Three alleged contractor killers were arrested by the police from Hasangaj area here, police said today.Vikas Verma, Avinash Nigam and Hansraj Yadav were arrested yesterday on a tip off with a .32 bore pistol and a crude bomb, they said.The trio had attacked a property dealer on Jul 22 injuring him seriously.The police alleged that the three were also involved in a number of cases.
SUSPECTED contract killer Eric Wilson kept a stash of weapons next to his bed, police documents have revealed.
Detectives who searched his rented home in Spain while investigating a brutal murder in a nearby bar, found electronic detonators and cylinders filled with explosives in a bedside chest of drawers.
An explosives manual was also found there.
Officers seized the stash when they raided the house near Coin, southern Spain, last June after Wilson was arrested for the murder of British ex-pat Dan Smith in a local bar.
Wilson, from Ballyfermot, Dublin, was jailed last week for 23 years for the brutal murder.
The Irishman has been linked to 11 contract killings in Ireland and was questioned by gardai earlier this year in prison in Spain
Two of those cases remain unsolved, both of which involve young mothers who were found dead in their homes. They are added to a string of unsolved murders in Winnipeg.
2011
July 19 — The body of Cara Lynn Hiebert, 31, was found by construction workers doing renovations on her Redwood Avenue duplex. Police said it appeared the mother of four was physically assaulted.
May 14 — The body of Gina Swanson was discovered by her father, a retired Winnipeg police officer, inside her Edderton Avenue home after concerned colleagues at the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission made calls when the single mother didn’t show up to work. Police haven’t specified how she died other than saying the victim was “physically assaulted to the upper body.”
2010
May 25 — Kyle Earl, 16, was shot and killed when armed suspects sprayed his family’s West End home with gunfire at 646 Toronto St. The unsolved slaying has suspected gang ties.
Oct. 10 — Tiffany Johnston, 21, was shot at a home in the 600-block of Selkirk Avenue about 4:20 a.m. Police say the mother of two was an innocent victim caught in a hail of bullets.
Nov. 1 — Daniel Benjamin Kachkan, 34, was found dead in his North Point Douglas home. The former gang member was killed in what a street source said was an “execution-style” slaying.
2009
July 25 — Cheryl Robert, 50, was shot and killed when someone opened fire at a wedding reception at a Main Street hall.
Sept. 30 — Ken Catcheway, 34, was stabbed while doing renovations at a Gallagher Avenue home.
In case you haven't been following it, Lil Boosie, Baton Rogue rapper, is in the midst of a massive legal shitstorm, after he's been charged in a murder and a drug dealing conspiracy. But things just got worse for Boosie and his legal team: He's being accused by a 18-year-old gang member of ordering the murders of two different people, including a rapper named "Nussie" Jackson.
Boosie is currently on trial for the murder of a man named Terry Boyd, who was killed in October 2009. There was a video played in court this week that finds an 18-year-old telling detectives that Boosie wanted Boyd and Nussie "stamped out" and that he paid $15,000 for at least one of the murders.
The Advocate has a thorough rundown of Boosie's legal woes. Boosie clearly wanted to make sure T.I. and Gucci Mane can't lay claim to the mantle of the most criminal rapper.
The leader of one of Colombia's most powerful criminal groups was gunned down by his own bodyguards Monday in the drug-plagued Antioquia province, police said.
New criminal gangs -- whose composition and numbers are hotly debated in Colombia -- are seen as a major new security threat in the Andean nation which has battled drug-linked guerrillas and gangs for decades.
Police said Angel de Jesus Pacheco, the leader of the Rastrojos criminal gang, was shot dead by his bodyguards who then reported the killing to authorities.
Los Rastrojos are one of the most powerful of the six main criminal gangs in Colombia, which have a total of more than 4,000 members.
The Colombian think-tank Indepaz put the total number of direct gang members for 15 bands at around 7,000 and said they operated in all 32 of Colombia's provinces last year.
