Attorneys: Suspect in Colorado theater shootings will plead not guilty by reason of insanity

By Alasdair Fotheringham SERRA SAN BRUNO, Italy, May 7 (Reuters) - Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins has yet to show the form of last season that would make him top favourite for the Giro d'Italia, according to Juan Jose Cobo, the last non-Team Sky rider to beat the Briton on a Grand Tour. "He's not necessarily the strongest rider," Spaniard Cobo told Reuters before Tuesday's fourth stage where Wiggins lost 17 seconds as the peloton split in the final kilometres. "Personally I think (Italian) Vincenzo Nibali is equally likely to win. ...

View the original article here

Train plot suspect rejects Canadian law, cites "holy book"

By Allison Martell

TORONTO (Reuters) - A Montreal man accused of helping plan an al Qaeda-backed attack on a passenger train is set for a court hearing in Toronto on Wednesday.

Chiheb Esseghaier, a Tunisian-born PhD student, faces charges that include conspiracy to murder and working with a terrorist group. He and another suspect allegedly hoped to derail a passenger train, perhaps at a bridge near the U.S.-Canada border, with possible heavy loss of life, authorities said.

Esseghaier, 30, along with Raed Jaser of Toronto, were arrested on Monday in separate raids after what police said was a joint Canada-U.S. investigation that started last year after a tip from a member of the Muslim community.

Esseghaier declined an offer of legal representation at a separate procedural hearing in Montreal and sought to explain how the words and facts in police allegations were "only appearances."

Canadian police said the plot involved a passenger train route in the Toronto area but that there had been no immediate threat to rail passengers or to the public. They said the alleged plot had no connection to the Boston Marathon bombings.

But U.S. officials said that the suspects were believed to have worked on a plan to blow up a trestle on the Canadian side of the border as the Maple Leaf, Amtrak's daily run between Toronto and New York, passed over it.

Canadian authorities have linked the two to al Qaeda factions in Iran. But they added that there is no indication the attack plans, which police described as the first known al Qaeda-backed plot on Canadian soil, were state-sponsored.

Two hours before Wednesday's hearing, reporters and TV trucks were clustered outside Toronto's Old City Hall, a clock-tower-topped building of dark red sandstone.

(Writing by Cameron French; Editing by Janet Guttsman and Philip Barbara)

View the original article here

Officials: Suspect unarmed when arrested in boat

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two U.S. officials say the surviving suspect in the Boston bombings was unarmed when police captured him hiding inside a boat in a neighborhood back yard.

Authorities originally said they had exchanged gunfire with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-KHAHR' tsahr-NEYE'-ehv) for more than one hour Friday evening before they were able to subdue him.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation, say investigators recovered a 9 mm handgun believed to have been used by Tsarnaev's brother, Tamerlan, from the site of a gun battle Thursday night, which injured a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officer. Dzhokhar was believed to have been shot before he escaped.

The officials tell The Associated Press that no gun was found in the boat. Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said earlier that shots were fired from inside the boat.

View the original article here

Feds deny reports Boston suspect is arrested

BOSTON (AP) — Police and reporters converged on the federal courthouse in Boston on Wednesday amid conflicting reports of whether a suspect was in custody in the marathon bombings that killed three people and wounded more than 170.

Several media outlets reported earlier in the day that a suspect had been identified from surveillance video taken at a Lord & Taylor store between the sites of the two bomb blasts.

A law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press that a suspect was in custody. The official, who was not authorized to divulge details of the investigation, said the suspect was expected in federal court.

But FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in Boston said no arrests had been made.

"Contrary to widespread reporting, there have been no arrests made in connection with the Boston Marathon attack," the FBI said in a statement. "Over the past day and a half, there have been a number of press reports based on information from unofficial sources that has been inaccurate. Since these stories often have unintended consequences, we ask the media, particularly at this early stage of the investigation, to exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting."

