Ousted Egyptian leader defiant in second trial

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s toppled President Mohammed Morsi stood alone in a soundproof glass-encased metal cage at the start of a new trial Tuesday wearing a white prison uniform, pacing and shouting angrily at the judge in apparent disbelief: “Who are you? Tell me!”

Morsi is on trial with 130 others, including Muslim Brotherhood leaders, and militants from the Palestinian Hamas group and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, over charges related to the prison breaks at the height of the 18-day 2011 uprising against his predecessor Hosni Mubarak. After five hours, the trial was adjourned to Feb. 22.

The trial coincided with the third anniversary of one of the most violent days of that revolution that plunged the country into prolonged turmoil, and that eventually led to the virtual collapse of the police and their withdrawal from the streets.

Morsi supporters clashed with police Tuesday in central Cairo. In two separate attacks, gunmen also killed an aide to the country’s interior minister in a drive-by shooting outside Cairo and a policeman guarding a church in a southern section of the capital.

Security forces also deployed heavily and erected checkpoints in the city as they braced for more violence with protests by Morsi supporters scheduled for later in the afternoon.

The former Islamist president, ousted in a popularly backed July 3 coup, also declared to the judges that he remains Egypt’s legitimate leader during an unaired portion of the hearing, a state television reporter inside the courtroom said. In aired edited footage, defendants chanted that their trial was “invalid.” Earlier, the defendants turned their back to the court to protest their prosecution, the state television journalist said.

In a half hour of recorded footage aired on state television, Morsi protested being in a cage for his trial on charges related to prison breaks in 2011. Raising his hands in the air and angrily questioning why he was in the court, Morsi yelled in apparent disbelief: “Do you know where I am?”

Judge Shabaan el-Shami responded: “I am the head of Egypt’s criminal court!”

Morsi paced in a metal cell separated from other defendants. Earlier, a promised live feed was cut, something a senior state television official told local media that security forces demanded.

Authorities have said the jailbreaks were part of an organized effort to destabilize the country. Rights groups have called for an independent investigation into the chaotic events, saying they hold the police responsible for the pandemonium. A Brotherhood lawyer has said the trial appears aimed at “denigrating” Morsi and the Brotherhood.

It was the second time Morsi has appeared in court since the coup. At his first appearance in November, Morsi wore a trim, dark suit and appeared far less agitated, though he interrupted the judge and gave long speeches, declaring forcefully that he was “the president of the republic.” At the time, he had emerged from a four months detention in an undisclosed location, appearing in public for the first time since his ouster.

Authorities apparently resorted to the glass-encased cage to muffle the defendants’ outbursts, which have disrupted the previous hearing. The judge controls the microphone to the cage.

Morsi already faces three other trials on various charges, some of them carrying the death penalty. The charges against Morsi in this case carry a life sentence.

Prosecutors in the case demanded the maximum penalty for the defendants.

“These acts were committed with the terrorist aim of terrifying the public and spreading chaos,” a prosecutor said, addressing the court. He said Morsi and other leading Brotherhood members have plotted with foreign groups to “undermine the Egyptian state and its institutions.”

Tuesday’s case is rooted in the 2011 escape of more than 20,000 inmates from Egyptian prisons — including Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood members — during the early days of the 18-day uprising against Mubarak. Morsi and the other Brotherhood leaders escaped two days after they were detained three years ago as Mubarak’s security forces tried to undercut the planned protests.

At the time, authorities also cut off Internet access and mobile phone networks, crippling communication among the protesters and with the outside world.

In court Tuesday, 19 other defendants appeared with Morsi. Another 111 defendants, including members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, are being tried in absentia.

The hearing was being held at a police academy complex in eastern Cairo, where a heavy security presence stood guard Tuesday.

Protests by Morsi supporters were scheduled to mark the third anniversary of the so-called “Friday of Rage,” in which protesters and police clashed for hours in 2011 before police withdrew from the streets and the military deployed.

