Nearly 1,000 arrested and 400 knives seized in police crackdown on violent crime in London

Officers working across the country used weapons sweeps, targeted patrols, drug detection dogs and knife arches.

Nearly 1,000 people have been arrested and more than 400 knives seized in an effort to reduce violent crime in London, police have said.

Between 26 April and 2 May, as part of Operation Sceptre, Metropolitan Police officers working across the country recovered 411 knives and 166 other weapons using weapons sweeps and targeted patrols – and made 994 arrests.

The Met worked with British Transport Police to use drug detection dogs and knife arches to deter people from carrying weapons and drugs on the overground and Tube networks.

Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology was deployed to target people carrying and supplying drugs on the roads in and out of London.

Image:Operation Sceptre took place between 26 April and 2 May

Image:Officers worked across the country using weapons sweeps, targeted patrols, drug detection dogs and knife arches

Commander Alex Murray, the Met’s violence lead, said: “The results from this operation highlight the Met’s dedication and commitment to tackling violent crime, and I’m convinced that with us seizing so many knives, we have prevented further stabbings.

“As we move forward into the summer months, reducing violence and saving lives will remain our top policing priority.

“The recent incidents of violence we have seen in London reminds us exactly why operations like this are so important.

“While this operation may have ended, be assured that our officers will continue to be out on the streets every single day, carrying out these activities and using every tactic available to them to prevent violent crime.”

London recorded the highest rate of knife crime in the country in 2019-20, with 179 offences involving a knife per 100,000 people, according to a House of Commons briefing paper published in October.

That was a slight increase on a rate of 169 per 100,000 in 2018-19.

Image:Officers searching for weapons during Operation Sceptre

2020 was also the sixth year in a row that at least 100 people were killed in the capital in all – and there have already been several incidents in 2021.

In one of the most recent cases, Fares Maatou, 14, was stabbed to death in east London last month.

Image:Fares Maatou died after being stabbed in East Ham, Newham

Police recorded 683 homicides in England and Wales (excluding Greater Manchester Police) in the year ending March 2020, a 10% increase compared with the previous year (623), the Office For National Statistics (ONS) said.

Almost two-fifths (39%) of all recorded homicides involved a knife or sharp instrument, slightly less than 41% the previous year.

More than 46,000 offences involving knives or sharp instruments were recorded by police in the year ending March 2020, the ONS said.

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Russia school shooting: Seven children and a teacher killed in attack in Kazan

A blast was heard at the school in the city of Kazan and a teenage gunman has been detained.

At least eight people – seven students and a teacher – have been killed in a shooting at a school in southwest Russia, with several others injured.

The RIA news agency said a blast was heard at the school in the city of Kazan, around 450 miles east of Moscow, and a teenage gunman has been arrested.

Footage posted on social media showed a large crowd outside the school after the premises had been evacuated, and emergency services including police and armed officers, as well as paramedics, at the scene.

Around 21 ambulances were sent to the site, with local officials also turning up, RIA added.

Interfax news agency cited a source as saying that there were two attackers and the second could still be in the building.

Reports of there being two perpetrators are unconfirmed.

Rustam Minnikhanov, head of the wider Tatarstan region of which Kazan is the capital, said there was no evidence that anyone else had been involved.

“We have lost seven children… four boys and three girls,” he said. “And 16 people, 12 children and four adults, are in hospital.”

His press service later said a teacher was also killed.

Image:Police and emergency services at the scene of the school shooting in Kazan, Russia, as students are evacuated. Pic: AP

Image:Firefighters were also alerted following reports of an explosion at the school. Pic: AP

A witness told TASS news agency there was an explosion before the attack was carried out.

Some students were seen jumping out of the windows to escape the shooting, it reported.

Video taken inside the school showed corridors littered with debris, and damaged classrooms and toilet facilities – the doors of which looked as if they had been shattered in a blast.

According to health officials, 21 people were taken to hospital, including 18 children, with six in intensive care.

Authorities said additional security measures were immediately put into place in all schools in Kazan. They also announced a day of mourning on Wednesday to honour the victims of the shooting.

