- News Digest
Wednesday, January 17, 1996 Page 2
Gunmen defy massive assault
PERVOMAYSKAYA, Russia —
The Chechen guerrilla war flared out
side Russia’s borders for the first time
Tuesday, with gunmen seizing more
than 100 people aboard a Turkish ferry.
Their hostage-holding comrades
battled Russia’s best troops in a
burned-out village filled with dead.
Chechen gunmen clung to their
positions as Russian tanks and heli
copter gunships assailed
Pcrvomayskaya for a second day.
Despite salvo after salvo of missiles
and artillery fire, they refused to re
lease dozens of hostages.
Tank rounds slammed across fro
zen fields and rockets from helicopter
gunships exploded in the burning re
mains of the village as black columns
of smoke rose in the winter sky.
At least 100 people had been killed
and injured in the fighting. It was not
known if any hostages were among
the dead.
Maj. Gen. Alexander Mikhailov, a
spokesman for the Federal Security
Service, claimed the rebels had suf
fered terrible losses. “We’re not count
ing them in terms of corpses—we’re
counting them in terms of arms and
legs.” |
Russian jets rocketed a convoy of
guerrilla reinforcements tryingto reach
Pervomayskaya, leaving about 150
rebels dead, according to Yevgeny
Ryabtsev, an Interior Ministry spokes
man. There was no independent con
firmation of the reported clash 12 miles
southeast of the village.
Hundreds of miles away, masked
gunmen seized a ferry in Trabzon,
Turkey, on Tuesday and threatened to
kill all the Russians on board, the
semiofficial Anatolia news agency
said.
The gunmen shouted slogans de
manding independence for Chechnya,
then set sail for an unknown destina
tion, reportedly with 165 people on
board. It was not known how many
were Russian; the ferry was scheduled
to have gone to the Russian city of
Sochi.
A Russian woman who escaped
from the vessel told Anatolia several
people were wounded. Anatolia said
one passenger was killed.
Chechens have turned to hostage
taking as they fight for independence
from Moscow. In Pervomayskaya, a
village in the southern Russian repub
lic of Dagestan on the border with
Chechnya, they were believed to be
holding between 70 and 120 hostages
before the Russian assault began Mon
day morning.
Since then, Russian troops have
brought out 24 people from the vil
lage, said Mikhailov, the Russian se
curity service spokesman. Most were
hostages, but at least two were jour
nalists.
Despite two days of fighting in
volving dozens of tanks and armored
vehicles backed by several battalions
of shock troops, the government forces
appeared to control only part of the
small village.
The guerrillas were hiding in deep
bunkers in the foundations of houses,
sniping at the attacking Russians. The
roar of automatic weapons fire popped
and cracked without halt as darkness
fell Tuesday.
News
in a
Minu_j
Rabin assassin changes story
JERUSALEM — Yitzhak Rabin’s confessed assassin says he didn’t
want to kill the Israeli prime minister, but only to injure him.
“If I could have paralyzed him it would also have been good,” Yigal
Amir told a state commission investigating Rabin’s death, in testimony
made public Tuesday.
Amir, who confessed to killing Rabin to stop the Mideast peace
process, said he aimed for the prime minister’s spine and not his head.
The 25-year-old Jewish nationalist shot Rabin twice at close range
after the prime minister appeared at a Nov. 4 peace rally in Tel Aviv.
Rabin died almost immediately.
Amir’s testimony to the commission, which he gave Dec. 25, contra
dicts statements police say he made earlier.
According to published transcripts of a police interrogation, Amir
said he had planned to kill Rabin for several years and, on the day of the
assassination, went to a synagogue to pray for forgiveness for the
murder.
Amir’s murder trial is to begin Jan. 23 in Tel Aviv.
Woman on death row given life
SPRINGFIELD, 111.—An abused wife who had demanded she be put
to death for killing her husband was spared Tuesday by Gov. Jim Edgar
hours before she was to become the second woman executed in the
United States in at least 20 years.
Guinevere Garcia apparently had had a change of heart: “Thank God
that this has happened,” her lawyer quoted her as saying after Edgar
commuted herdeath sentence to life in prison with no chance of parole.
Garcia, 37, was to have been executed shortly after midnight for
shooting her husband during an argument that grew from a botched
robbery.
Death-penalty opponents, including Bianca Jagger, had campaigned
for clemency over Garcia’s objections, arguing that she had a harrowing
life that included alcoholism and sexual abuse in childhood and prosti
tution as a teen-ager.
Bums skips 100th birthday party i
LOS ANGELES — George Bums, a lifelong believer in the adage
that the show must go on, was forced Tuesday to skip,a 100th birthday
celebration because of the flu.
Tuesday’s dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel coincided with Bums’
undisclosed donation to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for the George
Bums and Gracie Allen Research Institute.
' The 300 guests invited to the dinner were those who had donated
$ 100,000 or more to the medical center.
Bums, whose actual birthday is Saturday, said in a statement: “As this
big day came closer and closer, people kept asking me what I would like
for my 100th birthday. What do you give a man who’s been so blessed?
Another 100 years? A night with Sharon Stone?”
“This whole birthday thing is backwards; I should be the one who’s
giving. I’ve had the good fortune to be pretty healthy, but I’ve also
benefited from medical research. Without a triple heart bypass 20 years
ago, I wouldn’t have made it this far,” he said.
China detains U.8. colonel
WASHINGTON — In a new setback to U.S.-Chinese relations, an
American Air Force colonel has been arrested in China and interrogated
continuously without food for 19 hours.
The incident bewildered — and angered — U.S. officials.
