Tag: Print Features

Inside Canada’s euthanasia system where some chose to die due to poor care

JUST eight years after euthanasia was legalised in Canada, some doctors there say the result is “horrendous” as more and more people are driven to it by a failing health-care system.

Assisted deaths have risen at an alarming rate, while the criteria to be given a lethal injection has been relaxed.

3

Alicia Duncan, left, with her late mother Donna, who was helped to take her own lifeCredit: Supplied

3

Pro-assisted dying supporters at WestminsterCredit: EPA

Now experts warn it would be disastrous to allow a system like Canada’s Medical Assistance In Death (Maid) in the UK, after the families of some of those who opted for it revealed they did so because they could not access medical help.

Professor Leonie Herx, a Canadian palliative medicine consultant based in Calgary, Alberta, described the outcome as “horrific from a medical perspective”.

In 2017, the first full year the legislation was in place, one per cent of deaths in Canada were from euthanasia.

By 2022, it was four per cent, as 13,241 people opted for Maid.

Now, in the UK, a bill to legalise the early ending of life has been introduced in Parliament by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.

A free vote is expected before Christmas — and PM Sir Keir Starmer has welcomed the debate.

‘Burden on care-givers’

Supporters insist the bill is strictly to help the terminally ill.

Ms Leadbeater said: “I believe that, with the right safeguards in place, people who are already dying and are mentally competent should be given the choice of a shorter, less painful death on their own terms and without placing family and loved ones at risk of prosecution.

“It will not undermine calls for improvements to palliative care. Nor will it conflict with the rights of people with disabilities to be treated equally and have the respect and support they are right to campaign for in order to live fulfilling lives.”

But this is very similar to how Canada’s law was introduced — and now the rules there have softened and the numbers resorting to euthanasia have soared.

My parents held hands as they passed away by assisted dying – we supported ‘beautiful’ decision, it wasn’t a surprise

When Maid was introduced in Canada in 2016, it was limited to the terminally ill.

But following a legal challenge in 2021 it was made available to those whose death was NOT “reasonably foreseeable”.

A further change due to come into force in March 2027 will open up the service to people whose sole medical condition is MENTAL illness.

Doctors in Canada have approved assisted dying after just ZOOM calls, and some politicians want to extend the practice to CHILDREN old enough to make an “informed” choice.

Requests for Maid are now much more frequently approved in Canada than in 2019, when eight per cent of requests were denied.

In 2022, that figure fell to 3.5 per cent, a Health Canada report says.

I believe that, with the right safeguards in place, people who are already dying and are mentally competent should be given the choice of a shorter, less painful death on their own terms and without placing family and loved ones at risk of prosecution

Kim Leadbeater

The report adds that 17 per cent of those who applied cited “isolation or loneliness”, while nearly 36 per cent believed they were a “burden on family, friends or care-givers”.

The number of Canadians ending their lives via Maid — usually given in the form of an injection administered by a physician — has outpaced other nations with similar laws.

And its legislation has grown far looser than those of other countries offering assisted dying, such as Belgium and the Netherlands.

One expert claimed that what has happened in Canada could happen in the UK because both countries have a struggling health system and an ageing population.

Canadian-born Alexander Raikin, a researcher at the Ethics And Public Policy Centre in Washington DC, said: “Euthanasia in Canada was meant to be rare and last resort, but it isn’t. It has become routine.

“Assisted deaths have seen dram-atic rates of growth in all the places that have legalised it, like the Netherlands, Switzerland and Oregon in the US, but in Canada that rate has been quite unprecedented. The similarities between Canada and the UK . . . suggest the UK is likely to follow Canada’s route.

“I don’t think it is a coincidence that this massive surge happens at the same time our health system is collapsing. It should ring alarm bells in Britain.”

In an interview with the Sun on Sunday, Canadian Alicia Duncan told, from her home in Mission, British Columbia, how her “active and happy” mother was given a fast-track death in 2021. She opted for it because she could not get the healthcare she needed.

Alicia, 41, an interior designer, now warns the UK about the perils of following Canada’s lead.

Her mum Donna, a psychiatric nurse, suffered a brain injury in a minor car crash but despite not facing immediate death, and receiving treatment for mental health symptoms, the 61-year-old’s Maid request was granted.

Despite protests by her daughter and long-serving GP, she was helped to take her own life just 48 hours later.

Alica said: “People in Britain should be very worried about this.

3

Now, in the UK, a bill to legalise the early ending of life has been introduced in Parliament by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater

“It won’t stop at terminal illness alone. The UK needs to look at what happened in Canada.

“People think, ‘This will never happen to me’. I never thought my mother, who was active and happy, would have chosen to end her life because of a mental illness, and been helped to do so.

“I would say to Britain, you need to be cautious because once you decide to open this door you don’t get to choose who walks through.

“The moment you legalise euthanasia it starts as a crack then it becomes a wide-open chasm and there is nothing you can do to stop it.”

Since their mother’s death, Alicia and her sister Christie have been denied key details about the circumstances and believe safe-guards to protect vulnerable people were not followed properly.

She added: “I am so angry. People are choosing to die because they can’t access healthcare in a timely manner.

The moment you legalise euthanasia it starts as a crack then it becomes a wide-open chasm and there is nothing you can do to stop it

Alicia Duncan

“My mum was waiting to see a specialist for 18 months and her appointment was the week after she died.

“It’s easier to die in Canada than to access healthcare.”

Here in the UK, Silent Witness actress and disability campaigner Liz Carr, 52, says the new bill is a slippery slope towards offering assisted dying to those who are simply ill, old or disabled.

Ms Carr — who has rare genetic condition arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, which affects her joints and muscles, and uses a wheelchair, warned: “These laws will put lives like mine, marginalised lives, at risk and those risks will be fatal.

“All because of the dangerous assumption some of us are better off dead. Let’s be aware, maybe it’s going to be like Canada, and that is terrifying.”

This week in Canada, a 51-year old gran from Nova Scotia told how doctors offered her Maid while she was in hospital about to undergo a mastectomy for breast cancer.

These laws will put lives like mine, marginalised lives, at risk and those risks will be fatal

Liz Carr

Before she went in for what she hoped was life-saving surgery, the doctor sat her down and asked: “Did you know about Medical Assistance In Dying?”

She was then asked again before undergoing a second mastectomy nine months later, and a third time while in the recovery room after that procedure.

Around three quarters of Brits support assisted dying, a survey this year from advocacy group Dying With Dignity found, while just 14 per cent of us oppose it.

Broadcaster Esther Rantzen, 84, who joined Dignitas after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, this week said she hopes the bill will pass, adding: “All I’m asking is that we be given the dignity of choice.

“If I decide my own life is not worth living, please may I ask for help to die.”

But the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said of the bill: “This approach is both dangerous and sets us in a direction even more dangerous.

All I’m asking is that we be given the dignity of choice. If I decide my own life is not worth living, please may I ask for help to die

Esther Rantzen

“In every place where it’s been done, it has led to a slippery slope.

“The right to end your life could too easily, all too accidentally, turn into a duty to do so.”

‘BRITS, BE WARNED OF PERIL’

By Prof Leonie Herx, Professor of Palliative Medicine at the University of Calgary

IN Canada, a doctor-administered lethal injection has become the solution to almost any suffering, which is horrific from a medical perspective.

Any adult with a disability or chronic illness can get an “assisted death”.

There is no requirement to receive any treatment for even a reversible condition and sometimes it is the only “intervention” provided.

I have seen a person’s worst day become their last.

We are seeing people getting Maid for poverty, social isolation or deprivation.

It is routinely offered to any potentially eligible person as they access a care home, at time of surgery or during hospital admission for a health crisis.

It has altered the practice of medicine here and is leading to the premature death of many vulnerable people.

It has become something it never started as, something no Canadian could have imagined.

The UK should take warning.

Keep medicine invested in helping people restore their health and live well.

Adam Sonin

Source link

October 19, 2024
Inside rise of far right TikTokers propelling Germany back to dark days of Nazis

IT is the first far-right party to win German state elections since the Nazis – and the success of Alternative for Germany is down to younger supporters.

Paramedic Severin Kohler says that it is now trendy among Generation Z TikTokers to back the organisation known as AfD, which is led in the state of Thuringia by a man who has been labelled a “fascist”.

9

AfD fans Severin Kohler and Carolin LichtenheldCredit: Paul Edwards

9

AfD MP Torben Braga — who, curiously for a German anti-immigration party, was born in Brazil and is of Brazilian and Welsh ancestryCredit: Paul Edwards

9

Professor Reinhard Schramm, who lost 20 close family to the Nazi extermination camps, has had death threats and bullets sent to him in the postCredit: Paul Edwards

Severin, 28, a leader of the party’s youth wing Junge Alternative, told me: “It’s a matter of a rebellion against their parents. Being from the right is punk now.”

Almost 40 per cent of 18 to 24-year-old voters backed the AfD in Thuringia, central Germany, last week. In neighbouring Saxony, 31 per cent did the same.

Yet the local branches of the party in the two states have been classified as “right-wing extremist” by the nation’s domestic intelligence agency.

The AfD’s victory in Thuringia has sent a shudder through Germany, which has spent decades facing up to its Nazi past.

On the Instagram page of Carolin Lichtenheld, who leads Thuringia’s Junge Alternative, the 21-year-old trainee pharmacist is shown brndishing a megaphone at a rally, with the caption: “Ready to fight for the preservation of our homeland and for our future. We are the youth who are ready to resist a woke society.”

The image is hashtagged with the word “reconquista” — a reference to the recapture by Christian kings of Spain and Portugal from the Muslim Moors.

Felix Steiner, from German far-right monitoring group Mobile Consulting, agrees that young voters are attracted to the AfD.

The activist told The Sun: “Almost no other party is so active on social media platforms, especially TikTok. The message is, ‘Young people, come to us. We are the next movement’.”

Youth campaigner Severin wears a T-shirt bearing the name Bjorn Hocke — the AfD’s leader in Thuringia who has twice been convicted this year of using Nazi slogans.

Former history teacher Hocke harnessed the power of TikTok to target the youth vote during the election.

Incredible story of Nazi hunter and holocaust refugee

In one post he leads a cavalcade of motorcyclists riding models made by Simson — a brand associated with national pride by the far right — in the old Communist East Germany.

Yet critics say that behind Hocke’s glossy social media campaigning is a man who is a political “danger”.

In 2019 a court in Thuringia ruled it was not libellous to call Hocke a “fascist” as the opinion had a “verifiable, factual basis”.

Thin-lipped and greying, Hocke once described Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial as a “monument of shame” and demanded a “180-degree turn” in Germany’s culture of remembrance.

The father-of-four once spoke of the Germans “longing for a historical figure” who would “heal the wounds of the people”.

Ulrike Grosse-Rothig, leader of Thuringia’s left-wing Die Linke party, told The Sun: “Hocke is a die-hard fascist. He’s a danger for German society, its voters and to democracy.”

Former AfD Thuringia MP Oskar Helmerich has called Hocke “a dangerous man”.

Little wonder Thuringia’s small Jewish community has been fearful.

Professor Reinhard Schramm, who lost 20 close family to the Nazi extermination camps, has had death threats and bullets sent to him in the post from unknown sources.

Speaking at a synagogue in Thuringia’s largest city Erfurt, the 80-year-old Holocaust survivor told me: “The Jewish community is insecure and some are afraid. They are quite allergically against the AfD. This is not a normal party.”

Of Hocke’s demand for a “180- degree turn” in Germany’s culture of remembrance, the grandfather-of-three says: “So does this mean that I am not supposed to speak about my grandmother who was gassed to death in a German gas chamber?”

‘Some are afraid’

Severin insists the AfD is “against political violence”, adding: “We don’t have anything in common with people sending bullets to synagogues.”

The AfD won Thuringia — a largely rural state in central Germany — with just under 33 per cent of the vote.

It’s the latest European convulsion of the far right which has seen rampaging thugs attempt to torch migrant hotels in Britain and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally topping parliamentary elections in France.

In Germany — as elsewhere — the touchstone issue has been immigration.

Days before the Thuringia vote, a Syrian asylum seeker went on a knife rampage, killing three in the west German city of Solingen.

It emerged that the man — linked to Islamic State — had previously had his claim for asylum turned down but he had not been deported because the authorities could not find him.

Germany’s lame duck premier Olaf Scholz promised to speed up deportations and other mainstream parties followed suit with tough talk on immigration, including the conservative Christian Democratic Union.

9

Andreas Buhl, a Thuringian MP for Merkel’s CDU, concedes that the former Chancellor’s open border policy was wrongCredit: Paul Edwards

9

A CDU poster calling to stop illegal migrationCredit: Paul Edwards

9

An anti-multicultural bannerCredit: Paul Edwards

Yesterday, it was reported that Germany’s interior minister Nancy Faeser has told the EU that controls will be brought in on all the country’s land borders, to deal with the “continuing burden” of migration and “Islamist terrorism”.

And last week it emerged Germany is considering deporting migrants to Rwanda where it could use asylum facilities abandoned by the UK.

Britain, where populists Reform won four million votes at the General Election, will be watching whether moves towards the AfD’s turf will win back voters.

As well as a hardline stance on immigration, the AfD is also against what it says are over-zealous green policies, and it wants to halt weapons supplies to Ukraine.

At the Thuringian parliament in Erfurt, I met key Hocke lieutenant Torben Braga — who, curiously for a German anti-immigration party, was born in Brazil and is of Brazilian and Welsh ancestry.

The 33-year-old Thuringia MP says: “Bjorn Hocke doesn’t have a single fascist vein in his body.”