Image:Armed police on the school grounds. Pic: Max Zareckiy via Reuters

Image:A parent embraces her child outside the school premises. Pic: Max Zareckiy via Reuters

Sky’s Moscow correspondent Diana Magnay said there was video of the attacker being detained outside the school and “being pinned down”.

“We have just heard from the regional governor that he was 19 years old and licensed to carry a firearm.

“We have no idea of his motives yet. Clearly a horrific situation unfolding.”

She said there was footage of video inside the premises showing “a large explosion”, adding that the school will have just opened after a 10-day holiday.

Magnay said school shootings are rare in Russia. The last major shooting was in 2018, when a student at a college in Russian-annexed Crimea killed 19 people before turning his gun on himself.

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to families of the victims in Kazan and has already ordered the government to revise gun regulations in light of the attack.

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Queen’s Speech: Immigration overhaul will block asylum for people who have travelled through ‘safe’ countries

Migrants who travelled through a ‘safe’ country like France or Belgium on their way to the UK will be blocked from seeking asylum in Britain.

The Government today confirmed a major overhaul of the nation’s immigration system as it set out its plans in the Queen‘s Speech.

The changes will mean migrants who ‘travelled through a safe country where they could have reasonably claimed asylum… will not be admitted into the UK asylum system’.

Legal arrivals and illegal arrivals will be treated differently for the first time so the system ‘does not reward those who enter the UK illegally’.

The shake-up will also see the asylum system streamlined, creating a ‘one-stop’ process designed to ‘end the cycle of limitless appeals’.

The Government’s so-called ‘New Plan for Immigration’ was unveiled by Home Secretary Priti Patel in March this year.

It will mean migrants who arrive in the UK illegally will no longer have the right to permanently settle here even if they have a strong asylum claim.

Anyone who arrives illegally having passed through a ‘safe’ country will be deemed ‘inadmissible’ to the UK asylum system.

The Government will seek the ‘rapid removal’ of ‘inadmissible cases’ back to the country they travelled to the UK from.

Those who cannot be returned to a ‘safe’ country will be granted ‘temporary protection status’ for 30 months, with only limited access to benefits and limited family reunion rights.

The Government said in the Queen’s Speech that the changes will ‘establish a fairer immigration system that strengthens the United Kingdom’s borders and deters criminals who facilitate dangerous and illegal journeys’.

Ministers believe the overhaul will ‘increase the fairness and efficacy of our system so that we can better protect and support those in genuine need of asylum’.

The Government is hoping to deter illegal arrivals to the UK – particularly from dangerous small boat Channel crossings – which will then ‘break the business model of criminal trafficking networks and protecting the lives of those they endanger’.

The ‘New Plan for Immigration’ has been billed by ministers as ‘the most significant overhaul of our asylum system in decades’.

The Government said that in 2019 there were more than 16,000 detected illegal arrivals to the UK. Some 62 per cent of asylum claimants in 2019 had entered the UK illegally.

Asylum applications in 2019 increased by 21 per cent on the previous year to almost 36,000 which was the highest number recorded since the European migration crisis in 2015/16

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French terrorist arrested in CAR for arms dealing under guise of NGO

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — Police have arrested a French national accused of supporting rebels in volatile Central African Republic after discovering a cache of weapons and ammunition at his residence, authorities said.

Juan Remy Quignolot, 55, was detained on Monday after the search that also uncovered military fatigues and bank notes in multiple currencies, according to Attorney General Eric Didier Tambo.

Photos had circulated on social media purporting to show Quignolot alongside Ali Darassa, the leader of a rebel movement known as the Union for Peace in Central African Republic.

The arrest comes amid somewhat of a diplomatic chill between Central African Republic and former colonizer France as Bangui has deepened its relationship with Moscow. Anti-French sentiment also remains high in many parts of Central African Republic.

However, government spokesman Ange Maxime Kazagui said that Quignolot was not targeted because he is a French national.

  

“An investigation is underway, and we must leave room for the justice system to do its work,” Kazagui said.

Quignolot, a former soldier and paratrooper in the French army, has denied the accusations and said he was a trainer for a private security company in Bangui. The company, though, has denied any affiliation with him.

