Psycho Stapleton: Extraordinary name given to court by man accused of shooting dead Indian student

'I'm Psycho... Psycho Stapleton: Extraordinary name given to court by man accused of shooting dead Indian student

* Kiaran Stapleton, 20, from Salford, is charged with murder
* Anuj Bidve was shot dead at point-blank range on Boxing Day



The man accused of gunning down Indian student Anuj Bidve on Boxing Day gave his name as 'Psycho Stapleton' when he appeared in court today charged with murder.

Kiaran Stapleton, 20, from Ordsall, Salford, was remanded in custody for 24 hours at City of Manchester Magistrates' Court.

A scrum of TV cameramen and photographers crowded the prison van carrying Stapleton as it arrived at court, while inside the courtroom was packed with reporters.

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Anuj Bidve, 23, was shot at close range in the Ordsall district of Salford, Greater Manchester on Boxing Day

Woman dies after 16-year anorexia battle in 'worst case' that doctors had ever seen

* 31-year-old weighed 4.7 stone
* So thin organs had ‘died’ through lack of blood supply
* Developed symptoms aged twelve and spent rest of life in specialist units
* 'Suffered an extremely severe illness which eventually took her life'


A young woman who died after battling a 16-year eating disorder had one of 'the worst' cases of anorexia doctors had ever seen, an inquest heard today.

Kate Chilver, 31, weighed 4.7 stone and was so thin that parts of her stomach and bowel had ‘died’ through lack of blood supply.

She developed symptoms of the disease aged twelve and spent the rest of her life in specialist medical units until eventually dying from anorexia nervosa.

Doctors revealed that for almost two decades Miss Chilver from Ealing, west London, was dangerously underweight.

A healthy BMI (body mass index) is between 20 and 25 while a reading of less than 15 signals severe anorexia, but hers remained less than 12 and at one stage at fell to just nine.

Dr Frances Connan, a consultant psychologist who treated her at Vincent Square Clinic in south west London, said: 'I’d known Kate since her referral to our service in 2004.

'She had onset anorexia from the age of about 12, her first admission just before she was 15.

'She had the most severe illness of patient I have ever come across.

'At times her BMI went down as low as 9. It’s extremely rare to see a BMI of less than 10.'

Doctors fed her through a tube in a bid to boost her health but all attempts failed.



Doctors said that Kate Chilver had one of 'the worst' cases of anorexia they had ever seen

In Tripoli, Nato chief hails ‘free Libya’

Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen listens to journalists questions during a Nato conference in Budapest on November 19, 2009


Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen yesterday hailed the end of the alliance’s military intervention in Libya, which helped bring about the death of deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi.

“It’s great to be in Libya, free Libya,” Rasmussen told a news conference in the capital Tripoli. “We acted to protect you. Together we succeeded. Libya is finally free, from Benghazi to Brega, from Misrata to the Western Mountains and to Tripoli.”

He said he was proud of the part Nato had played in the seven-month insurgency against Gaddafi, in which Nato planes and ships turned their firepower on his forces.

Shortly after Rasmussen spoke, members of the ruling National Transitional Council elected a new interim prime minister, whose predecessor resigned after Libya was officially declared liberated.




“At midnight tonight a successful chapter in Nato history will come to an end. You have already started writing a new chapter in Libya’s history. Our commanders were very careful to make sure we did not harm you or your families,” he said.

Despite Rasmussen’s depiction of the mission, the Nato intervention caused sharp rifts in the alliance and lasted much longer than Western nations had expected or wanted.

Nato stuck to its decision to end the operation despite NTC calls for it to stay engaged longer and says it does not expect to play a major post-war role, though it could assist the transition to democracy by helping with security sector reform.

Nato took over the mission on March 31, based on a United Nations mandate that set a no-fly zone over Libya and permitted foreign military forces, including Nato, to use “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians.

That mandate was terminated last Thursday, despite a request for the UN Security Council to wait for the NTC to decide if it wanted Nato help to secure its borders.

The mission was criticised by some countries, notably Russia and China, which, after co-sponsoring the UN resolution authorising intervention in Libya, accused Nato of overstepping its mandate to protect civilians.

“TRUE ALLIANCE EFFORT”

Nato allies have been keen to see a quick conclusion to a costly effort that has involved more than 26,000 air sorties and round-the-clock naval patrols at a time when budgets are under severe strain because of the global economic crisis.

But Nato officials said members of the alliance are free to give further security aid to Libya individually.

