Lyons, France / Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Dubai police have added 16 more international arrest warrants to the 11 already issued, linked to the 20 January death of Hamas military leader Mahmoud Al Mabhouh. Interpol has added the new warrants to its existing Red Notices for the case. Interpol, based in Lyons, insists on the likely use of identity theft by the murderers. “Since Intepol has reason to believe that the suspects linked to this murder have stolen the identities of real people, the Red Notices specify that the names used were aliases used to commit murder,” its web site notes. “Interpol has officially made public the photos and the names fraudulently used on the passports in order to limit the ability of accused murderers from traveling freely using the same false passports.”
The international criminal police organization says it contacted the Geneva-based World Economic Forum in January to alert it to the increased risk of terrorists traveling on documents using stolen identities, which makes it easier for them to avoid detection.
Annecy, France (GenevaLunch) - The killer of a young man, Freddy, murdered near Geneva in September 2007 because his murderer suspected Freddy had stolen €450 from him, was sentenced 3 March to 30 years in prison. The crime drew massive regional media coverage at the time partly because of the gruesome business of finding the victim’s body, which had been chopped into pieces and thrown into or near the Arve river. Two fishermen were the first to find part of his body, the trunk.
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Did he or didn’t he? The ages-old dilemma of judges and juries in the face of conflicting evidence has brought a tale of money, adoption, sibling rivalry and murder back into the headlines in the Lake Geneva region. A 46-year-old man put behind bars for life in 2008 for murdering the aging mother who adopted him and a close friend of hers, purportedly for money, is being tried again because of new evidence. The two women were found dead 24 December and the man’s sister disappeared that day.
A bakery employee, who only saw the story once the man was sentenced, came forward to say that she had in fact waited on the women at a time when police say they were already dead, a detail which could unravel the public defender’s case.The accused murderer has complicated the case from the start by handing out different versions of what happened.
Monday the imprisoned man told the court that he had made up the various stories about his actions under pressure from police. He now says that he played no role at all in the deaths.
The women were found dead 24 December 2005. The accused man’s brother has argued that he should not be allowed to touch any of the family’s considerable fortune, made in real estate.
Background, GenevaLunch
The number of suspects in the murder of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in December has now grown to 26, say Dubai police, with Australian passports reportedly used. Australia called in the Israeli ambassador and issued a sharp warning that it will not tolerate any government condoning or being behind the theft of its citizens’ passports, with suspicion growing that Israel was behind the murder. Australia has reportedly warned Israel in the past not to use Australian passports for its espionage activities. The Israeli government has said there is no proof that Mossad, its secret service, is involved. Some of the Australians identified, who are living in Israel, were shocked to learn of what appears to be several cases of identity theft.
Valerie Hunter is suing Sheryl Stack in Austin, Texas in the US, for negligence. Hunter is the widow of Vernon Hunter and Stack is the widow of Joe Stack, who flew his small plane into the IRS tax offices where Vernon Hunter was working. Valerie Hunter’s lawsuit reportedly says Sheryl Stack, who spent the night before the murder-suicide at a hotel, should have tried to prevent her husband’s actions. But her lawyer poitns out that the action is not meant to be vindictive and that Texas law requires that a defendant be named.
Links to other sites: Daily Texan, Houston Chronicle
The unfolding drama of the thriller-style assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, killed 20 January at the al-Bustan hotel in Dubai, leaves a growing number of questions unanswered, and Britain is now joining the investigations. Stephen Lander, the head of Serious Organized Crime Agency (Soca) and former MI5 (British secret service) boss, has been put in charge of looking into the apparent use of British passports by the team of 11 who staged the murder. Austria and France are involved in trying to track the murderers.
It is unclear if passports were forged, stolen, or valid documents. Israeli spy agency Moussad appears to be a strong suspect as the organization behind the killing, but Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Wednesday 17 February that there is no proof of this, while not denying that Israel may have been involved. Rafi Eitan, a high-ranking Mossad official, denies any involvement by the group, according to Haaretz.
Confusion over the passports reigns, with Ireland and Britain saying they believed passports for their countries were likely forged. Meanwhile, Haaretz reports that “Men with the same names as seven of the 11 suspects whose European passport photos were distributed by Dubai this week reside in Israel, and those reached by reporters insisted their identities had been stolen and noted the pictures were not a match.
”Six of the men are Britons who immigrated to Israel. The seventh is an American Israeli, whose name Dubai said was on a German passport used by one of the assassins.” The Jerusalem Post says the Israeli immigrants were astonished to find their names on the list of suspects issued by Dubai.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, Times, UK and timeline issued by Dubai police on Channel 4 TV, Belfast
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A group of researchers based at Chuv (University Hospitals) in Lausanne have published the results of a 23-year study of Swiss homicide-suicides in The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology (28 January 2010 issue). Their conclusion: a stricter weapons law would help reduce the number of such deaths. The study was undertaken in the context of an ongoing national debate over military laws that require soldiers to keep guns at home. Switzerland has a national militia.