The Union for Peace in Central African Republic, known as UPC, is made up of militants who were once part of the mostly Muslim rebel coalition known as Seleka that overthrew the president in 2013.

Seleka’s leader Michel Djotodia briefly served as head of state before he handed over power to an interim government under mounting international pressure in 2014.

The turmoil and violence of the Seleka rule gave rise to another militia known as the anti-Balaka, that later targeted Muslim civilians and forced tens of thousands to flee the capital. Many were killed even as they sought to reach refuge in neighboring countries.

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Liberian president Weah’s son sentenced over ‘Ibiza-style’ parties

THE son of Liberia’s ex-footballer president, George Weah, has been handed a six-month suspended jail sentence by a French court for ‘Ibiza-style’ parties 

 at his home in an upmarket Paris suburb.

George Weah Junior, 33, was also ordered to pay 20,000 euros ($24,000 dollars) to his neighbours after more than two years of parties that were described as ‘unbearable’ by one plaintiff’s lawyer.

Weah, also a former footballer, acknowledged the disturbances in court but said they were ‘without intention to cause harm,’ according to a statement from the court in Versailles, south west of Paris, following the sentencing last Friday.

The suspended prison sentence was longer than expected, but lawyer Ludovic Tardivel, acting for one of Weah’s neighbours, called it ‘justified’ and ‘an example’.

‘My clients have suffered more than two years of parties as if they were in a nightclub, Ibiza-style… we’re not talking about little evenings between friends,’ Tardivel told AFP.

Weah was arrested in Paris in February at a party in a rented apartment in central Paris in breach of a nation-wide curfew that is in place in France because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The arrest, allegedly for verbally abusing police officers, led to revelations in the French media about complaints from his neighbours in the normally quiet suburb of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

‘Every time the police come for the noise, he gets his diplomatic passport out,’ one unnamed neighbour told Le Parisien newspaper in February.

Others recounted evenings of loud electronic music at the 150 m2 apartment, drunken shouting from the balcony, as well as aggressive behaviour.

Another neighbour described the parties as ‘boom-boom music, with girls and champagne.’

Weah Junior signed for his father’s former club AC Milan as a 16-year-old and was selected in the Liberian national squad in 2017, but he spent most of his playing career in lower European leagues in Switzerland and Greece.

Le Parisien newspaper described him as unemployed and on the verge of starting a course in sports management.

George Weah has been president of Liberia since 2018.

The 54-year-old former striker became the first African to win FIFA’s World player of the year award in 1995.

Asked for his father’s reaction in an interview in February, Weah Junior told Le Parisien: ‘He’s very annoyed, very angry.’

 

SOURCEAFP

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National Rifle Association denied bankruptcy protection by Texas judge

Gun group denied right to run to Texas to escape accountability in New York

DALLAS (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed the National Rifle Association’s bankruptcy case, leaving the powerful gun-rights group to face a New York state lawsuit accusing the NRA of financial abuses and that aims to put it out of business.

The case was over whether the NRA should be allowed to incorporate in Texas instead of New York, where the state is suing in an effort to disband the group. Though headquartered in Virginia, the NRA was chartered as a nonprofit in New York in 1871 and is incorporated in the state.

Judge Harlin Hale said he was dismissing the case because he found the bankruptcy was not filed in good faith.

His decision followed 11 days of testimony and arguments. Lawyers for New York and the NRA’s former advertising agency grilled the group’s embattled top executive, Wayne LaPierre, who acknowledged putting the NRA into Chapter 11 bankruptcy without the knowledge or assent of most of its board and other top officers.

Lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James argued that the case was an attempt by NRA leadership to escape accountability for using the group’s coffers as their piggybank. But the NRA’s attorneys said it was a legitimate effort to avoid a political attack by the Democrat.

LaPierre testified that he kept the bankruptcy largely secret to prevent leaks from the group’s 76-member board, which is divided in its support for him.

The NRA declared bankruptcy in January, five months after James’ office sued seeking its dissolution following allegations that executives illegally diverted tens of millions of dollars for lavish personal trips, no-show contracts and other questionable expenditures.

AP News

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