Turkey: After nearly a year, threat suspect arrested

Turkish police arrested a man for sending threatening e-mails to President Bush and other top U.S. officials that warned they would “choke in flames,” reports said today.

Ahmet Burak Ceylan, 27, a translator at an Istanbul computer company, was charged with committing a crime against a foreign dignitary, Hurriyet newspaper reported. U.S. intelligence helped track him down, the paper said. He was freed pending the outcome of his trial.

Ceylan allegedly sent the messages to the White House a week after the Sept. 11 attacks, Hurriyet said.

In one e-mail, Ceylan said Bush and other officials would “choke in flames” and die “one by one like American Indians,” the paper said. Another said White House officials would “get to know the dreadfulness of hell’s fire … and be blown up.”

Ceylan, who faces up to three years in prison if convicted, denied sending the messages and accused his bosses of transmitting the e-mails using his password, Hurriyet reported.

Puerto Rico: Two priests detained during Navy exercises

U.S. Navy security officers Tuesday detained two Roman Catholic priests on Vieques for trespassing on Navy lands as fighter jets dropped dummy bombs on the island during military exercises.

Eleven people have been detained for trespassing since the latest round of exercises began Sept. 3 on the Puerto Rican island, Navy spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Kim Dixon said.

Activist Ismael Guadalupe said five other men entered the Navy’s bombing range on the island’s eastern tip Monday in an effort to prevent the exercises. He said they remained there Tuesday morning and were in contact by cellular phone.

A squadron of F-14s and F-18s launched from the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman was dropping 25-pound inert bombs, Dixon said. The current round of training is to last about two more weeks.

Colombia: Documents suggest plot on U.S. Embassy

Police discovered documents relating to the U.S. Embassy during weekend raids on rebel safe houses, authorities said Tuesday, so investigators suspect the insurgents planned an attack.

The state prosecutor’s office confirmed the raids and said police also uncovered an underground facility for producing long-range mortar rounds and firing tubes.

Similar mortars were fired by the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia during President Alvaro Uribe’s Aug. 7 inauguration, killing 21 people.

The prosecutor’s office declined to specify what type of documents were discovered, but the Bogota daily El Tiempo said they consisted of photos and papers listing streets near the embassy, a fortress-like compound in eastern Bogota.

Australia: Afghans lose bid for refugee status

Hundreds of Afghan asylum seekers detained by Australia on a Pacific island have been denied refugee status because the Taliban no longer rules their homeland, the government and the United Nations said Tuesday.

Department of Immigration officers and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees rejected 440 of the 506 claims for asylum recently processed, the department said. Most of the rejected asylum seekers were Afghans fleeing the Taliban, UNHCR spokeswoman Ellen Hanson said.

Almost 2,000 asylum seekers who tried to enter Australia by boat were shipped to detention camps built on Nauru and Papua New Guinea after Prime Minister John Howard declared last year that no more would set foot in Australia.