A round-up of today's workd news stories in brief
Death row prisoner reprieved for six days after suicide attempt
COLOMBUS – The execution of a Death Row inmate has been postponed after he overdosed on pills.
The execution of Lawrence Reynolds (43) was due to take place in Ohio, US, tomorrow but will now take place next Tuesday.
Reynolds has now been upgraded from a serious to a stable condition at a Youngstown hospital.
State governor Ted Strickland issued the seven-day reprieve to allow Reynolds to be released from hospital and to provide state prison staff with extra time to prepare for his execution.
– (AP)
Interpol acts in Dubai killing of Hamas official
PARIS – Interpol has joined the Dubai taskforce investigating the murder of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh and has issued a further 16 so-called “red notices” to assist in arrests, the global police body said yesterday.
Red notices allow arrest warrants issued by national police authorities to be circulated to other countries to facilitate arrests and help possible extradition.
Interpol said the move brought the number of red notices in the case to 27, highlighting the suspected international links and scale of the assassination plot.
Israeli authorities have neither confirmed nor denied any role in the killing.
– (Reuters)
Missionary freed by Haitian court
PORT-AU-PRINCE – A court in Haiti yesterday freed a US missionary jailed for weeks on charges of kidnapping children in the chaos that followed the country’s devastating earthquake in January.
Charisa Coulter was due to fly out of Haiti to the United States. Haitian authorities arrested 10 missionaries in January but eight were released in February and only the group’s leader, Laura Silsby, remains in jail.
Silsby and Coulter and eight other Americans, most members of a Baptist church in Idaho, were arrested on January 29th on charges that they tried to take 33 children out of the country without proper documents. All protested their innocence and a judge found no evidence of criminal intent by those who were released. – (Reuters)
Heroine dies
LONDON – A French resistance heroine who saved over 100 lives has died at her English care home aged 105, its manager said yesterday.
Andrée Peel – known as Agent Rose – survived deportation and helped a string of British and American pilots flee occupied Europe.
She was awarded a second Légion d’Honneur last year in recognition of her bravery. – (PA)