‘Political firewall’

Of his boss’s infamous “shame” reference to the Berlin Holocaust memorial, Braga says he meant it was “a shameful part of our history”.

Braga believes the security services are monitoring him and suggests “provocateurs” from those agencies were behind the “two or three cases” of people doing the Hitler salute at a recent rally in Erfurt.

Picturesque Erfurt is, at first glance, perhaps an unlikely setting for a far-right upsurge. Half-timbered town houses crowd flower-bedecked medieval squares where tourists enjoy beers on its many restaurant terraces.

9

A far-right mob gather at a demonstration in Solingen last monthCredit: EPA

9

Far-right AfD supporters wave German flags, including one adorned with an Iron CrossCredit: Getty

9

The AfD party’s slick TikTok videosCredit: tiktok/@afd

This summer the England squad had their Euro 2024 training base a short drive away and Three Lions star Jude Bellingham was spotted having coffee in the city of 215,000.

Yet Thuringia has seen too much history in the 20th century.

At nearby Buchenwald concentration camp, the Nazis executed, starved or worked to death more than 56,000 prisoners.

After the Americans liberated Thuringia, it fell under Soviet control.

From 1949 to 1990 it was part of the Communist state of East Germany.

Post-German reunification, Thuringia and other eastern states struggled economically, with many youngsters heading to western Germany.

Immigration became a key political battleground after conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany’s borders to a million refugees in 2015 and 2016.

Last year around 334,000 people claimed asylum in Germany — more than France and Spain combined. In the UK the figure was just under 85,000 people.

The AfD — formed in 2013 as a Eurosceptic party — has seen its fortunes rise as it hammered home its anti-immigration stance.

No other party is so active on social media platforms, especially TikTok.The AfD post pictures of demonstrations. The message is: ‘Young people come to us. We are the next movement’

It called for a ban on burqas, minarets, and call to prayer using the slogan, “Islam is not a part of Germany” in 2016.

In Thuringia, Hocke led a radical AfD faction called The Wing, deemed beyond the pale even by many in his own party.

Andreas Buhl, a Thuringian MP for Merkel’s CDU, concedes that the former Chancellor’s open border policy was wrong.

He told me: “In hindsight, it should have been clearer that you can also push people back at the border who have already entered another European country.”

He pledged, as other mainstream parties have, not to work with the AfD, creating a political firewall likely to block it from taking power.

It raises the spectre that those who voted for it may come to believe that democracy is failing them.

But anti-far-right activist Felix Steiner says only around half of AfD supporters are wedded to their hardline doctrines, with the rest supporting them as a protest vote.

He added: “The AfD result could be halved if voters were satisfied with other parties’ policies.”

The fight for the political soul of Germany’s Generation Z goes on.

It’s a battle of ideas that may be won or lost on the feeds of TikTok and Instagram.

Oliver Harvey

Source link

September 9, 2024
Live sex shows to cheap drugs – why locals call Benidorm ‘Disney for crazies’

IT’S 4pm on a Tuesday in May and a man on his stag do is splayed on the floor as a fully naked woman bobs down over him before waxing his chest.

Watching are his mates, who whoop and cheer as he is punished by “extreme stripper” Jade Benidorm.

8

Stag do lads dressed as Oompa Loompas dance with a stripperCredit: Chris Eades

8

Stripper Jade Benidorm punishes a punterCredit: Chris Eades

8

A group of girls on a hen doCredit: Chris Eades

She then grabs hot candles to drip on to the soon-to-be-married man’s chest as he yelps in protest.

Welcome to Benidorm 2024, where business is booming and the famous holiday hotspot has become wilder than ever.

While the cost of living is soaring in the UK, Benidorm is getting more tourists than ever — nearly three million came here last year — and the nightlife has stayed open all winter for the first time.

More than 800,000 Brits headed to the Spanish city last year alone for the huge Costa Blanca beaches and hedonistic partying.

And the number of stag dos is rocketing.

Local celebrity Frank The Stag Man, who runs Fk It Parties, says: “It’s Disneyland for crazies here. Absolutely anything goes.”

One sozzled stag do reveller tells me: “You couldn’t get away with what we’re doing anywhere else in the world.

“What happens on the stag, stays on the stag.”

For stripper Jade, it is her first show of the day — she can do up to 15 a day over the weekend.

And this is just a warm-up, as later on men will head to the infamous Benidorm strip, aka Calle Gerona, where they will watch one of the countless live sex shows.

Watch shocking moment ‘extremely violent’ most wanted Brit ‘drugs baron’ is tackled by cops in Benidorm

They include a Star Wars-themed option on Segways and extreme BDSM shows.

Stag dos are spoilt for choice, as every other bar on the strip offers a free raunchy show and punters as old as 70 will be packing in with them to get an eyeful.

And it’s not just stag dos that flock to the X-rated shows.

Niamh, 22, visited Benidorm last year with her mum and took her to the Segway sex show.

The Dublin lass says: “I’ve never seen anywhere else where young and old can party together. It’s great.”

The seaside resort has been welcoming boozy visitors since the 1960s, then in the 1980s legendary stripper Sticky Vicky paved the way for the raunchy acts that dominate the strip now.

The erotic performer died, aged 80, in November last year and now even has a tribute act.

Her daughter Maria is carrying on as the original.

Frank, 53, who owns Miller’s Bar and Miller’s Beach Bar, has been running group holidays to the city for more than 15 years.

He reckons: “It’s a break from the norm and over the past few years things have got wilder.

“We are the top party destination in Europe and, thanks to social media, more people are starting to realise that.

“It’s impossible to come here and not have a good time.

“People love being shocked and that’s what Benidorm provides.

“There’s everything from drag strippers who stitch up the groom to tribute acts and more extreme performances.

“Winter is non-existent here and for the first time this year we didn’t stop over the winter months.

“We were still busy.”

In high season, Benidorm gets around 200 stag and hen dos a week, with many of their clients being Irish or from the North of England.

Disneyland for crazies

Frank’s partner is Jade Benidorm, 31, who says people often show their wild side when they come to the party destination.

She said: “Sticky Vicky paved the way for acts like mine.

“Most people expect to see something shocking, but also appreciate the showmanship of it.

“Ninety-nine per cent of brides and grooms who come to my show have no idea what their stags have planned.

“Some are timid, others are up for a giggle and some get naked very quickly.

“It’s great to see people enjoying themselves and pushing the limits.”

But while there are great times to be had in Benidorm, the partygoers should beware the strip’s darker side.

Boozed-up Brits have become an easy target for so-called “serpientes” (Spanish for “snakes”) after a quick buck.

Frank warns: “While being on the beach at night is technically illegal, that doesn’t stop people skinny-dipping after a few drinks.

“But leaving your clothes and belongings on the beach gives snakes a chance to steal phones and money.

“While you’re having a bit of fun, they’ll strike.

“Plus most people won’t want to admit that they’ve lost their stuff having a naked swim, so they’ll say they got mugged.

“People just need to remember to keep an eye on stuff, like they would at home.”

There are other dangers, too.

Within 30 seconds of arriving at Avenida de Mallorca, known to tourists as The Square, I was offered cocaine.

The going rate is €50 a gram.

The dealer, who also worked as a doorman for one of the clubs, tells me: “It’s the good stuff from Columbia.”

When I refuse, I’m offered pills or another powder.

I have to walk away fast just to be left alone.

8

A stag party from Yorkshire hit the resortCredit: Chris Eades

8

A cheeky Scottish holidaymaker leaves little to the imaginationCredit: Chris Eades

The offer is repeated again and again as I make my way along the street.

Dad Simon, 44, tells me: “I’ve been offered drugs about 20 times since I lit a cigarette.

“It’s full-on.”

He is here on a rugby tour and is flanked by Brandon, 17, and Dylan, 16, who are hoping to see a sex show.

Cops tell me of the street dealers: “Where there is demand, there will be supply, but we don’t want it here.”

Alleged British drug kingpin Paul Brown was last month arrested in a hotel in the city after a four-year international manhunt.

While out on the strip, The Sun saw one Brit being arrested, and it is a regular occurance for clubs to be raided by cops looking to find drugs.

We are the top party destination in Europe and, thanks to social media, more people are starting to realise that. It’s impossible to come here and not have a good time

Frank, bar-owner

It’s not just drug dealers who are preying on visitors.

Despite 500 police patrolling the area each day to keep holidaymakers safe, smashed blokes are being targeted by women pretending to be sex workers offering a €5 thrill — which results in punters being robbed once their pants are down.

There have been protests against British tourists in Majorca, the Canaries and Ibiza — but the Benidorm locals love them.

Visit Benidorm told me they felt “very privileged to host British tourists”.

And a taxi driver added: “Eighty per cent of the people here are British.

“The problem is pickpockets looking for British drunk guys.

“They pose as sex workers, offer a service, and once the guy has dropped his trousers they take everything.

It’s rougher than the worst bits of Newport. But I bloody love it

Sun source

“We see it every night, men who have nothing because it’s been nicked.

“It’s not good for us, because people go home and say you’ll get robbed.

“It puts people off coming here.

“The criminals just focus on the tourist streets.”

The women can be seen standing on street corners just seconds away from the main strip, sporting short skirts and high heels, like many of the partygoers.

Online groups about Benidorm have reports of tourists being punched by bouncers when they start to cause trouble.

Some posts advise avoiding a street off the strip as it is “muggers alley”.

Yet despite the darker edge, most revellers aren’t put off.

As one woman from Newport, South Wales, told The Sun: “It’s rougher than the worst bits of Newport. But I bloody love it.”

8

Revellers with a podium dancer at a clubCredit: Chris Eades

8

A raunchy podium dancer at a barCredit: Chris Eades

8

Levante city beach and seafront walkwayCredit: Getty

Thea Jacobs

Source link

May 17, 2024
I was kidnapped by machete-wielding tribesman but still ran length of Africa

HE used to claim he was the “Hardest Geezer” in the Sussex seaside town of Worthing.

Now Russ Cook has proved he is the hardest geezer in the world — by becoming the first man in history to run the entire length of Africa.

11

Russ Cook has become the first man in history to run the entire length of Africa – and vowed not to cut his hair or beard until he was finishedCredit: Reuters

11

The ‘hardest geezer’ of Worthing made it from South Africa to Tunisia after 352 dysCredit: Instagram / hardestgeezer

11

Russ set off from Cape Africa’s southernmost point, Cape Agulhas, where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet

His 9,891-mile trek from Cape Town to Tunisia, where he crossed the finish line today, spanned 352 days and was the equivalent of 377 marathons.

Russ, 27, battled injuries, food poisoning, extreme heat and cold, a kidnapping and robbery.

It took 19million steps and 20 pairs of trainers to complete the epic feat through 16 countries.

He set off from Cape Africa’s southernmost point, Cape Agulhas, where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet, on April 22, 2023, vowing not to cut his hair or beard until he crossed the finish line in Bizerte in Tunisia.

The huge red beard and ponytail he grew during the trek earned him the nickname “Africa’s Forrest Gump”, in a nod to the Tom Hanks blockbuster.

A former big boozer and gambler, Russ turned his life around at 19 after a pal challenged him to run the Brighton half marathon.

He says: “I was in a bad place and my mate knew it. I was unfit and drinking and blowing money in the bookies, so I agreed to run it.

“After that, I did the Brighton marathon. Through training, I learnt the values of running and discipline and self-belief, which empowered me, and I applied it to other things in life.”

Realising he would never win marathons, the ex-cleaner decided to set himself endurance challenges. In 2019, he ran 71 marathons through 11 countries between Asia and London, with little more than a backpack and a hammock. It took him just 66 days.

‘It’s been the toughest days of my life’

In 2020, he broke the world record for the fastest marathon while pulling a car.

He ran 26 miles along Worthing seafront with a 730kg Suzuki Alto attached to a rope around his waist in 9hr and 56min, knocking 9hr 40min off the record of 19hrs.

Kelvin Kiptum wins London Marathon with second fastest ever time

11

Russ has been compared to beloved Tom Hanks character Forrest GumpCredit: Alamy

11

An exhausted Russ rehydrates with power drinksCredit: Instagram / hardestgeezer

Then, in 2021, Russ was buried alive for a week in a box with just 20 litres of water and a ventilation tube.

He also became the first to complete a marathon on crutches and crossed the finish line of another 26-mile race drunk because he stopped every mile to sink a beer.

Russ came up with the idea of running across Africa during Covid, in a bid to raise £1million for charities supporting refugees and rough sleepers.

Incredibly, he had raised over £700,000 earlier tonight.

He says: “People reckon I’m nuts but, if I want to do something, I will do it regardless of how outlandish it seems.

I have passed blood for six days and suffered awful food poisoning, a bad back that only painkillers could cure, had visa nightmares, dehydration and suffered exhaustion

Russ Cook

“Quitting never even came into it. Not even thought of it.

“I decided to run Africa for my personal achievement and have some mad stories to tell — and I bloody well did it.

“I did it first and that makes me so proud. This was all about how far I could push my limits. It is more than just running across a whole continent.

“When I started running, I didn’t like long distances, but I taught my body to get to the point where it could quite comfortably run all day long without much difficulty.

“Then came Africa. The blazing heat in the day and the freezing cold at night.

“Running on sand, through jungles, through sandstorms and snow storms and torrential downpours.

“I have passed blood for six days and suffered awful food poisoning, a bad back that only painkillers could cure, had visa nightmares, dehydration and suffered exhaustion.”

In November, Russ was forced to visit medics in Nigeria for scans as his back pain became “excruciating”.

11

Russ being scanned after his back pain became ‘excruciating’Credit: Instagram / hardestgeezer

He says: “It got very bloody hard at times, but I would tell myself to stop moaning like a little weasel and get on the road and get that zombie stomp going.”