While bloodshed from Colombia's long guerrilla and drug wars has dropped since a U.S.-backed offensive at the beginning of the century, bombings, murders and combat continue, mainly in Colombia's frontier areas and traditional conflict zones.
Criminal gangs are seeking to expand their influence in an upcoming local vote in October and could reverse a decade-long trend of falling electoral violence, the International Crisis Group said.
Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian who killed nearly 100 people on July 22 in a combined terror attack involving a car bombing in Oslo and a shooting rampage at an island summer camp, reportedly holds anti-Muslim and pro-Israel views, according to a 1,500 page screed the killer uploaded before embarking on his bloody work.
The manifesto, amounting to 1,500 pages, mentions Israel 359 times and “Jews” 324 times, His ramblings spell out his hatred for Muslims, Marxism and multiculturalism, and what the Jerusalem Post describes as "far-right Zionism."
Breivik condemns in the manifesto the Western media that he believes unfairly focuses on the failings of Israel, saying “western journalists again and again systematically ignore serious Muslim attacks and rather focus on the Jews.”
In criticizing left-wing Jews, Breivik writes that German Jews were disloyal to their country before the Second World War, “at least the so-called liberal Jews, similar to the liberal Jews today that oppose nationalism/Zionism and support multiculturalism. Jews that support multiculturalism today are as much of a threat to Israel and Zionism (Israeli nationalism) as they are to us. So let us fight together with Israel, with our Zionist brothers against all anti-Zionists, against all cultural Marxists/multiculturalists.”
Breivik says Israel is the Jewish homeland due to the persecution suffered by Jews at the hands of Muslims, saying “if one acknowledges that Islam has always oppressed the Jews, one accepts that Israel was a necessary refuge for the Jews fleeing not only the European but also the Islamic variety of anti-Judaism.”
The manifesto sets out Breivik's reasonings for the deadly attack: nationalism, and the growth of Islam in Europe.
Entitled "2083 - A European Declaration of Independence", the document says "as we all know, the root of Europe's problems is the lack of cultural self-confidence (nationalism)…this irrational fear of nationalistic doctrines is preventing us from stopping our own national/cultural suicide as the Islamic colonization is increasing annually ...You cannot defeat Islamization or halt/reverse the Islamic colonization of Western Europe without first removing the political doctrines manifested through multiculturalism/cultural Marxism."
Breivik professed no hatred for Muslims, however, saying “I have had several Muslim friends over the years, some of which I still respect.” He also expressed his sympathy for the people of Serbia, and blasted Norway’s support of the 1999 NATO bombing campaign on Serbia that stopped the expulsion of Kosovar Albanians by Serbian forces. He also denounced Norway's awarding of “the Nobel peace prize to an Islamic terrorist (Arafat) and appeasers of Islam.”
Norway's Anders Breivik is not a Christian fundamentalist
The murderer who took more than 70 lives in Norway, Anders Brevik, has been variously identified as a Freemason, Islamophobe, and a fundamentalist Christian. What is he?
Breivik issued the chilling instruction, “once you decide to strike, it is better to kill too many than not enough, or you risk reducing the desired ideological impact of the strike. Explain what you have done (in an announcement distributed prior to operation) and make certain that everyone understands that we, the free peoples of Europe, are going to strike again and again."
Russia has become sadly famous for the fate of its journalists who are best known as the victims of violent attacks or hapless observers sidelined by censorship. Yet some journalists suggest that since President Dmitry Medvedev was elected to the office of president, the situation appears to be improving.
Journalism can prove to be dangerous and difficult work, especially in Russia. Political pluralism remains academic and has never really been in fashion, and inquisitive reporters and other journalists who push back against the official line imposed by authorities are the frequent victims of verbal or physical intimidation, censorship or lawsuits in court. Some even pay with their lives for having tried to shed light on murky areas, for telling “secrets” or unravelling “mysteries.”
There are emblematic cases. Anna Politkovskaya was an investigative journalist for the independent Novaya Gazeta journalist when she was gunned down in 2006 in Moscow. Her murder remains unsolved; her colleagues say her penchant for focusing her talents on the situation in Chechnya and high-level corruption in the Kremlin made her a target. Five years after the murder, Russian authorities detained a new suspect in the case last month, Rustam Makhmudov, in Chechnya. Two of Makhmudov’s brothers were acquitted of the murder in 2009.
