MOSCOW: Russian investigators said Wednesday they had held three people for allegedly plotting a terrorist attack on a church in Ingushetia, a small Muslim-majority republic in the Caucasus region.
The three Russian nationals were preparing to attack a church in the city of Sunzha, the regional branch of the investigative committee in Ingushetia said on Telegram.
Investigators have opened a criminal case against the three for “participation in the activities of a terrorist organization” and “preparation to commit a terrorist act by prior conspiracy.”
“During the investigation and related searches, it was established that the defendants... were planning to commit sabotage and terrorist acts in the region,” they said.
Those arrested are members of the Islamic State (IS) group, according to a source familiar with the case quoted by the Ria Novosti news agency.
Russia regularly announces that it has foiled plans for attacks by presumed Islamist cells. IS has repeatedly pledged to target Russia over its support of Syrian leader Bashar Assad.
In March, 145 people were killed in an attack on a Moscow concert hall — the most deadly terror attack in Russia for two decades.
A Central Asian branch of IS claimed responsibility for the attack and four suspected gunmen, now in pre-trial detention, are citizens of Tajikistan.
Last week, inmates killed at least three Russian prison guards in a prison siege, according to officials, with the assailants having apparent connections to IS.
Russian special forces stormed the facility in Russia’s southern Volgograd region and shot dead all four attackers after an hours-long stand-off.
It was the second such case of IS-affiliated prisoners taking staff hostage since June.
Russia holds three over alleged plot to attack church
https://arab.news/4ys24
Russia holds three over alleged plot to attack church
Trump sues the BBC for defamation over editing of January 6 speech, seeks up to $10 billion in damages
- A BBC spokesperson told Reuters earlier on Monday that it had “no further contact from President Trump’s lawyers at this point
- The BBC is funded through a mandatory license fee on all TV viewers, which UK lawyers say could make any payout to Trump politically fraught
WASHING: President Donald Trump sued the BBC on Monday for defamation over edited clips of a speech that made it appear he directed supporters to storm the US Capitol, opening an international front in his fight against media coverage he deems untrue or unfair. Trump accused Britain’s publicly owned broadcaster of defaming him by splicing together parts of a January 6, 2021 speech, including one section where he told supporters to march on the Capitol and another where he said “fight like hell.” It omitted a section in which he called for peaceful protest.
Trump’s lawsuit alleges the BBC defamed him and violated a Florida law that bars deceptive and unfair trade practices. He is seeking $5 billion in damages for each of the lawsuit’s two counts. The BBC has apologized to Trump, admitted an error of judgment and acknowledged that the edit gave the mistaken impression that he had made a direct call for violent action. But it has said there is no legal basis to sue.
Trump, in his lawsuit filed Monday in Miami federal court, said the BBC despite its apology “has made no showing of actual remorse for its wrongdoing nor meaningful institutional changes to prevent future journalistic abuses.”
The BBC is funded through a mandatory license fee on all TV viewers, which UK lawyers say could make any payout to Trump politically fraught.
A spokesman for Trump’s legal team said in a statement the BBC “has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda.”
A BBC spokesperson told Reuters earlier on Monday that it had “no further contact from President Trump’s lawyers at this point. Our position remains the same.” The broadcaster did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the lawsuit was filed.
CRISIS LED TO RESIGNATIONS
Facing one of the biggest crises in its 103-year history, the BBC has said it has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary on any of its platforms.
The dispute over the clip, featured on the BBC’s “Panorama” documentary show shortly before the 2024 presidential election, sparked a public relations crisis for the broadcaster, leading to the resignations of its two most senior officials.
Trump’s lawyers say the BBC caused him overwhelming reputational and financial harm.
The documentary drew scrutiny after the leak of a BBC memo by an external standards adviser that raised concerns about how it was edited, part of a wider investigation of political bias at the publicly funded broadcaster.
The documentary was not broadcast in the United States.
Trump may have sued in the US because defamation claims in Britain must be brought within a year of publication, a window that has closed for the “Panorama” episode.
To overcome the US Constitution’s legal protections for free speech and the press, Trump will need to prove not only that the edit was false and defamatory but also that the BBC knowingly misled viewers or acted recklessly.
The broadcaster could argue that the documentary was substantially true and its editing decisions did not create a false impression, legal experts said. It could also claim the program did not damage Trump’s reputation.
Other media have settled with Trump, including CBS and ABC when Trump sued them following his comeback win in the November 2024 election.
Trump has filed lawsuits against the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and a newspaper in Iowa, all three of which have denied wrongdoing. The attack on the US Capitol in January 2021 was aimed at blocking Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential win over Trump in the 2020 US election.