Recalling the simple things that inspired him to keep going, Russ adds: “These 352 days have been the toughest of my life, but also such an immense honour.

“I have met incredible people every single day in every single country who welcomed us.

“Seeing all the kids running out to jog with us has been wonderful.

“But, in some remote areas, being white with a big red beard and red hair, I did terrify a few kids!”

As his epic trek neared an end, Russ focused on his home comforts. He says: “My body was starting to break down. Everything hurt. My legs felt like they were about to fall off. Just a few more days, I said.

“Now it’s time to party and the daiquiris will be flowing. It will be good to get into a real crisp bed and have a long hot soak in a bath.”

During his African epic, Russ would sleep in a support vehicle driven by his pals Harry Gallimore and Stan Gaskell.

It also carried their video gear, to record the world record attempt, and was their link to his social media channels on YouTube, X and Instagram.

Russ ran an average of 30 miles a day, including 90 days through the Sahara Desert.

As it was 50C in the day, he ran at night, though it was sometimes still 25C.

My body was starting to break down. Everything hurt. My legs felt like they were about to fall off

Russ Cook

He endured snow storms in Algeria and monsoons in rainforests.

In the Congo, tribal natives wielding machetes kidnapped him on day 102 last August.

Russ — who feared they could be cannibals — had been separated from his support vehicle due to the terrain.

He stumbled into a rural settlement as he headed for their rendezvous point.

He recalls: “There was a chief there who told me I must give him money. I told him I had none.

“Pretty soon I found myself surrounded by lots of blokes with machetes, who escorted me into the bush.

“I didn’t know what they were going to do, so I emptied my bag to show I had nothing but a biscuit, and gave it to them.

“Then I ran for it, bushwhacking through jungle paths. I kept off any tracks until I was far away.

“Then, suddenly, two men pulled up on a motorbike and took me on a seven-hour ride into the jungle and I was thinking, ‘Is this it?’.

“I thought, ‘Here is the self-proclaimed Hardest Geezer being held in a Congo gulag before being ripped apart limb by limb by these people and eaten’.”

Russ was able to negotiate with his kidnappers during a two day ordeal, and his team paid a ransom.

It came weeks after Russ — who also suffered a week of food poisoning and bouts of diarrhoea — was help up by armed maniacs in Angola on day 64 last June.

I thought, ‘Here is the self-proclaimed Hardest Geezer being held in a Congo gulag before being ripped apart limb by limb by these people and eaten’

Russ Cook

He had jumped into the support van for lunch at the roadside unaware they were being watched by gunmen planning to rob them.

He posted on X: “Nothing like a gun being pointed in your face to let you know you are alive.

“It was like any other day when a couple of lads pop open the side door and demanded everything we have.

“None of us got killed or injured. We did lose a lot of our gear. Losing our passports was the big blow as it had our visas to move onwards with.

“It was a nightmare trying to get it sorted in Angola so we had to halt the challenge for two weeks and drive back to Namibia to get new passports and visas.

“That was 1,281 miles back to Windhoek to sort the paperwork and 1,281 miles back to the start.”

Russ admits the terrifying experiences were a real eye-opener.

He says: “One of the reasons I wanted to run the length of Africa is because no one has ever done it before.

“After the robbery and kidnapping, I was starting to find out why.

“But 99 per cent of the time people were so good to us, giving us food and help and donating by going to ATMs and giving us cash.”

From South Africa, Russ ran along the west coast up through Namibia, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, and Algeria, before finishing in Tunisia just under a year later.

11

Supporters joined Russ for the final leg of the challengeCredit: AFP – Getty

11

Other fans waited for him while wearing red beardsCredit: Reuters

11

Russ pictured at the finish lineCredit: Reuters

But a problem securing a visa to cross the border into Algeria almost scuppered his challenge on day 278.

After a four day stalemate and pleas on social media, the UK’s Algerian embassy offered courtesy visas.

For his final 29.3-mile stretch — in which he completed in 4hr 47min — Russ had invited social media followers to run with him or wait at the finishing line. Some turned up wearing fake red beards.

And he revealed he couldn’t wait to be reunited with his girlfriend.

He says: “I warned the girls and boys to get the daiquiris set up.

“Nothing was going to stop me, even if I had to crawl my way over broken glass to get to the very end.

“Not too bad for a former fat lad with booze and gambling issues.”

Paying tribute to his partner on X, he added: “My girl is an absolute diamond. Put her through the emotional wringer daily. Deserves the world and everything in it.

“Can’t wait to share a strawberry daiquiri with her on a Tunisian beach and tell her how beautiful she is.

“Would be in a mental asylum in Congo without her.”

11

Russ takes a dip after finishing the trekCredit: sky News

11

Russ’ journey in full

RUSS’S Project Africa challenge will bring a massive funding boost to two amazing causes – and it is easy for you to pledge your support.

One beneficiary, The Running Charity, works to transform the lives of young people affected by homelessness and multiple or complex needs.

The other, Sandblast, helps Sahrawi refugees. To donate, visit: givestar.io/gs/projectafrica

Mike Ridley

Source link

April 7, 2024
Albanian gang war to control drugs market that’s spilling onto UK’s streets
WITH two bodyguards on patrol permanently outside his office, chief prosecutor Kreshnik Ajazi sums up why the Albanian drug gangs he targets are so ruthless.

“In Albania, we have a tradition — revenge.”

9

In 2018, a shipment of 50 kilos of cocaine went missing in EnglandCredit: Alamy

9

The theft triggered a string of revenge attacks back in Albania, including three men being gunned down in their Range Rover with AK-47sCredit: Chris Eades

9

This month, Bajram Luli, 27, was stabbed to death in Greenford, West London, after having just moved to the UKCredit: LNP

A trail of tit-for-tat killings between warring gangs battling to control the UK drugs market shows he knows what he is talking about.

The theft of 50 kilos of cocaine in England triggered a string of revenge attacks back in Albania, including three men being gunned down in their Range Rover with AK-47s.

And a dealer convicted of murdering a rival in Southampton has been shot dead inside an Albanian top-security prison in a sophisticated revenge hit that cost a million euros to arrange.

As the Met probes yet another killing of an Albanian man in London, The Sun travelled to the former Communist country to investigate the criminal gangs that have such a foothold in the UK.

Mr Ajazi, a stylish 40-year-old who wears shirts monogrammed with his initials on the cuffs, has devoted his life to dismantling these gangs — but it comes with a heavy price.

Hitting where it hurts

Threats to his life mean the armed guards never leave his side, 28 security cameras are trained on the outside of his office building in the city of Elbasan, and his wife wonders when he will take a job prosecuting “normal criminals”.

But he is too busy to worry, with many of the attacks he deals with stemming from bloody fall-outs that begin in Britain.

The lawyer said: “These disputes between gangs are created in England but the revenge takes place in our city. When I became the chief prosecutor, my aim was to challenge those gangs, which we have done.

“That means I am now escorted every single minute of my life by a special escort from the state police, which tells you what sort of danger I am in.

“But it has been worth it.”

Turkish and Albanian drug gangs are joining forces to wreak havoc on London amid UK migrant crisis

Thanks to his and the state police’s work, the local gang-related murder rate has dropped from 15 a year to zero.

The UK government is just as determined to take on the Albanian organised crime gangs.

The National Crime Agency last month signed an agreement with Albanian police to challenge criminals who control the UK cannabis market as well as enjoying a healthy slice of the £4billion cocaine trade.

Around 1,700 gang members are thought to be at large in the UK and there are more Albanians in our jails than any other foreign nationality, even though Albania has a population of just 2.8million.

As well as trying to lock up gang leaders, the police are hitting them where it hurts — in their pockets.

A British-registered £200,000 Lamborghini — with a number plate that partly reads 14MBO (Lambo) — was recently seized from a suspected criminal, along with a hotel he owned. And the cops now plan to use it as a patrol car.

A spokesman for Albania’s Agency Of Seized And Confiscated Assets said: “We will send a message that what has been earned from criminal activities in the UK and Europe will be confiscated.”

The problem is that in Albania revenge is a tradition so we cannot predict what is going to happen

Mr Ajazi

When the police Lamborghini rolls past, it will raise a smile from law-abiding Albanian migrants. But other cases the police have to deal with are no laughing matter.

Organised crime gangs are similar to the Mafia in that they are structured around families. That means they take disputes personally.

9

In 2013, drug dealer Arben Lleshi, 27, who killed a rival in Southampton was extradited to Peqin Prison in Albania and in 2023 his victim’s gang spent a million euros organising a hit to kill him in jailCredit: Handout

9

Endrit Alibej, 34, was also killedCredit: YouTube

9

Alibej’s family wasted no time in taking revenge and the killings continued for two years, claiming a total of eight livesCredit: Chris Eades

In 2018, a shipment of 50 kilos of cocaine — with a potential market value of tens of millions of pounds — went missing in England.

The gang waiting for its delivery suspected the courier so they beat him up and dumped him in a remote location, reckoning that whoever he had tipped off to steal the drugs would come to his aid.

They kept watch to see who would collect him — and once they knew which family was behind the theft, the killings began.

Soon after, Endrit Alibej, 34, was driving away from a family dinner in Elbasan with his uncle Arben Dylgjeri, 56, and a Turkish associate.

As they slowed to negotiate a roundabout, a gunman armed with an AK-47 struck, spraying the vehicle and killing all three men.

Setting body on fire

Alibej’s family wasted no time in taking revenge and the killings continued for two years, eventually claiming a total of eight lives.

Mr Ajazi said the to-and-fro attacks related to that particular dispute have ended — for now.

He added: “Let’s say they are currently on standby.

“The problem is that in Albania revenge is a tradition so we cannot predict what is going to happen.”

Another case Mr Ajazi is involved in shocked the Albanian justice system because it exposed the full extent of corruption in prisons.

In 2013, Albanian drug dealer Arben Lleshi, 27, was jailed for life at Winchester Crown Court for killing a rival in Southampton and setting his body on fire.

He was extradited to serve his sentence in the top-security Peqin Prison, 40 miles south of capital Tirana.

Late last year, his victim’s gang began plotting their revenge.

They spent an estimated one million euros bribing prison officials to smuggle a 9mm Smith and Wesson into the jail and to pay a hitman.

The gun was passed to the killer in the middle of November and he kept it concealed for three weeks before going to Lleshi’s cell ten days before Christmas.

Mr Ajazi said: “He invited that man to talk. He said, ‘Can we have a conversation?’

“And at this moment, he took out the gun and shot and killed him.”

The jail’s entire command structure has been arrested — 12 officers in total — on suspicion of taking bribes and turning a blind eye.

Back in Britain, an Albanian man was stabbed to death in North London last month, with one of his countrymen being charged with the murder.

And the Met are now investigating yet another killing of an Albanian.

These disputes between gangs are created in England but the revenge takes place in our city

Lawyer

At around 5.30pm on Monday, March 11, a white Kia car was seen reversing down a road in Greenford, West London, before one of the occupants leapt out and fled.

Moments later Bajram Luli, 27, staggered out of the car with a serious stab wound to his stomach.

Cops and paramedics were called but they could not save him.

A man has now been charged in connection with the alleged murder and will stand trial later.

Bajram had only just moved to the UK from Albania. The motive for his killing has not been revealed and there is no suggestion he was involved in any criminality.

But the police back in Albania — and chief prosecutor Mr Ajazi — will be hoping these two recent cases are not the start of yet more blood feuds.
- Pictures from Chris Eades, in Albania
9

This British-registered £200,000 Lamborghini was seized in Albania by police… who aim to use it as a patrol carCredit: Chris Eades

9

Arben Dylgjeri, 56, also diedCredit: YouTube

BRITISH POLICE LINK-UP

A BRITISH bobby’s helmet takes pride of place on a shelf in the grand governmental office of Albania’s Interior Minister, Taulant Balla.

The gift from a visiting UK police delegation shows the commitment of both countries to forging closer links to fight organised crime.

9

A British bobby’s helmet takes pride of place on a shelf in the grand governmental office of Albania’s Interior Minister, Taulant BallaCredit: Chris Eades

Mr Balla has had a series of meetings with UK ministers to thrash out ideas on how best to stop trafficking gangs.

One success has been the 90 per cent drop in the number of Albanians crossing the Channel in small boats.

And the no-nonsense politician – popular in Albania for an anti-drugs drive outside schools which has seen more than 800 dealers convicted – is confident of a similar result against the narco gangs.

Mr Balla said: “We have had good results in the fight against organised crime.

“We are working closely with Britain’s National Crime Agency and the Metropolitan Police, and we have some joint operations ongoing.

“I’m very happy that from the British side we are receiving a lot of expertise and are exchanging important data that is needed in bringing people to justice.

“Also, the work in seizing criminal assets is going very well.

“Houses and hotels we seize are being used for good purposes. And the Lamborghini that was seized will be used by our traffic police.

“My message to the organised crime gangs is – impunity time is finished. We are having a campaign against the fugitives.”

As he spoke, his mobile phone pinged with more good news – a message revealing the date that a wanted killer who had been on the run abroad would finally arrive home to face justice.

Albania’s fight against crime is a long, difficult one. But with the help of British police, they are finally reaping rewards.
Robin Perrie

Source link
March 26, 2024
Meet the French cafe owner who wants France to know Brits saved them from Nazis

IN the drawing room of a country house near Portsmouth a petite French lady is dwarfed by a 14ft-high map.

Madame Arlette Gondree, 84, is studying a top-secret chart that was used during World War Two to plan Britain’s D-Day landings on France’s Normandy beaches.