More recently, in November 2010, Kommersant’s special correspondent and blogger Oleg Kashin suffered a fractured skull after being beaten with iron bars. The attack was later published on the internet. Kashin had written about nationalism and the ideology of the Pro-Putin youth movement, Nashi, among other subjects. Kashin was recently sued for defamation when he said that he suspected Vasily Yakimenko, head of the Nashi youth movement, was involved in the attack. A few weeks ago, the district court found for Kashin in the case.
Many journalists have lost their lives because of their profession. The Glasnost Defense Foundation, an NGO that defends freedom of expression, documented 322 murders of Russian journalists between 1993 and 2009, as well as another 11 in 2010. Since the beginning of 2011, there have been 39 attacks against journalists. If these extreme cases weren’t enough, the day-to-day work of journalists is largely hindered by the general lack openness of Russia’s public system, the refusal of officials to work with the media in a transparent way and the hostility of law enforcement.
Still, some studies show an improvement in the situation. Mikhail Fedotov, the head of the president's council on human rights, said as much during a conference of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Vilnius in early June. In his presentation, Fedotov showed that over the last three years, journalist safety has improved to the point where, according to his research, not one was killed between 2008 and 2010.
In addition, authorities are increasingly likely to cooperate with the media. “Progress is very slow but appreciable. Investigations on murdered journalists are moving ahead, the killers of Baburova and Markelov (a journalist with Novaya Gazeta and a human rights lawyer, respectively, both killed in broad daylight in Moscow in 2009) were convicted,” Fedotov noted, although he admitted that there is much left to do before journalists are truly protected.
Not everyone in the profession agrees that change has already occurred. “I have not seen any significant change,” said Ilya Barabanov, editor in chief of the independent magazine The New Times, which has been critical of authorities. Since 2007, Natalia Morar, the magazine’s investigative reporter covering corruption within the Kremlin, has been denied entry to Russia “Our job is intimately tied to the level of corruption with Russia’s bureaucratic system, the lack of transparency, and we are powerless in the face of institutions that do not respect our rights,” Barabanov explained.
“In the case of individual safety, the situation is alarming,” said Nadezhda Prussenkova, who writes for Novaya Gazeta. “Journalists are mistreated by law enforcement in the same way that demonstrations are forbidden, even though they are there to work.
Official cooperation has improved
“On the other hand, when it comes to cooperation with bureaucrats, it’s a bit better,” she added. The day after he was elected in 2008, President Dmitri Medvedev gave an interview to Novaya Gazeta, which relishes its role as a relentless critic of official abuses of power. “Officials have simply begun to respect certain laws relating to the media, and their press services to function more or less correctly,” Prussenkova explained.
She is not the only one to note this change in attitude towards journalists since Medvedev came to office. “The president immediately announced that freedom was worth more than a lack of freedom, and today, progress in safety for journalists also depends on the elections of 2012. If the country chooses a man who defends democracy, the situation will improve,” Fedotov remarked.
Alexei Simonov, the president of the Glasnost Defense Foundation, said he believes there is no significance to statistics showing fewer attacks against journalists. But he does believe Russia is experiencing a critical moment of openness: “A foothold has been created by electoral uncertainty; journalists have more freedom in the general disorder. But as soon as the duo has made its choice and the future is clearer, the screws will be tightened once again and journalists trampled upon,” he said.
Medvedev’s statements in support of freedom and democracy have hardly removed the dangers faced by journalists and the limited freedom of expression in Russia. Of course the president has said he intends to decriminalize slander, currently an offense punishable by prison time. But there remains the law on extremism, also punishable by law, which “comes into force as soon as you vehemently express an opinion that is different than that of the leadership,” Simonov said.
