you're locked in a cell twenty four hours a day. i'm being treated like an animal. i got to the point where i will eyes that you know that's doing a total just shows me it was important to me is on the other side afghans in how i get to the other side f.f.s. . eventually perry got to the other side of that fence in two thousand and one after serving nearly nineteen years of his life sentence perry was granted parole. once on the outside perry turned his life around. he graduated from college and spent the next eleven years employed as an advocate for the homeless finding them housing and managing a soup kitchen. it was somebody who. was by all accounts doing extraordinarily well and was contributing to his community he was searched sitting on boards with elected officials and he had the support of the mayor of course hampton the chief of police of northampton and countless citizens who had

just seen him extend themselves to the least fortunate and most vulnerable members of the community a letter of recommendation from the mayor of north hampton said mr perry used the circumstances of his imprisonment and parole to forge a new life for himself and better the community he works in. and then on august third two thousand and eleven perry was arrested on his way to work when a state trooper found stolen goods in his s.u.v. . perry insisted the i pad and other items were left behind by a homeless hitchhiker he was driving to a shelter. went on i got picked up that day i really honestly believed like ok so we get a lawyer we clear this up and you come home and i really didn't realize the impact that it would have especially since he didn't do anything so how could they hold you. at trial a jury found perry not guilty of receiving stolen property but because he was on

parole at the time of the arrest he was charged with a parole violation and returned to prison. the massachusetts parole board decided that notwithstanding that acquittal that he was nevertheless in violation of is parole for reasons that i still have a hard. understanding despite his acquittal the parole board was able to revoke his parole and keep perry in prison it would be months before he had a chance to be heard again by the parole board. just across the state border in connecticut the parole board has just reached a decision regarding in me in crawford and we are back on record in the case of alvin crawford number. five. we make decisions every day that affect every man woman child in the state of connecticut and sometimes the cases are not so clear cut the high risk offenders the ones that make the hair stand up on the back

of your neck those are easy those are the ones where you just know ok put him under the prison you should never ever see the line day the ones that are low risk those are easy it's the ones in the middle that can go either way where you sit and think . you know one you know if the planets line up just right you know will this guy kill somebody. oh no moving the motion to deny people role with no new theory your denials for the following reasons your criminal history the current offense was committed while on probation and in adequate institutional programming to have a second favor good luck to you sir. and a quick word about that decision. high risk high stakes. he will hurt somebody. he started his criminal career with an assault he like nearly stabbed some kid to death over a bicycle. in the department of correction we have

a person who follows security risk groups gangs and mr crawford runs with this group so he's he still is very very risky so it's less of a sentence here in the morning and a half scary he's getting out of that anyway getting out right you know they don't have licenses or the death penalty they are coming. after spending fourteen months in prison for a crime that the jury determined he did not commit perry is once again in front of the parole board. a month after his parole hearing perry is informed of the board's decision. despite his acquittal for receiving stolen property the parole board revoked parries parole

forcing him to resume the life sentence he received for crimes he committed over twenty five years ago no explanation it was just did not feel like i wind up in the alice in wonderland fairy tale like my life went right down the rabbit hole i wind up being thrown back in a mid is a what i had worked so long to try to get away from i mean and i mean isn't is insane. today there are over eight hundred thousand prisoners who have been released on parole in the united states we can say we're not going to worry about them and we're going to continue to pay for that through increased police through increased courts. and we're going to continue to have a correctional system that's just going to be a revolving door a very expensive revolving door. in two thousand and eight connecticut passed a series of criminal justice reforms to improve their parole system. we meet with

william carbone an expert on parole who has worked in the system for over fifteen years is currently on staff at the henry seeley college of criminal justice in new haven connecticut. i think the current administration's approach to public safety in general has been very smart. they have attempted to invest in what's called recidivism reduction and they have invested very heavily in trying to improve the information sharing so that what we know about any offender is available to the people who have to make a decision an important decision like the decision to release so now that old paper system has been replaced with something called the judicial electronic bridge and so they are available at all stages of the corrections process and the parole process. change can come at a price this and other innovations were introduced only after

