Crime Correspondent

Gang dispute sparked funeral home shooting that left 2 dead, 12 injured

<p> </p><p>Dispute among gang members at a North Miami-area funeral home sparked a mass shooting that injured 12 people and killed two men, according to Miami-Dade police and law enforcement.  The gunmen, who fired a barrage of bullets at a crowd of mourners Friday night, remained on the loose. Investigators have not released information about the shooters, only that a white car may have been involved.  One of the victims, a 43-year-old man, died outside the Funeraria Latina Emanuel funeral home, authorities said. The other, a 27-year-old man, died at the hospital. Witnesses at the funeral home had said one of the two people killed was shot in the chest.  Among the wounded was a 5-year-old girl who was shot in the leg. She is hospitalized at Jackson Memorial Hospital and is listed in stable condition.  The funeral was for Morvin Andre, 21, of North Miami, who was buried Saturday morning at Southern Memorial Park next to the funeral home.  Andre was killed March 16 after he tried to jump 22-and-a-half feet from the fourth floor of the Aventura Mall parking garage to escape pursuit from Bloomingdale’s loss prevention employees. Andre landed on his feet, but then fell back and hit his head, according Aventura Police Major Skip Washa, a spokesman.  Washa said Saturday the county medical examiner’s office has ruled Andre’s death a suicide because the Bloomingdale’s employees were one floor below Andre when they told him to stop. Instead, he jumped.  Originally, it was reported that Andre, a nursing student at Broward Community College, had been killed in a shooting, according to mourners at the funeral home.  A law enforcement official told the Miami Herald that the shooting involved members of several South Florida gangs who were in attendance at his wake Friday night to pay their respects. Andre was not part of a gang himself, the official said.  Certain gang members took offense when someone touched Andre’s body in the casket, setting off an argument that spilled out into the street.  Members of one gang retrieved an assault rifle and a handgun from a car and opened fire at other gang members in front of the funeral home, a police commander told Miami Herald news partner WFOR-CBS 4.  Shooting erupted as more than 100 people were gathered outside the funeral home, in the 14900 block of West Dixie Highway, outside the city limits of North Miami.  “I was on my way out of the chapel when I heard the shots,“ said A.D. Lenoir, the pastor who officiated at the service. “I told people to look for cover. It was chaos.”  Lenoir, 29, said people were screaming, crying and yelling.  Several victims were taken to Jackson, and others to local hospitals.  The West Dixie Highway corridor has been the scene of several shootings in recent years. In 2007, the owner of a martial arts studio was fatally gunned down in a drive-by.</p>

Gang dispute sparked funeral home shooting that left 2 dead, 12 injured

Dispute among gang members at a North Miami-area funeral home sparked a mass shooting that injured 12 people and killed two men, according...

Kansas man struck by lightning hours after buying lottery tickets

<p><br />A Kansas man was struck by lightning hours after buying three Mega Millions lottery tickets on Thursday, proving in real life the old saying that a gambler is more likely to be struck down from the sky than win the jackpot.  Bill Isles, 48, bought three tickets in the record $656 million lottery Thursday at a Wichita, Kansas grocery store.  On the way to his car, Isles said he commented to a friend: "I've got a better chance of getting struck by lightning" than winning the lottery.  Later at about 9:30 p.m., Isles was standing in the back yard of his Wichita duplex, when he saw a flash and heard a boom -- lightning.  "It threw me to the ground quivering," Isles said in a telephone interview on Saturday. "It kind of scrambled my brain and gave me an irregular heartbeat."  Isles, a volunteer weather spotter for the National Weather Service, had his portable ham radio with him because he was checking the skies for storm activity. He crawled on the ground to get the radio, which had been thrown from his hand.  Isles had been talking to other spotters on the radio and called in about the lightning strike. One of the spotters, a local television station intern, called 911. Isles was taken by ambulance to a hospital and kept overnight for observation.  Isles said doctors wanted to make sure his heartbeat was back to normal. He suffered no burns or other physical effects from the strike, which he said could have been worse because his yard has a power line pole and wires overhead.  "But for the grace of God, I would have been dead," Isles said. "It was not a direct strike."  Isles said he had someone buy him ten more tickets to the Mega Millions lottery on Friday night. While one of the three winning tickets was sold in Kansas, Isles was not a winner.  Officials of the Mega Millions lottery, which had the largest prize in U.S. history, said that the odds of winning lottery were about 176 million to one. Americans have a much higher chance of being struck by lightning, at 775,000 to one over the course of a year, depending on the part of the country and the season, according to the National Weather Service.  Isles, who is out of work after being laid off last June by a furniture store, said he did once win $2,000 in the lottery and will keep playing.  "The next time I will use the radio while sitting in the car," he said</p>

Kansas man struck by lightning hours after buying lottery tickets

A Kansas man was struck by lightning hours after buying three Mega Millions lottery tickets on Thursday, proving in real life the old saying...

Kevin 'Gerbil' Carroll murder trial

<p>PHOTOGRAPHS of the spot where gangland figure Kevin “Gerbil” Carroll was shot dead were shown to a murder trial jury yesterday. The pictures – shown on day one of the trial – included an image of an Audi with smashed windows. The court was told the car was “subject to a significant degree of examination”. Carroll, 29, was shot in the car park of Asda in Robroyston, Glasgow, in January 2010. Ross Monaghan, 30, has been accused of Carroll’s murder. It is alleged that, while masked and acting with others, Monaghan repeatedly discharged loaded handguns at him, shooting him on the head and body. Monaghan is accused of – while acting with others – attempting to defeat the ends of justice by disposing of a revolver, pistol and ammunition in undergrowth in Coatbridge and Airdrie. It is also claimed a car bearing false number plates was set on fire. Monaghan also faces a number of firearms charges. He denies all the charges against him at the High Court in Glasgow and has incriminated Mr X, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and seven others. The trial, before Lord Brailsford, continues.</p>

Kevin 'Gerbil' Carroll murder trial

PHOTOGRAPHS of the spot where gangland figure Kevin “Gerbil” Carroll was shot dead were shown to a murder trial jury yesterday. The pictures...

popular Caribbean dancing style used by adults, known as 'daggering', is sexualising the dance floors of a much younger generation.

<p> </p><p> Teenagers as young as 11 are modelling sex acts and rape, in the form of daggering, on the dance floor with their peers.  Deputy Children's Commissioner Sue Berelowitz said: "there's not a lot separating that kind of behaviour from actual violent, coercive sex."  Footage seen by Channel 4 News [see above] shows an under-18s club night in East London. As with all 'under-18s' club nights, everyone is between 11 and 16. Some of the children look much younger. The club is packed.  The music: Caribbean dancehall. The dancing style: daggering.  It is a style of dancing that any carnival regular will be used to. Aficionados will no doubt, have a more technical description of the style but it mainly involves women bending over and rubbing their backsides up against the men's crotches. During that August weekend in Notting Hill every adult gives it a go.  But what's different about this night club is that every child is giving it a go. Spurred on by the DJ, the 'daggering' becomes more enthusiastic, some of it verging on violent. Boys and girls end up on top of each other on the floor simulating sex. Throughout the night someone employed by the club promoter (presumably an adult) is filming it all and uploading it on the club's website via YouTube.</p>

popular Caribbean dancing style used by adults, known as 'daggering', is sexualising the dance floors of a much younger generation.

Teenagers as young as 11 are modelling sex acts and rape, in the form of daggering, on the dance floor with their peers. Deputy Children...

Shawn Tyson guilty of murdering two Britons in Florida

<p> </p><p>An American teenager has been found guilty of the first degree murder of two British tourists in Florida.  James Cooper, 25, from Warwickshire, and James Kouzaris, 24, from Northampton, were shot dead on a public housing estate in Newtown, Sarasota.  The pair, who met at Sheffield University, were killed after drunkenly wandering into the estate in the early hours of 16 April 2011.  The court heard Shawn Tyson, 17, killed them after trying to rob them.  Tyson, who was tried as an adult despite being 16 at the time of the shooting, faces life in prison with no chance of parole.  'Shattered soul' The families of Mr Cooper and Mr Kouzaris were not in court but said in a statement they were satisfied with the verdict.  They added: "It is a fact that we were given a life sentence when our sons were so brutally and needlessly taken from us.  "Ours is a life sentence, with no chance of parole from a broken heart, and a shattered soul."   Mr Kouzaris and Mr Cooper had been out drinking in downtown Sarasota before they were shot The families also criticised the Sarasota court system that freed Tyson after a judge warned he was a danger to the public.  Hours before he shot the two Britons, Tyson was arrested for a separate shooting incident in which no-one was hurt.  In the statement the families said: "The evil of the killer is one thing, but the fact is, he would not have been on the streets had instructions to keep him incarcerated been passed from one judge to another."  Killer's boast When the mistake came to light the Mayor of Sarasota, Kelly Kirschener, vowed the city's prosecutors would never let anything similar happen again.  During the trial jurors heard how Mr Kouzaris and Mr Cooper had been out drinking in downtown Sarasota before getting lost and wandering into the Newtown area in the early hours.  The prosecution said they were confronted by Tyson who tried to rob them and then shot them when he realised they had very little money.  The court heard Tyson had boasted to his friend Latrece Washington, who testified against him, that one of the men had begged for his life but he shot him anyway.</p>

Shawn Tyson guilty of murdering two Britons in Florida

An American teenager has been found guilty of the first degree murder of two British tourists in Florida. James Cooper, 25, from Warwicks...

