Israeli arrested in Thailand: An Israeli man has been arrested on suspicion of murder in Thailand after the dismem-bered body of a compatriot — a former policeman who had been missing — was discovered in his home, police said Sunday.

Investigators said they acted on a request from the Israeli embassy and a rel-ative to search for the missing man last week.

Police Major General Suthin Suppuang, acting commander of the Crime Suppression Division, said the trail led Saturday to an Israeli man’s house in Nonthaburi, a northern satellite city of the capital Bangkok.

The arrested man’s son was also present in the flat, Suthin said, adding he was cur-rently being treated as a witness rather than an accomplice.

Police Colonel Krissana Pattanacharoen, Thailand’s deputy national police spokes-man, identified the victim as 62-year-old Eliyahu Cohen and the arrested man as Simon Beton, 52.

He told AFP a relative first reported Beton missing on Wednesday and that Thailand’s police chief Chaktip Chaijinda has ordered his officers to “meticulously conduct an investigation into this case”.

The grim case has similarities to another murder investigation involving foreigners that was launched in September after a mummified, dismembered body was found in a freezer in a Bangkok flat. (AFP)

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4 children hurt in attack: Indonesian authorities on Sunday arrested a suspected militant who threw an explosive device at a church in the eastern island of Borneo and injured four children.

Police in East Kalimantan province said the attacker had been imprisoned on terror-ism charges in the past.

“A suspected low-impact bomb was thrown... Four children were injured and four motorcycles were damaged,” East Kalimantan police spokesman Fajar Setiawan said, adding police were looking into links with radical networks.

The attack took place at 10am in the parking lot of Oikumene church in the town of Samarinda. (RTRS)

INTERNATIONALARAB TIMES, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2016

15

This picture taken on Oct 15, 2016 shows the Lembah Anai waterfall in Tanah Datar, West Sumatra. West Sumatra, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) and Aceh have been officially listed as halal tourist destinations by Indonesia’s Tourism Ministry in a bid to increase the number of Muslim travellers from Asian and Middle Eastern countries visiting the three provinces. (AFP)

Suthin Chaktip

Asia

In this Sept 7 photo, Harra Kazuo, live-in partner of alleged drug pusher Jaypee Bertes, covers her face to protect her identity during an interview at the Commission on Human Rights office in Quezon City, north of Manila,

Philippines. (AP)

‘What is happening is not right’

Widow suffers consequences of speaking outMANILA, Philippines, Nov 13, (AP): When police shot to death Harra Kazuo’s common-law husband and his father following a drug raid in the Philippines, she sought one thing: jus-tice.

In a television interview shortly after their deaths in July, the 26-year-old mother accused two officers of killing them in cold blood. She then recounted the allegations before a Philippine Senate committee investigating the country’s brutal drug war in testimony broadcast nationwide.

What Kazuo has gotten instead, though, is a life lesson in the conse-quences of speaking out. Today, she lives with her three children in hiding, sheltered by an extraordinary witness protection program run by the coun-try’s independent Commission on Human Rights, which has feared for her safety while it investigates the case.

That such a program exists is power-ful indictment of the lack of trust many here have in the country’s notoriously corrupt police, who are spearheading an anti-drug campaign that has left more than 4,000 people dead in just a few months. It also illustrates the fail-ures of a broken justice system few believe can hold anyone to account.

Kazuo said she is pushing the case because “what is happening is not right.”

Lose“I want them to feel how they treated

my husband,” she told The Associated Press. “I want them to feel what it’s like for a family to lose a loved one.”

Although both officers have been sus-pended and have attended preliminary hearings, city prosecutor Orlando Mariano said they remain free and nei-ther has been indicted. If prosecutors determine the evidence is too weak, both men could be end up being absolved.

Jose Luis Martin “Chito” Gascon, who directs the Manila-based rights commission, said no police have been charged criminally in court since the drug war began despite persistent reports of security forces summarily executing drug suspects. National police spokesman Dionardo Carlo, however, said police have been arrested and charged, but he could offer no details.

Either way, the killing of Kazuo’s family members “is the highest profile case we’ve had so far, and it’s not even

in court yet,” Gascon said. “So what do you think’s going to happen to the rest — the ones that got no attention and have already been forgotten?”

President Rodrigo Duterte unleashed his campaign to rid the country of nar-cotics immediately after taking office June 30. The effort has been praised by a population exasperated by corruption and crime, but it has been condemned by the United Nations, foreign govern-ments and activist groups because of its staggering death toll and apparent dis-regard for human life.

Kazuo acknowledges that her hus-band, Jaypee Bertes, was small-time methamphetamine dealer. But she insists he only pushed the drug because he could find no other work.

Just before midnight on July 6, police raided their tiny one-room apart-ment in a Manila slum. The officers could not find any drugs, but they hauled 28-year-old Bertes away any-way, along with his father, 49-year-old Renato. When Kazuo visited them a police station the next morning, both men were severely bruised. Hours later — after she left — they were shot dead at the end of a narrow corridor, each

three times.Police said the men were killed after

one of them attempted to grab a firearm belonging to the officers. But commis-sion officials, who conducted their own forensics investigation, said the detain-ees had been beaten so badly that they could not have done so. One of Jaypee’s arms, they said, had been broken.