a triple rape and murder by parolees stunned the quiet new england town of cheshire raising serious questions about the competence of the connecticut parole system. police say the suspects entered the pettit house as the family was sleeping the mother was raped and strangled the eleven year old daughter also sexually assaulted both girls were eventually tied to their beds downs do with gasoline and set on fire. when people found out that hayes or towers would have to have recently been on parole not only had been. relatively recently that which made it worse davoud to mari is a crime reporter for the hartford current who covered the infamous cheshire murders and. subsequent trials of steven hayes and joshua komisarjevsky. page was a really or to be criminal and had been arrested twenty something times. he had been in jail the last time literally for stealing purses and out of cars. joshua

was a different story she was a burglar he wanted to break into people's houses at night while they were used to use night goggles when he broke into people's houses and sometimes you literally would watch people. at the tire to sentencing the judge had called him a calculated predator. in two thousand and seven after serving three years of a five year sentence for burglary steven hayes was granted parole. he actually told people in a halfway house ninety years i mean is that a given to many times he had been a not in prison. as for komisarjevsky he was four years into his nine year sentence before he was released on parole. because of a tragic bureaucratic oversight the parole board never received his original trial transcript. scripts are expensive and the state didn't want to pay it out all these transcripts for every single parolee going to the board so when josh appeared

before the three members of the parole board at that time they had no idea what the judge had said annoying beer really want to use history was going to was burglary. komisarjevsky would meet in a halfway house and from there go on to commit one of the most heinous crimes in connecticut history. the catastrophic decision to release these two inmates put pressure on the state to replace the parole board and reexamine its policies to better protect the public from paroled criminals. one of the primary goals of the. system is to protect the lives of the public but what happens if the parole board makes a decision which unfairly damages the life of a parolee. donald perry rebuilt a life centered on rehabilitation and community service only to find it crumble

when the parole board decided he belonged back in prison. we had to springfield massachusetts to meet holly richardson a community activist who is leading a campaign to free donald perry. we were all surprised as community people when he was acquitted in july that he didn't go home and then initially we thought ok well he was a parolee and there must be some paperwork that has to be done in each step of the way as it kept happening me he was not going to be coming home and that he didn't get her aubrey parole that we couldn't even believe it. the perceived injustice of donald perry's case created a groundswell of support a petition created to free donald perry received over one hundred fifty thousand signatures. people that i didn't really know or even some people i knew from work a little bit really rallied for me and really rallied for him elaine arsenal is

a social worker and donald perry's life partner which people know about the story you know he's basically a poster child for what a person should do on parole and he has reinvented himself from what he was like in his twenty's the way he lives his life today is like you know he's honest he's caring compassionate he does nothing but give back to the community tell me how this is affected your relationship it's actually brought it stronger you know like when this all happened there was a lot of shame for me because you know i didn't tell lot of my friends and family he was on parole and then it being public in the newspaper it was really difficult for me because like oh you know now it's all out there and. and i've had to learn to just kind of hold my head up and be like you know what we're good people you know he's a good man and he's my partner he's like my soul mate so we're in this together no matter what. oh. oh.

can you hear me ok joe this is donald a mr perry how are you. i'm good i'm good tell me tell me how you're feeling these days oh. well. but. there what do you want people to know about your situation you know what happened here. i was on my way to a board of directors meeting. but as i'm pulling out of my driveway and getting ready to get on to forty seven i see is does a person who's standing out on the road and he's dumb enough is being known. as

simmons who kissed. he asked me for a ride to drop and this is a place where people go in the mornings to shower how breakfast. when he get in my truck got his backpack into bags which is concept go people slept around with. have a notice a bunch of state troopers on the highway. take the exit coming on and off amp and i noticed this dude is going really fizzy to pull down at the like he says that i'm odd him and he does jumps up. and the next i know the lies i mean so holo. this state trooper comes up on the side of my vehicle he said to step out of the vehicle my man what do you talk about what's going on it. must've been a nightmare i can only imagine. the morning of perry's arrest two homes have been broken into and romped the police were able to track the

