LONDON: A woman accused of traveling across the U.S. claiming to be an Irish heiress and scamming several victims out of tens of thousands of dollars has been extradited to the United Kingdom, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
Marianne Smyth faces allegations that she stole more than $170,000 from the victims from 2008 to 2010 in Northern Ireland.
A U.S. magistrate judge in Maine ruled in May that there was sufficient evidence for extradition of the American, who accusers say has also fashioned herself as a witch, a psychic and a friend to Hollywood stars.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed the extradition, and referred questions to law enforcement officials in Northern Ireland. An attorney for Smyth did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
Authorities overseas have said Smyth stole money that she had promised to invest and also arranged to sell a victim a home but instead took the money. Smyth’s victims in the U.S. included Johnathan Walton, a podcaster who warned others about her grifts.
A court in Northern Ireland issued arrest warrants for her earlier this decade. She was arrested in Maine in February.
Smyth drew comparisons to Anna Sorokin, a scammer who impersonated a German heiress to pay for a glamorous lifestyle in New York City, and became subject of a Netflix series. Sorokin, whose real name is Anna Delvey, was convicted in 2019 of conning $275,000 from banks, hotels and swank New Yorkers to finance her deluxe lifestyle.
Accused scammer who claimed to be Irish heiress has been extradited to UK to face charges
https://arab.news/4yc9m
Accused scammer who claimed to be Irish heiress has been extradited to UK to face charges
- Marianne Smyth faces allegations that she stole more than $170,000 from the victims
- A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed the extradition
UK’s Starmer ‘gravely concerned’ about targeting of journalists in Gaza
Israel’s military said it targeted and killed prominent Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al Sharif, alleging he had headed a Hamas militant cell and was involved in rocket attacks on Israel.
Al Jazeera, which is funded by the Qatari government, rejected the assertion, and before his death, Al Sharif had also rejected such claims by Israel.
“We are gravely concerned by the repeated targeting of journalists in Gaza,” Starmer’s spokesperson told reporters.
“Reporters covering conflicts are afforded protection under international humanitarian law, and journalists must be able to report independently, without fear, and Israel must ensure journalists can carry out their work safely.”
Asked about the claim that one of the journalists was linked to Hamas, Starmer’s spokesperson said: “That should be investigated thoroughly and independently, but we are gravely concerned by the repeated targeting of journalists.”
Pakistan airspace ban, aircraft upgrades ground Air India’s Delhi–Washington service
- The suspension of services between New Delhi, Washington marks the latest setback for Air India, which is facing scrutiny after a June crash
- The planned shortfall in Air India’s fleet and continued closure of airspace over Pakistan have impacted the airline’s long-haul operations
Air India said on Monday it would stop services between the capital cities of India and the US from September 1, citing aircraft shortage due to the planned upgrades to its aging Boeing planes and the closure of Pakistan’s airspace.
The suspension of services between New Delhi and Washington, D.C., marks the latest setback for Air India, which is facing heightened regulatory scrutiny after a June crash in Ahmedabad killed 260 people.
The planned shortfall in Air India’s fleet and continued closure of airspace over Pakistan have impacted the airline’s long-haul operations, leading to longer flight routings and increased operational complexity, the carrier said.
The airline has undertaken a $400 million retrofit program to upgrade its fleet.
It, however, sees the Pakistan airspace ban costing it $600 million over 12 months, Reuters had earlier reported.
India and Pakistan closed their respective airspaces to each other days after relations between the arch-rivals nosedived following a fatal attack on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir, which also sparked the worst fighting between the neighbors in decades.
New Delhi has blamed Islamabad for the attack, accusations which Islamabad has denied.
Air India said its flyers will have options to choose flights to Washington, D.C., with layovers at New York, Newark, Chicago and San Francisco with the airline’s interline partners Alaska Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines.
Dutch activists scale Microsoft data center roof over Israeli military use of servers
- Military intelligence unit found to be storing vast quantity of data on Palestinians on Azure servers in Netherlands
- Issue raised by Dutch politicians in parliament after joint investigation by Guardian, +972 Magazine, Local Call
LONDON: Activists in the Netherlands have taken over the roof of a Microsoft data center after it was revealed that the tech giant stores data for the Israeli military in the country.
The Geef Tegengas (Push Back) group said the Microsoft Azure platform, which uses servers in the Netherlands, was being used to store intercepted phone data from Palestinians by Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200.
It came after a joint investigation by The Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language media platform Local Call.
The investigation found 11,500 terabytes of Israeli military data, or around 200 million hours of audio, on the Netherlands’ Azure servers.
Geef Tegengas members lit flairs on the roof of the data center, with others blocking access to the site near Middenmeer in the northwest of the country.
They said they are “calling on all employees of the data center to lay down their work until all Israeli intelligence has been removed from the servers,” The Guardian reported.
