Breaking: Explosion Reported at Boston Marathon's Finish Line

[Adele Edisen]

Death penalty lawyer Clarke 'humanizes' client and jury
By Joseph Ax

Defense attorney Judy Clarke speaks …

By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK (Reuters) - When death penalty expert Judy Clarke joined the defense team for the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, she spent months trying to establish a rapport so she could convince him to accept a plea deal that would spare him capital punishment.

Though she and his other lawyers angered Kaczynski when they sought to introduce evidence of his mental illness, he eventually pleaded guilty in 1998 and received a life sentence.

"I think she has a real gift," David Kaczynski, his brother said on Tuesday, a day after Clarke was assigned to the defense team for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. "Even if it's the smallest sliver of common ground, Judy's going to be able to find that. There's no doubt in my mind that Judy saw my brother's humanity despite the terrible things he'd done."

Tsarnaev, 19, is accused of setting off explosives April 15 near the finish line with his older brother, Tamerlan, killing 3 and injuring 264. He was arrested April 19 after a massive manhunt that left his brother dead following a police shootout.

Tsarnaev faces charges of using a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property with an explosive device, both of which can carry the death penalty when they cause the death of others. He has not yet entered a plea. U.S. authorities have not said whether they will seek capital punishment.

In court papers asking a judge to appoint Clarke as a public defender, one of Tsarnaev's lawyers, Miriam Conrad, cited a federal law giving defendants in potential capital cases a right to an attorney with experience handling death penalty cases.

Over nearly two decades of representing infamous defendants in capital cases, Clarke, who opposes the death penalty, has built a national reputation for avoiding executions for her clients.

In addition to Kaczynski, Clarke defended Eric Rudolph, the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bomber, and Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who drowned her young sons in 1994. They both were spared the death penalty.

Most recently, Clarke represented Jared Loughner, the 24-year-old charged with killing six and wounding former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in a January 2011 mass shooting. Loughner, who faced death, pleaded guilty in August 2012 in a deal that sent him to prison for life.

Colleagues said Clarke is known for her meticulous research into the lives of her clients to find possible mitigating factors, and that she possesses a sharp sense of humor and a folksy style that belies her intense, no-nonsense preparation.

"She humanizes the client. But more importantly, she humanizes the jury, the lawyers, the judges," said Gerald Goldstein, a defense lawyer who has known Clarke for 30 years. "Judy's brilliant at making people reconsider their values ... to reconsider our place in making life or death decisions."

'GENTLE JUDY'

With an unassuming manner, Clarke can come across as "gentle Judy," said a longtime acquaintance, criminal defense lawyer Donald Rehkopf.

"She's not flamboyant or in your face - just the opposite," he said.

Clarke rarely grants media interviews and did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Last week, at a forum at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, Clarke delivered the keynote address, explaining that her job was to convince reluctant clients that opting for prison was better than choosing a death sentence.

"They're looking into the lens of life in prison in a box," she said, according to an Associated Press account. "Our job is to provide them with a reason to live."

Her efforts are not always welcomed by her clients, many of whom suffered from mental illness. Kaczynski tried to have his legal team fired and later unsuccessfully asked an appeals court to throw out his guilty plea, while Loughner spat and lunged at Clarke during a meeting in prison early on in his case, according to court filings.

There is no evidence that Tsarnaev, a naturalized U.S. citizen and a student at the University of Massachusetts, suffered from psychological problems.

Legal experts have said that defense lawyers could point to Tsarnaev's youth and the possible influence of his older brother as reasons for the government not to seek capital punishment.

Clarke previously ran the San Diego office of the Federal Defenders and served as president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. She is in private practice in San Diego with her husband while continuing to take on public defense work in capital cases.

For Barry Scheck, the co-founder of the New York-based Innocence Project, which uses DNA evidence to exonerate convicted defendants, Clarke has become the "go-to" public defender for capital cases.

"She has a profoundly developed sense of humanity, aside from being a great lawyer," said Scheck, who has known Clarke for more than 20 years. "That's a powerful combination."

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Additional reporting by Terry Baynes; editing by Noeleen Walder, Mary Milliken and Philip Barbara)

Adele

[Peter Lemkin]

BOSTON (CBS/AP) Three additional suspects were arrested Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bombings investigation.

Their names have not been released, but according to CBS News, all three are friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports the charges are under seal, but they are related to incidents after the bombings and interfering with investigators.

Police said more details will be revealed later today and noted that there is no threat to the public. The three are expected in federal court in South Boston Wednesday afternoon.

Two will be charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements. They are not U.S. citizens.