Col. Bradley Gerdes was detained last week while on a mission
approved by Chinese authorities to Saixi in southern China, officials said
Tuesday. They said his Chinese interrogators accused him of infiltrating
intoa military installation, which Gerdes adamantly denied.
Chinese-American relations have been under strain for most of the
past year. Alleged human rights violations in China have been a particu
lar irritant and are expected to cause additional friction in coming weeks.
Jurors say Fuhrman
I was key to verdict
LOS ANGELES — From the mo
ment the forewoman of the O.J.
Simpson jury saw Mark Fuhrman, she
thought he was a “snake.”
And after hearing from him, she
didn’t believe a word he said.
“My first feeling when I saw him,
he sort of looked like a Ku Klux Klan
or a skinhead with hair,” Armanda
Cooley writes in the book “Madam
Foreman,” which comes out this week.
Jurors Carrie Bess and Marsha
Rubin-Jackson collaborated with
Cooley on the book, which highlights
the importance the former detective
played in the outcome of the trial.
“Fuhrman was the trial,” Bess
wrote. “Fuhrman found the hat.
Fuhrman found the glove. Fuhrman
found the blood. Fuhrman went over
the gate. Fuhrman did everything.
When you throw it out, what case do
you have? You’ve got reasonable
doubt right before you even get to the
criminalists.”'
Fuhrman, the first detective to ar
rive at the murder scene, was por
trayed by the defense as a racist who
tried to frame Simpson. The mostly
black jury was played an excerpt from
a tape of Fuhrman uttering a racial
slur.
But in “Madam Foreman,” the three
black jurors denied race played a role
in their thinking and contended their
speedy not-guilty verdict was shaped
mostly by their lack of confidence in
the police and the evidence they
handled.
Two of the three jurors also told
“Dateline NBC” that had they been
sitting in a civil trial, where decisions
Fuhrman ivas the trial.
Fuhrman found the hat.
Fuhrman found the
glove. Fuhrman did
everything. ”
CARRIE BESS
Juror in Simpson trial
are based on the lesser standard of a
“preponderance of evidence,” they
would have found Simpson guilty.
“Given that standard and based on
the amount of evidence that was pre
sented, ... then yes, you would have to
say that yes, he is guilty,” said Cooley
in an interview for broadcast Tuesday
night.
“I’m standing by my verdict,”
Rubin-Jackson added. “But based on
what I’ve heard since I’ve been out, I
would have to vote guilty” in a civil
trial.
In the book, the women say they
saw prosecutor Christopher Darden
as a token black placed at the counsel
table by the district attorney’s office.
And they downplayed the impor
tance of the courtroom demonstration
in which Simpson seemingly struggled
to pull on the gloves.
Cooley said although she didn’t
like Fuhrman at first, his initial testi
mony “did not look good for O. J.” But
as Fuhrman underwent cross-exami
nation by defense attorney F. Lee
Bailey, his demeanor changed, said
Cooley.
Lawyer denies sharing
Whitewater documents
WASHINGTON — A former
White House lawyer today told sena
tors that he intended to share confi
dential Whitewater investigative docu
ments with one of President Clinton’s
closest advisers but never got to do so.
Under sharp questioning, former
associate White House counsel Neil
Eggleston told the Senate Whitewater
Committee how he got a stack of in
vestigative documents from regula
tors as the Whitewater affair heated
up in November 1993.
The documents outlined the Small
Business Administration’s criminal
investigation ofArkansas judge David
Hale.
At the time, Hale had alleged that
Clinton had pressured him in the mid
1980s to make an improper federally
backed loan to the Clintons’
Whitewater business partners.
“I know I did not show the docu
ments” to presidential adviser Bruce
Lin dscy, who at the time was handling
press inquiries about the Whitewater
affair, Eggleston testified.
The committee’s Republican coun
sel, Michael Chertoff, produced a Nov.
16, 1993 telephone message marked
“important” that Eggleston had left
for Lindsey stating he wanted to share
“Whitewater documents” that he had
picked up from the SBA that day.
Eggleston said scheduling conflicts
prevented the meeting from taking
place.
He said his only intention was to
provide Lindsey enough information
to answer any press inquiries that mi ght
have arisen on the Hale probe.
TV exec
denies
remarks
NEW YORK — CBS prom
ises “appropriate action” if it
confirms that a network execu
tive suggested that blacks are a
key late-night audience because
they don’t have to get up to go to
work and have short attention
spans.
John Pike, head of the
network’s late-night program
ming, denied making the remarks
attributed to him in February
issue of Details magazine.
The story in Details was about
a comedy troupe’s travails in
making a Halloween special for
CBS. The author, David Lipsky,
reported that the remarks came
at Pike’s first meeting with the
troupe’s producers.
Lipsky acknowledged he was
not at that meeting but said Pike’s
comments were relayed to him
by others who were.
Pike, Lipsky wrote, “flatly
explains that research shows
there are three reasons why Af
rican-Americans arc an impor
tant part of the late-night demo
graphic: First, they have no place
to go in the morning — no jobs
— so they can stay up as late as
they like; second, they can’t fol
low hour-long drama shows —
no attention span—so sketches
are perfect for them; third, net
work TV is free.”
“CBS finds these alleged
statements to be reprehensible
and hopes the allegations are not
true,” said CBS Entertainment
President Leslie Moonvcs. “If
they do prove to be true, the
company will take appropriate
action.”
Gil Schwartz, CBS senior
vice president for communica
tions, would not elaborate on
what “appropriate act ion” could
encompass.
Pike, who is white, said his
remarks were “taken out of con
text by a reporter who was not
even in the room.”
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Publications Board
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