Tag Archives: Death

Islamic State claims New York truck attacker is a ‘caliphate soldier’

A man prays after laying flowers at an existing roadside memorial, a ghost bike, that is now used to remember the victims of the Tuesday's attack alongside a bike path at Chambers Street in New York City, in New York, U.S., November 2, 2017.

By Barbara Goldberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Islamic State has claimed responsibility, without providing proof, for a truck attack earlier this week that killed eight people in the deadliest assault on New York City since Sept. 11, 2001.

The militant group on Thursday described accused attacker Sayfullo Saipov, 29, as “one of the caliphate soldiers” in a weekly issue of its Al-Naba newspaper.

The Uzbek immigrant was charged in federal court on Wednesday with acting in support of Islamic State by plowing a rented pickup truck down a popular riverside bike trail, crushing pedestrians and cyclists and injuring a dozen people in addition to those killed.

According to the criminal complaint against him, Saipov told investigators he was inspired by watching Islamic State propaganda videos on his cellphone, felt good about what he had done, and asked for permission to display the group’s flag in his room at Bellevue Hospital.

Saipov was taken to Bellevue after being shot in the abdomen by a police officer before his arrest.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has called for Saipov to receive the death penalty, said in a Twitter post on Friday that Islamic State had claimed as their soldier the “Degenerate Animal” who killed and wounded “the wonderful people on the West Side” of Lower Manhattan.

“Based on that, the Military has hit ISIS “much harder” over the last two days. They will pay a big price for every attack on us!” Trump tweeted.

Earlier this week, Trump suggested sending Saipov to the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, where terrorism suspects apprehended overseas are incarcerated. But on Thursday, he said doing so would be too complicated.

The U.S. president has also urged Congress to end the Diversity Immigrant Visa program under which Saipov entered the United States in 2010.

The diversity program, signed into law in 1990 by Republican President George H.W. Bush, was designed to provide more permanent resident visas to people from countries with low U.S. immigration rates.

Five Argentine tourists, a Belgian woman, a New Yorker and a New Jersey man were killed in Tuesday afternoon’s attack.

The attack unfolded just blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, where some 2,600 people were killed when suicide hijackers crashed two jetliners into the Twin Towers 16 years ago.

One of the two criminal counts Saipov faces, violence and destruction of motor vehicles causing the deaths of eight people, carries the death penalty if the government chooses to seek it, prosecutors said.

Saipov waived his right to remain silent or have an attorney present when he agreed to speak to investigators from his hospital bed, the criminal complaint said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has said it has located another Uzbek man, Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, 32, who it said was wanted for questioning as a person of interest in the attack.

Citing an unnamed law enforcement official, ABC News reported on Friday that Saipov placed a telephone call to Kadirov immediately before he carried out the attack. ABC News said the significance of the call was not known.

 

(Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Bernadette Baum)

 

Police catch ‘nonchalant’ man accused of killing 3 at Colorado Walmart

Patrick Carnes is evacuated in a Walmart cart by SWAT medics from the scene of a shooting at a Walmart where Carnes was shopping in Thornton, Colorado.

By Keith Coffman

THORNTON, Colo. (Reuters) – Police in Colorado on Thursday captured a man who they had said calmly walked into a suburban Denver Walmart and fatally shot three people at random before driving away.

Scott Ostrem, 47, was taken into custody without incident a day after the shooting, following a tip from the public, the Thornton Police Department said.

Police spokesman Victor Avila told reporters Ostrem had “a minimal criminal history” and that authorities had not yet established a motive for the rampage.

Video broadcast from CBS affiliate KCNC-TV showed the suspect being handcuffed by police against the side of an SUV as FBI agents carrying rifles and wearing body armor looked on.

KCNC-TV said police SWAT team officers had ringed the suspect’s last known address in suburban Adams County on Thursday morning when Ostrem drove past and was spotted. He was followed by law enforcement and journalists, KCNC-TV reported, and was arrested in the nearby suburb of Westminster following a “quick pursuit.”

Police had earlier released a surveillance camera photograph of a middle-aged white man wearing a black jacket and blue jeans. They also published a photo of the red four-door Mitsubishi hatchback he was believed to have fled in.

