A Canaan, N.Y., man is being held on $1 million bail for allegedly helping a ranking Hells Angeles member and others dispose of three murder victims in Berkshire County. A plea of not guilty was entered on behalf of 62-year-old David Casey in Central Berkshire District Court on Monday. He is charged with accessory after the facts of murder, kidnapping and intimidation of a witness. It was not immediately clear if he has an attorney. Authorities say 34-year -old Adam Lee Hall, 44-year-old David Chalue and 31-year-old Caius Veiovis were involved in the disappearance and killing of David Glasser, Edward Frampton and Robert Chadwell. They were discovered Sept. 10. Glasser was expected to testify this month in the robbery, assault and kidnapping trial of Hall, the reputed sergeant at arms of the Berkshire County chapter of the Hells Angels.
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The man who bludgeoned Carl Williams to death has claimed the gangland boss offered him $200,000 to kill former Victorian detective Paul Dale. Barwon Prison inmate Matthew Johnson has taken the witness stand for the first time and has told the court Williams talked about murdering people like others talked about football. He has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Williams on the grounds of self defence. Johnson bludgeoned Williams to death with the stem of an exercise bike in their maximum-security prison last year. He said his relationship with Williams soured in the months before his death, but has denied having any problem with Williams helping police. The 38-year-old told the court Williams treated him badly and had to be the boss, even asking him on one occasion to murder Dale. He said Williams boasted of having 15 murders to his name. Johnson told the court Williams knew how to "push his buttons". He said there were "many times" when he would have loved to have punched Williams. But he told the court "if we ever got into a fist fight, I knew in my heart I'd have to kill him". Johnson said he lived in fear of Williams and kept a sandwich-maker as a weapon. He said he feared Williams would harm his family if he asked to be transferred to a different unit. Graphic footage Earlier on Monday, the jury was played graphic footage of the crime scene. The prison footage shows Williams lying on his back outside his cell wearing only red tracksuit pants and sneakers after emergency staff failed to revive him. Williams's head is battered, his eyes black and the footage shows a large amount of blood around his body and in his cell. The court was also shown a video of Johnson's first police interview after the incident. In it, Johnson responds to the questions with "no comment" and repeatedly tells detectives he acted alone. Head of security for Corrections Victoria, Bruce Polkinghorn, has told the court Johnson was the general of a group of inmates known as the Prisoners of War. Mr Polkinghorn said the group was known for its old-guard values, particularly when it came to inmates seen to be helping authorities.
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- Another important drug bust goes down just south of the border as a member of the Sinaloa Cartel is detained with a large load of cocaine valued at over 18 million dollars. Baja State police officials captured 48 year old Jesus Hernandez-Valenzuela during a raid on a home at Tijuana’s southwestern neighborhood of La Villa Saturday. Hernandez-Valenzuela, who said to be affiliated to the Sinaloa Drug Cartel, was the only person found at the structure during the special operation. Inside the drug house authorities also found 214 packages of cocaine, a 9 millimeter semi automatic rifle hand gun, another rifle and 100 rounds of 45 caliber ammunition, amongst other ammo, as well as an SUV. The drug load that weighed little more than 232 kilos has a street value of over 18 million dollars.
Read more...The alleged leader of a drug smuggling organization accused of moving thousands of pounds of marijuana between Maricopa, Arizona, and the Phoenix metropolitan area was arrested Thursday following a major multi-agency enforcement operation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Pinal County Sheriff's Office (PCSO). Jose Sarinana-Placencia, 28, and five members of his organization are facing state and federal drug smuggling and weapons charges. The arrests were made after teams of law enforcement officials executed seven search warrants early Thursday morning at locations in Chandler, Ariz.; Mesa, Ariz.; and Maricopa. In addition to the arrests, officials seized 10 weapons, including a Mac-10 pistol and two ballistic vests. "From every indication, this organization has been a major player in moving narcotics smuggled in from Mexico to the Phoenix area," said Matt Allen, special agent in charge of ICE HSI in Phoenix. "By teaming up with PCSO on this complex investigation, we have been able to expose this network and shut it down." Sarinana's smuggling organization is suspecting of moving multiple tons of marijuana every month. ICE HSI and PCSO opened an investigation into the organization in February. Before Thursday's operation, the investigation had led to the seizure of approximately 3,000 pounds of marijuana, more than $300,000, nearly three pounds of cocaine and 22 weapons. "The drug cartels of Mexico are trying harder and harder everyday to move their illegal drugs throughout the United States," said Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu. "This investigation is a prime example of the cooperative efforts needed by federal, state, county, city, and tribal law enforcement agencies to combat their operations. The Pinal County Sheriff's Office will continue to work with our fellow law enforcement partners during this ongoing war." The investigation was conducted by the Pinal County Drug Task Force, a partnership between HSI and PCSO funded by the Arizona High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA). Numerous agencies, including the Chandler Police Department, the El Mirage Police Department, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Border Patrol and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Air and Marine, assisted ICE HSI and PCSO with executing the search warrants and arresting suspected smugglers.  |
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Milly Dowler's family have been offered a multimillion-pound settlement offer by Rupert Murdoch's News International, in an attempt to settle the phone-hacking case that led to closure of the News of the World and the resignation of the company's chief executive, Rebekah Brooks. It is understood that News International has made a settlement offer estimated by sources at close to £3m, a figure that include a £1m donation to charity. But the publisher has not yet reached agreement with the Dowler family, whose lawyers were thought to be seeking a settlement figure of closer to £3.5m. The seven-figure sums under negotiation are far larger than other phone-hacking settlements reached, reflecting the fact that the phone-hacking case affected a family who were victims of crime. Thirteen-year-old Dowler went missing in March 2002 and was later found murdered. It emerged in July that Milly Dowler's mobile phone had been hacked after her death. Voicemails were accessed on behalf of the News of the World, and messages left for her were deleted to make room for more recordings. This gave the family false hope that she was still alive, because messages were disappearing. On Monday afternoon there was growing speculation that a deal is close, although other sources familiar with the negotiations indicated that there are still enough matters unresolved to mean that an agreement in principle had not yet been reached behind the scenes. Sienna Miller accepted £100,000 from News International after the publisher accepted unconditional liability for her phone-hacking and other privacy and harassment claims in May. A month later Andy Gray accepted £20,000 in damages plus undisclosed costs. Other lawyers bringing phone-hacking cases are privately indicated that they would be advising many of those bringing actions to try and reach a settlement rather than take their cases to lengthy and expensive trials. A handful of cases have been taken forward as lead actions by Mr Justice Vos, to establish a benchmark for settlements in future lawsuits. Murdoch met with the Dowler family in July, shortly after the original story about hacking into her phone broke, making what the family's lawyer, Mark Lewis, said was a "full and humble" apology. The News Corporation chairman and chief executive "held his head in his hands" and repeatedly told the family he was "very, very sorry".Phone hacking: Milly Dowler's family are understood to have been offered a seven-figure settlement. Photograph: Surrey Police/PA
Mexican marines have recaptured a fugitive suspected trafficker, who had been arrested 13 years earlier, along with the man who was to become the Gulf Cartel's top leader.