stolen goods to i've had a purse and other items to perry's vehicle. perry was immediately arrested and thrown in jail. maintaining his innocence perry went to trial and hired luke bryan to represent him. what the police i think attempted to do was to try to tie. him and not only to these burglaries but to other burglaries in that area what eventually happened was they learned that the footprints and fingerprints that were found at the scene did not match donald perry's so what eventually i think they came to realize is all right well why don't we just stick with the easiest thing to prove which is receiving stolen property. criminal defense attorney and prisoner advocate patty guerin believes the board's decision to revoke perry's parole maybe indirectly tied to another inmate serving a life sentence in accent. similar to what happened in cheshire connecticut the

massachusetts parole board released a career criminal cinelli who went on to murder a police officer in a fatal shoot out in december of two thousand and we see a tremendous failure of the parole system the resignation of five parole board members has everyone talking the governor fired those responsible for supervising cinelli after he was released the results from massachusetts was a tremendous drop in parole waits for two thousand and eleven in two thousand and twelve and that cost the state attorney mendis amount of money they do before it was very very reluctant to parole people especially lifers and really anyone received parole that first year after this in l.a. incident. despite donald perry's acquittal for receiving stolen goods in two thousand and twelve the parole board has kept him behind bars for almost a year but in march of two thousand and thirteen is granted another hearing and

another chance of parole you are now before the point today to determine if you should be reprocessed i think when there are additional wrong going to greet your minutes. at that time back then for that very reason we have to cross our dart our eyes when it comes to giving your. full hearing. before you reproach i'm truly sorry for the pain and trauma that i've caused all of my victims. that i did that i try my. hand to be. remorseful guys that i became. i was due to. an asset to my co community the parole hearing last two hours and unlike the hearings we've seen in connecticut perry will get an answer that day. back in the cell kerry waits for the board's decision everybody was psyched he's going to get out sell you know this went good

and it wasn't until eight months later that we got a decision. capturing a moment in time snapshots of how the lives of the stories. provided attempts into someone else's well. inspiring documentaries from impassioned filmmakers everybody's going to. be so. witness on al-jazeera. the world's primary could change producing nation. is at the forefront of the war on drugs with them we're talking about serious organized crime as a country we are reaching a critical point while some have made fortunes many others have suffered at the

hands of this multi-billion dollar industry both of whom of this business will go on forever it will not change only as global policies do who are the winners and losers of this illicit trade snow will be andy's on al-jazeera. and i'm maryam namazie in london a quick look at the top stories now at least fourteen people have died in a suicide bombing targeting afghanistan's vice president abdul rashid dostum a former warden ethnic aide to return from exile over a year ago following allegations he had tortured and abused a rival i still claims it carried out the attack jared blank is a former acting special representative for afghanistan and pakistan he says dostum is return isn't surprising i think that the rehabilitation of gen dostum is

a traditional part of the afghan election season it happened prior to the two thousand and nine election of course it famously happened when president gandhi selected him to be first vice president in two thousand and thirteen and it's happening again this year hundreds of members of the syrian rescue organization known as the white helmets have arrived in jordan after being evacuated from syria four hundred twenty two of the first responders and their families were ferried out of southwestern connector province overnight due to the threat from advancing government forces they were taken by israel through the occupied golan heights off to a request from the united nations and western powers. meanwhile a convoy fifty five buses taking syrian rebels in their families has been allowed to proceed north after being stopped by iranian militias the vehicles were surrounded by fighters wearing military style uniforms in the homes after seven hours and an intervention by the russian military police they were allowed to move again the convoy left connector as part of an agreement between the opposition in

the syrian government to surrender positions in the south and election candidate from the party front runner iran has been killed in a suicide attack a gun to poor was a candidate of the pakistan tough week and soft party which is currently polling ahead his vehicle was targeted in the northwestern province of khyber ponto inquire as he was leaving a political meeting the pakistani taliban has claimed responsibility and g twenty finance ministers and central bank is meeting in argentina are warning that heightened trade tensions of putting global growth at risk the meeting comes in the wake of escalating trade tensions between the u.s. china and europe following a wave of tariffs introduced by u.s. president donald trump as more and everything we're covering right here al jazeera dot com is way need to go but of course i will also be back with the news hour in about twenty five minutes time so do join me then bye for now.