Ostrem “nonchalantly” entered the store in Thornton, about 10 miles (16 km) northeast of downtown Denver, and opened fire on shoppers and employees shortly after 6 p.m. (8 p.m. EDT) on Wednesday, Avila had earlier told reporters, citing witness accounts.

A person described by police as a person of interest. Thornton Police Department/via REUTERS

A person described by police as a person of interest. Thornton Police Department/via REUTERS

Two men were killed in the shooting and a woman who was shot was taken to a hospital where she died, according to police. No one else was wounded, police said.

“What we have determined is that it is random as of right now,” Avila told reporters. “As witnesses stated, the person came in and just shot towards a group.”

The Walmart had been quickly surrounded by police and fire crews. Authorities initially said “multiple parties” had been injured. Avila said there was no indication the shooting was an act of terrorism and no one had claimed responsibility.

“We can’t rule anything out,” he said.

Walmart customer Aaron Stephens, 44, of Thornton told Reuters he was buying groceries at a self-checkout stand when he heard gunshots and ricocheting bullets.

“The employees started screaming and the customers started screaming” as people began to flee, he said. “I ran out, too, because I didn’t want to get shot.”

NBC television affiliate 9NEWS reported a woman whose son was in the Walmart said he heard about 30 gunshots.

Early accounts of multiple casualties had revived painful memories for the Denver area, where a gunman killed 12 people in 2012 at a midnight screening of the Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises” at a theater in the suburb of Aurora. The shooter, James Holmes, is serving a dozen consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

In 1999 two 12th-graders fatally shot 12 fellow students and a teacher at Columbine High School in suburban Jefferson County. The pair, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, then committed suicide in the campus library.

 

(Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Bill Trott)

 

Russia sets out why it thinks U.N. wrongly accused Syria over sarin attack

A man breathes through an oxygen mask, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, Syria April 4, 2017.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia on Thursday set out why it disputed U.N. and Western allegations that the Syrian government had been behind a deadly chemical attack on the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in April that killed dozens.

A report sent to the United Nations Security Council last week concluded that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government was responsible for the attack, which prompted a U.S. missile strike against a Syrian air base.

Russia, whose air force and special forces have been supporting the Syrian army, said at the time there was no evidence to show Damascus was responsible and the chemicals that killed civilians belonged to rebels, not Assad’s government.

On Thursday, with the aid of maps, satellite footage and charts, Moscow set out why it believed the Syrian government had been unfairly maligned.

A Russian Defence Ministry official told a media briefing that the Syrian Su-22 jet accused of dropping the chemical bomb was not physically close enough to the attack site to have been involved.

“Thus, I believe the information provided cannot confirm the use of chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhoun in the form of an aviation bomb dropped from a Syrian Air Force Su-22 jet,” the RIA news agency quoted the official, whom it did not name, as saying.

Mikhail Ulyanov, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, told the same briefing that U.S. accusations that Russia had encouraged the use of chemical weapons in Syria were ungrounded, RIA reported.

“It was hysteria and a completely open attempt to discredit Russia with rather primitive dirty means,” Ulyanov was quoted as saying.

The White House on Wednesday admonished Russia after it vetoed a United Nations plan to continue its ongoing investigation into the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013 under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States. The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons during the country’s more than six-year civil war.

 

(Reporting by Jack Stubbs; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

 

New York City truck attack suspect followed Islamic State plans

Amaya Lopez-Silvero, 20, and Elliot Levy, 21, embrace by a makeshift memorial for victims of Tuesday's attack lay outside a police barricade on the bike path next to West Street a day after a man driving a rented pickup truck mowed down pedestrians and cyclists on a bike path alongside the Hudson River in New York City, New York, U.S.

By Gina Cherelus and Barbara Goldberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An Uzbek immigrant suspected of killing eight people in New York City by crashing a truck through a crowd on a bike path followed online plans from Islamic State and left a note saying the militant group would “endure forever,” police said on Wednesday.

Police said they had interviewed Sayfullo Saipov, 29, who is in hospital after an officer shot him, ending the riverfront rampage. They said he appeared to have been planning the attack for weeks and that investigators recovered notes and knives at the scene.