Last week, Dutch politicians raised the issue of the use of servers by the Israeli military in the country’s parliament in The Hague.
MP Christine Teunissen asked the government for information on how it could prevent data stored in the Netherlands from “being used to commit genocide” in Gaza.
Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp responded that he was unaware of the nature of the data kept on the Azure servers, but that he would request more information.
“If there are serious indications of criminal offenses in that information, legal proceedings can of course be initiated, and that is then up to the public prosecution service,” he said.
Microsoft last week said it had “no information” about Unit 8200 data stored on Azure. The Guardian reported on Saturday that senior figures at the tech giant were concerned that staff based in Israel may have hidden aspects of the unit’s work.
A spokesperson for the US company said: “At no time during this engagement (with Unit 8200) has Microsoft been aware of the surveillance of civilians or collection of their cellphone conversations using Microsoft’s services.”
Macron: Israel’s plan for Gaza is a disaster waiting to happen
- “The Israeli hostages and the people of Gaza will continue to be the primary victims of this strategy,” said Macron
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday slammed Israel’s plans to step up its military operation in Gaza as a disaster waiting to happen and proposed an international coalition under a United Nations mandate to stabilize Gaza.
Last week, Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan to take control of Gaza City, in a move that expanded its military operations in the shattered Palestinian territory and drew strong criticism at home and abroad.
“The Israeli cabinet’s announcement of an expansion of its operations in Gaza City and the Mawasi camps and for a re-occupation heralds a disaster of unprecedented gravity waiting to happen and of a move toward a never-ending war,” said Macron, in remarks sent by his office to reporters.
“The Israeli hostages and the people of Gaza will continue to be the primary victims of this strategy,” added Macron.
Half of Palestine Action supporters arrested in London older than 60: Police data
- Saturday’s protest was against the UK’s banning of the group, with 532 arrests made
- Ex-government adviser: ‘We are living through a genocide on our TV screens’
LONDON: Half of the protesters arrested in London on Saturday in relation to the banned group Palestine Action are older than 60, police data shows.
Officers arrested 532 people at the mass demonstration against the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization last month, The Guardian reported.
All except 10 were arrested under Section 13 of the UK’s Terrorism Act for displaying placards or signs in support of a banned group.
London’s Metropolitan Police on Sunday released an age breakdown of the people arrested at the demonstration. Almost 100 were in their 70s and 15 were aged 80 or older.
The event was organized in Parliament Square by Defend Our Juries, which requested that protesters hold signs saying: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
Police arrested high-profile former government and military figures. Jonathon Porritt, 75, a former adviser to the government of Tony Blair, said he is deeply concerned by the erosion of civil liberties in Britain under successive governments.
Police arrested him under Section 13 and he was bailed until Oct. 23. He described the ban on Palestine Action as “a measure of the government’s desperation” that is “entirely inappropriate.”
Porritt said: “I thought this was overreach by the home secretary, trying to eliminate the voices of those who are deeply concerned about what is happening in Gaza.
“This was an absolutely clear case of a government using its powers to crush dissenting voices when it is the government itself that is most reprehensible for what continues to be an absolute horror story in the world.
“What we are seeing now in Gaza has just utterly shocked people and it’s completely abhorrent that we are living through a genocide on our TV screens.”
Some people who attended the protest complained that police detained older demonstrators for hours in the hot summer weather and denied them access to water.
Defend Our Juries on Sunday said everyone arrested had been released from police custody and no charges had been issued.
The Met Police said: “There was water available at the prisoner processing points and access to toilets. We had police medics on hand as part of the policing operation and we processed people as quickly as possible to ensure nobody was waiting an unreasonably long time.
“Notwithstanding that, a degree of personal responsibility is required on the part of those who chose to come and break the law.
“They knew they were very likely to be arrested which is a decision that will inevitably have consequences.”
Chris Romberg, a 75-year-old former British Army officer colonel and a military attache at the British embassies in Jordan and Egypt, was also arrested under Section 13 and bailed.
“This is a serious assault on our freedoms,” Romberg, the son of a Holocaust survivor told, The Guardian. “When I protested against the US war in Vietnam, we were able to chant ‘victory to the NLF’ without being criminalized.
“Now a statement of support for a nonviolent direct-action group is prosecuted under anti-terrorism legislation.”
Award-winning poet Alice Oswald, 58, told officers who had detained her to write to the home secretary about the position they were forced into as a result of the Palestine Action ban.
She said: “Clearly there were some police officers who were really struggling with what they had to do. You could see the slightly shifty look in their faces, too.
“When I was speaking to them in the police van I did say: ‘Write to Yvette Cooper and tell her that this is making your life impossible’.”
She told The Guardian that she was partly motivated to attend the demonstration after delivering online poetry classes to young people in Gaza.
Since the proscription of Palestine Action in July, 10 people have been charged for suspected offenses under the Terrorism Act.
