Nation & world briefing
Alleged clone said to be in Israel
Paula McMahon
South Florida Sun-Sentinel (KRT)
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. —
The legal effort to appoint a
guardian to protect the rights of the
world’s alleged first human clone
ended in Broward Circuit Court on
Wednesday and may now shift to
Israel.
The head of Clonaid, the group
that claims to have produced the
first cloned baby, testified under
oath Wednesday that “Baby Eve”
is, and always has been, someplace
other than here.
“I can tell you this baby is not in
the United States and has never
been in the United States,” Cion*
aid’s chief executive and top scien
tist Brigitte Boisselier said. “This
baby is in Israel.”
Broward Circuit Judge John Prus
ciante had to order Boisselier to an
swer his questions about where the
baby, born Dec. 26, is located. The
judge then said he had no choice but
to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a private
attorney, asking for a lawyer to be
appointed to ensure the baby — if
she exists — is getting whatever
medical care she needs.
Frusciante said he dismissed the
case reluctantly and only because
he could not claim jurisdiction over
the baby because of Boisselier’s tes
timony that the baby has never
been in the country and her par
ents do not live in Florida.
If the child had ever passed
through Florida, Frusciante said,
he would have continued to hear
the case until he was satisfied she
was safe and getting appropriate
medical care.
Even after hearing Boisselier testi
fy under oath that Baby Eve was
cloned, the judge indicated he was
very skeptical about whether that
was true. He also lectured Boisselier
on her ethical responsibilities.
“At this point, I’m not giving any
more credibility to this than it has
already been given,” Frusciante
added. Boisselier is a bishop in the
Raelian religious sect, whose mem
bers believe life on earth was start
ed by extra-terrestrials.
The judge urged child welfare
agencies and government officials
in Israel to try to determine
whether the baby is safe. He said
he hoped officials in any country
who suspected the presence of a
cloned child would attempt to en
sure the child’s welfare.
After Wednesday’s hearing
Bernard Siegel, the Coral Gables
attorney who filed court papers
seeking protection for Baby Eve,
said he hopes an attorney or
agency in Israel will investigate the
child’s welfare.
“I wanted to try to raise the
child-advocacy issue,” Siegel said.
“Not every country in the world
bans cloning, but practically every
country has child abuse laws. I
hope this can be a braking mecha
nism to rogue scientists who want
to clone irresponsibly.”
The judge did not force Boisseli
er to disclose where the alleged
cloning took place. She said pedia
tricians are caring for the child
somewhere in Israel. She could not
supply the exact address, Boisseli
er said, because the baby’s parents
took flight about a week ago.
As she left the courtroom, Boisse
lier would not share any substantive
information about Baby Eve.
When she announced with great
fanfare at the end of December that
Baby Eve had been born to U.S. cit
izens, Boisselier said the child
would undergo independent DNA
testing. She later backed off that
promise, claiming that the lawsuit
filed in Broward County had made
the child’s parents fearful the baby
would be taken away from them.
On Wednesday, she said Baby Eve
would undergo DNA testing “when I’m
sure the baby is safe.”
She said the other two babies that
Glonaid claims to have produced, in
the Netherlands and Japan, also will
be proven to be clones — but would
not give any schedule for testing.
She would not say when she plans to
have her claims authenticated by
her peers, which is standard in the
scientific field.
(c) 2003 Distributed by Knight
Ridder/Tribune Information Ser
vices.
Americans in northern Iraq in danger
of assassination, Kurdish officials say
Warren P. Strobel
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
WASHINGTON — Kurdish offi
cials on Wednesday warned Ameri
cans in northern Iraq that they were
targets for Iraqi assassins.
Officials in Washington said the
warning did not originate from Iraqi
opposition groups in the region,
whose credibility is sometimes sus
pect. Instead, one official said, allied
officials passed it on to their Ameri
can counterparts, who passed it to
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one
of the main Iraqi Kurdish parties.
“We view the information as a
credible threat,” a U.S. official said,
speaking on condition of anonymity.
Some analysts said the threat
might have originated with one of
the two sons of Saddam Hussein,
Uday and Qusay.
PUK security officials in Su
laimaniyah called together the hand
ful of American journalists in the
city and several foreign aid experts
involved in U.S.-sponsored programs
to warn them of the threat.
“U.S. journalists and those (for
eigners) associated with the United
States have been targeted for imme
diate assassination by the Iraqi
regime on the pretext that you are
working for some government to
bring about the downfall of Saddam
Hussein,” said Bafel Talibani, the son
of PUK leader Jalal Talibani.
He described the source of the in
formation as highly reliable, but de
clined to disclose any further details.
Talibani said the threat was di
rected “at individuals who are in
Sulaimaniyah and specifically indi
viduals who are staying at the
Suleimani Palace hotel.”
The hotel is one of two main ho
tels where foreign journalists stay
in Sulaimaniyah, the city from
which the PUK controls its half of
the Kurds’ self-governed safe haven
in northern Iraq.
Gun-toting PUK fighters were
posted around the hotel amid a
general increase in security in the
city center, and PUK officials of
fered journalists protection in a
guarded compound.
PUK officials said a large number
of Hussein’s agents were operating
in the city, and a U.S. official in
Washington said Iraqi opposition
groups have been thoroughly pen
etrated by Hussein’s agents, who
are “abundant” in the independent
Kurdish zone.
The Iraqi security services, the
official said, also might have made
a deal to use members of the mili
tant Islamic group Ansar al Islam
(’’Partisans of Islam”), which has
some ties to Osama bin Laden’s al
Qaida terrorist group, to attack
Americans and members of
the opposition.
Ansar fighters and a number of
al-Qaida members who fled
Afghanistan have imposed strict Is
lamic rule in a pocket of territory
that they have seized on the border
with Iran.
U.S. and Kurdish officials say
that Ansar also receives weapons
and other support from Hussein.
In Washington, another U.S. offi
cial said there has been a recent
“spike” in communications be
tween Baghdad and the Ansar
group, which some analysts believe
Hussein supports in an effort to
destabilize the independent Kur
dish zone in northern Iraq.
“What that represents is un
clear,” said the official, who spoke
on condition of anonymity.
But he called Ansar “the lead
candidate right now” in terms of
threats against Americans in the
region.
The group was bloodied in a re
cent engagement with PUK forces
and may be looking to exact re
venge, he said.
A senior administration official
who read the intelligence report
ing, and who spoke on condition of
anonymity, said he considered the
threat “very serious” and advised
news organizations, nongovern
mental groups and others who have
Americans in the Kurdish area of
northern Iraq to do likewise.
Another official noted that the
Iraqis don’t distinguish between
journalists and other Americans,
but consider all Americans in Iraq
to be spies.
© 2003, Knight Ridder/Tribune
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