Latest news with #Omer
Time of India
3 hours ago
- General
- Time of India
Narcotics case: Delhi HC grants bail to Ethiopian national, cites Customs' custody ‘illegal'
New Delhi: on Tuesday granted bail to an Ethiopian national who allegedly concealed narcotics in his body by swallowing capsules. The court ruled that his custody by the Customs department was illegal, as he was not presented before a magistrate within the legally mandated timeframe. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Justice Amit Sharma, presiding over a single-judge bench, observed: "Such custody without any authority and without producing him before the concerned Magistrate or Special Court within 24 hours in accordance with law is completely illegal. Even if the applicant was under medication for the procedure being carried out, the same cannot be a ground to keep him in custody. Magistrates exercising power of remand or otherwise in respect of persons in hospital is not unheard of and is a well-recognised procedure in law. " The accused, Habiob Bedru Omer, was intercepted at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in May 2023 by a Customs officer based on suspicion and passenger profiling. According to the prosecution, Omer admitted during questioning that he had concealed capsules containing narcotics inside his body. He voluntarily agreed to undergo a medical procedure for the removal of the concealed capsules and was taken to Safdarjung Hospital. There, 75 capsules allegedly containing contraband were recovered from his stomach. After being discharged on May 25, 2023, forensic analysis revealed the capsules contained 960 grams of methaqualone, and the samples tested positive for cocaine hydrochloride. Omer was formally arrested the following day, on May 26. However, the court raised serious concerns regarding procedural lapses. It noted that Omer was not produced before a magistrate before being taken to the hospital. Moreover, local police were not informed of his hospitalisation, nor were his family members or the Ethiopian Embassy notified. Rejecting the Customs department's defence, the court held that Omer had been in continuous custody since his interception on May 21, 2023, until his formal arrest on May 26, thus violating his legal rights.
Indian Express
8 hours ago
- General
- Indian Express
Citing ‘illegal custody', Delhi HC grants bail to Ethiopian national held from Delhi airport for narcotics smuggling in 2023
The Delhi High Court Tuesday granted bail to an Ethiopian national, who allegedly concealed narcotics by swallowing bottles containing pills, and held that he was kept in 'illegal custody' by the Customs department as he was not presented before a magistrate. The accused, Habiob Bedru Omer, was apprehended at Indira Gandhi International Airport in May 2023 by a Customs officer based on 'suspicion/profiling'. It was revealed that Omer was concealing a narcotic substance inside his body, and on further enquiry, the applicant accepted that he had concealed some capsules in his body. Omer then voluntarily submitted his willingness to undergo the procedure for the removal of the secreted capsules/pellets from his stomach. He was then taken to Safdarjung Hospital and during his stay at the hospital, three panchnamas were prepared, one on May 21, 2023, and two others the next day, after 75 capsules of contraband were allegedly recovered from him. He was discharged on May 25, 2023, and on the next day, the three plastic containers containing the 75 pills were found to contain methaqualone, weighing 960 grams, following which he was arrested on May 26, 2023. The samples tested positive for cocaine hydrochloride. Justice Amit Sharma noted multiple issues with the arrest procedure. He noted that Omer was not presented before a magistrate before being taken to the hospital. Also, the local police were not notified of his transfer to Safdarjung Hospital, and no information was provided to his family members or the Ethiopian Embassy. Also dismissing the Customs department's argument to the contrary, the court held that Omer was under the 'custody' of the department since the time of his interception on May 21, 2023, and was in 'continuous custody' until May 26, 2023. '…in the opinion of this Court, such custody without any authority and without producing him before the concerned Magistrate or Special Court within 24 hours in accordance with law is completely illegal. Even if the applicant was under medication for the procedure being carried out, the same cannot be a ground to keep him in custody. Magistrates exercising power of remand or otherwise in respect of persons in hospital is not unheard of and well recognised procedure in law,' Justice Sharma reasoned and noted that his arrest stood vitiated.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Snapping Tel Aviv: Alex Levac on capturing the city that never sleeps
