British police are now calling the death of Joanne Yeates in north Bristol “murder” and say she was strangled. The 25-year-old landscape architect’s death made headlines in the UK after 17 December, when she inexplicably disappeared on her way home at 20:00 from a pre-Christmas party with friends. Her body was found eight days later, on Christmas Day, by people out walking their dog. Her coat, keys and mobile phone were found in her home, but no sign of the pizza she bought at Tesco’s on her way home, or of its packaging.
Body never found, manner of death unknown
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The jury has passed judgement and ruled José guilty of murdering Olga in 1999, in the strange trial that has taken place in Geneva during the past week.
The jury announced its decision Tuesday 21 December in the evening and on Wednesday the judge sentenced him to 16 years for murder, rape and sequestering another person.
The sentence was conditional: he must be reviewed by a psychiatric panel and if, when his sentence is complete, he is not judged safe for society, he will not be released.
José, a 44-year-old Peruvian, was charged with assassination in the death of 23-year-old Olga, a clandestine au pair worker in Geneva, with whom he had a child. But Olga’s body has never been found, nor is it known how she died, and the jury settled for the lesser, not pre-meditated charge of murder, under the circumstances.
It refused to exclude the possibility that Carmen, his ex-wife and one of the mothers of his nine children, may have had a hand in Olga’s death, although Carmen alerted police to the possibility that her ex-husband had murdered the younger woman.
Final Geneva jury has its say
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The riveting trial of José, 44, Peruvian, father of nine children by four women, for murdering one of the women, Olga, enters its second week Monday 20 December. Olga, age 23, disappeared in October 1999 after working clandestinely in Geneva for six years, on the first birthday of the child she had with José. It was only in 2005, when Carmen, José’s ex-wife, told police he had shown her Olga’s dead body, that police arrested him. The lead-up to the trial and the first week of testimony have shown a world of wildly differing stories, with Carmen, who had three children by her ex-husband after their divorce, being accused by him of plotting her revenge against her rival, Olga. The trial is also exposing he underside to life in Geneva for black market workers.
Links to others sites: Le Temps, Tribune de Geneve
South African media have been keeping people informed of the blow by blow developments in the love triangle murder plot against 21-year-old rugby play Deon Helberg. Helberg, who plays for the Blue Bulls, was dating Jalien Reyneke, but he was also reportedly seeing her mother Manda, age 47. The mother said in a Pretoria court Monday that she hired two hitmen to murder the young man and that she had a backup plan in case they failed. The court released her on R5,000 bail, against the prosecution’s wishes, and she has been ordered to report to a psychiatric institution within 24 hours.
Links to other sites: Independent, South Africa, News24
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police have identified the dead man found at Montagny-près-Yverdon 27 October as a Polish man, whose name has not been provided. The man’s clothing had been removed, but a ring left at the site provided enough clues for police in Poland to alert the public. The man’s wife, who believes he left home to seek work, recognized him. His dental records, provided by police in Poland, allowed him to be formally recognized Friday 19 November, say Vaud police. He leaves his wife and a young child.
Police are still seeking information on what he was doing in Switzerland and whether or not he was travelling with anyone.
Photo and background story, GenevaLunch
St Gallen, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A 52-year-old man who was wanted by Swiss police for 11 years for murdering his 14-year-old daughter’s teacher in St Gallen and for sexually molesting the girl, has died while in detention in the eastern Swiss city, reports news agency ATS. Police there have released no details.
The girl had confided in the teacher about the abuse at home and when her father found out, he killed the teacher. The man fled Switzerland for Kosovo in 1999 after the death, was found, pleaded guilty and in 2000 he was sentenced by Serbia to four years, two of which he served. Switzerland then tried to have him extradited but initially failed. Kosovo finally agreed to deliver him to Swiss authorities in 2009, but he was in hiding.
The man was extradited in September 2010.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Cécile B, as Cécile Bosshard was familiarly known during her 2008 trial for murdering Geneva banking family scion Edouard Stern, has been released from prison early on good behaviour, her lawyer told AFP news agency.
The Frenchwoman had been in prison since 2005, but was sentenced in June 2009 to 8.5 years. Stern’s lover, who had been promised money and marriage, but received neither, famously shot him at close range while he was tied to a chair, wearing a latex suit, during sex games where, she insisted, he insulted her.
She has reportedly been told to leave the country, with a ban on visiting Switzerland in the next 10 years.
- related articles on the Stern murder, GenevaLunch
- GenevaLunch, in partnership with Swiss news magazine l’Hebdo: two-part report on the murder trial, June 2009
Lucerne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Julien Kénord, 27, who worked for Caritas, Switzerland in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, was killed Friday 8 October, the group announced Tuesday. He had just cashed a Caritas check for $2,000 at a bank in the city and was seated in his car when he was beaten by an unknown assailant. Shortly after, he died in hospital, from injuries sustained in the attack.
