GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A self-confessed suspect in a 33-year-old child disappearance case, which had provoked nationwide attention, is expected to appear in court accused of second-degree murder, Friday 25 May in New York.
Pedro Hernandez, was arrested Thursday 24 May, and admitted to killing 6-year-old Etan Patz, after a relative’s memories were revived when the case received renewed attention recently with the excavation of a basement in the boy’s neighborhood.
The disappearance of the young Manhattan resident as he walked on his own for the first time to take the bus to school, captivated American parents at the time, as it was widely felt that children’s freedom had been lost. A national campaign for missing children began soon after with image of the disappeared displayed on milk cartons.
Following the arrest, New York Police Commisioner Raymond Kelley explained that Hernandez, who was 18 at the time, had lured the boy from the bus stop “with the promise of soda”. He then took him to the basement of a grocery store, strangled him there and “disposed of the body by putting it in a plastic bag and placing it in the trash”.
Hernandez’s neighbors in the nearby town of Maple Shade, New Jersey, where he moved about three years ago, say the suspect, had lived a rather non-descript life there with his wife and teenaged daughter.
Hernandez’s court appearance takes place 33 years to the day after the disappearance.
Links to other sources: CBS, CNN, BBC, South Jersey News
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Joran Van der Sloot, 24, a Dutch citizen, pleaded guilty on Wednesday 9 May, to the 2010 murder of Stephany Flores, a 21-year-old Peruvian woman he met at a Lima casino.
Flores murder took place five years to the day after Natalie Holloway, an American student on holidays, disappeared on Aruba, the Dutch dependency where the young man grew up.
Van der Sloot remains the main suspect in Holloway’s murder and faces an indictment in the US for allegedly accepting money in exchange for an unfulfilled promise to lead to the victim’s body.
The Dutch man’s lawyer says his client will fight extradition.
Van der Sloot could be released on parole after serving a third of his 28-year sentence for killing Flores.
Links to other sites: Christian Science Monitor, the Huffington Post
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 40-year-old Kosovo man who lives in Geneva was arrested by police 19 April for the murder of a 78-year-old man in Carouge 10 April. The man, who was picked up after he returned from a brief trip abroad, has confessed to the crime. The victim was found in his apartment with his throat cut.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A man, his wife and his mistress were arrested in Northeastern Brazil for allegedly killing at least two women and then eating them.
The three, who admit using flesh from their victims to make meat pastries, which they sold to neighbors, told police that they belonged to a sect and had heard a “voice” telling them to kill. The suspects claim the “Cartel” sect preached “the purification of the world and the reduction of its population”, according to the police.
Two female bodies, and a 5-year-old girl, suspected of being the kidnapped daughter an earlier victim, were found at the couple’s house in Garanhuns, 230 kilometers from Recife.
The male suspect, Jorge Beltrão Negromonte, had allegedly written a 50-page book, entitled “Revelations of a Schizophrenic”, detailing the trio’s cannibalism.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 78-year-old Spanish man, identified by press reports as Julio, has become Geneva’s second murder of 2012.
According to Geneva police, the man was found Tuesday 10 April at 10:10, but his murder took place a few days earlier. His throat had been “significantly slit” by an unknown person who entered his apartment in Carouge.
Although the police report does not provide any further details, local press reports say the man had been living alone for the past two or three years, since his wife went to live in an assisted care facility.
The man was a friendly person, who didn’t always lock his door, neighbours told 20 Minutes and the Tribune de Genève.
Police say there are not yet any suspects in the case.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – George Zimmerman, the self-confessed killer of an un-armed Florida Afro-American, was charged Wednesday evening 11 April with second-degree murder, six weeks after the incident.
The murder of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin by Zimmerman, who admits to have acted in self-defense in his role as a neighborhood watch volunteer, sparked a nationwide debate about racial profiling and general outrage at how the killer could remain free. US President Barack Obama had added to the discourse last month, saying “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon”.
Zimmerman is expected to plead not guilty. His lawyer will request his release on bail when he appears before the magistrate Thursday.
Links to other sources: NPR, Reuters, The Telegraph, Miami Herald
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The decorated but previously injured US soldier who appears to have gone on a solo shooting rampage in Afghanistan will be charged with the deaths of the 17 civilians who died, in addition to other charges, the US Army announced. Robert Bales, 38, was flown to Kuwait a week ago and then to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he is imprisoned. The charges will be read to him there Friday. He could face the death penalty, but the trial is widely expected to last months or years, a fact that has upset Afghanistan, which has called for a swift trial.