The NTC officially announced Libya’s liberation on October 23, days after the capture and killing of Gaddafi. Nato commanders have said they believe the interim administration is able to take care of the country’s security.

In a sign that the NTC is pressing ahead with rebuilding the administration, Tripoli academic Abdul al-Raheem al-Qeeb was elected interim prime minister on Monday in a vote conducted by NTC members in front of reporters.

The previous interim prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, fulfilled a promise to resign after Libya was declared officially “liberated” after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s home town Sirte and his subsequent killing.

The NTC has promised to hold elections after eight months for a national assembly that will spend a year drawing up a new constitution before a parliamentary poll.

Libya has been the first Nato operation in which the United States sought to step back from a leading role and prompted some sharp criticism from Washington of the capabilities of allies after they failed to secure the quick results hoped for.

The US ambassador to Nato, Ivo Daalder, and the alliance’s top operations commander, US Admiral James Stavridis, hailed the success of the mission yesterday in a commentary in the New York Times, but reiterated the need for allies to address the shortcomings in capabilities it revealed.

While calling it a “true alliance effort” in which non-US allies flew 75 per cent of the air missions, they said the United States played a leading role in destroying Libya’s air defence system and providing crucial resources, including the vast majority of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and the aerial refuelling assets.

Fourteen Nato members and four other states provided naval and air forces, but only eight Nato nations took part in combat missions. Some big Nato states, notably Germany, had opposed the intervention.

Daalder and Stavridis said US planes flew a quarter of all sorties over Libya, France and Britain a third of all missions — most of them strike operations — and the remaining participants flew roughly 40 per cent.

NATO concludes Libya mission after seven months

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen speaks at a news conference after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Chancellery in Berlin on October 27, 2011.

NATO ends its military operation in Libya at midnight today, seven months after launching an air and sea campaign that helped bring the overthrow and death of Muammar Gaddafi.

In announcing the decision last week, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called it “one of the most successful” operations in the history of the 62-year-old alliance.

Rasmussen will mark the end of the mission by visiting Libya today, where he will meet Libya’s National Transitional Council and members of civil society, the alliance said.

Despite Rasmussen’s depiction of the mission, the NATO intervention caused sharp rifts in the alliance and went on much longer than Western nations had expected or wanted.



NATO stuck to its decision to end the operation despite NTC calls for it to stay engaged longer and says it does not expect to play a major post-war role, although it could assist the transition to democracy by helping with security sector reform.

NATO took over the mission on March 31, based on a United Nations mandate that set a no-fly zone over Libya and permitted foreign military forces, including NATO, to use “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians.

That mandate was terminated last Thursday, despite a request for the UN Security Council to wait for the NTC to decide if it wants NATO help to secure its borders.

NATO allies have been keen to see a quick conclusion to a costly effort that has involved more than 26,000 air sorties and round-the-clock naval patrols at a time when budgets are under severe strain due to the global economic crisis.

But NATO officials said members of the alliance are free to give further security aid to Libya individually.

The NTC officially announced Libya’s liberation on October 23, days after the capture and death of Gaddafi. NATO commanders have said they believe the interim administration is able to take care of the country’s security.

Libya has been the first NATO operation in which the United States sought to step back from a leading role and prompted some sharp criticism from Washington of the capabilities of allies after they failed to secure the quick results hoped for.

The US ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder, and the alliance’s top operations commander, US Admiral James Stavridis, hailed the success of the mission today in a commentary in the New York Times, but reiterated the need for allies to address the shortcomings in capabilities it revealed.

While calling it a “true alliance effort” in which non-US allies flew 75 per cent of the air missions, they said the United States played a leading role in destroying Libya’s air defence system and providing critical resources, including the vast majority of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and the aerial refuelling assets.

Fourteen NATO members and four other states provided naval and air forces, but only eight NATO nations took part in combat missions. Some big NATO states, notably Germany, had opposed the intervention.

Daalder and Stavridis said US planes flew a quarter of all sorties over Libya, France and Britain a third of all missions ― most of them strike operations ― and the remaining participants flew roughly 40 percent.

Video of Gaddafi killed Saddam Hussein hanging execution and dictators death.

Gaddafi met a merciless and brutal death

In the end Muammar Gaddafi's death was as violent as his life, gunned down without mercy in the crumbling ruins of his home town - wounded and begging for his life while cowering in a drain pipe.

His love of comic-opera uniforms, exotic female bodyguards and Bedouin tents provided a theatrical backdrop for 42 years of bloody repression that, in the end, could not withstand a determined uprising backed by NATO air power.