French judges seek arrest of Equatorial Guinea leader's son

<p> </p><p>Two French judges sought an international arrest warrant for the son of Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema on money laundering charges, a judicial source said on Tuesday.  The two judges, Roger Le Loire and Rene Grouman, consider there are grounds to suspect that Teodorin Obiang, who is agriculture minister in the small, oil-rich central African country, acquired real estate in France by fraudulent means. The warrant will not be released until a prosecutor has reviewed the request and decides whether to proceed.  Teodorin is frequently seen enjoying an extravagant lifestyle abroad with multi-million dollar mansions, jets and yachts. Billboards in the capital Malabo seek to show him at work and in touch with the people, but diplomats and analysts cite his playboy lifestyle as a cause for concern.  The French judges, who have been handling the case since 2010 on the basis of "concealment of embezzled public funds," suspect that the properties were purchased with public money from Equatorial Guinea.  The judges had previously sought permission from the government of Equatorial Guinea to question Teodorin, but that request was rejected, Olivier Pardo, lawyer for the oil producing nation, told Reuters in Paris.  "Unless one wishes to violate the sovereignty of the State of Equatorial Guinea and harm relations between France and Equatorial Guinea, it is absurd to want to launch an arrest warrant," he said.  As part of the investigation, French police raided a building belonging to Equatorial Guinea in a wealthy area of Paris in February. After three days they removed art works and fine wines worth several million euros.  The building was valued at about 150 million euros and investigators say it housed a nightclub and hairdressers, which suggested it was not being used as a diplomatic residence.  Anti-corruption organisation Transparency International had filed the original legal complaint against Teodorin Obiang.  On March 1, Teodorin filed for defamation against Daniel Lebegue, the president of the French arm of Transparency, denying he had embezzled funds.  President Teodoro Obiang has ruled the former Spanish colony for more than three decades, making him the longest-serving African leader following the demise of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, with rights groups labelling his regime one of the world's most corrupt.  The country produces about 240,000 barrels of oil per day.  In January, Teodorin asked a U.S. court to dismiss attempts by the Obama administration to seize some $71 million worth of his assets, denying charges that they were obtained with allegedly corrupt funds taken from his country.  He argued he had not violated U.S. or Equatorial Guinea law and called the corruption allegations "character assassination" against him and his country.  Equatorial Guinea in October said it wanted to appoint Teodorin as its deputy permanent delegate at U.N. cultural agency UNESCO in Paris, a position that would give him diplomatic status in France. Until now the agency has not received any official documentation to proceed further with that request.</p>

French judges seek arrest of Equatorial Guinea leader's son

Two French judges sought an international arrest warrant for the son of Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema on money l...

JetBlue plane in emergency landing after captain's apparent breakdown

<p><br />The captain of a JetBlue plane screamed "They're going to take us down!" and rambled about al-Qaida as passengers pinned him to the floor while another pilot took charge to make an emergency landing.  An off-duty airline captain who was a passenger on the flight entered the cockpit, locked the door and landed in Amarillo, Texas, the airline said in a statement.  JetBlue Airways said the original pilot on flight 191 from New York's John F Kennedy international airport had been taken to hospital after suffering a "medical situation" on board.  The captain had earlier stormed through his plane rambling about a bomb and threats from Iraq until passengers on the Las Vegas-bound flight tackled him just outside the cockpit, passengers said. He had seemed disoriented, jittery and constantly sipped water when he first marched through the cabin, then began to rant about threats linked to Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan after crew members tried to calm him down.  "They're going to take us down! They're taking us down! Say the Lord's prayer!" the captain screamed, according to passenger Tony Antolino.  Josh Redick, who was sitting near the middle of the plane, said the captain seemed "irate" and was "spouting off about Afghanistan and souls and al-Qaida".  Gabriel Schonzeit, who was sitting in the third row, told the Amarillo Globe-News: "He started screaming about al-Qaida and possibly a bomb on the plane and Iraq and Iran and about how we were all going down."  "A group of us just jumped up instinctually and grabbed him and put him to the ground," Antolino said after arriving in Las Vegas later Tuesday. "Clearly he had an emotional or mental type of breakdown."  Antolino, a security executive, said he and three others pinned down the captain as he ran for the cockpit door and sat on him for about 20 minutes until the plane landed at Rick Husband Amarillo international airport at 10am.  Shane Helton, 39, who was seeing off his son at Amarillo airport, said: "They pulled one guy out on a stretcher and put him in an ambulance."  The flight had left New York around 7am and was in the air for three and a half hours before landing in Texas. The passengers completed their journey to Las Vegas several hours later on another flight.  The FBI was co-ordinating an investigation with the police, the FAA and the Transportation Safety Administration, said FBI spokeswoman Lydia Maese in Dallas. She declined to comment on arrests.  Earlier this month an American Airlines flight attendant took over the public address system on a flight bound for Chicago and spoke for 15 minutes about 9/11 and the safety of their plane, saying: "I'm not responsible for this plane crashing," passengers said. She was wrestled into a seat while the plane was grounded at Dallas-Fort Worth international airport. The attendant was taken to hospital.  In 2008 an Air Canada co-pilot was forcibly removed from a Toronto to London flight, restrained and sedated after having a mental breakdown. A flight attendant with flying experience helped the pilot make an emergency landing in Ireland. None of the 146 passengers and nine crew members on board were injured.  In August 2010 JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater pulled the emergency chute on a flight from Pittsburgh after it landed at John F Kennedy international airport. He went on the public address system, swore at a passenger, grabbed a beer and slid down the tarmac. He was sentenced to probation, counselling and substance abuse treatment for attempted criminal mischief.  An aviation expert remembered only two or three cases in 40 years where a pilot had become mentally incapacitated during a flight. John Cox, an aviation safety consultant and former airline pilot, said incidents in which pilots become mentally incapacitated during a flight were "pretty rare". He said he could only recall two or three other examples in the more than 40 years he has been following commercial aviation.  Airlines and the FAA strongly encouraged pilots to assert themselves if they thought safety was being jeopardised, even if it meant contradicting a captain's orders, Cox said. Aviation safety experts had studied several cases where first officers deferred to more experienced captains with tragic results.  In Tuesday's case the FAA is likely to review the unidentified captain's medical certificate, which must be renewed every six months to a year.</p>

JetBlue plane in emergency landing after captain's apparent breakdown

The captain of a JetBlue plane screamed "They're going to take us down!" and rambled about al-Qaida as passengers pinned him t...

Cannabis: Legal high

<p> </p><p>CANNABOOST plant food is one of the best selling products at the Hydroexpress hydroponics store in Stirchley, a working-class part of Birmingham. The small shop, its windows filled with graffiti-style posters, also sells fertilisers with names like “Nirvana” and “Bud Candy”, alongside strong lights and giant rolls of tin foil to line greenhouses. In one corner, a couple of juicy-looking tomato plants grow in a demonstration set-up. But the youth behind the counter guesses that his customers are “not all growing tomatoes”.  Birmingham now has 58 hydroponics shops, up from 42 just a year ago. Whether aided by the latest plant-growing technology or not, cannabis production is soaring. According to the Association of Chief Police Officers, the number of cannabis factories detected each year increased from around 800 in 2004 to 7,000 in 2010. Birmingham is one of the most fertile areas; West Midlands Police, which set up a Cannabis Disposal Unit in 2010 to tackle the problem, dismantled more than 500 factories last year.  Your correspondent visited one recently closed by police; the gardener was a cocaine-addicted woman growing a few plants in a spare room in the hope of earning a cut. Other set-ups have been found in tents in the bedrooms of high-rise council flats and in the lofts of terraced family houses. Many growers are simply feeding their own habits. As one officer on the West Midlands Police drugs team says, “It’s becoming the most popular cottage industry in the country.”  In this section A big splash with little cash Falling flat Earning a hearing The worst job in the world Constituency of the world Mother tongue Money for old metal »Legal high A rock and a hard place The Notting Hill budget Reprints Related topics United Kingdom Birmingham, England Small growers are squeezing out both importers and the well-connected, often Vietnamese, gangs that once dominated domestic production. The big cannabis factories set up by the latter, with their telltale heat hazes, are fairly easy to spot. Smaller operations are often uncovered only when the electric lights start fires, or when local teenagers mount a burglary.  The police and the courts can neither keep up with the surge in small-scale production, nor are they desperately keen to do so. Last month the government published new sentencing guidelines that advised judges to treat small cultivators less strictly. Attitudes to smokers are softening, too. The reclassification of cannabis in 2009, from class C to the more stringent class B, was oddly accompanied by a more liberal approach to policing consumption. Users caught on the street are rarely arrested; rather, they are issued “cannabis cautions” (a reprimand which doesn’t appear on a criminal record) or fined.  In Brixton, a south London neighbourhood, an open-air cannabis market exists within ten minutes’ walk of the underground station. The dealers are frequently moved on but they soon regroup elsewhere. As one dealer admits, his competitors are a bigger hassle than the police. “They get to fightin’, over money and things,” he says in a deep Caribbean drawl. Violence is far more likely to get a dealer into legal trouble than business.  Strangely, this lackadaisical approach is not encouraging people to take up the reefer habit. According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the proportion of people who admit to having used cannabis in Britain has fallen more quickly than in any other European country over the past few years. Just 6.8% of adults told another survey that they used cannabis in 2010, down from 10.9% eight years earlier. The herb is now ubiquitous and effectively tolerated—and, perhaps as a result, not all that alluring.</p>

Cannabis: Legal high

CANNABOOST plant food is one of the best selling products at the Hydroexpress hydroponics store in Stirchley, a working-class part of Birm...

Cat-Sized Rats Invade Florida

<p> </p><p>Cat-sized rats are causing trouble in the Florida keys. A pack of Gambian giant pouched rats have been breeding in the keys despite officials’ efforts to eradicate them.   NBC Miami reports that Officials are worried about the vermin making it over to the mainland, saying that the hungry species could wipe out crops and upset the delicate ecological balance in Florida.  Scort Hardin, the exotic species coordinator for Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said:  “We thought we had them whipped as of 2009…. In the early part of 2011, a resident e-mailed me and said he saw one of the rats. We were skeptical but went back and talked to people and [saw] there were rats that we missed.”  Hardin believes that there are less than two dozen giant rats roaming Grassy Key where they were trapped during multiple efforts last year. The Wildlife Conservation Commission will set out once again this July in an attempt to trap the Gambian giant pouched rats.  Hardin told Keys Net:  “I would not imagine there’s more than another couple of dozen at most. We’ve caught them all within a half-mile of each other… We think they have not moved far but they clearly reproduced.”  MSNBC reports that the cat-sized rats were introduced to the island by a local rat breeder more than a decade ago. The rats have moved into the wild where they are now breeding and wreaking havoc on the ecosystem.</p>

Cat-Sized Rats Invade Florida

Cat-sized rats are causing trouble in the Florida keys. A pack of Gambian giant pouched rats have been breeding in the keys despite offici...

