Killer Iraqis face the drop

The BBC and others report that two Iraqis accused of killing two British soldiers (in cold blood) can be tried by Iraqi authorities despite a ‘real risk’ they could face the death penalty.

Am I missing something?

You murder someone in cold blood, while filming it, in a country with the death penalty... It’s not impossible you might end up at the wrong end of a rope.

The BBC relates that Faisal Al-Saadoon and Khalaf Mufdhi are accused of murdering Staff Sgt Simon Cullingworth and Sapper Luke Allsopp and that the High Court has ruled it is lawful for them to be transferred from British custody and tried by an Iraqi court.

Lord Justice Richards said: ‘In our view they could face the real risk of the death sentence if convicted. We are seriously troubled by that conclusion. We regard the issues in the case as difficult and important.’

Phil Shiner, the solicitor representing Al-Saadoon and Mufdhi, says allowing them to stand trial in Iraq would violate both the European Convention on Human Rights and the 1998 Human Rights Act.

Good effort, Phil - these two are obviously great respecters of human rights themselves. It is like suggesting that the war criminals tried at Nuremburg had their human rights violated. In fact, maybe they did. But did anyone care? No.

Cigarette chewing dog bites the dust

So farewell, then, General Edi.

The cigarette chewing dachsund, who munched his way through half a packet of cigarettes every day since he was a puppy, is no more.

The General was killed after he was hit by a car during a walk to his favourite cigarette shop.

‘Poor Edi dashed out in the road in excitement right in front of a car. There was nothing anyone could do,’ said one neighbour in Graz, central Austria.

The dog’s owner, Wolfgang Treirler, added: ‘His old owner abandoned him and so we took him in 17 years ago, and noticed straight away that he was in the habit of eating cigarettes. He eats the tobacco and the paper, and then chews a while on the filter before spitting it out.

‘On average he eats about 10 cigarettes a day, but all of his teeth are fine.’

A local vet, Harald Mayr, said: ‘Nicotine normally leads to poisoning in dogs, but in this case the animal has obviously become addicted to it which has increased its level of tolerance.’

Dem Africans gonna get you, muddaf***er

Holy crap, I was watching Newsnight yesterday and saw the report on gang violence in Edmonton.

Edmonton, adjoining Tottenham, Walthamstow and the North Circular is a grisly place at the best of the times, but it's been made even more grim by the addition of armed gangs knifing each other left, right and centre.

Anyway, the BBC report focused on a gang called ‘Dem Africans’ - largely young chaps with origins in Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone and other places where life is a bit cheaper than it might be.

Three of their number have been killed this year - in a conflict with rival gangs.

Incredibly depressing stuff. What’s the sense in escaping a bloody awful warzone of a country to end up getting knifed in a khazi like Edmonton?

Particularly enjoyed the police chief facing the question about whether his offices worked all that hard in investigating gang deaths. He didn’t seem all that convincing in his answer ('yes we do').

Anjem Choudary’s message of goodwill to all

Anjem Choudary seems like a fun kind of guy.
Here's an upstanding lawyer kind of bloke who’s getting £25,000 worth of benefits from the UK state while he's preaching religious and racial hatred and (now this really is going too far) slagging off Christmas festivities.

Fair enough, you may think. He’s right. Christmas is a commercialised load of garbage anyway. And it was all nicked from the pagans in the first place.

Except, of course, that Choudary isn’t having a go at that aspect of it all. It’s the religious side that really gets his (halal) goat.

‘In the world today many Muslims, especially those residing in Western countries, are exposed to the evil celebration Christmas,' he yabbered on his website.

‘Many take part in the festival celebrations by having Christmas turkey dinners.

‘Decorating the house, purchasing Christmas trees or having Christmas turkey meals are completely prohibited by Allah.

‘Many still practise this corrupt celebration as a remembrance of the birth of Jesus.

‘How can a Muslim possibly approve or participate in such a practice that bases itself on the notion Allah has an offspring?

‘The very concept of Christmas contradicts and conflicts with the foundation of Islam.

‘Every Muslim has a responsibility to protect his family from the misguidance of Christmas, because its observance will lead to hellfire.

'Protect your Paradise from being taken away - protect yourself and your family from Christmas.'

This is the bloke who has demanded the execution of the Pope and urged Muslims to have more babies to take over the UK. Perhaps he would be best protected from the evil that is Christmas by moving to Helmand or Baghdad.

