U.S.-based Turkish cleric denies assassination role
Russian envoy slain in Ankara honored by Putin, officials.
MOSCOW — A U. S.-based Muslim cleric on Thursday condemned the killing of Russia’s envoy to Turkey and rejected accusations that his movement was behind the attack.
Ambassador Andrei Karlov was shot dead by an offduty policeman in front of stunned onlookers at a photo exhibition Monday in the Turki sh c apit al, Ankara. Turki sh President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has implicated Fethullah Gulen in the killing, accusing his movement of links to the gunman.
Gulen accused Erdogan of defaming his movement in a video and suggested that the Turkish government would facilitate other assassinations and blame them on Gulen’s own followers.
Gulen said “it is not possible for them to convince the world of such accusations.”
Russia flew a team of 18 investigators and foreign ministry officials to Turkey to help investigate Karlov’s killing.
In Moscow, Foreign Ministry officials and lawmakers gathered at the Russian foreign ministry’s headquarters for a farewell ceremony to Karlov. Diplomats and officials laid flowers at the open casket alongside an honorary guard.
“Those who raised a hand against Ambassador Karlov, who took his life, will definitely fail in their attempts to stop Russia from cooperating with other countries, including Turkey,” said Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the upper chamber of Russia’s Parliament.
President Vladimir Putin arrived at the end of the ceremony, laid flowers at the casket, offered condolences to the ambassador’s widow and left.
Karlov’s casket then was carried out of the Foreign Ministry building and bound for a funeral service at Moscow’s main Christ the Savior Cathedral.
Patriarch Kir ill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, said as the service began that the ambassador died a “martyr’s death.”
Karlov later was laid to rest at a cemetery north of Moscow.
In Ankara, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim visited the Russian Embassy to lay a memorial bouquet of carnations.
Karlov “now has become the eternal symbol of Turkish-Russian friendship,” Yildirim wrote in a book of condolences.
Police in Australia have detained five suspects who we r e a l l e g e d l y p l a n n i n g a series of Chri stmas Day bomb attacks in the heart of the country’s second largest city, officials said Friday. The suspects had been inspired by the Islamic State group and planned attacks on Melbourne’s Flinders Street train station, neighboring Federation Square and St. Paul’s Cathedral, Victoria state Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said. The arrests came after a truck smashed into a Christmas market in Berlin on Monday, killing 12 people. Two of seven people initially arrested in raids Thursday night and this morning in Melbourne — a 26-year-old man and 20-year-old woman — were released without being charged, a police statement said. Five men between ages 21 and 26 remained in custody. They were not identified, but police said four were born in Australia and the fifth was Egyptian-born with Egyptian and Australian citizenship.
A white Texas police officer was placed on restricted duty Thursday while an internal investigation looks into a videotaped incident showing the officer wrestling a black woman to the ground before arresting her and her two teenage daughters. The Fort Worth officer, whose name hasn’t been released, responded to a call after Jacqueline Craig argued with a man who she said had physically confronted her 7-year-old son for littering. In the cellphone video of the Wednesday incident, Craig can be heard telling the officer that the man had “grabbed and choked” her son. The officer engages Craig in a conversation that quickly escalates. He asks why she hadn’t taught her son not to litter. Craig says regardless of whether the boy littered, the man did not have the right to “put his hands on him.” The officer says, “Why not?” One of Craig’s daughters tries to push her mother away, but the officer forces Craig and the teen to the ground. He points a stun gun into Craig’s back and then at her daughter when she tries to approach.
A fleet of self-driving Uber c a r s l e f t f o r A r i z o n a o n Thursday after they were banned from California roads over safet y concerns. The announcement came after Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey took to social media on Wednesday and Thursday touting Arizona as an alternative to California for the ride-hailing company to test out its self-driving cars. Ducey, a Republican, sent tweets advertising Arizona’s friendly business environment, saying Uber should ditch California for the Grand Canyon state. Uber said in a statement that it had shipped its cars to Arizona and will be expanding its self-driving pilot program in the next few weeks.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has issued a call to action to her rank and file to fight Republican efforts to scrap the health care law by highlighting the risks of repeal for millions of Americans. In a letter to her Democratic colleagues late Wednesday, Pelosi said that with the new GOP-controlled Congress and Donald Trump’s administration, “House Democrats stand ready to fight vigorously for America’s hard-working families.” She urged lawmakers to hold media events in early January to tell voters about Republican plans to repeal the law, called the Affordable Care Act, at the beginning of the year. Pelosi’s letter came just hours after the Obama administration announced that about 6.4 million people had signed up for health insur- ance next year under the law despite GOP moves to scuttle the law. That’s an increase of 400,000 over last year.
The North Dakota Department of Transportation has completed additional testing of a bridge damaged during protests of the Dakota Access oil pipeline. The department said its testing was completed Thursday with help from the Highway Patrol, the Morton County Sheriff ’s Department, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. There’s no timetable for reopening the span. The Backwater Bridge north of Cannon Ball has been closed since October, when protesters blocked it with burning vehicles.
A 112-year prison sentence imposed on a convicted rapist for crimes he committed at age 15 is unconstitutional because it allows no opportunity for possible release, a divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The court’s 4-3 ruling came in the case of Brandon Moore, tried as an adult and convicted in the 2001 armed kidnapping, robbery and gang rape of a 22-yearold Youngstown State University student. The woman was abducted as she arrived for an evening work shift and was repeatedly raped at gunpoint by Moore and an accomplice, then released, court records show. The decision returns the case to a county court to resentence Moore, now 29. In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote that teens may not be locked up for life with no chance of parole if they haven’t killed anyone. At issue was whether the ruling applied to Moore, whose prison term imposed in 2008 consists of multiple sentences stacked on top of one another.