Earlier Tuesday, police forces lobbed tear gas and clashed with Morsi supporters burning tires on a major street in central Cairo, kilometers (miles) from the courtroom.

The Interior Ministry said two gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed a senior police officer as he left his home in the Haram district of Giza, a neighborhood near the Pyramids. Maj. Gen. Mohammed el-Said was an aide to the interior minister and head of the technical office in ministry, which is in charge of police.

Later in the afternoon, gunmen in a speeding car shot and killed a policeman and wounded another guarding a church in the Oct. 6 district in southern Cairo, a security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. There were no worshippers at the time in the church.

Also Tuesday, MENA reported that gunmen blew up a natural gas pipeline Monday night in the volatile Sinai Peninsula south of el-Arish, the capital of the North Sinai governorate. It said firefighters rushed to the scene to extinguish a fire there.

Gas pipelines have come under attacks several times since Mubarak’s downfall, which led to a fracturing of Egypt’s security agencies. Suicide bombings also have spiked and spilled into the capital, Cairo, and other cities. An al-Qaida-inspired group called Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, or Champions of Jerusalem, has claimed responsibility for most of those attacks.

___

Associated Press writer Maamoun Youssef contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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Ousted Egyptian leader defiant in second trial

San Diego Mayor Resigns but Remains Defiant

The resignation speech given by San Diego Mayor Bob Filner reflected the same fiery, defiant tone that launched the political career of the former congressman and 1960s civil rights activist.

But Friday, Filner was giving his response after agreeing to step down as leader of the nation’s eighth-largest city amid a flurry of sexual harassment allegations.

“Obviously this is the toughest decision of my life. You all know me to be a fighter,” he said. “Unfortunately, on my own — and you all helped cut off any support for that — I can’t afford to continue this battle even though I know, if given due process, I would be vindicated.”

Filner apologized to the city and his accusers but also said his demise as San Diego’s first Democratic mayor in decades was the result of “lynch mob mentality” and continued to deny his actions amounted to harassment.

Filner spoke after the City Council voted 7-0 on a deal that ended a political stalemate after 17 women publicly accused him of acting inappropriately from patting bottom to forcible kissing.

The agreement stipulated that Filner leave office by Aug. 30 in return for the city paying legal expenses related to a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by his former aide.

Filner blamed his downfall on his own shortcomings but also said those failures were used as “ammo” to stop a leader willing to shake up the city’s power base, such as hoteliers and developers.

Filner evoked memories of his young adulthood, when he joined the Freedom Riders in their campaign against a segregated South and spent two months in a Mississippi jail for inciting a riot after he and others confronted an angry mob at a bus station.

“You know I started my career facing lynch mobs, and I think we have just faced one here in San Diego, and you’re going to have deal with that,” he said.

He said not one allegation has been proven independently or by a court, adding “I have never sexually harassed anyone.”

Much of Filner’s 15 minutes in the chambers sounded like a campaign stump speech. He trumpeted a five-year labor agreement with city unions, efforts to install solar panels on city buildings and clean up bird droppings at La Jolla’s postcard beaches. He urged his successor to pursue a laundry list of initiatives from addressing climate change to bringing the Olympic Games to the region.

Filner had for weeks resisted calls to resign, and underwent two weeks of behavioral therapy before returning to work this week.

But his support diminished as more women — including a university dean and a retired Navy admiral — came forward and told stories of Filner touching, making lewd comments and even placing them in headlocks.

Peggy Shannon — a great grandmother who said Filner would ask for dates and once took her hands and told her he could last eight hours at night — found Filner’s speech “hurtful.”

“I know we’ve proven something — because he is no longer mayor,” she said. “So due process runs in different ways.”

Under the agreement, the city will pay Filner’s legal fees in a joint defense of the lawsuit filed by the mayor’s former communications director, Irene McCormack Jackson, and pay for any settlement costs assessed against the mayor except for punitive damages, said City Attorney Jan Goldsmith. The city would also pay up to $ 98,000 if Filner wants to hire his own attorney.

Goldsmith said the city was obligated to provide his legal defense no matter what.

