Month: April 2019

A former US Marine killed 12 people as he opened fire in a California country music bar packed with college students.

America’s latest mass shooting took place in the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, a leafy, middle class city near Los Angeles.

The gunman Ian David Long, 28, had served in the Marines for five years until 2013, earning the rank of corporal, and had been deployed as a machine gunner to Afghanistan in 2010.  He was believed to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. 

In April this year police were called to his home five miles from the bar, where he lived with his mother, because he was behaving angrily and erratically.

A mental health crisis team was drafted in but concluded Long did not need to be hospitalised.

Wearing a black hooded top and a balaclava over his face Long approached the Borderline, which was holding a regular "college country night," at 11.20pm on Wednesday.

He shot dead the bouncer before moving inside, killing more staff, throwing smoke bombs, and shooting customers at random, including people lying injured on the floor.

He then shot himself dead in the bar’s office.

Long was armed with a legally owned Glock handgun, but it had a high-capacity magazine which is illegal in California.

The dead included the first police officer on the scene, Sergeant Ron Helus, 54.

Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said: "He went in there to save people and made the ultimate sacrifice. It’s a horrific scene in there. There’s blood everywhere. It’s hell."

He said no motive for the shooting had been established, but the gunman "obviously had something going on in his head".

Long dropped out of college in California in 2016 towards the end of a sports degree. 

Last year Long explained on Shadowspear, an internet forum for special forces soldiers, his decision to drop out of his college sports degree.

He wrote: "Maybe the ego got the better of me but it took only one time for a 19-year-old athlete to talk down to me and tell me how to do my job that I realised this wasn’t the career I wanted."

Police also had contact with him in 2015 when he was beaten up at a bar.

John Hedge, who was in the Borderline, said: "I just started hearing these big pops. Pop, pop, pop. I hit the ground. I look up. The security guard was shot, he was down. The gunman was throwing smoke grenades all over the place."

Another survivor, Teylor Whittler, 19, said she was on the dance floor and "dove to the ground". She said the gunman "had perfect form and looked like he knew what he was doing".

Describing the incident in April, Sheriff Dean said: "Officers felt he might be suffering from PTSD, the fact he was a veteran and had been in the corps.

"They called out our crisis intervention team, our mental health specialists who met with him, talked to him, and cleared him."

A recent survey named Thousand Oaks the third-safest city in the United States.

Donald Trump, the US president, said he had "been fully briefed on the terrible shooting" and ordered flags to be flown at half-staff at public buildings.

It was the latest chapter in America’s epidemic of gun violence, happening 10 days after a gunman killed 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Jerry Nadler, a leading Democrat congressman in Washington, said an attempt to introduce a new law on universal background checks for gun buyers would begin when the House of Representatives convenes, with a Democratic majority, in January.

He said: "We must find a way to stop the senseless, and many times preventable, killings that are robbing our country of innocent lives."

A group of Satanists is suing Netflix and Warner Bros for 50 million US dollars (£38 million) over the depiction of a goat-headed statue in one their television shows.

The Satanic Temple claims the entertainment giants copied its depiction of deity Baphomet in The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina.

An icon similar to the group’s appears in four episodes of the supernatural drama, it alleges.

The lawsuit, filed at a federal court in New York on Thursday, claims the depiction of Baphomet constitutes misappropriation, confusion of origin and injury of reputation.

Legal documents state: "What makes this case particularly striking and significant is that it arises in the context of Defendants who are highly sophisticated media production and distribution companies which blatantly misappropriated Plaintiff’s unique expression of an idea even though they have a long history of vigorously protecting their own intellectual property."

It adds the Satanic Temple created its depiction of Baphomet in part "to promote First Amendment values of separation of church and state and equal protection".

Neither Netflix or Warner Bros have commented on the lawsuit.

The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina is a supernatural drama programme starring US actress Kiernan Shipka as Sabrina Spellman, a half-mortal half-witch who is torn between her two identities.

It is based of the same comic book series which spawned Sabrina The Teenage Witch, starring Melissa Joan Hart and running from 1996-2003.

The Satanic Temple says it does not worship Satan but instead works to "encourage benevolence and empathy among all people".

A Russian, an American and a Canadian astronaut have taken off for the international space station in the first manned launch of a Soyuz rocket since a harrowing crash in October. 

Monday’s launch of the MS-11 ship was a closely watched test for Russia’s space industry, which has suffered several high-profile failures in recent years but remains the only reliable way to deliver crew to the orbiting station. 

A source of national pride for both the Soviet Union and Russia under Vladimir Putin, missions into the cosmos are virtually the only area of cooperation left between Russia and the United States after the Ukraine crisis. 

