Armoured & Luxury
Chauffeur Driven Cars

The case of Syrian runaway Shamima Begum, who is fighting to return to the UK, will go to the Supreme Court.

The Court of Appeal decided that the case raised a point of law of public importance that only the Supreme Court can resolve.
Earlier this month, three Court of Appeal judges ruled Ms Begum should be allowed back to London to fight for the return of her citizenship. The government said that decision was deeply flawed.

Ms Begum, now 20, was one of three schoolgirls who left London to join the Islamic State group in Syria in 2015. After she was found in a refugee camp in 2019, her British citizenship was revoked by former Home Secretary Sajid Javid on security grounds.

Separately, the court has revealed that the Sun newspaper will be referred to the Attorney General after it obtained a copy of the Court of Appeal’s draft judgement – or its “essential contents” – in advance of it being handed down on 16 July.

Read More

The killers of a police officer who was dragged to his death behind their getaway car have been jailed.

PC Andrew Harper died when he suffered catastrophic injuries as his ankles got caught in a strap attached to the car. Driver Henry Long was jailed for 16 years for his manslaughter, in Berkshire last August.

PC Harper’s widow Lissie said she was in “a lost and endless world” after her husband was killed in the line of duty, a month after their wedding day.

Long’s accomplices Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole received 13 years for the same offence of manslaughter. In a victim impact statement she read to the court, Mrs Harper said she had “screamed and cried and broken down in fractured defeat” in the wake of her husband’s death.

Read More

Iran has launched missiles at a mock-up of a US aircraft carrier in the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

The drill included fire so heavy that the US military temporarily put two regional bases on alert.

The US navy condemned the “irresponsible and reckless behaviour by Iran”, labelling it an attempt “to intimidate and coerce”.

The exercise comes at a time of increased tension between Tehran and Washington in the Gulf waters. The drills – named Prophet Mohammed 14th – were broadcast on state television. The mock-up – which resembles a carrier the US routinely sails into the Gulf – is shown with dummy fighter jets on either side of its landing strip. Missiles are then launched from a variety of angles, including some aimed at the carrier.

Read More

A British-Australian woman serving a 10-year sentence in Iran for espionage has been transferred to a notorious prison in the desert, according to Iranian human rights activists.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a lecturer at Melbourne University, has been in jail since September 2018. She strongly denies all the charges against her.
She spent almost two years sleeping on the floor in a cell in the capital Tehran, according to a friend. She has been in solitary confinement and on several hunger strikes, and she is said to have been beaten for trying to comfort new prisoners by passing notes and writing to them on prison walls.

Now she has reportedly been moved to the notorious Qarchak prison. The jail is sometimes used as punishment for Iranian political prisoners. Conditions have been described by former inmates as abysmal.

Read More

Chinese students in Sydney are being targeted in a kidnapping scam forcing them to pay massive ransoms to fraudsters, Australian police say.

In many cases, blackmailed students were forced to stage their own kidnapping and send video proof to relatives in China to obtain funds.

Eight “virtual kidnappings” have been reported this year, including one where a A$2m (£1.1m;$1.43m) ransom was paid. Victims had believed they or their loved ones were in danger, police said.

New South Wales (NSW) Police said the scheme had “really increased in frequency throughout 2020” and was operating on an “industrial scale”. They have urged students to immediately report any threatening calls they receive.

Authorities said the “call centre-type” scam was being operated offshore, which made it difficult to track. It typically involves a fraudster pretending to be from the Chinese embassy or another authority, ringing victims and informing them that they have been implicated in a crime in China or are facing some other threat.

Read More