British police charge comedian Russell Brand with rape and sexual assault

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British police charge comedian Russell Brand with rape and sexual assault

2025-04-05 00:31 Last Updated At：00:40

LONDON (AP) — British police on Friday charged Russell Brand with rape and sexual assault following an 18-month investigation sparked when four women alleged they had been assaulted by the controversial comedian.

London’s Metropolitan Police force said Brand, 50, faces one count of rape, one of indecent assault, one of oral rape and two of sexual assault.

Brand denied engaging in “non-consensual” sexual activity.

The alleged offenses involve four women and took place between 1999 and 2005 — one in the English seaside town of Bournemouth and the other three in the Westminster area of central London.

Police said the investigation remains open and urged anyone with relevant information to contact the force.

In September 2023, British media outlets Channel 4 and the Sunday Times published claims by four women of being sexually assaulted or raped by Brand. The accusers have not been identified.

The comedian, author and “Get Him To The Greek” actor has been interviewed by police about the allegations, which he denies.

In a video posted Friday on X, Brand said “I’ve never engaged in non-consensual activity. I pray that you can see that by looking in my eyes.”

He added that "I am now going to have the opportunity to defend these charges in court and I’m incredibly grateful for that.”

Known for his unbridled and risqué standup routines, Brand hosted shows on radio and television, wrote memoirs charting his battles with drugs and alcohol, appeared in several Hollywood movies and was briefly married to pop star Katy Perry between 2010 and 2012.

In recent years, Brand has largely disappeared from mainstream media but has built up a large following online with videos mixing wellness and conspiracy theories. He recently said he had moved to the United States.

Brand is due to appear in a London court on May 2.

Jaswant Narwal, of Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service, said prosecutors “carefully reviewed the evidence after a police investigation into allegations made following the broadcast of a Channel 4 documentary in September 2023.

“We have concluded that Russell Brand should be charged with offences including rape, sexual assault and indecent assault,” Narwal said.

“The Crown Prosecution Service reminds everyone that criminal proceedings are active, and the defendant has the right to a fair trial.”

In January the BBC apologized to staff members who felt unable to complain about Brand’s conduct because of his celebrity status. Brand had two weekly radio shows on the BBC from 2006 to 2008 and worked periodically on a number of short-term projects.

The BBC acknowledged that it was “clear that presenters have been able to abuse their positions” in the past.

Israel controls 50% of Gaza as Palestinians get squeezed into shrinking wedges of land

2025-04-07 14:10 Last Updated At：14:20

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel has dramatically expanded its footprint in the Gaza Strip since relaunching its war against Hamas last month. It now controls more than 50% of the territory and is squeezing Palestinians into shrinking wedges of land.

The largest contiguous area the army controls is around the Gaza border, where the military has razed Palestinian homes, farmland and infrastructure to the point of uninhabitability, according to Israeli soldiers and rights groups. This military buffer zone has doubled in size in recent weeks.

Israel has depicted its tightening grip as a temporary necessity to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war. But the land Israel holds, which includes a corridor that divides the territory's north from south, could be used for wielding long-term control, human rights groups and Gaza experts say.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that even after Hamas is defeated, Israel will keep security control in Gaza and push Palestinians to leave.

The demolition close to the Israeli border and the systematic expansion of the buffer zone has been going on since the war began 18 months ago, five Israeli soldiers told The Associated Press.

“They destroyed everything they could, they shot everything that looks functioning ... (the Palestinians) will have nothing to come back, they will not come back, never,” a soldier deployed with a tank squad guarding the demolition teams said. He and four other soldiers spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

A report documenting the accounts of soldiers who were in the buffer zone was released Monday by Breaking The Silence, an anti-occupation veterans group. A handful of soldiers -- including some who also spoke to AP -- described watching the army turn the zone into a vast wasteland.

“Through widespread, deliberate destruction, the military laid the groundwork for future Israeli control of the area,” said the group.

Asked about the soldiers’ accounts, the Israeli army said it is acting to protect its country and especially to improve security in southern communities devastated by the Oct. 7 attack, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. The army said it does not seek to harm civilians in Gaza, and that it abides by international law.

