Mexico-US border death sparks row

23 June 2011 Last updated at 10:01 GMT The shooting happened at a heavily patrolled part of the border Mexico's government has condemned the fatal shooting of a Mexican man who was allegedly throwing stones at US agents across the Tijuana-San Diego fence.

The Mexican foreign ministry said the use of firearms to repel stone-throwing was "disproportionate".

San Diego police said the man had struck one agent and was about to hit another when he was shot.

There have been several fatal border shootings in recent years, increasing the controversy over the use of force.

The shooting happened late on Tuesday near the San Ysidro crossing point between Tijuana and San Diego.

According to US authorities, three men were trying to get over the border when they were stopped by two agents.

Two of the men fled back across the fence and began pelting the agents with stones, they said.

When one of the officers was hit, the other opened fire.

Mexican police said the man, identified as Jose Alfredo Yanez, was shot twice and died on the Tijuana side of the border.

Serious injury

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said on his Twitter account that he had raised the issue with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Guatemala, where both were attending a security conference.

"I demanded that those guilty be punished," Mr Calderon wrote.

The Mexican authorities and rights groups say the US Border Patrol uses excessive tactics to deter migrants.

"We simply cannot allow our law enforcement agents to use lethal force when confronted by rock throwers," said Kevin Keenan of the American Civil Liberties Union.

But the Border Patrol says rock attacks on its agents are frequent and capable of causing serious injury.

"Agents don't shoot their weapon unless they fear for their lives or the lives of their partners or innocent third persons," Justin De La Torre, acting assistant chief patrol agent in San Diego, told the Los Angeles Times.

In one of the most high-profile shootings, agents last June shot dead a Mexican teenager at the border crossing between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso. The FBI concluded that the agent fired while fending off a rock attack.

This latest shooting is being investigated by the San Diego police and the FBI. The Mexican authorities are also conducting their own inquiry.

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Jerusalem rabbis 'sentence dog to death by stoning'

18 June 2011 Last updated at 03:57 GMT In traditional Judaism, dogs are considered to be impure animals A Jewish rabbinical court condemned to death by stoning a stray dog it feared was the reincarnation of a lawyer who insulted its judges, reports say.

The dog entered the Jerusalem financial court several weeks ago and would not leave, reports Israeli website Ynet.

It reminded a judge of a curse passed on a now deceased secular lawyer about 20 years ago, when judges bid his spirit to enter the body of a dog.

The animal is said to have escaped before the sentence was carried out.

One of the judges at the court in the city's ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim neighbourhood had reportedly asked local children to carry out the sentence.

An animal welfare organisation filed a complaint with the police against a court official, who denied reports that judges had ordered the dog's stoning, according to Ynet.

But a court manager told Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot the stoning had been ordered as "as an appropriate way to 'get back at' the spirit which entered the poor dog", according to Ynet.

Dogs are considered impure animals in traditional Judaism.

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US hails death of al-Qaeda militant

11 June 2011 Last updated at 18:43 GMT BBC's Will Ross says some people are sceptical at the news due to false reports of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed's death in the past.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the death of top African al-Qaeda militant Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is a "significant blow" to the group.

He and another militant were killed earlier this week in a shootout with police at a checkpoint in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, officials said.

Mr Mohammed was the most wanted man in Africa, with a $5m bounty on his head.

He was suspected of having played a key role in the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa, which killed 224 people.

He was also accused of attacking Israeli targets on the Kenyan coast in 2002, and was recently believed to have been working with the Islamist militant group, al-Shabab, which controls much of southern Somalia.

'Victory for the world'

Mr Mohammed was shot dead by Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces in north-western Mogadishu overnight on Tuesday, Somali security officials said.

"Our forces fired on two men who refused to stop at a roadblock. They tried to defend themselves when they were surrounded by our men," TFG commander Abdikarim Yusuf told the AFP news agency.

"We took their ID documents, one of which was a foreign passport," he said, adding that medicine, mobile phones and laptops were also found.

Somali sources told AFP that Mr Mohammed was carrying $40,000 in cash and a South African passport bearing the name Daniel Robinson.

Continue reading the main story Born in Moroni, Comoros islands, in the Indian OceanIndicted in the US over 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and TanzaniaOne of FBI's most wanted terror suspects with $5m rewardSpeaks French, Swahili, Arabic, English and Comoran

Source: FBI

Gen Abdikarim Yusuf Dhagabadan, Somalia's army chief, said officials at first did not know who the dead man was.

