Brotherhood urges revolt against army
CAIRO — Egypt was rocked Monday by the deadliest day since its Islamist president was toppled by the military, with more than 50 of his supporters killed by security forces as the country’s top Muslim cleric raised the specter of civil war.
The military found itself on the defensive after the bloodshed, but the interim president drove ahead with the army’s political plan. He issued a swift timetable for the process of amending the Islamist-backed constitution and set parliamentary and presidential elections for early 2014.
The killings further entrenched the battle lines between supporters and opponents of ousted President Mohammed Morsi, who was removed by the military July 3 after a year in office following mass demonstrations by millions of Egyptians.
Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood called for an uprising, accusing troops of gunning down protesters, while the military blamed armed Islamists for provoking its forces.
The shootings began during a protest by about 1,000 Islamists outside the Republican Guard headquarters where Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected leader, was detained last week. Demonstrators and members of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood said troops descended on them and opened fire unprovoked as they finished dawn prayers.
Martin’s father says he never denied it was his son’s voice on 911 call
SANFORD, Fla. — Trayvon Martin’s father testified Monday that he never denied it was his son’s voice screaming for help on a 911 call, contradicting police officers’ earlier testimony at George Zimmerman’s second-degree murder trial.
Tracy Martin was the latest in a series of witnesses called by lawyers on both sides as they seek to convince jurors of who was the aggressor in the nighttime confrontation that left Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, dead in February 2012. Later in the day, the Florida judge ruled that defense attorneys may present evidence to the jury that Trayvon Martin had marijuana in his system when he died. The teen’s father testified that he merely told officers he couldn’t tell if it was his son after his first time listening to the call, which captured the audio of a fight between Martin and Zimmerman.
“I never said that wasn’t my son’s voice,” said Tracy Martin, who added that he concluded it was his son after listening to the call as many as 20 times.
Before Tracy Martin took the witness stand, the lead Sanford, Fla. police investigator who probed Martin’s death testified that the father had answered “no” when the detective asked if the screams belonged to Trayvon Martin. Officer Chris Serino played the 911 call for Tracy Martin in the days immediately following Trayvon Martin’s death in February 2012.
Pakistan castigated over bin Laden
ISLAMABAD — Al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden was able to live in Pakistan undetected for nine years because of a breathtaking scale of negligence and incompetence at practically all levels of the Pakistani government, according to an official government report published by a TV channel on Monday.
The 336-page report was written by a commission tasked with investigating the circumstances surrounding the covert U.S. raid that killed bin Laden in Pakistan in May 2011.
The pan-Arab Al-Jazeera satellite channel published the report on its website after it was leaked to the station by unknown sources.
Pakistani officials did not respond to requests for comment on the report’s authenticity.
The U.S. Navy SEALs raid that killed bin Laden in the northwest town of Abbottabad outraged Pakistani officials because they were not told about it beforehand. U.S. officials have said they kept Pakistan in the dark because they were worried the al-Qaida founder would be tipped off.
By wire sources
