An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan has sentenced a man to death for allegedly committing blasphemy on Facebook, the latest step in an intensified crackdown on dissent on social media. A court in Bahawalpur handed out the verdict, the harshest yet for such a crime, after finding Taimoor Raza, 30, guilty of insulting the prophet Muhammad.

Raza was arrested last year after a debate about Islam on Facebook with a man who turned out to be a counter-terrorism agent. He was one among 15 people arrested by the counter-terrorism department last year, accused of blasphemy, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. The verdict is part of a wider crackdown on perceived dissent on social media in a country where unfounded allegations of blasphemy can lead to mob vigilante justice.

Raza’s brother, Waseem Abbas, said the family was “poor but literate”, and belonged to Pakistan’s minority Shia Muslim community. “My brother indulged in a sectarian debate on Facebook with a person, who we later come to know, was a [counter-terrorism department] official with the name of Muhammad Usman,” he said.(guardian)…[+]

Detectives are preparing to interview the brother of Manchester suicide bomber Salman Abedi following reports the pair acted together to buy bomb-making equipment. Det Ch Supt Russ Jackson said Abedi and his younger brother, Hashem, travelled to Libya together on 15 April before the older sibling returned to carry out the attack on 22 May.Jackson said the police wanted to interview Hashem Abedi after the militia group holding him in Libya said he had confessed to buying bomb-making parts in Britain and knowing that Abedi was planning an attack.

The development came as police released the final two of 20 suspects detained in connection with the Ariana Grande concert bombing that killed 22 people and wounded 200 others. Detectives believe Abedi assembled the deadly nailbomb himself but have not yet established whether he acted alone in obtaining bomb-making materials before he left the country on 15 April. Jackson said detectives were “relentlessly pursuing” several critical lines of inquiry, including whether others knew that he was storing materials in a white Nissan Micra purchased by Abedi two days before he left for Libya. The car was later found in Rusholme, less than two miles from Abedi’s house in Whalley Range, south Manchester.(guardian)…[+]

A Libyan militia says it has freed Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the most prominent son of the country’s late dictator Muammar Gaddafi, after more than five years in captivity.The Abu Bakr al-Sadiq Brigade, based in Zintan, said it released Saif under an amnesty law passed last year by the eastern-based parliament.

“We have decided to liberate Saif al-Islam Muammar Gaddafi. He is now free and has left the city of Zintan,” the militia said in a statement. However, it is unclear whether Saif has left Zintan, and his freedom in Libya is partial. While the eastern parliament in Tobruk, to which Zintan is aligned, says he is a free man, Tripoli’s UN-backed government still considers him a war criminal, after a court sentenced him to death, in absentia, in 2015 for crimes during the revolution. If Saif leaves Libya, he may also face arrest on an indictment from the international criminal court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

His British lawyer, Karim Khan QC, said he was unable to confirm or deny reports of Saif’s freedom, but added he was in regular contact with his client, last visiting him in the autumn. “I met him in Zintan and I’ve been in contact with him in relation to this issue,” he said. “He was in good physical health, I had lunch with him in Zintan and sat for several hours.”(guardian)…[+]