"We buried him," he told the Associated Press. "But soon after checking his documents, [we] exhumed his body and took his pictures and DNA. Then we learned that he was the man wanted by the US authorities."

The general described the death as "similar to Osama bin Laden's", who was killed in a US commando raid on his home in northern Pakistan on 2 May.

"It is a victory for the world. It is a victory for Somali army," he added.

A senior US government official also told the BBC that it was a "very big deal" and commended the actions of the Transitional Federal Government.

"Fazul Abdullah Mohammed's death removes one of the terrorist group's most experienced operational planners in East Africa and has almost certainly set back operations," the official said.

After landing in Tanzania's capital, Dar es Salaam, on the second leg of a tour of Africa, Mrs Clinton told reporters: "[His] death is a significant blow to al-Qaeda, its extremist allies, and its operations in East Africa."

"It is a just end for a terrorist who brought so much death and pain to so many innocents in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and elsewhere - Tanzanians, Kenyans, Somalis, and our own embassy personnel."

Born in the Comoros islands in the early 1970s, Mr Mohammed is believed to have joined al-Qaeda in Afghanistan during the 1990s.

After the bombings of the US embassies in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, and Dar es Salaam in 1998, the US authorities accused him of involvement and offered the $5m reward for information leading to his capture.

Hillary Clinton has arrived in Tanzania as part of a tour of Africa

In 2002, Mr Mohammed was reported to have been put in charge of al-Qaeda operations in East Africa.

That year, he was blamed for the bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel at the beach resort of Kikambala, Kenya, which left 13 people dead, and an attempt to shoot down an Israeli passenger aircraft in nearby Mombasa.

In 2007, he survived a US air strike on the southern Somali coastal village of Hayo, near the town of Ras Kamboni.

In recent years, Mr Mohammed is thought to have joined other foreign militants in Somalia fighting fought alongside al-Shabab, which declared allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2010. It said reports of his death were untrue.

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'Doctor Death' dies in US aged 83

3 June 2011 Last updated at 14:17 GMT Kevorkian conducted many assisted suicides using his so-called mercy machine, Jack Kevorkian, the man known as "Dr Death", for helping the terminally ill end their lives, has died in the US aged of 83, his lawyer has said.

Mayer Morganroth told the Associated Press news agency Kevorkian died on Friday at Michigan's Beaumont Hospital.

Kevorkian died after a blood clot from his leg broke free and lodged in his heart, the Detroit Free Press reported.

He was believed to have assisted in 130 suicides and was released from prison in 2007, after serving eight years.

Kevorkian had been in hospital since last month with pneumonia and kidney problems, said Mr Morganroth, who was also a friend of Kevorkian's.

He added that hospital staff played recordings of classical music for Kevorkian before he died.

Murder conviction

Kevorkian was originally given a 10-25 year sentence for a second-degree murder conviction in the death of terminally ill Thomas Youk.

But the former pathologist later won an appeal based on his own failing health and served only eight years.

Kevorkian's so-called mercy machine delivered lethal amounts of drugs intravenously

His lawyers had said he suffered from hepatitis C and diabetes.

He had promised in affidavits that he would not assist in a suicide if he was released.

Kevorkian told the BBC in 2007 he had no regrets for conducting assisted suicides.

"I knew what I was doing... I accepted the consequences because I had to do the right thing," he said.

The doctor ran for US Congress as an independent in 2008, receiving just 2.7% of the vote in a suburban Detroit district.

A film about Kevorkian's life, called You Don't Know Jack, was shown for the HBO television network in 2010.

The actor Al Pacino won an Emmy and Golden Globe Award for his portrayal of the pathologist.

Kevorkian had claimed to have assisted in some 130 suicides, mostly in the Detroit area between 1990-98.

Born in 1928, Kevorkian went to medical school, then worked as a pathologist - before retiring to pursue his controversial mission.

Kevorkian first gained international attention in 1990, helping a 54-year-old Alzheimers patient to die.

Many assisted suicides were conducted using his so-called mercy machine, which delivered lethal amounts of drugs intravenously.

Kevorkian's methods alienated many. In 1998 he offered on a "first come, first served" basis the kidneys of a man he had helped to die.