Bales is accused of entering homes and shooting sleeping villagers the night of 11 March. Afghan witnesses say there was more than one soldier, but there are no other suspects. His lawyer is playing down stories that Bales was drunk the night of the shootings, saying that his client recalls little of that night. The day before the shootings he had seen a friend’s leg blown off. He is the father of two and the family lives in Washington state.
Links to other sites: BBC, AP/Fox News, Guardian, Times of India
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A rundown of some of this week’s news highlights:
Nestlé charged with lack of protection, death of former worker
Charges were filed against Vevey-based multinational Nestlé in Zug by a Colombian trade union and a human rights group for not adequately protecting a former employee, Luciano Romero, who was murdered in Colombia by paramilitaries in 2005. The case could have broad implications according to Germany-based human rights group ECCHR (European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights) because it is the first filed against a Swiss company in Switzerland for a crime committed outside the country. ECCHR – Nestle, Newsletter French, pdf (Fr)
The charges come as world media are focused on the safety of foreign multinational workeres in conflict areas, notably in Nigeria, with the deaths Thursday 8 March of two foreigner workers in Nigeria. In separate news, Nestlé announced Friday morning that it is offering scholarships to a number of its trainees in Nigeria, to bring them to Switzerland to see home office operations.
Solar Boat evades pirates, navigates way to world record
PlanetSolar, the world’s only entirely solar-powered boat, whose home is Yverdon, made it through the pirate-infested waters of the Gulf of Aden. The MS Tûranor PlanetSolar is now navigating the waters of the Red Sea and expects to arrive 4 May 2012 in Monaco, at which point it will become the first solar boat to circumnavigate the globe.
Crans-Montana says yes to Women’s World Cup in 2013 in a turn-about (correction)
World Cup in Crans-Montana, 2012
The Valais resort of Crans-Montana said Monday it would not be hosting the 2013 Women’s World Cup in skiing, despite the success and nearly 50,000 visitors to the men’s event in late February.
A turn-around was announced Thursday 8 March after a meeting Wednesday night when the concerns of some players about hosting the event at the height of the ski season, which could mean closing to the public the popular Nationale run for several days.
The group of communities in the region, ACCM, has thrown its support behind not only a bid for the Cup next year, but an investment of CHF400,000 a year to keep Crans-Montana on the World Cup circuit. The funds require final approval, but the signal at the end of the week was clear: the resort is ready to fight to get the events.
Also under discussion are the re-creation of two or three significant runs.
One former Swiss president gets pie in face, another joins Rousseau protesters in NY
Micheline Calmy-Rey, who completed her year as president of Switzerland in December 2011, was shocked, as were many in the political world, by a pie that was shoved in her face earlier this week by a man angry over her role in the losses incurred by bank BCGE several years ago. The incident, outside the human rights film festival in Geneva, appeared to be more a form of aggression than a humorous incident.
Another former Swiss president, Pascal Couchepin, joins a group in New York Friday 9 March, for Occupy Rousseau, to hold up the Geneva philosopher’s example of fighting inequality and social injustice.
Cern technology behind Geneva airport’s solar panels
The airport in Geneva Friday received delivery of the first of some 300 high-temperature solar thermal panels that will cover a surface of 1,200m2 on the roof of the main terminal building. The panels will be used to heat the buildings during winter and cool them in summer. Their vacuum technology was developed at Cern for particle accelerators.
Nuclear power plant told by judge it must close early
Muehleberg, Switzerland’s aging nuclear power plant that has been the focus of protesters’ calls for closure because of the high cost of keeping it safe, was told it must shut down by June 2013. Safety issues were cited as the reason. The decision was made by the Swiss Administrative Court 1 March but announced the 7th, Wednesday. It is one of five nuclear power plants in the country and was scheduled to be phased out as Switzerland gets rid of its nuclear energy programme, but the decision speeds up the process by several years.
Lucie was murdered near Zurich in March 2008
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The 28-year-old man accused of killing 16-year-old Lucie Trezzini from Fribourg in March 2009 was sentenced to 20 years in prison Wednesday.
