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A vicar was charged last night with conspiracy to aid unlawful entry to the UK by helping to organise more than 180 'sham' weddings for illegal immigrants.

Reverend Alex Brown, 60, had been arrested in a dawn raid on his rectory home in St Leonards, East Sussex, and his church, St Peter's, 200 yards away.

He is accused of holding a 'conveyor belt' of services to allow African and Eastern European immigrants from outside the European Union to marry those with the right to stay in the UK.

It is claimed that many of the unions were merely marriages of convenience to give the immigrants residency rights.

Reverend Brown was also charged with a count of solemnising a marriage according to Church of England rites without banns having been published.

He was remanded in custody and will appear before Hastings magistrates this morning.

The churchman has been the parish priest at St Peter's Church for 20 years. Police and immigration officials raided the church and his home just after 5am on Tuesday morning.

Yesterday a quickly scribbled handwritten note pinned to the front door of St Peter's read: 'All appointments have been cancelled for the foreseeable future!'

Three other suspects were being held yesterday; a 32-year-old Ukrainian man, a 27-year-old Latvian woman and an Armenian man, 36, who runs a translation service for Eastern Europeans.

Detective Inspector Andy Cummins, of the UK Border Agency, said: 'The arrests follow an 18-month investigation into allegations that nearly 180 sham marriages had been arranged at the church.'

Yesterday a spokesman for the Chichester Diocese said: 'It is with great sadness and regret that the Bishop of Lewes has received a report of the arrest of the Rev Alex Brown, the Vicar of St Peter's. The Church has been co-operating fully with the police and other agencies since the extent and seriousness of this matter came to light.

'The Bishop is concerned for the well-being of the congregation at St Peter's, who will be upset and hurt by the news.

Days before his arrest, Reverend Brown had announced in a local magazine that he intended to resign at the end of August.

He was pictured smiling in his church robes alongside a message that read: 'It is with great sadness that I have tended my resignation to Bishop John of Chichester in order to move back to the North of England to be nearer to my family.

'I have immensely enjoyed the parish and the people who have supported the Church, and I will be very sorry to go and leave lots of friends I have known and loved.

'I will miss Hastings and the area so much after so many years. Thank you to all who have supported me. It has been a varied and wonderful experience.'

When a migrant completes a bogus marriage, they can remain in Britain and move freely in the EU.

Those with residency rights in the UK, often from other EU countries, are paid up to £2,000 a time to take part in the sham weddings.

Labour toughened marriage laws in February 2005 after the number of suspect ceremonies - often arranged by criminal gangs who could earn £10,000 a time - reached 3,700 per year.

Migrants were made to get a special certificate to marry if they lived outside the EU, or had only limited rights to live in the UK.

Those with only three months' leave to remain were routinely refused on the grounds that the ceremony was performed just to avoid removal from the country.

The number of sham weddings has since fallen to around 300 a year. But the crackdown was left in tatters after the Law Lords ruled it breached migrants' human rights.

Law Lords said forcing a migrant to prove a relationship is genuine is 'arbitrary and unjust', even if they were getting married only weeks before their permission to stay in Britain ran out.

Quatre cents personnes issues de la communauté marocaine en Belgique ont été interrogées par l'université de Rabat en collaboration avec la Fondation Roi Baudouin.

Une personne interrogée sur trois (31,7 pc) seulement bénéficie d'un contrat fixe et une personne sur cinq (21 pc) touche des allocations de chômage. Les personnes interrogées évoquent les discriminations à l'embauche pour justifier leurs difficultés d'insertion sur le marché de l'emploi.

Les femmes sont moins nombreuses à travailler que les hommes (38,3 pc contre 55,4 pc). La proportion de femmes inactives (pour raisons familiales ou autres) s'élève à 62 pc. La proportion de femmes nées au Maroc et exerçant un travail est plus de deux fois inférieure à celle des femmes nées en Belgique (22 pc contre 46 pc).

Plus de la moitié sous le seuil de pauvreté

Plus de la moitié (53 pc) des Belgo-Marocains interrogés vivent sous le seuil de pauvreté et ils sont plus nombreux en Wallonie qu'en Flandre.

Le fait d'être traité comme un étranger est la critique la plus souvent exprimée par les personnes sondées. Le manque de respect à l'égard de leur religion et l'inadéquation des valeurs morales avec les leurs sont souvent mises en avant.

