The Jim Bakker Show

Ohio politicians call for inquiry into jail stun-gun abuses cited by Reuters

By Jason Szep and Linda So

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) – In one video, Sergeant Mychal Turner stunned a mentally ill inmate with a Taser multiple times after the inmate defied an order to stand in his cell at Ohio’s Franklin County jail.

In another, Turner fired the Taser’s electrified barbs into an inmate’s chest after he refused to remove a piece of jewelry. In a third, he pulled the trigger five times on a handcuffed inmate who wouldn’t sit on a bench.

Each incident violated the jail’s Taser policy, and each was cited in a class-action lawsuit the county settled that accused jail guards of “sadistic” and unconstitutional use of Tasers from 2008 to 2010, court records show.

Yet neither Turner nor any other deputies were disciplined, according to internal county jail records reviewed by Reuters.

Instead, Turner was promoted to major. He’s now commander of Franklin County Corrections Center II, the largest of the jail’s two main facilities.

Reached by phone, Turner declined to comment. In court documents, he has defended his actions, saying he feared for his safety in some incidents and wanted to avoid potentially dangerous physical struggles in the small confines of a cell. Jail officials also declined to comment, though the county said it instituted reforms in 2011 under the lawsuit settlement.

Now, following a Reuters report this month that included publication of more than a dozen stun-gun videos, the jail faces escalating calls for investigation.

Two United Nations torture experts called for a criminal inquiry into the cases documented by Reuters. Local political leaders say they agree.

Ohio State Senator Charleta Tavares, a Democrat whose district includes the jail, said she planned to call on the county prosecutor’s office to investigate. She said she was disturbed by the video footage published by Reuters.

“Any time a stun gun is used inappropriately – particularly in the video, where it looks as though it is just used over and over and it’s more like a prod that people would use on animals – that is criminal in my opinion,” Tavares said.

Ohio Democratic State Representative Kristin Boggs also urged a closer look. A criminal investigation would be appropriate, she said, if an officer was found to have used excessive force that violated jail policy. “I certainly think it’s worth investigating to determine what we can be doing to make our system better,” Boggs said.

Deputies who misused Tasers should be held to account, said relatives of the inmates.

“It was absolutely abuse,” said Logan Amburgey, whose brother Patrick was stunned multiple times and pistol-whipped with a Taser by another deputy after defying orders to sit on a bench in his cell on June 12, 2009. Patrick, a 21-year-old college student at the time, had been arrested for passing out intoxicated on the front porch of a local residence.

“UNCOOPERATIVE”

From 2008 to 2010, 22 deputies at the Franklin County Jail used Tasers on 80 inmates, according to a Reuters review of the jail’s “use of force” reports. No jailer pulled the trigger more times than Turner.

In all, Turner delivered 28 shocks for a total duration of 126 seconds over the course of 12 incidents. One other guard, Sergeant Andrew Eing, fired his Taser 26 times for a total of 114 seconds. Most other deputies who used the weapons pulled the trigger fewer than a dozen times.

Like Turner, Eing was promoted – to lieutenant in the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau, responsible for investigating officer misconduct. Now supervisor of the detective bureau, he did not return calls seeking comment. In internal reports, Eing denied abusing the Taser, saying he aimed to prevent injury to staff and inmates.

In one case, Eing shocked a 23-year-old mentally ill inmate, Jibril Abdul-Muwwakil, 14 times for 64 seconds while he lay bleeding on the floor, surrounded by 10 officers. An internal investigation concluded the Taser use was “justified” to control a “violent, dangerous, resisting inmate.” Experts for the plaintiffs described the incident as “excessive” and a violation of Taser product-safety and health warnings.

Sixty percent of the 80 Taser incidents involved people classified by the jail as intoxicated or mentally ill, Reuters found.

In January 2009, Turner and four deputies tried to move Ralston Distin, a 47-year-old inmate classified as “mentally disabled,” to another location. When the jailers opened his cell door, Distin shielded his body with a sleeping mat, speaking unintelligibly. Turner shocked him repeatedly for refusing to stand up. Once in leg irons, Turner shocked him again for not letting go of the mat.

Turner feared he would get “entangled in a wrestling match” or be kicked if he didn’t use the Taser, he testified in court documents.

