1. Peter Moore, consultant who was kidnapped allegedly by Iran, believes he was always in IRAQ.
Peter Moore, the British IT consultant kidnapped on May 29, 2007 in Iraq and held hostage for three years by Shia extremists, has spoken about his ordeal. In the first interview about his time in captivity, Moore says he was held in Basra - not in Iran, as many reports had claimed - and denies there was any significant Iranian link to the group beyond some covert funding.
The 36-year-old, who was finally released on December 30 last year, told the Times today that he had suffered torture including being hung by his arms from a door, dousings with water and mock executions. Bizarrely, later in his captivity he played ping-pong with one of the men holding him.
To conquer the boredom of being held with only a television for company, Moore says he counted dots on curtains, invented an imaginary tube map on the wall and indulged in fantasies about motorcycling. “I would pretend that I wasn’t there. I pretended I was in a bike shop negotiating which motorbike to buy,” he told the paper. He also invented a wife to try to win the sympathy of his guards – a Brazilian malaria doctor he began almost to believe in himself – and pretended to be Catholic.
US military intelligence has asserted that the captured men – Moore was taken with four security guards, all subsequently executed – did spend some time in Iran.
It was also alleged they had been taken there within 24 hours of capture and held there throughout. But Moore was only willing to concede that he might briefly have crossed into Iran and out again. He told the Times: “We could hear a train and there were loads of mortars going off around us, loads of explosions. It definitely wasn’t Iran.”
Moore believes he was held for most of his captivity in Basra, but also spent time in Baghdad, Hilla and Karbala – all cities in Iraq. He also dismisses the suggestion the kidnap was orchestrated by Iran’s Republican Guard, insisting the kidnappers – a group calling themselves the League of the Righteous - were “Iraqi resistance” with “representation” in Iraq’s government.
According to the Times, Moore is remarkably collected for somebody who has suffered such an ordeal. He plans to visit friends in Guyana and then take a motorbike tour of New Zealand.
2. body found under the patio of Kray friend after tip-off
A MAN’S body has been found buried in the back garden of a house belonging to an ex-convict with links to the Kray twins.
Wrapped in rotting carpet, the corpse was excavated from under the patio of the terraced home. The owner of the house, who is now dying of cancer, has been arrested.
Police began the grisly search after a tip-off that a murder victim had lain under earth and concrete for at least 15 years.
Digging went on for two days before the body was located. Excavations are likely to continue for some days as police search for more clues. Scotland Yard traced the owner of the property in Alderville Road, Fulham, west London, to a hospice where he is terminally ill with cancer. Roy Heath, 52, was questioned over allegations that he had the man killed over a property deal that went wrong.
Heath, who has a record for violence, is said to have struck up a friendship with gangland boss Reggie Kray while they were serving time in the same prison. He was arrested and bailed on Tuesday at the hospice in Lambeth, south London.
It is understood he has just weeks or even days to live.
Two other men, aged 47 and 52, were arrested on Wednesday in connection with the find. They were still in custody last night.
Police have yet to establish the identity of the body, said to be that of a “very small man”.
Detective Inspector Tim Dobson said: “It is believed that the body may have been at the scene between 15 and 20 years. Whilst inquiries are underway to establish the identity of this person, we are keen to speak to anyone who may have lived in this road around that time.”
3. the Kray twins — plugged in organized UK crime bosses from the 50s and 60s
Reginald “Reggie” Kray (24 October 1933 – 1 October 2000) and his twin brother Ronald “Ronnie” Kray (died 17 March 1995) were the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in London’s East End during the 1950s and 1960s. Ronald, commonly referred to as Ron or Ronnie, suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. The Krays were involved in armed robberies, arson, protection rackets, violent assaults including torture and the murders of Jack “The Hat” McVitie and George Cornell. As West End nightclub owners they mixed with prominent entertainers including Diana Dors, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and politicians, The Krays were highly respected. In the 1960s they became celebrities in their own right, being photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television.
They were arrested on 9 May 1968 and convicted in 1969 by the efforts of a squad of detectives led by Detective Superintendent Leonard “Nipper” Read, and were both sentenced to life imprisonment.
Ronnie remained in prison until his death on 17 March 1995, but Reggie was released from prison on compassionate grounds in August 2000, a few weeks before his death from cancer.
…[The Krays also came into the public eye when an exposé in the tabloid newspaper Sunday Mirror alleged that Ron had had a sexual relationship with Lord Boothby, a UK Conservative Party politician. Although no names were printed, Boothby threatened to sue, the newspaper backed down, sacked its editor, apologised, and paid Boothby £40,000 in an out of court settlement. As a result, other newspapers were less willing to uncover the Krays’ connections and criminal activities.