New Black Panther leader arrested as group sets bounty in Florida shooting

<p> </p><p>high-ranking member of the New Black Panther Party was arrested for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office said Monday.   DeKalb County Sheriff's Office Hashim Nzinga, 49, was arrested for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. More Atlanta area news »  Immigration-related complaint may become ‘moot' 'Chicken Man' house explodes Trayvon Martin rally at Capitol draws many Gang member guilty of 2011 killing Hashim Nzinga, 49, recently announced on CNN that his group was offering a $10,000 reward for the capture of George Zimmerman, the man who fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. CNN identified Nzinga as the chief of staff of the New Black Panther Party.  According to a DeKalb arrest warrant, Nzinga was in possession of an FN Herstal 5.7 x 28 handgun, which investigators said he pawned at a shop on Rockbridge Road. That alleged transaction would be illegal due to Nzinga’s convictions last month for felony deposit account fraud in Gwinnett County, the DeKalb Sheriff's Office said.  Nzinga was arrested by members of the fugitive squad at a probation office in Lawrenceville and transported to DeKalb County Jail.  The New Black Panther Party is offering a $10,000 bounty for the capture of Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watch captain who shot and killed Martin, an unarmed teenager, last month.  "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," Black Panther leader Mikhail Muhammad said Saturday at a rally in Sanford, where Martin was killed Feb. 26, according to Fox News.  Zimmerman has claimed he shot Martin in self-defense, but the New Black Panthers are calling for mobilization of 10,000 black men to capture Zimmerman, who has gone into hiding, the Orlando Sentinel reported.  "He should be fearful for his life," Muhammad said. "You can't keep killing black children."  According to the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the New Black Panthers "is a virulently racist and anti-Semitic organization whose leaders have encouraged violence against whites, Jews and law enforcement officers." The group was founded in Dallas in 1989 and believes black Americans should have their own nation, according to the SPLC.  Zimmerman shot Martin as he returned to his father's house from a store where he had bought candy. Zimmerman told a 911 dispatcher that Martin was acting suspicious and told police that he was attacked by Martin. Sanford police say they were advised by prosecutors that they did not have enough evidence to charge Zimmerman.</p>

New Black Panther leader arrested as group sets bounty in Florida shooting

high-ranking member of the New Black Panther Party was arrested for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, the DeKalb County Sherif...

Whitney Houston full autopsy report to offer more details

<p>Whitney Houston’s full autopsy report may offer more clues about whether the singer suffered a heart attack before her drowning death, officials said Friday.  The full report, which is expected to be released in a few weeks, may include test results and physical descriptions of the singer’s heart that will show whether she suffered a heart attack, Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said. The report is being compiled and Winter said he did not have access to its findings, which might show whether there were any obvious signs such as discoloration of her heart that would suggest Houston had a heart attack before slipping underwater in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Feb. 11.   Houston’s death has been ruled an accidental drowning, with heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing factors.  The report also will include detailed toxicology results that will show how much cocaine and its byproducts were in Houston’s system when she died. Coroner’s officials said Thursday that the results showed the singer used cocaine shortly before her death, and there were indications of chronic use.  Beverly Hills police detectives will use the full coroner’s report to complete their investigative file, which is not expected to be publicly released. The department has said there were no signs of foul play in connection with Houston’s death.  Houston’s death on the eve of the Grammy Awards stunned the music industry and fans worldwide. The singer had battled addiction for years, but friends and family have said she appeared committed to making a comeback in the months before her death.</p>

Whitney Houston full autopsy report to offer more details

Whitney Houston’s full autopsy report may offer more clues about whether the singer suffered a heart attack before her drowning death, offic...

Pakistani Taliban training Frenchmen

Pakistani intelligence officials say dozens of French Muslims have been training with the Taliban in northwest Pakistan. The officials sai...

Celebrity addicts: Who dies, who survives, and why

<p> </p><p>Singer Whitney Houston's death last month from accidental drowning from the effects of cocaine use and heart disease throws bright light on a dark corner of the world of celebrities who wrestle with substance abuse.  Living on the edge: Whitney Houston's longtime drug habit eventually played a part in her death. Whitney Houston's longtime drug habit eventually played a part in her death. The toll of celebrity addiction — to street drugs, prescription drugs, alcohol or a mix — is long and mournful, and seems particularly heavy right now thanks to the deaths of Houston, 48, and Amy Winehouse, 27 . And not just them: In recent years, Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger and Anna Nicole Smith have succumbed to overdoses; going back further, the list includes John Belushi, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Judy Garland. Americans these days can't escape the steady stream of news about celebrities and their controlled substances. Take Lindsay Lohan, 25. After years of erratic behavior, multiple arrests and five stints in rehab, Lohan says she's finally cleaned up her act. She promises to stay away from drugs and alcohol , and even completed her comeback gig hosting Saturday Night Live March 3 (the ratings were good but the reviews were mixed). Recent weeks also brought news that Scottish actor Gerard Butler (300), 42, and comedian Artie Lange,44 , both successfully completed rehab for addiction and are back working. But actress Demi Moore, 49, who was hospitalized after smoking something that gave her convulsions , sought "professional assistance" for her problem. And Australian actor Alex O'Loughlin, star of CBS's Hawaii Five-0, has announced he would take time off to get "supervised treatment" for pain drugs prescribed after a recent shoulder injury. This sort of thing is not uncommon in Hollywood: Actress Tatum O'Neal, 48, who comes from a family of addicts and has long battled to overcome substance abuse, also is in "supervised treatment" to prevent a recurrence of addiction, to painkillers recently prescribed for back surgery. "She will always seek supervision when taking prescription medication that has addictive potential," according to a statement issued by her manager, Angela Cheng Caplan. But it's fair to ask: Is there a fatal attraction between celebs and controlled substances? Why do some survive and some die? How do you step away from addiction when the spotlight is always on? "It's that caustic mix of sudden celebrity and being strung out and it being condoned by the people around you," says Duff McKagan, 48, the original bass player for rock band Guns N' Roses and a longtime drug and alcohol addict who had to nearly die from an exploding pancreas in 1994 at age 30 before he was motivated to get help. His mother weeping in her wheelchair over her youngest child, and his eventual discovery of the physical and spiritual strengths of martial arts also helped, he says. Houston's death brought up painful memories for daytime talk-show host Wendy Williams, who walked away from her secret cocaine addiction years ago because she wanted a better life, because it was breaking her parents' hearts and because she knew that otherwise she was headed to an early grave. "Whitney and I, same age, and both plagued with the demon of substance abuse," Williams said tearfully on her show shortly after Houston's death. "It's been almost 15 years since I smoked last from a crack pipe. It's been almost 15 years since I waited on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx for my drugs." Williams, 47, a former radio star whose three year-old talk show has been renewed for two more years and is syndicated in more than 150 markets, started dabbling in drugs when she was in college, but later fame and success didn't prevent her escalating habit. She looks back on those years now with her signature mix of humor and sharp self-awareness. A middle-class girl with middle-class values, she says she could not have survived the "TMZ era" of salacious attention on celebrity addiction. "I never wanted to shame my family so I just stopped. It was a slow stop," she says. "The unspoken disappointment of the people closest to me was tearing me apart. That girl who went through that, it made me the woman I am today, but I would have ended up dying. "And if I hadn't died of dying, I would have died of embarrassment! I would have lost my job or been written up in the New York Post!" Addiction experts say it's a misleading assumption that celebs are more prone to addictive behavior, because anyone can inherit that DNA. "Addiction does not discriminate, it cuts across all socioeconomic classes," says Kevin Hill, addictions psychiatrist in charge of drug abuse treatment at Harvard Medical School's McLean Hospital. "People use according to psycho-social stressers. Celebrities might have slightly different stressers, such as fame, but they use drugs like regular people — they just use better drugs." What actors, singers, athletes, even CEOs have that regular people might not have is more access to drugs, more time to indulge, more money to pay for it, and often a horde of enabling hangers-on who are financially dependent on them and thus more motivated to supply substances for them. It adds up to a situation hard to walk away from, McKagan says. "Some can do (drugs) and move on and some do it and get stuck," he says. "In the last year before ending up in the hospital, I had given up, I said I can't stop this," says McKagan, author of the memoir, It's So Easy (And Other Lies). "I had to be scared to death." Winehouse's demise in her London home last July was likely due to accidental alcohol poisoning, according to the coroner's report. Her grieving parents are setting up a foundation in her memory to help people overcome addiction. Houston was found submerged in a Beverly Hills Hotel bathtub last month, with bottles of prescription pills found in her room. Her family said she was taking anti-anxiety drugs, and she was seen drinking the night before. Appearing on CNN last month, one of the Republican presidential candidates, Rick Santorum, said celebrities such as Houston are "the royalty of America" who set a bad example by their deaths by drug use. "Ridiculous," scoffs Hill. "He implies that she chose to suffer such a fate, when in fact she made multiple efforts to treat it. To say that someone makes a conscious decision to have her life go down the drain is preposterous." But one of Houston's close friends, R&B legend Chaka Khan, a recovering drug addict herself, said on CNN that her best memories of Houston involve getting high with her and Houston's ex-husband, Bobby Brown. "Talking crazy and having a really, really, really good laughing, and a really, really good time," she said. With the non-stop coverage of Houston's death and also Michael Jackson's drug overdose death in 2009, it's easy to forget that there are more survival stories than tragedies among celebrity addicts. Rocker/American Idol judge Steven Tyler, 63, who came close to dying from drug abuse, appeared with the other members of Aerosmith on 60 Minutes , talking about the ravages of addiction on bodies, band and relationships. But after 40 years, and lots of rehab, they've managed to make it into their 60s; they're still rocking, about to tour the U.S., about to make another album. Tyler told People he's been transformed. "I'm on Idol now — the last thing I'd want the world to see is me slurring my words," he says. "I don't ever want to be a bad example again." Actress Kirstie Alley, 61, was "way into drugs" when she was Lohan's age, she recently told Access Hollywood. "If you don't die doing them, you just screw up your life sort of royally," she said. Actor Robert Downey Jr., 46, may be Exhibit A for the possibility of a successful celebrity comeback from addiction. Not so long ago, he was looking glum, wearing an orange jumpsuit and being sentenced to jail for drug-related offenses; now he's out, he's recovering and he's a bigger star than ever with lead roles in the Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes movies. Actress Mackenzie Phillips, 52, was so drug-addled (she was first exposed to drugs at age 11) that she spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on cocaine, lost jobs and lovers, used while pregnant with her son, watched as close relatives died from drug abuse, and was even reduced to a years-long incestuous relationship with her equally drug-addled father, iconic '60s rock musician, John Phillips, of The Mamas and the Papas. She should be dead, she says, giving herself credit for battling back from the brink. True, most of her family cut her off because she spilled the creepy beans about her now dead father, but she feels she's finally escaped her past. "At last I'm living the health and happiness that I always described but never experienced," she wrote in her 2009 memoir, High on Arrival. "I'm living my life instead of watching it happen. I'm free." There's nothing new about celebrity addiction. Billie Holiday, the great jazz singer who died in 1959, may have been one of the first major celebrities to go to her grave too early (she was only 44) because of the effects of alcoholism and drug addiction. Nor is there anything new about addiction among non-celeb Americans. According to the government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 23.5 million people aged 12 or older needed treatment for a drug or alcohol problem in 2009, but only 2.6 million actually were treated at a specialty facility (aka rehab). As for addiction deaths, those happen among ordinary people, too, but we just don't hear about them because they're not celebs. What is new is that increasingly Americans — celebrity and regular folks — are getting hooked on prescription drugs, and ending up dead or close to it by accidentally taking too much or mixing them with alcohol. The number of overdose deaths from painkillers more than tripled from 1999 to 2006, to 13,800 deaths that year, according to Center for Disease Control statistics released in 2009. Take rightwing radio king Rush Limbaugh, 61. Prescribed powerful painkillers after back surgery, he ended up hooked in 2003, got caught trying to acquire them illegally, was arrested and spent a month in rehab. Prescription drug addiction has become "an epidemic" in recent years, says psychiatrist Marc Galanter, director of alcoholism and substance abuse treatment at NYU Langone Medical Center/Bellevue, and former president of addiction medicine and addiction psychiatry groups. "There's a whole new raft of (narcotic) drugs available that will compromise you and you don't have to be a celebrity to afford them — middle-class people can afford them," Galanter says. "Some people get them (initially) for medical procedures, and before they know it they're addicted. And because it's not 'illegal,' as it were, it's easier to feel it's OK." Why do people who are rich, famous, beautiful and talented feel the need for drugs and alcohol? Life coach and family advocate Lisa Nkonoki, who says she helped Ray Charles Jr. overcome his addictions, has offered her services to her longtime friend, Bobby Brown, father of Houston's teen daughter, Bobbi Kristina, who as the child of addicts is at risk of stumbling down the same path. Nkonoki says that celebs, like anyone else, can become addicts because they don't feel strong or good about themselves at some level. "It's an escape (from) the persona people want them to be instead of the person they truly are," she says. Successfully stepping away from addiction, she says, comes only after accepting that it's a disease. "No one wants to wear this badge, no one wants to go through this struggle. But when you get this disease, you have to deal with it, manage it, emerge from it and move on." The key factor in treating addictions, celebrity or otherwise, is recognizing that there's usually an underlying mental-health issue, says Kathleen Bigsby, CEO of The Canyon at Peace Park, an expensive, exclusive and super private comprehensive treatment center in Malibu that has treated celebrities (no names, she says) for addiction and "co-occurring disorders." "Just addressing the addiction isn't enough — there's anxiety, depression, trauma," Bigsby says. "Addicts need a new skill set to learn how to manage their stress." Actress/writer Carrie Fisher, 55, was addicted to drugs and drink (and food) almost from the time she became a star at 19 playing Princess Leia in Star Wars. Was it fame that made her a mess? Probably not, since she's also bipolar and her wacky childhood as a Hollywood princess (daughter of Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher) left her plagued by insecurity and despair. But fame didn't help. Fisher turned her difficulties into successful comic memoirs and stage shows, writing in her latest book, Shockaholic, that she tried everything to cure herself over the decades — therapy and retreats, overeating and fasting, 12-steps, meditation, re-birthing, walking over hot coals, jumping out of airplanes, climbing up mountains, floating down the Amazon, speaking in tongues…you get the picture. And yet, "I still did not feel — how shall I put this — mentally sound," she writes. So she turned reluctantly, fearfully, to electroshock therapy, which to her surprise seems to have worked. True, it erased some of her memory but at least she's still alive and recovering. And writing. The problem for celeb addicts is they have to struggle and recover in public, in the glare of social media and the 24/7 celebrity-media industrial complex, Bigsby says. Nowadays even D-list celebs are in the spotlight, unlike in Billie Holiday's era. "There's always been curiosity about celebrities, knowing about their personal lives and their experiences with pain and suffering," says Bigsby. In the old days of Hollywood, they were protected. "Now we're seeing even more about their struggles because we know more about them through social media. Now they're out there texting and tweeting every thought, so there's instantaneous exposure to everything." Meanwhile, tragic deaths can sometimes be educational, sometimes not, says addiction expert Galanter. "It alerts people to the danger but can also make it attractive, because if a celeb is doing it, people think maybe they can risk it, too," he says. "Deaths might sober people up, but it depends on how sensible people are. I hope so."</p>

