8/14/2019 TheSun 2009-08-10 Page10 Indonesia Awaits Dna Proof of Noordin Top

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newswithout borders10 theSun | MONDAY AUGUST 10 2009

Nine killed in helicopter, plane collisionNEW YORK: Nine people, including five Italian tourists, were killedon Saturday when a small plane clipped a helicopter over New Yorkand both aircraft plunged into the Hudson River. New York MayorMichael Bloomberg said there were five Italian tourists and a pilotaboard the helicopter and three people on the plane including thepilot and a child. Three bodies had been recovered by nightfall andofficials held out no hope of finding survivors.

This has changed from a rescue to a recovery mission, Bloomb-erg said. Theres not going to be a happy ending.

Search and rescue craft rushed in vain to the crash area in thevicinity of West 14th Street in Lower Manhattan immediately after thecollision at noon EDT. The weather was clear and mild. Reuters

Pakistani Taliban in turmoil after shootoutISLAMABAD: Pakistans Taliban appeared in turmoil yesterdayafter reports of a deadly shootout between contenders to

replace the shadowy movements leader Baitullah Mehsud,who is believed to have been killed in a US drone attack.There were also unconfirmed reports of a deadly shooting at

a meeting of top Taliban commanders who convened to discussthe choice of a successor to Mehsud.

The commanders were reportedly Hakimullah Mehsud, adeputy to Baitullah Mehsud and the warlords main spokesman,and Wali-ur Rehman, a senior commander in Mehsuds umbrellaTehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan movement.

We have reports that there was fighting between Wali-urRehman and Hakimullah. I said earlier one of them is dead. I amseeking verification, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said. AFP

DNA tests clear prisoner after 23 yearsWASHINGTON: A Texas man sentenced to life in prison has beenreleased after 23 years behind bars after DNA tests proved his in-nocence, the mans lawyer said in a statement. A judge in Texasreleased Ernest Sonnier on bond on Friday, said lawyer Alba Morales,who works for the Innocence Project advocacy group.

Sonnier, 46, was convicted for a Christmas Eve 1985 rape thattests show he did not commit.

This is a complicated case, but the bottom line is simple: Ernest

Sonnier is innocent, and his long nightmare is coming to an end,Morales said. We have conducted nine rounds of DNA testing onmultiple pieces of evidence for the last 18 months. Not a shred ofevidence ties Ernest to this crime, but DNA testing has identified thetwo apparent perpetrators, Morales said. AFP

Obese man hides gun between rolls of fatWASHINGTON: An obese prisoner in Harris County, Texas hasbeen charged with illegal possession of a firearm after he wasdiscovered to be hiding a 9mm pistol in between his rolls offat, local media reported on Saturday.

George Vera, who weighs around 225kg was originally ar-rested last week for selling counterfeit CDs, according to theHouston Chronicle newspaper.

A police spokesman told the Chronicle that Vera wassearched three times over the course of his arrest and bookingat the jail but managed to conceal the handgun with his rolls offat until it was discovered in the shower. AFP

7.1 magnitude quake hits off eastern JapanTOKYO: A major, 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck off eastern Japanyesterday, the US Geological Survey said.

The quake was felt across Honshu island, especially its central andnorthern regions, including Tokyo, at 7.56pm (6.56pm in Malaysia), theJapan Meteorological Agency said.

The quake rocked buildings in the Japanese capital, but no damagewas reported. Some local trains experienced slight delays.

The Japanese agency estimated the quakes magnitude at 6.9, andat a depth of 340km under the Pacific ocean, roughly 170km south ofthe Izu peninsula. It said there were no fear of a tsunami. AFP

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CitizenNades:Reports:4 Action 0pg 12

Indonesia awaits DNA proof of Noordin TopIndonesia awaits DNA proof of Noordin TopJAKARTA: DNA tests on the body of a manshot by Indonesian security forces during araid targeting Islamic militant Noordin Mo-hammad Top are to take at least a week assome analysts questioned whether police

had got their man.Malaysian-born Noordin, 40, is a prime

suspect in last months near simultaneoussuicide attacks on Jakartas JW Marriott andRitz-Carlton hotels which killed nine peopleand wounded 53.

A militant police believe was Noordinwas shot dead on Saturday after an 18-hour siege by heavily armed members ofIndonesias anti-terrorism unit of a housesurrounded by rice and tobacco fields inCentral Java.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyonohas vowed to track down the hotel bombersand if Noordin has been killed it would bemajor coup for security forces and couldreduce the chance of further attacks.

I think now more than ever we re-ally have to wait and see when the police

identify the body, said Sidney Jones, aJakarta-based expert on Islamist militantsat the International Crisis Group. I dontthink anybody has a good idea of who itmight be.

Noordin formed a violent wing of theJemaah Islamiah militant network and issuspected of masterminding previous bombattacks on the JW Marriott in Jakarta in 2003,on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004and in Bali in 2005.

A police source said authorities hadstarted to seek DNA samples from Topschildren, his mother and other relatives.

The standard process takes about oneweek at the earliest if we have necessaryreferences, said Brig-Gen Eddy Saparwokoof Indonesias disaster victim identificationunit.

Five suspects were detained in Saturdaysraids and two shot dead when police founda cache of bombs and a vehicle primed withexplosives in Bekasi near Jakarta.

Police chief Bambang Hendarso Da-

nuri said on Saturday that Top had chaireda meeting on April 30 where a plot washatched to carry out a suicide attack onSusilos residence using a minibus packedwith explosives in retaliation for the execu-

tion of the Bali bombers last year.Jones said the cache of bombs found

outside Jakarta was important but warnedagainst playing it up too much.