In another video, Turner fired the Taser’s electrified barbs into the chest of Kevin Carey in May 2009 for refusing to remove a nipple ring. Carey, 25, had been charged with drunk driving and resisting arrest.

Turner said he stunned Carey to “make sure that he doesn’t become uncooperative” and because he failed “to follow directions.”

He also stunned a handcuffed Gregory Esmile five times after the 46-year-old failed to sit down on a bench. Esmile was jailed on trespass charges after failing to leave a nightclub, court records say.

Turner said he worried Esmile was “getting ready to charge.”

“UNLAWFUL USE”

According to the jail’s Taser policy at the time, Tasers were allowed for self-defense, protection of another inmate or staff, disarming an inmate, preventing self-harm to an inmate, or controlling a combative inmate.

Tasers could not be used on inmates in handcuffs, leg irons or a restraint chair, or on pregnant women. So several cases violated the policy, the lawsuit against the county alleged. One video cited in the case showed a pregnant woman, Martini Smith, being shocked. She later miscarried, and was among plaintiffs in the civil lawsuit.

Axon Enterprise Inc, the stun gun manufacturer, said its guidelines suggest proper practices and that it does not “condone torture of any kind.”

In separate statements, the office of Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien and the Franklin County sheriff’s department said no one officially sought a criminal investigation in the cases.

The statements said the U.S. Department of Justice did not recommend criminal charges when the DOJ intervened in the civil lawsuit on grounds that Franklin County “engaged in a pattern or practice of unlawful use of Tasers against detainees and inmates in their custody.”

After that case, the county agreed to pay eight inmates a total of $102,250 in damages, strengthened its Taser policy and expanded training.

The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division does not recommend that jurisdictions prosecute cases, according to DOJ rules.

O’Brien’s office said neither the inmates’ lawyers nor its expert witness, Steve J. Martin, sought charges.

Disability Rights Ohio, a legal group representing inmates, said that’s not its role. The nonprofit group “is not an enforcement agency,” said advocacy director Kerstin Sjoberg-Witt.

Martin, who has inspected more than 500 U.S. prisons and jails, said urging investigations is not his role. He was “surprised” at O’Brien’s comment.

The cases were ultimately investigated by the special litigation section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. Under DOJ rules, litigation lawyers can refer possible crimes to the unit’s criminal section.

Justice spokesman Devin O’Malley said he couldn’t “comment on the existence or non-existence of investigations.”

(Additional reporting by Tim Reid in Columbus and Grant Smith in New York. Editing by Ronnie Greene.)

Iran will treat jailed aid worker as Iranian citizen: foreign ministry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Iran will treat a British-Iranian aid worker as an Iranian citizen and she will serve her sentence as determined by the judiciary, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson discussed Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case with Iranian officials after flying to Tehran over the weekend to try to seek her release.

“One of the issues that Johnson brought up in Tehran was the issue of Ms. Zaghari,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi was quoted by state media as saying.

“With regard to her dual nationality, from our point of view of course she is Iranian and she has been sentenced by the judiciary and she will serve the period of her sentence.”

Britain says Zaghari-Ratcliffe was visiting family on holiday in April 2016 when she was jailed by Iran for attempting to overthrow the government.

Johnson said he urged the release of dual nationals.

“I urged their release, on humanitarian grounds, where there is cause to do so,” Johnson told the British parliament.

“These are complex cases involving individuals considered by Iran to be their own citizens, and I do not wish to raise false hopes. But my meetings in Tehran were worthwhile,” he said. “It is too early to be confident about the outcome.”

Zaghari-Ratcliffe is not the only dual national being held in Iran, but her case has taken on political significance in Britain after Johnson said last month that she had been teaching journalists in Iran, which her employer denies. Johnson later apologized.

Opponents have called for him to resign if his comments lead to her serving longer in prison.

Qassemi said the Iranian foreign ministry would follow up on Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case but said that it was ultimately a matter for the judiciary.

A project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted by an Iranian court of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment. She denies the charges.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation is a charity organization that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News. It says Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been on holiday and had not been teaching journalism in Iran.

Johnson also said he raised with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif what he called “the official harassment of journalists working for BBC Persian and their families inside Iran.”

The BBC has called on Iran to reverse a court order which it said effectively froze the non-liquid assets of 152 staff, former staff and contributors in Iran.

(Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh; Additional reporting by Andrew MacAskill and Guy Faulconbridge in London; Editing by William Maclean and Peter Graff)

Mass killer, cult leader Charles Manson dies at 83

By Diane Bartz and Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – Charles Manson, the wild-eyed cult leader who orchestrated a string of gruesome killings in Southern California by his “family” of young followers, shattering the peace-and-love ethos of the late 1960s, died on Sunday, prison officials said. He was 83.

Manson died of natural causes Sunday evening at a Kern County hospital, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement. It gave no further details of the circumstances surrounding his death.

He had been serving a life sentence at the nearby Corcoran State Prison for ordering the murders of nine people, including actress Sharon Tate.

Long after Manson had largely faded from headlines, he loomed large as a symbol of the terror he unleashed in the summer of 1969.

“The very name Manson has become a metaphor for evil,” the late Vincent Bugliosi, who prosecuted Manson, told the Los Angeles Times in 1994.

A recent photograph showed the gray-bearded killer’s face still bearing the scar of a swastika he carved into his forehead decades earlier.

Manson became one of the 20th century’s most notorious criminals when he directed his mostly young, female followers to murder seven people in what prosecutors said was part of a plan to incite a race war.

GRAFFITI WITH VICTIMS’ BLOOD

Tate, aged 26 and eight months pregnant, was stabbed 16 times in the early morning hours of Aug. 9, 1969, by members of Manson’s cult at the rented hillside house she shared with her husband, filmmaker Roman Polanski, in the Benedict Canyon area of Los Angeles.

Four friends of the celebrity couple, including coffee heiress Abigail Folger and hairstylist Jay Sebring, were also stabbed or shot to death that night by Manson followers, who scrawled the word “Pig” in blood on the home’s front door before leaving. Polanski was away in Europe at the time.

The following night, members of Manson’s group stabbed grocery owner Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary to death, using their blood to write, “Death to Pigs” and “Healter Skelter” – a misspelled reference to the Beatles song “Helter Skelter” – on the walls and refrigerator door.

Although Manson did not personally kill any of the seven victims, he was found guilty of ordering their murders.

He was later convicted of ordering the murders of music teacher Gary Hinman, stabbed to death in July 1969, and stuntman Donald “Shorty” Shea, stabbed and bludgeoned that August.

Manson was sentenced to death for the Tate-LaBianca murders, but his sentence was commuted to life in prison after the California Supreme Court abolished capital punishment in the state in 1972.

Born Charles Milles Maddox on Nov. 12, 1934, in Cincinnati to a 16-year-old girl, Manson spent much of his youth shuttled between relatives and juvenile detention halls. By age 13, he had been convicted of armed robbery.

Newly paroled from prison in 1967, he began attracting members of his “family” in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, which had become a haven for the hippie youth culture.

The group moved with his followers to the Los Angeles area, eventually settling at Spahn Ranch, site of an outdoor movie location used for Western films and TV shows. Communal sex and drug use were a way of life as Manson became a messiah to the runaways, outcasts and criminals drawn by his charisma, intimidation and twisted spiritualism.

One follower told authorities she had seen Manson bring a bird back to life by breathing on it. Another said he could see and hear everything she did and said.

Manson aspired to be a rock star, and through one of his followers befriended Dennis Wilson, drummer of the Beach Boys, who would go on base their 1969 song “Never Learn Not to Love” on a Manson composition.

Wilson introduced Manson to music producer Terry Melcher, who later snubbed him. Melcher, along with his then-girlfriend, actress Candice Bergen, had previously rented the Benedict Canyon house.

The brutality of the killings stunned the nation.

“There was a lot of fear,” Bugliosi, author of the chilling book about the murders, “Helter Skelter,” told the Times in 1994. “The words printed in blood made it especially frightening for the Hollywood crowd.”

SENSATIONAL TRIAL

Denied his request to represent himself during his 9-1/2 month trial, Manson showed up in court with an “X” carved into his forehead, and would later alter it into a swastika.

Co-defendants Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel cut “X”s in their foreheads, shaved their scalps, sang Manson-written songs and giggled through chilling testimony.

At one point, Manson tried to leap over the defense table at the judge, snarling: “In the name of Christian justice, someone should cut your head off.” The judge began carrying a gun afterward.

Manson ultimately was brought down by his followers. Atkins told two inmates about the Tate-LaBianca murders while she was jailed in an unrelated killing, then testified to a grand jury before recanting. Prosecutors then persuaded another follower, Linda Kasabian, to testify against the rest of the group in exchange for immunity.