Celebrity addicts: Who dies, who survives, and why

Singer Whitney Houston's death last month from accidental drowning from the effects of cocaine use and heart disease throws bright lig...

Sex is a multibillion-dollar industry in Spain, with colorfully lit brothels staffed mainly by poor immigrant women from Latin America, Africa and eastern Europe lining highways throughout the country

<p><a href="http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/03/24/pimps-arrested-in-spain-for-barcoding-women/">Pimps Arrested in Spain for 'Barcoding' Women</a></p><blockquote>Police in Spain arrested 22 alleged pimps who purportedly tattooed women with bar codes as a sign of ownership and used violence to force them into prostitution.   Police are calling the gang the "bar code pimps." Officers freed one 19-year-old woman who had been beaten, held against her will and tattooed with a bar code and an amount of money — €2,000 ($2,650) — which investigators believe was the debt the gang wished to extort before releasing her.  The woman had also been whipped, chained to a radiator and had her hair and eyebrows shaved off, according to an Interior Ministry statement.All those arrested were of Romanian nationality and had forced the women to hand over part of their earnings, the statement said.  The women were tattooed on their wrists if they tried to escape, the statement said. Police also seized guns and ammunition. It was not immediately clear when the raids took place.  Police seized €140,000 ($185,388) in cash, which had been hidden in a false ceiling, a large amount of gold jewelry and five vehicles, three of which were described as luxury cars.  The gang was made up of two separate groups, referred to as "clans" in the statement, each dedicated to controlling prostitution along fixed stretches of a street in downtown Madrid.  One of the alleged ringleaders who was identified only by the initials "I.T." is wanted by authorities in Romania for crimes linked to prostitution, the statement said.  The women were controlled at all times to ensure "money was taken off them immediately," the statement said.   Sex is a multibillion-dollar industry in Spain, with colorfully lit brothels staffed mainly by poor immigrant women from Latin America, Africa and eastern Europe lining highways throughout the country.  Prostitution falls in legal limbo: it is not regulated, although pimping is a crime. The northeastern city of Barcelona plans to introduce regional legislation in coming weeks banning prostitution on urban streets.</blockquote>

Sex is a multibillion-dollar industry in Spain, with colorfully lit brothels staffed mainly by poor immigrant women from Latin America, Africa and eastern Europe lining highways throughout the country

Pimps Arrested in Spain for 'Barcoding' Women Police in Spain arrested 22 alleged pimps who purportedly tattooed women with bar code...

Russian banker shot six times had testified over murder plot

The banker was left for dead by a lone gunman as he returned to his home in Canary Wharf on Tuesday evening. Scotland Yard detectives are in...

Serbian mafia 'put gangster in mincer and ate him for lunch'

<div id="title-group-inline"><h1></h1></div><div><div><div><img alt="Milan Jurisic" height="248" src="http://cdn.theweek.co.uk/sites/theweek/files/styles/theweek_article_main_image/public/Milan%20Jurisic%20.jpg" width="440" /></div><h2>Gang that assassinated Serbian prime minister admits making 'face mask' out of member's skin</h2><div><div><div><p>A GANGSTER who helped orchestrate the Serbian prime minister's assassination in 2003 was allegedly made into a stew and eaten by his associates after falling out with his gang leader.<br /> <br />Police believe Milan Jurisic (above) was beaten to death with a hammer, skinned and boned with a sharp knife and then put through a meat grinder at a flat in Madrid in 2009.<br /> <br />The Zemun clan, a notorious faction of the Serbian mafia that once had connections with the Serbian government, police and media, allegedly made a face mask from Jurisic's skin before turning him into stew and eating him for lunch.<br /> <br />It apparently took the gang five days to clean up what is being described as "the house of horrors".<br /> <br />Sretko Kalinic, nicknamed 'The Butcher' and known as the gang's hitman, confessed to the crimes when he was arrested in Croatia last year, according to the Daily Mail. Kalinic admitted that he "literally dismembered" Jurisic and then threw his remains into Madrid's Manzanares river.<br /> <br />This week, Spanish officers discovered documents at the scene of the crime supporting The Butcher's account. They also found 50 bones in the river and are currently awaiting identification from forensics.<br /> <br />Jurisic was one of 12 men found guilty of arranging the 2003 murder of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who was killed by a sniper as he approached a government building in Belgrade.<br /> <br />Jurisic was on the run when he was murdered, having been convicted in his absence to 30 years' jail by the Belgrade Special Court for Organised Crime.</p><p>It is believed Jurisic had fallen out with the leader of the Zemun cklan, Luka Bojovic, either over money or a woman.<br /> <br />As the BBC reports, Bojovic himself was arrested in a restaurant in Valencia, Spain last month, wanted for more than 20 murders in Serbia, the Netherlands and Spain. He is also suspected of involvement in the 2003 assassination. · </p></div></div></div></div></div><p><span style="border-image: initial; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;"><br /><br /><br /></span></p>

Serbian mafia 'put gangster in mincer and ate him for lunch'

Gang that assassinated Serbian prime minister admits making 'face mask' out of member's skin A GANGSTER who helped orchestrate t...

