BREAKING: U.S. diplomat who questioned 'crazy' Ukraine policy to testify in Trump probe

October 22, 2019  14H:44  GMT/ZULU

by Melissa Gruz and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Rueters, WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON - U.S. lawmakers conducting an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump will hear on Tuesday from the top U.S. official in Ukraine, who once said it was “crazy” to withhold military aid for the country for domestic political reasons.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, U.S., October 21, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis

William Taylor, a former Army officer and career U.S. diplomat now leading the U.S. embassy in Kiev, will be the latest in a series of current and former officials to meet behind closed doors with the Democratic-led House of Representatives Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight Committees in the month since the probe began.

Committee members and staff are examining whether the Republican Trump abused his office by improperly putting pressure on Ukraine to launch an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden, a political rival and leading candidate for the Democratic 2020 presidential nomination.

Taylor’s testimony is of particular interest to investigators because of his leading role at the embassy in Ukraine. He raised concern about military assistance being withheld from Kiev to put pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter, who was on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

The investigation was largely prompted by a whistleblower’s report that Trump may have pressured Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens in a July 25 telephone call.

Taylor mentioned his concern on Sept. 9 to Kurt Volker, the State Department’s former special envoy to Ukraine, and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, in a text message provided to investigators and later made public.

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“As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” Taylor wrote.

Taylor was tapped to serve as charge d’affaires in Kiev, where he served as U.S. ambassador from 2006 to 2009, after Trump abruptly recalled Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch in May after she came under attack from his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

Yovanovitch testified in Congress on Oct. 11.

‘IMPORTANT WITNESS’

Committee members said they were eager to hear from Taylor. They want to know about the text messages as well as any telephone calls he may have had with other U.S. officials and with Giuliani, who has played an informal role in U.S. relations with Ukraine.

“We know he’s an important witness because of the exchange of text messages. We know he’s the one who suggested it’s crazy to withhold aid,” said Democratic Representative Ted Deutch, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

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Trump has acknowledged many of the central facts related to the telephone call, maintaining that none of it amounted to wrongdoing or a demand for a “quid pro quo,” a Latin phrase meaning a favor in exchange for a favor.

On Monday, Trump exhorted fellow Republicans to get tougher and fight for him, accusing the Democratic-led House of wanting to impeach him “as quick as possible” because he says they cannot defeat him in next year’s election.

Taylor is the first of just two witnesses scheduled to speak with the House committees this week. Lawmakers curtailed their schedule from seven after the death last week of Representative Elijah Cummings, chairman of the Oversight Committee.

A top Department of Defense official, Deputy Assistant Secretary Laura Cooper, is due to testify on Wednesday. Cooper has worked on Russia and Ukraine policy at the Pentagon.

The committees made clear they will press ahead despite Cummings’ loss.

“We will continue to pursue the impeachment inquiry with vigor in support of the investigation led by the Intelligence Committee,” Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney, acting chairwoman of the Oversight Committee, said in a statement.

House approval of articles of impeachment would prompt a trial in the Republican-led Senate on whether to remove Trump from office.

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Few Republicans have shown any inclination to conduct an inquiry into the president, let alone remove him from the White House.

(Fixes typo in name in paragraph 11)

BREAKING: Ohio ex-convict charged after claiming to be long-lost Illinois boy

April 7, 2019  02H:09  GMT/ZULU

by Kathy DiNuzzo and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Rueters, Cincinnati

Federal prosecutors on Friday charged a 23-year-old former convict with making false statements after he claimed to be Illinois teen Timmothy Pitzen, who went missing in 2011 after his mother killed herself.

Brian Michael Rini of Medina, Ohio, was charged with lying to federal agents after he appeared looking confused in Newport, Kentucky, outside Cincinnati on Wednesday and claimed he was 14-year-old Pitzen, federal officials said. He told them he had escaped from an eight-year ordeal at the hands of sex traffickers. Pitzen was last seen when he was six years old.

Rini’s claim was debunked on Thursday after DNA test results conducted at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital confirmed he was not the long lost boy from Aurora, Illinois.

“Law enforcement confronted him with the DNA results, and at that point the person immediately stated that he was not Timmothy Pitzen, and of course law enforcement knew by virtue of the DNA analysis that he was in fact Brian Rini,” said U.S. Attorney Benjamin Glassman during a briefing with reporters.

After confessing that he was not Pitzen, Rini told federal agents he had heard about the missing boy’s case on the ABC television program 20/20 and wanted to get away from his own family, according to court documents.

“When questioned further, Rini stated that he wished he had a father like Timmothy’s because if he went missing, his father would just keep drinking,” Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Mary Braun said in the court documents.

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Rini appeared in federal court on Friday morning and is being held without bail until his detention hearing on Tuesday. He faces up to eight years in prison if found guilty, Glassman said.

Rini’s lawyer, Karen Savir, did not immediately return calls seeking comment on the charges against her client.

Rini had twice before claimed to be a child sex trafficking victim, federal prosecutors said. He was released from Ohio’s Belmont Correctional Institution on March 7 where he had been serving 14 months for burglary and vandalism, according to public records.

“False reports like this can be painful to the families of missing children and also divert law enforcement resources in order to investigate these untruthful claims,” said Herb Stapleton, acting special agent in charge for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Cincinnati.

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Pitzen’s case has stumped authorities since May 2011. The boy was last seen with his mother, who pulled him out of school in Aurora, Illinois, a far-west suburb of Chicago, took him on a trip to a zoo and a water park, and then took her own life in a motel room, leaving behind a cryptic note on her son’s whereabouts.

“Tim is somewhere safe with people who love him and will care for him,” she wrote in the note, according to reports by ABC7 Chicago. “You will never find him.”