Israel's city that never sleeps was founded over Passover, 1909, during the counting of the Omer leading up to Shavuot. Photographer Alex Levac sees things the average person on the street doesn't catch. When we meet up at his Tel Aviv apartment, a stone's throw away from the beach, I ask the evergreen octogenarian, who was awarded the Israel Prize for his groundbreaking photography 20 years ago, where the notion of snapping incongruous yet complementary overlaps first emerged. 'I don't know. Perhaps I got it from the French photographers, like Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier-Bresson,' he suggests bringing the lauded humanist documentarists into the philosophical equation. 'But, it was mostly a British photographer called Tony Ray-Jones.' Those men were powerful sources of inspiration, who shined a bright light on his own path to visual expression, Levac says. 'I didn't invent anything. You know, you see something you like and you think, 'I'll try to do something like that.'' The above lauded trio may have sparked the young Israeli's imagination and sowed the seeds for one of his main lines of thought and endeavor, but it was something of a slow burner. 'I left Israel for London in late 1967,' he says. 'I left Israel for a year and stayed 14 years. But I came back from time to time, to visit family and friends.' And snap a few frames, he may have added. Levac studied photography in London in its Swinging Sixties heyday, and subsequently worked in the field in Britain. But the time and, in particular, the place were not aligned with Levac's native cultural continuum. 'I don't think, then, I looked for these [idiosyncratic] confluences. That didn't interest me outside the Israeli context.' But the idea of getting into that after he returned here to roost was gestating just below the surface. 'I thought that it was more interesting to do in Israel because I am more familiar with the culture and the visual language.' Evidently, there is more to what Levac does than observing quotidian jigsaw pieces align themselves and pressing the shutter release button at exactly the right happenstance microsecond. 'It is not just a combination of all sorts of anecdotal elements. There is, here, also a statement about the Israeli public domain.' The dynamics of human behavior, of course, can vary a lot between differing societies. In Israel, we are much more physically expressive than the average Brit or, for that matter, Japanese. ONCE RESETTLED in the Middle East, the mix-and-match line of photography soon took on tangible form, without too much premeditation. 'I don't remember exactly when it started but I took one of the first shots one day when I was in Ashkelon. I lived there at the time with my first wife. I started seeing a lot of contrasts on the street, coming together at the same time.' It was around that time that still largely conservative Israel got its first tabloid newspaper, Hadashot, which shook up the industry and Israeli society, and introduced it to risqué material and full-color photographs. Levac was soon on board and, before too long, also found himself in hot water as a result of the now-famous news picture he took. 'That was Kav 300 (Bus 300),' he recalls. The said snap was of a terrorist being led away from the scene after IDF soldiers stormed an Egged bus in which passengers were being held captive. The initial official IDF report was that all four Palestinian terrorists had been killed in the attack. However, Levac's picture provided irrefutable evidence that one of the terrorists was still alive after the operation was over. 'They shut the paper down for a while after that.' Brief hiatus notwithstanding, Levac had, by then, established himself as a bona fide photojournalist here. 'I had a regular column in a Hadashot supplement called 'Segol' (purple). They had very visual-oriented editors at the time, so photographers were given a lot of column space. Then I got my regular weekly spot. I've been doing that for around 40 years, every single week. That's crazy!' That may be wonderful, but it comes with a commitment to produce the visually left-field goods, week in and week out. 'Sometimes I can just pop out and I'll find something really good, very quickly. Other times, it can take a while, and there are times I come back without having taken a photograph,' he says. After all these years, Levac's sixth sense is constantly primed and ready to pick up on some unexpected sequence of events that could fuse into an amusing or captivating frame. Anyone who has seen his candid snaps, which have been running in the Haaretz newspaper for the past three-plus decades, will have a good idea of his special acumen for noting and documenting surprising, and often humorous, street-level juxtapositions. 'By now, I see those kinds of things more than I see the ordinary stuff,' he smiles. 'I also look for that, like Gadi.' GADI ROYZ is a hi-tech entrepreneur and enthusiastic amateur photographer. Levac recalls that 'Gadi came up to me one day and told me he'd attended a lecture of mine and began taking photographs,' he recalls. At first, Levac wasn't sure where it was leading. 'You know, you get nudniks telling me how much they like my photographs and all that,' he chuckles. 'You have to be nice when people do that, but it can get a bit tiresome.' However, it quickly became clear that Royz was in a different league and had serious plans for the two of them. 