According to WBZ-TV's Karen Anderson, their names are Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev. Both are originally from Kazakhstan and attended the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.


Azamat Tazhayakov (left) and Dias Kadyrbayev (middle) with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Times Square. (Photo via vk.com)

The third suspect, according to Anderson, was born and raised in Massachusetts. He will be charged with making false statements, CBS reported.

Sources told CBS News senior correspondent John Miller that investigators arrested the three for harboring or aiding Tsarnaev after the fact.

Orr said, at this point in the probe, there is no evidence of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev having direct help before the bombings.

The three were not arrested in the city of Boston, but nearby, according to Miller. This is possibly connected to the house raided in New Bedford on the Friday after the bombing.

Authorities had recently searched a landfill near UMass-Dartmouth, but they have not said what was found.

Earlier today, lawyers for Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev said their clients have been extensively interviewed by federal investigators.

The two men appeared via video for a visa violation hearing in immigration court in Boston on Wednesday.

They have been held in a county jail for more than a week on allegations that they violated their student visas while attending UMass-Dartmouth with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

One of the three people taken into custody in New Bedford April 19. (Photo courtesy: Darlene Ryms)

The marathon attack was not mentioned in court and their cases were continued.

Their attorneys said afterward that authorities have not indicated their clients had anything to do with the bombings. Federal authorities would not comment.

Attorney Robert Stahl said Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev were drawn to Tsarnaev because he also spoke Russian.

[Dawn Meredith]

What proof do we have that he "admitted his role in the bombing"? He could not talk, we were told. Is there a written admission? Did he sign something already prepared? Is it his signature?
EVIDENCE. Thus far we have none. Just the talking heads repeating the FBI and other official lies.
And IF he made some sort of "admission" I wonder under what circumstances that occurred. Were his nuts being squeesed? Torture is ok these days. Fuck precedent to the contrary and the Constitution.
Welcome to the new US of A. Anything's fair game.

Dawn

ps Just hearing NG is being entered, or will be entered.

[Jeffrey Orling]

The nature of evidence has certainly evolved. The entire story ahs come from official sources relayed via the media. Why would the story be even changing? People are making stuff up and passing on to the media. The lockdown of Boston pretty much put the kaboosh on any reporter doing anything on their own. And then the FBI goers around confiscating all sorts of things.. cameras for one... and likely scrubbing the scene or planting evidence.

Sad, but people accept such nonsense. They do as told and believe what they are told.

[Peter Lemkin]

US/Saudi Covert Ops in Chechnya: Ricin, Diamonds, Stingers … and Adnan Khashoggi
By John Stanton / PravdaMay 1st,

As the Cold War between the USSR and the USA drew down in the early 1990′s, organizations/institutions used to fund proxy wars-and destabilization effortsbetween the two Empires became exposed. With the Cold War ostensibly over, the corrupt and illegal actions of such groups could no longer be ignored, or covered up, as the larger purpose of them was to fund the fight against the Red Menace of Communism.

One of the most notable instances of the demise of a Cold War machine was the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). Founded in 1972 it would survive under various guises until roughly 2002. BCCI was designed to avoid regulatory scrutiny. Direct involvement with BCCI's illegal activities-including covering them upwould ultimately besmirch the names of members/advisors of every US presidential administration from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton: Clark Clifford, Richard Helms, George Bush I, James Baker, William Casey, Bert Lance, and Marc Rich among them. BCCI clients included the intelligence agencies form the US and Saudi Arabia, the Medellin Cartel and Saddam Hussein.

Bank accounts were opened at BCCI by US intelligence agencies in order to fund the Mujahideen not only in Afghanistan but in the Caucasian Region to include Chechnya and Dagestan. Once BCCI was shut down a new means of off-the-books funding was needed. It was then that the US and Saudi intelligence organizations figured out that diamonds from the African Continent would be a worthy convertible cash vehicle. Diamonds would make their way from Angola to Belgium. Once converted to cash, US and Saudi intelligence agencies could clandestinely purchase weapons, like Stinger Missiles, and bribe the appropriate personnel to get the nasty little weapons where they needed to be. In this case the anti-aircraft Stingers would land in the hands of Chechen rebels fighting against the Russian military. A transit and training point was (and remains) NATO and Israeli friendly Georgia.

According to the Russian research group Civil Research, "After signing the Khasavyurt Accord in Dagestan in 1996 ending the first Chechen Warand after the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria's de facto independence"it became absolutely clear that Chechnya became a key element in the process of controlled destabilization of the Caucasian Region. Hence well-known intelligence managers of such destabilization processes moved to solve Chechen problems. The creators and instigators of shadow money and arms flows began to appear."

