In Prisoner Swap, Iran Frees American Held Since 2016 - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Iran on Saturday freed an American graduate student who had been imprisoned in Tehran for more than three years on suspicion of being a spy, in an exchange of prisoners at a moment of high tensions with Washington.

The American, Xiyue Wang, was flown in a Swiss government airplane from Tehran to Zurich, where he was met by Brian H. Hook, the State Department’s special representative for Iran, according to two senior United States officials.

Mr. Wang, 38, was a fourth-year Princeton University graduate student conducting research in Iran when he was arrested there in August 2016. He was charged with espionage and sentenced to 10 years in prison. United States officials deny that Mr. Wang, who had been locked in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, was a spy.

In exchange for Mr. Wang’s release, the United States freed Masoud Soleimani, an Iranian scientist who was arrested at a Chicago airport last year and was convicted on charges of violating American trade sanctions against Iran. American officials said that Mr. Soleimani’s release was a low price to pay for Mr. Wang’s freedom because Mr. Soleimani was expected to be released from prison as early as next month under a plea agreement.

The White House confirmed the prisoner swap early on Saturday with a statement from President Trump. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, also confirmed the deal on Twitter and posted photos of himself accompanying Mr. Soleimani home on an Iranian jet.

The senior American officials, speaking only on the condition of anonymity to discuss the delicate nature of the exchange, said they saw no indication that it portended a larger dialogue with Iran.

As part of a “maximum pressure campaign,” President Trump has targeted the country with severe economic sanctions. Mr. Trump, who withdrew from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, has said he hopes to negotiate with Tehran over its nuclear program and regional aggression. On Wednesday, Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, reiterated that Iran would be prepared to meet with the parties to the nuclear deal, including the United States, “whenever the U.S. lifts the unfair sanctions.”

Trump administration officials believe Iran may have released Mr. Wang in order to soften its image and deflect attention from a recent brutal crackdown on mass domestic protests. American officials believe the unrest has left hundreds dead and as many as 7,000 imprisoned, drawing condemnation from around the world.

Mr. Hook, who flew to Zurich overnight on an American military jet to meet Mr. Wang on Saturday, briefed reporters on Thursday at the State Department on the crackdown, denouncing “the atrocities the Iranian regime has committed against its own people.”

But it was Mr. Hook, working through Swiss intermediaries who often serve as a diplomatic channel between Washington and Tehran, who negotiated the prisoner exchange.

Mr. Hook has had no direct contact with Iranian officials since a March 2018 meeting in Vienna shortly before Mr. Trump withdrew from the nuclear agreement. In Vienna, Mr. Hook insisted to Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, that Mr. Wang’s transparent activities made clear he was no covert operative. Mr. Araghchi countered that perhaps Mr. Wang had simply not been trained well, according to a senior United States official.

Mr. Wang, who has a wife and a young son, was a student of late-19th- and early-20th-century Eurasian history, according to a Princeton University website. Backed by university funding, he went to Iran in 2016 to study Farsi and conduct archival research for his doctoral dissertation.

Before his visit, Mr. Wang explained in writing his research plan to the Iranian interest section at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, which issued his visa. “He was not involved in any political activities or social activism,” the university says.

Iran’s government charged that Mr. Wang had been “sent” to the country by Princeton and that he had ties to United States intelligence agencies.

In September 2018, a United Nations human rights panel found that Iran had “no legal basis” for Mr. Wang’s “arbitrary” imprisonment and said he should be released immediately.

Mr. Wang was born in 1980 in Beijing and in 2001 came to the United States, where he was naturalized in 2009. His release follows rumors of a breakthrough in his case, and his lawyer, Jason I. Poblete, tweeted on Wednesday that he was “hopeful there is progress in the near future” for Mr. Wang’s freedom.

Mr. Wang’s wife, Hua Qu, celebrated his release in a statement on Saturday. “Our family is complete once again,” she said. “Our son Shaofan and I have waited three long years for this day, and it’s hard to express in words how excited we are to be reunited with Xiyue.”

Mr. Soleimani, a prominent stem cell researcher who had been treating stroke patients at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, was charged with violating American trade sanctions by seeking to transfer growth hormones to Iran without a license. (He is not related to the senior Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.) His lawyers argued that the sanctions law at issue was ambiguous and that he had been swept up in rising tensions between the United States and Iran under Mr. Trump.