The police investigated the Krays on several occasions, but the twins’ reputation for violence meant witnesses were afraid to come forward to testify. There was also a political problem for both main parties. It was neither in the interests of the Conservative Party to press the police to end the Krays’ power lest the Boothby connection was again publicised and demonstrated, or those of the Labour Party because their MP Tom Driberg was also rumoured to have had a relationship with Ronnie.
4. another one: ‘American Fritzl’ Aswad Ayinde ‘directed Fugees video’
51-year-old man from New Jersey is in court today accused of repeatedly raping his five daughters and fathering six children by them in a case with disturbing echoes of the crimes of the incestuous British rapist Adult R - and those of Joseph Fritzl in Austria.
Despite concerns that his victims could suffer if he is named publicly, at least one US newspaper has identified the man as Aswad Ayinde, saying he is the award-winning director of the Fugees video Killing Me Softly.
Prosecutors told New Jersey’s Superior Court yesterday that 51-year-old Ayinde, also known as Eric McGill, is a “depraved” man with a “Messianic complex”. His ex-wife Beverley said yesterday that he had impregnated his daughters in an attempt to keep his bloodline ‘pure’.
“He said the world was going to end, and it was just going to be him and his offspring and that he was chosen,” she told the court.
The abuse is alleged to have begun in the mid 1980s and continued until 2002 when Beverley Ayinde finally left her husband. During that time Ayinde is alleged to have beaten his children with wooden boards and kicked them with steel-toed boots. Moving house frequently to avoid the attentions of the authorities – on one occasion going to Florida - he repeatedly raped his children.
Three of Ayinde’s daughters became pregnant, and Beverley Ayinde told the court some of the resulting six babies were delivered at home and never received birth certificates. In at least two instances children died at home and were buried without the authorities being informed. The surviving children were schooled at home and denied contact with the outside world.
On one occasion Beverley herself miscarried twins after her husband forced her to carry a dead great dane wrapped in a carpet for burial.
In a calm voice yesterday, Beverley Ayinde said she did not report her then husband to police for fear of incurring beatings. “I was afraid to ever accuse him of being demented, or being a paedophile. I knew the word but I wouldn’t dare use it because it would result in a beating,” she said. The judge is expected to rule today on the admissibility of her evidence.
Many of the rapes and assaults are alleged to have been carried out when the family was squatting in a disused mortuary. Beverley Ayinde says her then husband renovated one room for himself but forced his family to live in the dilapidated main part of the building.
Where the parallels between Aswad Ayinde and the recently-sentenced British man Adult R end is in the lack of anonymity. The UK courts have forbidden the identification of Adult R in order to protect his family from public disclosure, but no such protection has been granted to Ayinde in the US.
However, the news agency Associated Press made its own decision not to name Ayinde. It said: “The Associated Press generally doesn’t identify victims of sexual crimes and is not reporting the names of the husband and wife to protect the identities of their children, now all over 18 years of age.”
Some US newspapers have respected this decision. Ayinde was first arrested as long ago as 2006, and has appeared in court earlier this month – but the New York Times has not disclosed his identity. The New York Daily News has had no such qualms, however. It names him, and goes further – identifying him as the director of the Fugees video which won an MTV award in 1996.
The ultra-tabloid New York Post does not name Ayinde, while overseas the London Times does identify him – both papers are owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International. The First Post has decided to name Ayinde as his identity is now widely known across the internet.
5. UK man harassed to death by punks
Police forces were warned by the Chief Inspector of Constabulary yesterday that they were failing to tackle the toll of anti-social behaviour on communities across the country.
As Denis O’Connor was speaking, reports began to emerge of a man with a mental age of 10 who had been “tormented to death” by youths who harassed him for more than a decade.
David Askew, 64, collapsed and died outside his house minutes after CCTV cameras recorded two teenagers approaching the house.
Last night, Greater Manchester police confirmed that an 18-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter over Mr Askew’s death. Earlier police had confirmed that they had referred the case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission after allegations from Mr Askew’s neighbours.
Police insisted they had done everything possible to support Mr Askew, his wheelchair-bound mother, Rose, and brother Brian. They had been to the property in Hattersley, Greater Manchester, 10 times in the last year after reports of anti-social behaviour. One youth – currently in prison – has an ASBO for harassing the family.
But neighbours insisted too little had been done. One said Mr Askew’s ordeal had been “like bear-baiting”. Another, Hazel Holley, 64, said: “The police did nothing. If you see two policemen on this estate you say snap. The only time recently I have seen a police car round here was today – when the man was already dead.”