the nature of news as it breaks the syrian government with the backing of iran and russia now controls sixty percent of syria after steadily recapturing territory with detailed coverage of what was supposed to be a summit between the two most powerful leaders in the world is taking things to a new level from around the world. this is a gigantic power vacuum in northern irish politics with no functioning local government for eighteen months.

despite donald perry's acquittal for receiving stolen goods in two thousand and twelve the parole board has kept him behind bars for almost a year but in march of two thousand and thirteen is granted another hearing and another chance of parole you are now before the board today to terminate your repro

everybody was saying he's going to get out so you know this went good. and then we waited for a decision and every. week i would go on the website they post the decisions on the website and i would look and i would look and i would work and there was no decision and it wasn't until. eight months later that we got a decision. whenever i see something that has happened in the news my first reaction. is to say please god don't let this person have been some. that we released on. the blowback from the poor old joshua komisarjevsky and steven hayes and the subsequent headed family murders forced the connecticut parole board to change or they made decisions one of the major changes was that the legislature in

connecticut demanded that the parole board the department of correction and the court support services division which handles probation in our city collaborate to come up with a dynamic risk assessment system. we have used a system called scores it's the statewide collaborative offender risk evaluation system looks at. criminal genic domains that are directly related to a person's risk the school system uses a comprehensive questionnaire completed by offenders which evaluates critical factors affecting criminal behavior like criminal history and education. the data is analyzed to predict how likely a criminal is to reoffend. i believe that had the board that was sitting at the time that the two men who committed the murders were up for parole and they've been using a dynamic risk assessment system the decisions would have been very different i do not believe those two to been released. each inmate up for parole today has

been evaluated by the scores system is hearing is being conducted in consideration of the full application for walter right number two one to five to six it is serving a sentence of five years flat for sale of heroin or cocaine by non-dependent and a violation of probation utilizing the statewide collaborative offender risk evaluation system scores mr wright overall risk for receipt of aiding is very high mr right it is now your opportunity to express to the board why you believe you should be granted parole at this time i wanted to be granted because i've used these nasty use to lane change a lot about myself as well those reflect back on the lack of judgment of my current incarceration i completely understand and i can no longer allow myself to think of drugs is to sell it as a means of income support because i have no job and the ground. here is a day not actually from our freedom book but also as my last chance to get my life

in order there for national interest is a nice grammy. just a great. i want you to pretend for a second that you're sitting where i am and what you have in front of you is someone who had several violations of probation who was on probation when they sold drugs and ran for the from the cops this time and who had a record of drug sales. with stealing a firearm and assault thrown in there for more than two decades would you release that person early. you know as well as that you are not a good. system looks at. another indicator.

and work. for the purpose of. making decisions based on if you make decisions in that way you're only. half the time fifty percent better than chance however if we. if we look at what the research. goes up to seventy or eighty percent of the time. i don't know who would. suppose to five. twenty fifteen.

programming today. really as much as you have control over trying to. get something out of it so when you come back to you can actually. play it for what you're going to do when you get out ok. all right. thank you. for being in prison for almost two years. once again when before the. decision is made about being. sure what his role us but since some way he was connected to two breaking into neighbor's houses and the parole board can't tolerate that we meet with josh wall the chair of the massachusetts parole board which oversaw donald perry's hearing the first thing i would say about the fact that mr perry had a not guilty verdict but that the parole board revoked his parole is that this is

not a situation that is unusual. parole boards operate under a different standard than a court of law yet the consequences of their decisions can be equally devastating there's no prosecutor trying to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt instead all the parole board needs to establish is that the preponderance of evidence proves that perry could have committed the crime. the important pieces of evidence are that mr perry had the i pad and he's being followed by the police. and when he's pulled over there is no hitchhiker there's no other person that he's seen and then mr perry does not say when he's pulled over oh by the way i had a hitchhiker he doesn't say that. i asked perry why he never mentioned the hitchhiker to police and he explains his previous experience with law enforcement had taught him to remain silent and ask for