“The gist of the note was that the Islamic State would endure forever,” New York Deputy Police Commissioner John Miller told a news conference. “He appears to have followed almost exactly the instructions that ISIS has put out on its social media channels to its followers.”

The attack was the deadliest on New York City since Sept. 11, 2001, when suicide hijackers crashed two jetliners into the World Trade Center, killing more than 2,600 people. A further 12 people were injured, some critically, in Tuesday’s attack.

Similar assaults using vehicles as weapons took place in Spain in August and in France and Germany last year.

Saipov allegedly used a pickup truck rented from a New Jersey Home Depot Inc store to run down pedestrians and bicyclists on the path before slamming into the side of a school bus.

He then exited the vehicle brandishing what turned out to be a paint-ball gun and a pellet gun before a police officer shot him in the abdomen.

Saipov reportedly lived in Paterson, New Jersey, a one-time industrial hub about 25 miles (40 km) northwest of lower Manhattan.

 

TRUMP: ‘SEND HIM TO GITMO’

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham urged authorities to treat Saipov as an enemy combatant, a move that would allow investigators to question the man without him having a lawyer present.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he would be open to transferring Saipov to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where other suspects including alleged Sept. 11 plotters are held.

“Send him to Gitmo. I would certainly consider that,” Trump told reporters. “We also have to come up with punishment that’s far quicker and far greater than the punishment these animals are getting right now.”

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo said that Saipov had been radicalized while living in the United States.

The majority of the 18 Islamic State-inspired attacks carried out in the United States since September 2014 were the work of attackers who developed radical views while living in the United States, said Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, research director at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.

Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the New York City truck attack is seen in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters November 1, 2017.

Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the New York City truck attack is seen in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters November 1, 2017. New York PD/Handout via REUTERS

ARGENTINE FRIENDS AMONG DEAD

Six victims were pronounced dead at the scene and two more at a nearby hospital, Police Commissioner James O’Neill said.

Five of the dead were Argentine tourists, visiting New York as part of a group of friends celebrating the 30th anniversary of their high school graduation, the government there said. Belgium’s foreign minister said a Belgian citizen was also among those killed.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said police will be out in force to protect the city’s marathon on Sunday, one of the world’s top road races, which draws some 51,000 runners and 2.5 million spectators from around the globe.

A pair of ethnic Chechen brothers killed three people and injured more than 260 with homemade bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon, memories that were stirred for some runners by Tuesday’s attack.

“It was unsettling to hear the news,” said Neil Gottlieb, 48, who crossed the finish line in Boston shortly before the blasts and plans to run the New York City race on Sunday. “You simply can’t stop a truck and that’s the issue in my mind and my wife’s mind.”

Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said his government would do all it could to help investigate the “extremely brutal” attack.

Last week an Uzbekistan citizen living in Brooklyn was sentenced to 15 years in prison for conspiring to support Islamic State.

Saipov had not been the subject of any U.S. investigation, Miller said. He had been in contact with a person who was the subject of a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe, a U.S. government source told Reuters on Wednesday.

Trump, who has pressed for a ban on travelers entering the United States from some predominantly Muslim countries, criticized the U.S. visa system, blaming Democrats including U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York for the diversity visa system that admitted Saipov. He said he wanted a “merit based” immigration program.

“We do not want chain migration, where somebody like him ultimately will be allowed to bring in many, many members of his family,” Trump told reporters.

Schumer shot back at Trump: “Instead of politicizing and dividing America, which he always seems to do at times of national tragedy, (Trump) should be bringing us together and focusing on the real solution, anti-terrorism funding, which he proposed to cut in his most recent budget,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

 

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen and Melissa Fares in New York, Joseph Ax in Patterson, New Jersey and Mark Hosenball and Tim Ahmann in Washington; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Paul Tait and Bill Rigby)

 

Deadly attack in New York City branded ‘terrorism’ by authorities

Police investigate a pickup truck used in an attack on the West Side Highway in Manhattan, New York, U.S.,

By Gina Cherelus and Daniel Trotta

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An Uzbek immigrant accused of killing eight people in New York City by driving a rental truck down a riverfront bike path on Tuesday appeared to have acted alone in an attack that bore all the hallmarks of terrorism, authorities said.

