I guess so,” replied the defendant. Torrance then meticulously went through Kandola’s phone, text and CBSA database records to show that he called Johal to let him know when he was in position to wave him through the border and when the “lookout” was on or off during the wee hours of Feb. 10, 2007. Asked if he was paid by Johal when they met at a 7-Eleven store the next day, Kandola denied it. Kandola was arrested on Oct. 25, 2007, shortly after he waved through a car driven by Herman Riar that contained 208 kilograms of cocaine. Riar pleaded guilty to drug smuggling and was sentenced last year to 12 years in prison. Kandola and Johal have pleaded not guilty to charges of drug smuggling, illegal firearms, conspiracy and bribing an official. The trial in New Westminster is scheduled to last three more weeks.

I’ve dealt with myself. Death is part of my business. I’m the one selling drugs on that estate. No one else had the right to do so and sometimes people have to die if they get in the way.

2011-11-13T11:53:00.001Z

Last week Rupert Ross, son of a Kings Road boutique owner, was jailed for 30 years for gunning down a rival drug dealer outside Wandsworth Prison in South London. In the days that followed the killing – with the police on his trail and his best friend already dead in a revenge shooting – 30-year-old Ross befriended investigative journalist Wensley Clarkson and in a series of videotaped interviews talked about the murder, his privileged background and the terrifying world of drugs, guns and gangs.

Holding court: Waring a T-shirt for his interview with Wensley Clarkson, Rupert Ross seemed since but described the gang world with cold relish

On the face of it, the young man who strode into a restaurant near my house in Fulham, West London, in early summer 2009 couldn’t have been further from the stereotypical gang member.

Casually dressed in jeans and a faded T-shirt, Rupert Ross had neatly cropped hair, an athletic build and a soft voice that veered between the well modulated tones of the privately educated middle-class boy he once was and the multi-racial street slang of the inner city.

Ross had approached me out of the blue through a contact to discuss being filmed for a TV documentary on street gangs. He earned his living running the drug trade on Fulham’s Clem Attlee council estate.

I was wary at first. But the fact that he was a near neighbour of mine fuelled my curiosity.

A week of promised meetings followed, but Ross never materialised. Through a go-between, I was accused of being an undercover policeman – a tricky situation only remedied when I was given a ‘clean bill of health’ by local criminals I’d written about in the past.

Eventually, I met Ross and the ‘middle man’. Ross insisted on sitting with his back to the wall of the restaurant with a clear view of the front entrance ‘in case anyone I don’t like walks in’.

Fulham had been abuzz with talk of the gangland execution of 20-year-old drug dealer Darcy Austin-Bruce and a retribution killing a few days later.

It was only when Ross began to talk that I gradually realised he could be Austin-Bruce’s killer.

He was calm and eloquent and looked very different from the hard-nosed criminal mugshot that was released after his Old Bailey conviction last week. He seemed thoughtful, likeable and sincere, but veered alarmingly from talking about going straight to describing the gang world with cold, almost detached relish.

Chameleon: Ross looked like the ex-public schoolboy he was, when dressed in a smart shirt on his way to court

‘It’s kill or be killed out here in the real world,’ he told me. ‘Anything I’ve dealt with, I’ve dealt with myself. Death is part of my business. I’m the one selling drugs on that estate. No one else had the right to do so and sometimes people have to die if they get in the way.’

I shifted a bit uncomfortably as Ross spoke about murder and gang ‘law’. Not through any fear for my own safety – I’d already been assured I was nothing more than a harmless ‘civilian’ – rather by the proximity of this ruthless subculture to my own middle-class neighbourhood.

‘Without a gun, I feel naked. I feel vulnerable,’ he told me. ‘There is a bullet out there with my name on it. What will be, will be.’

His mother, I learned, is Diana Lank, the hard-working and popular 55-year-old owner of the quirky Kings Road boutique Ad Hoc, who doted on Rupert and paid for him to go to a series of expensive private schools – including the £30,000-a-year Dulwich College. His grandfather is Herbert Lank, a retired Cambridge don and internationally renowned art restorer. A step aunt is the eminently respectable barrister Susan Rodway QC.