5

Arlette Gondree’s family owned the first building in France to be liberated as part of the D-Day operationsCredit: News Group Newspapers Ltd

5

Her family had helped the Resistance, as well as Brit spies – it was like something out of ‘Allo ‘Allo but without all the laughsCredit: BBC

She points to a spot near the Normandy town of Ouistreham.

The tiny village of Benouville is so small it is not even named on the map at Southwick House — nerve centre of the invasion to drive the Nazis out of France 80 years ago.

But it is where Arlette’s family ran a cafe and helped the French Resistance and British spies, like something from BBC sitcom ’Allo ’Allo but without all the laughs.

The cafe, still in the family today, was also the first place liberated by British troops sent to defend a nearby canal crossing, to be forever known as Pegasus Bridge.

Mum-of-three Arlette married a Brit and splits her time between the UK and running the family’s Cafe Gondree in France with son Giles, 60, and granddaughter Alisse, 24.

And in early June, she will be there to welcome a party of British veterans, all around 100 years old, to thank them on this 80th anniversary for having saved her country.

Best champagne

In particular, she hopes commemorations this summer to mark the anniversary will finally convince the French that Britain, and not just America, liberated their country.

She says: “For some reason, French people still think the Americans won the war. Maybe it is the way they teach children at school.

Relive best of Arthur Bostrom playing Officer (Captain) Crabtree as Censors go after Allo ‘Allo for French gags

5

The café is still in the Gondree family, and Arlette still spends some of her time running itCredit: FTR Features

5

Arlette wants to remind France that Brits helped liberate her country too, as she thinks America’s role in the war is over-emphasised by young peopleCredit: Getty

“But more than 22,000 young British men lost their lives and many more were wounded in 1944 freeing my country from the Nazis. We must never forget them.”

She is delighted King Charles will lead commemorations on June 6 at the new British Normandy Memorial overlooking Gold beach.

On the map at Southwick House, the famous Gold, Sword and Juno beaches, where British troops came ashore at 7.24am on June 6, 1944, are all plainly marked.

These beaches where thousands of British troops were killed as they clambered ashore were each given fish-inspired code names by the Allied high command.

Juno was originally Jellyfish but British Prime Minister Winston Churchill changed the name “because no man should die on a beach named Jelly”.

D-Day is always commemorated on June 6 but for Madame Gondree the invasion began at 11.16pm the night before.

That was the moment her parents’ cafe was liberated by British paratroopers.

Within an hour of the first British troops arriving in gliders that landed in fields around Benouville, Arlette’s beaming cafe-owner dad Georges was serving them champagne.

When the Nazis invaded France four years earlier in 1940 he had hidden his best bottles under his vegetable patch.

While firefights were going on around the cafe during the first skirmishes of D-Day, Georges dug up his bottles of bubbly and popped the corks in honour of the hero Brits.

The occupation was very difficult. We were short of food, we were short of clothes and they had hardly any supplies which they could sell but we were tied together as a family

Arlette Gondree

Arlette is delighted that, at long last, there is now a dedicated British Normandy Memorial, overlooking Gold Beach just outside the village of Ver-sur-Mer.

Some veterans say the memorial, only completed during the recent Covid crisis, is “too little, too late”.

But Arlette says: “It is never too late”. Time has takent its toll, though, and it is believed that only around 40 British World War Two veterans will be fit and well enough to travel to Normandy this summer.

Although she was just four years old on D-Day, Arlette can remember every detail of the day she, her sister Georgette, ten, her father and her mother, Therese, were saved.

It was thanks for the family’s work for the Allies during the war, when vital information from Café Gondree found its way to Southwick House where it was used by British admiral Bertram Ramsey to plan the world’s biggest ever invasion from the sea.

Arlette says: “For my parents, the occupation was very difficult. We were short of food, we were short of clothes and they had hardly any supplies which they could sell but we were tied together as a family.

The dangerous fact is that my parents were passing on information through my father who spoke English well — but the Germans never knew.

“My mother, who was from Alsace and spoke Alsatian, was serving in the cafe most of the time.

“She could hear what the Germans were saying because we couldn’t stop them coming to drink.

“Little did they know that Mummy knew what they were doing in the village, what they were doing on the bridges and what they were likely to do.

“Daddy would also welcome a couple of British spies in the house, while the cafe front door was open to both the local inhabitants and the occupants.

5

Arlette’s dad Georges was ready to serve up champagne to Brit forces right after they liberated the cafeCredit: PA

“But he was also meeting with Monsieur Melan who was the chief engineer responsible for all the bridges along the canal, and Madame Viand who was in charge of the maternity hospital — they were the Resistance people.”

On the eve of D-Day, Georges was tipped off by British spies not to move out of the cafe.

So he and Therese took their two daughters down to the cellar below the bar where the children bedded down in two empty cider barrels filled with straw.

Arlette remembers: “It wasn’t long after that when we were shaken by a tremendous crashing noise, which was horrific.

“Then we heard noises around the cafe so Daddy left us for a short time and went upstairs to see what he could see.

“The shutters of our dining room were being forced open and the window panes were being broken above our heads. We thought the Germans were coming in to get us.

“Daddy brought down two figures we had not seen before, covered in black with nets.

“One of them grabbed me, took me in his arms, and I was very frightened.

“But Mummy started kissing them and they gave me something I hadn’t had for a long time — chocolate and biscuits.

“Because we were under German time, it was the last hour of the 5th of June.

I will go on serving champagne to the men who saved our country, until the last one is left

Arlette Gondree

“That’s why we celebrate with my beloved veterans, whether they be older or youngsters of today, at that very special time of 23.16, with some champagne.

“Within the hour, my father had unearthed bottles from the garden and brought them out to the British soldiers, who were digging their trenches, to say thank you to them.

“By then there were casualties, so Daddy opened the front door and the cafe was transformed into a First Aid post. The wounded were lying everywhere.

“The dining room became the operating theatre and Mummy, who was a trained nurse, helped the doctor in charge.

“It was an horrific sight, very frightening, because I wanted to be with Mummy in the dining room. The noise, the cries and the smell . . . ”

“The veterans have always regarded Cafe Gondree as a shrine and a home to them.

“I will go on serving champagne to the men who saved our country, until the last one is left.”

Mike Ridley

Source link

February 14, 2024
From bizarre jokes to predictions – the final words of Death Row killers

KILLER Kenneth Smith used his final words on Death Row this week as a powerful protest – but not everyone has something profound to say.

As the murderer became the first American to be executed by nitrogen asphyxia, he told the world: “Tonight, Alabama caused humanity to take a step backwards . . . I’m leaving with love, peace and light.”

10

Not everyone has something profound to say when they’re moments from deathCredit: Getty

10

This week, Kenneth Smith used his final words on Death Row for a powerful protestCredit: Alamy

But while his message was poignant, others facing the death penalty in the States have cracked jokes, predicted sport results and even mentioned vegetables in their final moments.

Here, we reveal some of the famous last words spoken by inmates before they met their maker.

Jimmy Glass, 25, who was executed by electrocution in Louisiana in 1987 after a robbery and murder, joked in his final moments: “I’d rather be fishing.”

10

Jimmy Glass, who was executed in Louisiana in 1987 after a double robbery and murder, joked in his final moments: ‘I’d rather be fishing’

Harrison Gibson, who was hanged in 1917 in Montana after being convicted of murder, said: “They can’t kill a smile.”

Serial killer Frederick Wood, 51, who was executed by electric chair in New York in 1963, parted with the wisecrack: “Gents, this is an educational project. You are about to witness the damaging effect electricity has on Wood.”

Murderer Robert Charles Towery, 47, who died by lethal injection in Arizona in 2012, said bizarrely: “I love my family. Potato, potato, potato.”

10

Robert Charles Towery bizarrely said ‘I love my family. Potato, potato, potato’ before his 2012 executionCredit: Clark Country Prosecutor

Cop killer George Appel, 41, became infamous for his last words uttered at the electric chair in New York in 1928: “Gentlemen, you are about to see a baked Appel.”

10

John George Appel’s last words were ‘Gentlemen, you are about to see a baked Appel’Credit: Alamy

Robert Alton Harris, a 39-year-old murderer who was executed in a California gas chamber in 1992 for killing two teenage boys, said: “You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everybody dances with the Grim Reaper.”

10

Robert Alton Harris’ last words were ‘I’m ready to roll. Time to get this party started’Credit: Alamy

James Lewis Jackson, 47, who was executed by lethal injection in Texas in 2007 for murdering his wife and two stepdaughters, said: “I’m ready to roll. Time to get this party started.”

Murderer Robert Atworth, 31, executed by lethal injection in Texas in 1999, said: “Kiss my proud white Irish ass. I’m ready, warden – send me home.”

10

Murderer Robert Atworth’s last words were ‘Kiss my proud white Irish ass. I’m ready, warden – send me home’

Bobby Ramdass, 29, who died by lethal injection in Virginia in 2000 after he murdered a shop worker, gave a sporting prediction: “Redskins are going to the Super Bowl.” (They didn’t).

10

Bobby Ramdass claimed the Redskins would go to the Superbowl, before he was executed

George Bernard Harris, 41 – executed by lethal injection in Missouri in 2000 after shooting a man dead – joked: “Somebody needs to kill my trial attorney.”

10

George Bernard Harris said ‘someone should kill my attorney’ as his last words

Sex worker Aileen Wuornos, 46, executed by lethal injection in Florida in 2002 after being convicted of murdering six of her male clients, said: “I’d just like to say I’m sailing with the rock, and I’ll be back, like Independence Day with Jesus, June 6. Like the movie, big mothership and all. I’ll be back.”

10

Aileen Wuornos made a religiously charged speech before her executionCredit: Handout – Getty

Matt Rayson

Source link

January 27, 2024
Tractors protest & rise of Far Right have turned Germany into sick man of Europe

LIGHTS flashing and horns blaring, 3,000 tractors trundled through Hanover in Germany bringing its streets to a gridlocked standstill.

Stepping down from his cab, arable farmer Axel Friehe told me his beleaguered nation’s economy is “breaking down”.

7

Tractors of protesting farmers line the streets in front of the Brandenburg Gate in BerlinCredit: Getty

7

Major German cities have been paralysed by demonstrating agricultural workers, truckers and small business peopleCredit: EPA

7

Turnip farmer Christoph Berndt said ‘The AfD use the demonstrations to draw attention to themselves’Credit: Louis Wood

“We hope our protests are the start of something big,” he said of the tractor cavalcade being cheered by locals.

Farmer Friehe, 51, may soon have his wish.

Troubled Germany’s major cities have been paralysed by demonstrating agricultural workers, truckers and small business people.

Some 500 tractors gathered at Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate and 5,000 paraded through Munich’s streets.

While French farmers have made protesting something of a national pastime — infamously torching a lorry full of British sheep in 1990 — their German counterparts are traditionally less militant.

Yet a heavy-handed bid by its government to slash a tax break on diesel used in agricultural machinery — worth around £2,500 a year to each farmer — has made zealots of German country folk.

I watched on Wednesday as locals in Hanover gave farmers hearty cheers and the thumbs up despite the traffic tailbacks in the north German city of 536,000 citizens.

For the tractor strike is a symptom of a wider malaise gripping Germany.

The country’s once booming export market made it the industrial powerhouse at the heart of Europe.

Yet since the pandemic its sluggish economy has grown by just 0.3 per cent — compared to 1.4 per cent in the UK — making it by far the worst performer in the G7 group of nations.

Stringent green initiatives, including the rolling out of heat pumps, have been unpopular with many.

‘Hungry, naked and sober’

And mass migration — last year Germany had more than 350,000 asylum applications — has become a major political flashpoint.

Its ruling coalition of the left-of- centre Social Democratic Party, the Greens and liberal Free Democrats have been trying to plug a near £15billion budget black hole.

Into this economic and social maelstrom has stepped the far-right Alternative for Deutschland, who critics say are “infiltrating” the farmers’ demonstrations.

A YouGov poll last Sunday showed almost one in four Germans — 24 per cent — backed the AfD.

Last week it was reported that high-ranking AfD officials were caught at a secret conference where a “masterplan” for the forced deportation of millions of migrants to Africa was discussed.

The meeting, at a luxury hotel last November, featured a talk by far-right Identitarian Movement activist Martin Sellner, who is permanently banned from the UK for extremism.

It was claimed that the “remigration” proposals discussed at the event, infiltrated by news network Collectiv, included deporting immigrants with German passports.

Those in attendance — reportedly alongside neo-Nazis — included Roland Hartwig, a personal aide to AfD leader Alice Weidel, and AfD MP Gerrit Huy.

The AfD denied it had a “secret plan” but added: “We need passport withdrawal for criminals and remigration!”

At last week’s Hanover protest, turnip farmer Christoph Berndt, 31, insisted: “The AfD use the demonstrations to draw attention to themselves.

“They say the farmers are on their side, which isn’t true.”

Driving nearly 40 miles on his green John Deere tractor to be at the good-natured demonstration, he added: “The politicians in Berlin make it more difficult for us to work and make money.

“So we go on to the street and try to animate people to understand us and what we do in the fields.”

German flags fluttered from tractor cabs with signs on their front loaders reading: “No food without us.”

Another read: “Without agriculture you’d be hungry, naked and sober.”

Air horns sounded in the sub-zero chill as farmers gathered outside Lower Saxony’s regional parliament building in Hanover.

7

Locals cheered the tractor cavalcadeCredit: @UNCOFILM

Expressing the fury felt by many, Volker Hahn, who helped to organise the demo, said: “The Government needs money and they will take it from the farmers. It’s a horrible situation.”

Volker, 55, who tends pigs, chickens and potatoes at his 600-acre farm, added: “We don’t welcome the support of AfD.

“They’re extreme.”