The suspect, who was shot by police and arrested moments after the rampage in Lower Manhattan, left a note saying he carried out the attack in the name of the militant Islamic State group, the New York Times and CNN said.

The death toll was lower than from similar assaults in Spain in August and in France and Germany last year. However, it was still the bloodiest single attack on New York City since Sept. 11, 2001, when suicide hijackers crashed two jetliners into the World Trade Center, killing more than 2,600 people.

The suspect allegedly swerved the pickup onto a path filled with pedestrians and bicyclists on a sunny, crisp autumn afternoon, mowing down everyone in his path before slamming into the side of a school bus.

The man then exited the vehicle brandishing what turned out to be a paint-ball gun and a pellet gun before a police officer shot him in the abdomen.

Multiple bikes are crushed along a bike path in lower Manhattan in New York, NY, U.S., October 31, 2017.

Multiple bikes are crushed along a bike path in lower Manhattan in New York, NY, U.S., October 31, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

The attack, which left crumpled bicycles scattered along the path and victims writhing on the ground, was over in seconds.

In addition to the eight fatalities at least 11 people were hospitalized for injuries described as serious but not life-threatening. That excluded the suspect, who underwent surgery for gunshot wounds.

Police declined to publicly identify the man, but a source familiar with the investigation said his name was Sayfullo Saipov, 29. He reportedly lived in Paterson, New Jersey, a one-time industrial hub about 25 miles (40 km) northwest of lower Manhattan.

He had rented the pickup from a Home Depot hardware store which, according to media accounts, was located in Passaic, just south of Paterson.

First responders tend to a victim after a shooting incident in New York City

First responders tend to a victim after a shooting incident in New York City October 31, 2017.

ARGENTINE FRIENDS AMONG DEAD

Six victims were pronounced dead at the scene and two more at a nearby hospital, Police Commissioner James O’Neill said.

Five of the dead were Argentine tourists, visiting New York as part of a group of friends celebrating the 30th anniversary of their high school graduation, the government there said. Belgium’s foreign minister said a Belgian citizen was also among those killed.

Despite the attack, thousands of costumed Halloween revelers turned out hours later for New York City’s main Halloween parade, which went on as scheduled on Tuesday night with a heightened police presence just a few blocks away.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said police will be out in force to protect the city’s marathon, which is scheduled for Sunday. “You’ll see a lot of officers with long guns. Other things you won’t see that are protecting us,” he told MSNBC.

A U.S. law enforcement official described the suspect as a U.S. immigrant born in Uzbekistan, a predominantly Muslim country in Central Asia that was once part of the former Soviet Union. CNN and NBC News said he entered the United States in 2010.

Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said his government would do all it could to help investigate the “extremely brutal” attack.

Authorities late on Tuesday surrounded a house in Paterson where, according to the New York Times, Saipov was believed to have lived. Paterson, known for its large immigrant population, is home to about 150,000 people, including 25,000 to 30,000 Muslims.

ABC News reported that Saipov had lived in Tampa, Florida. A check of court records related to a traffic citation that Saipov received in eastern Pennsylvania in 2015 showed he listed addresses then in Paterson and Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

CNN and other media outlets, citing police officials, reported that the suspect shouted “Allahu Akbar” – Arabic for “God is greatest” – when he jumped out of his truck.

Although authorities from the mayor’s office to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security all swiftly branded the attack an act of terrorism, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stressed that the suspect was believed to have acted alone.

The New York Times said investigators quickly recognized Saipov had come to the attention of law enforcement in the past. It cited three officials as saying federal authorities knew of Saipov from an unrelated probe, although it was unclear whether that was because he had ties to someone who was under scrutiny or because he was the target of an investigation.

A damaged school bus is seen at the scene of a pickup truck attack in Manhattan, New York, U.S., October 31, 2017 in this picture obtained from social media.

A damaged school bus is seen at the scene of a pickup truck attack in Manhattan, New York, U.S., October 31, 2017 in this picture obtained from social media. Sebastian Sobczak via REUTERS

U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, told MSNBC in an interview that authorities were not aware of any other suspects, but that finding any such links would be a priority.