What's the Story?

BCCI "worked in the interests of American and Saudi elites and was a means of organization and financing of controlled crises in different regions from South America to Middle Asia…BCCI took an active part in arms smuggling, financing of terrorist groupings, and drug money laundering." According to Civil Research, BCCI accounts were surreptitiously used to fund the creation of nuclear weapons in Pakistan. The Board of directors of BCCI included two chiefs of the US Central Intelligence AgencyWilliam Casey and Richard Helms; the head of the General secret service of Saudi Arabia from 1997-2001, Turki al-Feisal al-Saud; Camal Adkham -a former chief of the Saudi Arabia Secret service before; and Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi multimillionaire, arms dealer, official representative of Saudi Bin Laden Group in the USA, and a key player in the Iran-Contra Affair under President Ronald Reagan.

"In 1997 Khashoggi introduced Khozh-Akhmed Nukhaev (Chechen Mafia leader and opponent of Radical Islam and the USA) to former US Secretary of State James Baker who headed the election campaigns of Ronald Reagan and George Bush I. Baker would also be called in to mediate the 2000 Election debacle in Florida. Baker was Khashoggi's partner in BCCI and the Carlyle Group."

Civil Research believes that it is likely that during meetings between the two, "the decision to create a structure to control the process of destabilization in the Caucasian Regionsome kind of Regional BCCI or Caucasian Common Marketwas made. In April of 1997 Nukhaev registered the Caucasian-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Washington.

"We are inclined to think that Nukhaev's structures were managed by American and Saudi Special Services and were financed by Khashoggi through BCCI," said Civil Research.

"The funds were used to purchase and deliver the modern means of Terrorist War to Chechnya: high accuracy weapons like anti-aircraft Stingers, satellite communication gear, intelligence tactics, sabotage devices, and well trained instructors mainly from the General Secret Service of Saudi Arabia… There are serious reasons to think that a batch of 70 Stingers came to Chechnya from Saudi Arabia."

Once BCCI's operations were exposed by the US Congress and an international assortment of regulators a new means of funding arms sales to anti-Russian, radicalized followers of Islam had to be found by NATO, US and Saudi intelligence agencies. Anti-Russian operations had also been conducted by then-active duty US Special Forces operating in Chechnya and Bosnia. These former American soldiers would find work, post-911, with companies like the former Blackwater (XE) and Triple Canopy.

Diamond Dogs

US, NATO and Saudi intelligence agencies turned to the diamond market to fund operations to destabilize Russia. According to Civil Research, in 1993 Aziz Ben Said Ben Ali al-Gamdi (a regular officer of General Secret Service of Saudi Arabia) went to Angola. "Later he would become known as Abu al Valid. During a business trip to Angola Abu al-Valid made contacts with the representatives both of UNITA and the legal government who were engaged in export of Angolan diamonds to Antwerp in Belgium. At the time Angola was filled with enterprising fragments of Soviet Special Services like Viktor Bute who not without success supported black and gray exports of Angolan diamonds to Belgium."

The Angolan conflict didn't interest the US, NATO or Saudi Special Services as much as did the acquisition and use of diamonds to create a considerable flow of cash for clandestine operations to further destabilize Russia by igniting Chechen radicalization.

By 1995 the Saudi Arabian Special Services had successfully created diamond flows from Luanda, Angola to Antwerp, Belgium to be used to fund radicalization and terror. Abu al-Valid showed up in Chechnya now as a Saudi Arabian resident and also as a representative of radical Islam grouping known as Brothers-Muslims. The first business contact of Abu al-Valid in Chechnya was with Nukhaev. A few months later Nukhaev was introduced to Khashoggi. Thus the construction of Caucasian Common Market" began. In 1997 Nukhaev, as an emissary of Caucasian Common Market, visited Belgium. By that time Antwerp was given the nickname Belgian Caliphate by the European press.

Meanwhile in Georgia

Lorenzo Vidino in How Chechnya Became a Breeding Ground for Terror (Middle East Quarterly Summer 2005) indicated that in 2002 a cadre of Islamic fundamentalists made camp in Pankisi Gorge in Georgia to plan and train.

"According to Georgian officials, in early 2002, some sixty Arab computer, communications, and financial specialists, military trainers, chemists, and bomb-makers settled in the gorge. The group used sophisticated satellite and encrypted communications to support both operations in Chechnya and terrorists planning attacks against Western targets. The Pankisi Arabs later tried to buy explosives for what Georgian security officials believe was to have been a major attack on U.S. or other Western installations in Russia."