A Florida man who won $31 million in 2006 in the state lottery was found buried under an addition to a house and a friend was arrested for his murder Tuesday 2 February, nearly a year after Abraham Shakespeare went missing. Police say Dorice Donegan Moore used his cell phone in December 2009, pretending to be him and telling his family he was safe. She denies the charges.
Links to other sites: CNN, Miami Herald
Lucie, whose murder near Zurich in 2009 prompted Swiss authorities to set up a kidnap alert system
Lucie’s murder sparked passage of Swiss alert system for abducted children
Fribourg, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The family of Lucie Trezzini, a 16-year-old au pair girl from Fribourg who was murdered 4 March 2009 in Rieden, not far from Zurich, is pressing charges against canton Aargau’s prison service. A parliamentary investigation into the events leading up to the girl’s death last year concluded that Lucie’s murderer was given a conditional release from prison without an adequate plan in place for him. He was a serial offender but had not been considered a high risk when he was released, some months before Lucie’s death.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A Swiss man in his early 30s was mortally wounded by a knife in his apartment in La-Tour-de-Peilz in the early hours of Tuesday 15 December. His companion, a Polish woman, also in her early 30s, is being questioned by police, and medical examiners are carrying out a criminal investigation with police. The couple was heard by neighbours to be arguing loudly at 03:00, say police, who were called to the scene by an acquaintance of the couple.
Links to other sites: 24 Heures (Fre), Vaud police report
A Russian police officer has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for the murder by beheading of a 20-year-old on the same day that Russia’s Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said in his annual police day speech that officers should aim their weapons only at criminals, and not at peaceful citizens. His remarks highlight a series of incidents in the country where police officers have attacked citizens. The man sentenced Monday 9 November was in a friend’s taxi when the driver tried to collect 90 rubles (CHF2 approximately) for a ride that the court heard normally costs 60, in the Urals, and the young client couldn’t pay. The two older men then took him to the toilets on an allotment and proceeded to slice his neck with a pocketknife.
Links to other sites: Novosti news agency
Shabtai Kalmanovich, who was accused of spying for the KGB in Israel in 1988 after 17 years in the country to which he had emigrated, was killed after being shot in central Moscow Monday 2 November. The Lithuanian-born Kalmanovich was shot more than 20 times by a passing car, according to Russian media, and his driver sustained serious injuries. Kalmanovich moved to Russia in 1993 after being given a medical pardon in Israel, and he became a successful businessman who owned a women’s basketball team and organized major international concerts, among other ventures.
Links to other sites: Jerusalem Post, Moscow Times, Novosti
The US, which has in the past been outspoken about human rights violations in China, has made no official comment on the 15 October death sentences handed out in China. The sentences were given to people convicted of murder following the riots in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, in July 2009. Nearly 200 people died and an estimated 1,600 were injured in the ethnic riots that gripped the city for several days. RiaNovosti, US State Department, Xinhua
Lausanne/Bex, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 20-year-old who was knifed in the heart Tuesday 1 September by two youths he didn’t know as he walked through Parc Montbenon in Lausanne, died Saturday of his injuries, Vaud police say. The 15- and 17-year-olds who killed him were caught near the train station shortly after the crime and told a judge they pulled a knife on him because they didn’t like the way he looked at them.
One of them had been charged in the past with attempted murder and spent time in a juvenile detention centre in the Jura, but he escaped in January 2009.
A second violent crime was committed by juveniles in Bex Sunday night, near the Vaud/Valais cantonal line, that sent a police officer to hospital with head, throat and knee injuries.
All four youths are of foreign nationality, from three countries, and none of them have permanent residence status. The crimes come at a time when Switzerland has been debating what to do with foreigners who have not become well integrated into Swiss society and who commit serious crimes.
Ryan Jenkins, who has been a fugitive from US and Canadian justice over the murder of his ex-wife, has been found dead in a Hope, BC, Canada motel room, where he appears to have hanged himself. Jenkins was a reality TV show star and the body of the woman he married in March 2009, Jasmine Fiore, was found murdered 15 August. She had been mutilated and stuffed in a dumpster in Los Angeles and could be identified only by the serial number on her breast implants because her fingers and teeth had been removed. Police are calling Jenkins’s death a suicide but continue to investigate it. The Globe & Mail, Canada
Boxer Arturo Gatti, who was found dead in a hotel room in Brazil 11 July, with a bloodied purse strap next to him, committed suicide by hanging himself in a stairwell, Brazilian authorities have ruled. His wife was arrested on suspicion of murder after his death. She was released Thursday 30 July. The couple, who lived in Canada, had gone to Brazil for a holiday. Batti, 37, had been an International Boxing Federation junior lightweight champion and World Boxing Council junior welterweight champion. CNN, Toronto Sun
Canadian boxer Arturo Gatti, 37, former world welterweight champion, was murdered in his hotel in Brazil Saturday 11 July and police have charged his 23-year-old wife, Amanda Rodrigues, with strangling him with a purse strap while he was in a drunken sleep. Her lawyer argues that the small woman is “too skinny” to have committed the murder, reports the Globe & Mail. Gatti grew up in Montreal and family members there told the Canadian newspaper that they believe he fell into a trap and was lured to Brazil by his wife. Sports Illustrated/AP
Lawyers for Brossard told journalists after the sentencing that they will not appeal
Journalists crowd around Palais de Justice entrance
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Cécile Brossard, who killed her lover Edouard Stern in Geneva in 2005, has been sentenced to eight and a half years in prison. She has served four of those. Yesterday’s harsh judgement by the jury, convicting Brossard of homicide rather than of a crime of passion, was softened by the relatively light sentence: she could have received as much as 20 years, and a crime of passion normally carries a lighter sentence of one to 10 years in prison.