BREAKING: Strasbourg gunman still on the lam in France, death toll rises

December 13, 2018  22H:27  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Elodie Bagnol and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Rueters, STRASBOURG, Alsace Lorraine, France

STRASBOURG, France - A gunman suspected of killing three people at a Christmas market in Strasbourg was still on the run on Thursday, 48 hours after the attack, eluding security forces who have launched a manhunt across eastern France and neighboring Germany.

French special police forces secure an area during a police operation in the Meinau district after the deadly shooting in Strasbourg, France, December 13, 2018. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

The death toll from Tuesday night’s attack rose to three, as police combed the city in the east of France for a second day and manned checkpoints on the German border.

(Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/2QQL0XG)

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  Strasbourg shooting death toll rises to three

Police issued a wanted poster in multiple languages for Cherif Chekatt, the main suspect in the attack, who was on a watchlist as a potential security threat. Authorities say the 29-year-old was known to have developed radical religious views while in jail.

Armed and masked police swooped on Strasbourg neighborhoods with elite RAID officers fanning out across three locations in late afternoon, including the area where the suspected shooter was last seen. Some had their guns trained on the houses in front of them.

But after about two hours the operation ended with no sign of security forces any closer to apprehending the shooter.

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The Paris prosecutor’s office said that an individual close to Chekatt was arrested earlier in the day as part of the investigation into the attack, which also saw 13 other people wounded. His parents and two brothers are already in custody.

Two of his sisters in Paris were also questioned on Thursday and one of their homes was searched, a judicial source said.

Strasbourg’s mayor has said the attack was “indisputably an act of terrorism” and, with the gunman on the run, France has raised its security threat to the highest level.

More than 700 police are taking part in the manhunt. French and German police manned controls on either side of the Europe Bridge, which spans the frontier running along the Rhine river, causing hours of logjams.

Asked if French police had been instructed to catch Chekatt dead or alive, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told CNews: “It doesn’t matter. The best thing would be to find him as quickly as possible.”

Police are also searching for a car in which he may have escaped, a source close to the investigation said.

It took police four months to track down Salah Abdesalam, the prime surviving suspect from the November 2015 militant assault on Paris, in an apartment in Brussels. One hundred and thirty people were killed in that attack as well as seven gunmen and bombers.

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RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM

The Christmas market, a hugely popular attraction in historic Strasbourg, remained closed on Thursday, although people were returning to the area with many marking their respects for the victims by leaving candles in the main Kleber square.

Witnesses told investigators that the suspect Chekatt cried out “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greater) as he opened fire on the market, a target Paris Prosecutor Remy Heitz suggested may have been chosen for its religious symbolism.

French soldiers, who are part of anti-terrorism patrols across the country, shot him in the arm and it remains unclear how bad his injuries are.

BFM TV citing investigators said a taxi driver, who had taken him away from the attack site, had told him he had carried out the attack to avenge his brothers in Syria.

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Chekatt’s police file photo shows a bearded man of North African descent, with a prayer bruise on the center of his forehead. He has 27 criminal convictions for theft and violence, and has spent time in French, German and Swiss jails.

Neighbors on the housing estate where Chekatt family’s lived described the suspect as a typical young man who dressed in jogging pants and trainers rather than traditional Islamic robes.

“He was a little gangster, but I didn’t see any signs of him being radicalized,” said a leader of a community group standing outside Chekkat’s apartment building, who asked not to be identified while discussing him.

Duke University removes Robert Lee statue after vandalism

AUGUST 20, 2017 /  08H:46  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by rochelle van amber and Biodun Iginla, bbc news and rueters, Durham, North Carolina

Duke University removed a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from the entrance of a chapel on the Durham, North Carolina, campus, officials said on Saturday, days after it was vandalized.

The decision to take down the statue followed discussions among students, faculty, staff and alumni about maintaining safety on campus, university President Vincent E. Price said in a statement.

"I took this course of action to protect Duke Chapel, to ensure the vital safety of students and community members who worship there, and above all to express the deep and abiding values of our university," Price said.

The prestigious university will preserve the statue of Lee, who led Confederate forces in the American Civil War of 1861-1865, and use it as an educational tool so that students can study "Duke's complex past," Price added.

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The Confederacy, comprised of 11 Southern states, broke from the Union largely to preserve the institution of slavery.

Symbols of the Confederacy have come into focus since last weekend, when white nationalists, angered at the planned removal of a statue of Lee from a park in Charlottesville, Virginia, engaged in violent protests where a counter-protester was killed.

People walk past the empty plinth where a statue of Confederate commander General Robert E. Lee once stood flanked by statues of Thomas Jefferson and the poet Sidney Lanier at the entrance to Duke University's Duke Chapel after officials removed the controversial statue early Saturday morning in Durham, North Carolina, U.S., August 19, 2017.Jason Miczek

The Robert E. Lee statue, one of 10 outside Duke Chapel, was vandalized and defaced late on Wednesday night. Campus security discovered the damage early Thursday, according to university officials. The incident was under investigation.

"Wednesday night's act of vandalism made clear that the turmoil and turbulence of recent months do not stop at Duke's gates," Price said.

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"We have a responsibility to come together as a community to determine how we can respond to this unrest in a way that demonstrates our firm commitment to justice, not discrimination," he said.

Duke will form a committee to advise the school on how to properly memorialize historical figures on campus, and to recommend teaching programs, exhibitions and forums to explore its past.

There are more than 1,500 symbols of the Confederacy, including 700 monuments and statues, in public spaces across the United States, the Southern Poverty Law Center said.

The large majority of these were erected long after the Civil War ended in 1865. Many went up early in the 20th century during a backlash among segregationists against the civil rights movement.

More than a half-dozen have been taken down since last week.