Russian banker shooting: 'It looks like a contract hit'

A former Russian banker is in a critical condition in hospital after he was shot several times in east London. German Gorbuntsov was shot b...

Painkiller warning as pack contains higher dose than label says

39,000 packs of co-codamol, which contains both paracetamol and codeine, contain higher dose tablets than is stated on the label, the Medici...

Mafia Bosses 'Turn Cannibal': Serbian Gangsters 'Ate Milan Jurisic In A Flat In Madrid' Say Police

<p><br />A mafia traitor was beaten to death and then eaten by Serbian gangsters, police believe.  Milan Jurisic, 37, was killed with a hammer by a gang of criminals from the Zemun Clan, a mafia group from Belgrade, in Madrid. His remains were then ground up with a meat grinder, cooked, and eaten, according to a confession by another Zemun Clan member, Sretko Kalinic, nicknamed "The Butcher". Later the gang reportedly threw the bones into the River Manzanares in the Spanish capital. This week, police found bones in the river and the apartment where the killing apparently took place in 2009. Jurisic is thought to have betrayed his fellow gang members by stealing money from them. He was on the run after being convicted in his absence of assassinating Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003. Kalinic confessed to the murder after he was arrested in the Croatian capital of Zagreb in 2010. Police believe the murder and subsequent cannibalism was led by Luka Bojovic, a Serbian gangster arrested in Valencia last month. Bojovic was also on the run after being accused of assassinating Djindjic. Inside Bojovic's apartment in Valencia police found documents backing up Kalinic's account of the killing. The murder is being investigated by magistrate Fernando Andreu at the National Court in Madrid.</p>

Mafia Bosses 'Turn Cannibal': Serbian Gangsters 'Ate Milan Jurisic In A Flat In Madrid' Say Police

A mafia traitor was beaten to death and then eaten by Serbian gangsters, police believe. Milan Jurisic, 37, was killed with a hammer by a g...

Brian Regan: Brookside star to cocaine addict

<p> </p><p>Brian Regan found fame playing loveable rogue Terry Sullivan in the Liverpool soap opera Brookside.  In the show's 1980s heyday, his character's antics were regularly watched by up to seven million viewers a week.  But when Regan left the soap in 1997, his acting career petered out and he plunged into a life of drug dealing and addiction.  Now he is behind bars, serving a five-year jail sentence for lying to police over his role in the murder of Iranian doorman Bahman Faraji and selling drugs.  Regan's jail sentence can now be reported following the conviction of Jason Gabbana, 29, for ordering Faraji's murder.  Details emerged in court of the actor's descent into drugs and supplying members of Liverpool's criminal underworld.  During the trial, Regan told Liverpool Crown Court how he started taking cocaine at weekends at the end of his Brookside career.  It was through his use of cocaine he became involved with Edward Heffey, convicted of murdering Mr Faraji with a sawn-off shotgun in a quiet Liverpool street.  Simon O'Brien, who played Damon Grant in Brookside, said Regan's involvement with drugs was a "slow burn".  Snorting cocaine "It is a very difficult place when you're acting, particularly on something as high-profile as a soap, because fame and infamy attract each other," he said.  "Actors and gangsters, for some reason, almost get off on each other. It's a really strange mutual attraction because I think the hard man gives the actor a kind of security out in public and the actor gives the gangster kudos.  "The two worlds often get intertwined and when that happens, inevitably drugs become involved. So it was kind of a slow thing from what I remember, it was a slow burn."  Regan was charged with Mr Faraji's murder and was cleared - but he was convicted of giving a false alibi to police about where he was on the night in February 2011.   Actor and presenter Simon O'Brien said actors and gangsters get off on each other" During the trial, he told Liverpool Crown Court he supplied Heffey with cocaine "about three or four times a day".  When Heffey asked him for a lift on the night of the killing, he said he thought he was taking him to collect a debt so he could pay for the drugs.  In fact, once they arrived in Aigburth in Regan's Ford Escort, Heffey got out, walked round the corner and shot Mr Faraji in the face with a sawn-off shotgun.  Regan told the court he knew nothing about the incident - because he was waiting in the car, snorting a line of cocaine.  He said he then "drove away normally" from the scene and took Heffey home.  Regan was cleared of murder at his trial which ended in January.  'Lose control' However, when he was first interviewed by police he lied about driving Heffey to the pub, but CCTV evidence put him at the scene and he was found guilty of perverting the course of justice.  Mr O'Brien, 46, who was friends with Regan in their Brookside days, said getting involved in drugs was a tragedy that is "not uncommon" in the entertainment industry.  "Brian is just one example of what happens when you're in the limelight and everything is flying and you lose control," he said.  "You feel you're invincible when you're at the top of the game and you're not.  "Sadly, if anyone wants to know what happens if you get involved in taking cocaine, this is an example of someone who was at the top of the tree and because of cocaine, he ends up behind bars."</p>

Brian Regan: Brookside star to cocaine addict

Brian Regan found fame playing loveable rogue Terry Sullivan in the Liverpool soap opera Brookside. In the show's 1980s heyday, his c...

Brookside's Brian Regan jailed for Bahman Faraji murder lies

<p><br />Ex-Brookside actor Brian Regan has been jailed for lying about his part in a gangland killing.  Regan's sentence can be revealed following the conviction of Jason Gabbana, 29, for ordering the murder of a nightclub doorman in Liverpool.  Bahman Faraji, 44, was shot dead at close range outside the Belgrave public house in Aigburth in February 2011.  Regan, 54, who played Terry Sullivan in the soap, was jailed on 25 January for four years and 10 months.  Gabbana, of Score Lane in Childwall, was found guilty of murder at Liverpool Crown Court.  Mr Faraji was accused by Gabbana's defence of drug dealing and running an illegal protection racket.  Snorting cocaine Regan, St Marys Road, Garston, Liverpool, was cleared of murder but convicted of perverting the course of justice after it emerged he lied to police when he was first arrested, telling them he was with his partner Christine Lines at the time of the murder.   Bahman Faraji was shot as he left a pub In fact he was snorting cocaine in a car as father-of-one Mr Faraji was shot dead yards away at close range on the evening of 24 February 2011.  Regan admitted driving gunman Edward Heffey to and from the hit but told the jury he did not know his passenger was carrying a sawn-off shotgun and was planning to kill Mr Faraji.  Regan also disposed of a pair of gloves he wore on the night.  The sentence, following a trial which ended in January, could not be reported until the conclusion of the Gabbana case.  Gabbana was convicted of murder by an 11 to one majority.  Heffey, 40, of Beloe Street, Dingle, Liverpool, and Simon Smart, 32, of Kylemore Way, Halewood, Liverpool, who police said set up the killing, were also convicted of murder at Liverpool Crown Court.  Regan's best friend Lee Dodson, 42, of Logfield Drive, Garston, Liverpool was cleared of murder.  The trial heard Regan was hooked on cocaine and began dealing it to fund his habit as his showbiz career declined.  Courtroom fracas After he admitted driving the gunman, the court ordered security to be stepped up around Regan and security guards sat between him and the rest of the defendants.  He was also designated a "vulnerable prisoner" and held in an isolation wing in jail.  When Heffey's guilty verdict was delivered, a woman and a young man in the public gallery angrily interrupted proceedings and had to be bundled out by police.  Heffey appeared to lunge towards Regan in the dock and was swiftly taken down to the cells by security officers.  The jury was unable to reach a verdict on Regan's girlfriend Christine Lines, 48, also of St Mary's Road, Liverpool, who was accused of perverting the course of justice by helping the ex-actor dispose of the gloves.  The matter was ordered to lie on file and she will not face a retrial.  Mother-of-one Lines admitted permitting or suffering her premises to be used in the supply of cocaine and was sentenced to 30 months imprisonment suspended for 12 months, with a 12-month supervision requirement.  Gabbana, Smart and Heffey will be sentenced either Friday or Monday, Mrs Justice Davies said.</p>

Brookside's Brian Regan jailed for Bahman Faraji murder lies

Ex-Brookside actor Brian Regan has been jailed for lying about his part in a gangland killing. Regan's sentence can be revealed followi...

Arrests over child prostitution network selling girls as young as 11

The suspects were held this morning as part of a child exploitation investigation into the cases of 24 girls aged between 11 and 16 in Oxf...

France siege gunman 'is dead'

The man suspected of killing seven people in al-Qaida-linked attacks in France is dead, the French interior minister said today. The susp...

Missing M’sian girl took lift into Thailand from stranger

<p> </p><p>Thai immigration police investigations have indicated that a 14-year-old Malaysian girl and her five Rohingya friends had taken a lift from a stranger in Malaysia near the Malaysia-Thai border before entering Thailand illegally.  The six have since been rescued by the Thai police.  Deputy Commander of Immigration Bureau Investigation Centre Pol Col Chartchai Lamsaeng said Wednesday, the six took the ride on a Malaysian-registered van offered by a Malaysian man near the border on March 8.  The five Rohingyas comprised four boys and a girl, aged between 14 and 16. The six were friends and know each other.  "They were given drinks by the man and fell asleep shortly," Chartchai, who led the investigation into the case, told Bernama here.  He said, they could only remember passing through Hat Yai, Petchaburi or Nakhon Phatom and ended up at Hua Lamphong in the capital.  "We are surprised how they could pass through the border checkpoint without any travel document," he said, adding it was unclear whether the teenagers intended to enter Thailand when they took the van ride.  "The man even took them to a mosque in Hua Lamphong. However, it was not clear what happened to the man after that as the teenagers made their way to the Hua Lamphong Train Station."  Chartchai said, some vendors near the railway station gave them money to buy train tickets to return to Malaysia.  They were caught by the police at the station as they failed to produce valid travel documents and were sent to an immigration police office here, he added.  The immigration police later contacted the Malaysian Embassy here.  "Our investigations showed that all six were safe and not harmed or abused by the man," said Chartchai, adding that the immigration police would investigate the case under human trafficking law, which carried a penalty of between five and 10 years imprisonment.  "We managed to get a sketch of the suspect based on information given by the teenagers. Thai and Malaysian police are working on this case," he said.  He said the Thai authorities were trying to determine if an international crime syndicate was involved in this case.  An initial news report from Malaysia stated the girl had told her mother during a telephone conversation on March 12, that she and the rest were abducted and taken into Thailand before they were rescued by the Thai authorities at the railway station on March 11.</p>

Missing M’sian girl took lift into Thailand from stranger

Thai immigration police investigations have indicated that a 14-year-old Malaysian girl and her five Rohingya friends had taken a lift fro...