Convicted along with Manson, his three co-defendants, Atkins, Van Houten and Krenwinkel, also had their death sentences reduced to life terms.

Manson long maintained his innocence, telling Rolling Stone magazine that follower Charles “Tex” Watson was responsible for the Tate-LaBianca killings. Watson was tried separately and is serving a life term for his role in those killings.

Still, Manson seemed resigned to a life of incarceration, ceasing to even attend his parole review hearings after 1997.

“What would I want out for?” he said in a telephone interview with the Los Angeles Times. “This beats an old folks home.”

In April 2012, Manson was quoted by parole officials as having told a prison psychologist the previous fall: “I have put five people in the grave. I’ve been in prison most of my life. I’m a very dangerous man.”

(Writing by Diane Bartz, Bill Trott and Steve Gorman; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Diane Craft and Nick Macfie)

Brooklyn man sentenced to 15 years prison over Islamic State support

By Jonathan Stempel and Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Brooklyn man was sentenced on Friday to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State.

Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 27, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge William Kuntz in the federal court in Brooklyn.

The defendant, an Uzbekistan citizen who once chopped salad at a Brooklyn gyro shop, was one of six people charged in the same case with plotting to aid Islamic State, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.

Prosecutors sought a 15-year prison term, the maximum possible. Lawyers for Juraboev sought no more than five years, calling him an “unsophisticated, gullible, and lonely young man” who reached “wrong conclusions” about Islam and Islamic State.

Michael Weil, a federal public defender representing Juraboev, declined to comment after the sentencing.

Authorities said Juraboev had in August 2014 posted an online threat to kill then-U.S. President Barack Obama on behalf of Islamic State, and spoke of planting a bomb on Coney Island if the group ordered it.

Juraboev was arrested in February 2015, after buying a plane ticket to fly the next month to Istanbul, Turkey, intending to then travel to Syria to join Islamic State, authorities said.

Two co-defendants, Akhror Saidakhmetov and Abror Habibov, pleaded guilty this year, and charges are still pending against co-defendants Dilkhayot Kasimov, Azizjon Rakhmatov and Akmal Zakirov, court records show. Saidakhmetov faces a Dec. 13 sentencing.

Saidakhmetov was also arrested in February 2015, as he was boarding a plane to Istanbul, authorities said.

The arrests of Juraboev and Saidakhmetov followed roughly five months of interactions between the men and a paid informant posing as being ideologically sympathetic.

Other defendants were charged with conspiring to pay Juraboev’s and Saidakhmetov’s travel expenses.

Another Uzbekistan citizen, Dilshod Khusanov, was in August charged in a separate case with having discussed with Zakirov providing funds for Saidakhmetov’s trip, and helping others join Islamic State or al-Nusrah Front, another militant group.

More than 100 people have faced U.S. charges in connection with Islamic State since 2014.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

China makes disrespect of national anthem a crime

China's President Xi Jinping arrives at a welcoming ceremony for Brazil's President Michel Temer (not pictured) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China September 1, 2017.

By Christian Shepherd and Venus Wu

BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Anyone who mocks China’s national anthem faces up to 15 days in police detention after parliament criminalized such acts in a new law on Friday that covers Hong Kong and Macau.

Since taking over as president, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has ushered in new legislation aimed at securing the country from threats both within and outside its borders, besides presiding over a sweeping crackdown on dissent and free speech.

Protecting “the dignity of the national anthem” will help “promote patriotism and nurture socialist core values”, says the new law passed by the National People’s Congress (NPC).

It governs when, where and how the anthem, the “March of the Volunteers”, can be played.

The law bans its use as background music and in advertisements, rules out playing it at funerals and on other “inappropriate occasions” and prescribes administrative detention for any “distorted” or “mocking” renditions.

Those attending public events must stand to attention and sing in a solemn manner when the anthem is played.

The new law brings treatment of the anthem into line with desecration of China’s national flag, or its emblem, which has been a criminal offense punishable by up to 15 days’ detention since the 1990s. Those laws also apply in Hong Kong and Macau.

Wu Zeng, the office head of the NPC’s national laws panel, confirmed that lawmakers had agreed the law should also apply to Hong Kong and Macau by being written into their constitutional provisions, the Basic Laws.

