Nation & World Glance
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Colorado supermarket shooting suspect incompetent for trial
DENVER – Experts have found a man charged with killing 10 people at a Colorado supermarket earlier this year is mentally incompetent to stand trial for now, attorneys said during a court hearing Friday.
Ahwad Al Aliwi Alissa, 22, is accused of opening fire at a busy King Soopers in the college town of Boulder in March – killing a police officer, shoppers and several store employees including an Olympic hopeful distance runner.
District Attorney Michael Dougherty said four doctors have now determined that Alissa isn’t mentally competent to participate in court proceedings. He requested that Alissa be sent to the state mental hospital for treatment.
Dougherty did not disclose why the experts determined that Alissa is not competent. Alissa’s defense attorney, Kathryn Herold, said Friday her client has a “serious” mental illness but did not provide more details
Judge Ingrid Bakke ruled after Dougherty revealed the result of the examination that Alissa was incompetent and ordered him to be sent to the mental hospital.
AP Source: NSO Group spyware used to hack State employees
WASHINGTON — The phones of 11 U.S. State Department employees were hacked with spyware from Israel’s NSO Group, the world’s most infamous hacker-for-hire company, a person familiar with the matter said Friday.
The employees were all located in Uganda and included some foreign service officers, said the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing investigation. Some local Ugandan employees of the department appear to have been among the 11 hacked, the person said.
The hacking is the first known instance of NSO Group’s trademark Pegasus spyware being used against U.S. government personnel.
It was not known what individual or entity used the NSO technology to hack into the accounts, or what information was sought.
“We have been acutely concerned that commercial spyware like NSO Group software poses a serious counterintelligence and security risk to U.S. personnel,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at briefing Friday.
Senior researcher John Scott-Railton of Citizen Lab, the public-interest sleuths at the University of Toronto who have been tracking Pegasus infections for years, called the discovery a giant wake-up call for the U.S. government about diplomatic security.
“For years we have seen that diplomats around the world are among targets,” he said, “and it looks like the message had to be brought home to the U.S. government in this very direct and unfortunate way. There is no exceptionalism when it comes to American phones in diplomats’ pockets.”
Mostly white jury seated for trial in Daunte Wright’s death
MINNEAPOLIS — A mostly white jury was seated Friday for the trial of a white suburban Minneapolis police officer who said she drew her handgun by mistake when she fatally shot Black motorist Daunte Wright following a traffic stop.
Nine of the first 12 jurors seated for Kim Potter’s trial are white — roughly in line with the demographics of surrounding Hennepin County, but notably less diverse than the jury that convicted former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin this spring in the death of George Floyd.
Potter, 49, is charged with first- and second-degree manslaughter in the April 11 shooting in the suburb of Brooklyn Center. Opening statements are scheduled for Wednesday.
Legal experts have said juries that are diverse by race, gender and economic background are necessary to minimize bias in the legal system.
The Chauvin jury that was split 50-50 between whites and people of color was “mostly just luck of the draw,” said Ted SampsellJones, a professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul.
Vatican takes in 12 migrants as pope denounces indifference
NICOSIA, Cyprus — Pope Francis on Friday denounced the “culture of indifference” that the West shows migrants as the Vatican confirmed that at least a dozen asylum-seekers would be transferred from Cyprus to Italy in a gesture of solidarity with European countries that have received a disproportionate share of would-be refugees.
The transfer, formally announced on the second day of Francis’ visit to Cyprus, came on the eve of his scheduled arrival in Greece, from where he brought a dozen Syrian Muslim refugees home with him aboard the papal plane in 2016.
The Vatican said the Rome-based Sant’Egidio Community, working with governments, had arranged to bring the asylum-seekers from Cyprus to Italy in the coming weeks. It said 12 people would be initially transferred. Earlier, the Cypriot Interior Ministry had thanked Francis and the Holy See for the initiative to relocate 50 people, saying it was a recognition of Cyprus’ inability to continue to absorb migrants and refugees.
The Vatican didn’t immediately respond when asked about the discrepancy, though presumably more could be relocated at a later date since Sant’Egidio for years has run “humanitarian corridor” services to bring migrants to Italy legally.