TWO men who have been arrested by detectives investigating the murder of crime boss Eamon 'The Don' Dunne are senior lieutenants of crime lord Christy Kinahan.

<p><br /> The mobsters were picked up by armed gardai during a dawn raid at a property in the north inner city and are currently in custody at Store Street Garda Station.  Sources do not believe that either is the gunman who actually killed Dunne in the gangland murder in a Cabra pub in April 2010 but they believe that the pair played a key role in organising the hit.  The Herald can today reveal that gardai also planned to arrest the young criminal who they believe shot Dunne but he "has gone to ground."  The north inner city gunman is a close associate of the two related men who are in garda custody today.  Selling  One of those arrested -- aged in his late 20s -- was mentioned by Spanish authorities in the four-page European Arrest Warrant they used to extradite 'Fat' Freddie Thompson to Spain last year. The warrant asserts explosive details about the criminal's role within the multi-million euro Christy Kinahan drugs organisation.  This man, who comes from a flats complex in the city, was previously arrested by Spanish police as part of Operation Shovel -- the massive probe against Kinahan's organisation which revealed that his mob were selling shipments of drugs worth a staggering €1m every two months.  The 'Fat' Freddie warrant alleges that the arrested criminal is a "member of this organisation in Ireland". The warrant claims that the criminal travelled to Malaga on May 7, 2010, to meet Christy Kinahan's son Daniel to discuss a major drugs shipment into Ireland. "Daniel was supposedly going to finance part of the shipment. A surveillance operation was launched in Malaga Airport and officers saw Ross Browning, another one of the persons under investigation, arrive at the airport," the warrant alleges.  The Herald has previously revealed that Browning (28) was named in the warrant, which claims he was a driver for the Kinahan drugs organisation. Browning, from the north inner city, is a close associate of the men arrested yesterday.  In January 2001, a 30-year-old, who is in custody today, was involved with Browning in the robbery of over £IR13,000 from a a Securicor van driver. Both men later received suspended sentences.  Gardai believe the shocking murder of Dunne was sanctioned by Christy Kinahan who felt that the reckless behaviour of the gang boss was getting out of control.  'Dapper Don' Kinahan -- who is serving the last days of a jail sentence for money laundering in Belgium -- is regarded as the biggest drugs trafficker in the history of the Irish State.</p>

TWO men who have been arrested by detectives investigating the murder of crime boss Eamon 'The Don' Dunne are senior lieutenants of crime lord Christy Kinahan.

The mobsters were picked up by armed gardai during a dawn raid at a property in the north inner city and are currently in custody at Store ...

FEMALE pals of Murder Inc thugs John and Wayne Dundon are using SEX to recruit hitmen to execute gangster's moll April Collins.

<p><div class="h2-wrapper" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; width: 532px; float: left; padding: 0px;"><h3 style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 7px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px;"></h3></div><div class="clear-left" style="clear: left; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"><div id="bodyText" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">The Irish Sun can reveal two women close to the depraved brothers have been sleeping with a string of young Limerick thugs in a bid to recruit them as killers.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">The female mobsters, who we can't name for legal reasons, want their former friend murdered at all costs.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">Last Friday, brutes Wayne, 33, and John, 29, were convicted of threatening to kill members of April's family, for which they face up to ten more years behind bars.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">But now the blood-soaked savages fear April will testify against them for ordering at least <strong style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">FOUR</strong> gangland murders — including those of innocent victims Shane Geoghegan, 28, and Roy Collins, 35.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">And a senior security source told the Irish Sun last night: "The Dundons are terrified April can now obliterate them for once and for all.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">"She has first-hand knowledge of several murders and attempted murders.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">"By the time she's finished testifying, the Dundons and their associates might never get out of prison again.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;"> </p><div class="margin-top-5 padding-bottom-5 margin-right-10 float-left" style="margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; float: left; color: #101010; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; width: 532px;"><div class="text-center" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding: 0px;"><img alt="Eight years together ... Ger and April before she ditched him" src="http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01474/20_03_2012---15_31_1474773a.jpg" style="border-image: initial; width: 532px; height: 581px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: initial none initial;" /><div class="padding-top-5" style="padding-top: 1px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; margin: 0px;"><div class="small bold" style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 13px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">Eight years together ... Ger and April before she ditched him</div></div></div></div><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">"That's why their female pals have been bedding a string of young fools around Limerick and recruiting them to kill April and stop her talking.</span><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;"> </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">"These girls are obviously pretty good in bed because these young fools are prepared to do anything for them — as long as they get plenty of sex."</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">April, 24, who lived with Ger Dundon for eight years and was privy to Murder Inc's darkest secrets, has agreed to tell all she knows.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">She's said to be a "dead woman walking" since deciding to do the unthinkable — turn State's witness against her ex's psycho siblings.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">Last month, April helped to convict Murder Inc hitman Barry Doyle, 25, for the murder of innocent rugby player Shane Geoghegan in 2008.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">She made the decision to become a supergrass after John and Wayne Dundon threatened to kill her and members of her family, including her ma, her gangster da and her brothers.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">They made the chilling threats when they learnt she was having an affair with gang-rapist Thomas O'Neill, 24, after brother Ger, 25, was jailed for five years in February 2011.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">April had dumped the father of her three children — and refused to bring their young kids to see their da in prison.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">Her mother Alice, 48, and her younger sister also gave evidence of being threatened by the lardy mobsters.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">During the trial, Alice said Wayne told her his bro John would "give some fool ten grand" to kill her son Jimmy.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">She said Wayne then told her his face would be the last her gangster son Gareth, who'd also been a member of Murder Inc, would see — "because I'm going to kill him myself".</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">He also warned her: "You're digging your own grave; it's very easy to make people disappear." Mr Justice Paul Butler said the Special Criminal Court found April's evidence to be fully believable.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">He said the court was also impressed by the "entirely credible and convincing" evidence of her mother Alice, and was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt Wayne had intimidated and made threats against her.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">Although heavily pregnant with sicko O'Neill's twins and living under constant armed Garda protection, April is determined to help cops smash Murder Inc once and for all.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">Despite her condition, Collins insisted on being present in court to see the three judges deliver their verdicts against the Dundons last Friday.</p><div></div></div></div></p>

FEMALE pals of Murder Inc thugs John and Wayne Dundon are using SEX to recruit hitmen to execute gangster's moll April Collins.

The Irish Sun can reveal two women close to the depraved brothers have been sleeping with a string of young Limerick thugs in a bid to recru...

Two police officers were injured in a shoot-out in Toulouse on Wednesday with a gunman claiming links to al Qaeda

<p><br />Two police officers were injured in a shoot-out in Toulouse on Wednesday with a gunman claiming links to al Qaeda and who is believed to responsible for the killing of four people at a Jewish school and three soldiers in southwest France.  Interior Minister Claude Gueant said that the 24-year-old man had made several visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan and had said that he was acting out of revenge for France’s military involvement overseas.  “He claims to be a mujahideen and to belong to al Qaeda,” Gueant told journalists at the scene of the siege.  “He wanted revenge for the Palestinian children and he also wanted to take revenge on the French army because of its foreign interventions,” Gueant said.  Heavily armed police in bullet-proof vests and helmets cordoned off the residential area where the raid was taking place, in a suburb a few kilometres from the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school where Monday’s shootings took place.  Reuters witnesses at the scene heard several shots at about 04:40 a.m. British time.  Gueant said that police were also talking to the brother of the gunman, who is a French citizen from Toulouse.  Police sources told Reuters that a man had been arrested earlier on Wednesday at a separate location in connection with the killings.  The gunman’s mother had also been brought to the scene of the siege in a northern suburb of Toulouse to help with negotiations, Gueant said.  “Negotiations with the suspect are ongoing, gunfire has been exchanged,” the minister said.  He said that France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy had been informed of the situation at 03:00 a.m. (02:00 a.m. British time), when the raid began.  Authorities believe that the gunman in Monday’s school shooting is the same person responsible for killing three soldiers of North African origin in two shootings last week in Toulouse and the nearby town of Montauban.  The same Colt 45 handgun was used in all three attacks and in each case the gunman arrived on a Yamaha scooter with his face hidden by a motorcycle helmet.  The killings come just five weeks before the first round of France’s presidential elections in which immigration and Islam have been major themes as Sarkozy seeks to win over voters from far-right leader Marine Le Pen.</p>

Two police officers were injured in a shoot-out in Toulouse on Wednesday with a gunman claiming links to al Qaeda

Two police officers were injured in a shoot-out in Toulouse on Wednesday with a gunman claiming links to al Qaeda and who is believed to res...