McCormack, as she is known professionally, claimed the mayor asked her to work without panties, demanded kisses, told her he wanted to see her naked and dragged her in a headlock while whispering in her ear.

She was the first one to publicly accuse the mayor.

“My thoughts are with the courageous women, who because they spoke out, galvanized the residents of this great city and its elected leaders to rise up against a serial sexual harasser and a gross abuser of power,” McCormack said. “Bye-bye, Bob. You will not be missed.”

Filner still faces a criminal investigation. Nicholas Pacilio, a spokesman for the California attorney general’s office, confirmed after the mayor announced his resignation that an investigation was underway but declined to elaborate.

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department is fielding complaints of sexual misconduct by the mayor and delivering its findings to the attorney general’s office. San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who lost to Filner in last year’s election, has recused herself.

When Filner’s resignation takes effect, Todd Gloria, the Democratic City Council president, becomes acting mayor until a special election is held within 90 days. Democrats enjoy a solid edge over Republicans in voter registration, but the GOP will capitalize on the Filner debacle to try to reclaim an office it has held for nearly all of the last four decades.

© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Newsmax – America

San Diego Mayor Resigns but Remains Defiant

Ridiculed Weiner remains defiant

NEW YORK — He was taunted and booed and ridiculed for using the mantle “Carlos Danger.”

But there Anthony Weiner was, back on the campaign trail Wednesday after his bombshell news conference a day earlier, projecting the same defiance in the face of self-imposed adversity that has marked his surreal campaign for New York City mayor.

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Weiner full press conference

“It’s been rough,” he told reporters at one point, when asked how his last 24 hours have been. “These are things that I brought upon myself, I thought they were going to come out toward the end of the campaign, and some of them have. So look, I’m pressing forward.”

(QUIZ: Do you know Anthony Weiner?)

He was referring, of course, to his latest confession of inappropriate online sexual relations with young women. At a news conference Tuesday, Weiner joined his wife, longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, and admitted that, yes, there was more sexting incidents — even after he resigned from Congress in disgrace two years ago after accidentally tweeting a crotch shot.

At a forum among Democratic hopefuls in the Bronx Wednesday night, some of his lesser-known opponents let Weiner have it. Former city Councilman Sal Albanese dismissed him as a “distraction” from discussing the middle class and the Rev. Erick Salgado bashed Weiner for using the name “Carlos Danger” while engaging in his online dalliances. City Comptroller John Liu said Weiner was dodging a question (about credit checks, not sex selfies).

“If it is a distraction to talk about the challenges facing the middle class … to talk about the idea that we need affordable housing, to talk about [how] we need affordable education, if you think that’s a distraction, so be it,” Weiner swung back at Albanese. “I’m ready to have a serious conversation about issues. That’s what these good people came to hear.”

(Also on POLITICO: Weiner accuser: ‘A horny, middle-aged man)

He flashed a sense of humor, however, when he and the other candidates onstage were asked “Facebook or Twitter?” A smiling Weiner, shaking his head, noted that his campaign uses Twitter. Turning to Salgado, who said he was trying to learn Twitter, Weiner cracked, “All I have to say is, Salgado, don’t ask me.”

Several campaign rivals have called on Weiner to drop out of the race, including former Comptroller Bill Thompson, who said earlier Wednesday he was “disgusted” by Weiner’s conduct. But the former Democratic congressman is refusing to budge.

He was booed earlier in the evening as he geared up to address a New York City Housing Authority public hearing, But catcalls were countered by cheers and some “amens” as he delivered a forceful address outlining some of his goals on the housing front.

There and at the debate, Weiner struck an assertive, and at times, aggressive tone.

(Also on POLITICO: Critics: Abedin following Clinton plan)

At the mayoral forum, held at Bronx Community College, Weiner spoke mostly about usual mayoral campaign grist: education, health care and housing. Wearing a yellow tie and with his wedding ring on display, he had a vocal contingent of supporters on hand, many of whom wielded signs.