Chased out of Tripoli by rebel forces, Gaddafi disappeared - some said into the empty desert spaces in the south of his vast country.

In tandem with his eccentricity, Gaddafi had a charisma which initially at least won him support among many ordinary Libyans. His readiness to take on Western powers and Israel, both with rhetoric and action, earned him a certain cachet with some in other Arab states who felt their own leaders were too supine.

While leaders of neighbouring Arab states folded quickly in the face of popular uprisings, Gaddafi put up a bloody fight, taking on NATO as well as local insurgents who quickly seized half the country.



Together: Nurse Galyna was always close by.Gaddafi's female bodyguards seemed to prove that he ran Libya almost on a whim.Eccentric style: Gaddafi was known for his love of over-the-top military-style uniforms, variously seen in different colours and with a vast array of military awards and medals.Synonymous with terrorism: A young Gaddafi, right, is seen in an undated photo with notorious Ugandan leader Idi Amin.Shunned by the West: Links to revolutionaries , such as Cuba's Fidel Castro, made Gaddafi many enemies around the world

For most of his 42-year rule, he held a prominent position in the West's gallery of international rogues, while maintaining tight control at home by eliminating dissidents and refusing to anoint a successor.

Gaddafi effected a successful rapprochement with the West by renouncing his weapons of mass destruction programme in return for an end to sanctions. But he could not avoid the tide of popular revolution sweeping through the Arab world.




n retrospect, his time had come when he turned his guns on protesters and sent his army to cleanse Benghazi, prompting Western powers and NATO to open up a campaign of aerial bombing that allowed rebel forces eventually to oust him.

As his oil-producing North African desert country descended into civil war, Gaddafi's military responded with the deadly force that he had never been afraid to use, despite the showman image that captivated many abroad.

When the insurgency began in mid-February, protesters were gunned down in their hundreds. As his troops advanced on Benghazi he famously warned rebels there would be 'no mercy, no pity' They would be hunted down 'alley by alley, house by house, room by room'.

Those words may have been his undoing. Days later the United Nations passed a resolution clearing the way for a NATO air campaign that knocked out his air force, tanks and heavy guns.

Raids also targeted his own headquarters in Tripoli. One raid killed his youngest son and three grandchildren. It was not the first time that the West had killed a Gaddafi family member.

In televised addresses in response to the rebellion in the east earlier this year, Gaddafi blamed the unrest on rats and mercenaries and said they were brainwashed by Osama bin Laden and under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs used to spike their coffee.

As the weeks passed, there was repeated speculation that Gaddafi has either been killed or wounded in NATO air raids, but he made carefully choreographed television appearances in response to the rumours.

In May, Gaddafi taunted NATO, saying its bombers could not find him, saying: 'I am telling the coward crusaders that I am at a place you cannot reach and kill me.'

One of the world's longest serving national leaders, Gaddafi had no official government function and was known as the 'Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution'.

He strove for influence in Africa, showering his poorer neighbours with the largesse that Libya's vast oil wealth allowed and styling himself the continent's "King of Kings".

His love of grand gestures was on display on foreign visits when he slept in a Bedouin tent guarded by dozens of female bodyguards.

U.S. diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks website shed further light on the Libyan leader's tastes.

One cable posted by The New York Times describes Gaddafi's insistence on staying on the ground floor when he visited New York for a 2009 meeting at the United Nations and his reported refusal or inability to climb more than 35 steps.

Gaddafi was also said to rely heavily on his staff of four Ukrainian nurses, including one woman described as a 'voluptuous blonde'. The cable speculated about a romantic relationship but the nurse, Halyna Kolotnytska, 38, fled Libya after the fighting started.

Death row inmate eats two burgers with bacon, fried pork chops, fried chicken, fried fish, chili cheese fries, regular fries... and a glass of fruit punch

Milton Mathis had IQ of just 62 and has problems dressing himself

A mentally handicapped murderer who fatally shot two people and paralysed a third in a Houston crack house in 1998, was executed last night by lethal injection - after eating a mammoth final meal.

Milton Mathis, 32, scoffed two burgers with bacon, fried pork chops, fried chicken, fried fish, chili cheese fries, regular fries, and fruit punch, officials said.

Lawyers for Mathis, who was the 23rd person put to death in the U.S. this year and the sixth executed in Texas, had spent yesterday morning pleading his case before the Supreme Court. He previously lobbied unsuccessfully to state and federal courts.

