Afghan cop sentenced for killing woman

Afghan cop sentenced for killing woman

KABUL

Afghanistan’s highest court has ruled that the police officer convicted of murdering Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus and wounding AP correspondent Kathy Gannon almost one year ago should serve 20 years in prison, according to documents sent to the country’s attorney general on Saturday.

The final sentence for former Afghan police unit commander Naqibullah was reduced from the death penalty recommended by a primary court last year. Twenty years in prison is the maximum jail sentence in Afghanistan, said Zahid Safi, a lawyer for The Associated Press who had been briefed on the decision by the Supreme Court.

Naqibullah, who uses only one name, opened fire on Niedringhaus and Gannon without warning on April 4 as the two were covering the first round of the country’s presidential election outside the city of Khost in southeastern Afghanistan.

7 people shot at Fla. party; 1 man arrested

PANAMA CITY BEACH, FLA.

Seven people were injured, some critically, during an early-morning spray of gunfire Saturday at a spring break party on the Florida Panhandle, police said. An Alabama man was quickly apprehended and charged with attempted murder.

Multiple 911 calls flooded in just before 1 a.m., reporting the shootings at the house party in Panama City Beach, and deputies found a sprawling crime scene with victims inside the home, outside and across the street from it, and in the street’s median, the Bay County Sheriff’s Office said.

Officers set up a perimeter and found a suspect matching witnesses’ description. David Jamichael Daniels, 22, of Mobile, Ala., was charged with seven counts of attempted murder and jailed awaiting a first court appearance.

Yemen’s president: Rebels are ‘puppets’

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt

Yemen’s embattled president Saturday called Shiite rebels who forced him to flee the country “puppets of Iran,” directly blaming the Islamic Republic for the chaos there and demanding airstrikes against rebel positions continue until they surrender.

Egypt’s president supported the creation a regional Arab military force and a Gulf diplomat warned that Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen could go on for months, raising the specter of a regional conflict pitting Sunni Arab nations against Shiite power Iran.

The comments by Arab leaders including Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled his country only days earlier, came at an Arab summit largely focusing on the chaos there caused by the advance of the rebels, known as Houthis.

Official: 24 die in siege at Somali hotel

MOGADISHU, Somalia

Blood-spattered utensils, bullet-pocked walls and overturned chairs mark the reception area of a prominent hotel in the Somali capital after an attack by Islamic extremists that killed at least 24, including six attackers.

Somali special forces stood over three bloodied bodies of the purported attackers after officials declared they have full control of the Maka Al-Mukarramah Hotel on Saturday, more than 12 hours after gunmen, believed to be six in number, from the Islamic rebel group al-Shabab stormed the hotel.

Security agents have gone through the whole building, said senior police officer Capt. Mohamed Hussein. “The operation has ended. We have taken full control of the hotel,” Hussein said.

At least 28 were wounded, according to Hussein Ali, an official of Mogadishu’s ambulance service.

Associated Press