The official who spoke to the AP did so on condition of anonymity and stood by the information even after it was disputed. A news briefing was scheduled later Wednesday.

Law enforcement agencies had earlier pleaded for the public to come forward with photos, videos or any information that might help them solve the twin bombings. Police also gathered surveillance video from businesses around the finish line.

The bombs were made from ordinary kitchen pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails and ball bearings to inflict maximum carnage, investigators and others close to the case said. But the FBI said nobody had claimed responsibility.

Investigators in white jumpsuits had fanned out across the streets, rooftops and awnings around the blast site in search of clues on Wednesday. They combed through debris amid the toppled orange sports drink dispensers, trash cans and sleeves of plastic cups strewn across the street at the marathon's finish line.

President Barack Obama branded the attack an act of terrorism. Obama plans to attend an interfaith service Thursday in the victims' honor in Boston.

Scores of victims of the Boston bombing remained in hospitals, many with grievous injuries. Doctors who treated the wounded corroborated reports that the bombs were packed with shrapnel intended to cause mayhem. In addition to the 5-year-old child, a 9-year-old girl and 10-year-old boy were among 17 victims listed in critical condition.

The trauma surgery chief at Boston Medical Center says most of the injuries his hospital treated after the marathon bombings were to the legs.

"We have a lot of lower extremity injuries, so I think the damage was low to the ground and wasn't up," Dr. Peter Burke said. "The patients who do have head injuries were blown into things or were hit by fragments that went up."

Dozens of patients have been released from hospitals around the Boston area.

At Massachusetts General Hospital, all four amputations performed there were above the knee, with no hope of saving more of the legs, said Dr. George Velmahos, chief of trauma surgery.

"It wasn't a hard decision to make," he said Tuesday. "We just completed the ugly job that the bomb did."

The bombs exploded 10 or more seconds apart, tearing off victims' limbs and spattering streets with blood. The blasts near the finish line instantly turned the festive race into a hellish scene of confusion, horror and heroics.

The blasts killed 8-year-old Martin Richard, of Boston, and 29-year-old Krystle Campbell, of Medford. The Shenyang Evening News, a state-run Chinese newspaper, identified the third victim as Lu Lingzi. She was a graduate student at Boston University.

___

Associated Press writers Jay Lindsay, Pat Eaton-Robb, Steve LeBlanc, Bridget Murphy, Rodrique Ngowi and Meghan Barr in Boston; Eileen Sullivan, Julie Pace and Lara Jakes in Washington; Paisley Dodds in London; Lee Keath in Cairo; and Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee contributed to this report along with investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York.

View the original article here

Feds deny reports of Boston suspect is arrested

BOSTON (AP) — Federal officials denied a suspect was under arrest Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bombings.

A law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press earlier in the day that a suspect was in custody. The FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in Boston said that no arrests had been made.

The official who spoke to the AP did so on condition of anonymity and stood by the information even after it was disputed. The official, who was not authorized to divulge details of the investigation, had said the suspect was expected in federal court in Boston.

Reporters and police converged at the courthouse.

Several media outlets reported that a suspect had been identified from surveillance video taken at a Lord & Taylor store between the sites of the two bomb blasts, which killed three people and wounded more than 170.

A news briefing was scheduled later Wednesday.

"Contrary to widespread reporting, there have been no arrests made in connection with the Boston Marathon attack," the FBI said in a statement. "Over the past day and a half, there have been a number of press reports based on information from unofficial sources that has been inaccurate. Since these stories often have unintended consequences, we ask the media, particularly at this early stage of the investigation, to exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting."

Law enforcement agencies had earlier pleaded for the public to come forward with photos, videos or any information that might help them solve the twin bombings. Police also gathered surveillance video from businesses around the finish line.

The bombs were made from ordinary kitchen pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails and ball bearings to inflict maximum carnage, investigators and others close to the case said. But the FBI said nobody had claimed responsibility.

