Magic Statistics

A UK Appeals Court has ruled that the government cannot restrict the freedom of nine Afghan refugees who entered the country by hijacking a plane six years ago.  The nine are now free to travel wherever they wish in the UK, work, and claim social assistance.

In 2000, the men hijacked an internal flight in order to flee the Taliban-ruled country and forced it to fly to the UK.  The hijackers held more than 150 passengers hostage in the aircraft for five days at Stansted Airport.  In 2001 all were convicted on hijacking and related charges, but in 2003 their convictions were overturned when a higher court found they had been acting under duress.  Their application for asylum was refused, but in 2004 a ruling under the European Convention on Human Rights said they could not be sent back to Afghanistan because their lives would be in danger.

Last year they were allowed “temporary admission” status, which would prevent them from working and require them to live where told and check in with the police.  Those restrictions were challenged in court and ruled invalid earlier this year.  Today’s Appeals Court decision affirms that ruling.

As each successive attempt to deport or restrict the freedom of the Afghan hijackers has been overruled, the adverse judicial decisions have been severely criticised by the government of the day.  In today’s ruling, the judges unloaded a broadside at government critics.

Tony Blair had described the judge’s ruling as an "abuse of common sense", but Lord Justice Brooke could not have disagreed more strongly when he described it as "impeccable".

In a clear display of judicial anger at the barrage of criticism, today’s ruling said: "The history of this case through the criminal courts, the immigration appellate authority and back into the civil courts has attracted a degree of opprobrium for carrying out judicial functions.

"Judges and adjudicators have to apply the law as they find it, and not as they might wish it to be."

Previously, a High Court judge has found that the handling of the hijackers’ case by Home Office ministers amounted to "an abuse of power by a public authority at the highest level". Robert Jay, QC, for the Home Secretary, did not challenge that finding at the appeal hearing.

The judges pointed out that the Home Office has had six years in which to change the law so as to allow for deportation, but failed to do so.

Home Secretary John Reid vows to amend the law in the next session of parliament retroactively so that the hijackers can yet be deported.

On 2 June, 17 Canadian Muslims were arrested in the Toronto area and charged with conspiring to commit terrorist acts.  Yesterday, over two months later, another man was arrested and charged in connection with the same plot.

Ibrahim Alkhalel Mohammed Aboud, 19, was arrested at his family's home in Mississauga yesterday, the RCMP said last night.

Police say Mr. Aboud, who is a Canadian citizen, surrendered peacefully. He faces a single charge of participating in terrorist training, a charge that most of the suspects face.
. . .
Mr. Aboud is not facing the more serious charges of recruiting terrorists or gun-smuggling, charges some of the accused ringleaders face.

Police report that other suspects are still under active investigation.

Previous related posts:

• Behind every failed jihadist stands a nagging wife
• Bill Blindspot, Toronto police chief
• Homegrown terrorist cells busted in Toronto area

Several individuals arrested in England are also believed connected to the Canadian plot.  Check these previous related posts for more details.

• UK teenager charged with plotting terrorism
• Once again, Canadian newspapers elaborate UK arrests
• Arrested UK man linked to alleged Canadian terrorists
• Men held in UK linked to Canadian terror arrests

There may be honour among thieves, as an old saying has it, but charity is apparently not a good idea if they don’t want to get caught.  The leader of a traveling band of burglars was busted when a teenage accomplice tried to give away £20,000.

Gerrard O’Leary was sentenced to 7 years for one of the most profitable heists in London’s history.  Members of his family were also jailed.

In January this year, O’Leary, 23, broke into a mansion on one of Britain’s most exclusive streets — The Bishops Avenue in Hampstead, northwest London — with a 15-year-old boy and a third person who has not been caught.

They used a spade to force open the door and finding the owners, Uri and Natalia Chliaifchtein, away, they ransacked the property. Their haul included a safe that contained £1.7 million of cash and jewellery. After dragging the safe outside, the gang loaded it into a van and drove off in a Mercedes McLaren car worth £350,000 and a £50,000 Lexus. A Ferrari and another Mercedes were left behind because there was no one to drive them away.

The safe was hauled to the home of O’Leary’s uncle who took a day to break into it.  They also brought £100,000 in cash and goods to O’Leary’s sister who stashed the booty around her house.  The keys to the stolen cars were later found in her garden.

But it was an act of spontaneous generosity by O’Leary’s teenage assistant that did them in.

Closed-circuit television footage showed the 15-year-old boy trying to change £20,000 in cash. When he was told he would not be able to, he handed the money to a security guard and told him to give it to charity.

Gerrard O’Leary, who has 21 previous convictions on his record, claims he sold £900,000 in stolen jewellery to “Fat Ron” for £35.

The gang is believed to have committed thousands of burglaries in London, but Mr O’Leary only admitted to three others.

Cuban followers of the voodoo-like religion Santeria have been sacrificing animals by the thousands attempting to influence Fidel Castro’s physical condition and even to find how he’s doing right now.  On Monday, he handed power over to his brother Raul as he underwent surgery and hasn’t been seen in public since.  Inquiring minds want to know.