Despite these small ripples of change, Russia found itself ranked 140th for freedom of the press in 2010 by Reporters Without Borders (RWB), falling behind countries such as Egypt and Ethiopia, revealing there is still much work to be done. Said the RWB annual report: “The system remains as tightly controlled as ever, and impunity reigns unchallenged in cases of violence against journalists.”
Hungarian migrant who was assassinated with his Thai partner at a property near Sunbury in 2003 was a heavy gambler with unexplained wealth.
The state coroner, Judge Jennifer Coate, has found that Steve Gulyas and Tina "Bing" Nhonthachith died from "gunshot injuries to their heads by person or persons unknown".
Homicide detectives believe that Nihal York, a Sri Lankan businessman, holds the key to solving the execution-style killing of the couple.
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Gulyas and his partner ran a sham love-for-sale agency on the internet.
The Partner Search Australia agency may have been a front for bringing Asian prostitutes into Australia.
Mr Gulyas also had "associations with a number of high-profile criminals in Australia" and had "unexplained overt signs of wealth" according to police.
Homicide detectives also discovered that he attended "casinos in Australia where it is alleged he had turned over hundreds of thousands of dollars".
Federal and Victorian police were investigating him, as was the tax office.
One of his associates was Nik Radev, the head of the Russian mafia in Australia, who was shot seven times when he stepped from his car in Coburg in April 2003.
The coroner found that "there were suspicions that Steve was involved in illegal immigration schemes involving bringing females into Australia from south-east Asian countries to work as prostitutes and the illegal importation of motor cars".
The coroner also said that detectives had conducted a significant investigation into "two persons of interest, each apparently with motives relating to financial disputes over business dealings . . ."
One of those persons was York and the other is a Thai woman known as "Superporn" who is believed to be involved in the sex trade and the introduction industry.
Veteran homicide Detective Ron Iddles, who is heading up the cold case squad, said police had tracked the Thai woman to New Zealand, while York is believed to be on the run overseas.
"We have spoken to the woman in New Zealand in relation to a conversation she had with the deceased woman (on the day of the deaths)," the detective senior-sergeant said.
"We still need to speak to Nihal York as we believe that he holds the key to solving the crime," he said.
Mr Gulyas, 49, and his partner Ms Nhonthachith, 47, were both shot three times in the head on October 19, 2003.
Police believe that they knew the killer or killers. They died on an isolated property that they owned at Wildwood, as there was no sign of forced entry and theft had not been the motive.
A $200,000 reward is on offer to help solve the double murder.
Disturbing details have emerged on how drug lords meticulously plan and execute narcotics shipment into the country.
A secret dossier in the possession of The Underworld on drug trafficking also reveals how the ingenious operations are also fraught with danger as the ruthless drug lords would not hesitate to kill anybody standing in their way.
Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere and other senior police officers inspect a drug haul netted at the Coast recently as the suspects watch.
According to the document marked “Secret/Rel, Kenya” and believed to originate from American intelligence sources, containers carrying drugs arriving at the port are variously disguised as those carrying powdered milk, rice, ballpoint pens and dry cells. However, in reality they are laden with narcotics.
Other times the containers are redesigned to create a fake bottom with drugs being hidden between the fake and the real bottom.
Murky trade
The syndicates have infiltrated the Government with the law enforcement agencies being involved in the murky trade. Rogue police officers, armed forces personnel and even State House officials have been drafted to work for the cartels.
The drugs rings also secretly control Kenya’s freight system including owning and commanding huge shares in some major freight companies. They have influence over the entire depots network in the country and are deeply entrenched at Kenya Revenue Authority.
They use all manner of tricks and disguises to beat detection at the ports of entry, but in the event they are no match for the technology and prying eyes of officers they revert to intimidation and brute force, including contract killings to have their way.
But it is the level of official complicity in aiding, abetting and facilitating drugs permeation in the country that is more shocking.
The dossier shows how the country expressed a high level of frustration with the poor handling of investigation and prosecution by the Kenya Police and the department of public prosecutions of people suspected of trafficking the 1,141.5kg cocaine seized in 2004 in both Malindi and Nairobi.