It was a hot day in Geneva and crowds headed for the cafes near the Palais de Justice rather than courtrooms while Cécile B, as she was known in the French press, was sentenced
The public defender had called for 11 years but her lawyers asked for compassion, suggesting she be allowed to leave prison as soon as possible. She will in fact most likely be eligible to leave at the end of 2010.
TSR notes that the documents, photos, latex suit in which the murdered man was found, the weapon and other items related to the crime and trial will be destroyed, citing the court president.
Related: TSR, Fre
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Update 18:05 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch, agencies and other media) – Cécile Brossard, the murderer of Edouard Stern, has been found guilty by a jury in Geneva of homicide for killing her lover 28 February 2005. The jury will decide Thursday on her sentence, up to 20 years in prison.
Geneva, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – The trial of Cécile Brossard for the murder of Edouard Stern draws to a close today 17 June. The jury of 12 is sequestered and its judgement is expected by the end of the day. They must decide if the murder, to which Brossard has admitted, was simple homicide or a crime of passion with attenuating circumstances. A conviction for homicide could carry up to 20 years in prison for the 40-year-old.
Background: Edouard Stern’s murder, GenevaLunch in partnership with l’Hebdo, 9 June 2009
Update 07:55 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Popular interest in Cécile Brossard’s trial for the murder of wealthy French banker Edouard Stern in Geneva in 2005 is in little danger of lagging, if the crowds queuing at 08:30 Monday 15 June for the public seats are any indication. The trial’s fourth day ended with Brossard giving “contradictory” testimony, according to TSR. Le Temps Tuesday morning carries a lengthy description of Monday’s session, where Brossard for the first time described in court what happened the night of the murder. Earlier in the day the crowd listened attentively to tape recorded messages Stern left Brossard and to police recordings of phone calls between Brossard and her husband or her friends.
What the Swiss (French) media are saying:
Le Temps refers to the “infernal relationship” between Stern and Brossard in pointing out the change Monday from the teary-eyed Brossard seen last week to the woman Monday who appeared to be made of marble while she listened, first to tender messages left on her cell phone by Stern and later to others that were cruel and crude.
Cantons Geneva, Jura and Solothurn, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland was the scene of violent deaths in three members of a family in Solothurn and of a University of Geneva professor out walking in the Jura the weekend of 6-7 June. Police have now arrested two people in connection with the Solothurn murders. The circumstances surrounding the death of Alain Monnier, professor of religion and anthropology in Geneva remain unclear for now, with police saying only that a knife was found in a nearby river and that he died of a stab wound to the heart.
Monnier was a professor for 21 years at the University of Geneva and he was last seen Thursday 4 June when he left his home in the Jura, near the Doubs river area, to go for a walk. His body was found Saturday. Police are not excluding all possibilities, from suicide to accident to murder.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The drama of the trial of Cécile Brossard for the murder of Edouard Stern in Geneva finished its first day with two surprises. The husband of the accused, a naturopathy doctor in Clarens, Vaud, told the court that he leaned his wife was having an affair with Stern only after the murder. He understood that his wife was the “sexual secretary” for the French banker based in Geneva. At one point she asked him to give a massage to Stern, who was suffering from back problems. Stern later insulted him, calling him a cuckold.
The second surprise of the day was that the million dollars that caused a tug-of-war between Stern and Brossard is still sitting in an account with Credit Suisse in Montreux, earning interest.
The trial is scheduled to run until 19 June.
Geneva, Switzerland (romandie/AFP, Fre) – The trial of Cecile Brossard, accused of murdering Edouard Stern, opened in Geneva Wednesday morning with two of the French banker’s children and his ex-wife as witnesses. His wife described him as a man with faults but who was an exceptional person. Brossard asked the court to allow her to explain how the crime occurred, but not to muddy the memory of the man.
Background, 9 June 2009: GenevaLunch/l’Hebdo, part one and part two in English
A woman accused of murdering three of her new-born infants and keeping two of them in her freezer went on trial in central France 9 June. Veronique Courjault was living in Seoul, Korea with her engineer husband when he discovered the bodies in the freezer in 2006 and alerted the police. His wife was vacationing in France at the time. She at first denied any knowledge of the situation, but after positive DNA tests proved that the babies were the couple’s, she confessed. Her husband has not been implicated. Courjault later confessed to killing another of her new-born children in France in 1999. The couple have two young sons. BBC, Tribune de Genève (Fre)
