BAMAKO, Mali: All five polling officials who were abducted in northern Mali have been released, an official in the Kidal region said yesterday, adding that a Tuareg rebel has been arrested over the kidnapping. A local official who was snatched at the same time has also been freed, the source told AFP. “All those kidnapped on Saturday have been released and are doing well,” he said.
The six people had been at the town hall in Tessalit, a remote town some 200 kilometres north of the flashpoint city of Kidal, to plan the distribution of identity cards to registered voters when they were abducted on Saturday.
AFP
‘Arrested priest acted as banker’
ROME: A senior Catholic prelate arrested last month used his influence at the Vatican to provide private, illegal financial services for rich friends, Italian investigators say in a judicial document. They say Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, who is the target of two Italian investigations and had accounts at the Vatican bank, engaged in “totally private, illegal activity which was also aimed at serving outsiders”.
Scarano was arrested in Rome on June 28 along with a self-styled financier and a member of Italy’s secret services and formally accused of taking part in a plot to smuggle ¤20m into Italy from Switzerland. Reuters has obtained the 28-page document in which magistrates in Rome had asked a judge to order his arrest. Scarano’s lawyer, Silverio Sica, denied the accusations it contains. “They don’t have any evidence to prove all of this,” he said yesterday. “These are just suspicions”. REUTERS
Small plane crashes into Channel
LILLE, France: A British pilot is missing after his small aeroplane crashed into the English Channel yesterday on its way to France, officials said. Debris from the plane was found off the coast of Dover in southeastern England, but the pilot, the only person aboard, had not been found by late afternoon, said the French prefecture responsible for the Channel and the North Sea.
The pilot set off from Blackbushe Airport southwest of London and was headed for Le Touquet in northeastern France, the prefecture said.
AFP