Quirky: Ad Hoc, the Kings Road boutique run by Ross' mother Diana Lank

Ross told me he wanted to speak out as a warning to youngsters. But it became clear that he really wanted to unburden himself about the murder of a former drug-dealing friend turned mortal enemy.

He said: ‘The word is that I’ve killed the guy. People are saying I was the shooter. I’ve got people out to kill me. Apparently it is my fault he’s dead. But he had many enemies. He was out of control. He didn’t really care whose feet he trod on.’

People may wonder why I didn’t go to the police after I met Ross, but he had made it clear to me from the start that he was not running away from them and he would face up to what he had done when they charged him.

I don’t believe my interviews with him would have made any impact on their investigation at the time, as a contact told me murder squad detectives were seeking tangible, forensic evidence of his involvement rather than the content of a filmed interview.But I would have been more than happy to help them with their enquiries if they had come to me, as any law-abiding citizen would have been.

As his trial revealed, a few days before our meeting, but unknown to me at the time, Ross had dressed in a smart suit to look like a visiting lawyer and gunned down his rival in front of a crowd of women and children outside Wandsworth Prison.

He was clearly troubled by the incident, depsite the fact that in the months before the shooting, Austin-Bruce had kidnapped, stabbed and tortured Ross and fired shots at his car.

During that first meeting, Ross made it clear that the execution – Austin-Bruce was shot five times – was intended to send out a clear message. ‘I was the main man – the guy in charge,’ Ross boasted.

‘I controlled all the drugs on the estate. Nothing went in or out without my say-so. Sure I was motivated by money and power. I had a twisted sense of right and wrong but I knew that it was an unfair world. Some were born with a silver spoon like me and others had nothing.’

Now he knew the police were on his trail. He believed he’d either be arrested or would die at the hands of a rival gangster. ‘There’s no point in running from the law. They’ll find you in the end,’ he told me.

Privileged: Teachers at Dulwich College told Ross' mother he was 'highly intelligent but often played truant', his friends described him as a a 'wannabe gangster'

The Clem Attlee estate is a brutalist Sixties council project, just a stone’s throw from the million-pound houses of the well-heeled Fulham middle classes – including his own childhood home, where his mother still lives.

Friends say that when Ross was ten his father committed suicide, and that this had a ‘profound effect on him’, making him unruly and difficult.

But the Rupert Ross I met steadfastly refused to blame the tragedy on a chain of events that friends and family later claimed left him acting a ‘fantasy’ life as if he was a character from gangster films.

Ross himself told me: ‘Knowing my mum thinks I am a killer is so hard. She brought me up well but I was my own man from a very young age.

‘All the advantages in the world would never have stopped me from going on this path. It’s not her fault I am what I am.’

Chilling: Ross' mug shot, he told Wensley Clarkson he felt 'naked and vulnerable' without a gun

One relative said: ‘His mother probably knows in her heart of hearts that Rupert’s guilty, but it’s hard for any mother to accept. She has tried her hardest to bring up Rupert responsibly but he was often on his own while she was out working, and inevitably he started to hang out with kids from the Clem Attlee estate.

‘She tried to make sure any man she had a relationship with would be some sort of role model to him, which makes his career in crime all the more surprising. It’s hard to equate the vicious gangster with the polite, gentle character we all know.’

Teachers at Dulwich College told Ross’s mother that her son was highly intelligent but often a truant. Contemporaries remember him as a ‘wannabe gangster’ who was expelled for taking drugs.

Ross himself told me that he hated school. ‘I just didn’t need it. I was ready to be out on the streets working for myself from a very young age.’

Before he had even hit his teens, Ross had started a gang, and was walking the streets of West London with a knife ‘for self protection’. They stole and sold car radios.

‘That was my first taste of crime and I liked it,’ he said. ‘It seemed easy to me. I had found myself a new family on the estate and they were from a much harder world than I was used to but I mixed easily with them. It was as if I had found my place in life.