Mr. Soleimani flew to Zurich on the same aircraft as Mr. Hook, under the supervision of federal marshals.

Iran has long spoken of a potential prisoner swap with the United States. In September, Mr. Zarif told NPR that he had offered to exchange Mr. Wang for Mr. Soleimani.

“The Chinese American in Iran is in jail on a charge on a court case. And I have offered to exchange them, because as foreign minister I cannot go to our court and simply tell them, ‘release this man,’” he said. “I can go to the court and tell them, ‘I can exchange this man for an Iranian,’ and then have a standing, have a legal standing in the court.”

Several other Americans remain in custody in Iran, and Trump administration officials call their release a top priority.

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2019-12-07 11:03:00Z
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UK's Johnson, Corbyn clash in final debate before election - Fox News

LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn clashed Friday night in the last head-to-head debate before a general election in six days — an underpowered showdown that saw both men stick to well-worn phrases and promises about their plans for Brexit and Britain’s future.

Johnson, a Conservative who supports Britain’s exit from the European Union, tried to portray Corbyn as a waffler with no firm Brexit stance who would plunge the United Kingdom into more uncertainty. Corbyn reminded viewers about the Conservative government’s spending cuts, and claimed Johnson was bent on striking a trade deal with the United States that might harm Britain’s interests.

TRUMP BOOSTS BORIS JOHNSON AS HE SHOOTS DOWN CORBYN'S NHS CLAIM

Each questioned the other’s character. Johnson accused Corbyn of a “failure of leadership” for failing to stamp out anti-Semitism in his party. Corbyn retorted that “a failure of leadership is when you use racist remarks,” as Johnson has done with glibly offensive language. In a magazine article last year he called Muslim women who wear face-covering veils “letter boxes.”

BBC moderator Nick Robinson suggested voters faced an “impossible choice” between two unpopular and untrustworthy leaders. That impression was reinforced Friday when two former prime ministers criticized their own party’s contenders. Former Conservative premier John Major called Brexit the "worst foreign policy decision in my lifetime," while ex-Labour leader Tony Blair urged voters to make the best of a “horrible” choice.”

Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, left, and Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, during a head to head live Election Debate at the BBC TV studios in Maidstone, England, Friday Dec. 6, 2019. (Associated Press)

Opinion polls put Johnson’s Conservatives ahead of the Labour opposition before the election next Thursday, in which all 650 House of Commons seats are up for grabs.

The Conservatives had a minority government before the election, and Johnson pushed for the Dec. 12 vote, which is taking place more than two years early, in hopes of winning a majority and breaking Britain's political impasse over Brexit. He says that if the Conservatives win a majority, he will get Parliament to ratify his Brexit divorce deal and take the U.K. out of the EU by the current Jan. 31 deadline.

In the debate, Johnson contrasted that promise with Corbyn’s refusal to say whether he favored leaving the bloc or remaining. Labour has promised to negotiate a new Brexit deal, then give voters a choice between leaving on those terms and remaining in the bloc. Corbyn says he would be neutral in that referendum.

“You cannot end the uncertainty on Brexit if you do not know what the deal is that you want to do,” Johnson said. “You cannot negotiate a deal if you are neutral on it.”

“You cannot end the uncertainty on Brexit if you do not know what the deal is that you want to do. You cannot negotiate a deal if you are neutral on it.”

— Boris Johnson, British prime minister

Johnson's opponents say his promise to “get Brexit done” rings hollow, because leaving the bloc will be the prelude to months or years of complex trade negotiations.

Corbyn claimed that under a Johnson government, Britain would “walk out of the EU into a relationship with nobody” and spend years trying to strike a new trade deal with the United States. He said that would bring “seven years of complete uncertainty and continued job losses in manufacturing and industry.”

The two men also tussled over security in the wake of last week’s deadly attack in London by a knife-wielding man who had served a prison sentence for terrorist crimes. Johnson tried to portray Corbyn — a longtime anti-war and anti-nuclear campaigner — as soft on security. Corbyn highlighted cuts to police and prison services under the Conservatives.

Johnson’s party is promising to increase public spending if it wins the election, and Corbyn tackled Johnson on inflated promises, such as a claim his government will build 40 news hospitals. In fact that number includes many existing facilities that will be renovated.

Labour also took aim Friday at Johnson’s insistence that there will be no new checks on trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. after Brexit. The divorce deal Johnson has negotiated with the bloc agrees to keep Northern Ireland aligned to EU customs rules and some goods standards to avoid checks along the currently invisible border with EU member Ireland.