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US mother in child death trial

24 May 2011 Last updated at 14:26 GMT Ms Anthony says a babysitter kidnapped her daughter The trial has opened in Florida of a young US woman accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter in 2008.

Prosecutors base their case on forensic evidence they say shows Casey Anthony, 25, kept Caylee Anthony's dead body in the boot of her car.

But they have no witnesses or confession linking Ms Anthony to the 2008 death, and forensic experts are unable to say how the child died.

Ms Anthony has pleaded not guilty, and says a babysitter kidnapped the child.

The trial is being held in Orlando in the US state of Florida, though jurors are being selected elsewhere due to the intense media scrutiny the case has garnered there.

Weeks to report

Her lawyers are expected to argue she was in jail when the child's body was left in a wood.

If she is found guilty of first-degree murder, she could face the death penalty.

Ms Anthony is also charged with aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child and providing false information to law enforcement.

Ms Anthony drew investigators' attention when it was learned she waited weeks to tell her mother the child was missing.

Caylee's decomposed body was found in December 2008 in a patch of woods near her house.

Ms Anthony's mother reported smelling something like a dead body emanating from the boot of Ms Anthony's car. And there, prosecutors say forensic experts found traces of chloroform.

Ms Anthony's lawyers will say the foul smell came from a bag of rotting rubbish, but prosecutors plan to offer a novel form of forensic science they say shows chemical compounds from decomposition were present in the boot.

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G20 death Pc will be prosecuted

24 May 2011 Last updated at 11:43 GMT Keir Starmer explains the decision to charge Pc Simon Harwood with manslaughter

A police officer is to be charged with manslaughter over the death of newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson during the 2009 G20 protests.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, said there was now a "realistic prospect" of convicting Pc Simon Harwood.

An inquest earlier this month returned a verdict of unlawful death on the 47-year-old.

Mr Tomlinson's family said they were "more than happy" about the decision.

The officer is due to appear before magistrates on 20 June.

The inquest heard Mr Tomlinson collapsed and died after he was hit by a baton and pushed to the ground by Pc Simon Harwood in central London on 1 April 2009.

'Conflicting medical evidence'

The officer said after the inquest he had not intended to push him over.

Pc Simon Harwood gave evidence to the inquest over three days

Mr Starmer said: "The difficulty facing any prosecution in relation to the death of Mr Tomlinson lies in the conflicting medical evidence about the cause of death. That difficulty remains."

But he said new medical evidence had been presented at the inquest, and the medical opinion of pathologist Freddy Patel had been tested in extensive questioning at the inquest.

He said this had allowed "a degree of clarity to emerge".

Mr Starmer said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had taken the legal opinion of a senior barrister, Tim Owen, QC.

He said: "Taking the evidence as it now stands, we have concluded that, even with those remaining difficulties, there is now sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of successfully prosecuting PC Simon Harwood for the manslaughter of Mr Tomlinson."

Ian Tomlinson collapsed at the G20 protests in London two years ago

Mr Tomlinson's stepson, Paul King, made a statement on behalf of the family: "We welcome today's decision to bring a charge of manslaughter against the officer.

"We believe this is the right decision. What we have always wanted is to achieve justice for Ian and to show that police officers are not above the law."

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said: "This is clearly a very, very serious matter for all concerned."

He added: "I have got to be very, very concerned at an inquest verdict that returns a verdict of unlawful killing involving, as the inquest did, one of my police officers.

"My sympathies continue to be with the Tomlinson family."

1. 1855: Mr Tomlinson leaves Monument station to head home

2. 1859: He walks north along King William Street, but is turned back by police

3. 1902: The newspaper seller sits on a wall before cutting through onto Lombard Street

4. 1906: A few minutes later, he comes into contact with police again on Lombard Street

5. 1915: Mr Tomlinson then passes through Change Alley and is diverted again by more police officers

6. 1918: He crosses Cornhill towards Royal Exchange Buildings

7. 1920: As police sweep down Royal Exchange, Mr Tomlinson is hit by a baton and pushed to the ground. A bystander helps him to his feet

8. 1921: The newspaper vendor walks along Cornhill before collapsing and dying

Source: Inquest into the death of Ian Tomlinson. Note: Parts of route and some timings are approximate

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