Motorcycle officer dies in Bush escort
A police officer in President Bush’s motorcade crashed his motorcycle and died Monday, less than a year after a crash in Hawaii killed another motorcycle officer accompanying the president.
Rio Rancho Officer Germaine Casey, 40, crashed at the Albuquerque airport at a point where a road enters an underground parking garage, said Trish Hoffman, a spokeswoman for the Albuquerque Police Department. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Bush had been headed to the airport after attending a fundraiser for Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.
Rio Rancho Police Department spokesman Officer John Francis said Casey’s motorcycle hit a curb and then a tree, but investigators were reconstructing the accident to determine exactly what happened.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said the president saw the wreck after it had occurred, and a member of the White House medical staff went to assist.
Bush called Casey’s wife, Lisa, from his limousine on the way to the airport in Seattle to offer condolences, Stanzel said.
MOSCOW
Journalist’s killing spurs 10 arrests
Under pressure to solve the contract-style killing of journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya, Russia’s chief prosecutor announced Monday the arrest of 10 suspects, including a Chechen crime boss and five law enforcement officers.
Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika refused to say who was suspected of ordering the Oct. 7 shooting of Politkovskaya, whose chronicling of the killings, kidnappings and torture of civilians in Chechnya had angered the Kremlin and the Moscow-backed Chechen leadership.
But he said that only someone living outside Russia would have an interest in killing Politkovskaya, with the aim of discrediting President Vladimir Putin and destabilizing the country ahead of national elections.
The prosecutor appeared to be referring to tycoon Boris Berezovsky, a former Kremlin insider who is one of Putin’s fiercest critics and lives in Britain.
The Kremlin has pointed the finger at Berezovsky in this and other killings that have gained worldwide attention.
Berezovsky said Monday the effort to link him to Politkovskaya’s death was a “hysterical reaction” to his criticism of Putin.