Manuel Alquisires Garcia is the cartel's alleged finance officer, the Mexican navy said in a statement, and he was captured by marines on Saturday in the city of Tampico.
Among the items seized allegedly from Manuel Alquisires Garcia included a gold plated pistol, wads of cash and jewellery.
Recaptured: Mexican Navy marines escort Manuel Alquisires Garcia, alias 'El Meme,' during a presentation to the press in Mexico City
Alquisires, aka ‘El Meme’, was originally arrested in June 1998 along with Osiel Cardenas Guillen.
Cardenas later escaped and went on to become the Gulf Cartel's leader before being recaptured in 2003.
He was extradited to the U.S. in 2006 and sentenced last year to 25 years in federal prison.
Alquisires escaped from a prison in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, in 2002, three years after his arrest, prosecutors said yesterday.
The golden gun: A gold plated pistol and jewellery were among the items allegedly seized from Mauel Alquisires Garcia in Mexico
Bling seized: Part of the arsenal and personal things of alleged financial agent of the drug 'Cartel del Golfo', Manuel Alquisires Garcia, including wads of cash
Zetas hitmen, who at the time were still allied to the Gulf Cartel, allegedly orchestrated his escape.
He had evaded authorities until Saturday.
Alquisires is suspected of trafficking cocaine from Guatemala for the Gulf Cartel.
Also on Monday, the Mexican navy said it captured 13 gunmen, including a suspect in the killing of a marine, who said to be members of the Zetas drug cartel.
The navy said in a statement the men were arrested Friday in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz and were carrying grenades and computers.
Mass of weapons: The arsenal and personal items allegedly belonging to Garcia were shown during a presentation to the press in Mexico City
Under arrest: Mexican marines escort alleged financial agent of the drug 'Cartel del Golfo', Manuel Alquisires Garcia, aka 'El Meme' and also know as Agustin Sanchez Morua
Detained again: Alquisires was originally arrested in June 1998 along with Osiel Cardenas Guillen
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SHAMED Scottish boxer Scott Harrison is a free man after being released from a Costa del Sol prison. Harrison, 34, walked free from the notorious Botafuego jail near Algeciras after serving two and a half years for assaulting a policeman, and factory worker Jose Manuel Ortega in 2006. The former WBO title holder was jailed in 2009 for the assault – which took place in Alhaurin el Grande – but could still face extra jail time for another alleged attack in a Costa del Sol brothel in May 2007. He and cousins David McGill, 37, and Edward McGill, 39, were accused of battering bar boss Rafael Sainz Maza, 31, with Harrison facing three counts of assault. Following his release on Saturday, the Glaswegian spent time with his family at an apartment in Estepona’s Albayt Resort before strolling along Bermuda Beach with his fiancee Stacey Gardner, 27, and two-year-old son Jack. The father-of-three returned to the UK on Sunday, flying from Gibraltar in a possible bid to avoid the Spanish airport authorities. In 2009, Harrison told the Olive Press of his determination to rebuild his career once he was released. “I can tell you now that Scott Harrison will be back. I want to repay the fans for the faith they have shown in me,” he said. “I have never been so focussed and determined in my entire life. Being locked up helps develop that. “I’ll have a clean slate – a new start and the determination to show everyone I’m back.”
