Armoured & Luxury
Chauffeur Driven Cars

Canadian police are questioning the suspected driver of a rented van that ploughed into pedestrians in northern Toronto on Monday, killing 10 and injuring 15.

Alek Minassian, 25, was not previously known to authorities, police said. The incident appeared to be deliberate but the motive was not clear, officials added.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the “tragic and senseless attack” had brought him “great sadness”.

Meanwhile, an officer has been praised for not opening fire during a tense standoff with the suspect, who claimed to be armed.

Video broadcast on CBC News showed a man pointing what appeared to be a gun at officers and shouting “kill me”.

The officer tells the man to “get down” and when the suspect says he has a gun, the officer repeats: “I don’t care. Get down.” The suspect was then arrested without shots being fired.

Read More

Armenian soldiers have joined protests against the prime minister in the country’s capital Yerevan.

There have been days of protests against Serzh Sargsyan, who was recently appointed PM after being president for 10 years.

The defence ministry warned soldiers who participated that they would be harshly punished.

Monday’s rallies followed the arrest of protest leader Nikol Pashinyan on Sunday. He has now been released. This is the 11th day of demonstrations against Mr Sargsyan, who held talks with Mr Pashinyan – an opposition MP – on Sunday before he was detained.

Live footage from the protests in Yerevan has shown unarmed soldiers mixing with the demonstrators and waving the Armenian flag.

Read More

Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving suspect from the 2015 Paris attacks, has been jailed for 20 years in Belgium over a gunfight that led to his arrest.

Abdeslam, 28, and co-defendant Sofien Ayari were both convicted of terror-related charges of attempted murder.

Ayari, 24, was also given a 20-year sentence. Both fired on officers who raided a flat in Brussels in 2016.

Abdeslam is being held in a jail in France and is due to face trial there over the Paris attacks themselves. He had refused to answer questions from the judge in the trial in Brussels, and eventually refused to attend the hearings.

Neither he nor Ayari, a 24-year-old Tunisian national, was in court as the verdict was read out on Monday. Both received the maximum 20-year term requested by prosecutors. The judge, Marie France Keutgen, said that “there can be no doubt” about the two men’s involvement with “radicalism”. She added: “Their intention is clear from the nature of the weapons they used, the number of bullets they fired and the nature of the police officers’ wounds. Only the officers’ professional response prevented it being worse.”

On 15 March 2016, Belgian police hunting Abdeslam carried out a raid in the Forest area of Brussels.

They targeted a flat believing that the suspect – who by then had been on the run for four months – had been there. When they moved in they exchanged fire with the three occupants. One of the three was killed and three officers were wounded.

Read More

A man has been jailed for owning and sharing terrorist handbooks.

Muslim convert Adam Wyatt, 48, admitted disseminating a terrorist publication that said “Britain must atone for its sins in Palestine” and posting on social media that jihad was an obligation for all Muslims.

Wyatt, of Bridgewater Street, Salford, was sentenced to three years and nine months at Manchester Crown Court.

A judge ruled his actions were intentional rather than reckless.

Material in his possession including a book about poisons and other deadly substances that could be used in terrorist attacks.

Det Insp Mike Abbott said Wyatt “used social media to air his abhorrent views and encourage terrorist attacks in Britain and across the world” but can “no longer poison minds and encourage people to kill for his cause”.

“Although Wyatt never pursued an attack himself, he was encouraging others and sharing information that could have led to the deaths of others,” he said.

CIA director Mike Pompeo travelled to Pyongyang for a secret meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, US media report.

The meeting to prepare for direct talks between US President Donald Trump and Mr Kim took place on about 1 April, unnamed officials said.

Mr Trump had earlier alluded to high-level direct talks with Pyongyang. But this unexpected and clandestine meeting would mark the highest level US contact with North Korea since 2000.

“We have had direct talks at… extremely high levels,” Mr Trump said from Florida, where he is hosting Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The president added that he gave his “blessing” for talks between the South and North to discuss a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-1953 Korean War.

Read More