NEW YORK: A supervisor at New York’s Kennedy Airport took bribes and broke security rules to let Qatar and other countries park their planes overnight during the UN General Assembly over the last five years, prosecutors said.
Marlene Mizzi, 54, was indicted Wednesday on charges of receiving a reward for official misconduct.
Joseph Jourieh, 58, a travel coordinator who works on behalf of the Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar to the United Nations, also was charged. He is accused of giving Mizzi meals, limo rides and a watch.
They each face up to four years in prison if convicted on the top counts. Information on their arraignments and lawyers wasn’t immediately available.
Mizzi was suspended in June from her job as assistant duty supervisor at the airport. Prosecutors said she had worked for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the public agency that runs the airport, for 35 years. The alleged scheme started in 2014.
“Today’s indictment will serve notice to all Port Authority employees that the agency will not tolerate violations of the public trust or any other corrupt acts,” Port Authority Inspector General Michael Nestor said. Qatar’s mission to the UN didn’t immediately comment.
New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood said Mizzi didn’t have proper approval to make exceptions to a rule prohibiting foreign state aircraft from parking overnight. During the annual General Assembly gathering in September, airport rules require that foreign state aircraft depart within two hours of arrival.
Mizzi allowed numerous Qatari planes to stay overnight, sometimes for days on end, the indictment said.
In addition to Jourieh’s gifts, prosecutors said Mizzi received gifts for giving special treatment to other countries. Sometimes representatives of those countries would personally deliver the gifts to her on airport property. Prosecutors did not identify the other countries involved.
The Port Authority said its ethics code includes a strict zero tolerance policy prohibiting payments, gifts, meals or transportation from anyone doing business or likely to do business with the agency. Former Port Authority chairman David Samson was sentenced last year to home confinement for pressuring United Airlines to restart a money-losing flight to South Carolina, near where he has a second home. The flight was derisively dubbed “The Chairman’s Flight.”
Bribes behind Qatari plane’s UN parking spot
Bribes behind Qatari plane’s UN parking spot
Heavy shelling, explosions spark fear along Pakistan-Afghanistan border
- Residents fear for their safety amid border clashes
- 1,500 Afghan families displaced due to heavy shelling and explosions
- Pakistan denies targeting civilians, says its strikes focus on militants
LAL PUR, Afghanistan/PESHAWAR, Pakistan: People living along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan said they were considering fleeing their homes because of heavy shelling and explosions as fighting between troops from both sides entered a seventh day on Wednesday.
The South Asian allies-turned-foes have engaged in their worst fighting in years following Pakistani airstrikes on major Afghan cities last week, increasing volatility in a region also on edge over US and Israeli strikes on Iran.
Islamabad has said its airstrikes, which have at times directly targeted the Taliban government, are aimed at ending Afghan support for militants carrying out attacks on Pakistan. The Taliban has denied aiding militant groups.
SHELLING STARTS AS VILLAGERS ARE BREAKING RAMADAN FAST
Residents of towns and villages in Pakistan’s northwest said fighting between border forces starts in the evenings, placing their homes in the line of fire, often at sunset when families are breaking their fast in the holy month of Ramadan.
“There is complete silence in the day, but the moment we sit for iftar dinner, the two sides start shelling,” Farid Khan Shinwari from Landi Kotal, a town near the Torkham border crossing, told Reuters.
“We open our fast in extremely difficult situations, as you never know when a shell can hit your house.”
Residents in the town and nearby villages said there had been heavy shelling and some explosions heard in the past few days, prompting many to flee their homes.
On the other side of the border, Afghans shared similar stories of skirmishes and families fleeing their homes.
Hundreds had been displaced to an open dirt field under makeshift tents, while others had no shelter at all. Officials say around 1,500 families have fled their homes.
Fighting along the 2,600-km (1,615-mile) border has ebbed and flowed over the week-long conflict, with both sides saying they have inflicted heavy losses on the other country and gained ground in the fighting.
Reuters has been unable to verify these accounts.
TURKEY HAS OFFERED TO MEDIATE
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif that Ankara would help reinstate a ceasefire, the Turkish Presidency said on Tuesday, as other countries that had offered to mediate have since been hit by the conflict in the Gulf.
On Wednesday, both countries reported exchanges of heavy fire, with Afghanistan’s defense ministry saying Taliban forces shot down a Pakistani drone and captured seven border posts.
A spokesperson for the ministry said 110 civilians, including 65 women and children, had been killed since the fighting began and another 123 were wounded. The United Nations mission for Afghanistan has listed 42 deaths so far.
Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar disputed both figures, saying: “Pakistan exercises great care in only targeting terrorists and support infrastructure. No civilian structures have been targeted.”
On Saturday, Pakistan struck “ammunition and critical equipment” at the Bagram air base north of Kabul, Tarar said, a key American command center through the 20-year Afghan war.