To add to the air of despondency felt by many, Hanover and other German cities have also been crippled by train driver strikes this week.

At the parliament building I met Sonja Markgraf, from the Rural People of Lower Saxony group, which also helped to organise the tractor protest.

She said: “The French people were always on the barricades but in Germany everyone felt comfortable.”

Now, she says, times have changed, with farmers seething at being asked to help plug the Government’s budget gap.

She added: “We are very happy that the protests are peaceful — but loud. The population stands behind us.”

Sonja, 53, says people from all backgrounds are facing unrealistic demands on environmental issues.

She added: “Heat pumps are a good example. It’s not wrong to do it, it’s the way they do it.

“It was too quick, wasn’t well explained and people are worried about the price.

“Reforms are necessary but you have to take the people with you.

“This feeling is in every part of the population, whether you’re poor, rich or middle-class. It’s not great for the general mood.”

She blames people’s fears over illegal immigration for AfD’s rise, saying: “Even three or four years ago it wasn’t an issue.

“Now the municipalities say they have no rooms, no flats or apartments so it’s more visible now.

“So the AfD tries to profit from it.”

Germany has long been renowned in British minds as a land of efficiency, where everything works.

It was praised for how it faced up to its Nazi past and built a vibrant, liberal democracy with a turbo-charged economy.

That booming post-war Germany was summed up in Audi’s 1980s advertising slogan “vorsprung durch technik”, meaning “progress through technology”.

Now its famed export trade of cars and machinery is in deep trouble.

German car makers produced almost 40 per cent fewer vehicles in 2022 than they did a decade previously.

Once reliant on Russian gas, Germany saw energy prices soar after Vladimir Putin’s 2022 Ukraine invasion.

And politicians have failed to tackle creaking infrastructure, a housing shortage and high-speed internet rollout.

Labelled the Sick Man of Europe — an historic term that was used to describe Britain in the 1970s — its economy is predicted to perform worse than Britain’s in the next decade.

Though expected to return to growth this year, Germany — the world’s third biggest economy — is forecast to be overtaken by Japan in 2026 and India in 2027.

At Hanover’s regional parliament building I met the AfD’s Frank Rinck, who denies his far-right party has “infiltrated” the farmers’ demos.

The MP and chairman of the Lower Saxony AfD said the group were “simply engaging with these demonstrations like any other political party”.

Frank, an agricultural contractor, says the Government’s subsidy cut will lead to a “further death” of the farming sector.

He added: “At some point our domestic agricultural sector will not be able to feed indigenous people.”

He said it was news to him that AfD politicians had attended a “remigration” conference, describing reports as “a storm in a teacup”.

He added: “In Germany things like this tend to come up when problems arise and people demonstrate.”

Watching the AfD’s rise warily are the centre-right Christian Democratic Union party, currently Germany’s leading party in opinion polls.

Its agriculture spokesman in Lower Saxony’s parliament, Dr Marco Mohrmann, ruled out working with the AfD in a coalition.

The dad of three told me: “A big part of the AfD is extreme right — and that’s not our way.”

While accepting Germany should take in asylum seekers and skilled migrants, he admitted Britain’s stuttering Rwanda policy may also be a way forward for his country.

Conservative-leaning Marco, 59, said: “I think the model the UK is doing with Rwanda is interesting.

“It’s a third-country solution where you can look at someone and decide if they can get asylum or not.

“A year ago we couldn’t discuss something like this but now we can, and we have to.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has tried to contain farmers’ rage by phasing out the diesel tax break over time and scrapping plans to abolish tax exemption on agricultural vehicles.

Yet the scale of the protests — and their support across German society — suggests he has not done enough.

Yesterday 5,000 tractors and 10,000 protesters blockaded Berlin in a climax to a week of protest. Fresh talks with Government representatives are set.

Rural People of Lower Saxony’s Sonja Markgraf insisted: “If it’s not good for the farmers then we say, ‘We go on’.”

Germany’s Great Tractor Revolution may still only be in first gear.

7

Volker Hahn helped to organise the demonstration in HanoverCredit: Louis Wood

7

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has tried to contain farmers’ rage by phasing out the diesel tax break over time and scrapping plans to abolish tax exemption on agricultural vehiclesCredit: Getty

7

Sonja Markgraf, from the Rural People of Lower Saxony group, also helped to organise the tractor protestCredit: Louis Wood

Oliver Harvey

Source link

January 15, 2024
Ex-cop claims he has sex tape of Andrew filmed by Epstein stashed away

A FORMER US cop is at the centre of claims he is in possession of the sex tapes secretly recorded by depraved Jeffrey Epstein.

Court papers released in New York this week alleged that the tycoon had footage of the Duke of York.

7

Former US cop John Mark Dougan claims to have footage of CCTV recorded by Jeffrey EpsteinCredit:

7

Dougan says the FBI seized the footage but not before he took a copyCredit:

And now controversial US former cop John Mark Dougan says he has a computer hard drive containing Epstein footage.

He claims the videos were passed to him by a dead cop pal who first investigated Epstein when he was arrested for child sex in 2006.

Dougan says he does not know if it contains footage of Andrew because he cannot bring himself to watch it.

But he pointed to a report in The Sunday Times from 2019 which revealed that MI6 was “concerned” he had handed evidence involving the then-senior royal over to the Russian government after moving there.

Tracked down last week by The Sun on Sunday, he said: “Apparently the FBI freaked out and told MI6 I was in possession of compromising material relating to Prince Andrew.

“At that point I’d never been through the content of the hard drive and even after that I’ve only taken a quick glance, enough to know it’s s**t I don’t want to see.

Corruption claims

“The couple of videos I saw were very grainy and it was hard to see who was who.

“But it’s my contention that the FBI knows who is on those videos.”

Dougan has previously said he moved to Russia after the FBI raided his Florida home in 2016 and seized the hard drive.

But he added: “They thought they had the only copy until they found out in 2019 that I’d had a back-up copy sent to me in Russia.”

It is the latest astonishing twist in the case of paedophile financier Epstein and his decade-long friendship with Prince Andrew.

7

Dougan suspects there is footage of Prince Andrew on the recordingsCredit: Jae Donnelly

7

He says the the videos were passed to him by a dead cop pal who first investigated EpsteinCredit: Reuters

Epstein committed suicide in a New York prison in 2019 amid suspicious circumstances while awaiting trial for sex trafficking offences.

The sex tape claim resurfaced when Epstein victim Sarah Ransome claimed in court papers released this month that she had seen videos of Prince Andrew, Virgin mogul Richard Branson and former US president Bill Clinton having sex with an unnamed friend of hers.

Ransome, 39, who worked as a masseuse for Epstein at his New York mansion, later told reporters she had made up the claims.

Then she insisted in an appearance on Good Morning Britain this week that the secretly filmed footage DID exist.

She said: “There are videos that exist. The people that know they exist — I’m sure are very frightened of them being released.”

Dougan says his late friend Joe Recarey, a detective for the Palm Beach Police Department, took CD-ROMs to Dougan’s home containing the evidence and Dougan then “burned” them on to his hard drive.

Recarey was lead investigator when Epstein was first arrested there for child sex offences in 2006, and discovered hidden cameras at his Palm Beach mansion.

The detective was disgusted, said Dougan, when the paedophile financier was allowed to plea-bargain his way to a “sweetheart deal” in 2008 which saw him serve less than 13 months in jail for procuring a child for prostitution.

Dougan was never involved in that case but resigned in 2009 and became a whistleblower after making a series of claims about corruption in Florida police.

Recarey then enabled him to make copies of the tapes for safekeeping, he said, in case someone “above his pay grade” came looking for it.

Dougan claimed he didn’t give much thought to it until the FBI raided his home and took his computers in connection to whistleblowing and seized the evidence.

He fled to Russia to avoid any charges related to the raid. In 2017 he was eventually charged in his absence with wiretapping and extortion.

Last year US journalist Craig Unger claimed he had been sent proof by Dougan purportedly showing that one of the sex videos in his possession features an unidentified media executive.

Unger also pointed to a picture of Dougan with Russian government official Pavel Borodin, said to be a mentor to President Vladimir Putin.

The writer said: “When you see John Mark Dougan with this guy, the inevitable conclusion is, ‘Is Dougan selling them these sex tapes?’”

Dougan claims he met Borodin only once in 2013 on a business matter and insists any suggestion he has been paid by the Russian government or granted asylum there in exchange for the sex tapes is wrong.

7

Epstein died in jail in 2019 with US investigators ruling it as a suicideCredit: Getty

‘I have goosebumps’

He said: “No one from the Russian government has ever approached me about the videos.”

After it emerged that he was in possession of a back-up of the videos in 2019, Dougan claims he had his American passport revoked by the US State Department.

He has since been granted Russian citizenship and has been accused of working for the country’s Sputnik TV channel.

He denies that and says he has never been paid for any of his appearances on Russian TV.

In July 2022 he appeared in a video with captured British fighter Aiden Aslin, who was serving as a Ukrainian marine, while Aslin sang the Russian national anthem.

The clip was picked up by Russian state TV. In it, Dougan tells Aiden after the rendition: “I have goosebumps.”

Meanwhile, the FBI faced fresh calls this week to release hundreds of missing pieces of evidence, including tapes, CDs, passports and photos found in a safe at Epstein’s New York home in July 2019, when he was arrested for sex trafficking minors.

He died a month later in his New York jail in what was ruled to be suicide by hanging.

7

Prince Andrew strenuously denies all claims made against himCredit: AFP

Prince Andrew — who paid millions in a civil settlement to Epstein victim Virginia Guiffre — has not responded to the tape claims but has repeatedly denied all the allegations against him.

As for Sir Richard Branson, a Virgin Group spokesperson said: “We categorically reject all allegations made by Sarah Ransome.

“In 2019 she admitted to The New Yorker that the ‘tapes’ had been ‘invented’.

“Any suggestion that Sir Richard Branson was involved in a ‘sex tape’ is entirely false. The allegations are baseless.

“The actions of Jeffrey Epstein were abhorrent and we support the right to justice for the many victims impacted by his abuse.”

In 2020, following Epstein’s death a spokesman for Bill Clinton said: “President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York.

“In 2002 and 2003 President Clinton took a total of four trips on Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane, one to Europe, one to Asia and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation.

“He had one meeting with Epstein in his Harlem office in 2002, and around the same time made one brief visit to Epstein’s New York apartment with a staff member and his security detail.”

Despite the released court papers that claim Bill Clinton had twice visited Epstein Island, his spokesperson said in 2020: “He has not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade, and has never been to (Epstein’s) Little St James island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida.”

Prince nod in FBI doc

PRINCE ANDREW was mentioned in an FBI interview report linked to Jeffrey Epstein, we can reveal.

The Duke of York’s name appeared in paperwork, known as a 302 form, revealed by lawyers for Andrew’s accuser Virginia Giuffre.

7

Unredacted files name Prince Andrew in an FBI interview linked to Jeffrey EpsteinCredit: AP

It is unclear if it was the result of an FBI interview with Giuffre.

Her lawyers have touted the strength of their defamation case in 2016 against Epstein’s madam, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Listing an alleged cache of evidence, Sigrid McCawley wrote: “We have pictures, hospital records from when my client was a minor in New York with them.

“We have time and travel records, message pads, the FBI 302, which was taken in 2011, mentions Prince Andrew in it, in the unredacted part.”

A legal source in the US said: “The FBI takes these reports seriously.”

The status of the bureau’s probe into Andrew is unclear. It has not commented.

Dan Coombs

Source link

January 13, 2024
Was John Lennon's killer brainwashed by FBI? Cops thought he'd been 'programmed'
WHEN Mark Chapman fired four shots into John Lennon four decades ago there seemed little doubt who was responsible for the cold-blooded murder.

Immediately after the shooting outside the former Beatle’s New York home on December 8, 1980, the killer dropped his gun and waited for the police to arrive.

8

Was the former Beatle a target of the FBI? John Lennon with wife Yoko Ono in New York in 1980 – the year he was killedCredit: Rex

8

A police lieutenant who questioned Chapman reportedly told British barrister and writer Fenton Bresler: ‘He looked as if he could have been programmed’Credit: PA:Press Association

8

Confidential documents reveal that the FBI considered John and Yoko ‘dangerous’ and that President Richard Nixon wanted their activities – such as ‘bed-ins for peace’ stoppedCredit: Hulton Archive – Getty

But a new documentary series raises questions about whether Chap-man could have been hypnotised or controlled by shadowy forces.

In the three-part Apple TV+ series a pal of John’s reveals for the first time that the singer’s widow Yoko Ono asked him to look into a possible conspiracy.

And he discovered that the US secret services had followed and bugged the peace-campaigning couple because of their radical ideas.

Confidential documents reveal that the FBI considered them “dangerous” and that President Richard Nixon wanted their activities stopped.

If jobless oddball Chapman seems an unlikely assassin, the fact that the CIA had carried out experiments to see if mind control was possible only adds to the murder’s mystique.

Elliot Mintz, who used to be a spokesman for John and Yoko, says: “I’ve never expressed this before.

“One of the things Yoko asked me was to look into the various conspiracy theories after John’s murder.

“The two of them were convinced that the Dakota building, their apartment area, was being bugged.”

Phone tapped

John and Yoko were arguably the world’s best-known peace campaigners during the Vietnam War.

In 1969 they held “bed-ins for peace” and John released the anti-war anthem Give Peace A Chance.

That year Republican Nixon became US President and approved the secret carpet-bombing of Vietnam’s neighbour Cambodia.

John believed his phone was being tapped and saw men loitering outside his door.

He once said: “I realised this was serious. They were coming for me, one way or another.”