Read more...Vicente Zambada's lawyers claim he and other cartel leaders were granted immunity by U.S. agents — and carte blanche to smuggle cocaine over the border — in exchange for intelligence about rival cartels engaged in bloody turf wars in Mexico. Controversial defence: Vicente Zambada's claim could throw new light on how U.S. authorities deal with Mexican drug cartels Experts scoff at the claim, which U.S. prosecutors are expected to answer in a filing Friday in federal court. But records filed in support of his proposed defence have offered a peek at the sordid world of Mexico's largest drug syndicate, the Sinaloa cartel, which is run by his father, Ismael Zambada, and Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman. It's a world of brutality, greed and snitching, and federal agents would love to have the younger Zambada pass along more intelligence, especially if it could help bring down his family's operation or lead to the capture of Guzman, a billionaire who escaped from a Mexican prison in a laundry truck in 2001. Main man: Vicente's father Ismael Zambada, godfather of the Sinaloa cartel, pictured at a party in 1993 'It comes down to whether he would be willing to give up his dad or Guzman,' said David Shirk, who heads the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. 'Would he be willing to give up his own dad? It seems unlikely.' Zambada, 35, has rarely been seen since his 2009 arrest in Mexico City, after which Mexican authorities paraded him before TV cameras in a stylish black blazer and dark blue jeans. His suave image was a sharp contrast to a photo of him with moustache and cowboy hat released by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2007. He may have upgraded his look after he assumed control over cartel logistics in 2008 and, federal officials say, received authority to order assassinations. Mexico's most wanted man: Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, who escaped from prison in a laundry truck He was arrested and extradited to Chicago a year later to face trafficking conspiracy charges punishable by up to life in prison. The Sinaloa cartel is one of Mexico's most powerful. Named after the Pacific coast state of the same name, it controls trafficking on the border with California and is battling rival cartels in an effort to expand east along the 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border. Accustomed to luxury in Mexico, Zambada has been held in a 10ft by 6ft cell in Chicago, is often served meals that have gone cold and hasn't been outside in 18 months, his attorneys say. U.S. District Court Judge Ruben Castillo told the government on Thursday to file a response to those complaints. Armed marshals led the shackled Zambada into Thursday's hearing. He appeared at ease, even smiling and winking at a woman sitting on a spectators' bench. Castillo will decide later whether Zambada's provocative immunity claim has any credibility, but many experts said they were skeptical. 'Personally, I think it is a bunch of malarkey,' said Scott Stewart, who analyzes Mexico's cartels for the Texas-based Stratfor global intelligence company. 'I mean, what the defence is saying is that a huge amount of cocaine was allowed to pass into the United States unimpeded. 'Why would you even have sought his extradition if there was this potential backlash?" U.S. prosecutors briefly discounted Zambada's claim in one filing, but more details are expected in Friday's documents. A spokesman for U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald would not comment on the allegation. Neither would a Washington spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, whose agents Zambada claims to have dealt with in Mexico. However, clandestine intelligence deals are not uncommon, and conspiracy theories abound in Mexico about the government going easy on one cartel to keep the others under control.'It comes down to whether he would be willing to give up his own dad. It seems unlikely'
Addressing the Special Court in Belgrade, Kalinić confirmed that the shooter was Zvezdan Jovanović. Jovanović has already been found guilty and convicted on the charge, along with Milorad Ulemek Legija, who was tried as the main conspirator. "After the murder I was sitting with Jovanović and (one of Zemun Clan leaders) Mile Luković Kum, and we were watching TV when Jovanović said, 'I guarantee that he is not alive'," Kalinić told the judges as his retrial in the Đinđić murder case started on Monday. He also claimed that Luković told him that "Zveki (Zvezdan Jovanović) bumped off the prime minister", and that Jovanović himself confirmed this. But Kalinić denied that he had any role in the assassination, and told the judges he was "asleep" when the murder took place on March 12, 2003, and that Luković "called him around 13:00". He confirmed that he was acquainted with Jovanović since 1993, that he "saw Milorad Ulemek (Legija) once in Bosnia", and that he met the Zemun Clan leader Dušan Spasojević, "a couple of years before the murder of Đinđić". Kalinić also denied that he was a member of the Zemun Clan. Another gangster that spent years on the run after the assassination, Miloš Simović, was in the courtroom for the start of his retrial in the case. Both were originally found guilty and each sentenced in absentia to 30 years in prison, but the retrial was granted on grounds that they were "tried in absentia". Unlike Kalinić, Simović admitted to taking part in the murder, and said he "also knew about the political background", but refused to elaborate on this point. Last June, Simović shot and wounded Kalinić in Zagreb, Croatia, and was arrested several days later while attempting to cross the border between into Serbia. Kalinić was arrested in Croatia and later extradited to Serbia.
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GANGLAND hardman Martin Foley has taken to his bike in a bid to dodge another assassination attempt. ''The Viper' is paranoid about car bombs and hitmen outside his Dublin home after 'Dapper Don' Christy Kinahan offered €60,000 to have him whacked. Each morning Foley, who has survived four murder bids already, checks for hidden devices under his car and is now cycling instead of driving himself. And the Viper is not the only gangland tough guy under siege this weekend. Violent mob boss 'Fat' Freddie Thompson is holed up at his mother's house after it was firebombed by rivals who want him dead. Thompson has even gone to the gardai looking for protection as the feud threatens to explode. Viper's Vicious Cycle MARTIN 'The Viper' Foley has been warned that his life is in serious danger after 'The Dapper Don' Christy Kinahan put a €60,000 bounty on his head.
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West Vancouver man with ties to several criminal gangs vanished Sept. 5, only two days before he was due to be sentenced for a drug trafficking conviction. Police say Omid Bayani, 36, appeared to be headed to one of the North Shore gyms he frequented when he left his home that afternoon, but hasn't been seen since. A senior figure in the UN Gang, Bayani arranged to sell 600 litres of the date rape drug GHB to a Hells Angels chapter in Toronto in 2007. But the operation was infiltrated by the Ontario Provincial Police and Bayani was convicted of trafficking. The Crown was asking for a sentence of eight to nine years in prison, and Bayani was supposed to be in court to learn his fate Sept. 7. Bayani was convicted of a series of armed robberies in Alberta in the 1990s and has also faced a variety of drugs, weapons and assault charges in B.C. over the past decade. According to the West Vancouver police, Bayani is Middle Eastern, six feet tall and weighs 240 pounds. He has short, black hair, brown eyes and a goatee, but no moustache. He was last seen wearing a grey-and-white Under Armour shirt, blue Under Armour shorts and running shoes
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Tripoli: His name of choice was the Brother Leader, though his nearly 42 years of rule were rarely brotherly, and his leadership left one of the world’s most richly endowed countries in shambles.
Now, as the former subjects of Muammar Gaddafi comb through his family’s mansions, farms and seaside villas, the properties are revealing the details of lives lived far removed from the people, ones filled with the signs of their peccadilloes and rivalries.