As he strode into the debate, mobbed by cameras and running reporters, his supporters drowned out the chants of all of the other candidates’ advocates, who also bore signs.

A smaller group of supporters gathered across the street from the earlier housing event. There, he turned his back on moderators, facing the crowd instead. He converted some of the more vocal members of the audience as he pledged a housing “Marshall Plan” and described his own encounters with decrepit public housing.

“We’re going to change the way we do things in this city,” he pledged. “No longer will the residents of public housing, or should they have to be, treated as if they are victims every day when they walk into their homes.”

He was swarmed by the pack of media, and he sought to make some overtures: His spokeswoman, wielding a bag of cupcakes, promised reporters at the housing event “treats” if they would move down the sidewalk, behind a barrier. And Weiner gamely sidled up to the waiting reporters and had press availabilities at both events.

But he declined to delve back in to the raunchier details of the story that surfaced on Tuesday. “Some things that have been posted today are true and some are not,” he said a day earlier, while apologizing for his actions.

“People have to make their decision,” he said, when a reporter noted that some voters are questioning his credibility. “There’s more time in this campaign and I’m going to keep talking about the issues and the middle class struggling to make it, and I understand part of it is earning people’s trust. I certainly understand that.”

When pressed on why he hadn’t been more forthcoming about other women with whom he was having possible explicit exchanges, Weiner downplayed his most recent accuser.

“I don’t want to be in a position of refuting what anonymous people on blogs said,” Weiner told reporters, referring to graphic alleged conversations that took place between himself and another woman, posted on the gossip website thedirty.com. “They have a right to say whatever they want. I brought that upon myself.

”I’m not gonna get into a back-and-forth with an anonymous person who obviously doesn’t want to become public. They have every right in the world to say whatever they want, to release whatever they want. But I’m not gonna do it and I’m not gonna litigate this.”

Nik Richie, owner and editor of the thedirty.com, told POLITICO on Wednesday afternoon that the woman who made the allegations reported on his website is looking to go public, “my guess is tomorrow.”

POLITICO – TOP Stories

Ridiculed Weiner remains defiant

Weiner defiant amid calls to quit New York mayoral race

1 of 2. Former U.S. congressman from New York and current Democratic candidate for New York City Mayor Anthony Weiner is followed by the media as he leaves his New York City apartment July 24, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Mike Segar

By Jonathan Allen and Edith Honan

NEW YORK | Thu Jul 25, 2013 12:43am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Anthony Weiner resisted mounting calls to bow out of the New York City mayoral race on Wednesday, a day after admitting he had continued the sexually charged online chats that led him to resign from Congress in disgrace two years ago.

Weiner, who took the lead in several polls soon after announcing his political comeback in May, said in an email to supporters that he should have been clearer about how long the behavior had persisted but that he hoped voters would give him another chance.

The New York Times and the New York Daily News both published editorials on Wednesday urging Weiner, a Democrat who was once a leading liberal voice in Congress, to end his bid to follow Mayor Michael Bloomberg into City Hall.

“The serially evasive Mr. Weiner should take his marital troubles and personal compulsions out of the public eye, away from cameras, off the Web and out of the race for mayor of New York City,” the New York Times wrote in its lead editorial, adding he had “disqualified himself” for public service.

Weiner told a news conference on Tuesday he had sent lewd images of himself to women online until at least last summer.

The New York Post, known for its outrageous headlines, went with “Meet Carlos Danger” – a reference to Weiner’s reported pseudonym in the online chats with a woman he met over the Internet.

Weiner insisted he would not drop out. In his email, he said his campaign was about something larger than himself and that he would not “leave New Yorkers without a choice.”

Of the resumption of online activity that had cost him his last job, Weiner said: “It was a terrible mistake that I unfortunately returned to during a rough time in our marriage.”

Until the revelations, Weiner was ahead in the mayoral race. On Wednesday, Quinnipiac University released a poll – conducted before Weiner’s news conference – that found him leading Democratic candidates with 26 percent of the vote. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn followed with 22 percent, and former City Comptroller Bill Thompson had 20 percent.

