East Oregonian
Page 9A
NATION/WORLD
U.S. says up to 116 civilians killed in drone strikes
Saturday, July 2, 2016
Oficials: Man held in
Oregon farm shooting
deported six times
By DEB RIECHMANN
Associated Press
Trump tweets
‘should have
never been here’
about the case Friday,
saying the suspect “should
have never been here.”
Two men who lived at
the blueberry farm in the
Willamette Valley town of
Woodburn, in northwest
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Oregon, died at the scene
Associated Press
of Monday’s shooting. The
PORTLAND — A third victim, the girlfriend
Mexican national charged of another resident who
with aggravated murder in was not home at the time,
the shooting deaths of three was pronounced dead at a
people at a rural Oregon hospital.
A third man was seri-
blueberry farm had been
ously wounded
deported six times,
but survived and
most recently in
is able to speak
2013, according to
with investigators.
U.S. Immigration
The
Oregon
and
Customs
State
Police
Enforcement.
arrested
Oseg-
Bonifacio
uera-Gonzalez a
Oseguera-Gon-
few hours later on
zalez, 29, has no
Interstate 84 in the
signiicant prior
criminal convic- Oseguera-Gonzales Columbia River
Gorge, about 100
tions, but ICE
asked Oregon authorities to miles northeast of Wood-
turn him over to them if he’s burn.
He acknowledged to
released from custody in
the current case, the agency authorities in an interview
said in a statement to The that he shot four people,
Associated Press on Friday. according to a probable
O s e g u e r a - G o n z a l e z cause statement.
The
victims
were
pleaded not guilty to three
counts of aggravated murder identiied as Ruben Rigo-
and one count of attempted berto-Reyes, 60; Edmundo
murder Tuesday in Marion Amaro-Bajonero, 26; and
Katie Gildersleeve, 30, of
County Superior Court.
His attorney, Deborah Logsden.
Authorities have released
Burdzik, did not immedi-
ately return a call seeking few details about the case,
comment about his immi- including the relationship
between
Oseguera-Gon-
gration status.
Presumptive Republican zalez and the victims, and
presidential
nominee have declined to specify a
Donald Trump tweeted motive.
WASHINGTON
—
Peeling back some of the
secrecy of America’s drone
strikes on suspected terrorists,
the Obama administration on
Friday said it has killed up to
116 civilians in counterterror
attacks in Pakistan, Yemen
and other places where the
U.S. is not engaged in active,
on-the-ground warfare.
The irst-ever public
assessment is a response to
mounting pressure for more
information about lethal U.S.
operations overseas. Human
rights and other groups
quickly complained that the
administration undercounted
civilian casualties and called
on the White House to release
far more information.
The report by National
Intelligence Director James
Clapper said the U.S.
conducted 473 counterterror
strikes, including those by
unmanned drones, between
January 2009 and December
2015. He did not mention
where the strikes occurred,
but the Defense Department
and CIA have pursued targets
in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia
and Libya. The data didn’t
include strikes in Iraq, Syria
and Afghanistan, which the
U.S. considers areas of active
hostilities.
The attacks killed an esti-
mated 2,372 to 2,581 combat-
ants in those seven years, the
report said. Between 64 and
116 non-combatants were
killed.
The administration noted
the much higher estimates
by non-governmental organi-
zations, which go as high as
900 for the same timeframe.
Senior U.S. oficials cited
several reasons for the
discrepancy, including the
government’s access to sensi-
tive intelligence that helps it
more accurately identify the
deceased. Groups that have
been tracking U.S. drone
operations for years weren’t
convinced.
“The numbers reported
by the White House today
simply don’t add up, and
we’re disappointed by that,”
said Federico Borello, exec-
utive director of Center for
Civilians in Conlict in Wash-
ington. “We’re concerned
that as more countries gain
access to armed drone
technology, it’s more likely
that drones will be used as a
irst response in conlicts and
more likely civilians will pay
the price.”
The Bureau of Investi-
gative Journalism said the
administration’s number is
a fraction of the 380 to 801
civilian deaths it has tallied.
It records such deaths on the
basis local and international
journalists’ reports, advo-
cacy organizations, leaked
government
documents,
court papers and ield
investigations. The London-
based group credited the
administration’s release as a
welcome step toward greater
transparency, but said more
information on speciic
strikes was needed to recon-
cile different assessments.