At one farm, horses wandered by marble statues of lions, tigers and bears, and reindeers grazed by the wood deck of an empty pool. At the home of one son, Sa’adi, there were signs of a life mundane in its seeming frustration. A man who drifted through stints as an athlete, soldier and Hollywood movie producer, Sa’adi kept the English language self-help book Success Intelligence in his master bedroom. Given Gaddafi’s noted flamboyance, the residences of the House of Gaddafi were not quite as grand as people might minor have supposed.
Faux grandeur
They lacked the faux grandeur of Saddam Hussain’s marbled palaces. There are no columns that bear the Gaddafi’s initials, or fists cast in replica of his hands, or river-fed moats with voracious carp.
“For somebody who’s very rich, he was very cheap,” said resident Fuad Gritli, as he drove through a sprawling parcel near the airport known as the Farm, where Gaddafi lived.
In the sanctum of the Farm, there are rolling, irrigated fields. Camels wandered unattended. Still standing was a tent where he met foreign dignitaries, its canvas decorated in pictures of camels and palm trees. “We weren’t allowed to get anywhere near, not even the gate,” Gritli said. “Gaddafi was not living like a rich man, I admit that, said Malek Al Bakouri, a 27-year-old doctor from Tripoli, as he drove past a guest house where water cascaded from a broken pipe in a city suffering from a shortage of it. “But his sons, all the people in his tribe, and all the families around him lived good, and they lived good for 40 years.”
Gaddafi's sons’ behaviour would have made a reality show proud — Sa’adi was a professional soccer player, and Hannibal repeatedly had brushes with the law in Europe. But the sons’ villas on a sand bluff overlooking the Mediterranean had a distinctly 1970s feel. They were not lavish; the brown paint on the patio decks was peeling. But to the young fighters roaming through Hannibal’s quarters — furnished overwhelmingly in whites and blacks, and ringed with plastic grass — there was just enough luxury to inspire envy. “We’ve got to take this over!” said Bahaeddin Zintani, a 23-year-old revolutionary who took turns with his brother lying in bed and posing for pictures before a home gym fitted with a mirror. “This is the first time I’ve even seen anything like this.”
On a black granite bar, there were cases for Johnnie Walker Blue Label and Dom Perignon Rose, all empty.
Muatassim, the fourth-eldest Gaddafi son and the country’s national security adviser, surrounded himself with more luxury. He regularly arrived in a convoy of cars to a farmhouse in the Ain Zara neighbourhood of Tripoli protected by high walls and gates on four sides that were made to look like cinder-block walls. A driveway with a fountain featuring four-horse drawn carriages, and then, an ostentatious pool bungalow, with Roman columns at the entrance and topped by gold domes that looked like Hershey Kisses.
Amid the scattered shards of gilded furniture were relics of Sa’adi’s mundane if coddled life: directions for a battery-powered Barbie doll, mermaid floats that children must have played with in the swimming pool out back, a phrase book of English vocabulary for the finance business. Through his long reign, Gaddafi posed as an ever-struggling revolutionary, his ideas encapsulated in The Green Book. (In one memorable passage, he defended freedom of expression, even if a person chooses “to express his or her insanity.”) But the avowed simplicity never matched his lifestyle, prone as he was to epaulets, billowing robes and shirts emblazoned with green maps of Africa. His all-female contingent of guards was supposedly sworn to celibacy.
At Muammar Gaddafi’s residence in Bab Al Aziziya, his fortress-like preserve in the heart of Tripoli, there was a white binder with hundreds of pages of clippings about him. Graffiti on a wall nearby taunted the Brother Leader, now nicknamed for another distinguishing trait: unmanageable grooming. “Where’s the guy with the crazy hair?” it said.
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POP queen Lady Gaga and Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx have been linked to the alleged bosses of an American drug cartel. Warren Braithwaite, 38, and Kevin Mucthison, 47, could be jailed for 50 years after they were charged with drug trafficking. They were arrested along with 20 others accused of smuggling marijuana worth £5million and distributing it in the US. Both have pleaded not guilty. Braithwaite’s interior design firm has carried out work at 43-year-old Foxx’s LA mansion. And Mucthison was a partner with Gaga, 25, for the 2009 launch of her Heartbeats by Lady Gaga headphones
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Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian citizen, has been found guilty of conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the US earlier this year and has been sentenced to 20 years behind bars. Yaroshenko, a pilot, was arrested in Liberia in 2010 and transported to America on charges of drug smuggling. The case itself sets a major precedent as it is the first time that a Russian citizen has been sentenced to a prison term in the US for intent to participate in a crime in a case that was built by special agents posing as drug dealers. Yaroshenko was arrested in a third country. The reaction from the Russian Foreign Ministry followed shortly afterwards. “The verdict of a US judge, who sentenced the Russian pilot to 20 years in prison on the accusation of conspiring to smuggle drugs into the US, raises some very serious questions,” says the ministry’s official representative Aleksandr Lukashevich. The ministry will continue providing assistance to the Russian pilot and will be working towards his repatriation, Lukashevich added. The Russian pilot’s defense team has 30 days to file an appeal but US officials might take as long as two years to consider any appeal. Yaroshenko repeatedly pleaded not guilty in this case, and the defendant and his family, who arrived in the US and was present in the court room to support him burst into tears as the sentence was announced. Konstantin Yaroshenko is a family man with no criminal background whatsoever and he has never previously stood trial. Moreover, he has never even set foot on American soil until last year when he was snatched by US special agents to stand trial. Neither Yaroshenko’s family nor the Russian authorities were informed of his arrest and no information was given to the Russian side as to his whereabouts, so he was considered missing. Russian officials say it is a breach of diplomatic conduct and a breach of international law and place the blame for all of this on the US State Department.
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Notorious Australian gangster Carl Williams was offering information to the police in the weeks before he was beaten to death in his jail cell, the trial of his alleged killer has heard. A lawyer who handled Williams' talks with the police said the gangster was preparing to provide the names of some of his underworld associates. The lawyer said Williams had become worried about his safety in prison. His former cellmate Matthew Charles Johnson, 38, denies murder. Johnson has admitted killing Williams, but said it was self-defence, adding that he was in a "kill or be killed situation". At the time, police feared the killing could spark another gangland war in Melbourne's criminal underworld. Williams was already serving a 35-year jail term for murdering three of his rivals when he was killed in April 2010. On the third day of Johnson's murder trial, Williams' former lawyer told the court that the gangster had been ready to tell police the names of other people involved in those murders. Shane Tyrrell said Williams had hoped to get his sentence reduced, as well as having his daughter's school fees paid, in return for the information. However, Mr Tyrrell said his client had become uneasy because prison staff had known about his talks with the police. On Wednesday, Williams' father George had told the jury that Johnson had killed his son because he wanted to benefit from the police deal. George Williams, himself a convicted drug trafficker, said Johnson had asked his son: "Can you get me on board?" Williams was one of Australia's most infamous gangland bosses before he was jailed. His life of crime and the gangland warfare it engendered in Melbourne was the inspiration for the TV series Underbelly.
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Dad-of-four Mr Duggan, 29, was shot dead near Tottenham Hale Tube station on August 4, sparking protests and then riots which spread across England. His brother Shaun Hall said Mr Duggan “was wrongfully taken from us.” Mr Hall, 42, said he was “not confident at all” the investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission will solve the case. Little evidence has been offered by members of the community, he said. “What we need is for people to come forward and tell it like they saw it, basically. We need them to come and say what they saw. “If they’ve got video footage on their phone we need to see that – we need to put this picture together. “I think I speak for the whole family when I say that’s not happening, it hasn’t been happening and it has to change,” Mr Hall told BBC. Mr Hall has also told the Guardian that police were responsible for the three nights of rioting which followed his brother’s death. “If they hadn’t shot and killed Mark there would have been no riots. “The police were clearly operating a shoot-to-kill policy that day. They are supposed to disable not kill suspects.” Mother Pam Duggan, 53, said she has questions about the police force’s version of events about her son’s death. “I just want the police to admit that they killed my son. Why didn’t the police shoot him in the foot instead of in the chest?” Meanwhile, the Met Police has refuted claims by the Times today (Thursday). The national newspaper claims the officer who shot dead Mr Duggan is poised to return to firearms duties. This has been denied by the Met. “The Times report and subsequent media reporting following the story that the MPS are ready to reinstate the officer are wrong,” a spokesman said.
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gangsters in this city seem to fear no one, especially not the police. They steal and kill in broad daylight, and some of their actions are designed to instill terror. One day in late August, two vehicles pulled in front of the Suspiros Pastry Shop along busy Constitution Avenue, one of the city's most heavily traveled roads. An elderly unarmed guard at the shop, driven by curiosity, then fear, watched through a window as armed men got out of the vehicles, leading an apparent hostage who had a steel chain around his neck like a noose. The gangsters led their victim to a pedestrian overpass, pulling him up the stairs by the chain. At the top, the guard related, one gangster took out a large ice pick. "He plunged the ice pick in the man's chest," the guard said, asking that his name not be used for fear that gangsters might come after him, too. As the victim fought for his life, the assailants tied the chain to a bridge railing and tossed the man over, where he dangled, bleeding but still alive, above traffic on a service road. The gangsters hung a banner, then descended to street level, where they fired their AK-47 assault weapons a few times in the air. "Then they fired into the man's hanging body," the witness said. Terrified motorists passing along Constitution Avenue and witnessing the scene kept on driving. Time of attack: 11:50 a.m. on Aug. 23. "This is the third guy they've hung from a bridge in Monterrey," said Tatiana Clouthier, a former mayoral candidate and civic activist. Police arrived too slowly to confront the gunmen or make arrests. The proximity of police to many crime scenes, including the Aug. 25 firebombing of a casino that left 52 people dead, has only reinforced suspicions among Monterrey residents that police are colluding with gangsters. A state police officer is in jail, accused of serving as a lookout for the gangsters who carried out the casino firebombing, and prosecutors say they believe other police were involved. Criminal infiltration of police in Nuevo Leon state is not new. In 2009, the state's top public security official told U.S. diplomats that he believed 50 percent of state and municipal police had been bought off by drug cartels. The U.S. account of the conversation is among the 251,287 diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks. The concern about police, Clouthier said, is that "they either are in collusion or they are incompetent. Whichever possibility is tragic."
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Police are on high alert after receiving intelligence about possible retaliation for the August execution in Kelowna of Red Scorpion gangster Jonathan Bacon and the wounding of others with gang associations. Supt. Tom McCluskie, who heads the Gang Task Force, said Wednesday that tensions between rival gangs have increased exponentially since the Aug. 14 slaying of Bacon and shooting of full-patch Hells Angel Larry Amero and Independent Soldier James Riach. The niece of the Haney Hells Angel president was paralyzed in the attack by masked gunmen. McCluskie said it is "no longer a question of if retaliation will occur, but when." He said law enforcement agencies in the Okanagan and across the Lower Mainland are working together to head off further violence. A special meeting to discuss the tensions was held Tuesday between the Gang Task Force, which is part of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, Surrey RCMP and municipal officers from Vancouver, Abbotsford and Delta. A dedicated team of 65 officers will be working around the clock to prevent more violence, McCluskie said. "We simply said this is the situation, and this is the help we are looking for, and everybody is willing to pitch in," he said. McCluskie said the unease exists between the Hells Angels and their associated gangs, including the Independent Soldiers, and the United Nations on the other side, as well as the Duhre brothers of Abbotsford and allies of the late Gurmit Singh Dhak, who was gunned down at Metrotown mall last October. "As these groups all try to determine who's responsible for the shooting in Kelowna, all these conspiracies and theories are born, and as a result, tension is building," McCluskie said. "What happened in Kelowna can clearly happen again at any time in any place. A lot of these guys are opportunist. They have got people out hunting all the time - looking for rival gang members. And given the tension right now, that is something we want to get in front of . There are people obviously angry and looking for revenge." McCluskie said his officers have issued several "duties to warn" in recent weeks, where police are obliged to tell a gangster or associate about threats that might exist to harm them. None of those who survived the August shooting are cooperating with police, McCluskie said. No one has yet been arrested for the daytime ambush outside a posh lakeside hotel. "Our primary objective is, and always has been, the safety of the general public. The wanton and callous disregard for the safety of innocent bystanders was clearly demonstrated during the Kelowna incident and we as the police, must do everything we can to prevent further acts of violence and retaliation," McCluskie said. "We are not slowing down and these gang members have to know that the streets of B.C. are not theirs and our officers will make that message very, very clear to them."
Former Citigroup banker Gary Foster has pleaded guilty to embezzling $22m (£14m) from the bank, money he spent on a lavish lifestyle of fast cars and fancy apartments. He faces up to 30 years in jail. The 12-year Citigroup veteran spent hundreds of thousands on cars including a Ferrari and a Maserati Gran Turismo, even though he is legally blind and was unable to drive them. He hired a chauffeur. Foster, 35, was arrested in June at John F Kennedy Airport as he was getting off a flight from Bangkok. He had quit the bank in January before Citi had uncovered his scheme. A former treasury finance department executive, Foster earned $100,000 a year managing internal investments at the bank. Prosecutors said his scheme began in September 2003 and continued into 2011. He wired the money from internal Citi accounts into his personal bank account and covered up his tracks by assigning phony contract or deal numbers to the transfers to make them appear bona fide. According to prosecutors, between July and December 2010, he moved around $14.4m from Citigroup's debt adjustment account and $900,000 from the bank's interest expense account to his personal account in eight separate wire transfers. In a single transfer, on 8 November, he is alleged to have wired himself $3.9m. The US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn has already seized $16m in assets including his cars, an exclusive apartment in Manhattan's Rockefeller Centre, an apartment in Brooklyn and mansion in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. "The defendant violated his employer's trust and stole a stunning amount of money over an extended period of time to finance his personal lifestyle," said US attorney Loretta Lynch. "We will vigorously investigate and prosecute such conduct and seek to recover as much of the proceeds as possible."
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Read more...In September 2008, 11 decapitated bodies were discovered in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. When police arrested the killers, they found an altar in their home dedicated to Santa Muerte – the patron saint of death for Mexican drug cartels. One year later, an illegal immigrant called Jorge Flores Rojas was arrested in North Carolina for running a sex ring. He, too, had built a shrine in his east Charlotte apartment to Santa Muerte. Flores forced his girls to have sex with as many as 20 men a day while he knelt in his living room praying to the skeletal figure of death. In August 2011, the Mexican army stumbled upon a tunnel that ran right under the US border for 300 metres. It was six feet high and equipped with lights and ventilation. It also housed – you guessed it – an altar to Santa Muerte. Europeans complain mightily that Muslim immigration has introduced fundamentalism to their secular continent. Yet they tend to look upon Middle America’s fear of illegal Hispanic immigration with contempt, as if its paranoia was motivated entirely by racism. Reporting on new legislation designed to drive illegal immigrants out of the Deep South, The Guardian’s Paul Harris writes that it heralds, “The prospect of a new Jim Crow era – the time when segregation was law – across a vast swath of the old Confederacy. [The legislation] will ostracise and terrorise a vulnerable Hispanic minority with few legal rights.” Indeed it will, and that is a tragedy. But the debate about illegal immigration isn’t just about competition over jobs or lingering white racism. Many Americans share the European fear that mass migration is subverting their democratic culture from within. In the same way that exotic cells of Jihadists have established themselves in London and Paris, criminal gangs motivated by bloodlust and kinky spiritualism have been found living in the suburbs of Boston and Atlanta. One of its many manifestations is the cult of Santa Meurte. Santa Muerte is part Virgin Mary, part folk demon. The image of a cloaked saint wielding a scythe is supposed to offer those who venerate it spiritual protection. Offerings come in the form of flowers, alcohol, sweets and tobacco. Contraband can be used to invoke protection from the police. For the poor of Mexico – a nation torn between extremes of wealth and injustice – Santa Muerte is a very pragmatic saint. Like the gang leaders who offer hard cash in return for allegiance, she provides material blessings that the Catholic Church can no longer afford to bestow. Tens of thousands of Mexicans living in America venerate Santa Muerte and have no association with crime. Nor is the cult purely ethnic: in North California, the Santisima Muerte Chapel of Perpetual Pilgrimage is tended by a woman of Dutch-American descent. But the prevalence of Santa Muerte imagery among drug traffickers injects an interesting cultural dimension to the debate over illegal immigration. It accentuates American fears that the drug war in Mexico is turning into an invasion of the USA by antidemocratic fanatics. The Mexican conflict has claimed 35,000 lives since it began in 2006. Recently, the violence has spilled over the border and spread throughout the US along narcotics routes that stretch from Arizona to New York. The warring cartels are bound by a perverse ideology, with Santa Muerte as a unifying icon that terrifies opponents into submission. The gang known as Los Zetas marks its territory by mounting severed heads on poles or hanging dead bodies from bridges. Its members are family men who regularly go to church. A splinter group, called La Familia, is fronted by a fellow called El Mas Loco (The Craziest One). Loco has published his own bible, a confused mix of peasant Marxism and passages culled from American self-help books. The goal of these groups is to undermine democracy and govern autonomous secret societies through family, blood and religion. It’s a global trend. The Lord’s Resistance Army that slaughtered and raped its way across Uganda from 1987 to 2007 was led by a man who claimed to channel the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the culprit behind this apocalyptic criminality was the death of Communism, which deprived thugs and thieves of a secular ideology to justify their actions. Organisations like FARC and Real IRA converted overnight to pushing drugs. But in Mexico, family and religion filled the vacuum left by the failure of socialism. Whatever its origins, the spread of the cult of Santa Muerde reflects the fact that the debate over immigration in the US is about more than economics. Sadly, Mexicans seeking work get caught in this existential drama and are either swallowed up into the gangs or demonised in the US for crimes they have not committed. Nevertheless, Americans of every ethnicity are legitimately concerned about their country being poisoned by a criminal subculture that blends political corruption with ritualised murder. Europeans should not be so quick to judge their transatlantic friends. Americans face a vicious threat of their own.
Giant saltwater crocodile weighing more than a tonne was captured in a remote Philippine village following a spate of attacks on humans and livestock, officials said Tuesday.
The 21-foot (6.4-metre), 1,075-kilogramme (2,370-pound) reptile may have eaten a farmer who went missing in July, along with several water buffaloes in the southern town of Bunawan, crocodile hunter Rollie Sumiller said.
A crocodile also bit off the head of a 12-year-old girl in Bunawan in 2009, according to the environment ministry.
Josefina de Leon, wildlife division chief of the environment ministry's protected areas and wildlife bureau, said it was likely the biggest crocodile ever captured.
"Based on existing records the largest that had been captured previously was 5.48 metres long," she told AFP.
"This is the biggest animal that I've handled in 20 years of trapping,"
Sumiller added, estimating the male to be more than 50 years old.
"The community was relieved," he told AFP, but added: "We're not really sure if this is the man-eater, because there have been other sightings of other crocodiles in the area."
The team, employed by a government-run crocodile breeding farm, began laying bait using chicken, pork and dog meat on August 15, but the reptile simply bit off both meat and line the it was skewered on.
An eight milimetre (0.31-inch) metal cable finally proved beyond the power of its jaws and the beast was subdued at a creek on Saturday with the help of about 30 local men.
The local government decided against putting down the reptile and will instead use him as the main attraction at a planned nature park in the area.
"He's a problem crocodile that needs to be taken from the wildlife so that it can be used for eco-tourism," Sumiller said.
Crocodylus porosus or estuarine crocodile is the world's largest reptile that usually grows to five or six metres long and can live up to 100 years.
While not considered an endangered species globally, it is "critically endangered" in the Philippines, where it is hunted for its hide to feed the fashion industry, de Leon said.
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longtime leader of the Hells Angels' Ventura County chapter charged in connection with the firebombing of two tattoo parlors has been granted bail. The Ventura County Star ( http://bit.ly/pPC00U) says a judge Friday ordered 64-year-old George Christie Jr. detained at home with an electronic monitoring bracelet. It was unclear early Saturday whether Christie had posted the $200,000 bail. Christie was arrested three weeks ago after being named in a six-count indictment that charges him and four others with conspiracy, extortion and arson. The indictment alleges that Christie, who owns a tattoo shop in Ventura, ordered Hells Angels members to threaten his competitors in an attempt to shut down their businesses. He has pleaded not guilty.
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Disgusted travellers said the actor was drunk and called out: “I need to p***, I need to p***” then stood and relieved himself in front of the packed flight.
The jet was taxiing to the runway and cabin crew had told him to hang on until they were airborne and the seat belt sign had been turned off. The 62-year-old French star and his two companions were taken off Tuesday evening’s Air France Paris to Dublin flight, which was delayed two hours for cleaning.
A passenger told French radio: “Mr Depardieu was clearly drunk and repeatedly called to cabin crew he ‘needed to p***’ as the jet headed to the runway.
“An air hostess told him he would have to wait 15 minutes until we were in the air and he could leave his seat. He replied that he couldn’t wait then he just stood up and urinated on the floor.”
Flight operator City Jet confirmed an incident took place and wrote on Twitter: “We were busy mopping the floor of one of our planes this morning.” They refused to name the passenger.
Depardieu’s agent declined to comment. The star has been in over 150 films including Cyrano de Bergerac and Green Card.
Phone hacking was "widely discussed" at News of the World, the royal correspondent jailed and sacked for the practice wrote in 2007, according to documents released Tuesday by a Parliament committee investigating the scandal.
The letter was among a string of documents released by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee relating to the scandal.
The committee is likely to call News Corp. executive James Murdoch to testify before them again as members try to determine whether he misled them last month about the scale of phone hacking at News of the World and who knew about it, member of Parliament Tom Watson said Tuesday.
Executives at News International have argued that illegal activities were not widespread.
Both James and his father Rupert Murdoch, as well as former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, who previously edited News of the World, gave evidence to the committee last month.
James Murdoch ordered the closure of the News of the World, Britain's best-selling Sunday paper, in July in the face of allegations of illegal eavesdropping and police bribery by its employees. The scandal has led to the resignation of a number of senior police officers and executives at News International, the British arm of News Corp. which ran the newspaper.
The letter published Tuesday reveals that while fighting his dismissal from the paper, former royal correspondent Clive Goodman alleged that "other members of staff were carrying out the same illegal procedures."
He also wrote that "explicit reference" to phone hacking was "banned."
The copy of the letter, published by lawmakers investigating the scandal, blacks out the name of the person who banned it.
Andy Coulson, who resigned as Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman at the start of this year amid renewed questions over phone hacking, has denied knowing it was going on while he was editor of News of the World. He resigned from that position on the day Goodman was jailed. Coulson was arrested and released on bail last month.
John Whittingdale, who chairs the parliamentary committee, said after its members met Tuesday that he anticipated James Murdoch, as chairman of News International, would have more questions to answer on the phone-hacking issue.
"James Murdoch clearly is the man who is ultimately responsible for News International in this country," he said, adding that Rupert Murdoch seemed to have less insight into the detail of the case.
Commenting on the evidence from the committee, a News International statement said: "News Corporation's board has set up a Management and Standards Committee, chaired by independent Chairman Lord Grabiner, which is co-operating fully with the Metropolitan Police and is facilitating their investigation into illegal voice mail interception at the News of the World and related issues.
"We recognize the seriousness of materials disclosed to the police and Parliament and are committed to working in a constructive and open way with all the relevant authorities," the statement said.
Claims that the voice mail of murdered British teenager Milly Dowler was among those hacked by the paper's staff, potentially hindering a police investigation, sparked particular outrage.
The correspondence released Tuesday reveals that Whittingdale sent James Murdoch a list of 19 questions after his testimony before the committee, ranging from who was on duty at News of the World when Milly Dowler's phone was hacked to what legal fees News International paid for private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.
News International has no record of who edited the 2002 issue of News of the World that included reference to a Milly Dowler voice mail, James Murdoch told British lawmakers in the newly-released written evidence.
Brooks, the editor of the paper at the time, was on vacation that week, he said, and the company records do not show who deputized for her, he said. Peter Smith was night editor, and Neville Thurlbeck, who was arrested earlier this year in connection with the phone hacking investigation, was news editor.
James Murdoch was asked to provide the written response after additional questions were raised by a former editor of the News of the World and the paper's former head of legal affairs, Colin Myler and Tom Crone. They said Murdoch had been "mistaken" in his testimony regarding an important piece of evidence.
Crone and Myler said they had told Murdoch of an e-mail regarded as central to the question of whether more than one reporter at the paper was involved in illegal activity. Murdoch gave contradictory evidence to the committee.
The e-mail referred to by Crone and Myler is known as the "for Neville" e-mail, so named for its apparent connection to Thurlbeck. It is thought to have played a key role in the decision by executives at News International to agree to an out-of-court settlement with Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association. James Murdoch admitted in testimony to the parliamentary committee that the payout was for "illegal voice mail interception."
In a letter to Whittingdale released Tuesday, Crone said he believed he had informed James Murdoch of the "for Neville" e-mail in a June 2008 meeting.
He wrote: "Since the 'for Neville' document was the sole reason for settling and, therefore, for the meeting, I have no doubt that I informed Mr. Murdoch of its existence, of what it was and where it came from. I do not recall if I produced it and showed him a copy of it."
"There seems to be a question as to whether James Murdoch misled the committee. We have not drawn a conclusion on that," Watson told Sky News before the documents were released.
He told Sky the letter apparently written by Goodman would be "devastating" evidence of a cover-up if it proved to be accurate.
Whittingdale said the committee wanted to know more about decisions made by James Murdoch as he authorized certain payments.
But it does not intend to duplicate the work of the judicial inquiry led by Lord Justice Leveson into the conduct of other news organizations, he said, and would focus specifically on whether Parliament was misled by in the evidence already given to it.
The committee also has no plans to call Rupert Murdoch for more testimony, Watson and Whittingdale told Sky News.
Two police investigations are also under way into the allegations that journalists from the News of the World hacked into voice mails of people ranging from celebrities to crime victims and illegally paid police for information. A dozen people have been arrested in connection with the inquiries.
There aren’t sufficient humanitarian or compassionate grounds to allow Dany Villanueva, whose brother Fredy was shot dead by Montreal police three years ago, to remain in Canada where he emigrated from his native Honduras in 1998, a Canadian immigration tribunal has ruled.
Lawyer Stéphane Handfield had argued during an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing this year that his client’s crimes and his membership in the Bloods street gang in Montreal North should not be reason to deport him because there are cases where immigrants with far worse track records have been allowed to stay, including terrorists.
The board acknowledged that the Central American country has a lot of violence and street gangs, and that Villanueva’s return will entail a period of adjustment. But it said in its 42-page ruling that the government is tackling the problem and has set up youth assistance programs, including one to have tattoos removed.
Handfield told The Gazette on Wednesday he plans to appeal the tribunal’s ruling to the Federal Court.
Villanueva, a permanent resident of Canada, told the seven-day hearing in Montreal in April that he feared for his life if he returned to Honduras because his name was known – yet he had his name tattooed on his body, the decision pointed out.
“If the appellant truly believes his tattoos will put him in danger in Honduras, he can still have them removed,” says the judgment, rendered on July 22 but released Wednesday.
The deportation order came in the midst of a coroner’s inquest into the shooting death of unarmed Fredy Villanueva, 18, by police Constable Jean-Loup Lapointe. He and his partner, Stéphanie Pilotte, had stopped to question a group of young men playing dice in a Montreal North parking lot when Lapointe fired his gun, killing Villanueva and injuring two others. The inquest wrapped up this year, but the report has been delayed because the city of Montreal and its police force have filed a motion in Quebec Superior Court to stop information about the safety latch on officers’ pistols from becoming public.
In his closing arguments of Villanueva’s appeal of his deportation order, Handfield said even terrorists are allowed to stay if there is evidence they would be tortured in their home countries.
His client was sentenced to 11 months in jail in 2006 for possession of a firearm and theft. He is currently facing two charges of impaired driving, possession of cannabis and failure to comply with a court order. The trial is scheduled for December.
Villanueva also has a history of violating probation conditions by continuing to hang out with gang members, as well as breaking curfew and taking illegal drugs and drinking alcohol.
Chantal Boucher, the lawyer for the public security minister, said during the hearing that Villanueva remained a gang member by choice, terrorized neighbourhoods in Montreal North by “taxing” and threatening young people and continues to “pose a danger to the citizens of Canada.”
Boucher noted that family members returned to Honduras at least five times between 2001 and 2010 and were not harmed. Villanueva’s parents were accepted in Canada as refugees in 1995. Dany, who was 12 at the time, followed with his three sisters and brother.
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