Meaty: Mathis requested two burgers with bacon, fried pork chops, fried chicken, fried fish, chili cheese fries, regular fries and fruit punch (file photo).Sad ending: Milton Mathis, 32, was executed in Texas on Tuesday, despite being mentally disabled

Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry, however, vetoed state legislation in 2001 that would have outlawed executing inmates with mental disabilities.

Perry's decision gave Texas juries the power of deciding who to execute.

A year later, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Atkins verse Virginia, but left it to the states to determine how to decide whether a person had mental disabilities.

It's been documented Mathis had an eighth-grade education when he was convicted, and scored in the low 60s on several IQ tests, once getting a 62.

Former Texas Governor, Mark White, came to Mathis's aid several years ago, voicing his opinion the convicts life should be spared.

White argued his low IQ scores should alter the decision.

Psychology experts have routinely put the standard for mental disabilities around a 70 IQ and lower.

'Mathis has suffered from obvious mental disabilities since childhood,' White has stated. 'He has had problems with functions that come easily to most of us, like dressing himself.'

Mathis was convicted in September 1999 after opening fire in a crack house located in Fort Bend County.

Travis Brown III, 24, and Daniel Hibbard, 31, were instantly killed. A third victim, Melanie Almaguer, then 15, was also shot in the head and is paralysed from the neck down.

According to the state attorney general's office, Mathis also turned the gun on Almaguer's mother, but ran out of bullets.

He looted the home before setting it on fire, fled in Brown's car, and later told a fellow inmate that he wished he had 'killed them all.'


SIX OF THE BEST: Famous last meals on death row



* GARY GILMORE (1977): Hamburgers, eggs, potatoes, coffee and whisky
* HENRY PORTER (1985): Tortillas, steak, beans, tossed salad, jalapeno peppers, ice cream and chocolate cake
* TED BUNDY (1989): Steak, eggs, toast, milk, coffee, juice, butter, jelly and hash browns
* JAMES SMITH (1990): Yoghurt [after asking for dirt]
* ROBERT HARRIS (1992): Chicken bucket, two large pizzas, Pepsi six-pack, jelly beans and Camel cigarettes
* TERESA LEWIS (2010): Fried chicken, sweet peas and German chocolate cake

Pakistan arrests CIA’s bin Laden informants

Members of the anti-terrorism squad are seen surrounding the compound where al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad May 4, 2011.


Pakistan’s top military spy agency has arrested five CIA informants who fed information to the US spy agency before the raid last month which killed Osama bin Laden, The New York Times reported today.

One of the detainees was reported to be a Pakistani Army major whom officials said copied license plates of cars visiting the al Qaeda leader’s compound 30 miles northwest of Islamabad.

The fate of the CIA informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, the newspaper reported, citing American officials.

Outgoing CIA Director Leon Panetta raised the issue of the informants’ detention during a trip to Islamabad last week where he met with Pakistani military and intelligence officers, the newspaper said.

Some in Washington see the arrest as another sign of the deep disconnect between US and Pakistani priorities in the fight against extremists, the Times reported.

The United States kept Islamabad in the dark about the May 2 raid by Navy SEALs until after it was completed, humiliating Pakistan’s armed forces and putting US military and intelligence ties under serious strain.



Last week, at a closed Senate Intelligence Committee briefing, Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell rated Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism operations a “three” on a scale of 1 to 10, the Times reported, citing officials familiar with the exchange.

Other officials cautioned that his comments did not represent the administration’s overall assessment, the newspaper said. “We have a strong relationship with our Pakistani counterparts and work through issues when they arise,” CIA spokesman Marie Harf told the newspaper.

“Director Panetta had productive meetings last week in Islamabad. It’s a crucial partnership, and we will continue to work together in the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups who threaten our country and theirs.”

Asked about the Times report, a CIA spokeswoman neither confirmed nor denied it and said she had no further comment.

Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, was quoted as saying that the CIA and the Pakistani spy agency “are working out mutually agreeable terms for their cooperation in fighting the menace of terrorism. It is not appropriate for us to get into the details at this stage.”

the brave pilot who saved three passengers before perishing in a ball of flames

* Passengers jumped to safety but sudden change of weight sent blimp soaring skywards
* Investigators piecing together last moments of doomed flight
* Wife of Australian pilot pays tribute to 'hero' who stayed at controls

Investigators were today piecing together the last moments before a a Goodyear blimp burst into flames and plunged to earth in a weekend crash in Germany.

The pilot, Michael Nerandzic, 53, was killed but three passengers managed to jump to safety when the airship caught fire as it was coming in to land at the Reichelsheim aerodrome near Friedberg.

