INDIA
Long-sought outlaw killed in shootout
MADRAS — India’s most-wanted outlaw, accused of murdering police officers, slaughtering elephants and kidnapping a movie star, was killed yesterday in a jungle shootout with police after more than three decades on the run, authorities said.
Koose Muniswamy Veerappan, 60, was killed in a gunbattle with a special police paramilitary task force just before midnight, police in the southern state of Tamil Nadu said.
Veerappan had a $410,000 bounty on his head. With his trademark handlebar mustache, lanky frame and camouflage clothes, the flamboyant outlaw had achieved a level of celebrity comparable to the stars of India’s Bollywood movie industry.
SPAIN
Police sweep nets 7 terror suspects
MADRID — Police arrested seven suspected Islamic militants in raids across Spain yesterday to foil a planned bomb attack on the country’s highest court, judicial sources said.
The arrests, seven months after train bombs by Muslim terrorists killed 191 persons in Madrid, were part of a High Court judge’s investigation into a violent Islamist network operating in Spain.
The seven suspects, including four Algerians and one Moroccan, were arrested in the southern region of Andalusia, the Mediterranean city of Valencia, and Madrid, according to an Interior Ministry statement.
They were residing in Spain and most of them had served time in prison. They were in contact with other individuals in Europe, the United States and Australia, the statement said.
PERU
Shining Path leader to face retrial
LIMA — Peru will begin on Nov. 5 a civilian retrial of Abimael Guzman, head of the Maoist-inspired Shining Path rebel group that waged a brutal insurgency in the 1980s and 1990s, officials said yesterday.
Guzman was convicted of treason by a hooded judge in a military court and sentenced to life in prison under harsh anti-terror laws enacted by former President Alberto Fujimori.
His retrial was ordered after the anti-terror laws were overturned following the 2000 collapse of Mr. Fujimori’s government.
IRAN
End to enrichment of uranium ruled out
TEHRAN — Iran said yesterday it was willing to negotiate with European nations the length of its uranium enrichment suspension, but will never renounce its right to carry out the process, which can be used to make atom bombs.
“If [the European Union[R]trio of Britain, France and Germany] want to negotiate about tactics, such as how long Iran will suspend uranium enrichment for, then these are negotiable,” said Hassan Rohani, secretary-general of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and the country’s chief negotiator on the nuclear issue.
“But if the issue is to stop Iran from pursuing its right, our representatives are not even allowed to have talks about these issues with anyone,” he told state television.
The three EU powers are expected to present a proposal to Iran this week aimed at convincing the Islamic state to give up its pursuit of uranium enrichment.
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