Weiner’s latest troubles began on Monday after a gossip website called The Dirty published a series of sexually explicit messages and images an unnamed young woman said she received from Weiner, including pictures of his penis.

The woman was identified by CNN on Wednesday as Sydney Elaine Leathers, 23, of Evansville, Indiana. CNN interviewed an acquaintance who said she had engaged in a sexually explicit text relationship with Weiner.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the identity of the woman. She could not be reached by Reuters for comment. The acquaintance, contacted by Reuters, declined to be interviewed.

The woman gave the website numerous screenshots of what the website said were chats on Facebook and another social media website in which Weiner described the sexual acts he wanted to perform on her and which she apparently encouraged.

“You are a walking fantasy,” Weiner reportedly said in one of the chat’s less explicit exchanges, which took place after the two began communicating in July 2012, when the woman was 22.

Buzzfeed, a news and entertainment website, said it had identified a woman in her early 20s from Indiana as the source of the new chats.

Nik Richie, the owner of The Dirty, told Reuters in an interview that he could not confirm the woman’s name. But he described her as “starstruck” and said she genuinely believed she and Weiner were in love.

“They would have conversations all the time. He was like a little child. He needed validation from her all the time. They talked every day, sometimes several times a day,” he said.

‘HUMA FOR MAYOR’

During Tuesday’s news conference, Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, stood at his side, alternately smiling and looking awkwardly away. After apologizing for her nervousness, she read out her own statement saying she had forgiven him.

To many New Yorkers, Abedin, a longtime aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, proved a sympathetic figure.

“I say Huma for mayor,” Tina Brown, the editor of Newsweek, wrote on Twitter. “She has all the qualities he doesn’t.”

Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp owns the New York Post, called Weiner a “sicko.”

“Should help city by just fading away,” he wrote on Twitter.

Some voters shared the sentiment.

“I know nobody’s perfect, but I don’t think he’s trustworthy,” said Dottie Lipski, 55, a graphic designer.

Other voters said they didn’t think Weiner’s personal failings had anything to do with his ability to lead.

“It’s two separate things. It doesn’t have anything to do with his qualifications to be mayor,” said Racquita McMillon, a 38-year-old merchandise analyst.

One of his rivals in the Democratic primary, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who was in fourth place with 15 percent of the vote in the latest Quinnipiac poll, urged Weiner to withdraw. Thompson, who often appears in third place in the polls, said the news was “deeply disturbing.”

Quinn, Weiner’s nearest rival, stopped short of calling on Weiner to withdraw, but criticized what she described as “a pattern of reckless behavior, consistently poor judgment, and difficulty with the truth,” in a statement on Wednesday.

Weiner, who has often gamely conceded that his name is ready-made for late-night comedians’ jokes, was ribbed on Tuesday night by David Letterman, who suggested other pseudonyms for Weiner to consider: Carlos Dangler, Throb Reiner and Eliot Spitzer.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen and Edith Honan; Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien; Editing by Dina Kyriakidou and Eric Beech)

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Reuters: Politics

Weiner defiant amid calls to quit New York mayoral race

Tens of thousands on streets, Turkish PM Erdogan defiant

1 of 17. Protesters shout anti-government slogans during a demonstration at Taksim Square in Istanbul June 8, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Stoyan Nenov

By Nick Tattersall and Ece Toksabay

ISTANBUL | Sat Jun 8, 2013 8:25pm EDT

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party on Saturday ruled out early elections as tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators defied his call for an immediate end to protests.

Huseyin Celik, deputy chairman of the Justice and Development (AK) Party founded by Erdogan just over a decade ago, said local and presidential elections would be held next year as planned, and a general election in 2015.

“The government is running like clockwork. There is nothing that necessitates early elections,” he told reporters after a meeting of the party’s executive committee in Istanbul.

“The world is dealing with an economic crisis and things are going well in Turkey. Elections are not held because people are marching on the streets.”