[T]he illness of Cuban leader Fidel Castro has moved adherents of Santeria to appeal for divine help in hastening either Castro's demise or his recovery, depending on which side of the Florida Straits they live.

Santeria is the voodooish Afro-Cuban religion that uses animal sacrifice to communicate with the gods, which makes these tough times for favourite sacrificial creatures such as chickens, goats and, in this case, doves.

As many as 3 million people in Cuba and 60,000 people in Florida are believed to be involved in Santeria, according to religious experts.

One priest of Yoruba (the African name for Santeria) in Little Havana, Miami, got some good news and some bad news after sacrificing two black hens and a rooster.

Castro is already dead; he died on Monday.

"We were astonished by such good news. It made us happy because politically we are against Fidel," said Zamora, who left Cuba in 1980 and lives in the Miami neighborhood known as Little Havana.

The news from the gods was not all good. It turns out that Castro's demise will be followed by three months of intense fighting before peace is restored, he said.

At the same time, Santeria practitioners in Cuba are asking their gods to make Fidel well again.

At least, they’ll have plenty to eat while awaiting official confirmation of Fidel’s earthly status.

Previous related post: Crime pays

About a month ago, Charlotte Allen wrote an op-ed column in the Los Angeles Times, “Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins”, arguing that rampant liberal theology has decimated and fragmented The Episcopal Church.  Indifference, if not actual antagonism, to core Christian doctrines has resulted in precipitous loss of members and driven the denomination to the brink of disintegration.

The Rt Rev J Jon Bruno, Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Los Angeles, didn’t like Ms Allen’s column one bit.  Instead of writing a letter to the editor, however, Bp Bruno felt the need to purchase a freakin’ full-page ad in the LA Times so he could vent his spleen offer his considered rebuttal.  (I wonder who paid for the ad.)  His message, entitled “Open Hearted, Open Minded Christianity” and co-authored by Rev Bryan Jones of St Thomas of Canterbury Episcopal Church in Long Beach, is posted here.

Although The Episcopal Church has a few small problems, he says, on the whole, we’re doin’ just fine.  The picture Charlotte Allen paints is “simplistic and inaccurate”.  It’s true that the Episcopal Church has lost membership since the 1960s, but so have lots of other denominations, so it’s nothing to worry about.  Ms Allen is simply out to lunch.

Along the way, Bp Bruno unwittingly hoists his own petard:

We democratically elect our bishops, priests, and lay leaders at all levels of the church. We respect each person's right to conscience. We know our understanding is limited and often mistaken but we strive together to hear God's voice in Scripture, in the tradition of the Church and in our God-given capacities to think and feel, to reflect and to learn.

Today posting at First Things: On the Square, Charlotte Allen calls Bp Bruno on his sanctimonious, self-serving, and disingenuous baloney.

[A]t the very same time that Bishop Bruno was bloviating in his L.A. Times ad about “democratically” elected bishops and general open-mindedness and love all around, he was working behind the scenes with three of his fellow open-minded bishops to get rid of—and summarily at that, without a trial—the bishop of San Joaquin, California, John-David Schofield, one of the seven who opted for alternate oversight from [Episcopal Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine] Jefferts Schori’s.

Schofield’s diocese, headquartered in Fresno and experiencing a higher growth rate (as even Bruno admits) than Bruno’s own Los Angeles diocese, is one of the most conservative in the nation, and it has not taken kindly to the confirmation of Robinson in 2003. Indeed, starting in 2004, Schofield, who has been bishop since 1988, has declined to turn over any diocesan funds to the national church—and the diocese has also amended its constitution so as to make it harder for the national church to seize its property in the event of a secession. Delegates to a diocesan convention in 2005 affirmed a statement that San Joaquin’s constitution takes precedence over national church policies, and in March the diocese changed its rules so that the national church no longer has to approve its choice of bishop. I’d call that democracy.
. . .
[T]he bishop of California, William T. Swing, working in concert with Bruno and the bishops of San Diego and northern California, has come up with a novel theory designed to oust Schofield fast: The four bishops are arguing that Schofield intends to “abandon the communion of this Church [that is, the Episcopal Church USA].” And hell, Swing told the Living Church, it’s “unfathomable” that anyone would even try to retain church property after leaving the church.

A claim of abandonment triggers a far quicker process than normal disciplinary procedures in the Episcopal Church, which require a full ecclesiastical trial. Furthermore, as the Living Church pointed out, “there is no presumption of innocence” in an abandonment process. All it requires is a majority vote by a review panel, followed by a unanimous decision by the three Episcopal bishops with the longest tenure, followed by a decision at the next House of Bishops meeting. If all goes well for Swing, Bruno, and the others, Schofield could be out of his diocese before Jefferts Schori is invested on November 4.

So much for the vaunted democracy and open-mindedness of the Episcopal Church USA. I hope that Schofield—along with his flock, which shows no sign of disaffection—sues someone’s miter off if the national church tries to take his diocese away from him.

The Episcopal Church: more concerned with property than people.

Brad Drell has posted an online petition in support of Bp Schofield that has now gathered over 650 signatures.  Check it out.

Previous related post: Move to depose orthodox Episcopal bishop