The defense for Daniel, who has a long history of drug and alcohol abuse, Wednesday morning asked for the sentence to be limited to 18 years, with a series of long and intense therapeutic measures.
The prosecution Tuesday asked that he be sentenced to life in prison.
The father of the girl, who was tricked into going to his apartment for what she thought was a photo session for jewelry, said Tuesday that Daniel is a sick man and should be locked up for life.
Lucie’s case drew nationwide attention. She was working as an au pair girl in Rieden-bei-Baden in canton Aargau, to improve her German, when she met Daniel during a day trip to Zurich.
The girl’s family later sued the cantonal prison service, which had released him without what the family argued was a suitable plan for the serial offender.
Lucie’s disappearance and murder changed Swiss attitudes towards adopting a nationwide child disappearance alert system, which went into effect in January 2010. Cell phone owners can register to be included, in order to spread the information as quickly and as widely as possible once a child disappears.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 32-year-old man shot and killed the father of his ex-girlfriend in Vernier Saturday morning at 10:30, Geneva police say. The man arrived to pick up his daughter, born in 2009, for a weekend visit but a dispute broke out between the man, his ex and her parents, who were visiting. The younger man, a Geneva resident, then shot the older man. Police arrested the gunman in front of the apartment building and despite emergency services arriving quickly on the scene, the victim died there.
Flip side of disco fever!
Location: Château de Coppet
Link out: http://www.meurtresetmysteres.ch
Date: 26 Jan 2012
Start time: 19:30
Suspect has police record
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The 23-year-old Swiss man in custody since Friday night4 November when he apparently shot his girlfriend in their apartment in St Leonard, appears to have used his army weapon, canton Valais police say. The weapon that caused the woman’s death was a FASS (fusil d’assaut) 90, kept at home and used by young soldiers for their regular federal shooting practice at 300 metres.
Domestic violence in Switzerland: relationship between victim and suspect (source: Federal Statistical Office, 2010)
The youth has a police record. He was indicted in 2010 on charges of breaking and entering, theft and damage to property as well as for possession of drugs.
In 2008 he was found guilty and given a suspended sentence for menacing threats and damaging property.
Swiss voters in February 2011 firmly rejected a popular initiative that would have kept the arms of the citizen militia in arsenals. Soldiers are no longer permitted to keep ammunition at home, however. The “Small Arms Survey” carried out in 2007 showed that Switzerland had 2.7 million arms in homes, as the debate over military guns heated up.
The argument against military guns kept at home was fuelled by the widely publicized death of ski star Corinne Rey-Bellet, who was shot by her husband, an army officer who then took his own life after a police chase.
Swiss police estimated in 2010 that fewer than one-quarter of guns in Swiss homes are military issue. Firearms accounted for 23 percent of all murders.
A study by doctors at the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne that was published in December 2010 in Forensic Medicine and Pathology reviewed murders and suicides in Switzerland over a 23-year period.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 23-year-old Swiss man is under arrest after shooting to death his 21-year-old girlfriend late Friday in the apartment they shared in St Leonard, near Sion in canton Valais. The two had argued, say Valais police, when the youth pulled the gun, around 23:15. Further details are not yet available.
The number of domestic homicides has fallen, from about 50 a year in 2000 to 2004, to 25 and 26 in 2009 and 2010. Last year 19 women were among the 26 victims. About 65 percent of the deaths occur among couples who are currently in a relationship. Historically, 9 out of 10 victims are women, according to Swiss federal statistics.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Libya’s NTC, the National Transitional Council, says it will bring to justice the person found to have shot the bullet to the head that killed former leader Muammar Qaddafi, who died 20 minutes after being captured. The NTC had argued for a week that he was killed in crossfire, but video footage shown by those who captured him forced the council to back down. The Guardian reports that everyone in Misrata, where he was captured, knows the man who shot Qaddafi, and his army unit, but there is little sympathy for calls for justice. “Talk of an inquest was being seen by Misrata officials as an attempt by the Benghazi-dominated NTC to claim prominence in post-Gaddafi affairs,” reports the Guardian.
