Free Republic

A squad of Chechen special forces 'hunters' has been unleashed in Ukraine to detain or kill a set of specific Ukrainian officials. Each soldier was reportedly given a special 'deck of cards' with Ukrainian officials' photos and descriptions on them, a Moscow Telegram channel with links to the security establishment reported. The list is of officials and security officers suspected of 'crimes' by the Russian Investigative Committee, the report added. It came as Ukraine's president admitted he is 'target number one' for Russian assassins in his capital, while his family is 'the number two goal' for Putin's hitmen. The Chechen...

The bodies of two interrogators who worked for Muammar Qaddafi were found in fields outside the rebel stronghold Benghazi. The execution-style killings and kidnapping by masked, armed men have led to rumors — in the already-paranoid city — of a death squad hunting down forces loyal to Qaddafi. Prosecutors are investigating four such attacks, including another murder, and the possibility that Islamists imprisoned by Qaddafi are seeking revenge. For weeks, opposition authorities have been trying to round up suspected Qaddafi loyalists they say were trying to overthrow their transitional government. But rebels say their security forces are not involved in...

Democracy: How is it that this White House can make a big hullabaloo over what it called a coup in Honduras in 2009, yet ignore last week's news of death squads in Venezuela? Dictatorships and double standards, anyone? To hear President Obama's top Latin American policymaker tell it, all's fine with our relations in the Americas. Democracy is flourishing, says the soon-to-depart Arturo Valenzuela, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, with only a spot of bother from something euphemized as "populism." "Today most democratic nations of the hemisphere are leveraging democratic success, economic growth to overcome old inequities,"...

Hardline Islamic insurgent groups in Iraq are targeting a new type of victim with the full protection of Iraqi law, The Observer can reveal. The country is seeing a sudden escalation of brutal attacks on what are being called the 'immorals' - homosexual men and children as young as 11 who have been forced into same-sex prostitution.There is growing evidence that Shia militias have been killing men suspected of being gay and children who have been sold to criminal gangs to be sexually abused. The threat has led to a rapid increase in the numbers of Iraqi homosexuals now seeking...

CULIACAN, Mexico — A shooting that killed eight people partying on a seaside boulevard in northwestern Mexico may have been the work of vigilantes targeting car thieves, a prosecutor said. The gunmen drove up in a white SUV and fired on the festive crowd without saying a word, Sinaloa state deputy Attorney General Jose Luis Leyva said Sunday. A 15-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl were among the youngest killed Saturday night in the Pacific coast town of Navolato. Four people were wounded. Also among the dead were two brothers in their 30s who had a record of car theft,...

LIMA, Peru - A Peruvian court on Tuesday convicted a general and three members of a death squad of kidnapping and murder in a ruling that prosecutors say could set a precedent in the trial of former President Alberto Fujimori. The four were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 15 to 35 years in connection with a 1992 massacre, but the three-judge panel absolved another member of the death squad and three officers accused of providing support for it. The verdict made no reference to a ninth man charged in the case. The judges found the three former soldiers and...

The State Bureau of Investigation is examining the case and three deputy sheriffs on the team are on paid leave, New Hanover County Sheriff Sid Causey said Sunday. Peyton Strickland, 18, was killed Friday night at a home he shared with three roommates. His German shepherd dog, Blaze, also was shot to death. The deputies were helping police for the University of North Carolina at Wilmington serve an arrest warrant that charged Strickland with armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and breaking and entering a vehicle. Causey declined to identify the suspended deputies — members of an elite emergency...

Iraqi death squad leaders captured BAGHDAD, Iraq - A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier north of Baghdad on Monday, and the American military announced the capture of two alleged death squad leaders as U.S. and Iraqi authorities step up efforts to stem rampant sectarian violence. President Bush, meanwhile, served notice that he would not change course or flinch from debate about the unpopular war in Iraq as he campaigns for Republicans in the fall congressional elections. In fact, he suggested that national security and the economy should be the top political issues, and criticized the Democrats' approach on both....