A few kilometres away, tens of thousands of Turks defied Erdogan’s call on Friday for an immediate end to anti-government demonstrations, massing again in the central Taksim Square, where riot police backed by helicopters and armored vehicles first clashed with protesters a week ago.

Tourists and curious locals swelled their numbers around a makeshift protest camp in Gezi Park, a leafy corner of the square where activists have been sleeping in tents and vandalized buses, or wrapped in blankets under plane trees.

Senior AK officials said they had discussed calling a rally of their supporters in Istanbul or Ankara next week but no decision had yet been taken, with some party figures urging restraint for fear of provoking the situation on the streets.

What began as a campaign against government plans to build over the park spiraled into an unprecedented display of public anger over the perceived authoritarianism of Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted AK Party, leading to the worst riots in decades.

In a rare show of unity, thousands of fans from Istanbul’s three main football clubs Besiktas, Galatasaray and Fenerbahce, who have helped organize some of the protests, marched on Taksim roaring “Tayyip resign!” and “Arm in arm against fascism!”.

Police fired teargas and water cannon in the Kizilay district of central Ankara late on Saturday to try to disperse protesters blocking roads and burning bonfires in the streets.

There were similar scenes overnight in Istanbul’s working-class Gazi neighborhood, which saw heavy clashes with police in the 1990s. Three people have been killed and close to 5,000 injured around the country since the violence began a week ago.

Thousands protested in Berlin, home to a large Turkish population, waving red Turkish flags and chanting “Occupy Gezi”.

Erdogan has given no indication of plans to clear out Taksim, around which protesters have built dozens of barricades made of ripped up paving stones, street signs, vandalized vehicles and corrugated iron, clogging part of the city centre.

Police pulled back from the square days ago.

“Let them attack. They can’t stop us,” a member of the Turkish Communist Party shouted through loudspeakers to a cheering crowd from on top of a white van in the square.

Taksim is lined by luxury hotels that should be doing a roaring trade as the summer season starts in one of the world’s most-visited cities. But a forced eviction might trigger a repeat of the clashes seen earlier in the week.

ANGER BOILS OVER

The gatherings mark a challenge to a leader whose authority is built upon three successive election victories. Erdogan takes the protests as a personal affront.

“Turkey is a democracy and it will prove its inner disposition in the face of these protests,” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told Germany’s Welt am Sonntag.

“Prime Minister Erdogan has a special responsibility to calm the situation and he has to be aware of that,” he said.

Sources close to the AK Party speak of a sense of siege within the party leadership, with influential if disparate forces loath to break ranks publicly but worried about the extent of Erdogan’s power and his uncompromising stance.

Erdogan has made little secret of his ambition to run for the presidency after his third term as prime minister comes to an end, although the AK Party could also change internal rules to allow him to stand for a fourth term.

Celik said the protests had been discussed “in detail” at Saturday’s party meeting, but that the question of early elections had never been on the agenda.

“A government that doesn’t have people’s trust cannot be permanent. We got the message of the protests and we respect that, but there’s nothing to respect about people throwing stones,” he said.

Erdogan has made clear he has no intention of stepping aside – pointing to the AK Party’s 50 percent of the vote in the last election – and has no clear rivals inside the party or out.

He has enacted many democratic reforms, taming a military that toppled four governments in four decades, starting entry talks with the European Union and forging peace talks with Kurdish rebels to end a three-decade-old war.

But in recent years, critics say his style, always forceful and emotional, has become authoritarian.

Media have come under pressure, opponents have been arrested over alleged coup plots, and moves such as restrictions on alcohol sales have unsettled secular middle-class Turks who are sensitive to any encroachment of religion on their daily lives.

“These protests are partly a result of his success in economic and social transformation. There’s a new generation who doesn’t want to be bullied by the prime minister and who is afraid their lifestyle is in danger,” said Joost Lagendijk, a former European parliamentarian and Istanbul-based academic.

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Ankara, Ece Toksabay in Istanbul, Stephen Brown and Michelle Martin in Berlin; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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Tens of thousands on streets, Turkish PM Erdogan defiant