When the airship was just two metres from the floor, Mr Nerandzic told his passengers, all journalists, to jump to the ground while he tried to land safely.

But once the three had leapt clear, the sudden loss of weight caused the blimp to soar skywards and burst into flames before crashing to the earth in a chilling echo of the Hindenburg disaster.

 

A coffin is carried away from the accident site late on Sunday evening

The pilot managed to get near enough the ground for passengers to escape before climbing back up.The burning wreckage of the airship. The pilot was killed in the accident, but he managed to save his passengers.Pilot Mike Nerandzic, pictured in Goodyear Blimp 'Spirit of Safety I', died in the crash.Plunge: The Goodyear blimp falls to the ground after the incident in Friedberg, Germany on Sunday night

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear but an investigation was underway.

Klaus Himmler, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation, said his office was interviewing witnesses of the accident, collecting evidence and analyzing photos. He said the investigation could take weeks.

Photographer Joachim Storch — who was aboard the helium-filled blimp — said he heard the pilot yell 'We had an accident'.

He said the pilot then shouted 'I crashed the airship' as the smell of fire crept through the blimp.

Storch and two other passengers jumped from a window. The sudden loss of weight caused the ship to shoot into the air, where it burst into flames, killing the pilot.

Mr Nerandzic's widow, Lyndy, says she was due to fly over to meet her husband in a few weeks.

She says he gave his life to save his passengers.

'When there was trouble on the airship he brought it down to as low as he could to let the passengers jump out and he stayed at the controls,' Mrs Nerandzic said.

'As soon as they jumped out of course, being an airship, he knew it would rise up and it did.

'They found him still at the controls when it crashed. He also steered it away from his ground crew.'

Mr Nerandzic's brother, Zorrin Nerandzic, says he was an experienced pilot and well respected in the industry.



'In the airship family he was up the top there as one of the most highly respected pilots you could get,' Mr Nerandzic said.

Witnesses reported hearing a loud noise from the engine and smelling petrol fumes.

One eyewitness said: 'We could also hear the cries of the doomed pilot as the fire surrounded him. It was terrible.'

Eyewitnesses said three passengers escaped the gondola of the blimp before the pilot ascended and crashed in a nearby field.

The journalists who escaped were a photographer from Germany's Bild newspaper and two from RTL television.

The crash happened at 8.30pm on Sunday after the airship had made a round trip for the pressmen to take photos of the state of Hessen.

A spokesman of Lightship Europe Limited, which owned the airship, said: 'One member of the flight crew suffered fatal injuries. There were no injuries to passengers or ground crew.

'As is customary in incidents involving aircraft, the aviation and local authorities have initiated an investigation and it would be premature for Goodyear or Lightship Europe Limited to speculate on causes and findings at this time," the statement said.'

Germany led the world in airship technology in the first half of the last century. Its most famous airship was the Zeppelin - named after Count von Zeppelin who began experimenting with rigid airship designs in the 1890s.

The Zeppelin was a rigid airship, meaning it has an internal structural framework, whereas blimps are non-rigid and there shape is maintained solely by internal air pressure.

One of the best-known Zeppelins was the Hindenburg which crossed the Atlantic to New Jersey on May 6 1937, but caught fire as it was trying to land, causing the deaths of 35 people.

The actual cause of the fire remains unknown, although a variety of hypotheses have been put forward.

The incident shattered public confidence in the giant, passenger-carrying rigid airship and marked the end of that particular era of air travel.

The aircraft have made a comeback in Germany in recent years as tourist magnets.

The Hindenburg airship exploding into a huge ball of fire as it arrived Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937

The Goodyear blimp seen in the sky above nearby Bad Vilbel earlier in the day

Taliban chief has disappeared in Pakistan

he Afghan intelligence agency says the reclusive leader of the Taliban has disappeared from a suspected hideout in Pakistan and has been out of contact with his commanders for days - adding further questions about Mullah Mohammad Omar after a media ....

Kabul—Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was killed in Pakistan, a private Afghan television channel reported on Monday. “Mullah Omar was killed on his way from Quetta to North Waziristan,” TOLO television said in its news bulletin. ...

The Taliban says its spiritual leader, Mullah Omar, is alive and well. Western diplomats, as well as Pakistani tribal and intelligence sources, also downplay reports that Omar — who gave shelter to Osama bin Laden after 9/11 — is dead.