Police in Haiti have opened an investigation into the attack and death. Caritas, while deploring his death, says it will carry on the work it began in Haiti 12 years ago. The group provides basic survival assistance to families in distress, and it recently undertook the reconstruction of 1,700 homes in the area ravaged by the January earthquake, in Gressier, west of Port-au-Prince.
Conches, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva police say a 52-year-old Vaud man shot and killed his 42-year-old companion and then killed himself at around 8:00 on 4 October. Their blood-covered bodies were found by their children who alerted the authorities.
Geneva police said the children heard a loud “crack” before finding their parents’ bodies.
Three of the minors, aged 10, 7 and 5 were home at the time of the incident. The oldest child, 14, was in school.
The woman, a Geneva native, lived with her children on chemin de Pré-l’Hermine, in Conches, canton Geneva.
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A family of three was found dead in Riehen, canton Basel, near the city of Basel, Wednesday morning, after the 49-year-old mother did not show up at work. The bodies of the woman, her husband, age 59, and daughter, age 13, were found at their home shortly after police were alerted. Police are calling it an apparent family suicide-murder, without providing further details.
Sunday, in Germany but near the border with France and Switzerland at Basel, a woman killed her former companion, their child and a nurse at a nearby hospital before police shot and killed her in a shootout that injured several other people.
The shooting death of a member of parliament in the southern city of Karachi, in Pakistan, set off rioting that has resulted in the deaths of at least 37 others. More than 100 people were injured in the riots. Raza Haider, of the MQM party was shot at a funeral, at a mosque. The BBC cites human rights groups as saying that “more than 300 people have been killed in political killings in Karachi this year.” The streets are reported to be deserted and quiet, with police keeping order in the tense hours leading up to the funeral for Haider.
Update 20:00 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – Monday, a retired woman in Excenevex, near Yvoire on Lake Geneva in Haute Savoie, France, found the mummified body of a newborn in a backpack that had been left on the property of her second home, under stairs protected by a balcony.
The Lyon resident found the backpack in mid-July, reports Le Dauphine Libéré, but assumed it belonged to someone in her family and she didn’t immediately check the contents. When she and her daughter looked 26 July, they found a newborn wrapped in a towel, several days old and mummified by the heat. Police have opened an investigation.
The discovery of the newborn was eclipsed somewhat by the spectacular unearthing of newborns’ bones in northern France.
The unfolding drama of the thriller-style assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai in early 2010 is taking investigators to Poland.
German prosecutors are confirming that a man in Poland may have fraudulently obtained a German passport used in connection with the Hamas murder and are seeking his extradition.
The request is expected to strain relations with Israel, country both Poland and Germany have close ties with.
Background: GenevaLunch
Link to the full story: Time/Yahoo News
Ireland is expelling an Israeli diplomat over the near-certain manufacture of eight fake Irish passports by an agency of the Israeli government, says Foreign Minister Micheal Martin, in a veiled reference to Massud, the Israeli secret service. The passports were used by agents who carried out the murder of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in 2009. Martin noted that the Irish government had come to “the inescapable conclusion that an Israeli government agency was responsible for the misuse and, most likely, the manufacture of the forged Irish passports associated with the murder of Mr Mabhouh” following an investigation. It worked closely with the UK and Australia during the investigation. They, too, have expelled Israeli diplomats over the affair.
Links to other sites: BBC, Irish Times
Stephen Griffiths, a PhD student researching Jack the Ripper in Bradford in the UK, has been charged with the murder of three young women in the city. All were working as prostitutes.
Telegraph, UK video, police statement
A California woman, Melissa Huckaby, has entered a guilty plea to first degree murder with special circumstances of kidnapping in a case that gripped not just the state but the US in 2009. As a result of her plea bargain other charges that would have brought the death penalty have been dropped.
Huckaby, a mother, kidnapped an 8-year-old girl from the trailer park where the two lived, then murdered her, but the details of how and when it happened have not been released. The child’s body was found a week later in a suitcase that Huckaby had told a reporter belonged to her. Some of the other charges against Huckaby that were dropped involved two other cases and sexual crimes.
US criminologists say it is extremely rare for a woman acting alone, who is a mother, to commit crimes involving kidnapping, sexual abuse and murder.
Links to other sites: Silicon Valley Mercury News, AP/Yahoo News,
The death of political leader Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan in 2008 could have been avoided, if Pakistan’s intelligence services had done their job properly, a damning UN report published late 15 April indicates. It criticizes handling of the investigation but reserves its harshest words for the country’s intelligence services.
Links to other sites: UN News Centre, Guardian, Reuters
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
