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German Court Hands Tunisian 10-Year Sentence for Ricin Bomb Plot

Sief Allah H. on trial in Cologne in June 2019. Photo: DPA
Sief Allah H. on trial in Cologne in June 2019. Photo: DPA
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German Court Hands Tunisian 10-Year Sentence for Ricin Bomb Plot

Sief Allah H. on trial in Cologne in June 2019. Photo: DPA
Sief Allah H. on trial in Cologne in June 2019. Photo: DPA

When Tunisian Sief Allah H entered the courtroom in the western German city of Dusseldorf this week, he was all smiles and asked the police officer standing next to him to respect social distancing as a measure to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

The humor of the 31-year-old man, who has been in jail since 2018, turned into a nightmare when the judge at Dusseldorf’s higher regional court sentenced him to 10 years in prison for planning a biological bomb attack with the deadly poison ricin.

The ISIS sympathizer had ordered castor seeds, explosives and metal ball bearings on the internet in order to build the toxic bomb.

He was found guilty of producing a biological weapon and of planning a serious act of violent subversion.

His German wife Yasmin, 43, stands accused of helping him build the bomb but she is now being tried separately after the court accused her defense lawyers of attempting to spin out the case with a 140-page statement on Thursday.

Her trial will resume on April 1.

The couple "wanted to create a climate of fear and uncertainty among the German population," judge Jan van Lessen said.

He added that they had produced enough ricin to potentially kill up to 13,500 people.

The couple have been on trial since June last year.

Federal prosecutors said the couple had "for a long time identified with the aims and values of the foreign terrorist organization ISIS".

They decided in 2017 to detonate an explosive in a large crowd, "to kill and wound the largest possible number of people," prosecutors said ahead of the trial.

The pair had allegedly researched various forms of explosives before deciding on the deadly poison.

They ordered 3,300 castor beans over the internet and successfully made a small amount of ricin.

They also bought a hamster to test the potency of the poison.

"He is certainly guilty, we do not deny that," they reportedly said.

Before travelling to Germany, Sief Allah H worked as a mailman in Tunisia.

He had tried to travel to Syria to fight alongside extremists. But when his plans failed, he thought about an alternative plan to carry out the biological attack.

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Typhoon Gaemi Weakens to Tropical Storm as It Moves Inland Carrying Rain toward Central China

In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)
In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)
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Typhoon Gaemi Weakens to Tropical Storm as It Moves Inland Carrying Rain toward Central China

In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)
In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)

Tropical storm Gaemi brought rain to central China on Saturday as it moved inland after making landfall at typhoon strength on the country's east coast Thursday night.

The storm felled trees, flooded streets and damaged crops in China but there were no reports of casualties or major damage. Eight people died in Taiwan, which Gaemi crossed at typhoon strength before heading over open waters to China.

The worst loss of life, however, was in a country that Gaemi earlier passed by but didn't strike directly: the Philippines. A steadily climbing death toll has reached 34, authorities there said Friday. The typhoon exacerbated seasonal monsoon rains in the Southeast Asian country, causing landslides and severe flooding that stranded people on rooftops as waters rose around them.

China Gaemi weakened to a tropical storm since coming ashore Thursday evening in coastal Fujian province, but it is still expected to bring heavy rains in the coming days as it moves northwest to Jiangxi, Hubei and Henan provinces.

About 85 hectares (210 acres) of crops were damaged in Fujian province and economic losses were estimated at 11.5 million yuan ($1.6 million), according to Chinese media reports. More than 290,000 people were relocated because of the storm.

Elsewhere in China, several days of heavy rains this week in Gansu province left one dead and three missing in the country's northwest, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Taiwan Residents and business owners swept out mud and mopped up water Friday after serious flooding that sent cars and scooters floating down streets in parts of southern and central Taiwan. Some towns remained inundated with waist-deep water.

Eight people died, several of them struck by falling trees and one by a landslide hitting their house. More than 850 people were injured and one person was missing, the emergency operations center said.

Visiting hard-hit Kaohsiung in the south Friday, President Lai Ching-te commended the city's efforts to improve flood control since a 2009 typhoon that brought a similar amount of rain and killed 681 people, Taiwan's Central News Agency reported.

Lai announced that cash payments of $20,000 New Taiwan Dollars ($610) would be given to households in severely flooded areas.

A cargo ship sank off the coast near Kaohsiung Harbor during the typhoon, and the captain's body was later pulled from the water, the Central News Agency said. A handful of other ships were beached by the storm.

Philippines At least 34 people died in the Philippines, mostly because of flooding and landslides triggered by days of monsoon rains that intensified when the typhoon — called Carina in the Philippines — passed by the archipelago’s east coast.

The victims included 11 people in the Manila metro area, where widespread flooding trapped people on the roofs and upper floors of their houses, police said. Some drowned or were electrocuted in their flooded communities.

Earlier in the week, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered authorities to speed up efforts in delivering food and other aid to isolated rural villages, saying people may not have eaten for days.

The bodies of a pregnant woman and three children were dug out Wednesday after a landslide buried a shanty in the rural mountainside town of Agoncillo in Batangas province.