'Gadi didn't just want to be complimentary; he said, 'Let's do a book together.'' Producing a book with high-quality prints can be a financially challenging business. But, it seems, Royz didn't just bring boundless enthusiasm and artistic talent to the venture; he also helped with the nuts and bolts of putting the proposition into attractive corporeal practice. In fact, the book, which goes by the intriguing name of A City of Refuge, is a co-production together with Royz, who, judging by his around 40 prints in the book, also has a gift for discerning the extraordinary in everyday situations, and capturing them to good aesthetic and compelling effect. The city in question is, of course, Tel Aviv, where Levac was born and has lived for most of his life. 'Gadi said he had the money to get the book done,' Levac notes. That sounded tempting, but Levac still wanted to be sure the end product would be worth the effort. 'We sat down together, and I saw some of his photographs. I liked them, so I said, 'Let's go for it.'' And so A City of Refuge came to be. There are around 100 prints in the plushly produced volume. All offer fascinating added visual and cerebral value. There is always some surprise in store for the viewer, although it can take a moment to absorb it, which, in this day and age of lightning speed instantaneous gratification, is a palliative boon. The unlikely interfaces, which can be topical or simply contextually aesthetic, may be comical, arresting, or even a little emotive. Every picture demands a moment or two of your time and, as Levac noted in the dedication he generously wrote for me in my copy of the book, can be revisited for further pondering and enjoyment. The book is great fun to leaf through. One of Levac's more sophisticated items shows a man sitting on a bench with a serious expression on his face, which is echoed and amplified by a childish figure on the wall behind him of a character with a look of utter glumness. There's a smile-inducing shot by Royz (following in Levac's photographic footsteps) with a young, heavily pregnant woman walking from the left, about to pass behind a spiraling tree trunk with a hefty protrusion of its own. Royz also has a classic picture of Yaacov Agam's famed fire and water sculpture, in its original polychromic rendition in Dizengoff Square of several years ago. The picture shows two workers cleaning the work, each on a different level. The worker on the top level is visible from his stomach upward, while his colleague, on the street level, can only be seen from his waist down. Together, they looked like an extremely elongated character, something along the lines of a Tallest Man in the World circus performer. It is often a matter of camera angle, such as Royz's shot of a wheelie bin in Yarkon Park with a giant hot balloon-looking orb looking like it is billowing out of the trash can. And Levac's delightfully crafted frame of an elegant, long-haired blonde striding along the sidewalk led by her sleek canine pal, which appears to have an even more graceful step, poses a question about the human-animal grace divide. I wondered whether, in this day and age if – when we all take countless photos with our smartphones, of everything and everyone around us – his job has become harder. 'Quite the opposite,' he exclaims. 'Now that everyone takes pictures, people notice me less, which means I can do what I want and snap with greater freedom.' Long may that continue. ■
Edinburgh Reporter
3 days ago
- Sport
- Edinburgh Reporter
Omer's roadmap for Grange
Omer Mahmud Khan has taken over as coach of the Grange women's cricket team knowing he doesn't need to look far to find role models for his charges. Two recent Grange players, Lucy Weston and Ellen Watson, are now playing for Leicestershire Foxes in the women's one day league in England. Omer says it is his goal to provide opportunities for others to follow in their footsteps while also targeting success in the fledgling Scottish Women's Premiership and national knock out cup which begins on a twenty:20 format in July. One of the most recognisable figures in East cricket – Omer played with Drummond Trinity from 2008-2016 before spending the next eight years at Kirkbrae (five as captain alongside three as chairman) he has committed his playing abilities to Boroughmuir this season as it one of the clubs most convenient for him – he says: 'I just completed my level 1 and 2 coaching qualifications with Cricket Scotland when the role at Grange came up. 'There is tremendous potential with around 50 females involved including teams for under-14 and under-16s. 'Some have been playing at Grange since aged four or five and it is such a great venue with a road map for players to follow the likes of Lucy and Ellen. 'With older players availability can be sporadic due to university commitments so my arrival while running the 12 week long Edinburgh Hub for a select group of under-16 boys under the MCC Foundation scheme is a good time to launch a recruitment drive at Grange. 'What we don't want to do is promote under-16's into the seniors just to be number fillers which can be discouraging. We need the up and comings to earn their places. 'Part of the overall challenge is improving awareness of the Women's Premier League but hopefully we play our part alongside Cricket Scotland's growth plan.' One of England's most decorated cricketers, Stuart Broad, is coming to Edinburgh's Assembly Rooms on 26 October as part of a UK wide tour. Stuart's roadshow will see him reflect on a career which yielded more than 600 Test wickets as well as a T20 World Cup and Ashes success. The Grange women's cricket team before their opening Scottish women's Premier League match against the combined Watsonian/Dumfries side. The Grange team comprised: E Wood, A Patwari, C Edwards, C Milburn, E Small, B Gull, I Sale, I Westwood, N Maxim, C Beddison, S Nayak. Like this: Like Related