‘Sure, there was rage in me. I wanted to be someone. I started using violence to get my way and it was kind of infectious. Then I started having guns, and everything just went crazy from there.’

At the age of 17, Ross took over an empty flat on the Clem Attlee estate and set himself up as the area’s main drug supplier, ruthlessly controlling the estate’s burgeoning drug trade. He had already become addicted to cocaine and cannabis and had been convicted of the first of a series of crimes which was to include burglary, theft and drugs possession.

It was a world where mobile phones were changed every week to avoid detection. And guns were also an everyday part of that lifestyle.

Respectable: Eminent barrister Susan Rodway QC is Ross' step aunt

‘I always had a piece on me and in that flat I would watch any customers approaching with them in the sights of my gun – just in case they turned out to be the enemy. I even shot at one guy I didn’t know when he came up to my front door. Dunno if I hit him but he never came back. That sent a message out to my enemies.’

Following his murder of Austin-Bruce, Ross had decided not to carry a weapon because he was under constant police surveillance.

He told me: ‘Without a gun, I feel naked. I feel vulnerable. If someone walked in here now, I’d be a sitting duck. But the police are watching me as we speak.’ He pointed. ‘They are there, across the street.’

Sure enough, there were two men in a Vauxhall estate car just opposite the restaurant.

‘I can’t afford to be found with a gun now. At the moment, they have no evidence to link me to the killing.’

It would be almost another year before Ross was charged with the murder of Austin-Bruce. Yet the murder had clearly affected him. He admitted in one candid moment: ‘It’s made me rethink everything. It’s madness out there and I got caught up in it all. I wouldn’t want anyone to take my path. It can only end in death and destruction.’

He even claimed (and I believe him) that he’d presented himself at a local volunteer centre where he wanted to help teenagers to escape a culture of drug-dealing, robbery and violence.

‘I want to help these kids avoid the pitfalls,’ he said. ‘I know better than anyone how easy it is to get sucked in. It really was a case of kill or be killed. I want to get away from that world now but I fear I may have left it too late.’

A week after that first meeting, I got a panicky call from the ‘middle man’ saying that Ross wanted me to film him immediately ‘because he’s not sure how much longer he will be around’.

By now he was so afraid of meeting in public that I agreed he could come to my home. It was there, with a camera rolling, that he told me of the revenge killing of his best friend Anthony Otton on the night of Austin-Bruce’s funeral.

‘I was sitting inside a friend’s house when my best friend went outside to go home. I heard gunshots followed by a loud panicked knock on the door. I opened the door and my best friend fell to the floor. He’d been shot in the chest.

‘The shooter then came behind him, shot through the door and ran off with no mask on. My best friend died there in the hallway. He only got hit once in the chest but it hit his main artery and it killed him.’

Much to the frustration of police investigators, Ross refused to identify the man who shot dead his best friend. The case remains unsolved.

Ross’s family include pillars of society from high-flying lawyers to academics, a hypnotherapist and even a Government drugs adviser. Contrary to some reports, his grandfather and step aunt Ms Rodway have rallied round his mother and given their full support.

His family is deeply worried that Ross may be a target in prison. ‘Rupert has a price on his head. We all know that,’ a relative told me.

Ross himself told me: ‘Prison doesn’t scare me. I’ll make it work for me just like everything else in my life.

‘I don’t really fear anything any more. Not even death.

‘I suppose in some ways I am emotionally dead. But the life I’ve led has made me that way. I wouldn’t have survived even this long if I’d let it all get to me.’

The last time I saw Rupert Ross was a couple of days before he was arrested. He knew it was coming. His voice shook as we talked briefly on a street corner. He wore a hood and looked a haunted man. He told me: ‘I can’t help you any more.’

With that he walked away. I knew I’d never see him again.

jailed for 30 years for gunning down a rival drug dealer outside Wandsworth Prison in South London

2011-11-13T11:45:00.001Z