There was a tug of war between the courts and police over production of the drugs before the court, although technically the drugs were under the court’s jurisdiction once the case commenced. One of the only three police officers said to have keys to the storage facility was murdered early last year under highly suspicious circumstances.
Several of his immediate family members were also killed, sending a chilling message to all those who were positively involved in the case. To show how the kingpins pull strings, the dossier shows how on a sultry afternoon in October at Mombasa’s Kilindi Port a middle-aged man in a dark grey suit arrives at the port to conduct business. The man known only as Paulo, who is also known to be a close associate of a powerful politician in the Government, is a suave operator and owns several clearing and forwarding firms and transport companies.
Earlier that day a suspicious shipment arrived in a container from a Port in Oman. The shipment allegedly contained 100 cartons of canvas shoes. It was later to be cleared by Paulo.
On the same day, Paulo was also involved with a shipment of a suspicious container whose manifests indicated it held ceramic tiles, aluminum doors and locks, candles and additional unspecified merchandise.
In the same month, Paulo imported two containers of used clothing to Mombasa. One container was released but the second was stopped by a customs officer at a container freight station. Paulo paid a bribe of Sh1 million to have the customs officer replaced.
In September 2008, Paulo and a man close to State House operatives and who is also believed to own a chain of clearing and forwarding companies cleared seven suspicious containers from the port.
Paulo had earlier held a lengthy discussion with the ship captain that had brought in the goods the night it arrived. He insisted that the shipment avoid being X-Rayed, as is the clearance procedure. At this point, an associate named B, who has connection with NSIS, came in to assist.
These particular containers may have had ties with Afghanistan due to contact numbers in that country associated with the imports.
Paulo is also a close associate of a man known only as Mo, who is his trafficking partner. Mo is associated with many senior political officials in the Government and police officers who are aware of his trafficking activities and benefit financially from his drugs business. He owns a popular nightclub in Nairobi, which is frequented by influential political figures. In 2008 he received several containers of narcotics, according to the report, from Pakistan, Dubai and Tanzania, which he stored at different distribution sites in Gikomba, Mathare and Githurai in Nairobi.
He is in close associate of a woman who uses beggars and street children in the Central Business District to sell the drugs.
Mo also owns a fleet of matatus whose drivers and conductors are used to distribute the drugs.
He previously used a location near a military base in Nairobi as a processing and packaging facility. He is allegedly associated with an unidentified senior military officer who protected narcotic trafficking activities at the military facility.
Covering tracks
“In late 2008, heroine was brought into the base by body cavity couriers and was cut with chemicals, packaged using special machinery and shipped out of the base in military vehicles to distribution sites,” the report reveals.
To cover their tracks, the cartels have enlisted the services of the police and the Judiciary who are now at their beck and call.
Mo, for instance, is linked to senior officers at CID headquarters and several policemen at Shauri Moyo police station. The officers regularly contact Mo regarding arrested members of his cartel. He influences and coordinates timing and movement of prisoners for court appearances with particular police officers in tow.
In late July 2008, for instance, Mo engineered the arrest of CID officers on charges of abusing one of his female associates. The officers faced fines and dismissal from the force.
Police said Monday they are seeking arrest warrants for a "violent trio" of young men whom they believe are responsible for two recent homicides in East Palo Alto and a crime spree in Colorado that included another killing.
One of the men is already in San Mateo County Jail for an unrelated charge, while the other two remain at large, said East Palo Alto police, referring to all three as "persons of interest" because arrest warrants had not yet been issued when they made the announcement. Chief Ron Davis confirmed they are "primary suspects" in the homicides.
Davis credited the community for providing tips that helped police identify the men, at least one or two of whom are being sought in connection with the killings of 19-year-old Cate Fisher on July 13 and 26-year-old Hugo Chavez on July 19.
"Without these tips we would not be here" naming the persons of interest, Davis said.
Police are also asking the community for information about the fatal shooting of a 19-year-old man Sunday night. They said it's unknown whether the latest homicide is connected to the other two.