“It’s still I think far too early to say” whether the suspect was radicalized before he came to the United States years ago or shifted once he was already here, or acted on his own rather than at the behest of an organized group, he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has pressed for a ban on travelers entering the United States from some predominantly Muslim countries, said on Twitter that he had ordered Homeland Security officials to “step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this!”

He also criticized the U.S. visa system, blaming Democrats and saying that he wanted a ‘merit based’ program for immigrants to the United States.

 

 

(Reporting by Dan Trotta and Gina Cherelus in New York; Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen, Anna Driver and Barbara Goldberg in New York, Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Mark Hosenball and Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Paul Tait and Chizu Nomiyama)

 

Death toll from California blazes rises to 43, after teen dies

Death toll from California blazes rises to 43, after teen dies

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The death toll from the deadliest rash of wildfires in California history has risen to 43, after a 17-year-old girl who was badly burned in the fires earlier this month died at a hospital, officials said on Monday.

The spate of wind-driven wildfires erupted on Oct. 8 in the heart of California wine country and consumed at least 245,000 acres (99,148 hectares) across several counties north of the San Francisco Bay area.

An estimated 100,000 people were forced to flee their homes, some at a moment’s notice as flames swept whole neighborhoods. Authorities have said the conflagration may have been sparked by power lines toppled in the same high winds that swiftly spread the flames.

Some 8,900 dwellings and other structures were incinerated, including entire subdivisions in the Sonoma County town of Santa Rosa, which sustained the greatest losses.

The latest victim, 17-year-old Kressa Shepherd, died on Sunday at a Sacramento-area hospital, a clerk with the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office said.

The teenager was declared brain dead after undergoing surgery and suffering cardiac arrest, according to a fund-raising website established by relatives.

It said she had been found badly burned and disoriented in a driveway after her family tried to escape flames advancing on their home in the Redwood Valley area of Mendocino County early on Oct. 9. The website said the family’s car caught fire as they tried to outrun the blaze, forcing them out of the vehicle.

Shepherd’s 14-year-old brother, Kai, died that day, the website said. The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office later reported the discovery of his body. The parents were also badly burned, according to local media.

A spokeswoman for the family could not immediately be reached for comment.

The addition of Kressa Shepherd’s death brought the overall number of fatalities from the so-called North Bay fires to 43, including one firefighter, marking the greatest loss of life from a single wildfire event in California.

The tally far surpasses the 29 deaths from the Griffith Park fire of 1933 in Los Angeles and the 25 fatalities from a firestorm that swept Oakland Hills in 1991.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Steve Gorman and Leslie Adler)

Several people killed by vehicle on New York City bike path

Several people killed by vehicle on New York City bike path

By Gina Cherelus and Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Several people were killed and numerous others injured in New York City on Tuesday afternoon after a vehicle drove down a bike path that runs alongside the Hudson River in Manhattan, police said.

The New York City Police Department, in a post on Twitter, said that one vehicle struck another, then the driver of one of the vehicles “got out displaying imitation firearms and was shot by police.”

Police said the suspect was taken into custody.

A police spokesman posted a photo showing a white pickup truck on the bike path with its front end smashed. The truck had the logo of the Home Depot hardware store chain on its door.

An witness told ABC Channel 7 that he saw a white pick-up truck drive south down the bike path alongside the West Side Highway at full speed and hit several people. The witness, who was identified only as Eugene, said bodies were lying outside Stuyvesant High School, one of the city’s elite public schools.

He also reported hearing about nine or 10 shots, but was not sure where they came from.

A video apparently filmed at the scene and circulated online showed scattered bikes on the bike path and two people lying on the ground.

City Hall said Mayor Bill de Blasio had been briefed about the incident. The office of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the governor was heading to the scene.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen, Anna Driver, Dan Trotta and Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Bombs kill at least seven in Mogadishu

A general view shows the scene after a suicide car bomb explosion at the gate of Naso Hablod Two Hotel in Hamarweyne district of Mogadishu, Somalia October 28, 2017. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Two car bombs killed at least 17 people in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Saturday, police said, and Islamist group al Shabaab claimed responsibility.