Afghanistan's intelligence services on Monday confirmed that the one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar, with a US$10 million bounty on his head, had disappeared from his Quetta hideout in Pakistan. "We can confirm about the disappearance of Omar five ...

Al Qaeda leader's last moments now captured in toy bricks

Despite documenting an iconic historial moment, the pictures detailing Osama Bin Laden's death were still subject to days of mocked up internet viral treatment.

But one artist has immortalised the famous Navy Seal raid on Bin Laden's Pakistan compound in unique style - by recreating the pictures in Lego.

Student Alex Eylar mocked up his own version of the Al-Qaeda leader's demise by picturing him as a Lego man sat on a bed about to be gunned down by Lego commando.

Another painstakingly-detailed picture recreates the dramatic moment President Obama and his senior staff watch the Navy Seal raid from the White House Situation Room.

Alex's version shows President Obama - who strangely has a mop of black hair - sat watching the raid with other toy brick White House staff including a Lego Hilary Clinton.

Vice President Joe Biden and other members of the national security team are also shown in Lego form staring at their monitors.

 Recreation: Bin Laden sat watching TV in his Pakistan compound also became a defining image following his death.Tension: The defining image of President Obama watching the raid from the White House Situation Room also got the toy brick treatment.Block and load: Two Lego commandos confront Bin Laden in his compound in artist Alex's recreation

President Obama described the time spent watching Navy Seal Team Six raid on Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound as 'the longest 40 minutes of my life'.

He said: 'We knew as events unfolded what was happening in and around the compound, but we could not get information clearly about what was happening inside the compound.'

'And it was the longest 40 minutes of my life, with the possible exception of when Sasha got meningitis when she was three months old, and I was waiting for the doctor to tell me that she was all right. It was a very tense situation.

A third reconstruction shows the infamous moment Bin Laden was pictured sat in his squalid lair watching television reports about himself.

The 22-year-old's interpretation is much more colourful than the drab living space where Bin Laden was spotted in real life.

But the artist still includes telltale details like the terror chief's brown blanket and spare computer monitor.

The detailed recreation even includes the Al-Qaeda mastermind's bolster pillow, satellite decoder and the remote control which he points at the TV.

Lego expert Alex has previously recreated famous movie scenes using the famous toy blocks, including American Beauty and A Clockwork Orange.

Osama Bin Laden evade capture for 6 years the charade that let him evade capture for six years

# ISI official: 'We were looking in the wrong areas. It's an intelligence failure'
# Local children received $2-3 if their ball entered the compound
# Visiting doctor asked to leave after commenting on SUVs
# CIA chief feared telling Pakistanis would 'alert targets'
# Full story of how courier unwittingly led commandos to Bin Laden's lair
# David Cameron: 'We should be tough in asking the big questions'
# Prime Minister hints at swifter troop exit from Afghanistan

Blackened: A shelter in the compound appears to have take some of the fire as U.S. forces went into to grab Bin Laden

Sightseeing: Local residents gather outside and atop the walls Bin Laden's home while the security services turn a blind eye

Pakistan anger: Demonstrators in Karachi chant slogans condemning the killing of Osama bin Laden as they gather to offer funeral prayers

Doubts: CIA Director Leon Panetta said concerns over the reliability of Pakistani intelligence led his agency not to inform them in advance of the raid

Surrounded: The three-storey lair, guarded left by security officials, is encircled by walls 12ft high topped with three lines of barbed wire. Local workers were seen carrying out running repairs after the raid

Osama bunny-laden: These are the two rabbits which Zarar Ahmed claimed were given to him by the Al Qaeda chief

It's a good day: President Barack Obama, centre, holds a Cabinet meeting with, from left, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and Trade Representative Ronald Kirk, in the Cabinet Room of the White House, in Washington, DC today

The wall encircles the whole compound which was raided in 2003 by security services searching for an Al Qaeda Faraj Al-Libi

Seen better days: Pakistani soldiers in a jeep pass by the compound, close to a military academy and less than 70 miles from capital Islamabad

Close up: The compound in the town of Abbottabad, Pakistan, where Osama Bin Laden was killed in the early hours of Monday morning

Young guest: Zarar Ahmed, 12, points at Bin Laden's high-security compound which he lives near to and claims to have visited several times

In 2004, a captured Al Qaeda operative told U.S. intelligence that the courier Sheikh Abu Ahmed was close to operational commander Faraj Al-Libi, left, who had replaced Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, right. 

Details of the comfortable family life Osama Bin Laden enjoyed under the noses of the Pakistani security services emerged last night.