Shoot-Out In Raid Sees Police Injured

<p> </p><p>French police are engaged in a siege with a man they are reportedly "confident" was responsible for the killings of seven people in the south west of the country. Two elite officers reportedly suffered minor injuries during a shoot-out with suspects in the ongoing pre-dawn raid in the Croix-Daurade district of the city of Toulouse. AFP news agency - which said up to six shots were heard in the raid - is reporting that police believe the gunman responsible for three attacks that killed three children, a rabbi and three soldiers is inside the target building. Four people were killed during the shootings at Ozar Hatorah school A source linked to the probe also told the news agency that a man claiming to be linked to al Qaeda was holed up in the building. The agency said the suspect being sought was 24 and had previously travelled to the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which has been known to house al Qaeda safehouses. French news channel BFM TV said the suspects were linked to an Islamist group which it identified as Forsane Alizza. Sky News' Robert Nisbet, in Toulouse, said: "We know that someone is inside the building. It could one person, it could be more than one person. "I understand this is a relatively poor suburb of Toulouse. Obviously, there is an intense pressure on French police to solve this crime." The killings atOzar Hatorah Jewish school on Monday followed the shootings of four soldiers - three of them fatal - in two attacks over the previous eight days. All three of the soldiers killed were of North African descent. All of the attacks were apparently carried out by an assailant using the same gun and scooter. The victim's backgrounds had led to fears the killer was specifically targeting members of minority communities. Chief prosecutor in Paris, Francois Molins, who is monitoring the investigation in Toulouse, had warned there could well be more killings. "At this stage, everything is being done to identify, find and stop the perpetrator, of these three killings as fast as possible," he said. "In these exceptional circumstances, I think it is obvious that we are up against an extremely determined individual, who knows he's being hunted, who could strike again."</p>

Shoot-Out In Raid Sees Police Injured

French police are engaged in a siege with a man they are reportedly "confident" was responsible for the killings of seven people...

Second arrest after man killed at Herbie Hide's home

<p> </p><p>A second person has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a man at the Norwich home of former boxing world heavyweight champion Herbie Hide. Tafadzwa Kahn, 25, of St Giles Street, Norwich, died from a stab wound at the house in Long Lane, Bawburgh, on Sunday morning. An 18-year-old man from the Norwich area was arrested on Tuesday. The first person arrested, a 16-year-old boy, remains in custody in Wymondham Police Investigation Centre. Detectives said the stabbing followed an argument at a party in the house. 'High visibility patrols' The property remains sealed while a forensic examination is carried out. Police said they would continue to provide high visibility reassurance patrols in the area. More than 100 people were at the party at the time of the stabbing. Police said earlier they were "fairly certain" Mr Hide was not on the premises at the time of the stabbing. Mr Hide told the BBC on Monday: "The reality of this right now is a man is dead. Imagine this - a lady was told her son has gone. Imagine that." A spokesman said a post-mortem examination found the cause of death was a stab wound to the body. Mr Hide and his family have relocated while investigations at the house continue. Mr Hide won the WBO (World Boxing Organisation) heavyweight title for the first time in 1994, beating American Michael Bentt, but lost it to another American, Riddick Bowe, the following year. He regained the title in 1997 and made two successful defences before losing to Vitali Klitschko in 1999.</p>

Second arrest after man killed at Herbie Hide's home

A second person has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a man at the Norwich home of former boxing world heavyweight champion Herbie H...

Azhar Ahmed to stand trial over Facebook post about dead soldiers

<p><br />Azhar Ahmed, 19, appeared at Dewsbury magistrates' court charged under the Communications Act 2003 with sending a message that was grossly offensive on March 8. In court a racially-aggravated public order charge was withdrawn, but Mr Ahmed, from Ravensthorpe, West Yorkshire, denied the new charge.  Police and demonstrators outside Dewsbury Magistrates Court (Picture: PA) He has been bailed and is due to stand trial at Huddersfield magistrates' court on July 3. There was a large police presence outside court as 50 far-right protesters staged noisy demonstrations when he arrived and left. Mr Ahmed's court appearance came as the bodies of the six soldiers killed in Afghanistan on March 6 were repatriated to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.  Demonstrators shouted when Azhar Ahmed arrived and left court (Picture: PA) They died when their Warrior vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in Lashkar Gah in the deadliest single attack on British forces since 2001. Sergeant Nigel Coupe, 33, of 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment was killed alongside Corporal Jake Hartley, 20, Private Anthony Frampton, 20, Private Christopher Kershaw, 19, Private Daniel Wade, 20, and Private Daniel Wilford, 21, all of 3rd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment.</p>

Azhar Ahmed to stand trial over Facebook post about dead soldiers

Azhar Ahmed, 19, appeared at Dewsbury magistrates' court charged under the Communications Act 2003 with sending a message that was gross...

Harry Potter Star Jamie Waylett Jailed For Two Years For Violent Disorder In London Riots

<p><br />Actor Jamie Waylett, who starred in the Harry Potter films, has been jailed for two years for being part of a violent mob during last summer's London riots.  The 22-year-old, who played Hogwarts bully Vincent Crabbe in six of the films, was found guilty of violent disorder by a jury at London's Wood Green Crown Court. The actor, who had already admitted swigging from a stolen bottle of Champagne during the rioting, was cleared of intending to destroy or damage property with a petrol bomb he was pictured holding. He already has a previous conviction for cannabis possession. Waylett of Hillfield Road, northwest London, was with a gang of at least four people who went into Chalk Farm on August 8, the third night of violence in the capital. He was captured on CCTV at various points during the evening, often with his hood over his head.  Buildings on fire in Tottenham during the riots  Judge Simon Carr sentenced the actor to two years for violent disorder and 12 months for handling stolen goods, to run concurrently. Jailing him, the judge said: "A considerable amount has been said about what happened over those few days. Anyone watching the footage in this case can only imagine the mayhem that took place on the streets. "You chose to go out on to the streets on what was the third day of the violence. "You were pictured on a number of occasions with a bottle full of petrol with a rag as a wick. "I accept entirely the jury's verdict that you did not throw or have any intention of throwing it, but merely being in possession of it would have been terrifying to anyone who saw you." Waylett will be eligible for parole after serving a year in jail. The star, who had a shaved head and a goatee beard, wore a white shirt with an open collar and a dark suit to hear the sentencing. He nodded to the public gallery as he was led down to the cells.</p>

Harry Potter Star Jamie Waylett Jailed For Two Years For Violent Disorder In London Riots

Actor Jamie Waylett, who starred in the Harry Potter films, has been jailed for two years for being part of a violent mob during last summer...

A GANG of “guns for hire” who spread lawless violence in a spate of gun and grenade attacks across Merseyside were today starting life behind bars.

<p><div class="span-47 colborder" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 8px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-image: initial; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; width: 465px; float: left; border-right-style: solid; border-right-color: #cccccc; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; border: 0px initial initial;"><div class="span-47 last" style="border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; width: 465px; float: left; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;"><div class="article main" style="border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;"><div id="three-col" style="border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;"><div class="article-image fl-left" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; float: left; padding: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;"><br /><img alt="Grenade gang" border="0" height="313" src="http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/liverpoolecho/mar2012/6/4/grenade-gang-887236386.jpg" style="border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; float: left; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" width="300" /></div><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-size: 1.083em; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; padding: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;"> </p><p>The five were the “go to” men for gangsters across the area as they carried out attacks on underworld rivals.</p><p>But their spree saw innocent people caught in the middle as indiscriminate shootings and grenade attacks escalated.</p><p>At the top of the tree sat Tony Downes and Kirk Bradley, a “thick as thieves” pair of career criminals from <a href="http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-communities/huyton-prescot/" target="_blank">Huyton</a>, and Gary Wilson, who used his ill-gotten gains to buy himself a plush seafront Southport home.</p><div></div><p>Bradley and Downes, both 26, never got their hands dirty – Downes was directing operations from his cell in HMP Liverpool and was said to be the group’s “chief executive” by a judge yesterday.</p><p>Instead their underlings, “trusted and active lieutenants” Craig Riley and Joseph Farrell, were given “jobs” to carry out and would farm some tasks out to younger crooks wanting to make a name for themselves.</p><p>On their instructions, the young thugs would be given guns or explosives and an address or a specific individual to target.</p><p>They threw grenades into a room where a woman babysitting her seven-year-old grandson was sleeping and shot people in the legs and stomach, leaving them with life-changing injuries.</p><p>Their “modus operandi” saw them use the same guns over and over again – two guns linked to the group were used in 16 different shootings – and carry out their attacks on scrambler bikes, ideal for a quick getaway.</p><p>Police slammed the gang as “parasites, the worst kind of mercenary” after bringing them to justice.</p><p>A covert police operation was launched to snare those linked to more than 20 incidents over two years.</p><p>As the net closed on them, officers took an arsenal of weapons off the streets.</p><p>At Woolwich Crown Court yesterday the “chapter” in the ongoing fight against gun crime was brought to a close by high court judge Mr Justice Henriques when he sentenced each of the gang to life imprisonment.</p><p>Only Farrell, Wilson and Riley were actually in the dock at Woolwich yesterday.</p><p>Downes and Bradley escaped from a prison van in Manchester last summer as they were being brought to court in Liverpool.</p><p>Their escape caused their trial, which was in its 11th week at the time, to collapse and a retrial at maximum-security Woolwich was ordered.</p><p>But the day after they were convicted in their absence, Downes was picked up after eight months of freedom.<a href="http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2012/03/16/fugitive-tony-downes-captured-by-swat-team-after-found-hiding-in-dutch-holiday-park-100252-30549176/" target="_blank"></a></p></div></div></div></div><span style="border-image: initial; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;"><br /><br /><br /></span></p>

A GANG of “guns for hire” who spread lawless violence in a spate of gun and grenade attacks across Merseyside were today starting life behind bars.

The five were the “go to” men for gangsters across the area as they carried out attacks on underworld rivals. But their spree saw innocent...

The former chief reporter of the News of the World was arrested yesterday by police investigating the phone hacking scandal, on suspicion of intimidating a witness.

