The 13-year-old boy known as "Pinky" will not face murder charges in the stabbing death of 17-year-old Levi King Flores. Instead a grand jury, finding there was not enough evidence to support a second-degree murder charge, opted instead to charge him with:
1 Count Second-Degree Manslaughter (felony)
3 Counts of Second-Degree Assault (felonies)
1 Count of Fourth-Degree Misdemeanor Criminal Possession of a Weapon.
Also, he will no longer be charged as an adult. According to state law, his age and the reduction in charges require that he be tried in Family Court. He was arraigned on Wednesday Jan. 20.
A trial date of Feb 3 at 1:30 pm has been set. Family Court judge Andrew Bivona will preside. Orange county attorney David Darwin said he would appoint a senior assistant in the Family Law division to prosecute the case. There has been no word on who the defense lawyer will be.
According to the Times Herald Record, supporters of Levi King Flores attacked the 13-year-oldwhile he was in detention at a youth facility in Westchester County. He has since been moved to another facility further away in Western New York. Although there has been no outbreak of violence, the police have been closely monitoring the situation on the streets of Newburgh and have placed extra patrols near the schools.
Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, 40, is a member of the royal family in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He is the brother of Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed. He was caught on tape torturing a man, an Afghan grain trader named Mohammed Shapoor, in 2004, in the most inhumane fashion. The graphic video below, broadcast by ABC News in April 2009, shows him:
Stuffing the man's face with sand
Firing a machine gun close to his body
Hitting him with a whip and an electric cattle prod
Cutting his bare buttocks by striking him with a nail embedded in a stick
Pouring salt into the man's wounds and
Driving over him again and again with his vehicle.
Not only was Sheikh Issa aware of being videotaped, he was the one that ordered the tape be made so that he could view it later at his leisure. At times he actually directs the cameraman to focus in on some of his particularly sadistic acts. The tape was sneaked out of the country by an ex-business partner, Bassam Nabulsi, who was also jailed and tortured in prison before being released. It was Bassam's brother, Ghassan Nabulsi, who was the cameraman.
Please note this video is explicitly brutal
After the tape was widely shown by the media Sheikh Issa was arrested and ordered to stand trial. He was charged at an opening hearing last October (2009) with endangering life, causing bodily harm and rape.
In his defense the sheikh claimed that he "was under the influence of drugs [medicine] that left him unaware of his actions."
Sheikh Issa, who had been in custody for eight months, attended the hearing. He wore a traditional white robe and head scarf and was not handcuffed or restrained. On hearing the verdict, he hugged his defense lawyer, Habib al-Mullah, and left the courtroom without speaking to reporters.
However five co-defendants, the two Nabulsi brothers and three farm workers were all found guilty. Ghassan and Bassam Nabulsi, were sentenced to five years in jail each, in absentia, for administering drugs to Sheikh Issa, endangering the life of Mohammed Shapoor and filming without his permission. The farm workers were sentenced to between one and three years in jail, also in absentia, for drugging the sheikh.
Habib al-Mullah, Sheikh Issa's lawyer, told the court, in the oasis city of Al Ain, that one of the sheikh’s co-defendants was responsible for Sheikh Issa’s medications and had drugged him, then videotaped the incident and tried to blackmail him. He also told the court that the sheikh had been drugged against his will during the incident and had no recollection of what had happened.
“We submitted medical reports showing that the drugs that the two co-defendants administered to him left him unaware of his actions,” the lawyer said.
The defense did not just center on the medication, he said, but claimed that the videotape and other incidents from that night were all part of a conspiracy aimed at blackmailing the sheikh.
"No one can prove that this videotape has not been tampered with," al-Mullah said. The only person who can confirm the incidents happened as seen on the tape is the victim, and he has not confirmed that, he added. "We deny the incident as it was shown on that videotape."
Habib al-Mullah was taken to task in the following CNN interview.
Judge Mubarak al-Awad, presiding over a three-judge panel, further ordered the two brothers to pay an interim compensation of about $2,500 to the victim, who can file a new lawsuit to claim full compensation.
The verdict, however, is not final as it will have to be reviewed by a higher court if the public prosecution decides to challenge the ruling.
Sher Mohammed, from the small village of Zafarkey, outside of Lahore, Pakistan, wanted to marry his 22-year-old cousin Fazeelat Bibi. So, as is the tradition in Pakistan, along with his brother Amanat and other family members, he went to her parents to ask for her hand in marriage. The parents of Fazeelat refused.
"My eldest sister was already married into their family and she was not happy and was facing a lot of problems because of their family. My parents also thought they were bad people," explained Fazeelat.
According to Fazeelat, after being turned down Sher and his family threatened her saying they would destroy her face, presumably so that no one else would be interested in her. About one month later, that is exactly what they did.
It was about 6:30 am one morning when Fazeelat was on her way home from work at the brick kiln with her brother, Sabir Ali, and elderly father. Five people jumped them. They held her brother and father at gunpoint warning that they would be killed if they tried to interfere.
While her brother and father watched in horror, they viciously beat Fazeelat and strangled her with a rope. Not content with the beating, Sher - the man who wanted to be her husband - approached her with a knife and proceeded to cut off her nose and slashed her ear. That was when Fazeelat lost consciousness. Later she awoke in the hospital:
"When I came to my senses at the hospital, I was still crying out, begging them to stop, saying the same things I was saying at the time of the attack. All I could see was the attackers in front of my eyes." she said.
After all she had been through, Fazeelat wanted her mother. She cried for her only to be told of what had happened. When Fazeelat's mother saw how Sher had disfigured her daughter, she went into shock and collapsed. She never recovered. Fazeelat Bibi's mother was dead.
Sher and his brother Amanat, were caught and tried by a court in Lahore. They were found guilty. In addition to the 70-year sentence, and $15,500 (Rs 1,300,000) fine, the court also decided to apply the rarely used Islamic law of Qisas. Islamic laws were introduced in Pakistan during the military regime of General Ziaul Haq in the 1980s.
This particular law also known as - An eye for an eye - requires that the perpetrators suffer the same treatment they inflicted upon their victim. Accordingly, the Pakistani court has ordered that the two men, Sher and Amanat Mohammad, have their ears and noses cut off, as punishment for doing the same to Fazeelat Bibi.
;)
Friday, January 22, 2010 at 1:59AM 