If hes still alive then I dont think we cansay the network has been hugely damagedyet, theres certainly more members outthere, she said. Whats worrisome is thatthey cover a fairly wide geographic area.

The security operations in Indonesia arebeing closely watched in Australia, whichlost 88 citizens in the 2002 bombings onBali nightclubs and three in last monthsMarriott attack. It is still unclear as to whoprecisely has been killed and who has beenapprehended, Australian Prime MinisterKevin Rudd told reporters in Canberra, add-ing he hoped to hold talks with Susilo laterin the day. Reuters

Mass evacuation in China after typhoon pounds TaiwanBEIJING: China rushed nearly one millionpeople out of harms away as TyphoonMorakot slammed into its coast yesterdayafter triggering Taiwans worst flooding in 50years, leaving at least four people dead.

After also leaving tens of thousandstrapped in Taiwan, the powerful stormlanded in Chinas Fujian province at 4.20pm,the provincial meteorological bureau said.

Earlier in the day, a four-year-old childdied in the Chinese city of Wenzhou afterhis familys house collapsed in heavy rains

and winds, Xinhua news agency reported.The child was buried along with four

adults in debris and died after emergencytreatment failed, Xinhua said, citing thecitys flood-control headquarters.

Morakot pounded Taiwan over theweekend with powerful winds and torren-tial rain, forcing the government to deploy

the military to rescue stranded residents.Television footage showed a woman in

tears reporting that her daughter and hus-band had plunged into a river when a flashflood swept away their car in the centralcounty of Nantou.

My daughter called me twice saying:Were being washed away! Hurry, hurry!Then I lost them, the sobbing woman said.

Officials said three people were con-firmed dead and at least 31 were missingas Morakot dumped a record 2.5m of rain

on the southern county of Pingtung.At least 10,000 people were trapped in

three coastal townships, Pingtung deputymagistrate Chung Chia-pin said, and officialssaid tens of thousands of other people weretrapped in the counties of Tainan and Chiayi.

This is the worst flooding in Chiayi in 50years, its magistrate, Chen Ming-wen, said.

Among the missing in Taiwan were14 workers who disappeared when theirmakeshift shelter beside a river in southernKaohsiung county was washed away byrising floodwaters early Sunday.

Across the Taiwan Strait, more than505,000 people were evacuated from theFujian coast and another 490,000 wererelocated in the neighbouring province ofZhejiang, Xinhua reported.

Zhejiang issued a red alert earlier Sundayas it registered a maximum wind speed of

180kph around the coastal city of Taizhou.Gale-force winds were expected to

persist for at least three days and waveswere forecast to reach as high as 7m.

More than 35,000 ships were called into port as the storm approached, Xinhuaquoted Zhejiang flood-control headquartersas saying. AFP

Britain warned on torture,US to probe CIA abuses

LONDON: The British govern-ment was warned yesterday by abody of lawmakers that regularlyusing information gained throughtorture could be legally construedas complicity.

It was imperative that the gov-

ernment fulfilled its legal obligationsto prevent torture and probe allegedincidents, the Foreign Affairs Com-mittee (FAC) scrutiny body said inits annual human rights report.

The report comes as British in-telligence agencies face allegationsof involvement in the questioningof terror suspects in countries suchas Pakistan, including supplyingquestions for interrogators.

It is imperative that the UK ful-fils its legal obligations in respect ofthe prevention of torture, includingany duty to act positively to preventit, investigate allegations that it hastaken place, and expose it, thereport said.

We further conclude thatthere is a risk that use of evidencewhich may have been obtainedunder torture on a regular basis,especially where it is not clear

that protestations about mistreat-ment have elicited any change inbehaviour by foreign intelligenceservices, could be construed ascomplicity in such behaviour.

The committee acknowledgedthat using intelligence supplied byother countries which could avert adevastating terror attack but whichmay have been obtained throughtorture raises profoundly difficultmoral questions.

Meanwhile in Washington,US Attorney-General Eric Holderis poised to appoint a criminalprosecutor to investigate allegedCIA abuses committed during theinterrogation of terrorism suspects,The Los Angeles Timesreported lateon Saturday.

Citing current and former USgovernment officials, the newspapersaid Holder envisioned an inquirythat would be narrow in scope,focusing on whether people wentbeyond the techniques that wereauthorised in memos issued bythe administration of former presi-dent George W. Bush that liberallyinterpreted anti-torture laws.

Current and former CIA andJustice Department officials whohave firsthand knowledge of theinterrogation files contend thatcriminal convictions will be dif-

ficult to obtain because the qualityof evidence is poor and the legalunderpinnings have never beentested, the paper said. Some caseshave not previously been disclosed,

including an instance in which aCentral Intelligence Agency opera-tive brought a gun into the inter-rogation booth to force a detaineeto talk, The Timessaid.

Other potentially criminalabuses have already come to

light, including the waterboardingof prisoners in excess of JusticeDepartment guidelines, and thedeaths of detainees in CIA custodyin Iraq and Afghanistan in 2002 and2003, according to the report.

Opening a criminal investiga-tion is something Holder has comereluctantly to consider, the paperquotes an unnamed Justice Depart-ment official as saying.

The official emphasised, how-ever, that Holder had not reacheda final decision but noting that asattorney-general, he has the obliga-tion to follow the law.

Others familiar with Holdersthinking say that such an investi-gation seems all but certain, andthat a prosecutor will probablybe selected from a short list thatHolder had asked subordinates toassemble, the report said. Such a

prosecutor would examine casesthat are generally at least five yearsold, and probably some that werepreviously reviewed by careerprosecutors. AFP

Indonesian forensic officers inspect the site whereNoordin was allegedly shot on Saturday. EP

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