The law has fueled concern in Hong Kong, whose residents have grown nervous over China’s perceived encroachment of the city’s autonomy following such events as the disappearance of booksellers who later emerged in mainland Chinese custody.

Hong Kong lawyer and pro-democracy lawmaker Tanya Chan said she expected “a series of obstacles” when the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997, adopts the law.

“The rights and freedoms protected under Hong Kong laws have come under challenge in recent years,” she said. “So it is right for people to be concerned.”

The city’s Justice Secretary, Rimsky Yuen, said he hoped “the intention of the national law would be upheld without affecting Hong Kong people’s basic rights and freedoms”.

In 2015, Hong Kong football fans booed the Chinese anthem during a World Cup qualifier, prompting a fine for the territory’s football association from world body FIFA.

Last month, Shanghai police detained three men for having “hurt patriotic feelings” by dressing up as Japanese soldiers and posing for photographs outside a memorial to China’s war with Japan, state media said.

(Reporting by Christian Shepherd in Beijing and Venus Wu in Hong Kong; Additional reporting by Philip Wen; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Iran denies appeal of jailed Princeton student: university

Xiyue Wang, a naturalized American citizen from China, arrested in Iran last August while researching Persian history for his doctoral thesis at Princeton University, is shown with his wife and son in this family photo released in Princeton, New Jersey, U.S. on July 18, 2017. Courtesy Wang Family photo via Princeton University/Handout via REUTERS

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Iranian authorities have denied the appeal of a Princeton University student who had been convicted on espionage charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison, the university and his wife said on Thursday.

Xiyue Wang, a history doctoral student and U.S. citizen who was conducting dissertation research in Iran in 2016 when he was detained by Iranian authorities, was accused by Iran of “spying under the cover of research,” a claim his family and university deny.

“Iranian authorities have denied Xiyue Wang’s appeal of his conviction and 10-year prison sentence for espionage that he did not attempt or commit,” Princeton University said in a statement. “We are distressed that his appeal was denied, and that he remains unjustly imprisoned.”

It was not immediately clear when exactly Wang’s appeal was denied. News of his detention in Iran and his 10-year sentence first came in mid-July.

“I am devastated that my husband’s appeal has been denied, and that he continues to be unjustly imprisoned in Iran on groundless accusations of espionage and collaboration with a hostile government against the Iranian state,” Wang’s wife, Hua Qu, said in a statement on Princeton’s website. “Our young son and I have not seen Xiyue in more than a year, and we miss him very much.”

Iran had said Wang was an American spy.

Qu said she worries about Wang’s health and well-being while he is in prison.

“We hope the Iranian officials can release him immediately so he can resume his studies at home and so that our family will be together again,” she said.

A spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A State Department official declined to offer specific information on Wang’s case, citing privacy concerns.

“We call for the immediate release of all U.S. citizens unjustly detained in Iran so they can return to their families,” the official said.

President Donald Trump has taken a hard line against Iran and his administration has vowed to counter what it sees as Iran’s destabilizing policies in the Middle East.

Last month, the White House said Trump “is prepared to impose new and serious consequences on Iran unless all unjustly imprisoned American citizens are released and returned,” though it did not specify what those consequences might be.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Former FrontPoint manager, out of jail, wants to run prison ministry

FILE PHOTO: Joseph "Chip" Skowron, who ran FrontPoint Partners' healthcare funds, exits the Manhattan Federal Courthouse in New York April 13, 2011. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) – A former manager at defunct hedge fund FrontPoint Partners who served more than three years in prison for insider trading on Monday asked a U.S. judge to end his supervised release early so he can help a run a Christian ministry aimed at prisoners.

In a letter to U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan, a lawyer for Joseph “Chip” Skowron said the request was warranted in light of his client’s “exemplary” behavior since his April 2011 arrest.

While serving time at Schuylkill Federal Prison Camp in Pennsylvania, Skowron, 48, worked as a tutor, started a Sunday Bible study and led Monday morning religious meetings, according to his lawyer Joshua Epstein.

After serving the last several months of his sentence in home confinement and following his release last November, Skowron co-founded a chapter of the New Canaan Society, a Connecticut-based Christian group, Epstein wrote. The chapter, NCS Inside, is devoted to ministering to federal and state prison inmates.

The NCS website describes itself as a men’s-only group who “gather together to encourage each other in friendship and faith.”