a lawyer. when you put those pieces of information together. if you are experienced in these matters like parole board members would be who have assessed situations like this it wasn't a very difficult call to make. after spending over two years in prison and then waiting eight months for an answer from the parole board donald perry finally received a decision on september twenty sixth two thousand and thirteen one of things that was important to our decision is that we did conclude that mr perry does not present a current risk for filings and i hope that we never hear about mr perry again because he's successful perry would be we've paroled but not right away. although the board did not consider perry a threat to public safety they added what perry and his supporters considered a punitive measure by forcing him to remain in prison and then additionally year

from the date of his parole hearing. according to the parole board's decision no one on the panel believed perry's side of the story. when you think about donald's account of what happened the thing that i think was it was difficult for people outside the case to grasp is the first thing you hear is hitchhiker. i mean who hitchhikes anymore but the fact of the matter is in franklin county behind elaine's property there is a significant seasonal population of homeless people and this was donald's professional life so the fact that there would be a person on the side of the road with a couple backpacks a garbage bag that's perry's population that he serves.

after spending his final year in prison donald perry will be released back into the community lane very. life partner will pick him up from the shirley correctional facility tomorrow morning. tomorrow will be the first day that he's been out and almost three years. to do anything to prepare for his homecoming so i want to make sure that donald had you know new pillows and things like that like all he talks about is how i get to sleep in my own bad you know i get to sleep with my own sheets blanket and you know make sure all the tells her claim because those are really important things when you don't have good towels or you don't have you know he's been sleeping on this little. math thing you just can't get comfortable ever. and i think.

and i. keep thinking this might be the last call i ever have to get from prison. or you know yeah well we're talking about what it feels like to be on the count down here. oh well. yeah well tomorrow night you get to sleep in a real bad. well no no are not. going to. water your brain hundred. do you want as long as you're home. you're where you. are. ok. i love you tell. gran.

i think they think they yeah i don't sleep much last night that exciting yeah it's really exciting my my adrenaline's been going first i was getting them out so yeah let me grab his clothes an hour away at the surely correctional facility donald perry is waiting to be released elaine is allowed us to join her on the journey to reunite with her partner. to share. we stop to pick up holly richardson really. activists and friend who was advocating for perry's release it's running in. are you going on today we made a fire again it will so i did. not go. down free. will that no one is doing.

right now and sweating and my mouth is dry at the same time. there we go. we are at the shirley correctional facility elaine is picking up her husband we are not allowed in the prison. so they said that they don't want any cameras on the premises at all that. everybody is going to have to leave. so we're no longer on the prison grounds we had to leave the prison asked us to leave it's been very frustrating the entire way we were denied permission to film donald perry in prison we were denied permission to film him leaving prison we thought we

were ok by just being in the parking lot and we were going to film him getting into the car but even now that's been denied and so we had to leave the prison and they didn't want any cameras around and so we're we're told over about a half a mile from the prison. a correctional officer from the prison tracks is down lower waiting for perry to be released so now they're kind of freaking out that we were shooting at all and so they're checking. whether or not they're going to let us. prison officials are concerned about our cameras and despite being away from the prison facility we're still technically on prison property and has to leave. we can go. donald perry has finally been released on parole we meet perry in the lane at the side of the road. to graduation thank you very much.

so what are your what are your thoughts i mean three years taken from you. i get off when i start thinking. about. being one of the thing that made them how naive that i was and i mean they could just do. what i don't understand is if you're acquitted of a crime how can the how can the parole board still have jurisdiction over your life to determine that you should be behind bars that doesn't it doesn't make sense to me it doesn't make sense to me either and just by the stroke of a pen. i was thrown right back. so how was it. there might. come out that last month your i knew it was really going to happen now. and i got the so. did you guys get it you know i thought you were get now and i was going in the slammer. ok. this is the hearing

of the canadian border pardons and paroles. back in connecticut a young inmate named joshua strachan has just entered the system. joshua's currently serving a sentence of three years for sale. well business stuff and why are they selling heroin. of they going to wait. to do something. i mean you're a young guy if you've never had a job how about starting their life and if you look for a job people don't want to hi amy. oh. let's go question what is your thought about stuff i was thinking about him. i had seen. it had the chance because you're out there selling to heroin how much money we make and. thirty five hundred thirty five hundred a week. that's a lot of money we're going to make that when you get out i'm not trying to do no more. syrian school now.