Seeking to enhance safe-
guards for civilian protection
for the rest of his presidency
and beyond, Obama also
signed an executive order
Friday that details U.S.
policies to limit non-com-
batant casualties. It makes
protecting civilians a central
“The American
public can’t be
conident that
the government
is using lethal
force legally and
wisely.”
element in U.S. military
operations planning.
The order requires the
government to publicize the
number of strikes each year,
and combatants and civilians
killed. The 2016 report is due
May 1, 2017.
But the directive isn’t
necessarily binding on the
next president, who could
change the policy with an
executive order of his or her
own.
Bill Roggio of the Long
War Journal, which also
tracks drone strikes, said the
administration’s report will
“do little to quell the criti-
cism” of those who want full
disclosure of civilian casual-
ties. This would include the
names of those killed and
dates, locations and other
details on the strikes.
Roggio, who has estimated
207 civilian deaths over the
same period in Pakistan and
Yemen alone, said discrepan-
cies would narrow if the U.S.
and observers agreed on the
details of several especially
lethal strikes.
Hina Shamsi, director of
the American Civil Liberties
Union’s National Security
Project, said Friday’s release
provided little information.
“The
government
continues to conceal the
identities of people it has
killed, the speciic deinitions
it uses to decide who can
legitimately be targeted
and its investigations into
credibly alleged wrongful
killings,” Shamsi said. “The
American public can’t be
conident that the govern-
ment is using lethal force
legally and wisely.”
Naureen Shah, Amnesty
International’s director of
national security and human
rights, said it was impossible
to assess the accuracy of the
data without more details.
Her group’s investigations,
she said, “tell a different
story.”
Nevertheless, said hailed
the precedent of announcing
civilian deaths as a game-
changer and said it would be
hard for future administra-
tions to step away from the
commitment.
Jennifer Gibson, an
attorney for Reprieve, a New
York-based human rights
organization, said it was time
for an independent investi-
gation of whom U.S. drones
have killed and the legal
framework for the program.
Gibson
spoke
of
14-year-old Faheem Qureshi,
who she said was severely
injured in Obama’s irst
drone strike, and nine-year
old Nabila Rehman, who
traveled to the U.S. in 2013
to seek answers about an
attack in Pakistan that killed
her grandmother.
“The most glaring absence
from this announcement
are the names and faces of
those civilians that have been
killed,” Gibson said.
grounds that his original
attorney, Cristina Gutierrez,
didn’t contact Asia McClain
Chapman, an alibi witness
who said she saw Syed at the
Woodlawn library about the
same time prosecutors say
Lee was killed.
Additionally, Syed’s
current attorneys argued cell
tower data linking Syed’s
phone to the burial site on
the day of Lee’s killing was
misleading because it was
presented to jurors without
a cover sheet warning that
incoming call data was
unreliable.
In Welch’s order, he
disagreed that Gutierrez
erred when she failed to
contact Chapman, or that
prosecutors breached
their duty by withholding
exculpatory evidence.
But Welch did agree that
Syed’s attorney provided
“ineffective assistance for
the failure to cross-examine
the state’s cell tower expert
about the reliability of cell
tower location evidence”
that placed him near the
burial site.
— Hina Shamsi,
ACLU director
BRIEFLY
Attention in
Istanbul bombing
focused on
Chechen extremist
ISTANBUL (AP) —
Attention focused Friday on
whether a Chechen extremist
known to be a top lieutenant
in the Islamic State group
was involved in the suicide
attacks that killed 44 people
at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport.
U.S. Rep. Michael
McCaul, chairman of
the House Committee on
Homeland Security, told
CNN that Akhmed Chatayev
directed Tuesday night’s
attack at one of the world’s
busiest airports. The CIA
and White House declined
to comment on McCaul’s
assertion and oficials
said the investigation
of the bombing is still
ongoing. McCaul could
not be reached for further
comment.
Turkish oficials also
were not able to conirm
Chatayev’s role. The Sabah
newspaper, which is close to
the government, said police
had launched a manhunt for
him.
McCaul said Chatayev’s
whereabouts are unknown.
The 35-year-old one-armed
militant, who fought in
Chechnya against Russian
forces and their local allies
in the early 2000s before
leeing to the West, was put
on the U.S. list of suspected
terrorists in 2015. That same
year, he resurfaced in an IS
video as the commander
of the group’s Chechen
battalion in Syria.