Enfin, les Belgo-Marocains privilégient le mariage non-mixte au mariage mixte. L'idée que les hommes et les femmes épousent des personnes qu'ils font venir de leur pays d'origine est approuvée par plus de 50 pc des personnes interrogées. La majorité (62 pc) s'opposent au mariage d'une femme musulmane avec un non-musulman et 45 pc réprouvent les mariages de musulmans avec une non-musulmane.

In her speech, Judge Sotomayor questioned the famous notion — often invoked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her retired Supreme Court colleague, Sandra Day O’Connor — that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding cases.

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor, who is now considered to be near the top of President Obama’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

Her remarks, at the annual Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, were not the only instance in which she has publicly described her view of judging in terms that could provoke sharp questioning in a confirmation hearing.

This month, for example, a video surfaced of Judge Sotomayor asserting in 2005 that a “court of appeals is where policy is made.” She then immediately adds: “And I know — I know this is on tape, and I should never say that because we don’t make law. I know. O.K. I know. I’m not promoting it. I’m not advocating it. I’m — you know.”

The video was of a panel discussion for law students interested in becoming clerks, and she was explaining the different experiences gained when working at district courts and appeals courts. Her remarks caught the eye of conservative bloggers who accused her of being a “judicial activist,” although Jonathan H. Adler, a professor at Case Western Reserve University law school, argued that critics were reading far too much into those remarks.

Republicans have signaled that they intend to put the eventual nominee under a microscope, and they say they were put on guard by Mr. Obama’s statement that judges should have “empathy,” a word they suggest could be code for injecting liberal ideology into the law.

Judge Sotomayor has given several speeches about the importance of diversity. But her 2001 remarks at Berkeley, which were published by the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal, went further, asserting that judges’ identities will affect legal outcomes.

“Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences,” she said, for jurists who are women and nonwhite, “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

Her remarks came in the context of reflecting her own life experiences as a Hispanic female judge and on how the increasing diversity on the federal bench “will have an effect on the development of the law and on judging.”

In making her argument, Judge Sotomayor sounded many cautionary notes. She said there was no uniform perspective that all women or members of a minority group have, and emphasized that she was not talking about any individual case.

She also noted that the Supreme Court was uniformly white and male when it delivered historic rulings against racial and sexual discrimination. And she said she tried to question her own “opinions, sympathies and prejudices,” and aspired to impartiality.

Still, Judge Sotomayor questioned whether achieving impartiality “is possible in all, or even, in most, cases.” She added, “And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society.”

She also approvingly quoted several law professors who said that “to judge is an exercise of power” and that “there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives.”

“Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see,” she said.

Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a Harvard law professor and an adviser to Mr. Obama, said Judge Sotomayor’s remarks were appropriate. Professor Ogletree said it was “obvious that people’s life experiences will inform their judgments in life as lawyers and judges” because law is more than “a technical exercise,” citing Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s famous aphorism: “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.”

ROMA — Il sorriso negli ultimi tem­pi Berlusconi lo indossa solo nelle occa­sioni pubbliche, e anche in quei casi la maschera a volte cede. D’altronde non è facile celare l’inquietudine per chi si sen­te «vittima di un disegno costruito a ta­volino » che ha l’obiettivo di indebolirlo, fiaccarlo e infine isolarlo, per trasformar­lo in un’anatra zoppa, in un leader cioè senza più leadership, in un premier sen­za più potere, in attesa di essere sostitui­to. È un’ossessione che non lo lascia più, anzi che è proprio il Cavaliere ad ali­mentare giorno dopo giorno, andando alla ricerca di riscontri che convalidino la tesi.

Perché è vero che nel Palazzo e nelle ur­ne non c’è al momento la possibilità di scalfire la sua forza: non ci sono i numeri in Parlamento per un ribaltone, nè c’è un’opposizione in grado di rimontarlo nei consensi, «e siccome non riescono a colpirmi politicamente, stanno tentando altre strade». Il punto è che il suo tallone è ben in mostra, le vicissitudini personali hanno allargato l’area del bersaglio. Lo de­scrivono «assai irrequieto e angosciato», convinto com’è che «siamo solo ai preli­minari »: il colpo semmai — ecco il moti­vo del suo stato d’animo — lo attende do­po le elezioni, a ridosso del G8.

In questa sindrome che lo attanaglia, Berlusconi intravede una sinistra coinci­denza a sostegno delle sue congetture: nel ’94, al vertice di Napoli, fu l’avviso di garanzia del pool di Mani Pulite a desta­bilizzarlo; stavolta — siccome nemme­no il caso Mills sembra produrre quegli effetti — teme ci proveranno «con la spazzatura». Se accadesse, sarebbe un terremoto. Raccontano che finora il pre­mier non sarebbe riuscito a capire da do­ve stia arrivando l’attacco: scartata l’ipo­tesi dell’opposizione e dei giornali, «ter­minali » a suo dire del disegno, lascia aperta la pista della magistratura, della finanza italiana e persino di lobby inter­nazionali.