Investigators in white jumpsuits had fanned out across the streets, rooftops and awnings around the blast site in search of clues on Wednesday. They combed through debris amid the toppled orange sports drink dispensers, trash cans and sleeves of plastic cups strewn across the street at the marathon's finish line.

President Barack Obama branded the attack an act of terrorism. Obama plans to attend an interfaith service Thursday in the victims' honor in Boston.

Scores of victims of the Boston bombing remained in hospitals, many with grievous injuries. Doctors who treated the wounded corroborated reports that the bombs were packed with shrapnel intended to cause mayhem. In addition to the 5-year-old child, a 9-year-old girl and 10-year-old boy were among 17 victims listed in critical condition.

The trauma surgery chief at Boston Medical Center says most of the injuries his hospital treated after the marathon bombings were to the legs.

"We have a lot of lower extremity injuries, so I think the damage was low to the ground and wasn't up," Dr. Peter Burke said. "The patients who do have head injuries were blown into things or were hit by fragments that went up."

Dozens of patients have been released from hospitals around the Boston area.

At Massachusetts General Hospital, all four amputations performed there were above the knee, with no hope of saving more of the legs, said Dr. George Velmahos, chief of trauma surgery.

"It wasn't a hard decision to make," he said Tuesday. "We just completed the ugly job that the bomb did."

The bombs exploded 10 or more seconds apart, tearing off victims' limbs and spattering streets with blood. The blasts near the finish line instantly turned the festive race into a hellish scene of confusion, horror and heroics.

The blasts killed 8-year-old Martin Richard, of Boston, and 29-year-old Krystle Campbell, of Medford. The Shenyang Evening News, a state-run Chinese newspaper, identified the third victim as Lu Lingzi. She was a graduate student at Boston University.

___

Associated Press writers Jay Lindsay, Pat Eaton-Robb, Steve LeBlanc, Bridget Murphy, Rodrique Ngowi and Meghan Barr in Boston; Eileen Sullivan, Julie Pace and Lara Jakes in Washington; Paisley Dodds in London; Lee Keath in Cairo; and Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee contributed to this report along with investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York.

View the original article here

Suspect arrested for ricin letter sent to Obama: source

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's boxing pin-up boy Vijender Singh, who had been accused of taking heroin, has been cleared in an out-of-competition drug test, the country's sports ministry said on Tuesday. Singh, who won a middleweight bronze at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, was ordered by the ministry to take a test after local police accused him of using heroin on several occasions amid allegations from a fellow boxer. "Vijender Singh...along with four others was subjected to an out-of-competition test for banned substances," the sports ministry said in a statement. "The Ministry... ...

View the original article here

Serb suspect in shooting rampage dies

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — The Serbian veteran suspected of killing 13 people in a shooting rampage and then turning the gun on himself and his wife died Thursday, hospital officials said.

Belgrade Emergency Hospital said 60-year-old Ljubisa Bogdanovic died from head wounds. It added that his 60-year-wife Javorka Bogdanovic was recovering from surgery and her condition is serious but stable.

Police say Bogdanovic went on a pre-dawn, house-to-house rampage Tuesday in a village near Belgrade, including killing his mother, his son and a 2-year-old cousin.

Authorities are searching for motives in the worst peacetime shooting rampage in Serbia. Bogdanovic had no criminal record or history of mental illness. He fought in the bloody Balkan wars in the 1990s and lost his job a year ago at a wood processing factory.

Residents of the village of Velika Ivanca, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of Belgrade, have said Bogdanovic first killed his son and his mother before leaving his home and going house to house, shooting his neighbors. They expressed deep shock, describing the suspect as a quiet and helpful man.

Funerals for the victims are on Friday in the village.

View the original article here

Colo. theater shooting suspect offers guilty plea

DENVER (AP) — Lawyers for Colorado theater shooting suspect James Holmes said Wednesday he would plead guilty and serve the rest of his life in prison to avoid the death penalty.