Although no one has
claimed responsibility for
the airport attack, the Islamic
State group is suspected,
and Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan repeated
Friday that IS was “most
probably” behind it. The
group has boasted of having
cells in Turkey and other
countries.
“They have no
connection to Islam. Their
place is in hell,” Erdogan
said, speaking in Istanbul
following Friday prayers.
“These people were
innocent; they were children,
women, elderly ... They
embarked on a journey
unaware, and came face to
face with death.”
The state-run Anadolu
Agency reported Friday
that the Bakirkoy Public
Prosecutor’s ofice had
established the identity of
two of the airport attackers,
Rakim Bulgarov and
Vadim Osmanov, and was
trying to identify the third.
Other media reports have
given different versions of
Osmanov’s name.
Anadolu said Osmanov’s
identity was determined
through a photocopy of his
passport, which he submitted
to a realtor in order to rent
a house in Istanbul’s Fatih
district.
Attorney general
wishes she hadn’t
met with
Bill Clinton
WASHINGTON
(AP) — Attorney General
Loretta Lynch is expressing
regret that she sat down with
Bill Clinton while his wife
is under federal criminal
investigation, a chance
encounter she acknowledges
“cast a shadow” on the
public’s perception of a
case bound to inluence the
presidential campaign.
“I certainly wouldn’t do
it again,” Lynch said of the
meeting. For Hillary Clinton,
the presumptive Democratic
nominee, the episode raised
the risk that voters will see
her anew as half of a power
couple that makes its own
rules.
Lynch hastened to add
that she intended to follow
the recommendations
of career prosecutors on
whether to ile criminal
charges at the close of
the investigation into
Hillary Clinton’s emails,
indicating that she would
accept whatever decision is
presented to her.
The attorney general’s
remarks at a conference in
Colorado were aimed at
tamping down concerns
that the investigation could
be politically tainted or
that Lynch, an Obama
administration appointee,
might overrule the indings
of agents and prosecutors
who have spent months
looking into the possible
mishandling of classiied
information on the private
email server Clinton used as
secretary of state.
Lynch said she
understood that her private
meeting with Clinton aboard
her plane in Phoenix might
be seen as compromising
the neutrality of the
investigation, even though
she said the chat was largely
social and her department’s
probe of Hillary Clinton was
not discussed.
Asked what she was
thinking in permitting the
meeting to occur, Lynch
said: “I completely get that
question, and I think it is the
question of the day.”
The outcome of the
investigation is likely to
shape the presidential
campaign, whether to
Clinton’s beneit if she
emerges unscathed or to
Republican rival Donald
Trump’s advantage in the
event that she or anyone
close to her winds up
prosecuted.
strangling 17-year-old Hae
Min Lee and burying her
body in a shallow grave and
sentenced to life in prison.
But on Thursday, a judge’s
decision to order a new trial
for Syed, whose case is at
the center of the “Serial”
podcast, is opening old
wounds for Lee’s family.
“We do not speak as often
or as loudly as those who
support Adnan Syed, but we
care just as much about this
case,” Lee’s family wrote.
“We continue to grieve. We
continue to believe justice
was done when Mr. Syed
was convicted of killing
Hae. While we continue to
put our faith in the courts
and hope the decision will
be reversed, we are very
disappointed by the Judge’s
decision. “
Baltimore Circuit Judge
Martin Welch ordered a new
trial for Syed on Thursday
after determining that his
attorney failed in her duty
when she didn’t challenge
the testimony of a state
analyst whose data linked
Syed to Lee’s burial site.
At a post-conviction
hearing in early February,
Syed’s attorneys argued
he deserved a retrial on
Go where cars can’t take you!
Two Rivers Short Trips
Wednesday, July 13
and Saturday, July 16
Deparing from Elgin at 10 a.m.
Eagle Cap Excursion Train
800.323.7330 or book online
www.eaglecaptrainrides.com
After 16 years,
man in ‘Serial’
murder case to get
new trial
BALTIMORE (AP) —
The family of a murdered
teenager is grieving again
after her accused killer,
whose case has become a
cause celebre thanks to a
wildly popular podcast, was
granted a new trial.
Adnan Syed, now 35,
was convicted in 2000 of
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