Aljazeera has shown film footage of the man who claims to have taken the shot, surrounded by fighters who are clearly proud of him, but it says it cannot independently confirm the information, a report repeated by other news agencies that have film footage. Aljazeera notes that the United Nations and human rights organizations will be closely viewing films in coming days to determine who murdered Qaddafi, when and how.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The trial of two men for the murder of white supremacist Eugene Terre’Blanche is underway in South Africa, after two delays. The prosecution claims that the two, a 16-year-old farm worker and Chris Mahlangu, 29, who also worked on Terre’Blanche’s farm, meted out the 28 blows that killed the farmer in April 2010, while the defense says they found the body and called police, but did not commit the crime.
The crime, in northwestern South Africa, “highlighted South Africa’s fragile race relations 16 years after white minority rule ended”, reports the BBC, while the Mail & Guardian in South Africa focuses on technical aspects as the trial opens. Both men are pleading not guilty.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Media in the Italy, Britain and the US are heavily covering the release from prison of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, following the judge’s decision in Italy to overturn their murder convictions in the November 2007 death of Meredith Kercher. Coverage of the trial and release continue to follow national lines, with American media often portraying Knox as an innocent victim, British media emphasizing the prosecution’s description of her as a liar with a split personality, and Italy media incensed that their justice system is being called faulty by Americans.
Knox sobbed as she left the courtroom. Sollecito’s father gave an emotional TV interview outside. And Kercher’s family quietly left, telling journalists briefly of their disappointment, appearing stunned by the verdict. They will give a press conference later today.
Rudy Guede, 24, from Cote d’Ivoire, was also accused of the murder in a separate trial and his appeal was upheld although he, too, claims innocence.
A fourth person involved in the court case, bar owner Patrick Lumumba, was once Knox’s employer, and while under interrogation she accused him of the murder. He was detained for two weeks based on her evidence. Know was found guilty 3 October of slander and was sentenced to three years, which she has served, and ordered to pay him several thousand dollars. Knox is likely to quickly sign an agreement worth at least $1 million with a US television network, according to Britain’s Sky News.
Links to other sites: Guardian, UK, Seattle PI, Sky News, Zimbio images
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Vaud police say the 48-year-old man whose body was found in Begnins, not far from Nyon, Friday morning committed suicide, but the cause of death of his 39-year-old wife is not yet clear.
The Swiss couple were found in their apartment by someone who knew them about 09:00 Friday 9 September and police were called immediately. Those close to the situation and the two children of the couple, reportedly ages 4 and 7, were given counseling by police.
Police have ruled out the involvement of a third party in the deaths of the couple who, according to local media, had been living in Begnins for less than a year.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Tribune de Geneve reports that a man suspected of the murder of a 51-year-old TPG (Geneva public transport) company manager was arrested abroad and is being investigated by Geneva police. According to the city newspaper the man, who is an employee of the company, has had personal problems in recent months that have caused him trouble at work, but the TPG has provided him with support and some time off. He was scheduled to met his boss Monday morning to discuss getting back to work and reportedly walked in and shot him instead.
The murder was Geneva’s fifth in 2011.
Italian dies on Matterhorn late Sunday afternoon
Update 11:50 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The past four days have taken a high toll in deaths and injuries in Switzerland: a well-known wine writer was murdered by her former companion who then committed suicide early Friday, three mountain climbers lost their lives in falls and four youths on a joyride are in serious condition after the car they stole rolled several times.
Murder victim and ex known in food and wine circles
Barbara Dittus-Meier, 47, former editor of Vinum, the European wine magazine, and a widely respected wine authority in Switzerland, was shot at her home shortly after midnight Friday in Baden, not far from Zurich, by her ex-companion, Rui A, a Portuguese chef and owner of the Pergola restaurant in Bad Zurzach, 43. He then turned the gun on himself. Neighbours alerted the police after hearing several shots. The three daughters of Dituss-Meier, ages 14 to 20, were asleep at the time of the deaths, but were awakened by the shots and they discovered the bodies. (more on editor Ellen Wallace’s wine blog, Among the Vines).
Argovian police had previously received calls for domestic violence; the couple had been together for several years but had recently split up.
Youths steal car, lose control and flip it
Fourth local youths stole a car in Stalenried in canton Valais in the early hours of Sunday 21 August, around 02:00, and headed on the cantonal road for Gspon when the driver lost control of the car on a bend.
It rolled over several times, 150 metres down a sloping pasture, before coming to a stop. All four were taken to hospital with serious injuries: two were flown to the Hopital de l’Ile in Bern and two others were taken by ambulance to Visp.