Trade experts say that means some checks will have to be conducted on goods moving across the Irish Sea between Britain and Northern Ireland.

Labour said it had obtained a leaked Treasury document that says “there will be customs declarations and security checks between Northern Ireland and Great Britain,” and Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay has previously said there will have to be some checks.

Corbyn said the document “drives a coach and horses through Boris Johnson's claim that there will be no border in the Irish Sea."

But Johnson claimed it was “nonsense” to suggest there would be any new checks. The Conservative Party said the leaked document was an "immediate assessment” rather than a detailed analysis.

Labour has a radical domestic agenda, promising to nationalize key industries and utilities, hike the minimum wage and give free internet access to all.

The party has struggled to persuade voters that its lavish spending promises are deliverable without big tax hikes. Labour's campaign also has been dogged by allegations that Corbyn — a long-time champion of the Palestinians — has allowed anti-Jewish prejudice to fester in the left-of-center party.

Corbyn has called anti-Semitism "a poison and an evil in our society" and says he is working to root it out of the party.

This election is especially unpredictable because the question of Brexit cuts across traditional party loyalties. For many voters, their identities as "leavers" or "remainers" are more important than party affiliations.

The Conservative lead suggests the party has managed to win over many Brexit-backing voters, while Labour faces competition for pro-EU electors from the centrist Liberal Democrats and several smaller parties.

But the Conservatives have also lost support from some pro-EU voters by taking a strongly pro-Brexit stance. Several ex-Conservative lawmakers who were expelled for rebelling over Brexit are running against their old party as independents.

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The independent former Tories were endorsed Friday by former Conservative Prime Minister John Major, who called Brexit the "worst foreign policy decision in my lifetime."

"It will make our country poorer and weaker,” he said. “It will hurt most those who have least.”

In another blow to Johnson's claims that Britain will be better off outside the EU, Britain’s Brexit envoy in Washington quitthis week, saying she no longer wants to “peddle half-truths on behalf of a government I do not trust."

Alexandra Hall Hall resigned as the embassy’s Brexit counselor with a letter slamming the British government’s use of “misleading” arguments and reluctance “to address honestly” the challenges and trade-offs involved in leaving the EU.

Associated Press writer Danica Kirka contributed to this report.

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2019-12-07 10:03:55Z
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Trump halts plan to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorists - BBC News

US President Donald Trump has delayed plans to legally designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups.

Mr Trump had vowed to label the gangs as terrorists after the killing last month of nine American citizens from a Mormon community in Mexico.

But he has put the plans on hold on the request of his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

"I celebrate that he has taken our opinion into account," the Mexican president said.

"We thank President Trump for respecting our decisions and for choosing to maintain a policy of good neighbourliness, a policy of cooperation with us," he added.

• How a US Mormon family ended up dead in Mexico
• How dangerous is Mexico?

Mr Trump's original announcement came after three women and six children of dual US-Mexican nationality were killed in an ambush in a remote area of northern Mexico.

Following the attack the victims' community, the LeBarons, petitioned the White House to list the cartels as terror groups, saying: "They are terrorists and it's time to acknowledge it."

The move would have widened the scope for US legal and financial action against cartels but Mexico saw it as a violation of its sovereignty.

The US president has now put the plans on hold.

"All necessary work has been completed to declare Mexican Cartels terrorist organizations," Mr Trump wrote on Twitter. "Statutorily we are ready to do so."

But Mr Trump said his Mexican counterpart is "a man who I like and respect, and has worked so well with us," adding that he was temporarily holding off on the designation and stepping up "joint efforts to deal decisively with these vicious and ever-growing organizations!"

He did not comment on how long the delay would last.

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Mexico's brutal drug war claims tens of thousands of lives every year, as powerful trafficking groups battle for territory and influence.

In 2017 more than 30,000 people were killed in the country, with the murder rate having more than tripled since 2006.

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2019-12-07 07:31:46Z
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Paris travel nightmare enters second day as hundreds of miles of traffic jams reported around French capital - Fox News

More than 200 miles of roads in and around Paris were reported to be clogged with traffic jams Friday as a general strike aimed at President Emmanuel Macron's plans to overhaul the country’s pension system continues to wreak havoc on commuters and tourists.

For a second straight day, subway stations surrounding the Eiffel Tower and other attractions remained shut down, leaving visitors scrambling for ways to get around one of the world’s most popular travel destinations.

