Witness: Sergeant bragged of killing unarmed man (AP)

JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. – A soldier accused of masterminding the murders of three Afghan civilians last year boasted about one of the killings, an Army medic testified Friday.

Pvt. Robert Stevens told an investigating officer during a hearing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle that Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs of Billings, Mont., acknowledged participating in the February 2010 killing, The News Tribune newspaper reported.

The victim has previously been described as a random civilian target, but Stevens, of Portland, Ore., testified that Gibbs said he suspected the unarmed man was involved in the Taliban and that Gibbs was "sick of picking him up and letting him go."

Stevens said Gibbs recounted how he fired off a couple rounds from an AK-47 he had illicitly obtained, kicked the weapon toward the Afghan, and then shot him with his Army-issued M4 rifle. The placement of the AK-47 near the victim was intended to make him appear to have been a combatant.

Those details generally back up an account of the shooting given by the government's key witness, Pvt. Jeremy Morlock, of Wasilla, Alaska. Morlock has admitted being involved in all three killings and testified Thursday that it was Gibbs' idea to start killing civilians. Morlock has been sentenced to 24 years in prison.

Gibbs and Morlock are among five soldiers charged in the killings in Kandahar Province. Gibbs is also charged with keeping severed fingers from the dead and other misconduct, including leading others in beating up a soldier who reported drug use in the unit.

He denies the charges and maintains the killings were appropriate engagements.

Stevens has described himself as a close friend of Gibbs at the time of the killings and said that although he was in a different unit, Gibbs frequently suggested that Stevens join him on patrols. During one of those patrols, he said in a sworn statement previously given to investigators, Gibbs ordered him and others to fire at two unarmed men in a field. They missed.

"When SSG Gibbs called for us to fire I knew there was not a threat, and that there was no reason to shoot these guys," Stevens said in the statement. "I was extremely thankful to find out that we had not killed or wounded either of those two individuals, and I regret not trying to stop Staff Sgt. Gibbs from trying to kill innocent people."

Stevens pleaded guilty in December to charges stemming from that shooting and other misconduct allegations in a deal that called for him to serve nine months in prison, be demoted from staff sergeant to private, and testify against other defendants.

Stevens also said Gibbs had shown him a finger he claimed to have cut from the body of an Afghan National Army or Afghan National Police member killed by a roadside bomb, and that Gibbs illicitly collected weapons. Others claimed that Gibbs dropped such weapons near the bodies of civilians to make them appear to have been combatants.

The testimony Friday came as part of a preliminary hearing that will help determine what charges against Gibbs advance to a court martial in early October.

Gibbs' attorney sought to cast doubt on Stevens' testimony by citing his original statement to Army investigators. In that document, Stevens denied any knowledge of Gibbs' wrongdoing.

Stevens testified that he changed his story four days later when Army investigators told him — falsely — that Gibbs had confessed.

The newspaper reports that Morlock and another Stryker soldier, Pvt. Emmitt Quintal of Weston, Ore., disclosed in court this week that they smoked hashish together several times after they had been detained for investigation in Afghanistan. Both received plea agreements to testify in the "kill team" investigation.

Defense lawyers hope to suggest that the soldiers ironed out their stories together while they shared housing, giving them an opportunity to lay the blame on their platoon mates.

Quintal said Friday they smoked hashish together multiple times in the first weeks of the Army investigation, but he said they didn't talk about the details of the case in that period.

On Thursday, Morlock said they didn't talk about straightening out their stories before speaking with Army investigators.

Quintal was given a bad conduct discharge and 90 days hard labor after pleading guilty to using drugs during his deployment and assaulting a soldier who blew the whistle on platoon misconduct.

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Information from: The News Tribune, http://www.thenewstribune.com

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Witness tampering alleged at Casey Anthony trial (AP)

ORLANDO, Fla. – Authorities were looking into allegations of witness tampering during Casey Anthony's murder trial, a Florida sheriff said Tuesday during a wide-ranging news conference with his top investigators in what he said was an effort to bring closure to a case that polarized the country.

Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings also revealed that prosecutors were considering perjury charges against Anthony's mother, but a spokeswoman for the state attorney's office later said they would not be pursued.

Casey Anthony was acquitted a week ago on charges of killing her 2-year-old daughter Caylee in 2008. Anthony was found guilty on four charges of lying to law enforcement officers. She is to be released from jail Sunday.