It wasn’t the first time a drug suspect was fatally shot in police detention. Last week, a town mayor detained for illegal drugs and gun possession was killed by officers in a purported gun-battle in his jail cell in central Leyte province. Sen Panfilo Lacson, a former national police chief, called for an investigation and suspects the mayor, Rolando Espinosa Sr, was killed to prevent him from implicating other officials to illegal drugs.

Gascon said the officers in Kazuo’s case may have killed her husband to cover any links that could connect them to drug crimes. Kazuo said Jaypee had met the two officers she accused at least once before, when he bribed them to get out of a previous drug charge.

The families of most victims in the drug war have stayed silent for good

reason. Philippine media reported the story of one man who had doggedly pursued justice for months for his sis-ter, who had been killed by unidentified gunmen in Manila. The man, who was not under the commission’s protection, turned up dead in late October.

The death fits a pattern that has char-acterized Duterte’s “war:” those who speak out against it, or are perceived as doing so, often face consequences. They include journalists who’ve been attacked with hate mail and death threats by internet trolls, and foreign governments, rights groups and critics Duterte has lambasted personally.

After Sen Leila de Lima launched congressional probe into reports of extrajudicial killings and called Kazuo to testify in August, Duterte suggested she resign and hang herself.

De Lima was later kicked off the probe by Duterte’s legislative allies, a move Human Rights Watch slammed as “a craven attempt to derail account-ability.” Shortly afterward, she told journalists she feared for her own life. “Can I rely on the regular authorities in government? ... Can I rely on the (police) for my security?” she asked.

‘Absence of writ’

Duterte threatens boost in drugs warMANILA, Nov 13, (RTRS): Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has warned he may use his executive power to suspend a legal safeguard against arbitrary arrest and detention, and was willing to use drastic measures and even go to jail to make his war on drugs a success.

The former prosecutor, dubbed “the punisher” and elected on prom-ises of a fierce campaign to stop crime and illicit drugs, said there were so many narcotics suspects on his wanted list that building cases one-by-one took too much time and manpower.

He was therefore considering suspending a writ of habeas corpus, which requires the state to justify arrests and detentions.

“I am the president. Of course I

have the powers,” he said at the launch of a foundation late on Friday.

“I can be ordered by the Supreme Court to stop it, but there are things that they cannot, and maybe, I will not, stop.

“I can go to jail. File all the charg-es that you can think of. But this country, in my time, will not deterio-rate any further.”

In the absence of the writ, police would be able to detain suspects without warrant and hold them for three days without charge.

According to the constitution, the president may “in case of invasion or rebellion, when the public safety requires it”, suspend the writ for periods of up to 60 days. The same clause allows for martial law to be invoked, but Duterte said he would not do that.

The firebrand former city mayor has resolutely defended his drugs crackdown and chastised anyone who has voiced criticism or con-cern, among them the European Union, US President Barack Obama and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Duterte’s speech on Friday was not attended by media and his office issued a transcript of the remarks on Saturday.

Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said one of Duterte’s reasons for considering the move was to go after people in government who were linked to the drugs trade.

“The list of the persons of inter-est, who are in government, is just too much,” Andanar said in a text message.

Philippines

Myanmar

Villages torched

Eight dead in ‘clashes’between army, militantsYANGON, Nov 13, (Agencies): Eight people died and 36 were arrested in clashes between the Myanmar army and what the government believes are Rohingya Muslim militants in northern Rakhine State, state media said on Sunday, in the largest escalation of the month-old conflict yet.

Skirmishes took place throughout Saturday in vil-lages in the north of Rakhine, leaving one officer and one soldier dead. Six bodies of attackers were recov-ered in the aftermath, while 36 other people believed to be involved were arrested.

About 60 attackers armed with guns, knives and spears ambushed government troops on Saturday morning, the state-owned Global New Light of Myanmar said. The army returned fire, but at one point asked for army choppers to reinforce because its troops were outnumbered, the paper said.

Soldiers have poured into northern Rakhine, close to the border with Bangladesh, since Oct 9, after an insurgent group of Rohingyas that the government believes has links to Islamists overseas launched coor-dinated attacks on several border posts.

The military has blocked access to the area for journalists and aid workers. Residents and human rights advocates have accused security forces of sum-mary executions, rapes and setting fire to homes.

AccusationsThe government and the army have rejected the

accusations, saying they were conducting the “clear-ance operation” in the villages in accordance with the rule of law.

The troops at one point were shot at by about 500 men, state media said. Ye Naing, director of the Ministry of Information, contacted by Reuters on Sunday, said the insurgents were hiding among the villagers and not all of the 500 people were militants.

Hundreds of buildings in Rohingya villages in western Myanmar have been torched, according to new satellite images released on Sunday as fresh fighting flared in the strife-torn region.

Northern Rakhine, which is home to the Muslim Rohingya minority and borders Bangladesh, has been under military lockdown ever since surprise raids on border posts left nine police dead last month.

Soldiers have killed several dozen people and arrested scores in their hunt for the attackers, who the government says are radicalised Rohingya militants with links to overseas Islamists.

Fresh fighting flared on Saturday with two soldiers and six attackers killed, according to the military who said they brought in helicopter gunships to repel an ambush.

The crisis and reports of grave rights abuses being carried out in tandem with the security crackdown have piled international pressure on Myanmar’s new civilian government and raised questions about its ability to control its military.