Ancora ieri — dopo l’ennesima offen­siva contro il «Parlamento pletorico» e le «toghe rosse» — ha confidato di non aver paura di manovre di Palazzo: «Il pro­blema non sono Fini o Casini, figurarsi, ma certi poteri. Non vorrei stessero di nuovo pensando a mettersi in proprio». Non è un caso se nei giorni scorsi Gianni Letta si è mosso con riservatezza e caute­la nei panni dell’ambasciatore: ha avuto colloqui con Carlo De Benedetti, editore del gruppo Repubblica-L’Espresso, e con importanti banchieri. E non è un ca­so se ieri a Confindustria si è avvertito il gelo del premier con pezzi del gotha im­prenditoriale, se De Benedetti ha stretto le mani di (quasi) tutti i ministri senza mai incrociare il Cavaliere.

Difficile capire se Letta coltivi la stes­sa sindrome, di certo è preoccupato, per­ché convinto che «la campagna di ag­gressione », unita alla campagna mediati­ca, non si arresterà. Di più. Teme che sta­volta non sarà come ai tempi del «caso Saccà», quando da un’inchiesta della Procura di Napoli emersero le intercetta­zioni tra il dirigente Rai e il premier su alcune attrici. «Stavolta il tentativo per colpire Berlusconi sarebbe stato perfe­zionato, costruito meglio», sussurra un autorevole ministro. E non è facile spie­gare al Cavaliere che non può andare in pizzeria come uno qualunque o mostrar­si disponibile con chiunque. Nei giorni in cui tutto ebbe inizio, Berlusconi urlò ad alcuni suoi consiglieri: «Non sono te­nuto a dirvi sempre dove vado e cosa faccio. Non faccio nulla di male nella mia vita».

Ma è proprio lì che l’opposizione si prepara a mirare. Finora il Pd ha tenuto separato lo scontro politico dalle faccen­de private del premier, ma ora i Demo­cratici stanno raccogliendo le firme alla Camera per un’interpellanza urgente al Cavaliere, perché risponda «direttamen­te » ad alcune domande: «Quando e co­me ha conosciuto Benedetto Letizia»? «Qual è la natura dei rapporti con lui»? «Conosce le copiose proprietà immobi­liari della famiglia Letizia»? «Qual è la natura dei rapporti con Noemi che cono­sce da quando era minorenne»? «Dopo quanto affermato da Veronica Lario, ci sono altre minorenni che incontra o 'al­leva' »? E «quali sono le sue condizioni di salute». Tutto ciò — è scritto nel te­sto — per fare «chiarezza» su una vicen­da che «rischia di danneggiare l’Italia e le sue Istituzioni a livello internaziona­le », anche perché siamo «alla vigilia del G8»...

Francesco Verderami
22 maggio 2009

Seven out of ten adults want a massive cut in immigration, a poll has revealed.

The YouGov survey found that just one person in 20 supports the current record levels, which have boosted Britain's population by 300,000 a year over the past five years.

The poll, commissioned by MigrationWatch for the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration, was published on the eve of the release of immigration figures today.

It found that 79 per cent of people were concerned or very concerned about immigration. Seventy per cent of the 2,072 respondents favoured cutting levels by 80 per cent or more.

Of those, 17 per cent said net immigration should be brought below 50,000 a year - a level last seen in the early 1990s.

Another 39 per cent favoured a policy of zero net immigration, with the numbers settling in the UK matching the numbers emigrating. Sixteen per cent said the number of immigrants should be lower than those leaving.

Just over half of more affluent voters - ABC1s - wanted either zero or negative net immigration, while 63 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds favoured a figure below 50,000.

Home Office ministers say their new points-based immigration system represents a tough crackdown.

But critics say it will have little effect, especially as Britain has no control over the numbers arriving from EU states, including eastern Europe.

The Somali pirates attacking shipping in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean are directed to their targets by a "consultant" team in London, according to a European military intelligence document obtained by a Spanish radio station.

The document, obtained by Cadena SER radio, says the team and the pirates remain in contact by satellite telephone.

It says that pirate groups have "well-placed informers" in London who are in regular contact with control centres in Somalia where decisions on which vessels to attack are made. These London-based "consultants" help the pirates select targets, providing information on the ships' cargoes and courses.

