Free Republic

TIJUANA — Mexican soldiers freed three kidnapped businessmen Wednesday evening after an anonymous tip led them to a home in the Mesa de Otay area, authorities said at a news conference Thursday. Soldiers said they encountered little resistance when they stormed the home. They arrested eight men, confiscated 25 guns and took more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition, army officials said. Based on information gathered at the home, soldiers went to a residence in La Presa where three more men were arrested. They are accused of participating in the attack on the Baja California Attorney General's Office in Tijuana early...

UP-DATE: Steve Godbold - Chad Thursday, July 24, 2008 Steve Godbold Released For release: July 25, 2008 The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM) is very pleased to announce the release of Cash Stephen Godbold, a missionary held captive in northern Chad for more than nine months. Godbold was released by his captors in Chad on Thursday evening, July 24th. He was released near the town of Bardai in northern Chad, and is presently a guest of local officials in Bardai. Arrangements are in process to send an aircraft to Bardai to evacuate Godbold to N'Djamena. From there he will travel to...

LOS ANGELES - The former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive who hid for years by posing as an ordinary housewife has been released from prison after serving time for trying to bomb police cars, corrections officials said Thursday. Sara Jane Olson, formerly known as Kathleen Soliah, walked out of the Central Women's Facility in Chowchilla on Monday, said Bill Sessa, a state Department of Corrections spokesman. In 2001, Olson pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 years in prison for attempting to bomb police cars in 1975 with the SLA, the group best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. Olson...

PARIS (AFP) - Accused French rogue trader Jerome Kerviel walked free after judges placed him under formal investigation Monday for his role in seven billion dollars of losses at Societe Generale but stopped short of charging him with fraud. Shares in the French bank took a battering as allegations emerged that a board member was guilty of insider trading related to the scandal. Kerviel was freed on bail after being placed under formal investigation for "breach of trust", "falsifying and using falsified documents," and "breaching IT procedures", said his lawyer Elisabeth Meyer. Judges rejected a bid to charge Kerviel, accused...

BERLIN (AFP) - German conservationists on Monday condemned the freeing of some 17,000 minks from a fur farm, apparently by animal rights activists, saying they would starve in the wild. "It was a political act, and it has nothing to do with protecting the environment," said Joern Ehlers from the German chapter of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). "These animals are going to die of hunger." Minks are carnivores who feed on small animals and those freed from the farm in Grabow, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Berlin, risked disturbing the ecological balance in the region,...

Kidnapped German freed in Kabul Mrs Meier appeared in a video hours before her release A German woman who was kidnapped at gunpoint from a restaurant in the Afghan capital Kabul has been released. Reports say Christina Meier was freed during a police raid on a house on the outskirts of the city, and a number of her suspected abductors were arrested. Earlier, the aid worker was seen in a video released by her captors and broadcast on Afghan TV. A German foreign ministry spokeswoman said the aid worker was now at the German diplomatic mission in Kabul. The BBC's...

(AP) A Taliban spokesman reiterated Sunday that the militants soon will free two sick, female South Korean hostages but said the timing of the release hasn't yet been decided. The international Red Cross said it had no information about an upcoming release. A roadside bomb blast, meanwhile, killed three U.S. troops in eastern Afghanistan, bringing to five the number of international troops killed over the weekend, officials said. Also Sunday, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf addressed more than 600 Afghan and Pakistani tribal leaders at a jirga, or tribal council, aimed at finding ways to stem Afghanistan's rising bloodshed. Musharraf...

Fidel Castro has used his third written article in less than two weeks to condemn the release from prison in the US of an activist suspected of the deadly bombing of a Cuban jet. The ailing Cuban leader said the decision by a Texas judge to let Luis Posada Carriles walk free last week was done with the knowledge of George Bush, the US president.Posada, right, is suspected of the deadly bombing of a Cubana airlines flight in 1976 [AFP]

ROYAL MARINE BASE CHIVENOR, England (AP) -- British sailors and marines freed by Iran said Friday they were blindfolded, isolated in cold stone cells and tricked into fearing execution while being coerced into falsely saying they had entered Iranian waters. They said there was no doubt the 15 crew members were in Iraq's territorial waters when they were seized by heavily armed boats of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. They also said their jailers had singled out the only woman among the captives for use in propaganda. Iran, which has been celebrating the incident as a victory, quickly rejected the charges, dismissing...

New Orleans Judge Orders Suspects Freed Friday March 30, 2007 10:46 PM By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press Writer NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A judge on Friday ordered the release of up to 42 criminal defendants, saying they aren't being adequately represented by the city's financially struggling indigent defenders office, but he immediately delayed the order to mid April. It wasn't clear how many suspects would be released after April 18 if Orleans Criminal Court Judge Arthur Hunter's order stands. The order would suspend their prosecution but not dismiss the charges against them. Assistant District Attorney David Pipes said his office...