<p>Neville Thurlbeck, 50, who was also news editor on the defunct Sunday tabloid, was detained by appointment at a central London police station by officers from Operation Weeting a day after his former editor, Rebekah Brooks, was arrested with five others on suspicion of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. He was later released on bail.  Yesterday's arrest came as James Murdoch used a letter to the House of Commons media select committee to distance himself once more from any wrongdoing inside News International (NI). He blamed two former trusted lieutenants, Colin Myler and Tom Crone, claiming there were "inconsistencies" in their evidence to MPs.  Mr Thurlbeck has been a central figure in the unfolding phone-hacking saga since being named in the so-called "for Neville" email. This showed voicemail interception went beyond a single "rogue" reporter at the NOTW. He was arrested last year on suspicion of conspiring to hack phones and eavesdropping voicemail messages.  During recent months, he has adopted a higher media profile, with broadcast appearances and the launch of a blog commenting on developments in the crisis enveloping NI. In a blog entry last week, Mr Thurlbeck revealed how Will Lewis, a key member of News Corp's Management and Standards Committee, which has been marshalling millions of internal NI emails to Scotland Yard, had hired a private security company to provide security at his home.  Mr Thurlbeck published the name of the security company, noting that it had spent several hours at Mr Lewis's home, and gave the name of the street where the NI executive lives.  In a subsequent blog, Mr Thurlbeck, who is suing his former employer for unfair dismissal, said his story had prompted approaches from lawyers and a public relations company representing Mr Lewis, asking for the removal of his posting. He claimed it was suggested to him that the details he had provided about the security company "somehow implied I had put [Mr Lewis's] home under surveillance. Bonkers!".  He added: "I accepted their point that printing the name of his street was distressing to his family and took this down immediately as I have absolutely no wish to do this. Although I have not been asked to do so, I would like to apologise to Mrs Lewis for any distress."  A spokesman for the Management and Standards Committee declined to comment last night on Mr Thurlbeck's arrest. Meanwhile Mr Murdoch has sought to influence the parliamentary report into phone hacking, which is expected to be published before the Easter recess, by telling the committee that he did not mislead them, that he never tried to hide wrongdoing at the NOTW, and that when he did ask questions about what was going on, he was given "false assurances" by senior executives at Wapping.  In a personal letter to John Whittingdale, chair of the media select committee, the former executive chairman of NI initially takes responsibility "for not uncovering wrongdoing earlier".  However, the limited apologetic tone of his seven page letter, in which he accepts that it "would have been better if I had asked more questions", also contains evidence of anger directed at former trusted lieutenants inside NI. He says he relied too much on people who assured him that investigations had been carried out and who claimed that further inquiries were unnecessary.  The former NOTW editor, Colin Myler, and News Group Newspaper's former legal manager, Tom Crone, are named repeatedly and described as offering "inconsistencies" to Parliament, while Mr Murdoch says his own evidence "has always been consistent".  The letter states: "The truth is that incomplete answers and what now appears to be false assurances were given to the questions that I asked." In summaries of earlier evidence to the committee, he says he was "never intimately involved with the workings of the NOTW"; and on key meetings that discussed how senior executives were dealing with the emerging hacking culture, he says: "I was given a narrower set of facts than I should have been given..."  He also says that if "Messrs Crone and Myler" had given him the highly critical private opinion offered in 2008 by NI's leading counsel, Michael Silverleaf QC, which described "widespread wrongdoing", then he would have "acted differently". He ends his letter by repeating that he neither knew about, nor attempted to hide, wrongdoing, and tells MPs: "The evidence does not support any other conclusion."  James Murdoch: What he wrote  "I take my share of responsibility for not uncovering wrongdoing earlier. However, I have not misled Parliament. I did not know about, nor did I try to hide, wrongdoing. I do not believe the evidence before you supports any other conclusion..."  "It has been said I did not ask enough questions. However, the truth is that incomplete answers and what now appears to be false assurances were given to the questions that I asked."</p>

The former chief reporter of the News of the World was arrested yesterday by police investigating the phone hacking scandal, on suspicion of intimidating a witness.

Neville Thurlbeck, 50, who was also news editor on the defunct Sunday tabloid, was detained by appointment at a central London police statio...

James Murdoch pleads innocence ahead of committee report

<p>James Murdoch has written to an influential parliamentary committee, investigating a phone hacking scandal at his company, to apologise and restate his innocence ahead of a potentially damaging report that could determine his future in Britain.  The 39-year-old son of Rupert wrote to the committee to accept responsibility for failing to uncover the criminal behaviour, which has damaged the reputation of the News Corp media empire, British politicians and police.  At stake is his role as chairman of British pay-TV group BSkyB and potentially his future at News Corp, where he had for years been marked out as the heir apparent to his father Rupert as chief executive.   "I did not know about, nor did I try to hide, wrongdoing," he said in the letter published by the committee on Wednesday.  "Whilst I accept my share of responsibility for not uncovering wrongdoing sooner, I did not mislead parliament and the evidence does not support any other conclusion."  Analysts and some shareholders believe Murdoch would struggle to remain at BSkyB if he is singled out for particular criticism as it could impact his ability to negotiate with the government and regulators on behalf of one of Britain's most powerful media firms.  The all-party committee summoned James and his father Rupert to a hearing at the height of the scandal last July, for a three-hour often testy grilling that was watched live by millions on television in both Britain and the United States.  Just four months later, the younger Murdoch had to return to answer further detailed questions over what he knew and when after two former colleagues publicly contradicted his evidence.  News Corp's British newspaper arm News International had long argued that the hacking of voicemails to generate stories was the work of a single rogue reporter and private investigator who had already gone to jail for the crime.  But as more people came forward to accuse the company of hacking their phones, that defence crumbled and attention turned to those at the top of the company and it was asked why they had not pushed further to discover the truth.  "Clearly, with the benefit of hindsight, I acknowledge that wrongdoing should have been uncovered earlier," Murdoch said in his letter.  The parliamentary committee had originally planned to publish its report before Christmas but due to the sensitivity of the material it is having to write the document by committee and is now aiming for the Easter holiday in April.</p>

James Murdoch pleads innocence ahead of committee report

James Murdoch has written to an influential parliamentary committee, investigating a phone hacking scandal at his company, to apologise and ...

Rebekah Brooks and husband arrested in phone hacking inquiry

REBEKAH Brooks and her racehorse trainer husband are among six suspects arrested today by detectives investigating allegations of phone hack...

Gangster's Paradise Rapper Coolio Arrested In Las Vegas, Nevada

<p><br />Another rapper gets added to the long list of emcees being arrested in Las Vegas, as Coolio was arrested this past weekend in Sin City. The ‘Gangster’s Paradise‘ emcee was stopped on the Las Vegas strip by local police for a routine check, when officers discovered that Coolio had two bench warrants out for his arrest that were the results of multiple traffic violations. The 48 year old, real name Artis Leon Ivey Jr., was only a passenger in the vehicle offers pulled over just a few blocks east of the Las Vegas Strip at around 2:20 AM according to Officer Laura Meltzer. The two warrants out for Coolio were tied to failure to appear on an illegal stop and driving without a license summons issued back in June of 2010. Even more bizarre to the whole story was the fact that Coolio’s 22 year old son was locked up in the same jail for “allegedly busting into a Vegas apartment with a gun and forcing the tenant into the bathroom, while he and a female prostitute named Shantrice Wilkerson ransacked the place.” according to TMZ. Coolio was later released on a $5,850 court bail, and no official court date has been set. </p>

Gangster's Paradise Rapper Coolio Arrested In Las Vegas, Nevada

Another rapper gets added to the long list of emcees being arrested in Las Vegas, as Coolio was arrested this past weekend in Sin City. The ...

Girlfriend of notorious Boston gangster James (Whitey) Bulger agrees to plead guilty

Catherine Greig, the girlfriend of notorious Boston gangster James (Whitey) Bulger, has agreed to plead guilty to charges she helped him esc...

Drug trafficking brothers jailed for more than five years each

<p>Two brothers who tried to flood the north-east of Scotland with heroin and cocaine have been jailed.  Paul and Anthony Smith were jailed for more than five years each after they admitted transporting a "significant" amount of class-A drugs into Aberdeen and Shetland.  The pair, originally from Liverpool, were sentenced at the High Court in Aberdeen on Monday after previously admitting being involved in the supply of heroin and cocaine between October 2010 and February last year.  Detective Inspector Alex Dowall said: "These men were intent on flooding the streets of Aberdeen and Shetland with class-A drugs and were willing to take great risks in the process in order to turn a profit.  "Ultimately though, as their sentences today prove, the risk is much greater than the potential reward."  Anthony Smith, 30, was jailed for five years and seven months while his 27-year-old sibling received a sentence of five years and two months.  Det Insp Dowall added: "This was a complex inquiry across two countries and three force areas and it should serve as a warning to others intent on bringing drugs into the north-east that it will not be tolerated.  "Operation Limehouse is an example of Grampian Police working closely with other police forces across the UK in order to target those suspected of committing drugs offences.  "It must also be said that the assistance provided by local communities in Aberdeen and Shetland in bring these individuals to justice was invaluable."</p>

Drug trafficking brothers jailed for more than five years each

Two brothers who tried to flood the north-east of Scotland with heroin and cocaine have been jailed. Paul and Anthony Smith were jailed for...

US soldier has killed 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children,

<p><br />A US soldier has killed 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children, after entering their homes in Kandahar.  Sky sources said the Afghan victims also included women and elderly men. Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs Asadullah Khalid, who is investigating the incident, said the soldier entered three homes, killing 11 people in the first one. The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) coalition confirmed the incident but did not release the number of killed or injured. Sky defence reporter Mark Stone said: "Details are still sketchy and various death tolls have emerged. "It appears to be an isolated incident and the soldier is believed to have been a staff sergeant." Isaf Deputy Commander Lt Gen Adrian Bradshaw said: "I wish to convey my profound regrets and dismay at the actions apparently taken by one coalition member in Kandahar province. "I cannot explain the motivation behind such callous acts, but they were in no way part of authorised ISAF military activity." According to the Panjwai district governor office, seven people died and up to 17 injured were injured in the rampage. The injured have been treated for their wounds at Nato medical facilities.  Protests were held over the Koran-burning incident  The US embassy in Kabul attempted to quell expected Afghan unrest by also issuing an apology. It said: "We deplore any attack by a member of the US armed forces against innocent civilians, and denounce all violence against civilians. "We assure the people of Afghanistan that the individual or individuals responsible for this act will be identified and brought to justice." The diplomatic response comes after weeks of tense relations between US forces and their Afghan hosts following the burning of Korans and other religious materials at an American base. Although US officials apologised and said the burning was an accident, the incident sparked violent protests and attacks. Britain also pulled out civilian advisers from buildings in Kabul as protests spread. Six American soldiers have been killed in attacks by their Afghan colleagues since the Koran burnings came to light.</p>

US soldier has killed 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children,

A US soldier has killed 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children, after entering their homes in Kandahar. Sky sources said the Afghan v...