While that might sound paranoid, the FBI really were on his tail. Confidential files revealed that agents had been ordered to follow and wire-tap the couple.

At the end of one document, a note in capital letters says: “All extremists should be considered dangerous.”

Elliot, 78, who was also a DJ on underground radio, says: “There were hundreds and hundreds of pages written to the director of the FBI from Richard Nixon, where it was determined that John and Yoko were to be followed, monitored and steps were taken on the highest level of government to do something about the Lennon problem.”

Following the Watergate scandal Nixon was forced to resign in shame in 1974 and a year later US forces exited Vietnam for good.

But John remained a thorn in the side of the US government.

He expressed a distrust for the police, took illegal substances and his 1971 single Imagine asked people to think of a world with no possessions or national borders.

In his final interview, recorded just hours before his death aged 40 and aired in the documentary, John said: “People have the power to make the society they want.”

Repeated attempts by British-born John to obtain US citizenship had failed. But he had largely kept a low profile for five years before his murder and didn’t appear to be a critic of President Jimmy Carter.

However, Chapman did not have an obvious motive either. Various bizarre explanations have been given, with the killer once saying he did it to promote the reading of JD Salinger’s 1951 novel The Catcher In The Rye.

8

John signing a copy of his album for Mark Chapman – who, just a few hours later, would shoot dead the ex-BeatleCredit: New York News

8

Elliot Mintz says: ‘There were hundreds and hundreds of pages written to the director of the FBI from Richard Nixon, where it was determined that John and Yoko were to be followed’Credit: Getty

8

Fenton Bresler believed Chapman was a victim of a mind control programme and put the blame on the CIA in his 1989 book The Murder Of John LennonCredit: Apple TV

He had modelled himself on its main character Holden Caulfield, a symbol of teenage rebellion.

But the prosecution claimed Chap-man simply wished to be famous.

In one confession, he said: “I thought I would turn into somebody if I killed somebody.”

Witnesses to the murder certainly found his behaviour odd for a killer.

Taxi driver Richard Peterson says in the show: “After he shot him, Chapman was still standing there with the gun, took off his overcoat and pulled out that book and held it up — Catcher In The Rye.”

The police officers were equally puzzled by Chapman. One, Tony Palma, asked him: “Do you realise what you’ve done?” and the accused replied: “Yes, I just killed myself, I’m John Lennon.”

A police lieutenant who questioned Chapman reportedly told British barrister and writer Fenton Bresler: “He looked as if he could have been programmed.”

Chapman, a married man who lived in Hawaii, admitted to the killing, but Detective Ron Hoffman, who was in charge of the investigation, speculated that there could be more to the case.

He says: “We had the killer, we were positive about that, we wanted to close every possibility that he had no help.

“Was he alone, was there somebody behind the lines, was it a conspiracy — all these questions started running through my mind.” In Chapman’s room Hoffman found his personal effects carefully laid out on a desk, including his passport and a Bible open at the Gospel of John.

This pointed to a premeditated act and there was no evidence he corresponded with a co-conspirator, though that still leaves the hypnosis theory.

From the 1950s, the CIA ran a 20-year top-secret project, codenamed MKUltra, that used drug addicts and mental health patients in mind-control experiments.

Chapman fits that profile because he had both a history of suicidal feelings and drug abuse.

His former girlfriend Jessica Blank-enship, who met him at a church retreat aged 16, remembered him having a nervous breakdown and trying to kill himself.

She adds: “He particularly liked The Beatles until John Lennon said they were more popular than Jesus Christ.”

Childhood friend Vance Hunter recalled Chapman taking “eight hits of LSD 25, which was very powerful” over one weekend, and trying opium.

After the killing Chapman was repeatedly interviewed by the police and his own legal team.

On one tape he described the seconds before firing the gun, saying: “All I remember is I had a voice in my head saying, ‘Do it, do it, do it, do it’.”

Over the years since the killing, conspiracy theorists have been out in force.

Fenton Bresler believed Chapman was a victim of a mind control programme and put the blame on the CIA in his 1989 book The Murder Of John Lennon.

In 2018 documentary Drugs As Weapons Against Us, John Potash suggested the same agency played some part in John’s death.

But Potash has also claimed the CIA had a hand in the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur and the suicide of rocker Kurt Cobain.

One other mysterious detail is that President Ronald Reagan’s would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr also had a copy of Catcher In The Rye.

Reagan survived being shot at close range by Hinckley in 1981, just three months after John’s murder.

But the idea that the former Beatle was killed by the State has gathered few supporters. Even Chapman’s own lawyers did not put forward that defence.

Instead his legal team maintains that the miscarriage of justice in this case was allowing a psychologically disturbed man to enter a guilty plea.

But the court decided Chapman was of sound mind and in August 1981 he was sentenced to 20 years to life. He remains in prison today, after 12 parole hearings.

David Suggs, who helped to put Chapman’s defence together, says: “This isn’t a whodunnit. Our intention was to prove this man was insane.”

Indeed, insanity remains a credible reason for the murder, and Suggs adds: “He thought he was going to turn literally into Holden Caulfield in The Catcher In The Rye.”
- John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial is streaming on Apple TV+ now.
8

Elliot Mintz in ‘John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial,’ now streaming on Apple TV+Credit: Apple TV

8

A vigil attended by 50,000 of Lennon’s fans in New York’s Central Park after his killing
Grant Rollings

Source link
December 7, 2023
Israeli women were raped at gunpoint – could Hamas animals sink any lower?

HIDING for his life, Yoni Saadon watched in horror as a Hamas mob man-handled a woman “with the face of an angel”.

The Israeli had crept under the stage at the Supernova desert rave when it was attacked by armed-to-the-teeth terrorists.

5

Israeli soldiers look at photos of people killed and taken captive by Hamas militants during their attack on the Supernova desert rave on October 7Credit: AP

5

Footage shows an armed Palestinian militant walking around the music festivalCredit: AFP

5

Members of the security forces continue to search for identification after the attack – while harrowing testimony has revealed the extent of atrocities on that dayCredit: Getty

After an hour, the 39-year-old dad of four peeked out: “I saw this beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or ten of the fighters beating and raping her.

“She was screaming, ‘Stop it — I’m going to die anyway from what you are doing, just kill me!’

“When they finished they were laughing and the last one shot her in the head.

“I kept thinking it could have been one of my daughters.”

Yoni’s harrowing testimony to the Sunday Times of rape as a weapon of terror is far from unique.

Yet the welter of vivid evidence reported by respected media outlets — and Hamas’s own sick videos — have not swayed many who would normally be natural allies of raped and mutilated women.

Shamefully, there has been no widespread crescendo of outrage from feminist groups, #MeToo activists, human rights campaigners and social justice warriors.

There were no circular letters signed by famous luvvies. And no special hashtag for the defiled women of Israel.

It appeared that sympathy for the Palestinian cause meant some could find no place in their hearts for raped and butchered Israeli women.

It led Israeli tech boss Danielle Ofek to launch a campaign on Twitter/X with the hashtag #MeTooUnlessUrAJew — its aim to gather a million signatures to acknowledge that every woman’s life is equally precious.

Despite the deafening silence, multiple heart-wrenching accounts of the rape and mutilation of women have emerged since the massacre.

This week the BBC told how Israeli police had shown journalists the video testimony of another Supernova survivor.

It’s an extremely shocking and graphic account of barbarity.

The woman, known as Witness S, first told how Hamas passed a female partygoer from one attacker to another.

Then she said: “She was alive. She was bleeding from her back. They sliced her breast and threw it on the street. They were playing with it.”

Witness S then told how the victim was passed to another man in uniform, who shot her in the head while he was raping her.

The BBC also quoted a survivor from the festival saying in a statement: “Some women were raped before they were dead, some raped while injured, and some were already dead when the terrorists raped their lifeless bodies.

“I desperately wanted to help, but there was nothing I could do.”

And a morgue worker said: “There is evidence of mass rape so brutal that they broke their victims’ pelvis — women, grandmothers, children.”

Photographs from massacre sites show dead women naked from the waist down, or with their underwear ripped to one side, their legs splayed and with signs of trauma to their genitals and legs.

Israeli police commander Shelly Harush, leading the investigation into the rapes, said: “It’s clear now that sexual crimes were part of the planning, and the purpose was to terrify and humiliate people.”

Israel’s Women’s Empowerment Minister May Golan said the “very, very few” victims of rape or sexual assault who survived the attacks were having psychiatric treatment.

She added: “The majority were brutally murdered. They aren’t able to talk — not with me, and not to anyone from the government or from the media.”

Most social media users would have seen the highly distressing images of a handcuffed woman taken hostage, with cuts to her arms and her trousers bloodstained.

Yet the silence from many has left Israeli women feeling ignored by the global feminist movement.

The United Nations organisation UN Women — which calls itself “the global champion for gender equality” — had nothing initially to say after the mass rapes on October 7.

Despite publishing a report on women in the region a few days after the outrage, it remained silent.

‘Unverified accusation’

Nearly two months after the rape and murder spree — and following intense lobbying by Israeli women’s groups — UN Women finally acknowledged the sexual attacks.

It released a statement saying the organisation was “alarmed by the numerous accounts of gender-based atrocities and sexual violence” during the October attacks.

5

One woman was wedged between two fanatics as they carried her away on a motorbikeCredit: AP

5

Noa Argamani, 25, was snatched from a music festival as she begged for her lifeCredit: Supplied

But Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen slammed the statement as “weak and late”.

In Canada an open letter has been gathering signatures among politicos, but rather than decry the Hamas killings and sexual attacks, it denied that women were raped.

It criticised opposition New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh for having “repeated the unverified accusation that Palestinians were guilty of sexual violence.”

Astonishingly, it was signed by Samantha Pearson, director of the University of Alberta’s Sexual Assault Centre.

The Jewish Federation of Edmonton wrote: “Shouldn’t a sexual assault centre believe all victims, and not just the non-Jewish ones?”

Pearson was fired from her role.

In Britain, Guardian newspaper posterboy Owen Jones — who was at a screening of Hamas atrocities put together by the Israeli Government — said there was no “conclusive evidence” of rape in the images he witnessed.

He added: “If there was rape and sexual violence committed, we don’t see that on camera.”

The Israel Defense Forces said only footage that “preserved the dignity” of those killed was used out of respect to their families.

It was left to fellow Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff to point out last week that after reports of the rape of Yazidi and Ukrainian women she couldn’t remember “too many sceptics demanding to see video proof”.

Jones later tweeted: “All allegations of rape and sexual assault must be investigated, including those alleged against Hamas during 7th October atrocity”.

On Tuesday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a Press conference: “I say to the women’s rights organisations, to the human rights organisations, you’ve heard of the rape of Israeli women, horrible atrocities, sexual mutilation — where the hell are you?”

Last week UN secretary general António Guterres finally said that the “numerous accounts of sexual violence during the abhorrent acts of terror by Hamas” should be “vigorously investigated”.

Israeli author Hen Mazzig tweeted: “So, it took the top man in the humanitarian world almost TWO MONTHS to believe women and say that there are “reports” of rape that should be investigated?

“No, sir, it must be condemned, NOW, with your full chest.”

Oliver Harvey

Source link

December 6, 2023
Trump or Milei? Match the quote to the firebrand leader and see if you’re right

FIRST it was maverick world leader Donald Trump posting bizarre and deluded tweets through his four-year US presidency.

Now he has a rival – Argentina’s new right-wing leader Javier Milei, who has already created a stir with revelations of tantric sex and threesomes, as well as speaking to his dead dog.

2

Argentina has just elected right-wing leader Javier Milei, who wields chainsaws at ralliesCredit: AP

2

The controversial leader is not unlike Donald Trump – so can you guess which president said what?Credit: Reuters

Trump and Milei admire each other and are not afraid to speak their minds, but how alike are they?

Can you work out which of them was responsible for which crazy quote? Try Samantha Yule’s quiz.

Answers below.

1. “Can you believe I’m a politician? I can’t even.”

2. “The sale of human organs is merchandise.”

3. “For me the state is an enemy, as are the politicians who live off it.”

4. “A murderer is a murderer. A thief is a thief. And that’s what you call them. They’re an organised crime group, the biggest in the world, called ‘the state’. Why should I treat them any other way?”

5. “I tested positively toward negative, right? So no. I tested perfectly this morning, meaning I tested negative. But that’s a way of saying it. Positively toward the negative.”

6. “Why can’t we use nuclear weapons?”

7. “If I had to choose between the state and the Mafia, I would choose the Mafia because the Mafia has codes, the Mafia adapts, the Mafia doesn’t lie. And above all, the Mafia competes.”

8. “I like kids. I mean, I won’t do anything to take care of them. I’ll supply funds and she’ll take care of the kids. It’s not like I’m gonna be walking the kids down Central Park.”

9. “I think apologising’s a great thing, but you have to be wrong. I will absolutely apologise, sometime in the hopefully distant future, if I’m ever wrong.”

10. “When you see the other side chopping off heads, waterboarding doesn’t sound very severe.”

11. “Each man has his own dynamic. In my case, I ejaculate every three months.”

12. “Mickey Mouse is the aspiration of every politician because he is a disgusting rodent whom everybody loves.”

13. “I will not be apologising for having a penis. I don’t have to feel ashamed of being a man.”

14. “I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.”

15. “On promising to stop government benefits as they are “based on that atrocity that says that where there is a need, a right is born, its maximum expression being that aberration called social justice”.

16. “To be blunt, people would vote for me. They just would. Why? Maybe because I’m so good looking.”

17. “Marriage is a horrible institution, first because it is a contract for life. I don’t want marriage, I don’t want regulations.