The sheriff held the news conference to defend his investigation and because his office had been besieged with interview requests since the verdict.

"The ultimate goal ... is that our personnel can get back to work doing the business of the taxpayers and residents of Orange County," Demings said. "This is the only way that we can move forward."

Demings wouldn't say who was accused of witness tampering, but it didn't involve Casey Anthony's mother, Cindy. She stunned prosecutors during the trial when she testified that she had done searches for chloroform on the family's computer. Prosecutors believed, along with sheriff's investigators, that Casey Anthony had performed the search as she plotted to kill Caylee.

Later, testimony by two of Cindy Anthony's co-workers that the company's electronic records showed that she was logged into her work system for most of the day on both March 17 and March 21 when the chloroform searches were done.

Cindy Anthony said she had performed the Internet searches for chloroform while looking up information on chlorophyll, a green pigment found in plants. Chloroform is a chemical that can be used as a sedative and is fatal to children in small doses.

A co-worker said the system would not have recorded Cindy Anthony's presence if a person hadn't been actively using the work computer.

The government presented evidence at trial that chloroform was found in Anthony's car trunk and insinuated that she could have used it to render Caylee unconscious.

As for the alleged witness tampering, detective John Allen would only say the sheriff's office has interviewed some witnesses.

"In regards to where we will go, it really depends on what information we get and what people come forward to provide additional information," Allen said.

The investigators at the news conference sat at a table alongside a big picture of Caylee. The sheriff said it was a reminder of what his investigators were pursuing during the three-year case that dominated his resources.

"This is what this was all about," Demings said. "It was about a missing child. That's what motivated our staff and our community."

Demings said his office followed up on more than 600 tips and worked with more than 100 FBI agents. He said he is still in the process of working with his accounting department to total up substantial investigative costs. Prosecutors want Anthony to incur those costs because they said the lies she was convicted of telling investigators directly led to the expenditures.

"Obviously those were resources that could have been put toward finding other missing children," Allen said.

Texas Equusearch, the private group that conducted several searches for Caylee in 2008, filed a lawsuit against Anthony on Tuesday, seeking $15,000 for what it spent on searches. The lawsuit claimed Anthony made misrepresentations to the group's founder, causing extensive, costly and time-consuming searches for Caylee.

Anthony's defense said Caylee accidentally drowned in the family pool and her father, a former police officer, helped cover it up. Anthony's partying and shopping during the month before her daughter was reported missing was caused in part by her father's sexual abuse, her attorneys said.

George Anthony denied the claims in court, and investigators said Tuesday they were rebuffed by the defense team when they tried to interview her about the allegations.

Allen and the case's lead detective, Yuri Melich, said they wouldn't do anything differently in the case, despite not winning a conviction.

"Ultimately, it's up to the jury to decide," Melich said. "We respect that and honor that."

The sheriff did acknowledge that finding Caylee's remains earlier could have built a stronger case. The remains were found by a meter reader in December 2008, six months after Caylee was reported missing. The meter reader initially called authorities as early as August about seeing what might have been a skull in the woods.

Demings said the investigator called out after the meter reader's report no longer works at the sheriff's office, and he believed authorities correctly focused on Anthony.

"I certainly don't have any doubt," Allen said. "... I think our work was solid."

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Jury may have doubted key Mumbai attacks witness (AP)

CHICAGO – Five days of testimony from the government's star witness in the trial of a Chicago businessman accused in the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks provided a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a Pakistani militant group and its suspected ties to the country's main intelligence agency.

But jurors' split verdict in the case suggests they didn't always take David Coleman Headley — an admitted terrorist with a troubled past — at his word, underlining the difficulties federal prosecutors face winning complex terrorism cases that involve questionable cooperating witnesses and a complicated web of terror networks.

"Jurors are always looking for corroborating evidence," said former U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton. "Mr. Headley avoided the death penalty and it's understandable that jurors would want evidence that his testimony was independently confirmed, but didn't find it."

After two days of deliberations, jurors cleared Tahawwur Rana, a Pakistani-born Canadian, of any involvement in the three-day siege that has often been called India's 9/11. He was convicted of two lesser charges: providing material support to the terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was blamed in the attacks, and in a plot that never was carried out against a Danish newspaper that in 2005 printed cartoons of Prophet Muhammad. He faces up to 30 years in prison on the two charges.