Neighbours’ children were invited into the terror mastermind’s hideout to play with pet rabbits, while his children attended a nearby school.

Even the name of the million-dollar house was a huge clue – it was called ‘Waziristan Mansion’, after the tribal area of mountainous Pakistan where Bin Laden fled in the wake of the 9/11 outrage.

Until he was finally hunted down and killed by U.S. special forces on Sunday, the world’s most wanted man lived in the garrison city of Abbottabad with his various wives for an incredible six years.





Further embarrassment followed yesterday when the BBC interviewed a 12-year-old boy who said he used to visit the building where Bin Laden had died and had met the Al Qaeda leader's family.

'I used to go to their house. He had two wives, one spoke Arabic, and the other one spoke Urdu. They had three children, a girl and two boys. They gave me two rabbits. They had installed a camera at the outer gate so they could see people before they entered the house,' Zarar Ahmed said.

It also emerged today that other local children thought something may be amiss - and regularly made a profit from the presence of the terrorist mastermind.

'If a football went into bin Laden's compound the children would not be allowed to get it,' said local ice cream vendor Tanvir Ahmed.

'They were given money instead; 100-150 rupees ($2-$3) per ball.'

Another youngster, named Daniel Alvi, revealed that he regularly saw a man in a red Suzuki van drive into the compound with a live goat, while the milkman only delivered outside the security gate and never rang the doorbell.

According to locals, the vehicles would travel regularly to the tribal areas where Al Qaeda’s trainers and planners operate

'There was a rumour in the neighbourhood that the man who lived there was Baitullah Mehsud's nephew,' said Daniel, referring to the late chief of the Pakistani Taliban.

'I went over on two occasions after I hit the ball over there and there was no one there. I think there was a $20 million reward for bin Laden, but I never imagined it was him.'

Two brothers from the compound visited the shops twice a week to buy provisions. Their regular purchases included large quantities of vegetables, fruit, rice, biscuits, jam, honey, ice cream and ice lollies for the children.

Shopkeeper Raja Shuja said yesterday: ‘The brothers were always polite and always asked questions about what was happening locally and whether there had been strange visitors to the area.’

A newspaper hawker described how he delivered newspapers to the compound every day and at the end of each month his bill was promptly paid, always by the same man.

Despite this, the compound, which was number 25 in the street, did not have most basic conveniences such as a satellite dish, phone line or air conditioning.

Residents in the town were already making trips to the compound to examine what had happened and gathered atop the 15-foot walls - which previously would have resulted in a person being asked to move on should anyone dare to lean on them.

They also picked up pieces of the helicopter which crashed during the daring raid.

The compound was also close to a local school and at least two other families lived with Bin Laden.

At any one time there were up to 20 children within the compound, some attending the local Iqra religious school.

Another local resident, Sher Mohammed Khan, said his sister went to the house to administer a polio vaccination as part of a government-backed drive.

When she remarked on all the expensive SUVs inside the compound, a man immediately asked her to leave, but not before taking the vaccine to apparently administer to the children inside.

Another doctor was also believed to have made frequent visits to give Bin Laden dialysis for his kidney condition.

Bin Laden, 54, is believed to have lived in the fortified mansion less than a mile from a military academy just 62 miles from the capital Islamabad for six years.

The family lived on the second and third floor, and a 7ft wall had been built to conceal his 6ft 6in figure when he was taking fresh air.

A total of four people died in the raid but those who survived the attack included his wife, daughter and eight to nine other children who did not belong to Bin Laden. They were tied up and taken away by the troops.

U.S. officials believe that Bin Laden had lived within the blacked-out for up to six years. He had been living in Afghanistan before a 2001 U.S. invasion helped topple its Taliban regime.

All of the above has left the Pakistani government facing difficult questions from experts who failed to accept nobody in the country knew of his whereabouts.

Pakistan's interior minister Rehman Malik had told visiting U.S. politicians in 2009 that Bin Laden was much more likely to be hiding out in Yemen or Saudi Arabia.

He even suggested he might have been killed in airstrikes in the Tora Bora cave complex shortly after 9/11.

Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari used an article in the Washington Post to refute the allegations.

He said: 'Some in the U.S. press have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing,

'Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn't reflect fact,' said Mr Zardari.

And today, one of the country's top military officials has admitted the oversight was down to errors within the organisation.

'We had been looking for him in no-go areas, unaware that he was living so close to an installation of ours,' said the official at a briefing for journalists in Islamabad. 'Yes, it is an intelligence failure.'

'It is an embarrassment for the ISI, we're good, but we're not God.'

