RABAT: Moroccan police on Saturday said they arrested more than 20 Africans suspected of planning an illegal crossing into Spain, after a deadly attempt last month.
Police from the northern port city of Tangiers disrupted “an illegal immigration attempt and questioned 25 people originally from sub-Saharan Africa,” the DGNS security service said.
It said in a separate statement that “36 homemade metal objects” were seized in a Tangiers shop that could be used for climbing, but did not specify which of two Spanish enclaves was targeted.

BEIRUT: A Lebanese man is willing to serve jail time for organ trafficking to sell his kidney to pay for his ailing wife’s medical treatment.
The 35-year-old unemployed husband, Khalil Adnan Al-Dghayli, is in drastic need of $400 monthly payments for medication for his wife Sarah Al-Hussein, who was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease shortly after giving birth to a baby girl.

TEHRAN: An Iranian court handed a preliminary death sentence to a man convicted over serial rape, local media reported Saturday, in a case that sparked a #MeToo movement in the country.
Keyvan Emamverdi, a former bookshop owner who studied archaeology, was arrested in August 2020 after at least 20 women accused him of assault, mostly anonymously, using the #rape hashtag on Twitter.
Emamverdi was sentenced to death for “corruption on earth,” said Shima Ghousheh, a lawyer representing five of the plaintiffs, according to ISNA news agency.

BAB AL-HAWA, Syria: Residents of embattled northwest Syria warned Saturday of a “catastrophe” following a Russian veto at the UN Security Council that threatens to end cross-border aid deliveries critical to their survival.
Friday’s veto of a resolution that would have extended authorization for UN aid deliveries through the Bab Al-Hawa crossing on the Syrian-Turkish border by one year amounted to a “siege and famine policy that Russia resorts to across Syria,” charged Mazen Allouch, a border crossing official.

LONDON: Jordanian authorities on Thursday have charged eight people in multiple crimes, primarily offenses that led to death and damage of others’ money, following a gas leak in the southern port city of Aqaba, state news agency Petra reported.
The kingdom’s Public Prosecution Office continued its probe procedures into the chlorine gas leak case and heard testimonies from 25 people who were present at the docking port, in addition to listening to other 135 testimonies during the course of the investigation earlier.