Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Investigators: ‘Strong indications’ link Putin, downed Malaysian jet
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — An international team of investigators said Wednesday it found “strong indications” that Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the supply of heavy anti-aircraft weapons to Ukrainian separatists who shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014 with a Russian missile.
However, members of the Joint Investigation Team said they had insufficient evidence to prosecute Putin or any other suspects and they suspended their 8 ½-year inquiry into the shooting down that killed all 298 people on board the Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
Russia has always denied any involvement in the downing of the flight over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, and refused to cooperate with the probe.
Dutch prosecutors said that “there are strong indications that the Russian president decided on supplying” a Buk missile system — the weapon that downed MH17 — to Ukrainian separatists.
“Although we speak of strong indications, the high bar of complete and conclusive evidence is not reached,” Dutch prosecutor Digna van Boetzelaer said, adding that without Russian cooperation, “the investigation has now reached its limit. All leads have been exhausted.”
She also said that, as head of state, Putin would have immunity from prosecution in the Netherlands.
The team also informed relatives of those killed in the downing of MH17 of their findings before making them public.
Van Boetzelaer said that while the investigation is being suspended, phone lines will remain open for possible witnesses who may still want to provide evidence. If that happens, the inquiry could be reactivated.
SKorea crowd crush:
South Korea’s oppositioncontrolled parliament on Wednesday voted to impeach the country’s interior and safety minister, Lee Sang-min, holding him responsible for government failures in disaster planning and the response that likely contributed to the high death toll in a crowd crush that killed nearly 160 people in Seoul in October.
The impeachment suspends Lee from his duties and the country’s Constitutional Court has 180 days to rule on whether to unseat him for good or give him back the job.
Lee is seen as a key ally of conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol, whose office issued an irritated response to his impeachment, accusing opposition lawmakers of creating “shameful history.”
Lee’s impeachment came weeks after police said they’re seeking criminal charges, including involuntary manslaughter and negligence, against 23 officials, about half of them law enforcement officers, for a lack of safety measures they said were responsible for the crowd crush in Itaewon, a major nightlife district.
Trump legal troubles:
Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen met again Wednesday with New York City prosecutors who have spent years examining the former president’s financial dealings.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg recently convened a new grand jury to hear evidence related to payments Cohen helped arrange in 2016 to two women who claimed that they had sexual encounters with Trump.
Leaving the office, Cohen told reporters he had met with prosecutors for roughly 2 ½ hours. He wouldn’t reveal details about what kinds of questions he had been asked, or where he thought the investigation was headed, but said prosecutors seemed “extremely well prepared.”
Cohen was previously one of Trump’s top lieutenants, acting as a liaison with the media and handling some of his legal and business affairs. Federal prosecutors later charged Cohen with tax evasion and criminal campaign finance violations.
Canada day care crash:
A city bus crashed into a day care center north of Montreal on Wednesday, killing two children and injuring six, authorities said.
Immediately after the crash in Laval, Quebec, the driver stepped out of the bus, ripped his clothes off and started screaming, a neighbor said.
Pierre Ny St-Amand, 51, is facing nine charges including two counts of firstdegree murder. A senior Canadian government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the crash was not a terrorist act and did not pose a threat to national security.
The driver was from Laval and had worked for the bus company for 10 years. He had no criminal history and a clean work record, police officials and Laval Mayor Stephane Boyer said at separate news conferences.
Journalist sentenced:
A Belarusian court on Wednesday sentenced a journalist and prominent member of the country’s sizable Polish minority to eight years in prison, amid an ongoing crackdown on critics of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime.
Andrzej Poczobut, 49, was found guilty of harming Belarus’ national security and “inciting discord” in a closed trial held in the western city of Grodno. Poczobut, a journalist for the influential Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and a top figure in the Union of Poles in Belarus, has been behind bars since his detention in March 2021.
He reported on the mass protests that gripped Belarus for weeks in 2020 following a presidential election that gave Lukashenko, in power since 1994, a new term in office, but that was widely regarded by the opposition and Western countries as fraudulent.
The indictment against Poczobut referenced his coverage of the protests, along with his statements in defense of ethnic Poles in Belarus and reference to the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland as an act of “aggression,” as evidence of his guilt.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in a tweet Wednesday condemned the “inhumane decision by the Belarusian regime.”
Actor’s bail set: Nevada prosecutors told a judge Wednesday that a former “Dances With Wolves” actor accused of sexually abusing Indigenous women and girls for decades should remain in custody because he was “grooming young children” to replace his older wives when he was arrested last month.
The new details in the criminal case against Nathan Chasing Horse, who played young Sioux tribe member Smiles a Lot in Kevin Costner’s 1990 Oscar-winning film, were revealed in a North Las Vegas courtroom. Justice of the Peace Craig Newman set bail at $300,000 and called the 46-year-old a danger to the community.
Chasing Horse had been held without bail since Jan. 31, when authorities took him into custody and raided the home he shares with his five wives in North Las Vegas.
Chasing Horse is charged with eight felonies, including sex trafficking, sexual assault and child abuse. He has not entered a plea.