A suicide car bomb was rammed into a hotel, Nasahablod Two, about 600 meters from the presidential palace, and then armed militants stormed the building, police said.

A few minutes later a car bomb exploded near the former parliament house nearby.

Ali Nur, a police officer, told Reuters 17 people, mostly policemen, had died in the blasts.

“Security forces have entered a small portion of the hotel building … the exchange of gunfire is hellish,” he said.

The police personnel who died had been stationed close to hotel’s gate. The dead also included a former lawmaker, he said.

Fighting continued to rage inside the hotel and police said the death toll was likely to rise.

Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of Amin ambulances, told Reuters the emergency service had carried 17 people injured from the hotel blast.

A huge cloud of smoke rose over the scene and a Reuters witness saw over a dozen wrecked cars and bloodstains in front of the hotel. Sporadic gunfire could be heard in the vicinity.

Islamist group al Shabaab, responsible for scores of such attacks in the country’s long civil war, said it carried out Saturday’s bombings.

“We targeted ministers and security officials who were inside the hotel. We are fighting inside,” Abdiasis Abu Musab, the group’s military operations spokesman, told Reuters.

He said the hotel belonged to Somalia’s internal security minister, Mohamed Abukar Islow.

Al Shabaab is fighting to topple Somalia’s internationally-backed government and impose its strict interpretation of Islam’s sharia law.

Bombs in Mogadishu two weeks ago killed at least 358 people, the worst such attacks in the country’s history, igniting nationwide outrage. Al Shabaab was widely suspected, but has not claimed responsibility.

(Additional reporting by Feisal Omar; writing by Elias Biryabarema; editing by Andrew Roche)

Pharmacist guilty of fraud, not murder, over U.S. meningitis outbreak

Pharmacist guilty of fraud, not murder, over U.S. meningitis outbreak

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON (Reuters) – A Massachusetts pharmacist was convicted of racketeering and fraud charges but was cleared of murder on Wednesday for his role in a 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that killed 76 people and sickened hundreds more across the United States.

Jurors found that federal prosecutors in Boston failed to prove Glenn Chin, 49, committed second-degree murder in connection with the deaths of 25 people who were injected with mold-tainted steroids produced at the now-defunct New England Compounding Center.

The federal jury instead found Chin guilty on racketeering, conspiracy and mail fraud charges stemming from his role as the pharmacist who supervised the so-called clean rooms in which NECC’s drugs were made.

The verdict came after a separate jury in March found Barry Cadden, NECC’s co-founder and former president, guilty of racketeering and fraud but similarly cleared him of murder. Cadden, 50, was sentenced in June to nine years in prison.

“No matter what these prosecutors tell you, this was never a murder case, ever, ever, ever,” said Stephen Weymouth, Chin’s lawyer.

He called the verdict a victory, noting that a murder conviction would have exposed Chin to a maximum prison sentence of life. Weymouth said he now expected Chin to receive a prison term no longer than Cadden’s when he is sentenced Jan. 30.

Prosecutors say that 778 people nationwide were sickened after being injected with contaminated steroids produced in unsanitary conditions at Framingham, Massachusetts-based NECC.

The outbreak led Congress in 2013 to pass a law that aimed to clarify the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s ability to oversee large compounding pharmacies that make custom drugs.

Prosecutors said Chin directed staff in NECC’s clean rooms to skip cleaning despite the presence of insects, mice and mold.

They claimed Chin disregarded the probability that people could die if he failed to ensure drugs were produced in sanitary conditions and were properly sterilized in order to keep up with demand from hospitals nationally for its medicines.

His lawyers countered that Chin never meant for anyone to die. They said blame instead rested with Cadden, who made all of the decisions at NECC and trained Chin on how to produce drugs in the ways that prosecutors contend were unsafe.

Lesser charges were filed against 12 other people associated with NECC. Three have pleaded guilty. A federal judge dismissed charges against two defendants in 2016. Charges remain pending against the rest.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Andrew Hay)

Exclusive: Death certificate offers clues on Russian casualties in Syria

Exclusive: Death certificate offers clues on Russian casualties in Syria

By Maria Tsvetkova

MOSCOW (Reuters) – An official document seen by Reuters shows that at least 131 Russian citizens died in Syria in the first nine months of this year, a number that relatives, friends and local officials say included private military contractors.