Except I doubt he’ll get 25k a year in benefits over there.

Hitler not Schalke fan. Nein, nein, nein.

The Times recently ran a list of most embarrassing football fans.

On the list was Adolf Hitler - mentioned as a Schalke 04 fan.

Quite a sensitive suggestion, one presumes - so the club duly responded... And with rather a lot of humour. Fair point, I can't imagine Gelsenkirchen being top of the Fuhrer's list of favourite places. Bayern Munich would be more his bag.

That letter in full...

Dear Editor,

Your article on 'The 50 worst famous football fans' on November 26 made interesting reading. Until then we didn’t know Adolf Hitler had a soft spot for Schalke 04 let alone was a fan of our club.

We were very curious to find out what made the well respected Times claim this as a fact. So we checked and double-checked whether the club board between 1933 and 1945 had named a stand the “Führer Stand”, for example, and we watched every episode of 'Allo 'Allo in a bid to find a clue. Nothing.

In fact, it turned out he must have been an armchair supporter because he never bothered to turn up at any of our games, even if it was a championship final right on his door step at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. Perhaps he was too occupied with his genocidal policies, or… maybe he wasn't a football fan after all.

This is at least what a scientific study commissioned by the club revealed in 2004. The authors analysed the theory that the fact that Schalke won six national championships during the Third Reich was down to the special support of the Nazis. The result was quite clear: the theory is total rubbish. At best, the Nazis tried to bask in the sun of the great popularity of a team that had ranked among the best in the land since 1927.

Hitler himself never did so for two reasons. First, the physiognomy of footballers with their bow legs and knock-knees wasn’t exactly his idea of a superior German race. Second, he did go to a football match once during the Olympic Games in 1936, but Germany lost 2-0 to Norway. Bugger!

To conclude Hitler was a fan of Schalke 04 because they won most of the titles during his regime must make Margaret Thatcher a Liverpool fan. Funnily enough she didn’t make the list.

Best regards
Gerd Voss
Head of Media & PR
Schalke 04

Cheryl Cole made Angel of the North

An artist has created an image of what Antony Gormley's Angel of the North would have looked like had it been based on Cheryl Cole.

Lee Jones says he created the image after seeing the X Factor judge and her emotional reaction to performers “realizing” she is the living embodiment of the Angel of the North.

His version has Cheryl's Angel wiping away a tear with a tissue. It also features the curve of the singer’s ample breasts - guaranteed to make motorists miss their turning - at least.

‘As an artist I feel the overwhelming warmth of the Northern people towards Cheryl Cole, and I wanted to portray this by depicting her as our very own Angel of the North,’ said Jones. ‘I see her as a new Icon of popular culture for the 21st Century, a beacon of light in these bleak times… a fine example of a Northern lass making good.’

‘Angel’ will be exhibited at The Arts Club in London’s Mayfair in February 2009, and limited edition prints will be available at 2050Sports.com

Horse sex man jailed, shock

A man has been jailed for having sex with a horse, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Leeroy Le Gallais, 46, initially used a bucket to stand behind the horse, called Calico, but made the schoolboy error of leaving his pants at the scene of the crime.

He was given a three-year probation order, but a few months later returned to have sex with the same horse at the Castel Stable in Guernsey.

Le Gallais told the court: ‘I had a few beers, I went to the stable and interfered with the horse. Maybe I had a little bit of an urge or something. I mean, like a sexual, a sexual thing, I suppose you could call it that.’

Defending, advocate Sara Mallett said her client had learning difficulties and his IQ was ‘very low’.

Mark Abell - a true Brit

British businessman Mark Abell demonstrated some of the most stoically stiff upper lipped behaviour I’ve ever heard when he was caught in the terrorist attack on Mumbai’s Oberoi hotel last week.

Having had to barricade himself in his room, with gunmen roaming the corridors looking for Westerners to kill and with hardly any food and water he spoke to BBC radio’s Today programme.

As he talked he displayed incredible calm under fire. It was as if he had come out of a different epoch - the Indian Mutiny, for example. He must have been terrified, but sounded less nervous than a Labour minister discussing the economy.

‘We were too close for comfort’ and ‘it was very grim’ were two classics of understatement. It was an exceptional display of sang froid and great news that he got out of the Oberoi in one piece.