Police said they were working with the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office on Monday to issue arrest warrants for the men, identified as 20-year-old Christian Fuentes, 19-year-old Jaime Cardenas and 24-year-old Fidel Silva, all of East Palo Alto.
Fuentes is in custody on suspicion of a parole violation.
Acting Capt. Jeff Liu said police, working
off tips, had Fuentes' parole officer set up an interview with him. Fuentes was arrested July 19 in Fremont after he failed to show up. He was in custody at the time of Chavez's death and is not a suspect in that case.
"We can't say what evidence is linking (the suspects and cases) but we do have, we think, significant evidence that connects the three," Davis said. "Not all three were at each murder scene, but at least one and not more than three were at the murder scenes."
In between the July 13 and July 19 killings, the men allegedly traveled to Grand Junction, Colo., where they are suspected of committing armed robberies, a burglary and a fatal shooting, all on July 16, East Palo Alto police said.
News releases from the Grand Junction Police Department indicate the men robbed a cash advance shop and a liquor store, then shot and killed a man identified by Colorado news outlets as 31-year-old Jorge Carassco outside a Taco Bell. Another man was shot and a third injured by shrapnel during the assault, police said.
A fourth person, 18-year-old Lester Miranda-Davis, has been arrested on suspicion of also committing the Colorado crimes, but apparently is not connected to the East Palo Alto shootings. Grand Junction police spokeswoman Kate Porras said Miranda-Davis is from Colorado; Liu said the East Palo Alto men were in Grand Junction because Fuentes has an acquaintance there.
Davis said police believe both East Palo Alto homicides were gang-related. The police department is "exhausting all of our resources" to find Cardenas and Silva, he said, but whether the men are in East Palo Alto is not known.
"Clearly we can see the kind of violence and the kind of damage they can do in a short period of time," Davis said.
Police said they do not believe Cate Fisher, a Menlo Park gymnastics teacher, was the intended target of the July 13 shooting. Another man in the car with Fisher and her friend was the target, Davis said.
Fisher's father, Jonathan, said he does not know anything about the man who the women apparently were giving a ride home. Jonathan said his daughter was sitting in the passenger seat and the car's windows were tinted, so the shooter or shooters could not see who they were firing at. He also emphasized that Cate was not involved in drugs.
"We are excited by the possibility that the police have found the people that they think are responsible for Cate's murder," he wrote in an email. "We are hopeful that at least this part of this nightmare will come to a conclusion."
It is not yet known whether Sunday's fatal shooting -- the sixth homicide in East Palo Alto this year -- is connected to the other killings, Liu said. At about 10:25 p.m., a 19-year-old man was killed and an 18-year-old man injured when someone opened fire on them as they stood outside a car in a parking lot at 1489 East Bayshore Road, police said.
Tipsters with information about the recent killings may contact police anonymously by calling or texting 650-409-6792, or sending an email to epa@tipnow.org.
Davis and East Palo Alto Mayor Carlos Romero said the community's outrage over the death of 3-month-old Izack Jesus Garcia-Lopez in June, and subsequent arrest of a 17-year-old boy, has helped convince residents they should report what they know.
"If the community's able to see that the perpetrators of the crime against little baby Izack were apprehended within two days, I think that kind of leads the community to say 'Yes if we cooperate, we can apprehend these criminals and ultimately slow down, we would hope, the violence,'" Romero said.
PMK state deputy secretary M Ilanchezhian (42) was hacked to death by a five-member gang that fled the spot even as a shocked public stood mute witness. Moments after the murder, one person, identified as Kasiviswanathan from Avaniyapuram, surrendered before the SS Colony police and reportedly confessed to have committed the murder on account of personal enmity. The police have launched a hunt for the remaining four.
Police said Ilanchezhian, a resident of Velmurugan Nagar in SS Colony, had dropped his school-going daughters near the main road and was returning home around 7.30am when a sports utility vehicle rammed his two-wheeler from behind near Vanamalai Nagar."Ilanchezhian was thrown off the vehicle and was struggling to get up when the gang got down from the SUV and started assaulting him. Within a minute, the gang fled the spot leaving Ilanchezhian in a pool of blood," police said.
