LONDON - Amnesty International said on Saturday that Saudi Arabia's explanation of journalist Jamal Khashoggi's death in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul appeared to be a whitewash of "an appalling assassination".
"The investigation findings by the Saudi authorities claiming that Khashoggi died as a result of a 'fist-fight' inside the consulate are not trustworthy and marks an abysmal new low to Saudi Arabia's human rights record," Samah Hadid, the human rights group's Middle East director, said in a statement.
It called on Saudi authorities to produce Khashoggi's body so that independent forensic experts could perform an autopsy. It also said the United Nations should investigate his death.
"An independent investigation will be the only guarantee against what increasingly appears as a Saudi whitewash surrounding the circumstances of Khashoggi's murder or any attempts by other governments to sweep the issue under the carpet to preserve lucrative arms deals and other business ties with Riyadh," Hadid said.
Saudi Arabia's claim that Khashoggi had died in a fight -- rather than was deliberately killed - was Riyadh's first acknowledgment of his death after two weeks of denials that it was involved in his disappearance.
"This appalling assassination within the grounds of the Consulate amounts to an extrajudicial execution," Amnesty said.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
SAN JOSE - A family of five from the New York City suburb of Scarsdale was aboard a plane that crashed and exploded minutes after takeoff from a popular beach resort in Costa Rica on Sunday, killing all 12 people aboard, a relative and the family's rabbi said.
Ten U.S. citizens and two Costa Rican pilots were killed when the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan aircraft crashed into a mountainous area off the beach town of Punta Islita, the Costa Rican government said. The town is in the province of Guanacaste, about 230 km (140 miles) west of the capital of San Jose.
Forensic workers recovered badly burned bodies from the crash site on Sunday and took the remains to San Jose on Monday, where family members and friends of the Costa Rican pilots gathered outside the morgue.
Autopsies were to begin on Tuesday, a local police official told reporters. He would not specify when bodies would be returned to relatives.
"Due to the state they are in, a little more time is required to identify them. We have to wait," the country's security minister, Gustavo Mata, told Reuters Monday in a brief telephone interview.
The dead included the Steinberg family, consisting of a couple and their three sons.
"We are in utter shock and disbelief right now," Tamara Steinberg Jacobsen, sister of the father, Bruce Steinberg, said on Facebook, where she posted pictures of the family and thanked people for their condolences.
She also asked for privacy.
Rabbi Jonathan Blake of the Westchester Reform Temple identified the family as Bruce and Irene Steinberg and their sons William, Zachary and Matthew.
"This tragedy hits our community very hard," Blake said on Facebook, saying the family had belonged to the temple since 2001 and were active in philanthropic organizations.
Nature Air, the Costa Rican company that operated the flight, identified the five Steinbergs and five other passengers: Thibault Astruc, Amanda Geissler, Charles Palmer, Leslie Weiss and Sherry Wuu.
All 10 passengers were U.S. citizens, the State Department confirmed on Monday.
They died along with Costa Rican pilots Juan Manuel Retana and Emma Ramos, Nature Air said.
Costa Rican civil aviation authorities noted Sunday there were strong winds in the area but said officials had not yet determined the cause of the crash. The flight was part of a special charter of two planes. The other took off 20 minutes earlier and arrived safely in San Jose.
Punta Islita, on Costa Rica's Pacific Coast, is popular among North American and European tourists for its pristine beaches and lush landscape.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
MANILA - Slain teenagers Kian delos Santos, Carl Arnaiz, and Reynaldo De Guzman were all murdered, a forensic analyst from the Public Attorney's Office said Monday.
Dr. Erwin Erfe said apart from the boys' ages being in the same range, another similarity among them was that they were "defenseless" when they were killed.
"That’s very obvious in our findings," he told ANC's Headstart.
Delos Santos, 17, was killed in a drug sweep by Caloocan police last month after allegedly resisting arrest. Witnesses say, however, he did not fight back and that he was no drug courier as the cops allege.
Arnaiz, 19, was also killed in a shootout with police in Caloocan City after allegedly attempting to rob a taxi driver.
The University of the Philippines dropout supposedly left their home in Cainta, Rizal on August 17 with 14-year-old De Guzman.
De Guzman's body was found floating in a creek in Gapan, Nueva Ecija last week, his head wrapped in packing tape and body inflicted by dozens of stab wounds. He was later transferred to a morgue, which his parents located the following day.
Erfe said while Delos Santos' death may have been connected to the police force's anti-drug drive, Arnaiz and De Guzman's were separate, but nor were they a simple case of a robbery-hold-up.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
MANILA - An autopsy conducted by the Philippine National Police (PNP) Crime Laboratory shows 17-year-old Kian Loyd Delos Santos was shot twice in the head.
In a press conference Wednesday, medico legal officer Jane Monson, said the two bullets entered the left ear of the 11th grader and went out of the right ear.
An autopsy done
by the Public Attorney's Office (PAO) forensic laboratory also showed
that Delos Santos was shot 3 times—twice in the ear, once in the back.
The PAO forensic laboratory autopsy said the location of the gunshot wounds to his ears also showed that Delos Santos was on the ground when he was shot.
"Angulated 'yung trajectory. Ibig sabihin nakatayo lang 'yung shooter. Mukhang ang finishing shot 'yung tumama dito sa loob ng tenga," Dr. Erwin Erfe, chief of the PAO Forensic Laboratory, explained.
However, the PNP Crime Laboratory said the downward trajectory of the gunshots does not automatically mean that the teen was on the ground when he was shot.
"[Puwedeng] matangkad 'yung assailant kasi pababa, or 'yung position nasa steep [place] sila tas nasa taas 'yung bumabaril. Pero we cannot really say na nakahiga or ano," said Monson, saying it could be a finishing shot.
The PNP's medico legal officer, meanwhile, said a "finishing shot" is impossible as they did not find soot or stippling that would suggest that Delos Santos was shot pointblank.
The PNP autopsy also found an incision that shows the body was embalmed already before it underwent autopsy, which makes it difficult to identify entry and exit points.
"If it's embalmed,maraming limitations. Sometimes di mo talaga ma-recognize ang entry at exits if it's really embalmed na especially pag natahi na 'yan," she said.
Monson said under their protocol, bodies in violent crimes should not be embalmed before autopsy. But sometimes it is not in their control, she stressed, as families of the deceased want to embalm the body immediately.
Public outrage is growing over Delos Santos' death, which had been decried as a case of extrajudicial killing under the administration's war against illegal drugs.
CCTV footage showed Kian Loyd Delos Santos, Autopsy, PNP, Crime laboratory, Drugs, War on drugs that two cops in civilian clothes accosted Delos Santos towards the direction where he was killed. Witnesses also said they saw the officers blindfold and beat the teenager before the shooting. They added, Delos Santos was killed even though he was already pleading for his life.
Witnesses said they followed the cops and saw how they handed a gun to
Delos Santos and instructed him to shoot it then run. When he heeded
these instructions, the teenager was shot dead.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