The CIA doubts over the reliability of Pakistani intelligence came to the fore today when its director Leon Panetta admitted they were concerned enough not to inform them in advance of the raid.

In an interview with Time magazine, Panetta said his aides had 60 to 80 per cent confidence that Bin Laden was in the compound - and had they told them it could have jeopardised the operation and targets been alerted.

Panetta said he told President Barack Obama: 'If I thought delaying this could in fact produce better intelligence that would be one thing. But because of the nature of the security at the compound, we're probably at a point where we've got the best intelligence we can get.'

He also revealed that U.S. forces had gathered an 'impressive amount' of material, including computers and electronics following the raid.

A new task force has now been set up by Panetta to look into all the material gathered.

One British security source said: ‘It is entirely inconceivable that Bin Laden had no support and was able to live in the way that he was without some in Pakistan knowing he was there and what he was doing.’

The ISI had raided the compound once before in 2003 - when it was believed Abu Faraj al-Libi, was there.

But the compound 'was not on our radar' since then, the official said.

The intelligence services therefore may never have caught Bin Laden had it not been for his most trusted courier - a Kuwaiti-born man named Sheikh Abu Ahmed.

The shadowy figure was identified after Al Qaeda commanders held at Guantanamo Bay admitted they knew him - and that he had connections to the Saudi Arabian-born leader.

Once U.S. security forces had that information, they flooded Pakistan with agents desperate to pick up a trace of him, he would lead them to the lair of the world's most wanted man.

But the confessions were only the start of an extraordinary manhunt which stretched from the prison camp in Cuba to Peshawar in Pakistan and finally ended in the deadly shootout.

For many years, Ahmed was only known by his 'nom de guerre', Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.

The first indications about his significance came from CIA detainees shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks.

They identified him as one of Bin Laden's couriers, an aide the terror chief trusted with his life. But details were scant and agents quickly found the trail went cold.

It was not until 2004, when Al Qaeda operative Hassan Ghul was captured in Iraq, that the CIA began to make progress.

Ghul told the intelligence service that al-Kuwaiti was a courier and that he was close to Faraj al-Libi, Al Qaeda's operational commander, who replaced Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.The pace of the pursuit then picked when U.S. soldiers captured al-Libi.

Under CIA interrogation, al-Libi admitted that when he was promoted to succeed Mohammed, he received the word through a courier.

But he made up a name for the courier and denied knowing al-Kuwaiti, a denial that was so adamant and unbelievable that the CIA took it as a lie.


Finally, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed himself admitted that he knew the courier. Held at Guantanamo Bay, he had been waterboarded 183 times without identifiying Ahmed.

It was only later under conventional interrogation techniques that he admitted he knew him - though he still did not surrender a full name or where the courier could be found.

The CIA were then convinced that if they found Abu Ahmed they would find Bin Laden.

Scores of agents scoured Pakistan and Afghanistan for the merest whisper of Ahmed's whereabouts.

When Ahmed was finally tracked down, he was driving a white Suzuki in Peshawar, a frontier town with a high population of Al Qaeda sympathisers.

CIA agents followed him to a compound in the northeast Pakistani town of Abbottabad, where al-Libi had once lived. It had 18ft high walls, barbed wire, and no telephone or internet connections.

Without confirmation and with little to go on, the CIA became convinced they had finally found the world's most wanted man.

Despite doubts about Pakistanti trustworthiness, British Prime Minister David Cameron have his backing to Mr Zardari today.

He said that the mission that led to the death of Osama bin Laden was 'justified, lawful and right' and represented a 'massive step forward' in tackling terrorism.

'There are lots of questions that need to be asked. And we should be tough in asking those questions,' he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

'But we should deal with what we do know. And we do know that the Pakistan political leadership is fighting terrorism, we do know that country has suffered.

'We should work with those forces in Pakistan that want us to combat terrorism and extremism and make democracy take hold in that country. That is in our national interest.

'We could go down the other route of just having a flaming great row with Pakistan over this. I think that would achieve nothing.'

Mr Cameron, who sparked a major row with Pakistan earlier this year when he accused the regime of looking 'both ways' on terrorism, said 'the world is incomparably a better place without' Bin Laden.

But as Pakistan hits back over the criticism, Zadari and his Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani have already made clear their strong feelings on the mission in a telephone conversation with Cameron yesterday.

'As far as they were concerned, Bin Laden was a foreigner who had no business being in Pakistan, who brought nothing but misery to their country,' said Mr Cameron.