The offer sets up a possible end to the case if prosecutors agree to a plea deal. They're set to announce Monday whether they'll seek capital punishment and wouldn't comment Wednesday on the filing, although defense attorneys said their offer hasn't been accepted.

"The prosecution at this time has not accepted that offer because it may choose to pursue the death penalty. Consequently, it appears the only impediment to a resolution of this case would be if the prosecution chooses to seek the death penalty. If the prosecution elects not to pursue the death penalty, it is Mr. Holmes' position that this case could be resolved April 1," defense lawyers wrote.

Prosecutors would likely consult with victims and their families before deciding whether to accept the offer. Holmes' lawyers said the case could end Monday if prosecutors accept.

Holmes' attorneys told a judge earlier this month they weren't ready to enter a plea in the case, and the judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

Prosecutors say Holmes planned the assault for months, casing the theater complex in Aurora, amassing a small arsenal and rigging potentially deadly booby-traps in his apartment.

Then he donned a police-style helmet and body armor, tossed a gas canister into the theater crowd and opened fire, prosecutors said.

Nearly eight months later, the defense has dropped hints about Holmes' mental state but has given no clear statement on whether he would plead insanity.

Holmes, a former graduate student at the University of Colorado, Denver, had seen a psychiatrist at the school before the shootings.

Last week, his lawyers revealed that he was taken to a hospital psychiatric ward in November because he was considered a threat to himself. Holmes was held there for several days and spent much of the time in restraints.

The judge scheduled the trial to start Aug. 5, setting aside four weeks.

View the original article here

Mom, aunt of Ga. baby slaying suspect arrested

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — The mother and aunt of a teenage suspect in the fatal shooting of a baby in his stroller have been arrested on charges that they lied to authorities, police said Tuesday.

After their arrests, both women gave police new information that helped lead investigators to a small saltwater pond where they found a handgun, Glynn County police Chief Matt Doering said. He said the gun was being tested to determine whether it could be matched to the slaying last week of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago.

The new arrests targeted relatives of 17-year-old De'Marquise Elkins, who is jailed on murder charges. The slain child's mother, Sherry West, says she was pushing her baby in his stroller Thursday near their home in Brunswick, 80 miles south of Savannah, when a gunman shot the child in the face and wounded her after she refused to give money to him and a younger accomplice.

Elkins' mother, 36-year-old Karimah Elkins, and his aunt, 33-year-old Katrina Elkins, were booked Tuesday morning at the Glynn County jail on charges of making false statements to police, a misdemeanor. Jail records show both women were released after posting bond.

"We arrested them last night and brought them back to headquarters, where we afforded them the opportunity to make additional statements," Doering said Tuesday. "They did, and that information led us to other witnesses ... (who) led us to an area where the gun was disposed of."

Doering would not say what false statements either woman made. The slaying suspect's aunt told The Associated Press and other media outlets after his arrest that her nephew couldn't be the killer because he was at her house for breakfast Thursday morning and then ran errands with her family when the baby and his mother were shot.

The aunt, booked at the jail under the name Katrina Elkins, told The AP and others that her last name was Freeman. Her jail mugshot showed her to be the same woman.

"He was with us the whole time," the aunt told The AP on Saturday, and she said she gave police the same account of her nephew's whereabouts. "There is no doubt in my mind that he is innocent."

Nobody answered calls to Katrina Elkins' home phone or cellphone Tuesday. No working number for Karimah Elkins could be found. It was not immediately known whether either woman had hired an attorney.

West, the baby's mother, has said she and her son were walking home from the post office, a few blocks from her apartment, when they were approached by two youths asking for money. She said she told them she had none, and an older teenager drew a handgun and asked her: "Do you want me to shoot your baby?"

She said the gunman shot her in the leg, and another bullet grazed her left ear, before he shot her baby in the face. West and the boy's father had just celebrated Antonio's first birthday in February.