“I arrived in Paris today, but I have been stuck for around two hours just trying to find a bus or a train," Zaeen Shoii, a tourist from Pakistan, told the Associated Press. "But everything has been delayed, so I'm just waiting for the next bus now.”

And the travel disruptions aren’t expected to go away anytime soon as unions on strike are standing firm in their opposition to Macron.

“We’re going to protest for a week at least, and at the end of that week it’s the government that’s going to back down,” Patrick Dos Santos, a transportation employee, told Reuters.

FIRES ERUPT IN PARIS AS GENERAL STRIKE CREATES TRAVEL NIGHTMARE, SHUTS DOWN EIFFEL TOWER

A man stands on a traffic light during a demonstration in Paris on Thursday. (AP)

Macron's idea is to unify France's 42 different pension schemes into a single one, giving all workers the same general rights. So-called special regimes, linked to certain professions like train drivers, allow workers to get early retirement or other benefits.

But the reform also is aimed at saving money, and teachers are among many who worry it will leave them with less money at the end of their careers.

At least 800,000 people marched across France on Thursday in opposition to the reforms, as the strike shuttered schools and some public services and disrupted hospitals and refineries.

A massive march that was held in Paris started peacefully before some protesters engaged in clashes with police, who responded by firing volleys of tear gas. Other demonstrators were spotted hurling flares, smashing store windows and setting fires in eastern Paris.

Riot police officers secure an area as some demonstrators were seen smashing store windows, setting fires and hurling flares in eastern Paris Thursday. (AP)

Police arrested 71 people in the French capital Thursday and clashes were also reported in the cities of Nantes, Bordeaux, and Rennes, according to the BBC.

MACRON VOWS TO FIGHT HATE 'UNTIL OUR DEAD CAN SLEEP IN PEACE' AFTER JEWISH GRAVES APPEAR DEFACED WITH SWASTIKAS

As of Friday morning, more than 217 miles of roads in and around Paris were snarled with traffic jams, the station adds. More than half of the city’s 16 subway lines remain shut down and dozens of flights from the city’s major airports have been canceled or delayed.

Macron's government has been negotiating with unions and others for months about the reforms but won't release the details of the proposed changes until next week. The government says it will keep the official retirement age at 62, but the plan is expected to encourage people to work longer.

People fill the streets during a demonstration in Paris on Thursday. (AP)

The uncertainty about what the plan will entail is feeding public worry. Polls suggest most French people support the strike and protest movement, at least for now, in hopes it pushes the government to pay more heed to workers' worries.

Some seven in 10 French employees work in the private sector, and the strikes are primarily in the public sector. But the retirement changes will affect everyone, and the demonstrations have included private-sector workers, too.

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Commuters and parents struggling to get to work and school Friday had mixed feelings about the strikes and the reform.

"I understand, striking is a constitutional right but there should at least be a partial (subway) service," Mira Ghaleni told the Associated Press as she tried to get her son to school in eastern Paris. "It’s really a disaster for the people, and the politicians should do something because we really had enough. One day, it’s OK, but I think it will last longer.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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2019-12-06 13:20:54Z
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India Police Kill 4 Rape Suspects Already In Custody - NPR

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Students at Delhi University Thursday demanding that the suspects in a rape case in southern India be hanged within six months of conviction. The march was also in support of a women's rights activist on indefinite hunger strike seeking swift justice for rape victims. The four rape suspects were killed Friday while in police custody. NurPhoto via Getty Images hide caption

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NurPhoto via Getty Images

Before dawn Friday, police transported four suspects to the scene of a crime that has outraged their nation: A roadside in southern India, where the men are accused of gang-raping a woman, suffocating her and setting her body on fire.

The woman's Nov. 27 murder sparked protests and candlelight vigils across India. Within 48 hours, police had arrested the four, their brutality allegedly caught on CCTV cameras.

Police said they needed to question the suspects at the crime scene — before daybreak — to have them retrace their steps and collect more evidence.

But by sunrise, all four suspects had been shot dead by police. They had yet to be charged.

"Law has done its duty," the top police official on the case, V.C. Sajjanar, told reporters at a news conference.

Hundreds of revelers gathered where the rape had occurred — on the outskirts of the southern city of Hyderabad — hoisting police officers on their shoulders above the crowd and showering them with rose petals.