Though defense attorneys called it a "conflicting decision" and planned to challenge the verdict, experts say the jury's split ruling isn't wholly surprising, especially because so much of the trial focused on Headley's testimony.

The 50-year-old American Pakistani pleaded guilty to laying the groundwork in the attacks on Mumbai and conducting surveillance in Copenhagen. He agreed to testify against his school friend Rana to avoid the death penalty and extradition.

Those facts probably weren't lost on jurors, who heard defense attorneys chip away at Headley's credibility for days, portraying him as a manipulator, who lied to FBI agents and the judge and worked as a Drug Enforcement Administration informant to get lighter sentences after two heroin smuggling convictions.

Experts said the evidence in the Denmark plot seemed easier to verify independently of Headley, who spent days on the stand detailing in emails, recorded conversations and testimony how he worked for both the Pakistani intelligence agency known as the ISI and Lashkar. His testimony took up more than half the trial, and had been highly anticipated worldwide after Osama bin Laden was found hiding out in a military garrison town outside of Islamabad. The trial fueled fears that could put pressure on the already frayed U.S.-Pakistani relations and inflame tensions between Pakistan and India.

Prosecutors presented Rana's videotaped arrest statement to the FBI where he said he knew Headley had trained with Lashkar. They also played a September 2009 recorded phone conversation between the men where "targets," including the Danish newspaper, were discussed.

But when it came to the Mumbai accusation, evidence either originated from Headley or one of the other six Pakistani men charged in absentia in the plot.

Seth Jones, a RAND Corp. political scientist, said it is generally easier for the government to prove that somebody is supporting a group than helping in a plot.

"Headley did not appear as crucial as the government had hoped in prosecuting Rana," Jones said. "There just was insufficient evidence to support his direct involvement in the Mumbai attacks."

Rana was accused of allowing Headley to open a branch of his Chicago-based immigration law business in Mumbai as a cover story and travel as a representative of the company in Denmark. In court, a travel agent showed how Rana booked travel for Headley and prosecutors showed emails from the Danish newspaper.

The Indian government expressed disappointment with the jury's ruling and said it would examine the verdict and evidence to decide whether to formally charge Headley, Rana and others in its own investigation into the Mumbai rampage, which left more than 160 people dead.

"When Rana has been held guilty of assisting the Lashkar -e-Taiba and guilty of supporting terrorist acts in Denmark how have they separated him from the Mumbai attacks?" said Ujjawal Nikam, the special public prosecutor in the Mumbai attack trial in India. "It appears that there are some apparent contradictions in this verdict."

Still, the split verdict was considered at least a partial win for the Justice Department, with U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald calling it a clear message to "all those who help terrorists."

Headley's testimony may not have been enough to convict Rana in the Mumbai attacks, but it might have been the only shot prosecutors had, said Pat Rowan, the former head of the Justice Department's national security division.

"There's a lot of individuals out there who are cooperators, and they have a lot of baggage, and you're not really sure how they'll come across when they testify," Rowan said.

Roy Black, a high-profile Miami defense attorney, said the benefit to using a cooperating witness, such as Headley, is that the prosecution has someone who can tell the entire story, and then the jury can parse out what they believe.

Jurors weren't available to explain their verdict. The names weren't released due to the sensitivity of the case, and they declined to speak publicly. The only hint of what was being discussed during deliberations is the one question they had about the affiliations of two other men charged in absentia in the case. The judge directed them to look at the evidence.

"It's not uncommon for juries who think it was a close case to want to show how close they thought it was by dividing up the counts and finding people guilty of one and not the other," said Stuart Baker, a former senior Homeland Security official and former general counsel of the National Security Agency.

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Associated Press writers Eileen Sullivan in Washington and Muneeza Naqvi and Ashok Sharma in New Delhi contributed to this report.

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Sophia Tareen can be reached at http://twitter.com/sophiatareen

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Bill Richardson on witness list in NM bribery case (AP)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and more than a dozen current and former judges could be called to testify in the trial of a Las Cruces judge accused of bribery.

The Albuquerque Journal reports the officials are on a list of 28 potential witnesses for the trial of state District Judge Michael Murphy. He was indicted last month in a scandal that alleges judicial candidates were pressured to make political donations that were funneled to Richardson.

Asked by the newspaper if he would welcome a chance to take the stand, spokesman Gilbert Gallegos emailed that "Governor Richardson doesn't comment on political witch hunts."