Yahoo
7 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
600 days into the war, hostages testimonies aren't moving needle on a deal
The hostages who have come forward with their testimonies have shown incredible bravery, but official talks between Israel and Hamas have repeatedly stalled. Several hostages freed from the Gaza Strip have recounted the horrors they faced in captivity, but 600 days after the start of the war, there is still little evidence of a concrete deal to free the remaining captives. Seven hostages freed from Gaza—Omer, Eli, Yair, Amit, Arbel, Emily, and Keith—have bravely recounted their stories. They hope their testimonies will underscore the urgent need to reach a prisoner exchange deal. But despite their efforts, negotiations remain stalled. Unfortunately, even after their testimonies became public, talks have reached dead ends, with officials blaming Hamas for the impasse. In some cases, politicians have questioned the credibility of the hostages' stories, suggesting ties to Hamas. Below are testimonies from hostages during more than 600 days of war. Here are some of the more heartbreaking stories from former hostages. Just this week, Omer Wenkert, freed in the latest deal after being kidnapped at the Nova Festival, described the cruelty he faced. 'They risked my life for fun,' he said. 'One of them brought pesticide spray, put me at the end of the corridor, and sprayed it on my face, with my eyes open. He made sure everything I touched was sprayed.' Omer also recalled being beaten with an iron rod while locked for months in a tiny cell with only a hole for waste. Eli Sharabi's story is heartbreaking. His daughters, Noya and Yahel, and his wife, Lianne, were murdered, and his brother, Yossi, died in captivity. Eli was held for a year and four months, chained and shackled 'with very, very heavy locks that tore your flesh.' He was beaten so severely that his ribs broke. But hunger, he said, was the hardest to bear; sometimes surviving on just a bowl of pasta a day until 'the stomach caves in.' After his release, he told the United Nations, 'I weighed only 44 kilos. I lost over 30 kilos, nearly half my body weight.' Yair Horn was forced to say goodbye to his brother Eitan, who remains in Gaza. He described psychological torture that included trivial demands meant to break him down, such as forcing him to eat with his right hand despite being left-handed, just to get food. Diabetic and suffering from neuropathy, Yair said that IDF bombings were among the scariest moments in captivity. 'The hostages fight for breath, my brother has no time,' he said, lighting a candle at Hostages Square. About a year ago, Amit Soussana testified that she was sexually assaulted while captive. She recounted the story to the United Nations Security Council. 'He came at me, pushed his gun against my forehead, and hit me. He dragged me to the children's room, a room full of children's posters—then pointed the rifle at me and forced me to perform a sexual act.' Sexual assault of the hostages was, unfortunately, common. N12 news site reported that Karina Aryev was also sexually harassed. Chen Goldstein Almog heard from three women who were assaulted, and Aviva Siegel told the Knesset that a separate hostage said, 'a terrorist touched her.' Arbel Yehoud came to the Knesset to deliver a message to lawmakers. 'I was severely beaten and even thrown into isolation for long days, without food fit for human consumption, and in hygienic conditions like those in concentration camps during the Holocaust,' she said. Arbel was held alone throughout captivity. Her partner, Ariel Cunio, remains in Gaza, and her brother, Dolev, was murdered on October 7. Emily Damari lost two fingers and suffered intense pain after being shot in Gaza. She recalled being taken into surgery 'with a corpse in front of me,' then waking to Hamas's doctor telling her she had lost two fingers and that her leg wound was still open with only four stitches instead of sixteen. Keith Siegel said he was forced to watch asexual assault on a female hostage. 'They made me watch it. I saw the sexual assault of one of the hostages.' He described other abuse, including spitting, and said, 'I was subjected to subhuman conditions with no air, no light, no sanitation, not enough food and water, in tunnels where I couldn't stand. They shaved our heads and pubic hair around our private areas.'