Police said Ilanchezhian's killing was a fallout of a gang war with Kasiviswanathan, a functionary of the Puthiya Tamizhagam, leading to series of murders since 2008.
In 2008, Ilanchezhian's cousin Anbu had allegedly harassed Kasiviswanathan's sister Jaya (name changed). An angry Kasiviswanathan murdered Anbu on May, 2008. In retaliation, Ilanchezhian and his brother Irulappan assaulted Kasiviswanathan and his friends. Irulappan was murdered, allegedly by Kasiviswanathan and his associates, in September 2008. On the same day, Ilanchezhian and his gang went to Kasiviswanathan's associate Sitrarasu's house and attempted to kill him. When Sitrarasu's 15-year-old son Vijayadurai came to the rescue of his father, he suffered fatal injuries. Leaving Vijayadurai dead and Sitrarasu injured, the gang fled the spot. A slew of cases were registered against all the accused and they were arrested."But they managed to come out on bail," said police.
PMK leader Anbumani Ramadoss rushed to Madurai and met Ilanchezhian's family."The police should immediately arrest the culprits. The family members of Ilanchezhian should also be given adequate security," he told reporters. City police commissioner P Kannapan said they had formed a special team to nab the culprits.
Ilanchezhian was a council member of the Avaniyapuram municipality. He also unsuccessfully contested in Sholavandan constituency during the recent assembly elections.
MEXICAN judge today handed a three-year jail term to a 14-year-old US citizen accused of four brutal murders on behalf of a drug gang, a local prosecutor said.
The judge considered Edgar Jimenez Lugo "responsible for everything presented against him", including three kidnappings, weapons and drug possession, said Morelos state prosecutor Jose Manuel Serrano at the trial near the resort city of Cuernavaca in central Mexico.
Authorities said Jimenez confessed to killing four youths, whose mutilated bodies were hung from a bridge in 2010 in Cuernavaca, on behalf of the South Pacific drug gang.
The judge handed the boy the maximum jail sentence allowed for a minor in the state, and a fine of 4.5 million pesos ($US390,000).
Police detained Jimenez last December at Cuernavaca airport as he apparently tried to flee the country for San Diego, where his Mexican mother lives.
Jimenez has said he was abducted and drugged to carry out the killings
The US has quietly imposed a visa ban on Russian officials believed to have played a part in the murder of lawyer Sergey Magnitsky, posing questions about EU handling of the affair.
A state department memo confirms that most or all of the 60 officials implicated in the Magnitsky conspiracy have been red-flagged in the Consular Lookout and Support System (CLASS), a namecheck database used to give or decline visas.
The non-public memo, dated 22 July, says: "[US secretary of state Hilary] Clinton has applied existing laws and authorities to implement the visa limitations on multiple individuals associated with the wrongful death of Sergey Magnitsky." It adds: "Individuals included on the list ... are already flagged in the visa adjudication (known as CLASS) system used by visa officers."
The list includes judges, interior ministry officials and secret service personnel said to have embezzled hundreds of millions of euros of Russian tax money and then murdered Magnitsky when he exposed the scam.
Two top names are Olga Stepanova, the 48-year-old head of the Moscow tax authority, and Viktor Voronin, the 53-year-old chief of the Russian secret service's (FSB's) economic espionage unit.
The US normally imposes sanctions with some fanfare, as with Libya and Syria. But the Magnitsky move was kept quiet in order not to create a diplomatic row.
The memo was sent to senators working on a bill which could give Congress new powers to request travel bans and asset freezes on foreign human rights abusers. The memo noted that the so-called 'Magnitsky bill' could provoke a retaliation.
It says: "Senior Russian government officials have warned us that they will respond asymmetrically if this legislation passes. Their argument is that we cannot expect them to be our partner in supporting sanctions against countries like Iran, North Korea, and Libya, and sanction them at the same time. Russian officials have said that other areas of bilateral co-operation, including on transit to Afghanistan, could be jeopardised if this legislation passes."
