France: Police officers and families moved out of Grenoble
Telegraph:Crime squad officers in Grenoble have been moved out of the town along with their families after local gangsters put a contract on their heads.
The death threats came a week after officers of the anti-criminal brigade, or BAC, shot dead a gang member during a casino hold up, sparking several nights of riots in the troubled French suburban housing estate of La Villeneuve where he lived.
Police came under real gunfire as they tried to quell the violence.
A local police source said: “These (threats) are targeting this service in general and certain colleagues in particular. One could call them contracts.
They are coming from people from mafia circles who consider the BAC a rival gang”.
He said many of the officers have been working in the area for years, are known to local troublemakers by name and their personal car number plates are even tagged on walls in La Villeneuve.
Last Friday, all policemen in France received a text message, believed to be from local officers, reading: “BAC-Grenoble staff have been put on forced leave by the (local government) prefect and obliged to leave the region with their wives and children.
“As the BAC was involved in the armed criminal’s death, the word is that his friends (say) his death will only be avenged with the death of a BACman, by rocket launcher if necessary”.
Read the rest: Telegraph
Somali asylum seeker family given £2m house
Daily Mail: Somali asylum seeker family given £2m house… after complaining 5-bed London home was ‘in poor area’
A family of former asylum-seekers from Somalia are living in a £2.1million luxury townhouse in one of Britain’s most exclusive addresses at a cost to taxpayers of £8,000 a month.
Abdi and Sayruq Nur and their seven children moved into their three-storey property in a fashionable area of London last month because they didn’t like the ‘poorer’ part of the city they were living in.
Mr Nur, 42, an unemployed bus conductor, and his 40-year-old wife, who has never worked, are now living in Kensington despite the fact that they are totally dependent on state benefits.
They live close to celebrities, including artist Lucian Freud, singer Damon Albarn and designer Stella McCartney, and their home is just minutes from the fashionable Kensington Place restaurant which was a favourite haunt of the late Princess Diana.
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Read more: Daily Mail.