Epstein said prisons have refused to let Skowron enter to meet with prisoners because he is on supervised release.

“This is limiting Mr. Skowron’s efforts on behalf of NCS Inside, as well as NCS Inside’s effectiveness and reach,” Epstein wrote.

Federal prosecutors are not objecting to Skowron’s request, according to Dawn Dearden, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan.

Skowron pleaded guilty in August 2011 to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and obstruct justice, admitting that he traded in the securities of Human Genome Sciences Inc in 2008 based on non-public information.

In a separate civil case, Skowron was ordered to pay back $31 million of his compensation to Morgan Stanley, which owned FrontPoint between 2006 and 2011, minus a $6 million penalty he was already ordered to pay in his criminal case.

Investors began pulling out of FrontPoint in the wake of the insider trading charges, ultimately forcing the firm, which once managed as much as $11 billion, to shut down.

(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)

At least 28 killed in bloody Mexican prison fight

Riot police enter a prison after a riot broke out at the maximum security wing in Acapulco, Mexico, July 6, 2017. REUTERS/Troy Merida

By Uriel Sanchez

ACAPULCO, Mexico (Reuters) – At least 28 inmates were killed when a brutal fight broke out in a prison in the Mexican Pacific resort of Acapulco on Thursday, one of the worst outbreaks of violence in the country’s troubled penal system in recent years.

Acapulco is the biggest city in Guerrero, one of Mexico’s most lawless states and a center of opium poppy production that has been a major concern to U.S. officials.

The prison carnage was particularly embarrassing to Mexico as it came the same day U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly was visiting Guerrero, in Mexico’s southwest.

Guerrero state security official Roberto Alvarez told reporters the fight broke out between rival gangs in the maximum-security wing of the prison. In addition to 28 dead, three people were injured, he said.

Authorities found bodies throughout the wing, inside and outside the kitchen, as well as the area for conjugal visits, he said. A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters four of the dead were decapitated.

Alvarez told Reuters the prison was close to 30 percent over capacity. It was built for 1,624 inmates but had 1,951 men and 110 women behind its walls, he said.

Despite reports of gunfire in the prison, all the casualties were due to wounds from sharp instruments, such as the improvised weapons that are fashioned by inmates, Alvarez said.

Violent crime in Mexico has jumped in recent months and 2017 is on track to be one of its bloodiest on record.

The number of murder cases in the first five months of 2017 jumped nearly 30 percent and murder investigations hit a record high in May.

Drug gangs have been battling for control amid a power vacuum following the January deportation of Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to the United States.

The United States and Mexico are discussing how to crack down on the cartels now that most of the established capos have been killed or captured in a decade-long, military-led campaign.

Kelly, one of the main links between Mexico’s government and the Trump administration on migration and security cooperation, arrived in Mexico on Wednesday and has held meetings with other top officials, including President Enrique Pena Nieto.

He visited a military base outside Acapulco on Thursday to meet Mexico’s army and navy chiefs.

Kelly discussed the military’s efforts to battle drug traffickers and observed the deployment of troops to destroy opium poppy fields, the defense ministry said in a statement.

Acapulco, one of Mexico’s most famous beach resorts, was once a playground for Hollywood stars but in recent years has been roiled by vicious gang warfare. It is now ranked one of the most murderous cities in the world.

The past week has been particularly bloody in Mexico.

On Wednesday, at least 14 people were killed in a shootout in the northern state of Chihuahua, while 17 suspected gang members were shot dead by police late on Friday near Mazatlan in Guzman’s home state of Sinaloa.

Thursday’s fight is the worst outbreak of violence inside a Mexican prison since 49 people died early last year in a battle between members of the feared Zetas drug cartel and rivals at a prison in the northern industrial city of Monterrey.

(Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz, Gabriel Stargardter and Dave Graham; Editing by Sandra Maler, Bill Trott and Paul Tait)

U.S. says Syrians built crematorium at prison to dispose of bodies

A satellite view of Sednaya prison complex near Damascus,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has evidence Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has built a crematorium at a large military prison outside the capital Damascus, a State Department official said on Monday.

Stuart Jones, acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, said U.S. officials believe the crematorium could be used to dispose of bodies at a prison where they believe Assad’s government authorized the mass hangings of thousands of inmates during Syria’s six-year-old civil war.