Space station veteran and mission commander Oleg Kononenko, 54, Quebec family doctor David Saint-Jacques, 48, and Anne McClain, 39, a US army helicopter pilot who earned masters degrees from the University of Bath and Bristol in the UK, lifted off in a cloud of flame and smoke from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur cosmodrome on Monday afternoon.

In the course of an eight-minute flight through the atmosphere, the craft first jettisoned its boosters and then its second stage rocket to successfully deliver the spacecraft into orbit. 

The trio were scheduled to dock with the space station six hours later to relieve the current crew, which will return home on December 20. 

On Tuesday, Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to launch from Cape Canaveral a long-delayed reusable Falcon 9 rocket with 5,600 pounds of research equipment and supplies including holiday food for the space station.

The MS-11 mission was moved up after the same kind of Soyuz spacecraft and FG rocket booster crashed at Baikonur in October, risking the lives of Russian commander Alexei Ovchinin and Nasa astronaut Nick Hague.

One of the four boosters caught on the second stage as they detached, sending the rocket careening toward the ground a little more than two minutes after takeoff. The capsule automatically aborted the mission and parachuted the two men to safety about 250 miles away on the plains of Kazakhstan. 

Russia blamed the crash on a sensor in the booster separation system that was damaged during installation in what the space agency head could have been an act of sabotage. Having taken apart two rockets during an investigation, its specialists have now fixed the problem, a special commission said.

Arianespace launched a European weather satellite into orbit on an unmanned Soyuz rocket last month.

Monday’s mission follows a scare at the space station in August when a drop in pressure was traced to a small hole in a panel in a Soyuz MS-09 module, which had docked with the station in June. 

Russia’s space czar at one point suggested the hole could have been drilled by the German or American crew member on the station.

MS-11 crew member Anne McClain said she had absolute confidence in the Soyuz despite the crash, telling CBS News she “would have gotten on a rocket the day after that happened”. 

But crashes of unmanned Russian spacecraft in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 have called into doubt the viability of the country’s space industry, where low wages have reportedly hurt operations. In the most egregious incident, an unmanned Soyuz rocket carrying 19 international satellites crashed in November 2017 after it was programmed with the coordinates for the wrong launch site. 

Monday’s mission started from the same launchpad that Yuri Gagarin did when he became the first man in space in 1961. Russian Orthodox priests flicked holy water on the rocket, launch team and assembled journalists during a blessing the day before.

On Friday, Russia launched three communications satellites into space and an unidentified fourth object that some think could be a new spy satellite.

Indian police are investigating a skeleton smuggling gang after a man was caught with skulls and bones of 50 different people on a train.

Government Railway Police arrested the suspected “corpse smuggler” at Chapra railway station in India’s eastern state of Bihar.  

The arrested man, identified as Sanjay Prasad, was carrying 16 human skulls and 34 skeletal remains in his luggage and was travelling on the Balia-Sealdah Express to Kolkata, from where police said he was heading for the border to Bhutan.

Police suspect that the skeletons, which according to the suspect were brought from Balia in Uttar Pradesh, were then meant to be smuggled to China via Bhutan, reported the Times of India.

Mr Prasad was part of a gang who supplied human skeletons to “tantrics and occultists” in the Himalayan Kingdom, police said. They also claimed there was “huge demand for skeletons among medical students in China”.

He has been sent to jail while further investigation were on to trace his accomplices, said deputy superintendent of police Mohammad Tanvir.

It was unclear how Mr Prasad was alleged to have obtained the skeletal remains. While grave-robbing in poor areas is not unheard of, it usually takes place in Muslim or Christian communities, as Hindus favour cremation.

Morgue and crematorium workers, however, could potentially be bribed to perform swaps in which relatives are given substitute ashes while bodies are sold off, police said.

Mr Prasad was detained as during a routine inspection against liquor smuggling across state lines, “officers spotted suspicious movement of the suspect. He was detained and his bag opened,” said Station House Officer Suman Prasad Singh.

Mr Prasad has refused to confess during interrogation but his mobile contacts are also being scanned, Mr Singh added. Nepalese and Bhutanese currency, along with two identity cards and sim cards with Nepal mobile phone numbers were found in  Mr Prasad’s possession, suggesting the racket stretches beyond India’s borders.

“The seizure of foreign currency is a definite indication that the racket and its tentacles may have spread to foreign countries,” Dept Supt Tanvir said.

In 2009, police in Bihar seized more than 67 human skulls from a bus and arrested a smuggler. In April 2004, 1,000 skulls and other parts of human carcass were seized near the Falgu river in the same state.

Ukrainian sailors were on Tuesday filmed giving what Kiev said were forced confessions and brought to court after Russia seized their ships off the coast of Crimea in a major escalation of tensions.

