4 Filipino police officers arrested in kidnapping plot | The Arkansas Democratic Gazette

4 Filipino police officers arrested in kidnapping plot

MANILA, Philippines — Four police officers assigned to the Philippine Capital Region have been arrested in connection with the kidnapping for ransom of four foreign tourists, officials said Wednesday.

Two of the police on motorcycles stopped a luxury car carrying three Chinese and a Malaysian over the weekend, while their cohorts of armed civilians handcuffed and dragged the four tourists into a van. Two of the Chinese managed to escape and notified authorities, police said.

The remaining prisoners were beaten by the captors but released overnight after paying a $43,100 ransom, Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos said. Information provided by the freed tourists and images from security cameras led to the arrest of four police officers, including a police major, he said.

Security camera footage obtained by police showed the suspected kidnappers, including one who appeared to be wearing a police uniform, stopping a car and then forcing its passengers out, in full view of numerous passing motorists. One of the passengers struggles to break free as he is pushed into a van.

“I was shocked that it was police officers who were involved,” Abalos said at a news conference, where the four officers were shown handcuffed and in orange shirts. “This incident constitutes a serious attack on public trust and the fundamental values ​​of the police force.”

A German candidate attacked with a knife

BERLIN — A member of a German far-right party was stabbed and injured in the southwest city of Mannheim, German news agency dpa reported Wednesday, just days after a stabbing attack killed a police officer and injured five other people in the same city. .

Dpa reported that a candidate from the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party allegedly caught someone trying to tear up an election poster on Tuesday evening. When he confronted this person, he was attacked with a box cutter. Dpa reported that the candidate was still hospitalized with non-life-threatening cuts.

The candidate, who was campaigning for Sunday's local elections in the state of Baden-Württemberg, where Mannheim is located, was not identified. The attacker was arrested, the DPA reported.

The mayor of Mannheim strongly condemned the attack.

“This cowardly act is despicable and cannot be justified by anything,” said Christian Specht. “Anyone who attacks election candidates calls into question our free, equal, universal, direct and secret elections – and therefore the foundation of our democracy.”

Mannheim police said Wednesday that the arrested suspect, a 25-year-old man who was not identified, was later taken to a psychiatric hospital.

32 people reportedly killed in Israeli strike on school

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Thursday it targeted what it called a “Hamas compound” inside a school in the Gaza Strip, an attack that Hamas-affiliated media said killed at least least 32 people and injured dozens.

Reports about the strike in the Nuseirat region remained conflicting Thursday morning, and The Associated Press could not immediately and independently confirm details of the strike.

Hamas' al-Aqsa television channel reported at least 39 deaths, without providing a source for these figures. The Palestinian news agency WAFA said at least 32 people were killed and dozens more injured.

The Israeli military said its warplanes struck the school run by the United Nations aid agency for Palestinians, known by the acronym UNRWA.

The Israeli military claimed, without immediately providing evidence, that Hamas and Islamic Jihad were using the school as a cover for their operations.

Amanda Knox guilty of defamation in Italy

ROME — Amanda Knox, an American woman who was convicted and later exonerated of killing her roommate while they studied in Italy, lost another case in an Italian court Wednesday against defamation charges related to the 2007 murder.

Knox was convicted in a Florence court of slandering a man who ran a bar where she worked by unfairly accusing him of murdering her roommate, Meredith Kercher, 21, in 2007. Knox was sentenced by the court to three years in prison, a sentence she has already served.

Knox was initially convicted of slandering the man, Diya Lumumba, also known as Patrick, in 2009, a conviction which was upheld by various Italian courts. At the time of the murder, Lumumba was running a bar called Le Chic where Knox worked part-time.

Knox, 36, declined to speak to reporters after Wednesday's ruling. Standing outside the courtroom, she appeared distraught and held her husband, Christopher Robinson, in a long embrace.

“Amanda is very upset,” one of her lawyers, Carlo Dalla Vedova, said after the verdict was delivered. He said she was looking forward to the trial because it would be a way to bring an end to “17 years of legal proceedings.”

His defense team said it would read the court's full written decision, expected within 60 days, and would then most likely appeal to Italy's highest court.