“With marriage, the relationship worsens because, since breaking that contract is costly, what appears, it’s called the moral hazard, so you take more risks. Men get fat, women take less care of themselves, and a whole series of deteriorations occur . . . ”

18. “Sorry, losers and haters, but my IQ is one of the highest, and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.”

19. Climate change is a “socialist lie”.

20. “It’s really cold, they’re calling it a major freeze, weeks ahead of normal. Man, we could use a big fat dose of global warming.”

Answers

1. Trump

2. Milei

3. Milei

4. Milei

5. Trump

6. Trump

7. Milei

8. Trump

9. Trump

10. Trump

11. Milei

12. Milei

13. Milei

14. Trump

15. Milei

16. Trump

17. Milei

18. Trump

19. Milei

20. Trump

Michael Shersby

Source link

November 25, 2023
My dad escaped Nazi death by stealing dog food – we must learn from the past

THE daughter of a Nazi death camp survivor has told her father’s incredible story for the first time — after being shocked by anti-Jewish hate triggered by the Hamas attacks.

Mum-of-three Maja Klausner, 49, had kept silent on the heart-stopping story of her late father Wladyslaw Rath, an Auschwitz inmate who was on the real-life Schindler’s list.

10

The international Jewish community has been shocked by anti-Jewish hate triggered by the Hamas attacksCredit: Alamy

10

Mum-of-three Maja Klausner is the daughter of a Nazi death camp survivorCredit: Doug Seeburg

But she contacted The Sun after being moved by our front page showing the faces of 32 child hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

And yesterday she told how her peace campaigner dad would have been horrified by the rise of anti-Semitic hate set to be paraded again this Remembrance weekend.

Housewife Maja, 49, said: “My father could not bring himself to describe what happened to him in Auschwitz until two years before his death.

“It was too painful.

“But when the film Schindler’s List was released, he began telling us he had been a part of that story and was one of the lucky ones who lived.

“I had never intended to reveal what he told me but feel I have to say something as we remember the Second World War, because I fear the wheel of history has come full circle again.

“There is so much hate — on both sides — but I would appeal to everyone planning to protest, please remember the lessons of the past.”

Wladyslaw Rath was the 15-year-old son of a successful Jewish factory owner in Krakow, Poland, when the Nazi invasion decimated his well-to-do family’s life in 1939.

‘Huge, ferocious dogs’

The youngster, his older sister Dora, then 19, their father Max and mother Amalia lost everything and were marched from their townhouse to Krakow’s ghetto at gunpoint.

Amalia was gassed in a Nazi extermination camp and Max collapsed and died on a forced “death march” days before the end of the war.

But Wladyslaw and Dora survived the horrors of Plaszow, Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps thanks to Holocaust hero Oskar Schindler.

The German industrialist saved 1,200 Jews by creating fake jobs for them in his Krakow armaments factory to keep them out of death camps.

Wladyslaw and Dora were numbers 231 and 200 respectively on the record of employees immortalised as Schindler’s List in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 Oscar-winner.

Before his death aged 71 in 1996, Wladyslaw told Maja he was saved by Schindler — played by Liam Neeson in the film — and how he thanked him after the conflict.

But he also haltingly recounted his near-death ordeal at the hands of sadistic Plaszow camp commandant Amon Göth, chillingly portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in the film.

Maja told The Sun: “My father was saved by Oskar Schindler but first had to survive Göth in Auschwitz.

“In the movie Göth was seen delighting in shooting dead prisoners for fun with a sniper rifle, and my father endured this torment.

“One day he was carrying a ladder through the camp with a man who was taller than he was when Göth appeared and began shooting.

“A bullet went through my father’s hair and grazed his scalp but hit the taller man, killing him instantly.

“My father was traumatised but had seen so much death in the camp by then that he just picked up the ladder and carried on walking.

“While many lost the will to live and were shot, gassed, starved or worked to death, he somehow managed to stay strong and carry on.”

Maja told how her father also recalled the horror of watching Jew-hating Göth’s huge, ferocious hunting dogs savage camp inmates to death.

She told The Sun: “Göth had two enormous dogs which he had trained to kill.

“They were vicious cross breeds as big as a Great Dane.

“He would set his dogs into crowds of starving, exhausted prisoners and laugh as they tore people to pieces.

“My father was in the crowd several times when this happened and somehow avoided being the victim.

“And Göth later gave him the job no one wanted — feeding the dogs.”

Maja told how her determined father, by then in his late teens, turned the feared chore to his advantage.

10

Wladyslaw Rath was held in auschwitz but survived the warCredit: Doug Seeburg

10

Wladyslaw survived by pretending to be an experienced factory machinists to enable him to be added to Schindler’s listCredit: Doug Seeburg

She continued: “He had a way with animals which enabled him to control them.

“He began stealing the dogs’ food to enable himself and other inmates to survive.

“Everyone was terrified of them, so he would hide the food he stole as he walked with them and trained them to snarl at any camp guard who approached him.

“That food kept them alive when many more starved.

“He also managed to save Dora’s life by hiding her from the guards when she fell ill with typhoid.

“Any prisoner unwell in Auschwitz was routinely gassed or shot immediately because they were of no further use to the Nazis.

“This was the very peak of anti-Semitism of the kind we are seeing rising again now, the mass murder of millions of people just because they were Jewish.

“It must never be allowed to happen again.”

Wladyslaw and Dora survived by pretending to be experienced factory machinists to enable them to be added to Schindler’s list of fake forced labourers.

Schindler, who died aged 66 in 1974, had his workers deliberately make dud shells to hamper Adolf Hitler’s war machine before Krakow and nearby Auschwitz were liberated in 1945.

Maja said: “At the end of the war Oskar Schindler’s workers feared he would be mistaken for a Nazi and shot.

“So my aunt Dora and others escorted him to surrender to the Allied soldiers to save his life.

“Years later my father met him especially to say thank you.

“He told me it was an incredibly emotional moment for them both.”

10

Wladyslaw only survived the war because he was on Schindler’s listCredit: AFP

After the war, Wladyslaw moved to the Austrian capital, Vienna, where he ran a successful cinema business.

He was invited to the world premier of Schindler’s List in the city in 1993.

‘Risk of attack too high’

He also managed to track down and buy the wartime ID card of his nemesis Göth — which is now on display on the Auschwitz holocaust museum site.

Maja said: “My father was a very positive person and always tried to look forward rather than back.

“He never really talked about what happened in the war until a couple of years before his death.

“He firmly believed that what happened to him and millions of others changed the world for ever, and I’m glad he is not alive to see what is happening today.

“People were marching against Israel and celebrating the Hamas massacres on the streets even before Israelis retaliated.

“I’m not a practising Jew but I have Jewish friends who are afraid to go out.

“Others have removed Jewish names from their doorbells fearing they will be attacked.

“I won’t be going to the Christmas markets in Vienna, which I love every year, because the risk of an attack by extremists is too high.

“And while I am determined to speak out, I don’t want to give you the names of my three children in case they are put at risk.

“This is the climate we are living in again, at a time of year when we are remembering those sacrificed during World War Two.

“It feels as though history is going backwards and that we have learned nothing.”

Maja — whose children are aged eight, ten and 12 — said she had been heartbroken by the suffering of Israelis and Palestinians triggered by the October 7 atrocities.

And she was particularly moved by the plight of innocent youngsters caught in the crossfire, including the 32 Israeli child hostages pictured on a powerful Sun front page last month.

Maja, who lives in Vienna and saw our front page online, said: “Children should play no part in this conflict, no matter which side they are on.

“I learned a lot from my father and I make a point of reading newspapers from all over the world.

“When I saw those faces on your front page I had to get in touch.

“News organisations like your BBC were very quick to blame Israel when a Hamas rocket blew up a hospital and it’s very clear that people have taken sides.

“But the faces of innocent children now cowering in terror in tunnels under Gaza tell the real story.

“Like the innocent Palestinian children being killed, they are the real victims here.

“We must save the children — and we must not let hate win.”

10

Wladyslaw was forced into Plaszow concentration camp near KrakowCredit: Bridgeman Images

10

Wladyslaw recounted his near-death ordeal at the hands of sadistic Plaszow camp commandant Amon GöthCredit: Alamy

10

Goth was chillingly portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s list

10

Schindler died aged 66 in 1974Credit: Rex

10

Oskar Schindler has a permanent exhibition dedicated to him in the Mestske museum in his native townCredit: Alamy

Nick Parker

Source link

November 10, 2023
How terror group Hamas ‘uses civilian sites’ to launch rocket attacks on Israel

TERROR group Hamas has been accused of using civilian sites to launch its attacks.

Aerial footage appears to show a rocket launcher being fired from an orchard — which was just yards from a water desalination plant.

4

Hamas has been accused of using civilian sites to launch rocket attacks against IsraelCredit: AFP

4

A Hamas rocket has been launched from a near to a water desalination plant constructed with EU cashCredit:

The video, supplied by the Israeli Defence Forces to The Sun on Sunday, shows a flare of light when what appears to be a rocket, one of more than 7,000 which have been launched, is fired towards Israel.

We geolocated the site and confirmed it was next to a £9million plant which was built with European Union funding and opened in 2017.

The weapon appeared to be hidden at the plant at Deir al Balah on the Mediterranean coast in what seems to be an orchard — likely an olive or pomegranate grove — just a few yards from the facility.

If the site was to suffer damage in a strike to take out the launcher then it could further deprive thousands of Palestinians already reeling after four weeks of bombardment.

Water has long been in short supply for Gaza’s 2.3million residents as 95 per cent of that extracted from the aquifer beneath it is not suitable for human consumption.

Israel supplies ten per cent of the country’s water with the rest made up of sea water treated at three desalination plants.

The supply from Israel was cut off when a full blockade of the enclave was imposed after the attacks on October 7 by Hamas.

Israel later restarted supplies and by this week was supplying 28.5 million litres a day — only about half of its supply before war broke out.

The plant in the footage was providing 20,000 cubic metres of water a day to residents of southern Gaza before the war.

It is not known if the rocket launcher still remains at the site in Deir al Balah since the footage of it being fired was released.

An IDF spokesman said of the video clip: “Hamas is firing rockets from inside densely populated civilian areas — right next to schools, hospitals, homes and humanitarian facilities.

“In this footage, you can see a Hamas rocket launcher, placed intentionally adjacent to a water desalination facility, used for providing water to the civilians in the Gaza Strip.

“It is an active rocket launching from within the Gaza Strip, towards Israel.”

4

The weapon appeared to be hidden at the plant at Deir al Balah on the Mediterranean coast in what seems to be an orchardCredit:

4

Hamas have a network of underground tunnels across Gaza, with some dug underneath medical facilitiesCredit: AFP

The spokesman added that the location was picked to make it hard for Israeli forces to eliminate it — underlining the alleged policy of choosing areas that would suffer collateral damage if targeted by a strike.

He insisted that the tactic was “a deliberate strategy”.

He added: “Hamas knows that when they fire rockets at Israel, Israel will respond in self-defence to stop this threat.

“They also know that Israel makes every effort to avoid civilian casualties while operating, so they do this to make it even more difficult for Israel to target their terrorist infrastructure.

“Hamas has got better at covering this up over the years, but there are countless examples to show that its strategy is still in place.”

The claims come as a row continues over Israel’s strike on an ambulance on Friday.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said 15 people were killed when the ambulance, which had been trying to take patients to the Rafah border crossing, was hit outside Al-Shifa hospital on Friday.

It accused Israel of committing a war crime.

The PRC claims there were two strikes on ambulances, the deadliest one yards from the hospital and one about a kilometre away.

It says the dead were civilians and 60 others were wounded.

Witness Bisan Owda, a filmmaker, told the BBC: “Some people lost their legs, lost their hands, people were trying to carry injuries,

“People were crying, trying to find each other.”

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organisation, said he was “utterly shocked”.

He added: “We reiterate: patients, health workers, facilities, and ambulances must be protected at all times. Always.”

But the IDF said that it had targeted the vehicle because it was being used to ferry terrorists and that a number of Hamas fighters had been killed.

A spokesman said: “We have information which demonstrates that Hamas’s method of operation is to transfer terror operatives and weapons in ambulances.

“We emphasise that this area is a battle zone.

“Civilians in the area are repeatedly called upon to evacuate southwards for their own safety.”

Israel had previously claimed before the strike on the ambulance that Hamas placed command and control centres and rocket launchers under hospitals.

The IDF’s Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari accused the terror group of using patients as human shields and said: “Hamas wages war from hospitals.”

He claimed Hamas had placed a command and control centre under Shifa Hospital — with another base inside it.

He said: “We have concrete evidence that hundreds of terrorists flooded into the hospital to hide there after the massacres of October 7.”

He also said that Israel believes several tunnels lead to the underground base from outside the hospital and there is an entrance to the complex within one of the wards.

Mr Hagari added: “Shifa is not the only hospital — it is one of many. Hamas’s use of hospitals is systematic.”

Background to the conflict

HISTORIAN Mark Almond — Director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford — here outlines background to the conflict between Israel and Palestine and explains the parts played by others in the Middle East.

WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL?

ISRAEL declared its independence in 1948 — but the Jewish state’s roots go back 3,000 years to when it occupied the land as a kingdom.

It was later conquered by Rome and the Jews eventually expelled after a rebellion was crushed.

They were scattered around the world until Hitler’s World War Two murder of six million led to survivors moving to UK-run Palestine.

In 1948 Israel’s army defeated Arab states who tried to strangle the new state at birth.

WHO ARE HAMAS AND WHAT DO THEY WANT?

HAMAS is the governing party of Gaza. It is a Muslim organisation which rejects Israel’s right to exist.