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. soldiers arrested five suspected members of an alleged "death squad" south of Baghdad on Wednesday as Iraqi army troops battled insurgents on a major street in the center of the capital. In Washington, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told Congress that Iraq was a front line in the war on terrorism and said those behind the violence here are perverting Islam. The arrests occurred when troops of the 101st Airborne Division swept through a neighborhood in Mahmoudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad, a U.S. statement said. The five suspects included the team leader, the statement said. Tensions...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq's Interior Ministry has launched an investigation into claims that a police death squad has been operating in the country, a top official said Thursday. Attacks around the country killed at least 19 people, including six Iraqis in a car bombing and three sheiks in a drive-by shooting. Iraq Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari also condemned the latest images of detainees abused in the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in 2003, but noted that those responsible had already been punished. The investigation into the death squads was announced as police found the bodies of 12 more men who...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's Interior Ministry has launched an investigation into claims a police death squad has been operating in Iraq, a top official said Thursday. The probe was launched as police found the bodies of 10 more men who had been shot dead execution-style and dumped in three different areas of Baghdad's predominantly Shiite suburb of Shula. Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, Iraq's deputy interior minister in charge of domestic intelligence, said the probe was launched following U.S. military claims that soldiers had detained 22 men wearing police uniforms who were about to kill a Sunni Arab man.

Police suspected of killing at least 30 in Brazil 01 Apr 2005 19:30:37 GMT Source: Reuters (Adds quotes, context) By Rodrigo Gaier RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, April 1 (Reuters) - Gunmen believed to be rogue policemen killed at least 30 people in a shooting spree in a Rio de Janeiro suburb that officials said on Friday could be a bloody response to a crackdown on corrupt and brutal officers. It was worst death squad massacre in more than a decade in the Brazilian city, which has become accustomed to daily bloodshed involving police, drugs gangsters and other criminals. Innocent men,...

THORNTON, Colo. -- Thornton police said they shot and killed a city employee Friday while conducting a welfare check on the man after the employee pulled a gun on them. Police would not identify the employee or say what department he worked for. According to police, they went to the man's residence in the Thornton Mobile Estates at 3600 E. 88th Ave., on "city administrative business" at about 5 p.m. Based on information they had, they said they entered the residence to check on the man's welfare after he failed to answer the door. The first officer into the residence...

A Bellevue gun collector was arrested and held for 23 days as a material witness in the slaying of federal prosecutor Thomas Wales, according to court records, jail logs and people familiar with the investigation. The man is not considered a suspect in Wales' killing, but he was jailed in January as part of the FBI's nationwide search for a unique gun barrel used in the crime. Wales was shot to death while sitting at a computer in the basement of his Queen Anne home on Oct. 11, 2001. Shell casings and slugs found at the scene and recovered from...

ROME, April 15 (Reuters) - An Italian hostage killed in Iraq was hailed on Thursday as a hero who in his last moments told his kidnappers defiantly: "I'm going to show you how an Italian dies." Fabrizio Quattrocchi, one of four Italian security guards abducted earlier this week, was shot dead on Wednesday after Italy refused to bow to the kidnappers' demands and withdraw some 3,000 troops stationed in Iraq. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said a video recording of the killing showed that Quattrocchi was hooded when his kidnappers put a gun to his head. "When the murderers were...

City fires third officer in excessive-force case [Memphis, TN] By Sherri DrakeContact January 10, 2004 A third Memphis police officer has been fired for using excessive force on a mentally unstable man who died during an arrest. Denvey Buckley, 43, died of a heart attack as he scuffled with officers April 19. Police were called to Buckley's home at 1115 Rembert in South Memphis because he drank bleach and cut his wrists and throat in a suicide attempt. Police used chemical spray and police batons to restrain him. Officer Kurtis Schilk, 32, was fired Jan. 2. He was an officer...

In 2001 a Hippie Campground Famous for Peace, Love and Weed Erupted in Violence and Death. Was It Another Ruby Ridge or the Collapse of a Failed Utopia? On the day that he purchased Rainbow Farm, Tom Crosslin said destiny had led him to the place. By the late 1990s the farm would become a well-known stop on the hippie trail, a scenic overlook for the migratory flocks of travelers and Phish fans who crisscrossed the country. For thousands of blue-collar pilgrims who stopped there looking for a few days of fun and freedom in Michigan's vacation lands, it was...

<p>MIAMI (AP) In the biggest Miami police scandal in a generation, a federal jury convicted four officers of corruption Wednesday for planting a gun on an unarmed homeless man or lying about it to protect their colleagues.</p> <p>The officers, all assigned to elite undercover teams, were charged after four police shootings in the mid-1990s left three people dead and another wounded. One of the victims, an elderly drug suspect, died in a hail of more than 100 bullets.</p>