The document, a death certificate issued by the Russian consulate in Damascus dated Oct. 4, 2017, does not say what the deceased was doing in Syria.

But Reuters has established in interviews with the families and friends of some of the deceased and officials in their hometowns that the dead included Russian private military contractors killed while fighting alongside the forces of Moscow’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The presence of the Russian contractors in Syria – and the casualties they are sustaining – is denied by Moscow, which wants to portray its military intervention in Syria as a successful peace mission with minimal losses.

The Russian defense ministry did not immediately respond to detailed questions submitted by Reuters. Requests for comment from the Russian consulate in Damascus did not elicit a response.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a statement provided to Reuters on Friday: “We do not have information about individual citizens who visit Syria. With that, I consider this question dealt with.”

Reuters sent questions to a group of Russian private military contractors active in Syria through a person who knows their commanders, but did not receive a response.

The official death toll of military personnel in Syria this year is 16. A casualty figure significantly higher than that could tarnish President Vladimir Putin’s record five months before a presidential election which he is expected to contest.

A Reuters count of the number of Russian private contractors known to have been killed in Syria this year, based on interviews with relatives and friends of the dead and local officials in their hometowns, stands at 26.

Russian authorities have not publicly released any information this year about casualties among Russian civilians who may have been caught up in the fighting.

The Russian Foreign Ministry, in response to Reuters questions, said the consulate in Syria was fulfilling its duties to register the deaths of Russian citizens. It said that under the law, personal data obtained in the process of registering the deaths was restricted and could not be publicly disclosed.

In August, Igor Konashenkov, a Russian defense ministry spokesman, said in response to a previous Reuters report that information about Russian military contractors in Syria was “a myth”, and that Reuters was attempting to discredit Moscow’s operation to restore peace in Syria.

UNUSUAL

A Russian diplomat who has worked in a consulate in another part of the world, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said the figure of 131 registered deaths in nine months was unusually high given the estimated number of Russian expatriates in Syria.

Although there is no official data for the size of the community, data from Russian national elections shows there were only around 5,000 registered Russian voters in the country in 2012 and 2016.

“It is as if the diaspora is dying out,” he said.

High numbers of deaths are usually recorded by Russian consulates only in tourist destinations such as Thailand or Turkey, he said.

Russian consulates do not register the deaths of military personnel, according to an official at the consulate in Damascus who did not give his name.

The consular document seen by Reuters was a “certificate of death” issued to record the death of Sergei Poddubny, 36. It was one of three death certificates seen by Reuters.

Poddubny’s certificate, which bears the consulate’s stamp, lists the cause of death as “carbonization of the body” – in other words, he was burned.

It said he was killed on Sept. 28 in the town of Tiyas, Homs province, the scene of heavy fighting between Islamist rebels and pro-Assad forces. Several Russian contractors were killed in the area earlier this year, friends and relatives told Reuters.

Poddubny’s body was repatriated and buried in his home village in southern Russia about three weeks later. He had been in Syria as a private military contractor, one of his relatives and one of his friends told Reuters.

Poddubny’s death certificate had a serial number in the top right corner, 131.

Under a Justice Ministry procedure, all death certificates are numbered, starting from zero at the start of the year and going up by one digit for each new death recorded.

The Russian diplomat confirmed that is the procedure.

Reuters saw two other certificates, both issued on Feb. 3. The numbers – 9 and 13 – indicate certificates for at least five deaths were issued on that day. They were both private military contractors, according to people who know them.

The death of a Russian citizen would have to be registered at the consulate in order to repatriate the body back to Russia via civilian channels, according to the Russian diplomat.

A death certificate from the consulate would also help with bureaucracy back home relating to the dead person’s assets, the diplomat said.

The bodies of Russians fighting on the rebel side are not repatriated, according to a former Russian official who dealt with at least six cases of Russians killed in Syria and the relatives of four Russian Islamists killed there.

A few thousand Russian citizens with Islamist sympathies have traveled to rebel-held areas since the conflict began in 2011, according to Russian officials.

(Additional reporting by Andrey Kuzmin; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)