A court in Crimea ruled on Tuesday that 12 of the 24 captured sailors and security service agents would be kept in confinement for two months, with a decision on the rest expected Wednesday.

Moscow has defied Western calls to release the men, who have been accused of violating Russia’s borders and face up to six years in prison. At least three of the men are in hospital.

State television has broadcast footage from the interrogation of three of the captives, including an officer who, while reading from a screen, said the ships had deliberately ignored Russian requests to stop.

The head of the Ukrainian navy said the sailors had been forced to give false testimony, noting that several of the men had relatives in Crimea.

Russian ships rammed a tugboat and opened fire on two gunboats that were trying to reach the Ukrainian port of Mariupol through the Kerch Strait on Sunday. 

The Ukrainian security service said Tuesday that a Russian jet had also fired rockets during the incident, seriously injuring one officer. Special forces later boarded the vessels.

Russia has claimed the incident was a planned “provocation,” while Ukraine has called it an act of aggression.

Although the Azov Sea is by a 2003 treaty supposed to be shared between Ukraine and Russia, the Kerch Strait connecting it to the Black Sea has been controlled by Moscow since it annexed Crimea in 2014.

Russia has been demanding that ships receive permission to pass after it opened a bridge over the strait in May.

In a phone call with German chancellor Angela Merkel late on Monday, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, accused Kiev of “creating yet another conflict situation” before March’s presidential election in Ukraine, according to a Kremlin read-out.

On Tuesday, Russian state media footage showed Bal anti-ship missiles moving from Sevastopol to the Kerch Strait. For over four years, Russia has backed separatists in a conflict in Eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 10,300 people. 

Tensions have also been rising in the Azov Sea as both sides have detained each other’s fishing vessels. But Sunday’s incident marked the first time Russia has openly attacked Ukrainian forces.

The UK has condemned Russia’s “destabilising behaviour in the region and its ongoing violation of Ukrainian territorial integrity”.

At an emergency session of the United Nations on Monday, Russia said the Ukrainian vessels deliberately did not wait for permission to pass through the strait, which was temporarily closed.

The passage under the bridge had been blocked with a tanker.

But Ukraine said its ships had waited for permission and began withdrawing from the area after they were buzzed by Russian helicopters.

Speaking on CNN on Tuesday, president Petro Poroshenko said Russia had concentrated a large number of troops near Ukraine’s borders, citing Nato intelligence. 

Ukraine’s parliament had previously agreed to impose martial law after Mr Poroshenko claimed he had information that Russia was planning a ground operation.

It had looked as though March’s presidential election, in which Mr Poroshenko is trailing in the polls, would be delayed. But following a backlash, the measures were watered down and will be implemented for only one month and only in 10 regions.

The incident will likely boost the ratings of both Mr Putin and Mr Poroshenko. Since the annexation of Crimea, Russia has imprisoned several Ukrainians in controversial trials, including Crimean director Oleg Sentsov.

In 2016, military pilot Nadiya Savchenko was sentenced to 22 years in prison by a Moscow court after being captured in eastern Ukraine. Within weeks, she was swapped for two Russian soldiers captured in eastern Ukraine.

A suspected member of the notorious Pink Panther gang of thieves was among five men arrested for the brazen theft of jewels from a Mughal collection on display in Venice earlier this year.

The men – four Croats and a Serb – were arrested in Croatia following an 11 month-long investigation by police in Italy and their counterparts in Zagreb.

In one of the most audacious heists Italy has witnessed in recent years, thieves stole a pendant brooch and a pair of earrings worth an estimated £2.3 million from the exhibition in the Doge’s Palace in St Mark’s Square in January.

The jewellery was from the famed Al Thani Collection, owned by Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani and normally kept in London.

The gang struck on the last day of the four-month exhibition, which featured exquisite jewellery and precious stones spanning four centuries from the Mughal Empire to the present.

Despite being caught on security cameras, the thieves managed to deactivate an alarm system and force open a reinforced display case before disappearing into crowds of tourists and escaping.

Police said the leader of the gang is believed to be a member of the Pink Panther syndicate, which is accused of carrying out dozens of well-planned, high-profile jewellery heists across Europe and Asia.

He is wanted in connection with a seven million euro diamond robbery in Basel, Switzerland, in 2011.

The Pink Panther gang has become well-known for executing lightning-fast, high value robberies.

In past raids, gang members have worn wigs to disguise their identities and threatened staff with firearms, before smashing open display cases with pickaxes and hammers.

They were nicknamed the Pink Panthers after British detectives raided a house in London and found a $750,000 diamond ring hidden in a pot of face cream – a ruse used in one of the classic Peter Sellers comedies.

Members mostly come from Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Croatia, authorities say, with many suspected to be highly-trained veterans of the Balkan wars.

They have made hundreds of millions of pounds by targeting upmarket watch and jewellery stores across the world.