The witness list also includes 14 current and former state and federal judges and Melinda Whitley, former chairwoman of the Dona Ana County Democratic Party.

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Top gov. witness in terror trial returns to stand (AP)

By SOPHIA TAREEN and EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Sophia Tareen And Eileen Sullivan, Associated Press – 57 mins ago

CHICAGO – The federal government's star witness was expected to reveal more potentially damaging details on Tuesday about the alleged close ties between Pakistan's main intelligence agency and the militant group blamed for the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks.

David Coleman Headley returned to witnesses stand in the terrorism trail of a Chicago businessman accused of collaborating in the three-day siege of India's largest city — a day after gave a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and described how he was recruited by a member of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as ISI, to take part in the Mumbai plot.

As the government's first and main witness in the trial of his longtime friend Tahawwur Rana, Headley's testimony outlining links between the ISI and Lashkar could inflame tensions between Pakistan and India and place even more pressure on the already frayed U.S. and Pakistani relations.

It also could add to the questions about Pakistan's commitment to catch terrorists and the ISI's connections to Pakistan-based terror groups, especially after Osama bin Laden was found hiding out earlier this month in a military garrison town outside of Islamabad.

Headley already pleaded guilty to laying the groundwork for the Mumbai attacks that killed more than 160 people including six Americans, and he agreed to testify against Rana to avoid the death penalty, making him one of the most valuable U.S. government counterterrorism witnesses.

"Headley's testimony is a nail in the coffin of U.S.-Pakistani strategic cooperation," said Bruce Riedel, a former White House adviser on Middle Eastern and South Asian issues. "Until now his commentary has gotten very little attention outside India, now it will finally get the attention it deserves here."

The Pakistani government has denied the ISI orchestrated the Mumbai attacks, and a senior ISI official said Tuesday that the agency has no links to the terrorists behind the rampage. When asked about the testimony being heard in Chicago, the officer said "it is nothing." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because his agency doesn't allow its operatives to be named in the media.

On Monday, Headley, a Pakistani-American, spent hours detailing the formulation of the attacks and Rana's alleged help in providing cover for his surveillance activities in India.

Speaking so softly at times that attorneys had to remind him to speak louder, Headley said he has been involved with Lashkar-e-Taiba for more than a decade, but he wasn't working with someone in the ISI until years later after he was arrested by tribal police near Afghanistan. It was then he said he met a major in the ISI and told him what he and Lashkar were planning.

This ISI major, Headley said, was "very pleased" with what he heard and asked if Headley would work with one of his ISI associates. Headley agreed and said he was released from custody. Headley soon received a call from a man he referred to during his testimony as "Major Iqbal," which the U.S. government says is an alias. Headley said he then met Iqbal in a safe house in Lahore, Pakistan and described his plans with Lashkar and his assignment to take videos of Mumbai in preparation of an operation.

Headley said ISI provided financial and military assistance to Lashkar, and he assumed they worked under the same umbrella. He said Iqbal and his Lashkar handler, Sajid Mir, were in communication, but he would meet with them separately in Pakistan. Headley said when he would take videos of sights in Mumbai, he would first share them with Iqbal and then with Mir.

"All these things I discussed with Major Iqbal, I went over it with Sajid again," Headley told jurors.

Before moving to Mumbai in late 2006, Headley said he first came to Chicago, met with Rana and explained the plot in hopes of persuading Rana to let him open a branch of his immigration services business as a cover. With Rana's help, Headley said he set up an immigration consulting business in Mumbai and secured work visas to travel in and out of India..

Rana, a Canadian citizen who has lived in Chicago for years, has pleaded not guilty in the case. His name is the seventh one on the federal indictment, and the only defendant in custody. Among the six others charged in absentia are Mir and Iqbal.

Rana is also accused of helping arrange travel and other help for Headley, who planned a separate attack that never happened on a Danish newspaper, which printed cartoons of Prophet Muhammad that angered Muslim.

Headley and Rana, both 50, met as classmates at a prestigious military boarding school in Pakistan and have stayed in touch. Defense attorneys told jurors their client was taken advantage of by his friend and did not know what was in store. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker said Rana was not duped and knew of the plans, both in Mumbai and Denmark.

Defense attorneys were expected scrutinize Headley's credibility as a witness, saying he has been motivated to change his story and that he was working for the U.S. government even as he said he was working for Lashkar and ISI.

Headley, born Daood Gilani in the U.S., has also been an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration after a drug conviction.

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