World Scene

SPAIN

Court clears way for trial of judge

MADRID | Spain’s Supreme Court has removed the last potential obstacle to putting on trial the crusading judge who indicted Augusto Pinochet and Osama bin Laden.

Judge Baltasar Garzon, who became world famous with cross-border justice cases, faces charges of knowingly overstepping his jurisdiction by starting a probe of Spanish Civil War atrocities that were covered by an amnesty.

The Supreme Court judge who indicted him last month, Luciano Varela, issued a ruling Wednesday that rejected an appeal by prosecutors on procedural grounds.

The prosecutors actually oppose trying Judge Garzon. His indictment stems from a complaint that were filed by two civil groups and accepted by Judge Varela.

An official with a judicial oversight board said Judge Garzon’s trial might start in two to three months, or perhaps as late as September.

AFGHANISTAN

Taliban claims killing Afghan prison official

KABUL | Three NATO service members and three Afghan policemen were killed in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, officials said, and the Taliban claimed responsibility for assassinating a senior prison official.

A suicide bomber attacked an Afghan police vehicle in the Dihrawud district of Uruzgan province, killing three policemen, said Gulab Khan, the criminal investigation director in the province.

Among the three coalition service members killed was Sgt. Maj. Valerica Leu, who died of injuries sustained in a morning mine explosion, according to Romanian defense officials. Romania has about 1,120 troops in Afghanistan — mostly in the restive south. Romania has lost 13 service members in the country.

A U.S. service member died after a small-arms attack also in the south, said Col. Wayne Shanks, a U.S. military spokesman. He would not provide more details before notifying the service member’s family.

NATO reported a third coalition soldier was killed in the south. Col. Shanks said that service member was also American.

Eighteen NATO service members have died in Afghanistan this month.

VENEZUELA

Authorities arrest 19 Colombians

CARACAS | Venezuela has arrested 19 Colombians accused of carrying illegal arms and cutting trees, in the latest of a series of such incidents stoking tensions between the Andean neighbors, state media said Wednesday.

Colombia warned its citizens last month against visiting Venezuela after about 20 Colombians were arrested and accused of spying on President Hugo Chavez’s government.

Mirroring a political division across Latin America, Mr. Chavez’s socialist administration has been squabbling for years with U.S. ally and right-wing Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Bilateral trade has ground to a virtual halt, and violent incidents have increased along their lengthy border, where rebel groups and smuggling gangs operate.

RUSSIA

President’s aide killed in North Caucasus

MOSCOW | Masked men severely beat and fatally shot a presidential aide in Russia’s Karachay-Cherkessk republic on Wednesday, the latest attack to underscore Moscow’s tenuous control over its mainly Muslim North Caucasus region.

Fral Shebzukhov was beaten by three men with what looked like baseball bats in the local capital, Cherkessk, Russian news agencies reported, citing security sources. He was then shot.

“I am personally convinced that this murder is politically motivated,” the region’s president, Boris Ebzeyev, said in a statement.

The tiny Karachay-Cherkessk region until now has been an island of stability in volatile southern Russia. Suicide bombings and other attacks on troops, police and officials have become an almost daily reality in nearby Dagestan and Ingushetia, fueling fears of a spillover of violence from Chechnya, where Moscow has fought two wars against separatists since the 1990s.

ITALY

Cocaine ring disrupted in nunnery

ROME | Italian police smashed a drug trafficking ring secretly using a nun’s convent outside Milan and seized 88 pounds of cocaine, the country’s paramilitary police said Wednesday.

The nuns at the convent in Piacenza “had no idea it was going on,” Carabinieri Col. Edoardo Cappellano told Agence France-Presse.

“A Colombian security guard let in accomplices under the false pretext of pilgrimages or spiritual retreats,” Col. Cappellano said. “Instead of prayer books, he let cocaine through.”

Thirty-three arrests were made, including a dozen Colombians, and another 80 people are under investigation.

Italian police believe the Calabrian mafia and at least two Colombian drug cartels to be behind the operation, and said the arrests dealt “a major setback to cocaine trafficking” in northern Italy.

EGYPT

Police detain passenger with guns in luggage

CAIRO | Police detained an American-Egyptian man who arrived in Cairo on a flight from New York with firearms in his luggage, airport officials said Wednesday.

The officials said the man was taken into custody as he tried to pass through customs with a metal box containing two 9 mm handguns, 250 bullets, several swords, daggers and knives.

The box had been checked and the contents were discovered during a routine inspection upon arrival on an Egypt Air flight from New York’s JFK International Airport in Cairo, according to the officials. They said customs inspectors were then alerted and the man was detained.

He was only identified as a botany teacher.

• From wire dispatches and staff reports