CHILTON, Wis. - A man who spent 18 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit was convicted Sunday of murdering a photographer, whose charred bones were found in a burn pit outside his home. Steven Avery, 44, put his head down and shook it when the verdict was read. He faces a mandatory life prison term for killing Teresa Halbach, 25, on Halloween 2005 near his family's salvage yard. Halbach disappeared Oct. 31, 2005, after going to the yard in rural Manitowoc County to photograph a minivan that Avery's sister had for sale through Auto Trader Magazine. Avery...

SAN'A, Yemen - A hundred jailed Muslim extremists, including some who allegedly fought for al-Qaida in Iraq, were released by authorities, a Yemeni security official said. The official, speaking Saturday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said that some of the released completed serving their sentences, while some of the others were acquitted for lack of evidence. He said the release of the 100 prisoners had been carried out in stages, with the last set free in late February. The official added that 19 of the released fought under the command of...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2007 – In a string of operations across Iraq over the past four days, Iraqi and coalition forces detained 43 suspected terrorists, found several weapons caches, stopped an illegal checkpoint, and freed three captives, military officials reported. -- In Karmah, Iraq, coalition forces detained 12 suspected terrorists today. Intelligence reports indicate the detainees have key logistical ties to the al Qaeda in Iraq network and to improvised explosive device production. Reports indicate that they are responsible for the recent increase in IED attacks in the Karmah area. During the raid, coalition forces found several AK-47s and...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12, 2006 -- Iraqi and coalition forces detonated a bomb in Samarra today and freed 23 kidnap victims yesterday. Earlier this week, combined forces killed three terrorists and detained one. Iraqi police were patrolling yesterday when they found an improvised explosive device near a Samarra mosque’s doorway. “This action by the terrorists shows they have no respect for Islam and are only concerned about killing innocent civilians,” said Army Lt. Col. Viet Luong, commander of 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. “This bomb was built to cause maximum damage, and because of the heroic...

Britons freed from chains in mullah's 'drug cure' prison By Isambard Wilkinson in Haripur (Filed: 06/10/2006) A Pakistani cleric has been arrested for running a private jail to which he lured dozens of drug addicts from Britain by offering a spiritual cure in return for money. Treatment: Maulana Ilyas Qadri In a raid this week, police found 113 people, aged between 12 and 50, bound in chains and shackled together at a madrassa, or religious school, in a remote village in northern Pakistan. At least seven were British nationals of Pakistani origin. Many prisoners, whose relatives consigned them to the...

Cleric who urged jihad to be freed from prison Jamie Doward, home affairs editor Sunday August 20, 2006 The Observer (UK) An Islamic cleric who influenced at least one of the 7 July bombers and whose videos may have been seen by several of the terror suspects arrested earlier this month, is to be freed from prison in weeks. Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal encouraged Muslims to attend training camps so they could wage jihad on the West. He was jailed in February 2003 for nine years, reduced to seven on appeal, after being convicted of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred....

Bin Laden's friend Jihad Jack freed by Australian judges By Nick Squires in Sydney (Filed: 19/08/2006) A British-born Muslim convert jailed in Australia on charges of receiving money and an airline ticket from al-Qa'eda terrorists, was freed last night after his conviction was overturned. Joseph Terrence Thomas, 33, nicknamed Jihad Jack after claiming that he had met al-Qa'eda's leader Osama bin Laden three times, was jailed for five years in March. But in a judgment seen as a blow to the Australian government, the appeal court in Melbourne ruled that some of the evidence used against him was not admissible....

An Islamic militant jailed in connection with the 2002 Bali bombings was released from prison Thursday while 11 others linked to the blasts received sentence reductions. The militants had their sentences cut by four months to mark Indonesia's independence day. The reduction allowed one of the men to walk free after completing his jail term. Officials say the 12 militants carried out robberies, financed the attacks and sheltered key figures in the nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists. Indonesia often reduces prison terms on holidays, but the move is likely to draw protests from Australia...

Italian prisoners freed in amnesty go on the rampage Nick Pisa in Rome (Filed: 06/08/2006) An amnesty that freed more than 5,000 inmates from Italian jails backfired when dozens of the former prisoners reoffended - and were back behind bars within hours. The early release scheme, which cuts sentences by three years, was introduced to reduce overcrowding of the prison system which has more than 62,000 inmates - 20,000 more than it can handle. Although convictions for Mafia-related crimes, terrorism, rape, paedophilia and people-smuggling are exempt, more than 12,000 prisoners will be released in the next few weeks. But within...

ABU GHRAIB, Iraq, June 15, 2006 – The Iraqi deputy prime minister called on about 450 Iraqis being freed from the Abu Ghraib detention facility today to work for peace in Iraq, the Middle East and the world. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Salim al-Zawbai speaks with detainees released from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison June 15. The Iraqi government plan aims at getting "low-risk" detainees back into the workforce and working toward a new Iraq. Photo by Jim Garamone  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Salim al-Zawbai spoke to the men before they were released from the facility. It is...