Suit: Rumsfeld must pay victims
Washington Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is responsible for torture and abuse of prisoners held by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan and should compensate the victims, a lawsuit contended Tuesday.
The suit was filed on behalf of four Iraqis and four Afghans who allege they suffered severe and repeated beatings, cutting with knives, sexual humiliation and assault, mock executions, death threats, and restraint in excruciating positions.
They were held in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003 and 2004, were never charged with crimes and have been released, according to officials of the groups that filed the suit, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First.
Jackson jurors watch TV documentary
Santa Maria, Calif. Jurors in the Michael Jackson child molestation trial Tuesday watched the TV documentary that sparked the case, seeing the pop star hold hands with his accuser and talk about hosting sleepovers with children at his Neverland Ranch.
The documentary “Living With Michael Jackson” was shown after defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. finished an opening statement in which he suggested the entertainer may testify and said authorities found no DNA evidence in the entertainer’s bedroom to support the charges. Jackson is not on the defense witness list.
Prosecutors say Jackson plied his accuser, then a 13-year-old cancer survivor, with alcohol and showed him sexually explicit images before molesting him at Neverland.
“Mr. Jackson will freely admit that he does read girlie magazines from time to time,” Mesereau said. “He absolutely does not show them to children.”
Bush’s lawyer gets secret recordings
Washington Tapes of President Bush that were secretly recorded by an old friend and released to the media now are in the possession of the president’s private attorney, the White House said Tuesday.
“It’s a matter that we consider closed at this point,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.
Doug Wead allowed journalists to hear and broadcast the tapes as he promoted his new book on presidential parents. But he said last week he had regrets about that and was turning the tapes over to Bush and giving the proceeds from his book to charity.
On the tapes, recorded over the course of the two years before Bush became the Republican presidential nominee in 2000, Bush discusses strategy for his first presidential run and appears to acknowledge past drug use. He says he would refuse to answer questions about using LSD, cocaine and marijuana because “I don’t want any kid doing what I tried to do 30 years ago.”
Train hits, kills man; injures another
Rockville, Md. An Amtrak train struck and killed one man and seriously injured another just outside Washington Tuesday at the height of the evening commuter rush.
No one aboard the Chicago-bound Capital Limited train was injured, Amtrak spokeswoman Sarah Swain said. It was not known why the men were on the tracks.
Accident investigators closed the tracks serving Amtrak, MARC commuter trains and CSX freight trains in both directions.