i want to start. i want to be able to b.s. my b.s. my family it's a little more than bad choices and running with the wrong crowd when you were selling drugs because you were helping your mom. told me you know i used. to we're going to school people used to because. it was dirty sometimes to be starving . or stuff like that and i went out there what i did was wrong. your mom had six kids. she was fired. or you. it always bored. ok just i want you just sit tight relax a little bit we're going to deliberate about your case and figure out what we're going to do with you in that we're going to come back on the record and take a vote ok.

we are back on the record has the board reached a decision we have been i'm going to make a motion to parole you for july ninth two thousand and fourteen that you're going to have the following conditions so you are going to a halfway house in the area also your parole is going to be contingent upon you completing good intentions bad choices you understand all of those. yes of the good intentions bad choices what we're trying to do is help with your criminal thinking if it is true that you were selling drugs for two to three years before you got caught that means you have a criminal thinking down pat and you're really good at it so your your release is contingent upon finishing that if you don't finish it we're telling them not to let you out do you understand. if you were to get yourself some skills and use resources in the community you'll be able to expand the opportunities that

you have only twenty two there's hope for you you can turn this around. good luck to you thank you very much. tell me why did you guys go the way you did he didn't have an adult criminal history this was his first adult arrest and he is an offender that if given the right programming in the right dosage with appropriate supervision could actually overcome his risk. donald perry has been caught in the system for over thirty years even though he was released from prison today will remain on parole for the rest of his life. in springfield massachusetts harry meets with his parole officer who fits in with a g.p.s. ankle monitor and he is required to wear. my newest sesame. jealous this is g.p.s. monitoring device. any time i'm in a building. all of the forty five minutes or if i've been going to have

a must size will be next unless i'm at home i'm at your underwear that all the time constantly twenty four hours that most women know about i guess emerges so how long do you have to work that for right right now that this in three years. after getting out of prison one of the first things done perry wants to do is get a haircut in his old springfield neighborhood where he grew up. i don't think it's going to find me all right and. once we got to springfield. at that time it was like some of us. as a little kid my father was very abusive. i was developing like this bill and and from all of the beatings i basically gravitated to everything negative.

i remember coming up as a youth you know wishing that i had someone there was there would advocate for me. my job as an out least worker. was always try to connect with people and see how i can serve them. well. it doesn't like helping people. for the past almost thirty years i worked hard and everything changed so i started finding me. and the more i found me the greater lash on the life of the normal no going normal not normal not not not yeah. you're back home back to back. like there's my dad via. i strive to treat the people on the screen or in person as human beings who have maybe you know made some really terrible mistakes

a lot of them come from very tragic backgrounds. we have to understand the narratives of the persons that were making the decisions about. what donald was able to do should be celebrated because his transformation is genuine it is a then take it is real it's inspiring to people. thank goodness we still. don't we. wouldn't. say that you have a difference like that only if you like having one spit on him is that really i love being at home among one of the things i was so it sounds like a little kid at christmas i woke up like one of two o'clock in the morning just then when you know it's like i was you know i wasn't dreaming you know i mean i was you know that it was this real thank you want it all for being here and for helping all of us through this process and this is a happy happy occasion so thank you off. i

guess. hello there is staying rather unsettled for some of us in australia at the moment in the south there's been quite a bit of cloud over the past few weeks and that's given us a few outbreaks of rain and we're still seeing plenty of cloud there at the moment so for perth and the still the risk of see want to showers as we head through the next few days i think they'll be more rain though a bit further east you can see this here working its way through parts of south australia into victoria and tasmania and it looks like some of us are going to have

a pretty wet and windy time of it on monday and tuesday to choose do they should just become dry force in adelaide as we head across towards new zealand it's certainly been stormy here we've had winds gusting over one hundred twenty kilometers per hour and also some very very heavy rain the system is working away towards the east though and for many of us it will be a little quieter as we head through the next few days still going to be quite cool though so was a maximum temperature we're just looking at around nine or ten in christchurch and force in oakland we should be around twelve or thirteen further towards the north and shanghai is just been hit by some very strong winds and very heavy rain all thanks to a storm system that's now waking its way towards the west now it's over land it is disintegrating but this whole region can expect to see some flooding.