In at least one case the pirates have remained in contact with their London informants from the hijacked ship, according to one targeted shipping company.

The pirates' information network extends to Yemen, Dubai and the Suez canal.

The intelligence report is understood to have been issued to European navies.

"The information that merchant ships sailing through the area volunteer to various international organisations is ending up in the pirates' hands," Cadena SER reported the report as saying.

This enables the more organised pirate groups to study their targets in advance, even spending several days training teams for specific hijacks. Senior pirates then join the vessel once it has been sailed close to Somalia.

Captains of attacked ships have found that pirates know everything from the layout of the vessel to its ports of call. Vessels targeted as a result of this kind of intelligence included the Greek cargo ship Titan, the Turkish merchant ship Karagol and the Spanish trawler Felipe Ruano.

In each case, says the document, the pirates had full knowledge of the cargo, nationality and course of the vessel.

The national flag of a ship is also taken into account when choosing a target, with British vessels being increasingly avoided, according to the report. It was not clear whether this was because pirates did not want to draw the attention of British police to their information sources in London.

European countries have set up Operation Atalanta to co-ordinate their military efforts in the area.

Lors de sa dernière visite en Alsace, à "l'invitation" du Conseil de l'Europe, Thuram avait dclaré : "Parler du racisme, des discriminations, est toujours important pour faire avancer les choses." Les choses financières en l'occurrence...

Brave Sarah Douglas waived her right to anonymity to relive her terrifying ordeal at the hands of Amos Moobeng and stormed: "This racist should be shipped back home to rot in jail."

Sarah, 20, came forward after the South African was sentenced to nine years in prison for holding her hostage before raping her after she went to his flat with a pal.

The judge told the court Moobeng, 35, "deliberately targeted two white females".

But Sarah believes the monster has not been punished enough. "It makes me sick to think that this evil man came over specifically to rape and assault white girls," she said. "He should be booted out of the country.

Justice

"Instead, while he has shattered my life, he has the dream life he came here for - a comfy bed, a TV to watch whenever he likes and hot food three times a day. Where is the justice in that?"

Police figures have revealed that immigrants are carrying out one in six rapes in Britain - and an astonishing one in THREE in London. And last month it was revealed Romanian Ali Majlat attacked a British woman so he could go to jail because his rapist elder brother wrote to him saying how cushy life was in our prisons.

Moobeng was on the run after his visa ran out when he targeted Sarah and her pal at a hotel bar in Exeter.

"He came over with his friend Benson and was being very over the top and flirting with my friend," said Sarah. "I was pleased for her. She'd been single for a long time so I went along with it when he suggested we go to a club."

She only found out through Benson's trial evidence why Moobeng was so interested. "He said Moobeng had been making fun of me and my friend as soon as he saw us because we were white. He wanted to hurt us because we were white."

Six-footer Moobeng then invited the girls back to his flat for a nightcap. It was there he pounced. Sarah said: "He jumped on top of me and started kissing my neck but I kicked him off. I told my friend I wanted to go home before storming into the bathroom.

"The next thing Amos literally ripped the bathroom door from its hinges and shouted, 'Get out of there now'. Then I saw him grab my friend and whack her round the face three times. I screamed at him to leave her alone. He just stared at me." The girls fled the flat but in the panic Sarah lost her pal. She made the mistake of going back to find her. Moobeng was waiting.

"I heard the locks turn on the front door behind me when I went inside. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me upstairs into a bedroom. He locked that door too. I was screaming, crying and kicking.

"He slapped me around the face and then ripped off my clothes and raped me.

Grabbed

"All I could do was shut my eyes and scream and scream. He was so strong and no matter what I did I just couldn't free myself. I thought I was going to die.

"Afterwards I ran towards the window to try and jump out but he grabbed me and threw me back on to the bed.

"I kicked and screamed but he pinned me up against the wall and punched and punched at me until eventually I must have passed out." When she came to, she ran out of the flat to discover police - called by her friend - waiting.

Their sniffer dogs found Moobeng crouching behind the building but when arrested he gave a false name. He later jumped bail after the attack in 2007 but was tracked down to Edinburgh.

He was convicted of rape, false imprisonment and assault. Moobeng was also ordered to sign the Sex Offenders Register for life and was told he would be deported after serving his sentence.

Now Sarah is trying to piece her life back together and has managed to find love since the attack. She and her partner Dave Koker, 23, have just had a baby girl.

"I'm trying to move on, but I still have nightmares," she said. "If I hear a man with a foreign accent I shake with fear.

"That man was pure evil and should never have been allowed into this country to attack me in the first place."