MADRID: The Spanish government on Friday approved a request for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to be extradited from Britain to face charges of genocide. Judge Baltasar Garzon, whose warrant against the 82-year-old Pinochet led to the ex-despot's arrest in London on October 16, passed on an extradition request to the Spanish government this week. Prime minister Jose Maria Aznar's government has criticized Garzon's probe into human rights crimes committed inChile under Pinochet's 1973-1990 rule and in Argentina, saying he lacks jurisdiction. But Aznar and other government officials had said that they would pass on an extradition request to Britain if they received one.

DHAKA: A security alert has been in sounded in Bangladesh amid fears of attempts to disrupt the delivery of the upcoming verdict in the trial of alleged murderers of Bangladesh's founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on November 8. Quoting an intelligence report, leading daily Sangbad claimed the alleged killers -- former Lt Col Shariful Haq Dalim, former colonel Abdur Rashid and ex-major Noor Chowdhury had sent huge amounts to some top Bangladeshi opposition leaders through a Middle-east country in a bid to disrupt the delivery of the verdict and destabilise the Awami League government.