In the early days of the war, Israeli troops forced Palestinians from communities near the border and destroyed the land to create a buffer zone more than a kilometer (0.62 miles) deep, according to Breaking The Silence.

Its troops also seized a swath of land across Gaza known as the Netzarim Corridor that isolated the north, including Gaza City, from the rest of the narrow, coastal strip, home to more than 2 million people.

When Israel resumed the war last month, it doubled the size of the buffer zone, pushing it as far as 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) into Gaza in some places, according to a map issued by the military.

The buffer zone and the Netzarim Corridor make up at least 50% of the strip, said Yaakov Garb, a professor of environmental studies at Ben Gurion University, who has been examining Israeli-Palestinian land use patterns for decades.

Last week, Netanyahu said Israel intends to create another corridor that slices across southern Gaza, cutting off the city of Rafah from the rest of the territory. Israel’s control of Gaza is even greater taking into account areas where it recently ordered civilians to evacuate ahead of planned attacks.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians used to live in the land that now makes up Israel's buffer zone, an area that was key to Gaza's agricultural output.

Satellite images show once dense neighborhoods turned to rubble, as well as nearly a dozen new Israeli army outposts since the ceasefire ended.

When the ceasefire was announced in January, Nidal Alzaanin went back to his home in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza. His property stood on the edge of the buffer zone and lay in ruins.

All that remains is a photo of him and his wife on their wedding day, a drawing of his son’s face on a porcelain plate and the carcass of a 150-year-old sycamore tree planted by his great-grandfather. His greenhouse was reduced to twisted scraps of metal.

The 55-year-old farmer pitched a tent in the rubble, hoping to rebuild his life. But when Israel resumed its campaign and seized his land, he was again uprooted.

“It took 20 years to build a house and within five minutes they destroyed all my dreams and my children’s dreams,” he said from Gaza City, where he now shelters.

Israel’s bombardment and ground offensives throughout the war have left vast swaths of Gaza’s cities and towns destroyed. But the razing of property inside the buffer zone has been more methodical and extensive, soldiers said.

The five soldiers who spoke to the AP said Israeli troops were ordered to destroy farmland, irrigation pipes, crops and trees as well as thousands of buildings, including residential and public structures, so that militants had nowhere to hide.

Several soldiers said their units demolished more buildings than they could count, including large industrial complexes. A soda factory was leveled, leaving shards of glass and solar panels strewn on the ground.

The soldiers said the buffer zone had no marked boundaries, but that Palestinians who entered were shot at.

The soldier with the tank squad said an armored bulldozer flattened land creating a “kill zone” and that anyone who came within 500 meters of the tanks would be shot, including women and children.

Visibly shaken, he said many of the soldiers acted out of vengeance for the Oct. 7 attack.

“I came there because they kill us and now we’re going to kill them. And I found out that we’re not only killing them. We’re killing them, we’re killing their wives, their children, their cats, their dogs, and we destroyed their houses,” he said.

The army said its attacks are based on intelligence and that it avoids “as much as possible, harm to non-combatants.”

It is unclear how long Israel intends to hold the buffer zone and other territory inside Gaza.

In announcing the new corridor across southern Gaza, Netanyahu said Israel aims to pressure Hamas to release the remaining 59 hostages, of whom 35 are believed dead. He also said the war can only end when Hamas is destroyed and its leaders leave Gaza, at which point Israel would take control of security in the territory.

Then, Netanyahu said, Israel would implement U.S. President Donald Trump’s call to move Palestinians from Gaza, what Israel calls “voluntary emigration.”

Some Israel analysts say the purpose of the buffer zone isn’t to occupy Gaza, but to secure it until Hamas is dismantled. “This is something that any sane country will do with regard to its borders when the state borders a hostile entity,” said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at two Israeli think tanks, the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute.

But rights group say forcibly displacing people is a potential war crime and crime against humanity. Within Gaza’s buffer zones, specifically, it amounts to “ethnic cleansing,” because it was clear people would never be allowed to return, said Nadia Hardman, a researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Israel called the accusations baseless and said it evacuates civilians from combat areas to protect them.

Associated Press reporter Michael Biesecker contributed from Washington.