"Long live police!" they chanted. The victim's father was quoted as saying his daughter's soul is now at peace.

But human rights activists and some politicians decried Friday's killings as an extrajudicial execution that amounts to mob justice.

"If you're going to kill the accused before any due process of law has been followed, then what's the point of having courts, law and police?" Maneka Gandhi, a lawmaker from India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) told reporters outside parliament in New Delhi.

The local branch of the BJP in Telangana, where Hyderabad is the state capital, issued a statement saying: "India is not a banana republic and is bound by legal and constitutional framework."

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International both called for an investigation.

"We still don't know whether the actual perpetrators have been caught, because we do not know whether police that are incompetent enough to let suspects escape should be trusted to have solved the case," Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director for Human Rights Watch, told NPR.

A police claim of self-defense

Sajjanar said the suspects were taken back to the crime scene so that they could lead police to where they had buried the victim's cell phone and other personal items. He said the alleged rapists had not been handcuffed, and managed to overpower ten police officers.

The suspects threw stones at police, injuring two officers, Sajjanar said. After two of the suspects snatched officers' firearms, all four were shot dead in self-defense, he said.

Sajjanar was involved in a similar case in Dec. 2008, Indian media reported, in which three suspects were killed by police after being arrested for allegedly throwing acid on two female engineering students in another town near Hyderabad.

After that incident, he reportedly earned the nickname "the encounter cop." (In India, the word "encounter" connotes any suspicious killing of a suspect in police custody.)

Security forces across India have been accused over the years of carrying out extrajudicial killings. In 2017, India's Supreme Court ordered an inquiry into more than 1,500 deaths in the country's northeast, where police officers had allegedly staged fake attacks in order to kill criminals in their custody.

Police attribute most deaths while in custody to suicide or natural causes but, as Human Rights Watch noted in a 2016 report, family members in many cases allege torture by the police.

Demands for swift justice

The name of the 27-year-old rape victim in Hyderabad is not being reported, in accordance with Indian law to protect the identity of those believed to be victims of sexual violence.

Police say she phoned her sister on the day of her death to say her motor scooter had a flat tire, but that a friendly truck driver was helping her. Authorities allege four men stealthily deflated her tire, then posed as good Samaritans before raping and murdering her. It's unclear whether she was still alive when they doused her body with fuel and set it aflame.

In 2012, a physiotherapy student was gang-raped on a New Delhi bus, garnering widespread protests and prompting authorities to increase prison terms for convicted rapists. Four men have been convicted in that case, and sentenced to death. One has since died by suicide in prison.

Swati Maliwal, chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women, says she's frustrated that the Delhi convicts have not yet been executed. In other cases, trials are often delayed for years and justice is difficult to attain.

She said that while she did not condone extrajudicial killings, she understood why police in Hyderabad might have taken matters into their own hands.

"There is a huge possibility that the police felt that if they let these people just go through the court process, they will never get the punishment that they deserve," Maliwal told NPR by phone from a protest camp in New Delhi, where she was on the fourth day of a hunger strike to raise awareness of sexual violence.

Last year, a survey by the Thomson Reuters Foundation ranked India as the most dangerous country in the world for women, because of sexual violence. In 2017, the most recent year for which data were available, there were more than 33,000 cases of rape reported in India, according to national crime statistics. By comparison, the FBI says about 100,000 rapes were reported that year in the United States, which has about a quarter of India's population.

But many cases of sexual violence in India are believed to go unreported. Unlike the Hyderabad victim, who was an urban professional attacked by strangers, most victims are poor rural women and their attackers are often people they know.

Maliwal appealed to the Indian government to fast-track trials for rapists — and devote greater police resources to fighting sexual violence — in order to avoid mob justice.

"What kind of a country do we want? Do we want to go through proper processes and systems?" she asks. "Or do we want results like this?"

NPR producer Sushmita Pathak contributed to this report

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2019-12-06 13:11:00Z
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Joe Biden called 'fat, liar' and slammed for having a 'wet noodle for a backbone' by Marine Veteran - The Sun

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2019-12-06 11:38:53Z
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After Horrific Rape in India, Police Kill 4 Suspects - The New York Times

NEW DELHI — One of India’s most troubling rape cases of recent months was brought to a sudden and shocking end on Friday.

Four men who had been accused of raping and killing a young woman near the southern Indian city of Hyderabad were taken under a bridge by police officers and shot dead in the early hours of the morning.