The group was founded in 1987 by blind, wheelchair-bound cleric Sheikh Yassin who wanted an Islamic state to include Israeli territory.

He was killed by an Israeli airstrike in 2004. But Hamas continued to attack Israel with homemade and Iranian rockets.

They launched a murderous assault on Israeli families on October 7, killing 1,400.

WHY ARE HEZBOLLAH OF CONCERN TO ISRAEL?

HEZBOLLAH is a Shia Muslim organisation run by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah which controls the most powerful armed force in Lebanon.

After clashes with Israel, it became an army with Iranian missiles and thousands of fighters.

Israel suffered heavy losses when it fought Hezbollah in 2006 — the first time an Arab army had successfully held off its forces.

A third of Israel’s forces man the Lebanese border to deter Hezbollah from joining Hamas’s war in Gaza.

WHAT IS IRAN’S ROLE IN CURRENT EVENTS?

IRAN is Israel’s mortal enemy — seeing it as America’s main ally in the Middle East ever since the Islamic Revolution there in 1979.

Iran provides money, weapons and training to both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon to act as proxies for its anti-Israeli strategy on the country’s borders.

But it also backs Iraqi militant Muslim groups who attack American forces there, as well as the Yemeni Houthi militia.

WHAT’S HAPPENED TO SAUDI/ISRAELI TALKS?

ONE of the biggest impacts of the current war has been the suspension of talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia, who had been preparing to live normally side-by-side.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza, resulting from Israel’s determination to crush Hamas, has made it impossible for the Saudis to deal directly with Israel.

Popular anger at the human cost of defeating Hamas has made even countries like Egypt and Jordan back away.

Robin Perrie

Source link

November 4, 2023
I dated Dodi Al-Fayed at the same time as Diana – I know why they fell in love
ONE of Dodi Fayed’s former lovers has told how she ditched him when she feared he was cheating on her with Princess Diana – and now agonises over whether her move played a role in their deaths.

Ex-model Annie Cardone said: “One decision I made in that moment, in early summer 1997, right before they went public . . .

7

Ex-model Annie Cardone, one of Dodi Fayed’s former lovers, has told how she now agonises over whether her dumping him played a role in his death alongside Princess DianaCredit: Jerry Hinkle

7

Annie told The Sun about her life with Dodi, whose death aged 42 in a Paris car crash with Diana came just months after he and Annie split upCredit: AP

7

Ex-model Annie, pictured now, has told how she ditched Dodi when she feared he was cheating on her with Princess Diana – and now agonises over the decisionCredit: Louis Wood

“If I’d given him another chance, would things have been different? Would history have changed?

“That’s a burden of responsibility that I feel I have.”

She added: “When I last saw him, he was begging for another chance. He was crying. He was sobbing.

“He was telling me he loved me and it was incredibly hard to see him like that. I still get choked about it.”

READ MORE ON DIANA & DODI

In her first ever full chat, Annie told The Sun about her life with Dodi, whose death aged 42 in a Paris car crash with Diana came just months after he and Annie split up.

Now 57 and living in Canterbury, Kent, she recalled: “He was incredibly tactile, loving and sweet. It was very passionate and intense.”

Annie claimed there was “definitely an overlap” with her and Diana dating playboy Dodi, who was known for his wild living and womanising.

She admitted she was initially “annoyed” when she discovered he was dating Diana — who she believes knew nothing about her — but said she is now pleased she was able to experience Dodi’s devoted love.

Of Diana, she said: “We were both very, very lucky to have been on the receiving end of that. Not many women were.”

Cocaine brick

Annie, now an author whose latest book is Menopause WTH!, spoke to The Sun ahead of Channel 5 documentary, Dodi: Last Days Of A Playboy.

The programme, in which she features, lifts the lid on Dodi’s life, from his early days in his native Egypt, to dealing with his parents’ divorce at a young age, building a career in Hollywood as a film producer and going on to date the most famous woman in the world.

Five-times-married Annie, who was scouted as a model in her early 20s, said she met Dodi in the summer of 1996 at London’s most decadent late-night haunt, Tramp nightclub.

Annie, who by then had quit modelling for public relations, recalled how he asked her friend if she would dance with him but she declined.

She said: “It was midnight and I didn’t want to be there.”

But Dodi overheard her reply and Annie said: “I remember his little face. It’s like someone had sold his dog. I felt bad for him.”

And she had a change of heart when her favourite song, Gangsta’s Paradise by rapper Coolio, started playing.

Annie recalled: “Dodi had moves. He surprised me because he looked like a wet blanket.”

She added: “He wasn’t a great conversationalist or raconteur. He was very shy.”

The first night she stayed at Dodi’s Park Lane apartment felt like a scene from the film An Officer And A Gentleman, according to Annie.

Dodi — who had attended Sandhurst, the British Army’s top officer training academy — had filled it with “beautiful military uniforms” and he held her hand as she walked down the stairs.

As the son of billionaire former Harrods owner Mohamed Fayed, Dodi had private jets and yachts at his disposal.

In the current series of Netflix drama The Crown, Dodi is seen snorting cocaine and making love to his latest girlfriend on a private jet paid for by his dad, but Annie said the reality was far less glamorous for her.

She recalls: “We would go to Harry’s Bar, he’d have the truffles, then we’d go to Tramp and go back to his place with a bunch of losers.

“I’d try and get an early night because I had to get up in the morning.

“He’d come to bed a bit later.

“We’d have a bit of hanky panky for a few hours. I’d get up at 6am and have to borrow one of his Ralph Lauren polo sweaters to wear on the walk of shame to work.”

She added sarcastically: “So yeah, it was really glamorous.”

Annie was a fan of the hit Netflix series but stopped watching before it focused on her ex’s famous relationship with Princess Diana, played by Elizabeth Debicki.

She said: “I don’t trust The Crown to have done an accurate portrayal and it’ll just annoy me.”

Annie said she decided to break off her romance with Dodi, which lasted almost a year, because she had a hunch there was another woman.

7

Annie said she discovered her ex was dating Diana when she saw pictures of them in St Tropez on the French Riviera — including the famous ‘kiss’ photoCredit: Jason Fraser

7

As the son of billionaire former Harrods owner Mohamed Fayed, Dodi had private jets and yachts at his disposalCredit: Alpha Photo Press Agency

7

Diana and Dodi relax on a speedboat during a break in St Tropez in the South of France shortly before their deaths in 1997Credit: Rex Features

She said she first suspected something was up when a trip they had planned to the US for Christmas 1996 with Bruce Willis and Demi Moore — who film producer Dodi worked with on the 1995 movie The Scarlet Letter — was cancelled.

Annie said: “We had plans to go to Colorado to spend time with Bruce and Demi. We were all set to go and we were both excited about it.

Absolutely destroyed

“The trip didn’t happen and we had words about it.”

She recalled how Dodi suddenly “changed” and “went quiet”. She added: “Obviously I knew. You can read the temperature.”

Dodi had first met Diana at a polo match in 1989, but they did not get together until his dad invited her to stay at his mansion in St Tropez in July 1997. Annie said she discovered her ex was dating Diana when she saw the pictures of them in the luxurious resort on the French Riviera — including the famous “kiss” photo.

But she believes they got together “quite a long time” before things were made public.

When she heard the news she admitted: “I was a little annoyed.”

As well as Annie, the new film hears from those closest to Dodi including British former Royal Military Police officer Lee Sansum, one of the Fayed family’s personal bodyguards, and Dodi’s personal butler of seven years, René Delorm, who lived with him and travelled the world with him.

Peter Riva, who knew Dodi from his time at an elite Swiss boarding school, also claims in the documentary he once saw Dodi carrying a “brick” of cocaine at the notorious Studio 54 nightclub in New York.

When the news came out that the Princess was dating Dodi, Annie said his wild past led her to predict a bad outcome for the relationship.

She said: “There was a sense of foreboding. I knew he was going to get crucified. Everyone she was with was going to get absolutely destroyed.

“He had a lot to hide, unfortunately. I had this real fear. And I just actually said to a friend, ‘This is not going to end well’.”

In the 90s, well-connected Annie lived a jet-set lifestyle. She was pals with the late socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and former Miss UK Kirsty Bertarelli, who last year became Britain’s richest divorcee with a £400million settlement after splitting from her billionaire husband, Swiss biotech tycoon Ernesto Bertarelli.

Annie said: “I think I was the only one of my friends who wasn’t a Trust Fund kid. I was the only one having to get up at 6am and go to work.”

And she said ditching Dodi was a “turning point” in her life.

Annie said: “I wasn’t at all in the spotlight, but a lot of my friends like Tara Palmer-Tomkinson were, and I saw them spiralling out of control.”

She added: “It was a turning point to leave behind a lifestyle that I wasn’t enjoying. And I made the decision to live a calmer and peaceful, quieter life.”

Single Annie — who was once married to entrepreneur Gary Cardone, whose brother Grant was in US reality TV series Undercover Billionaire — said she and Dodi were not a great match — but he and Diana were.

After seeing the CCTV footage of the pair in the lift at the Ritz Hotel in Paris on that fateful night in August 1997 just before they were killed, she said she could see he was “absolutely besotted” with Diana.

While he was alive, divorced Dodi — who was married to model Suzanne Gregard for eight months in the 1980s — reportedly dated a string of famous models and actresses, including Julia Roberts, Brooke Shields and Winona Ryder.

American model Kelly Fisher was reportedly engaged to Dodi before Diana. When paparazzi photographs revealed the Princess looking cosy with Dodi on a yacht, Kelly was so outraged she sued her fiance.

Despite his playboy reputation, Annie insisted he would have stayed faithful to Diana, had they both lived.

Annie, who also runs a dog rescue Facebook group, said: “I think they would have had children, had a family, because their goals and purposes were aligned.

“I do believe, if there was The One, then Diana was his one.”
- Dodi: Last Days Of A Playboy is on Channel 5 Wednesday at 9pm.
7

Dodi and his father Mohamed Fayed, as depicted in the Crown Series 5Credit: © 2021 Netflix, Inc.
Emma Pietras

Source link
December 6, 2022
Why King Charles III’s portrait will face in the OPPOSITE direction on new money

THE Queen reigned for seven decades and her portrait, name and even signature are all part of everyday life.

The face of Britain’s longest-serving monarch has adorned everything from coins to stamps and banknotes.

8

Queen Elizabeth II’s son Charles is Britain’s new kingCredit: Alamy

And the royal cypher ERII can be seen on passports, post boxes and police uniforms.

As Britain comes to terms with the loss and moves from the Elizabethan era into the “Carolean” — from Carolus, the Latin for Charles — we explain how this will impact the day-to-day trappings of our lives.

MONEY

THERE are 4.5billion bank notes — worth £80billion — and 29billion coins in circulation bearing the Queen’s head.

They will remain legal tender but be gradually phased out for a design chosen by the new king.

8

There are 29billion coins in circulation bearing the Queen’s headCredit: Alamy

8

Charles’ image will face left due to a 17th-century tradition that the direction must alternate for each new monarch

While the Queen’s image faces to the right, her son’s will face left due to a 17th-century tradition that the direction must alternate for each new monarch.

The Queen’s picture did not appear on notes until 1960, eight years after her ascension to the throne so it may take a while for Charles III tender to be minted.

Other nations where the Queen is head of state will phase out their money.

The Stock Exchange will close on the day of the funeral if it is declared a bank holiday.

ROYAL FLAGS

THE Queen’s personal flag — featuring a gold E with the royal crown and roses on a blue background — will no longer be used.

The Royal Standard, with English, Scottish and Irish symbols, will change if Charles adds a Welsh element. The current one was in use before Wales had its own flag.

PASSPORTS

BRITONS will still be able to use their current passports for travel — even though they are issued on behalf of Her Majesty.

The wording inside the front cover will be changed to His Majesty in all new passports which are issued, meaning the old ones will disappear over time.

STAMPS

STAMPS with the Queen’s head will remain valid until the end of January 2023, the Royal Mail has said.

In the meantime new ones will no longer be produced and designs featuring King Charles will be commissioned.

8

Stamps with the Queen’s head will remain valid until the end of January 2023Credit: Getty

8

In the meantime new ones will no longer be produced and designs featuring King Charles will be commissioned

The postal service also said the release of any special stamps, which already carry the Queen, will still go ahead but may be delayed.

When Elizabeth took the throne in 1952 a series of stamps called the Wilding Issues, featuring portraits taken by photographer Dorothy Wilding, were released within a couple of weeks of King George VI’s death.

They were used until 1971 when decimal currency was introduced.

POLICE AND MILITARY

THE Queen’s royal cypher — or monogram — on government buildings, military uniforms and police helmets will be changed.

It is likely King Charles will use CR or CRIII as his unique cypher. Her Majesty’s Armed Forces, Passport Office and Prison Service will become His Majesty’s.

ROYAL WARRANTS

GETTING a royal warrant — a seal of approval — is a big deal in business.

About 800 companies, such as Cadbury and Boots, were granted ones by the Queen.

But they will lose the right to use the royal coat of arms unless King Charles renews permission.

POST BOXES

DURING the Queen’s reign, Royal Mail marked its post boxes with ERII, which stands for Elizabeth Regina II.

This will now most likely be CRIII — Charles Rex III — but it will take a long time to replace the 115,000 boxes dotted around the UK.

Royal Mail has said post boxes already in production or due to be installed will retain the Queen’s insignia.

8

During the Queen’s reign, Royal Mail marked its post boxes with ERIICredit: Getty – Contributor

8

It stands for Elizabeth Regina IICredit: Alamy

8

This will now most likely be CRIII — Charles Rex III — but it will take a long time to replace the 115,000 boxes dotted around the UK

Grace Macaskill

Source link

September 9, 2022