India retires Cold War spy MiGs

THE STATE, 24.04.06: The Indian Air Force (IAF) has announced it will retire its fleet of MiG 25s, Cold War-era spyplanes, previously shrouded in secrecy. A spokesman said the last of the IAF's four surviving MiG-25s will be phased out of service on 1 May. "It will be a nostalgic event and a flypast will be held," Air Vice Marshal S Mukherjee said. He said the aircraft would be shown at various installations after they had been retired.

The MiGs, capable of flying at over three times the speed of sound, were bought from the USSR in 1981. "It was a darned good machine but even today we are not permitted to speak of the daredevilry these stratospheric planes have been used for," an unnamed MiG 25 pilot was quoted by news agency AFP. "All I can say is that I more than once hit Seven Plus (70,000 feet) with them," he said.

India originally bought 10 of the MiGs from the Soviet Union and nicknamed the 20-ton reconnaissance planes Garuda after the mythical Hindu eagle king. The aircraft were based at an undisclosed location. The MiG 25, which was built in both reconnaissance and interceptor versions, is the fastest combat aircraft ever built, apart from the US Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spyplane. It was designed in the late 1960s to beat the US Air Force's XB-70, a supersonic bomber which never entered service. The Pentagon's misplaced belief that the MiG was a highly-agile dogfighter spurred the development of the US F-15 and F-16 fighters. In 1976, a Soviet pilot defected to Japan in a MiG 25. The US subsequently stripped the aircraft and studied it before returning it to the USSR. They found the MiG was a heavy but powerful aircraft with a 1950s-vintage radar capable of burning through protective electronic countermeasures. MiG 25s were later exported to several nations, including Algeria, Syria and Iraq.

THE NEWSDAY, 28.04.06.

French fugitive "regrets actions'

A French woman arrested 24 years after she fled into exile after a Paris bank robbery has admitted she was involved. Prosecutors say Helene Castel, 46, fled to the United States and then Mexico after the 1980 raid and started a new life under a false name. She was living as a psychotherapist in Xalapa before police arrested her four days before the statute of limitations on her case in France was to expire.

She told a Paris court she regretted taking part in the hold-up. "When I was arrested it was like a cold shower in the middle of a heat wave," she said. "But I realised that I needed to live through this, I needed to be reborn in France to be whole." Mrs Castel added that the year and a half of detention awaiting trial had been "very constructive". "It has forced me to put the truth about myself into words and I do not regret it," she said. "I can say today that I very much regret taking part in the hold-up.

"She is charged with "armed robbery in an organised group" and "taking of hostages to facilitate a crime," and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in jail if convicted. The charges relate to the raid on a Paris branch of the BNP bank by seven masked attackers on 30 May 1980. They took hostages as the police arrived and one of the raiders was killed in an exchange of gunfire. Three were arrested and three fled - Helene Castel among them.

Her three alleged colleagues were given eight-year jail sentences. She was convicted in her absence in 1984 but under French law is allowed new trial after having been arrested. Convicted members of the gang are expected to give evidence in the trial. The fact that she was arrested prompted some debate in France. French newspaper Liberation questions whether it is right to try the woman so long after the alleged raid.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 909