How the events played out is not entirely clear.

The police, who had been under enormous pressure to bring the rapists to justice, said that they had taken the men to the scene of the crime at 3 a.m. and were in the process of watching them re-enact the attack when two of the men tried to grab the officers’ guns, leaving the officers no choice but to shoot the suspects dead.

The officers are being hailed as heroes, and were showered with rose petals by residents who thronged the streets of Hyderabad to celebrate what they saw as an act of swift retribution for a horrific crime. So many people poured into the streets on Friday to celebrate that traffic was brought to a standstill. Firecrackers could be heard exploding across the city. People hugged and passed out sweets.

“The law has done its duty,” said V.C. Sajjanar, a top police official.

But the circumstances behind the killings have invited suspicion. Human rights activists have wondered if the police simply executed the men and fabricated a story to cover their tracks.

“It’s just the outcry that pressured the government to do away with the four men and this is a total and utter violation of human rights,” said Ranjana Kumari, the director of the Center for Social Research, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Ms. Kumari called the killings “a total failure of the criminal justice system.”

“We are moving toward a vigilante justice system,” she added.

Too often, India makes international headlines for horrendous rapes. In 2012, a woman was abducted and brutalized on a moving bus in New Delhi by a gang of young men. After she died from her injuries, the outrage over her assault drove India to implement a series of measures to curb sexual violence, such as stricter punishments, victims’ hotlines and public awareness campaigns.

But the cases have kept coming.

Last year, virtually the entire male staff at an apartment building in the southeastern coastal city of Chennai were accused of raping a disabled girl.

This year, according to the police, a popular elected representative from Unnao district in northern India tried to kill a young woman who had accused him of rape, arranging for a truck to smash into her car.

And just this week, a young woman was set on fire as she was making her way to court to testify against men whom she had accused of rape.

The Hyderabad case centers on a young veterinarian who had parked her motor scooter near a toll plaza on the evening of Nov. 27 and came back from an appointment to find that its rear tire was flat. A group of truck drivers offered to help her, the police said, but she suspected that she was in danger. In her last call, to her sister to tell her what she was doing, she sounded scared.

The police said that the men had in fact deflated the tire as part of a plot to kidnap the young woman. The police added that the men had been drinking. They dragged the woman, who the police said was in her mid-20s, to a bushy area nearby and assaulted her. They then suffocated her and burned her body.

Police said they caught the four men — two truck drivers and their assistants — through CCTV footage and witnesses.

The suspects had been in custody for about a week as the young woman’s family, activists, ordinary citizens and powerful politicians called for them to be punished. Pressure was raised further after protests erupted in several cities and outrage over the young woman’s death swept across social media.

On Friday, as the news spread that all the suspects were dead, many people were quick to praise the police.

“I congratulate the Hyderabad police and the leadership that allows the police to act like police,” Rajyavardhan Rathore, a member of Parliament from the governing Bharatiya Janata Party, said in a Twitter post.

The victim’s family also seemed to approve of the men’s deaths.

“Justice has been done,” the victim’s mother said, according to the BBC. “I never thought we would get justice. No other girl should experience what my daughter did.”

Police officials said that two officers had been injured on Friday morning when the suspects tried to escape. When asked why they brought the men to the crime scene in the middle of the night, police officials said it was to protect them from enraged mobs who might have harmed them had the visit taken place in daytime.

Extrajudicial killings are common in India. The term for a police killing here is “encounter” and in recent years the Indian police have killed countless people in such encounters. Many of the killings are later revealed to have been staged or planned.

In Friday’s case, few people are expected to rally to the defense of the dead suspects. If the killings were staged, that might have been part of the calculation.

Amnesty International India said the killings raised “deeply disturbing questions about the state of justice in India.”

Mrs. Kumari, the director of the nonprofit research group, said, “Maybe people are happy today.”

“But tomorrow,” she added, “you can pick up any four people and kill them for any reason.”

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https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiS2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm55dGltZXMuY29tLzIwMTkvMTIvMDYvd29ybGQvYXNpYS9pbmRpYS1yYXBlLW11cmRlci1wb2xpY2UuaHRtbNIBT2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm55dGltZXMuY29tLzIwMTkvMTIvMDYvd29ybGQvYXNpYS9pbmRpYS1yYXBlLW11cmRlci1wb2xpY2UuYW1wLmh0bWw?oc=5

2019-12-06 10:57:00Z
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