World briefs

Jordan charges 11 in terror plot

AMMAN, Jordan - A military prosecutor charged 11 Arab men - some with alleged links to al-Qaida - with conspiring to carry out terror attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets in Jordan that culminated in last year's slaying of an American diplomat.

The men, four in detention and seven at large, will be tried at the State Security Court this month, a security official told the Associated Press on Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity. No trial date has been set.

The men - with Libyan, Syrian, Palestinian and Jordanian nationalities - would face the death penalty if convicted of conspiring to carry out terror attacks that led to the Oct. 28 killing of Laurence Foley, a 60-year-old U.S. Agency for International Development administrator.

INDONESIAN TRIAL STARTS: The first suspect in last year's deadly nightclub bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali went on trial today, a case seen as a test of Indonesia's willingness to crack down on radical Islamic groups in the world's largest Muslim nation.

Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, 40, arrived at the court in a convoy of police cars. He said nothing as he entered the courtroom, surrounded by hundreds of armed officers and reporters. He is accused of buying the minivan and materials used to make the bombs that ripped through two crowded nightclubs in the heart of the island's tourist district on Oct. 12. Most of the 202 people killed were foreigners.

He and 32 other suspects could be sentenced to death if they are convicted under new antiterror laws enacted after the near-simultaneous explosions, the deadliest terrorist attacks since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against the United States.

DUBLIN, Ireland - The top British mole within the Irish Republican Army - a man code-named "Stakeknife" who played a central role inside the outlawed group for decades - has fled Ireland after being exposed, several newspapers reported Sunday.

For years, the identity of a suspected secret agent has been the subject of intense, fearful speculation within the ranks of the IRA and its allied Sinn Fein party.

Reports in Sunday newspapers in Dublin, London and Belfast identified the agent as Alfredo "Freddy" Scappaticci, the IRA's longtime director of internal security. That position would have given him ideal cover as the officer responsible for identifying, torturing and killing traitors to the paramilitary force.

VIENNA - Climbing scaffolding and smashing a window early Sunday, thieves slipped into Vienna's Art History Museum and - despite high-tech motion sensors and round-the-clock guards - disappeared with a 16th century gold-plated masterpiece sculpted by Benvenuto Cellini.

The stealthy and stunning heist was one of the biggest art thefts in Europe in recent years. The intricate, 10-inch-high sculpture, known as the Saliera, or salt cellar, is valued at about $57-million. It was commissioned from Cellini - an outlaw himself and one of the Italian Renaissance's most ingenious goldsmiths - in the 1540s by King Francois I of France.

LITHUANIA: Fireworks exploded over Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, early today as it became clear the country would be the first former Soviet republic to vote itself into the European Union. A dramatic surge in voting Sunday eliminated fears that low turnout would invalidate the two-day referendum.

MONTENEGRO: Filip Vujanovic, a former prime minister who favors independence from Serbia, won a landslide victory in Montenegro's presidential election Sunday, according to unofficial results.

ICELAND: Europe's longest-serving prime minister, David Oddsson, held onto power Sunday as his Independence Party won a narrow re-election victory in Iceland after a strong challenge from a left-leaning party headed by a former Reykjavik mayor.

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