KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - – Malaysia will take action against air force personnel involved in the theft of a 14.5-million-dollar fighter jet engine sold to a South American company, according to reports Sunday.
Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the company hired an agent to take the 50-million-ringgit engine out of the country from a military airbase, the Star newspaper and national news agency Bernama reported.
"The ministry will take legal action at the international level to charge the company involved," he was quoted as saying by Bernama, without specifying the type of action or identifying the company.
"Stern action will also be taken against the Royal Malaysian Air Force staff involved for betraying the country," the minister added.
Air force officers found the jet engine was missing late last year during a routine maintenance service, but the matter became public only after the English-language New Straits Times published a report on Saturday.
The newspaper also said police had arrested four individuals, including the buyer, the seller and air force personnel who assisted in stealing the engine, used as powerplant for a single-seat fighter and reconnaissance aircraft.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Mass. woman, 98, accused of killing roommate, 100
A 98-year-old woman was indicted Friday on a second-degree murder charge that alleges she strangled her 100-year-old nursing home roommate after making the victim's life "a living hell" because she thought the woman was "taking over the room."
Laura Lundquist was sent to a state mental hospital for a competency evaluation before her arraignment. Her defense attorney, Carl Levin, said she has a "long-standing diagnosis of dementia, as well as issues of cognitive impairment."
She is believed to be the oldest murder defendant in state history, but might never go to trial because of her mental health issues.
Her roommate at the Brandon Woods nursing home in Dartmouth, Elizabeth Barrow, was found dead in her bed Sept. 24 with a plastic bag tied around her head. Police initially speculated it was a suicide, but a medical examiner ruled it a homicide after an autopsy indicated strangulation.
Barrow's son, Scott Barrow, has said Lundquist complained to nursing home officials about the number of visitors his mother received. He also has said Lundquist had made "threatening" and "harassing" remarks to her. He declined to comment on the indictment, which was handed up Friday by a Bristol grand jury.
Bristol District Attorney Sam Sutter said Lundquist suffered from paranoia and "harbored hostility towards the victim" and thought Barrow "was taking over the room they shared."
Sutter said Barrow complained in the weeks prior to her death that Lundquist was making her life "a living hell." The night before Barrow was killed, Lundquist put a table at the foot of her bed to block her way to the bathroom, then punched a nurses aide who removed it, he said.
Lundquist also told Barrow she would soon get her bed by the window because she would outlive her, Sutter said.
The two women had been roommates for about a year. Scott Barrow has said he asked nursing home officials to separate the women, but they assured him the two were getting along. He said his mother told him she did not want to leave her room because that's where she and her husband had lived for several years before he died in 2007.
A Superior Court judge, acting on a motion filed jointly by prosecutors and Levin, ordered Lundquist sent to Taunton State Hospital for an evaluation.
Sutter said the case likely won't ever go to trial because of the possible incompetency finding and because the defense will likely involve mental health issues, which take a long time to prosecute.
Levin said that if someone is found not competent to stand trial, the state would likely move for a civil commitment.
"Her family is very saddened for the loss of Ms. Barrow, and they are also very saddened by what's happened," Levin said. "Without acknowledging her responsibility, it's a sad event for both families. It just really points to the issue of mental health with the elderly."
Prosecutors pursued second-degree murder charges because they didn't believe Lundquist had the cognitive ability to form premeditation, which must be proven in a first-degree murder case, Sutter said.
Lundquist is believed to be the oldest murder defendant in state history, Sutter said.
"It is my intention to advance this case in a professional, ethical and humane manner," he said.
Sutter said prosecutors decided not to file charges against the nursing home, but did not elaborate.
Brandon Woods' chief of operations, Scott Picone, said the home was "deeply saddened by this tragic event, and our thoughts and prayers go out to both families." He declined to comment further.
In a statement, the home said the roommates acted like sisters, walked and ate lunch together daily and said, "Goodnight, I love you," to each other every night. The home said Barrow declined a room change in July and August.
The statement also said the home was establishing a scholarship in Barrow's name, and Scott Barrow was chair of the scholarship committee.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Chinese Pin Head?????
Doctors in southwestern China have removed a needle from the brain of an 11-year-old girl, believed inserted after birth in an attempted murder by relatives who had wanted a boy, a report said Thursday.
Rusted needle shards were detected by doctors in August after fruitless attempts by the girl's mother over the years to find the cause of an apparent mental disability, the Sichuan Online news website reported.
The girl, identified as "Ping Ping", did not begin walking or talking until she was six, currently has the intelligence level of a three-year-old, and has suffered for years from unexplained fevers, it said.
She was said to be recovering from the operation at a hospital in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province.
The child's mother, Yang Xiaohui, said she suspected that relatives had tried to kill the child shortly after birth.
Under China's "one child" family planning policy, the traditional cultural and economic preference for boys remains strong, especially in the vast and poor countryside.
Reports of aborted female foetuses and infanticide remain common.
In 2007, doctors in southwestern Yunnan province discovered 26 needles embedded in the body of a 29-year-old woman, state media said at the time.
They were believed to have been inserted not long after she was born by grandparents upset she was not a boy, the reports said. Doctors operated on the woman to remove the needles.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
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