Heidi Hautala, Finland's minister for international development and until recently the European Parliament's top deputy on human rights, told this website that EU capitals should follow Washington's lead.
"It's a very smart solution because it targets the real perpetrators and not the whole country," she said. "The time has come for new [EU] targeted sanctions on the American model - it could also be a low-key solution, put in place by one of the Schengen countries."
Under the rules of the EU's passport-free Schengen zone - which covers 22 EU countries plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland - if any one Schengen state red-flags a name all 25 must refuse that person a visa.
He said, she said
EU governments regularly complain to Russia about lack of results in the Magnitsky investigation. But they are wary of taking action.
Dutch foreign minister Uri Rosenthal earlier this month refused to ban the group-of-60 despite a unanimous vote by all 150 MPs in the lower house urging him to do so.
Catherine Ashton's European External Action Service (EEAS) ignored a similar request by the European Parliament last December.
EEAS spokeswoman Maja Kocjancic on Tuesday (26 July) said there is currently no discussion of restrictive measures at EU level, adding: "What is needed first and foremost at this point is a proper conclusion of the ongoing investigations [inside Russia]." EU officials previously told this website it would be unrealistic to "consistently" ban foreign nationals involved in high-level corruption or murders.
For his part, Bill Browder, Magnitsky's former employer, a US-born venture capitalist who lives in the UK, welcomed the US visa ban.
"It is a major precedent to create sanctions against human rights abusers from countries with [which you have] normal diplomatic relations. If this had been in place before, you wouldn't have seen the Western-approved excesses that led to revolutions in places like Egypt and Tunisia," he said.
Magnitsky, a 37-year-old father-of-two, died in jail in 2009 when his abdominal membrane burst because he was denied medication for pancreatitis.
shootout at the municipal jail in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's murder capital, left 17 inmates dead and 20 others wounded, a city spokesman said Tuesday.
The shootout occurred Monday night at the jail in Juarez, located across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, municipal spokesman Manuel del Castillo said.
A woman was among those killed in the incident, Del Castillo said, adding that four of the wounded inmates were listed in serious condition at a hospital in the border city.
Shooting broke out between members of the rival Los Aztecas and Los Mexicles gangs at the prison, the city spokesman said.
Los Mexicles works as the armed wing of the Sinaloa drug cartel in the border city, while Los Aztecas provides enforcers for La Linea, a gang allied with the Juarez cartel.
The cartels have been battling for control of the border city, unleashing a wave of violence that has left thousands of people dead since 2006.
The gang members had firearms and gained control of guards' weapons, jail spokesman Hector Conde said.
Army troops, Federal Police officers and municipal police, as well as transit police officers, were sent to the jail to end the shootout, which lasted more than one hour.
The situation at the jail, which houses about 2,300 prisoners, was brought under control around 2:00 a.m.
Ciudad Juarez has been plagued by drug-related violence for years.
The murder rate took off in the gritty border city of 1.5 million people in 2007, when 310 people were killed, then it more than tripled to 1,607 in 2008, according to Chihuahua state Attorney General's Office figures, with the number of killings climbing to 2,754 in 2009.
More than 3,100 people were murdered in the border city last year, making 2010 the worst year since a war between rival drug gangs sent the homicide rate skyrocketing in 2008.
The killing has not slowed this year, with more than 1,000 people murdered in Juarez.
The violence is blamed on the war for control of the border city being waged by the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels with backing from hitmen from local street gangs.
At least 14,000 "armed criminals" are in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua city, the state capital, working for the drug cartels that are fighting for control of smuggling routes into the United States, Chihuahua Attorney General Carlos Manuel Salas said last month.
About 5,500 of the armed criminals operating in Ciudad Juarez belong to Los Aztecas, a gang that works as the armed wing of the Juarez cartel, while the rest work for the Sinaloa cartel, Salas said.
The violence has not subsided in Ciudad Juarez despite the deployment of nearly 10,000 soldiers and Federal Police officers in the border city.