They are 18, 16, 14 and 13 years old.
Fire destroys new barn at its inauguration
A new building described by canton Vaud police as an “ultra-modern” barn that was to house 160 animals starting next week in Grens, Vaud, caught fire and was destroyed Saturday afternoon at 15:00 during its inauguration.
Several dozen people and about 15 animals were there to celebrate the completion of the barn when it caught fire, for reasons that are not yet known. The building housed more than 800 large rolls of hay and straw, and it went up in flames quickly. The animals were taken to safety and no one was injured. The 160 animals scheduled to winter there are currently up in the Copettes alpage near Givrins.
Separate accidents kill 3 in Swiss Alps
An Italian died on the east face of the Matterhorn at 17:30 Sunday and two climbers died in separate accidents 19 and 20 August, bringing to four the number of people who died in one week while walking or climbing in canton Valais.
Police say the Italian was one of a group of five climbing the Matterhorn/Cervin Sunday 21 August when he fell 500 metres to his death on the east face of the mountain, shortly before the Solvay hut, at 4,030 metres. The group was not roped together. Police are trying to formally identify the climber.
A 43-year-old German man who was climbing the Lagginhorn mountain on his own 19 August fell 50 metres to his death, at 3,600 metres. His family became worried when he hadn’t returned home by 20:30 and they called police. A helicopter search failed to find him during the night but found his body when the search was taken up again Saturday morning.
Two Austrian climbers headed up the south face of the Dent Blanche Saturday morning. As they started down, on the south peak at 4,000 metres, at 09:30, one of them, a 27-year-old man, fell 400 metres to his death, for reasons that are not clear.
A 15-year-old Mauritian tourist lost his life earlier in the week while hiking near Martigny-La Combe.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A 44-year-old woman who had recently contacted a psychiatrist killed her nine-year-old daughter Friday 12 August in Romanel-sur-Lausanne, then killed herself. The pair was found by the father and husband, who called 117 after he discovered the two at the family residence, shortly before 18:00.
Canton Vaud police have released little additional information beyond saying that the involvement of a third party has been excluded and that the husband/father as well as others close to the situation are being given counseling. TSR reports that the couple had another child, who age is not known, and who was not at home at the time; the station quotes a police officer as saying the father was in a “terrible state of shock”.
Le Matin reports that the other child, a 12-year-old girl, learned of their deaths upon her return Saturday from summer camp, and that the mother sent an e-mail to her boss Friday to say she wasn’t ready to come back from sick leave, which she’d taken in mid-July.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A 45-year-old woman from the Dominican Republic was found dead in a studio apartment on the rue des Uttins in Yverdon-les-Bains Sunday evening, and police are calling it homicide. An investigation was opened after police, called in by people close to the woman, found her body with fatal knife wounds and her hands bound.
The studio is in a building with several apartments that are used by legally registered prostitutes.
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The circumstances remain a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie, surrounding the death of a senior air traffic controller, age 34, fatally stabbed early Wednesday morning 27 April in a secure area of Basel airport.
His body was found at 08:00 at the top of the elevator that leads to stairs going up to the control tower, by a fellow employee who raised the alarm. He had been stabbed in the throat, lungs and thorax, at least three times. Police say no weapon has been found.
The man, who has not been named, was the father of a four-year-old child. He was heading to work for his turn of duty, in charge of the control tower.
Traffic at the EuroAirport Bâle-Mulhouse-Freiburg airport was not interrupted. The airport is on French territory but at the intersection of France, Germany and Switzerland. French police say the secure area is accessible only to people with badges. Christian Reeb, who is heading the French investigation, told media he believes there is no link between the man’s death and his work.
Links to other sites: TSR (Fr), BaslerZeitung (Ge)
Israeli Arab filmmaker was murdered 4 April
Visions du Réel runs 7-13 April in Nyon
Nyon, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) -The Nyon documentary film festival opens Thursday on a somber note, with a tribute to Juliano Mer Khamis, an Israeli Arab filmmaker and actor who was murdered 4 April in the West Bank. His film “Arna’s Children” was awarded the prize of the Jury du Jeune Public of Visions du Réel in 2004.
This is a year of change for the Nyon festival, with Luciano Barisone, its new director, taking charge for the first time. On a more practical level for festival-goers, a new electronic ticketing system is in place.
