Nation & world briefing
Two men released in sniper investigation
Ron Hutcheson, Ben Finley
and Sumana Chatterjee
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
ROCKVILLE, Md. — A possible
suspect in the Washington-area
sniper killings called police Monday,
but authorities said the conversation
was garbled and they urged the per
son to call back.
an
Police Chief Charles Moose of
Montgomery County; Md.,
nounced the tant
after Virginia
into custody in will
be another investigative_
The men, alleged to be illegal immi
grants from Guatemala and Mexi
co, later were turned over to immi
gration authorities for deportation
proceedings.
In another development Monday,
ballistics experts confirmed Satur
day’s shooting in Ashland, Va., was
the sniper’s work. They reached
their conclusion after examining a
bullet that was removed from the
victim, a 37-year-old man who was
listed in critical but stable condition
at Richmond’s Medical College of
Virginia Hospitals.
The telephone call raised hopes
of a break in a case that has baffled
investigators and terrorized an area
stretching from Washington’s
northern suburbs to Richmond, Va.,
about 100 miles to the south. Police
think the caller is the shooter. But
Moose, who is directing a sniper
ta.s.k force, said the call was garbled.
Speaking to the caller through the
news media, he urged the person to
oontaetpolice again.
. “The person yon called did not
hear everything that you said,”
Moose said, reading from a pre
pared statement. “The audio was
unclear, and we want to get it right.
Moose repeated the statement
word-for-word at the end of his brief
news conference :
Tight-lipped police declined to
provide any details of the caller’s
So that we can clearly
message or the circumstances that
led to the communication.
The day began dramatically, as
police SWAT teams outside Rich
mond surrounded a white Ply
mouth Voyager van that had
stopped beside an Exxon station’s
ty phone. Police yanked two men
m the vehicle, handcuffed them,
questioned them throughout the
day and concluded they were unin
volved in the case. They’d walked
into a staked-out site, said one fed
eral official, who asked not to be
identified, and were merely “at the
wrong place at the wrong time.”
The two men, an unnamed 21
year-old Mexican national and 35
year-old Guatemalan immigrant,
were turned over to the Immigration
and Naturalization Service.
The wife of the latest shooting vic
tim — her identity and her hus
“This has been a frightening and
difficult time, where I have feared for
the loss of my husband, friend and
soul mate,” she said. “The hospital
has taken care of all of our needs, so
there is no need to send anything
other than continued prayer. Please
pray also for the attacker and that no
one else is hurt.”
Doctors said the victim, a 6-foot,
200-pound man, faces a grueling or
deal of three to four more operations,
possibly interspersed with internal
infections and other life-threatening
complications. The snipers bullet en
tered the left side of the man’s ah
<!omen and tore through his stom
ach, his pancreas, a kidney and his
spleen before lodging in his chest
*; “He's lucky to be alive,” said sur
geon Rao Ivatury. “We anticipate lots
of complications. ... The next two
weeks will be crucial.”
Ivatury said the bullet seemed to
explode in the man’s stomach, rip
ping the organ apart. Doctors had to
remove his spleen, half of his pan
creas and about two-thirds of his
stomach. They also recovered most
of the bullet.
Police efforts to communicate
with the sniper began with the dis
covery of a message at Saturday’s
shooting site, outside a Ponderosa
restaurant in Ashland, near Rich
mond. Moose revealed the message
at a news conference Sunday night
and said it included a telephone
number.
“You gave us a telephone num
ber,” he said, addressing his com
ments to person who left the mes
sage. “We do want to talk to you. Call
us at the number you provided.”
By dictating a phone number of
his choosing, the person who left the
message could have been trying to
get police to establish a dedicated
line for his calls.
© 2002, Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services. Knight Ridder
Newspapers correspondents Daniel
Chang, Seth Borenstein and Tony Pugh
contributed to this report.
High court will not
hear appeal about
juvenile execution
Shannon McCaffrey
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
WASHINGTON — A sharply di
vided Supreme Court refused Mon
day to consider abolishing the exe
cution of juvenile killers. By a 5-4
margin the court declined to hear
the appeal of a Kentucky man who
has been sentenced to die for ab
ducting, sodomizing and killing a gas
station attendant when he was 17.
Last term, the high court banned
the death penalty for mentally re
tarded people, ruling it was “cruel
and unusual punishment.” Four of
the more liberal justices said Mon
day that the court’s review should
extend to those who commit capital
crimes before they are 18.
Justice John Paul Stevens on Mon
day called the practice of putting ju
venile offenders to death “shame
ful.” “The practice of executing such
offenders is a relic of the past and is
inconsistent with evolving standards
of decency in a civilized society,” he
wrote in his dissent from the majori
ty opinion.
In refusing to hear the appeal, the
majority offered no comment.
Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader
Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer joined
Stevens in his dissent.
Stevens, Ginsburg and Breyer had
said over the summer that they want
ed the court to take up the issue of ju
venile killers on death row. The case
of Kevin Nigel Stanford, of Louisville,
would have allowed them to do so.
Stanford, now 39, has been on
death row since 1982. He was con
victed of shooting a 20-year-old
woman in the face and leaving her
body kneeling in the back seat of her
mother’s Chevrolet Impala, jeans
and underwear around her ankles.
Stanford’s lawyer Margaret O’Don
nell said that like the mentally re
tarded, teenagers were not as culpa
ble as adults for crimes they
committed. She cited research on
brain development showing that
adolescents are “less able to control
their impulses and make reasoned
judgments” than adults are.
© 2002, Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
in Israel
Cliff Churgin and Soraya Sarhaddi
Nelson
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
HADERA, Israel — A suicide car
bombing destroyed a bus at the
Karkur Junction on Monday, about
five miles from Hadera in northern
Israel, killing at least 14 passengers
and wounding more than 40 people.
Two bombers also died.
The militant Islamic Jihad move
ment claimed responsibility for the
attack, which the Palestinian Au
thority condemned.
The bombing was the most dead
ly suicide attack since early August.
A smaller attack a month ago
prompted Israel to surround and de
stroy much of Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat’s headquarters. That
military action was sharply criti
cized by the Bush administration,
which is worried about the impact of
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on its
ability to build a coalition against
Iraq. It was unclear how Israel would
respond this time.
White House spokesman Ari Fleis
cher condemned Monday’s bombing.
Bus 841 was on its way from Kiry
at Shemona to Tel Aviv when it
stopped at the Karkur Junction at
spoke to driver Chaim Avraham, but
before he could answer, a Kia jeep
loaded with an estimated J75
pounds of explosives rammed the
back of the bus, causing an explo
sion.
Lightly wounded passengers, by
standers and soldiers from a nearby
base began to evacuate the wound
ed, but the bus quickly caught fire.
The fire’s heat caused ammunition
that soldiers on the bus were carry
ing to explode and prevented rescue
workers from boarding the bus for
30 minutes.
Hadera is about halfway between
Tel Aviv and Haifa. The area around
the coastal city has seen many Pales
tinian bombings, with terrorists
crossing over from the northern
West Bank, less than a half-hour’s
drive away. Police think the explo
sives-laden car came from the West
Bank city of Jenin.
The attack came two days before
Assistant Secretary of State William
Bums was due to visit Israel as part
of a tour of Middle East nations.
Israel recently has attacked the
Gaza Strip repeatedly, targeting
Palestinian militants. Bystanders, in
f eluding children, have been killed
and wounded. The Bush administra
tion hasufged Israel to be more cau
tious.
© 2002, Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
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