Vidino also claimed that in 2003 there was an effort by the Pankisi Arabs to use Ricin to kill.

"A 2003 plot involving ricin, a virulent and deadly toxin, demonstrated the Islamist co-option of the Chechen nationalist conflict and its transformation into a global jihadist training ground. According to U.S. intelligence sources cited in an Italian indictment, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi (the Jordanian terrorist alleged to mastermind much of the Iraqi insurgency) dispatched Adnan Muhammad Sadiq (Abu Atiya), a former Al-Qaeda instructor at a Herat, Afghanistan training camp, to Pankisi [Georgia]. In the gorge, Abu Atiya, a Palestinian who had lost a leg during the Chechen War, trained terrorists in the use of toxic gases. He also was behind a 2002 scheme to stage biological and chemical attacks against Russian or American interests in Turkey."

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security. His latest book is The Raptor's Eye. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columni...hechnya-0/

[Magda Hassan]

What proof do we have that he "admitted his role in the bombing"? He could not talk, we were told. Is there a written admission? Did he sign something already prepared? Is it his signature?
EVIDENCE. Thus far we have none. Just the talking heads repeating the FBI and other official lies.
And IF he made some sort of "admission" I wonder under what circumstances that occurred. Were his nuts being squeesed? Torture is ok these days. Fuck precedent to the contrary and the Constitution.
Welcome to the new US of A. Anything's fair game.

Dawn

ps Just hearing NG is being entered, or will be entered.

Anything he said before he was read his rights cannot be used anyway.

[Lauren Johnson]

What proof do we have that he "admitted his role in the bombing"? He could not talk, we were told. Is there a written admission? Did he sign something already prepared? Is it his signature?
EVIDENCE. Thus far we have none. Just the talking heads repeating the FBI and other official lies.
And IF he made some sort of "admission" I wonder under what circumstances that occurred. Were his nuts being squeesed? Torture is ok these days. Fuck precedent to the contrary and the Constitution.
Welcome to the new US of A. Anything's fair game.

Dawn

ps Just hearing NG is being entered, or will be entered.

Anything he said before he was read his rights cannot be used anyway.

But if you don't go to trial, what does it matter?

Edit: Of course it matters. But I am expressing a thought process of a corrupted court system. Even if he gets a trial, it will be tilted towards the prosecution.

[Magda Hassan]

What proof do we have that he "admitted his role in the bombing"? He could not talk, we were told. Is there a written admission? Did he sign something already prepared? Is it his signature?
EVIDENCE. Thus far we have none. Just the talking heads repeating the FBI and other official lies.
And IF he made some sort of "admission" I wonder under what circumstances that occurred. Were his nuts being squeesed? Torture is ok these days. Fuck precedent to the contrary and the Constitution.
Welcome to the new US of A. Anything's fair game.

Dawn

ps Just hearing NG is being entered, or will be entered.

Anything he said before he was read his rights cannot be used anyway.

But if you don't go to trial, what does it matter?

Edit: Of course it matters. But I am expressing a thought process of a corrupted court system. Even if he gets a trial, it will be tilted towards the prosecution.

Yeah. The legal system looks like is not much to do with justice at all.

[Magda Hassan]

How the Boston Bombings May Change the World for the Worse!

By James Petras

[TABLE="width: 80%"]
[TR]
[TD]The relation between the suspected Boston Marathon bombers and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Massachusetts State Police (MSP) and the Boston Police (BP) is a point of contention and controversy.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

May 02, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - The FBI, at first, claimed no knowledge of the bombing suspects but later was forced to admit having received at least two sets of intelligence reports, one from Russian officials and another from the CIA, identifying one of the suspected bombers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, as a potential security threat linked to a Chechen terrorist organization. Testimony from Tsarnaev's mother and father indicates that the FBI was active in following, harassing and interrogating the suspect before the bombing. Despite general directives from the US Departments of Justice and Homeland Security mandating US security to aggressively pursue Islamist terrorists', the FBI claims to have made no effort to follow-up on the Russian and CIA security alerts, especially after Tamerlan Tsarnaev returned from Russian state of Dagestan last year where he allegedly met six times with a known Chechen terrorist, Gadzhimurad Dolgatov, in a fundamentalist Salafi mosque.

The official government and corporate media versions claim the FBI may have over-looked' the security risk posed by Tsarnaev. Congressional critics argue that the FBI was negligent' in following up leads provided by the Russians and the CIA. A more likely explanation is that the FBI was actively engaged with Tsarnaev and deliberately encouraged the conspiracy for self-serving purposes.

