German court sentences Syrian doctor to life in prison for torture and war crimes in his homeland

ABIDJIAN: Ivory Coast has sentenced a nurse to three years in jail for saying Africa would have been saved if President Alassane Ouattara had not been born.

The sentence comes months before the west African country’s presidential election at the end of October, with the opposition accusing Ouattara’s government of attempting to stifle dissent in the run-up.

Six youth leaders from the main opposition Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI) have been arrested since June over a social media post calling for mobilization against the government.

PDCI party leader Tidjane Thiam is among several prominent opposition figures to have been excluded from the October 25 vote.

Tokpa Flan Japhet, a 43-year-old nurse, “was tried and sentenced on July 18 to 36 months in prison” and fined $8,500 “despite his request for a pardon,” Abidjan’s public prosecutor Oumar Braman Kone said in a statement on Monday.

Japhet had in a Facebook post said if Ouattara’s mother had “had an abortion” she “would have saved Africa.”

“Neither repentance... nor a request for forgiveness has any effect on the reality of the offenses,” Kone said.

Another man, Moussa Diakate, was arrested after posting a video in which he “made death threats against supporters of a political group,” the prosecutor said.

Ivory Coast, a former beacon of stability in troubled west Africa, has repeatedly experienced violence during elections after the country’s first coup in 1999.

In late 2010 and early 2011, poll-related violence claimed some 3,000 lives after then-president Laurent Gbagbo refused to recognize Ouattara’s election victory.

Ouattara, 83, has not confirmed whether he will run for a fourth term, although he has been

tapped by his party to do so.

Dhaka: When Fatema Akter went to school in the morning, she was supposed to be back home in the early afternoon. She never returned, along with at least 28 other children who were killed when a Bangladeshi military jet crashed into their classroom in Dhaka.

Bangladesh observed a day of national mourning on Tuesday, a day after the Air Force F-7 BGI aircraft went down during class hours at Milestone School and College in the capital’s Diabari area.

The jet struck the building, killing many of the children on the spot and causing fatal burn injuries to others, health authorities said, as at least 165 victims remained hospitalized.

“My niece, Fatema Akter, was a student of class three of that school. The school is actually five minutes walking from our home,” Leon Mir, a TV reporter who witnessed the crash that killed his sister’s eldest daughter, told Arab News.

“I saw a huge smoke and the roads were blocked after the plane crashed on the school. Immediately, I rushed to the school ... somehow, I managed to enter. Seeing the situation on the ground, I was lost.”

As he reached the site, he could not see Akter and started to search for her at emergency units of local hospitals. He eventually found her at the Combined Military Hospital in another part of the city.

“She died on the spot, and her body was transported to the CMH by helicopter. I first found her school ID card and later on recognized her face,” Mir said.

Bangladeshi authorities have mobilized burn specialists and pediatricians from across the country to treat patients injured in the Dhaka disaster.

Sayedur Rahman, special assistant to the government on health, told reporters that 30 patients admitted to the National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery in Dhaka remain in serious condition, and at least 10 are critical. Most are students.

Rahman said that among the 31 people killed in the crash were the pilot and two teachers. One of them, Maherin Chowdhury, sustained 100 percent burns while rescuing at least 20 students from the burning primary school building.

As bereaved families began to bury their children, at least five of them were from the families of Mir’s neighbors.

“This morning, another one died at the hospital,” he said.

“Since the accident, I haven’t been able to look at my sister’s face ... it’s unimaginable — you send your child to school in the morning and receive their burnt body in the afternoon.”