West identified De'Marquise Elkins as the shooter when police showed her a photo lineup of 24 faces, she said.

Police also arrested 15-year-old Dominique Lang on murder charges. Lang still needed an attorney appointed to defend him when he made his first appearance before a judge Monday.

West has said she's certain Elkins was the shooter. She said the younger boy mostly hid behind him.

Kevin Gough, a public defender representing De'Marquise Elkins, said Tuesday that defense attorneys are looking closely at possible alibis for the suspect. Gough also said it's tough to persuade a jury with an alibi defense in a small city such as Brunswick. Elkins' aunt lives less than 2 miles from the crime scene.

"We believe very strongly in his innocence," Gough said of De'Marquise Elkins.

View the original article here

Judge won't let Fort Hood suspect plead guilty

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — An Army psychiatrist will not be allowed to plead guilty to any charges in the deadly 2009 Fort Hood shooting rampage, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Maj. Nidal Hasan's attorneys previously said he was ready to plead guilty to the 13 counts of premeditated murder he faces in the worst mass shooting on a U.S. military installation, but Army rules prohibit a judge from accepting a guilty plea to charges that carry the death penalty.

Defense attorneys then asked that Hasan be allowed to plead guilty to 13 counts of unpremeditated murder, which does not carry the death penalty.

No guilty pleas would have stopped his murder trial or possibility of being sentenced to death.

But the judge, Col. Tara Osborn, ruled Hasan cannot plead guilty to those lesser charges or the 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder that he also faces. He still would have been tried on the premeditated murder charges, so pleading guilty to the attempted premeditated murder charges could have been used against him at trial, Osborn said.

She also said he would not be allowed to plead guilty to unpremeditated murder and unpremeditated attempted murder, because that "would be the functional equivalent of pleading guilty to a capital offense." A capital offense is a charge that carries the death penalty.

Hasan's court-martial is to start with jury selection May 29 and with testimony July 1 on the Texas Army post.

Some military law experts have suggested Hasan wanted to plead guilty to lesser charges to try to avoid a possible execution, with defense attorneys hoping at least one juror would have seen Hasan's guilty pleas as a sign of remorse. Unlike other military trials, a jury's decision for a death sentence must be unanimous.

After hearing several hours of testimony Wednesday, Osborn also said she would consider whether to allow a terrorism consultant to testify at the trial. Prosecutors said Evan Kohlmann's testimony and report on Hasan would show motive. But defense attorneys said Hasan isn't charged with terrorism, so Kohlmann's testimony would be prejudicial to the military jury.

View the original article here

Suspect Arrested, Linked to Daniel Pearl Slaying

Pakistani officials said today they have arrested a suspect in connection with the brutal 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl.

Officials told ABC News the suspect, Qari Abdul Hayee, who often used the alias Asadullah, was captured Sunday in a targeted operation by the Pakistani Rangers, a paramilitary unit, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city and a sprawling metropolis home to an estimated 18 million people.

Pearl was kidnapped in January 2002 while en route to interview a Pakistani militant and was later beheaded in a gruesome video eventually posted online.

In 2007, self-described 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed reportedly confessed to having killed Pearl, but it's unclear whether he personally carried out the beheading. Mohammed, currently in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, has never been charged with the crime.

Pakistani officials said they do not believe Hayee carried out the murder, but said he was "privy to the whole situation" and that he was part of the terror group that carried out the crime.

In 2011 a man named Abdul Hayee was identified as one of 27 people allegedly involved in Pearl's kidnapping in a special investigation by Georgetown University called The Pearl Project.

READ: Report Says Justice Not Served in Murder of Daniel Pearl, Wall Street Journal Reporter

Hayee is currently being interrogated and is expected to be handed over to police, who will formally initiate legal proceedings, officials said.

CLICK HERE to return to The Investigative Unit homepage.