The most benign hypothesis is that the FBI was using Tsarnaev as a means of infiltrating and securing intelligence on other possible terrorists'. A more plausible hypothesis is that the Boston office of the FBI had set the pair of brothers up for a sting operation in order to enhance their anti-terrorist credentials and that the operation' got out of hand with Tamarlan having his own agenda. The most likely hypothesis is that the FBI facilitated the bombing in order to revive the flagging fortunes of the war on terror' foisted on a war-weary and economically depressed American public.

The FBI in Boston has a long and notorious history of working with and protecting certain leaders of organized crime in return for information about targeted rivals: The most notorious example is the FBI's 20-year partnership' with one of Boston's most feared gangland killers, James Whitey' Bulger, where the mobster was provided with protection and collaboration in return for his information about a rival crime family and other competitors. In 2012, Bulger was finally indicted for 19 murders mostly committed under FBI protection' although one of his closest mob-partners claims he murdered 40 people in his lifetime.

The Boston Bombings served as a detonator to mobilize the entire US security apparatus; it has led to the suspension of constitutional guaranties. It has been accompanied by an intense mass media campaign glorifying police state operations and the imposition of virtual martial law in the Boston metropolitan area of over 4.5 million inhabitants. The military police operation and media campaign aroused fear and terror among the public. Instant psychodrama produced mass worship of the heroic' police: they were portrayed as having saved the public from unknown numbers of armed terrorists lurking in their neighborhoods. The police, the FBI and the entire Security Apparatus were repeatedly honored' at public spectacles, sports and civic events, lauded as guardians' and saviors'. The sordid role of FBI in organizing entrapment operations was never mentioned. The hundreds of billions wasted in futile overseas wars against terror' went down the memory hole. The opposition to Washington's cuts in social programs was diverted almost overnight to support new funding for US military intervention in Syria and North Korea, a greater arms build-up in Israel and domestic security.

The Boston Bombings coincided with the White House dictating a new round of domestic police state measures and launching a series of aggressive military moves in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. The Pentagon has organized its biggest and most threatening air, sea and land military exercises right on the borders of North Korea. The White House has encouraged and promoted Japan's belligerent military posture toward China regarding disputed islands in the South China Sea. Secretary of State Kerry has increased military aid to the Syrian terrorists by at least $130 million and dispatched hundreds of Special Forces to Jordan to train the jihadi-mercenaries against the Syrian government. The White House concocted charges that Damascus deployed chemical weapons against the rebels to justify direct US military intervention in Syria. Closer to home, the White House has given unconditional support to the violent Venezuelan opposition's post-election campaign designed to provoke a civil war while refusing to recognize the internationally certified election victory of President Maduro.

It is very clear the Obama regime wants to turn the clock back a decade to recreate the terrible political climate of 2001-02. He seeks to fabricate a sense of an imminent terrorist threat based on the Boston Bombings' in order to re-launch another global military campaign. Instead of Iraq the threat' is now Syria, Iran and Lebanon. Today, the threat is North Korea tomorrow it could be China. Today, it is Venezuela next it could be Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador, and the entire edifice of Latin American regional integration.

The civilian casualties and deaths resulting from the Boston Bombings, linked to the US backing and sheltering of Chechen terrorists, are a small price for Washington to pay if it results in escalating global wars and greater impunity for the National Police State.

Re-launching a new and more virulent version of militarized global empire building is of the highest priority. The targeted countries have global significance: Venezuela and Iran are oil producing giants, the backbone of OPEC and adversaries of Israel. China is the second biggest economy in the world and the principle challenger to US economic dominance. Cowering and confusing millions of downwardly mobile Americans weakens the principle domestic obstacle to bigger and more comprehensive cuts in social programs in order to finance global wars.

Indeed, the Boston Bombings have larger political and economic consequences; they set the stage for a new round of wars abroad and regressive (and repressive) changes at home.

James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books).

See also

Most Americans Favor Public Surveillance: Poll: Results of a new poll show that Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of the installation of surveillance cameras in public places and see the move as an acceptable trade-off to any infringement that might cause on their privacy, The New York Times reports.

[Peter Lemkin]

Good [sic] article. It certainly didn't change anything for the better! It is likely to make Americans compliant with a UK-level of surveillance cameras AND to keep up the pretense of constant attack by 'terrorists' - not to forget that now its OK to have the Police/Military go door to door searching homes without a warrant or act of legislation even. The Police State is almost complete. Hitler would be very pleased that we followed his model - only Americanized and modernized it. Proud it NOT a feeling that comes to mind on being American, these days. If someone doesn't contest what happened in Court and win - its just about 'over' for Democracy in the USA, IMHO.