- 'Yes' vote prevails in Kazakhstan nuclear plant vote: TV
- 'Difficult day': Oct 7 commemorations begin with festival memorial
- Commemorations begin for anniversary of attack on Israel
- 'Nothing gets in way of team,' says Celtics' MVP hopeful Tatum
- 'We will win!': Mozambique's ruling party confident at final vote rally
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Florida braces for Milton, FEMA head slams 'dangerous' Helene misinformation
- Postecoglou slams 'unacceptable' Spurs after 'terrible' loss at Brighton
- Marmoush double denies Bayern outright Bundesliga top spot
- Rallies worldwide call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefire
- New 'Joker' film, a dark musical, tops N.America box office
- Man Utd stalemate keeps Ten Hag in danger, Spurs rocked by Brighton
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Vikings hold off Jets in London to stay unbeaten
- Ahead of attack anniversary, Netanyahu says: 'We will win'
- West Indies cruise to T20 World Cup win over Scotland
- Man Utd fire another blank in Aston Villa stalemate
- Lewandowski treble powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Russian activist killed on front line in Ukraine
- Openda strike briefly sends Leipzig top of Bundesliga
- Goal-shy Man Utd have to 'step up', says Ten Hag
- India bowl out Bangladesh for 127 in T20 opener
- Madueke rescues Chelsea in draw with 10-man Forest
- Beckett's belief rewarded as Bluestocking storms to Arc glory
- Trump on the stump, Harris hits airwaves in razor-edge US election
- Flash flooding kills three in northern Thailand
- Kaur leads India to victory over Pakistan in Women's T20 World Cup
- Juventus held by Cagliari after late penalty drama
- In France's Marseille, teen 'stabbed 50 times' then burned alive
- Ruthless Gauff beats Muchova in straight sets to win China Open
- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
- Weary Sinner happy for day off after battling into Shanghai last 16
- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Sabalenka targets world number one and Wuhan hat-trick
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Bagnaia sets 'example' with Japan MotoGP win to cut gap on Martin
- Intense Israeli bombing rocks Beirut ahead of war anniversary
- Mozambique vote: no suspense but some disillusion
- Austrian rapper channels anti-racist rage in Romani hip-hop songs
- Ohtani magic powers Dodgers over Padres in MLB playoff thriller
- Five of the best: Pakistan-England Test thrillers
- Man sets arm on fire as marches across US mark Gaza war anniversary
- Vietnam's young coffee entrepreneurs brew up a revolution
- Trump rallies at site of failed assassination: 'Never quit'
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- Is music finally reckoning with #MeToo?
Portuguese man detained over Beirut blast
Spanish authorities said Thursday they had arrested and then granted conditional release to a Portuguese man wanted by Interpol over the 2020 Beirut port blast that killed over 200 people.
Jorge Moreira, 43, was arrested at Madrid airport on Wednesday after he arrived on a flight from Chile's capital Santiago, a Spanish police spokesman said.
He had arrived in Santiago earlier on a flight from Spain but was prevented from entering the country and put on a plane back to Madrid in coordination with Interpol, Chilean police said.
Moreira is wanted in Lebanon for allegedly having brought explosives into the country with links to the August 2020 explosion which devastated entire neighbourhoods of Beirut.
Authorities said 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser haphazardly stocked in a port warehouse since 2014 had caught fire, causing one of history's largest non-nuclear explosions.
Spain's National Court on Thursday ordered Moreira's conditional release and banned him from leaving the country while it studies a request from Lebanon for his extradition, a court spokesman said.
He is wanted in Lebanon for the crimes of "terrorism" and "causing death through the use of explosives", the spokesman added.
The ammonium nitrate is widely understood to have arrived in Beirut in 2013 onboard the Rhosus, a Moldovan-flagged ship sailing from Georgia to Mozambique.
Moreira ordered the ammonium nitrate as an employee of Mozambican firm Fabrica de Explosivos de Mocambique (FEM), a company he worked for until 2016, according to Portuguese daily Jornal de Noticias.
In 2021 a Portuguese court rejected a request from Lebanon for Moreira's extradition because it had not received all the necessary documents on time, the newspaper added.
At the time Moreira was working as an executive at a frozen foods company in the northern Portuguese city of Braganca, it added.
At the request of a Lebanese judge, Interpol in 2021 issued red notices for the owner of the ship which transported the ammonium, its captain and Moreira.
- Blast investigation on hold -
The Interpol notices, which are not international arrest warrants, ask authorities worldwide to provisionally detain people pending possible extradition or other legal actions. Interpol issues them at the request of a member country.
The Rhosus was seized by Lebanese authorities after a company filed a lawsuit against its owner over a debt dispute.
In 2014, port authorities in Beirut unloaded the shipment and stored it in a derelict warehouse with cracked walls.
Investigations into the tragedy have been paused for months over what rights groups and relatives of the victims have denounced as political interference.
Human Rights Watch last year accused top officials in government, parliament and the country's security agencies of deadly negligence that led to the tragedy.
L.Carrico--PC