A militant on trial in Turkey presided over an informal court that sentenced British engineer Kenneth Bigley to death by beheading, and knows where his decapitated body is, the militant's lawyer said on Thursday.
Lawyer Osman Karahan said Bigley's death sentence was based on Islamic law.
"According to Shariah, according to Islamic law, they sentenced him to death," Karahan said.
"He was guilty of helping non-believers in invading Muslim lands and providing all kinds of support, technical logistical support. Isn't that true?" he said.
Karahan said his client, Loa'i Mohammed Haj Bakr al-Saqa, was publicly declaring his role as head of the informal court now because he wanted Bigley's family "not to be too sad, because it was the decision of the court. He was executed according to the decision of the court and Islamic law."
Karahan said his client knew where Bigley's body was and said it would be announced at a press conference today. He did not say where the press conference would be held, or at what time.
Karahan is a devout Muslim who represents several al-Qaeda suspects and has been known to recite lengthy passages from the Koran in court.
He himself has been charged with aiding and abetting a terrorist organization for allegedly giving money to one of his clients and a judge ordered him off al-Saqa's case for a year.
Asked whether al-Saqa killed Bigley himself, Karahan said it didn't matter.
"It doesn't matter. He was the head of the court. `It's my responsibility,'" he says.
Al-Saqa, a Turkish-speaking Syrian, is known for wild outbursts and for his unrepentant advocacy of violence in what he calls a holy war against non-Muslims.
He is standing trial in Turkey for his alleged role in the 2003 bombings of two synagogues, a British bank and the British Consulate-General in Istanbul that killed 58 people. Turkish prosecutors have called al-Saqa a "high-level al-Qaeda official."
At a court session in late March, al-Saqa refused to recognize the court's authority and was escorted from the courtroom screaming that he had fought a jihad and killed Americans.
Al-Saqa was captured in August after an accidental explosion led police to his house on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, from where he is alleged to have been plotting to blow up cruise ships carrying Israelis.
He is also suspected of being involved in the killing of a Turkish truck driver, and is accused of smuggling explosives into Turkey.
Bigley was beheaded in 2004 while working as an engineer in Iraq.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS