The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Thursday, November 5, 2009 - 3A

NEWS BRIEFS
EAST LANSING
Michigan State
freshman charged
for building bomb
Four 18-year-old freshmen at
Michigan State University have
been charged after a three-inch
mortar exploded in an East Lan-
sing yard.
Campus police spokeswoman
Florene McGlothian-Taylor tells
the Detroit Free Press for a story
yesterday that the device was
powerful enough to kill some-
one.
The mortar was detonated Sun-
day. Two additional devises were.
found in a car after the students
were arrested.
Olivia Hudson, Sasha Sav-
age, Darby Dudley and Nikolai
Wasielewski are charged with
placing explosives and causing
property damage. They also are
charged with possession of bombs
with unlawful intent to cause
property damage.
The students were released
Monday following a hearing in
East Lansing District Court.
MEXICO CITY
Hospital workers
arrested for selling
newborn babies
Three doctors and a nurse
have been arrested for allegedly
* selling newborns after telling
mothers their babies had died at
a private hospital in Mexico City,
authorities said yesterday.
Police uncovered the scheme
after one of the women learned
her baby was alive and had been
sold to another woman for 15,000
pesos ($1,130), said Luis Genaro,
the capital's deputy attorney
general.
The woman gave birth to a
girl through cesarean section at
the Central West Hospital in a
working-class district in October
2008, Genaro said at a news con-
ference.
He said she told authorities she
heard her baby cry but when she
asked to see the child, doctors
told her she had to wait until the
effects of the anesthetics wore
off. Later, doctors told her the
bsby-had-beery-taken to-amother
hospital. A day later, the woman
was told her baby died and had
been cremated, Genaro said.
NEW HAVEN, Conn.
Woman sues after
mauling by chimp
The family of a Connecticut
woman mauled and blinded by a
chimpanzee sought yesterday to
sue the state for $150 million, say-
ing officials failed to prevent the
attack.
Attorneys for Charla Nash's
family filed a notice Wednesday
with the state Office of Claims
Commissioner asking for permis-
sion to sue.
The 200-pound chimpanzee
named Travis went berserk in
February when his owner, San-

dra Herold, asked Nash to help
lure him back into her house in
Stamford.
The animal ripped off Nash's
hands, nose, lips and eyelids; she
remains in stable condition at the
Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.
A Department of Environmen-
tal Protection biologist warned
state officials before the attack
that Travis could seriously hurt
someone if he felt threatened,
noting that he was large and
strong.

Italy convicts CIA in rendition case

23 Americans
convicted for
Egyptian terror
suspect kidnapping
MILAN (AP) - An Italian judge
found 23 Americans and two Ital-
ians guilty yesterday in the kidnap-
ping of an Egyptian terror suspect,
deliveringthe firstlegal convictions
anywhere in the world against peo-
ple involved in the CIA's extraordi-
nary renditions program.
Human rights groups hailed
the decision and pressed Presi-
dent Barack Obama to repudiate
the Bush administration's practice
of abducting terror suspects and
transferring them to third coun-
tries where torture was permitted.
TheAmerican Civil Liberties Union
said the verdicts were the first con-
victions stemming from the rendi-
tion program.
The Obama administration
ended the CIA's interrogation pro-
gram and shuttered its secret over-
seas jails in January but has opted
to continue the practice of extraor-
dinary reetditions.
The Americans, who were tried
in absentia, now cannot travel to
Europe without risking arrest as

long as the verdicts remains in
place.
One of those convicted, former
Milan consular official Sabrina De
Sousa, accused Congress oftturning
a blind eye to the entire matter.
"No one has investigated the fact
that the U.S. government allegedly
conducted a rendition of an indi-
vidual who now walks free and the
operation of which was so bungled,"
she said, speakingthrough her law-
yer Mark Zaid.
Despite the convictions cap-
ping the nearly three-year Italian
trial, several Italian and American
defendants - including the two
alleged masterminds of the abduc-
tion - were acquitted due to either
diplomatic immunity or because
classified information was stricken
by Italy's highest court.
The case has been politically
charged from the beginning, with
attempts to mislead investigators
looking into the cleric's disappear-
ance and derail the judicial pro-
ceedings once the trial was under
way. But the Italian-American rela-
tionship, conditioned on such issues
as participation in the Afghan cam-
paign, is unlikely to be hurt by the
convictions.
Three Americans were acquit-
ted, including the then-Rome
CIA station chief Jeffrey Castelli

LoC RU NO/
Italian Judge Oscar Magi convicted 23 Americans of the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in a CIA extraordinary rendi-
tion. Citing diplomatic immunity, he told a Milan courtroom yesterday he was acquitting three other Americans.

and two other diplomats formerly
assigned to the Rome Embassy, as
well as the former head of Italian
military intelligence Nicolo Pol-
lari and four other Italian secret
service agents.
Only two Italians were in the
courtroom to hear the verdict,
including Marco Mancini, the for-
mer No. 2 at Italian military intel-
ligence, who embraced his lawyer
outside the courtroom after he was

acquitted.
Former Milan CIA station chief
Robert Seldon Lady received the
top sentence ofeightyears in prison.
The other 22 convicted American
defendants, including De Sousa and
Air Force Lt. Col. Joseph Romano,
each received a five-year sentence.
Two Italians got three years each
as accessories.
U.S. State Department spokes-
man Ian Kelly said the Obama

administration was "disappointed
about the verdicts."
The State Department is being
sued by De Sousa, a former State
Department employee who
denies she was a CIA agent and
who believes she should have
been granted diplomatic immu-
nity by U.S. officials. The judge's
verdict, however, did not extend
diplomatic immunity to consular
officials charged.

Gay rights
activists blame
Obama for loss

Police find 11 corpses in
home of Ceveland man

Some say Obama's
lack of input key to
passage of Maine
gay marriage ban
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -
Stunned and angry, national gay
rights leaders yesterday blamed
scare-mongering ads - and
President Barack Obama's lack
of engagement - for a bitter elec-
tion setback in Maine that could
alter the dynamics for both sides
-inthe gay-naeriege-debate.
Conservatives, in contrast,
celebrated Maine voters' rejec-
tion of a law that would have
allowed gay couples to wed,
depicting it as a warning shot
that should deter politicians in
other states from pushing for
same-sex marriage.
"Every time the citizens have
voted on marriage, they have
always sided with natural mar-
riage," said Mathew Staver,
founder of Liberty Counsel, a Flor-
ida-based Christian legal group.
"Maine dramatically illustrates
the will of the people, and politi-
cians should wake up and listen."
Gay activists were frustrat-
ed that Obama, who insists he
staunchly supports their over-
all civil rights agenda, didn't
speak out forcefully in defense
of Maine's marriage law before
Tuesday's referendum. The law

was repealed in a vote of 53 per-
cent to 47 percent.
"President Obama missed an
opportunity to state his posi-
tion against these discrimina-
tory attacks with the clarity and
moral imperative that would
have helped in this close fight,"
said Evan Wolfson of the nation-
al advocacy group Freedom to
Marry. "The anti-gay forces are
throwing millions of dollars into
various unsubtle ads aimed at
scaring people, so subtle state-
ments from the White House are
not enough."
The White House, asked about
the criticism, had no immediate
comment.
The marriage debate is simmer-
ing in at least a half-dozen states
where a same-sex marriage bill is
pending or where a courtruling or
existing law is being eyed by con-
servatives for possible challenge.
Had Maine's law been upheld
by voters, it would have become
the sixth state to legalize gay
marriage - and the first to affirm
it by popular vote. In Massachu-
setts, Vermont, Connecticut,
New Hampshire and Iowa, gay
marriage resulted from court
decisions or legislation.
California is sure to be a major
battleground over the next sever-
al years. Last year, conservatives
succeeded in winning public
approval of Proposition 8, which
overturned a state court ruling
allowing gay marriage.

In crime-ridden
neighborhood, police
showed little concern
for missing women
CLEVELAND - The run-down
Cleveland neighborhood where
50-year-old Anthony Sowell qui-
etly carved out an existence is the
type of place where women can
disappear almost in plain sight.
Where crack users sneak into.
vacant houses to do drugs, have
sex, then steal copper pipes and
wiring to make a few bucks.
Where no one asks alot of ques-
tions, even about the smell of rot-
ting meat that came when the
wind blew a certain way. Some lik-
ened it to the smell of death, and it
seemed to follow Sowell around.
No one is sure how long Sow-
ell, a registered sex offender who
would offer free barbecue to the
neighbors, had been living in his
three-story house with corpses
lying around, many of them black

women who had been strangled.
Police have now recovered 11 bod-
ies from the home on Imperial
Avenue, in the living room, crawl
spaces and backyard graves. There
was even a skull in the basement.
But if Sowell's street is seedy,
it's far from abandoned. Occupied
homes are sandwiched between
vacant, boarded-up houses and
scattered small businesses with a
steady stream of customers.
"We're not talking about some
desolate area, some abandoned
barn," said Councilman Zach
Reed, whose mother lives a block
away. "How did somebody get
away with this in a residential
neighborhood?"
Even residents seemed unfazed
by the disappearances: They say
many of the women were known-
prostitutes or drug users. But rela-
tives of presumed victims charge
that police ignored their missing
person reports.
"They told us to go home, and as
soon as the drugs are gone, she'll
show up," said Markiesha Carmi-
chael-Jacobs, whose 53-year-old

mother Tonia, a drug addict, van-
ished Nov. 10, 2008. Police identi-
fied her Wednesday as one of the
victims, sayingher bodywas found
buried in the backyard with marks
indicating strangulation.
"It's hard to imagine," Carmi-
chael-Jacobs said as she stood
shivering on a street corner across
from Sowell's home Wednesday,
"but that's what they told us to our
face: 'She'll turn up."'
Some wonder whether police
just didn't look for the women
because they were fromthe city.
Or because they were black.
"There's this fear that the neigh-
borhood has been forgotten," said
the Rev. Rodney Maiden of Provi-
dence Baptist Church.
Cleveland police don't take
missing-personseases seriously if
they involve people clinging to the
lower rungs of society, said Judy
Martin, a leading local anti-crime
advocate.
Reed, the councilman, is
demanding an investigation into
how crime reports in the neigh-
borhood have been handled.

ATTENTION: FRESHMEN & SOPHOMORES!
ARE YOU AMBITIOUS, ASSERTIVE AND SOCIABLE?
Sel dsfo

DETROIT
Teen charged after
killing two in crash
A teenager is being charged
as an adult in a car accident that
killed a Detroit couple.
Wayne County Prosecutor 3 6
Kym Worthy says in a release
Wednesday that 16-year-old
Christopher Verge faces two
counts each of second-degree 7 6
murder, manslaughter with a
motor vehicle, driving on a sus- -
pended license causing death,
and fleeing police.
Worthy says Verge was driv- 3 I
ing a Dodge Ram that ran a red
light Oct. 26 and slammed into a
Pontiac Grand Prix on Detroit's
northwest side. A man and 5
woman in the Grand Prix were
killed. 4 9 8
Worthy says it is "consistent
with the continued rise in cases 4 1
involving juveniles committing
violent crimes."
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports

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