egypt is now china's third biggest trading partner in africa more than ten thousand chinese and living in cairo i wanted to see the permits in september one thousand nine hundred five i came with my friends to egypt many started as small traders but are now successful in business to me and i began to do business in two thousand and three or two thousand and four at a time it was small but then it began to expand al-jazeera world meets the growing chinese community in egypt egypt made in china on al-jazeera. al-jazeera where ever you are. a suspected money laundering operation but this time it was different. an accidental discovery the wharfs initial suspicion. unravels an unprecedented

scale of systemic international corruption people in power investigates a rocket of such magnitude that it threatens government agreed to following the rules of impunity. the carwash. on a jersey if. this is al-jazeera. hello i'm maryanne demasi this is the news hour live from london coming up in the next sixty minutes a suicide bomb attack in the afghan capital kills fourteen people just moments after the return of the exiled vice president. playing in the dead of night. four hundred twenty two members of the white helmets and their families leave syria and

a white in jordan. a suicide attack kills a candidate from front runner imran khan's party out of elections in pakistan also . under a cloud reported from greenland on the threats presented by the new realities bird tar and the new version britain. and sport with outen is back on top of the formula one championship stabbing german crown pre and dramatic fashion after sebastian vettel crashed out of the court. at least fourteen people have died in a suicide bombing targeting afghanistan's vice president abdul rashid dostum a former warlord an ethnic return from exile after fourteen months following allegations he had tortured and abused a rival at least sixty people injured i still claims it carried out the attack

charlotte betis has more. as schools of vice president abdul rashid dostum supporters gathered to welcome him back at kabul's international airport a suicide bomber detonated his vest at the main entrance among the casualties with security forces and civilians. dostum escaped his convoy had passed minutes earlier the second most powerful man in afghanistan had been living in exile in turkey for the last fourteen months his supporters protested demanding his return but there are many who don't want him back. gen dostum lift off to ahmed is she in northern accused him and his guards of kidnapping and rape will go after them dostum ordered his commander to rape me with nine other bodyguards he told them to rape me until the ground is covered with blood and take a photograph but dostum are. used to come in for questioning president ashraf ghani

then persuaded turkey's president rejects to want to take him in it's not the first time dostum spin exiled in turkey it's a repeat of ten years ago when he assaulted a political rival which led to this standoff in kabul between police and his bodyguards dostum has a ruthless reputation he has ruled northern afghanistan for thirty years and is renowned for shifting his allegiance in one thousand nine hundred sixty minute top taliban commanders for talks but the handshake stops the he would fight the taliban in the northern alliance famously saying he could live a vow to a government where there is no whisky and no music after the two thousand and one us invasion dostum transitioned from warlord to politician. enormous influence in afghanistan's north making him a target his enemies want him gone his allies need him ahead of next year's

presidential election. so if more on this i'm joined by in washington he is the form a senior advisor to abdullah abdullah the chief executive of afghanistan thank you very much for speaking to us on the news hour so we are seeing pictures there of general dostum being greeted by his supporters upon his arrival in kabul but also there was a suicide attack that took place against him which he managed to escape what are your initial thoughts on this bombing and how it took place. well it's somewhat tragic and shocking to see the first vice president who has been in exile for more than a year returned with such fanfare and pomp that the government put together for him after they have gone through a make up period where they were at odds for a while and now they agreed that those that would be coming back from turkey and

then to experience such carnage as a result of a suicide attack plane by eisel is obviously shocking to the people of afghanistan in kabul in particular but it shows how the situation in afghanistan is fragile how fragile and how unpredictable it is in politics obvious the is going to become much more tense as we move forward toward parliamentary elections in october and maybe presidential elections next year in spring tell us more about why the afghan government is allowing general dostum to return. well it seems that as part of a deal a package whereby one of those terms mean commanders a few weeks ago an encounter with the government military personnel and off officials was arrested and some of his body goes where roughed up. there are all