During one heist in St Tropez, they ran down to the harbour and made off in a speed boat.    

Italian authorities did not disclose whether the jewels stolen from Venice had been recovered.

But Italian police did reveal on Friday that the gang had made two previous attempts to steal jewels from the collection – once on December 3 last year and again on January 2. They were either disturbed or had difficulties forcing open the display cases.

The pendant brooch, featuring a flawless 10-carat diamond surrounded by diamonds and rubies, was worth more than $2 million, while the pear-shaped diamond earrings were worth $1 million.

The items were designed by Bhagat Jewelers, an exclusive Mumbai jeweler, in 2011 and 2014.

Prior to coming to Venice, the collection, "Treasures of the Mughals and the Maharajas", had also been on display in Paris, New York, Japan and in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.

The arrests were welcomed by Luigi Brugnaro, the mayor of Venice, who said the city had offered “maximum collaboration” to investigators.

The operation to find the alleged thieves had been “complex” because it was based on collaboration between the Italian police and their counterparts from several countries, the mayor said.

A South Korean cult leader was convicted on Thursday of the multiple rape of eight female followers – some of whom believed he was God – and jailed for 15 years.

Pastor Lee Jaerock’s victims were "unable to resist as they were subject to the accused’s absolute religious authority", judge Chung Moon-sung told the Seoul Central District Court.

Religious devotion is widespread in technologically advanced South Korea, with 44 per cent of people identifying themselves as believers.

Most belong to mainstream churches, which can accumulate wealth and influence with tens of thousands of followers donating as much as 10 percent of their income.

But fringe groups are also widespread – experts say around 60 people in the country claim to be divine – and some have been implicated in fraud, brainwashing, coercion, and other behaviour associated with cults worldwide.

Lee set up the Manmin Central Church in Guro, once a poor area of Seoul, with just 12 followers in 1982. It has now grown to 130,000 members, with a spotlight-filled auditorium, sprawling headquarters, and a website replete with claims of miracle cures.

But three of Lee’s followers went public earlier this year, as South Korea was swept with a wave of #MeToo accusations, describing how he had summoned each of them to an apartment and raped them.

"I was unable to turn him down," one of them told South Korean television.

"He was more than a king. He was God," added the woman, who had been a church member since childhood.

Lee told another that she was now in Heaven, and to strip as Adam and Eve went naked in the Garden of Eden. "I cried as I hated to do it," she told JTBC television.

Eight women laid criminal complaints, and the court found Lee raped and molested them "tens of times" over a long period.

"Through his sermons the accused has indirectly or directly suggested he is the holy spirit, deifying himself," the judge said.

The victims believed him to be "a divine being who wields divine power", he added.

Lee, who denied the charges, stood with his eyes closed as the judgement was read, showing no emotion, while around 100 followers filled the courtroom to overflowing, some of them sighing quietly.

The 75-year-old’s lawyers had accused the women of lying to seek vengeance after being excommunicated for breaching church rules.

South Korea has proven fertile ground for religious groups with strong, unambiguous ideologies that offered comfort and salvation that appealed strongly during times of deep uncertainty.

More recent versions have claimed a unique knowledge of the path to material and spiritual prosperity – a message that resonates in a highly competitive and status-focused society.

According to a 2015 government survey, 28 percent of South Koreans say they belong to Christian churches, with another 16 percent describing themselves as Buddhist.

But according to Park Hyung-tak, head of the Korea Christian Heresy Research Institute, around two million people are followers of cults.

"There are some 60 Christian-based cult leaders in this country who claim to be the second coming of Jesus Christ, or God Himself," he told AFP.

"Many cults point to megachurches mired in corruption and other scandals in order to highlight their own presumed purity and attract believers," he added.

On his own website, Lee says that God has "anointed me with His power" but the Manmin Central Church has been condemned as heretical by mainstream Christian organisations, partly because of its claims to miracle healing.

In one example on the church website, Barbara Vollath, a 49-year-old German, said he was born deaf but her bone cancer was cured and she gained hearing in both ears after Lee’s daughter and heiress apparent Lee Soojin prayed for her with a handkerchief he had blessed.

South Korean cults can have deadly consequences: in 1987, 32 members of an apocalyptic group called Odaeyang, were found dead at their headquarters in an apparent murder-suicide pact, including its leader, who was under police investigation for embezzlement.

And they can influence the highest reaches of power.

Choi Soon-Sil, the woman at the centre of the corruption scandal that brought down her close friend president Park Geun-Hye, is the daughter of late religious leader Choi Tae-min.

The elder Choi became Park’s spiritual mentor after establishing his own church, Yeongsegyo ("Spiritual Life"), combining tenets of Buddhism, Christianity and shamanism.