Max Clifford charged with 11 sex assaults

LONDON (Reuters) - Max Clifford, Britain's highest-profile celebrity publicist, has been charged with 11 counts of indecent assault, including on two underage girls, prosecutors said on Friday.

The 70-year-old's arrest is part of an extensive police inquiry into sex crime allegations against the late Jimmy Savile, a high-profile BBC star in the 1970s and 1980s.

"Having completed our review, we have concluded that there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest for Mr Clifford to be charged with 11 offences of indecent assault relating to seven complainants," the Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement.

Clifford, whose alleged crimes were committed between 1966 and 1985, is expected to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on May 28. He denied the allegations against him when he was arrested in December.

The publicist is best known in Britain for selling "kiss and tell" stories about the rich and famous to scandal-hungry tabloid newspapers.

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas; editing by Andrew Roche)

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Soccer-San Lorenzo captain Migliore arrested, charged

BUENOS AIRES, April 1 (Reuters) - San Lorenzo captain and goalkeeper Pablo Migliore has been arrested on charges of perverting the course of justice in a homicide investigation, the Argentine club said.

Migliore was arrested on Sunday after his team lost 1-0 to Newell's Old Boys in a "Final" league championship match in a police operation at their Nuevo Gasometro ground in the capital.

Migliore is suspected of aiding Maximiliano Mazzaro, an alleged high-ranking member of Boca Juniors hard core barrabrava fans, often associated with football hooliganism.

Mazzaro is wanted by police for his alleged role in the death of Ernesto Cirino, who died from injuries sustained in a 2011 beating.

The goalkeeper's lawyer, Matias Morla, said they would try to have Migliore released as soon as possible.

"He isn't allowed to communicate with us. For now he is isn't going to make a statement," Morla told reporters.

"Since the investigation has a nondisclosure order we have to wait until that is lifted. Equally, the crime he is charged with allows for his release, so today we will ask for that."

Police claim they have evidence that the 31-year-old Migliore has been in contact with Mazzaro.

San Lorenzo club president Matias Lammens explained how police arrested Migliore after Sunday's match.

"The search warrant arrived during halftime and of course with a court order from a judge we are not going to deny their entry. They came in and when the game finished they communicated with the player," said Lammens.

A convoy of police vehicles transported Migliore, who played for Huracan, Boca and Racing Club before joining San Lorenzo, to a nearby police station.

While police continue to search for Mazzaro's whereabouts, Mauro Martin, another leader of the same Boca fan group was arrested earlier this month as part of the same investigation and is awaiting trial. (Writing by Cayley Taylor; editing by Rex Gowar and Justin Palmer)

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Brazilian doctor charged with 7 murders, may have killed 300: investigator

By Anthony Boadle

BRASILIA (Reuters) - A Brazilian doctor who was charged with killing seven patients to free up beds at a hospital intensive care unit may have been responsible for as many as 300 deaths, according to a health ministry investigator.

Prosecutors said Dr. Virginia Soares de Souza and her medical team administered muscle relaxing drugs to patients, then reduced their oxygen supply, causing them to die of asphyxia at the Evangelical Hospital in the southern city of Curitiba.

De Souza, a 56-year-old widow, was arrested last month and charged with seven counts of aggravated first degree murder. Three other doctors, three nurses and a physiotherapist who worked under De Souza have also been charged with murder.

Prosecutors said wiretaps of her phone conversations revealed that her motive was to free up hospital beds for other patients.

De Souza's lawyer, Elias Mattar Assad, said there was no proof of murder and she would prove her innocence.

More cases are expected to emerge as investigators comb through 1,700 medical records of patients who died in the last seven years at the hospital, where De Souza headed the intensive care unit.

"We already have more than 20 cases established, and there are nearly 300 more that we are looking into," the chief investigator assigned by Brazil's Health Ministry, Dr. Mario Lobato, said on Globo TV's Fantastico program on Sunday.

If prosecutors prove that De Souza killed 300 patients, this could be one of the world's worst serial killings, rivaling the notorious case of Harold Shipman, the English doctor who was found to have killed at least 215 patients.

Lobato said the deaths he reviewed occurred under similar circumstances: a muscle relaxant such as Pancuronium (trademark Pavulon) was administered, increasing the patients' dependence on artificial respiration; then the oxygen supply was reduced, causing death by asphyxia.

Some of the patients were conscious moments before they died, he said.

Prosecutors said De Souza felt "all powerful" running the intensive care unit homicide, to the point where she "had the power to decree the moment when a victim would die."

In some cases, De Souza was absent from the hospital and gave instructions to end the life of a patient by telephone to members of her medical team, according to documents detailing the charges.

Last week, a Curitiba judge ordered the release of De Souza and her medical team. Prosecutors sought on Monday to have her returned to custody because she was the leader of the team and witnesses had reported being intimidated.

(Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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Trial starts in UAE for 94 charged in coup plot

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Ninety four people have gone on trial in the United Arab Emirates on charges of trying to overthrow the state as authorities barred international media and several rights groups from the proceedings.

The trial marks is the culmination of a crackdown that started last year on Islamist groups in the Emirates with suspected links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Rights groups have criticized the crackdown and it has also raised tensions with Egypt, which is governed by the Islamist group.

Monday's hearing was attended by about 200 relatives of the defendants who were bussed to the security court in the capital, Abu Dhabi.

Khalid al-Roken, whose brother Mohammed is on trial, said before boarding a bus that the charges were baseless but that he remains hopeful his brother would be freed.

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