kinds of allegations that bad things happened he was brought to kabul for geishas even though he's someone who has been fighting the taliban in isis in the north of afghanistan and. obviously was very unhappy being in exile in turkey and the. people of afghanistan the afghans who belong to that ethnic group and others who support this faction basically went on the streets and where basically opposing this arrest and we're rallying for the past few weeks in the rallies have gotten so intense that the government i think decided that it's better to have those come back under the tent inside the tent than to have them outside the tent. but help us understand more about this we know that gen dostum is a long time establishment figure in the country he is a leader of the as banksy is seen as a defender of their rights but he's also one of the most controversial figures in

the country known for his brutality just tell us more about some of the allegations that have been made against him yes your your report also that a good job of clarifying that he goes back to the time when the soviets were in afghanistan he first was a local militia that the procedure with government was was using against the. soviet forces in afghanistan then essentially just several times eventually after nine eleven he became part of the new establishment in afghanistan and has played the role of a politician. and i think that because of the fact that he has popular support among his own community that he carries it water bank so he has hundreds of thousands of votes in his pocket so that makes him important for any politician afghanistan running for office whether it's the legislative level or presidential level and as

a result in two thousand and fourteen he finally joined president honeys camp and helped preserve any in the north against his rivals and saw again what we are seeing is a probably a repeat of what happened a few years ago where those storm and others who have a lot of support amongst populations and communities with a lot of votes will be playing an important role in the upcoming afghan political process and a very important elections that are coming up thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with us on our summit former advisor to the chief executive of afghanistan . well now members of the syrian rescue group the white helmets have made it to safety in jordan often being smuggled out in the dead of night israel's military help in the effort transporting four hundred twenty two of the first responders across the occupied golan heights at the request of the united nations and western powers for less definite decker reports. under the cover of darkness hundreds of white helmet volunteers and their families made their way across the israeli

occupied golan heights to jordan it was a top secret multinational effort helped along by the un their exit was facilitated by israel after requests from the u.s. canada and others its army issued a statement saying it was an exceptional humanitarian gesture canada the u.k. and germany have agreed to resettle them the white helmets were founded in two thousand and fourteen to rescue civilians injured in attacks on rebel held territory the group has been backed by the u.s. and other western countries there was a fear what would happen to them once their area fell under government control but such a deal doesn't apply to the tens of thousands of civilians who fled the fighting and who remain behind closed borders their areas under opposition control for years now back in the hands of the syrian government and one of the latest deals rebels in syria's southwest region of can answer we should deal with the government on friday buses have been leaving from can answer its northern syria what you are seeing actually in my opinion is bought off the range of months with have been

agreed between. them to mash out dollars in order to clear. the area for any presence that's is not that might not. be happy with the syrian government has now taken back most of this southwestern part of the country. the only area left under opposition control is the area behind me and it's controlled by a group affiliated with eisel there is no deal in the offering for them now we've been seeing multiple airstrikes has also seen jets in the sky it seems the government's final battle for southern syria is underway stephanie decker al-jazeera in these really occupied golan heights. as the director of the can assume think tank focused on syria and middle east he joins me now via skype from milton keynes here in the u.k. thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us what do you make of not just the evacuation of these white helmet workers but also the way in which the

operation was conducted. from the government quarters in syria there's. always look to suspicion to the want him to touch and talk till now being smuggled into jordan through israel or through your mind how it's going to be more specific. if you know who he adds to the theory and they are basically sponsored by the sea people who sponsor intervenes in syria so they didn't want well for the syrians that's how they've used in damascus so in a sense. they could if one could say i mean nobody is sure of that it just explodes well you could argue why didn't they just go through jordan what invade iraq to the good people to jordan some of which well they have had to go through the golan heights so i'm in a sense in the mosque this will be you know clearly what we're hearing reports is

that it was not only what humans who were evacuees are you four hundred ten or so. but also other people in the real number isn't actually new on these sites you know other personnel who were actually smuggled to safety outside the reach of the syrian army that sound right so the the way in which this evacuation took place will feed into that sense of mistrust and suspicion. that has been directed towards the white helmets why didn't they just go through jordan directly that. we don't know the the most probable explanation is that their main occasion was in the southern part of the city of daraa on the syrian army actually.