The festival opens Thursday 7 April, with some 50 films making their world or European debuts at this festival that has grown in scope and importance to the film industry in recent years. Films fall into three categories: long, medium-long and short.
A trial in France over responsibility for the death of an 11-month-old girl in March 2008 has provoked questions about people’s dietary choices. The French parents are being prosecuted for “neglect or food deprivation followed by death” after their daughter died of complications from bronchitis.
Her parents treated her using only natural methods, from a book published in the 1950s.
Sergine Le Moaligou, the deceased baby’s mother, has been criticized for her vegan lifestyle, which may have been linked to her daughter’s death, according to the deputy state prosecutor. The baby was breastfed her whole life and had vitamin deficiencies that could have made her susceptible to the pneumopulmonary infection. The baby weighed just 5.7kg compared with the normal 8 to 11kg average for her age group.
France, famous for its meat dishes such as foie gras, steak, and various preparations of veal, provides few alternative options for vegetarians and vegans, argues a writer in the Guardian. The case has sparked a worldwide debate about whether the vegan diet is to blame in the baby’s death, or whether the parents simply should have taken medical advice from a qualified doctor.
Links to other sites: CTV, Guardian, France 3, TF1, The Week
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Police in Geneva say they have arrested a 29-year-old Swiss man for murder, after working closely with Vaud police to find the suspect. The man was questioned Wednesday 16 March and then taken to prison where he is being detained as a suspect in the killing of a 26-year-old Serb.
The man died 2 March in front of 4, rue Tronchin, despite emergency medical treatment, after being hit with a blunt instrument.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The death of a popular local Swiss politician in July 2010 shocked the Morges region when her step-son, a well-known geneticist, was taken in for questioning in relationship to her death, charges he vehemently denied.
Medical examiners in Paris, France, who were given access to all the evidence, have declared the woman’s death “accidental”, TSR television has learned.
Relations between Pakistan and the US have been tense over the arrest in January of US diplomatic worker Raymond Davis but they are heating up, with Lahore saying he was on assignment for the CIA while Washington insists he is an embassy technical worker who has diplomatic immunity. Davis opened fire on, and killed, two men who pulled up next to him at a red light in Lahore and he has been charged with murder. The Guardian in the UK says it is now clear, based on interviews with officials from the two countries, that he was working as a spy.
The deaths of four men, thrown from a bridge near Acapulco, Mexico Friday 18 February, appear to signal that the drug cartel wars in Mexico have shifted into a more violent gear.
Earlier this week, US special agent Jaime Zapata was killed and his partner injured during a border shootout, but even their brazen murders have paled next to the grizzly bridge deaths.
Zapata and his partner, run off the road while driving north from Mexico City to Monterrey in a US government vehicle, identified themselves as US diplomats before they were shot in an incident that “Republican Ben Quayle, from the border state of Arizona, described [the attack] as ‘a wake-up call for all of us in the US’,” reports news agency AFP.
MSNBC reports of the Acapulco bridge deaths that “the four were among 12 people killed Friday in and around Acapulco, which has seen a spike in violence since rival factions of the Beltran Leyva cartel began fighting over territory after leader Arturo Beltran Leyva died in a battle with Mexican marines in December 2009.”
The men are presumed to have been alive, with hands and feet bound and duct tape over their heads, when they were tossed off the bridge.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A 68-year-old Swiss man was knifed to death in his apartment on the rue du Vidollet in Geneva Tuesday, police say. He was found at 22:00 by people “close to him”. Police have opened an investigation, but have provided no other details for now.
The murder is Geneva’s first in 2011. Five people were murdered in the city in 2010.
Local papers Tribune de Geneve and GHI, after interviewing neighbours, have described the man as “gentle”, “kind”, “generous” and very well liked by his neighbours, but it appears that few knew him well or even knew if he had any family.
Organized crime has taken a beating, says the FBI, which Thursday 20 January rounded up 110 suspected members of the mob in the New York area, the largest single sweep according to federal authorities. Charges have been pressed against a total of 127 people for extortion, murder and narcotics. The haul includes leaders of some of the best-known mafia families in the US: the Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese, Bonanno, Colombo and DeCavalcante clans.
Links to other sites: BBC, FBI press release (first of a series), NPR, US Dept. of Justice