“Credible sources have believed that many of the bodies have been disposed in mass graves,” Jones told reporters. During the briefing, he showed aerial images of what he said was a crematorium.

“We now believe that the Syrian regime has installed a crematorium in the Sednaya prison complex which could dispose of detainees’ remains with little evidence.”

Amnesty International reported in February that an average of 20 to 50 people were hanged each week at the Sednaya military prison north of Damascus. Between 5,000 and 13,000 people were executed at Sednaya in the four years since a popular uprising descended into war, it said.

Jones also said he was not optimistic about a Russia-brokered deal to set up “de-escalation zones” inside Syria. The deal was reached with support from Iran and Turkey during ceasefire talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana earlier this month. Jones attended the talks.

“In light of the failures of the past ceasefire agreements, we have reason to be skeptical,” Jones said.

Jones said Assad’s government had carried out air strikes, chemical attacks, extrajudicial killings, starvation, and other measures to target civilians and its opponents. He criticized Russia and Iran for maintaining their support for Assad despite those tactics.

“These atrocities have been carried out seemingly with the unconditional support from Russia and Iran,” Jones said. “The (Assad) regime must stop all attacks on civilian and opposition forces. And Russia must bear responsibility to ensure regime compliance.”

He did not say what measures the United States might take if Russia does not change its stance.

Tensions between the United States and Russia heightened after President Donald Trump ordered a cruise missile strike in April against a Syrian air base that the United States said had been used to launch a poison gas attack on civilians.

Jones said he had not yet presented the evidence to Russian officials. He said he hoped Russia would help pressure the Assad government.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Bernadette Baum and David Gregorio)

Jordanian soldier who shot Israeli schoolgirls walks free from jail

Ahmad Daqamseh, a Jordanian soldier convicted of killing seven Israeli schoolgirls on March 13, 1997, is seen at Um Alluol prison in the city of Mafraq, Jordan, July 30, 2013. Picture taken July 30, 2013. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) – A Jordanian soldier who killed seven Israeli schoolgirls has been freed after serving 20 years in prison, with many Jordanians celebrating his release and calling him a national hero, witnesses and family sources said on Sunday.

Ahmad Daqamseh, 45, was taken to his family home in the village of Ibdir near the city of Irbid in northern Jordan where dozens of relatives and wellwishers gave him a rousing welcome.

Jordanian security services set up checkpoints around the village to restrict access as people flocked to see him.

In July 1997, a five-member Jordanian military tribunal found Daqamseh guilty of opening fire on a group of Israeli schoolchildren and killing seven of them before soldiers seized him and rushed to help the victims.

Daqamseh became a hero to many Jordanians and was embraced as a figurehead by a strong opposition movement led by Islamists and nationalists vehemently opposed to the country’s peace treaty with Israel.

During the trial, Daqamseh said the girls had mocked him while he was performing Muslim prayers in a border area returned to Jordanian sovereignty under the 1994 peace treaty.

He would have faced the death penalty but the tribunal ruled he was mentally unstable and sentenced him to life imprisonment, which is equivalent to 20 years under Jordanian law.

A few days after the incident, the late King Hussein personally apologized for the incident, traveling to Israel to visit and pay his respects to the girls’ families.

Many lawmakers welcomed his release. Neither the Jordanian nor the Israeli government made any comment.

“The release of this hero has cheered us. Israel has committed crimes against many Jordanians that were never accounted for,” Saleh Armouti, a leading parliamentarian, said.

One Israeli survivor, Keren Mizrahi, said Daqamseh’s release revived painful memories and he had served a light sentence.

“My feeling is that it’s like I’m being wounded again, mentally and physically, as if a knife is turned inside my heart,” she was quoted as saying on Israeli Channel 10 TV.

A defiant Daqamseh told Al Jazeera he did not recognize Israel, saying Arabs could not have normal ties with what he termed “the Zionist entity”.

Jordan’s biggest political opposition group, the Islamic Action Front, which is the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, hailed his release.

“We congratulate Jordan and the family of the hero Ahmad al Daqmaseh his release from prison,” it said in a statement.

Many lawmakers and politicians had lobbied to set him free in a kingdom where hostility toward Israel runs deep.

Many Jordanians see Israel as an occupier state which has driven them from their land. Palestinians originally from Jordan make up a large proportion of the country’s population.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

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