Also Read

View the original article here

Ft. Hood suspect may plead guilty, describe attack

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — More than three years after the deadly shooting rampage at Fort Hood, an Army psychiatrist may soon describe details of the terrifying attack for the first time, if he's allowed to plead guilty to lesser charges.

Maj. Nidal Hasan would be required to describe his actions and answer questions about the Nov. 5, 2009, attack on the Texas Army post if the judge allows him to plead guilty to the lesser charges, as his attorneys have said he wants to do.

Any plea, which could happen at the next hearing in March, won't stop the much-anticipated court-martial set to begin May 29. He faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole if convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder.

Under military law, a judge can't accept a guilty plea for charges that carry the death penalty. Hasan's lawyers have said he is ready to plead guilty to charges of unpremeditated murder, which don't carry a possible death sentence, as well as the 32 attempted premeditated murder charges he faces.

If the judge, Col. Tara Osborn, allows him to plead guilty, she will hold an inquiry in which Hasan must discuss the attack. If he says anything that isn't consistent with what happened or indicates he isn't truly acknowledging his guilt, the judge would stop the hearing and not accept his guilty plea, according to military law experts. He is not required to apologize or say that he is remorseful.

Some military law experts say it's a legal strategy designed to gain jurors' sympathy so that they might not sentence him to death if he's convicted later.

"The judge has to make sure he's pleading guilty willingly and that this isn't a ploy," Jeff Addicott, director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, said Friday.

A Senate report released in 2011 said the FBI missed warning signs about Hasan, alleging he had become an Islamic extremist and a "ticking time bomb" before the attack at Fort Hood. It's unclear if Hasan would discuss his motivation, but the judge must determine if he is sincere in pleading guilty or is simply trying to avoid the death penalty, said Addicott, who is not involved in Hasan's case.

Addicott said the judge will be even more thorough during the inquiry because Hasan is a psychiatrist who is "highly intelligent and knows how to manipulate human thinking."

Witnesses have said that after lunch on Nov. 5, 2009, a gunman wearing an Army combat uniform shouted "Allahu Akbar!" — "God is great!" in Arabic — and opened fire in a crowded medical building where deploying soldiers get vaccines and other tests. He fired rapidly, pausing only to reload, even shooting at some soldiers as they hid under desks and fled the building, according to witnesses.

When it was over, investigators found 146 shell casings on the floor, another 68 outside the building and 177 unused rounds of ammunition in the gunman's pockets. Authorities and several witnesses identified the gunman as Hasan, an American-born Muslim who was to deploy to Afghanistan soon.

Greg Rinckey, who formerly served in the Army JAG Corps and is not involved in Hasan's case, said pleading guilty without a deal may signal to the judge that the government is being unreasonable by proceeding with a trial. He also said Hasan's attorneys have few, if any, options for a defense.

"His attorneys know he's going to be convicted at trial, so why not get some brownie points?" said Rinckey, a New York attorney who specializes in military law. "But once they admit to it, it's harder to appeal."

Hasan's trial is expected to last through September. Prosecutors have nearly 300 witnesses, including a terrorism expert who will testify that Hasan is a homegrown terrorist. Among the mounds of evidence is a transcript of a telephone call between Hasan, while in jail, and Al-Jazeera in which he allegedly apologized for being part of "an illegal organization" — the U.S. Army. Prosecutors are expected to show emails that Hasan exchanged with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical U.S.-born Islamic cleric killed in Yemen in 2011 by a U.S. drone strike.

View the original article here

Tunisia arrests suspect in killing that sparked unrest

TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisian police arrested a hardline Islamist suspected of killing opposition politician Chokri Belaid, a senior security source told Reuters on Monday.

"The police arrested a Salafist suspected of killing Belaid," the source said without giving more details. Belaid's death led to widespread protests across Tunisia.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Editing by Jon Hemming)

View the original article here