MIAMI, United States: The US authorities have charged the Iraq war vet accused of fatally shooting five people and wounding six at a Florida airport with federal crimes that could carry the death penalty.
The Justice Department on Saturday charged Esteban Santiago, 26, with firearms offenses and carrying out an act of violence when he opened fire at the busy Fort Lauderdale airport.
Santiago, who had earlier shown signs of “erratic behavior,” arrived Friday on a flight from Alaska.
At baggage claim, he retrieved a 9mm semi-automatic handgun and ammunition that he had declared and stowed inside his checked luggage, then allegedly loaded the weapon in a bathroom and opened fire in the crowded baggage claim area of Terminal 2.
Once his ammunition was exhausted Santiago lay on the floor with his arms and legs spread out and peacefully surrendered when a sheriff deputy approached him, witnesses quoted in US media said.
The hail of bullets sent thousands scrambling for safety and shut down the airport, a major gateway to the Caribbean and Latin America, for about 16 hours.
If convicted of the charges Santiago could face the death penalty or life in prison, US Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said in a statement.
“Santiago started shooting, aiming at his victims’ heads until he was out of ammunition,” the statement said.
Santiago, who traveled to Fort Lauderdale on a one-way ticket, walked around while firing approximately 10 to 15 rounds “in a methodical manner,” FBI agent Michael Ferlazzo wrote in court records, according to US media.
FBI special agent George Piro said agents were looking into the motives for the attack, including “continuing to look at the terrorism angle.”
Piro said Santiago appeared to be acting alone and that “every indication” is that he followed rules in flying with the weapon.
Santiago is scheduled to make an initial court appearance on Monday.
'Erratic behavior'
A former member of the Puerto Rico and Alaska National Guard, Santiago served in Iraq from April 2010 to February 2011. He ended his service in August.
On November 7, Santiago walked into the FBI’s office in Anchorage, Alaska and complained that his mind was being controlled by national intelligence agencies, which were forcing him to watch Islamic State jihadist videos, the authorities said.
This “erratic behavior” led agents to contact local police, who took him for a mental health evaluation, Piro said.
Anchorage police chief Christopher Tolley said Santiago came to the FBI office with a loaded magazine, but left his gun and newborn child in his car.
Police took Santiago’s weapon for safekeeping at the time, but he was able to reclaim it on December 8.
Tolley said it was unclear if Santiago used that gun in the airport rampage.
Santiago’s brother, Bryan, criticized the way the authorities have handled his case.
“They had him hospitalized for four days and they let him go. How are you going to let someone leave a psychological center after four days when he said he hears voices that the CIA is telling him to join certain groups?” he told CNN in a Spanish-language interview the network translated into English.
“Not everyone has the same reaction when they return from war,” he added. “Some are better, and some, not so much.”
The authorities have not identified any victims, but three named in media reports were all getting ready to set off on cruises.
They included British-born 84-year-old grandmother Olga Woltering, who was embarking on a family cruise with her 90-year-old husband, the Sun Sentinel reported.
Terry Andres, 62, was going on vacation with his wife of nearly four decades, Ann, the Palm Beach Post reported.
Other victims included Michael and Kari Oehme, a couple in their 50s. Michael was killed and his wife wounded in the shoulder, the Miami Herald reported.
'Political cowardice'
The shooting renewed anxieties about security at US airports.
The Transportation Security Administration — the agency responsible for airport security — lets passengers travel with unloaded firearms and ammunition as checked baggage.
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who represents the Florida district that includes the airport, said the rules need to be reexamined.
The incident should prompt a review of “whether or not you should be allowed to check a firearm at all” — as well as how passengers should be able to retrieve checked weapons after landing, she told CNN.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy rebuked the Republican-controlled Congress for not tightening gun laws.
“Political cowardice is the accomplice of every mass shooter,” he wrote on Twitter. “The utter silence of Congress in the face of this carnage has become consent.”
The Fort Lauderdale airport re-opened Saturday morning, and staff struggled to return nearly 20,000 pieces of luggage and other personal items abandoned by passengers who fled the shooting.
Florida shooting suspect could face death penalty
Florida shooting suspect could face death penalty
Amal Clooney advised ICC prosecutor who seeks warrants in Israel-Hamas war crimes case
- British Lebanese human rights lawyer says she agreed to serve on panel of experts reviewing evidence because she believes in rule of law and ‘need to protect civilian lives’
LONDON: British Lebanese human rights lawyer Amal Clooney was a special adviser in the International Criminal Court investigation that resulted in the prosecutor in the case requesting arrest warrants on Monday for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and three Hamas leaders.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, thanked Clooney in his statement announcing his decision, describing her as part of “a panel of experts in international law” who reviewed the evidence.
In a message on her foundation’s website, Clooney said Khan had requested that she assist him “with evaluating evidence of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and Gaza.”
She added: “I agreed and joined a panel of international legal experts to undertake this task. Together we have engaged in an extensive process of evidence review and legal analysis, including at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
“Despite our diverse personal backgrounds, our legal findings are unanimous. We have unanimously determined that the Court has jurisdiction over crimes committed in Palestine and by Palestinian nationals.
“We unanimously conclude that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including hostage-taking, murder and crimes of sexual violence.
“We unanimously conclude that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution and extermination.”
Clooney previously faced criticism for failing to publicly criticize the war in Gaza. Many people sent messages to her on social media on Monday apologizing for their comments and praising her role in the ICC investigation.
The lawyer said she agreed to serve on the panel because she believes in the rule of law and the “need to protect civilian lives.”
She added: “The law that protects civilians in war was developed more than 100 years ago and it applies in every country in the world, regardless of the reasons for a conflict.
“As a human rights lawyer, I will never accept that one child’s life has less value than another’s. I do not accept that any conflict should be beyond the reach of the law, nor that any perpetrator should be above the law. So I support the historic step that the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has taken to bring justice to victims of atrocities in Israel and Palestine.”
Israeli and Hamas leaders have rejected allegations that they are guilty of war crimes, and representatives of both sides criticized Khan for his decision.
Moscow ready to assist Tehran in crash investigation
MOSCOW: Russia’s state news agency RIA on Monday quoted Sergei Shoigu, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, as saying Moscow could assist Iran in its investigation of the crash that killed President Ebrahim Raisi.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin phoned Iran’s new interim president as Moscow made clear its desire to preserve and build on its deepening relationship with Tehran despite the sudden death of Raisi.
The Kremlin said Putin expressed his condolences to interim President Mohammad Mokhber and to the Iranian people over Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash, describing Raisi as a “reliable partner who made an invaluable personal contribution” to bilateral relations.
“Both sides emphasized their mutual desire to further consistently strengthen comprehensive Russian-Iranian interaction for the benefit of the peoples of the two countries,” the Kremlin said in its readout of the Putin-Mokhber call.
Since the state of the war in Ukraine, Russia has moved to strengthen its political, trade and military ties with Iran in a deepening relationship that the US and Israel view with concern.
In January, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said a new interstate treaty reflecting the “unprecedented upswing” in Russia-Iran ties was in the final stages of being agreed, and Putin and Raisi were expected to sign it soon.
Putin held five hours of talks with Raisi in the Kremlin in December and had spoken to him by phone in March and April, according to the Kremlin website.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister said on Monday that Moscow expected all agreements with Iran to be implemented, state news agency RIA reported.
The Kremlin said that Putin had spoken to the Iranian ambassador to Moscow late on Sunday night following news of the helicopter crash.
Business and Bollywood vote in India’s election
- Big conglomerates have bestowed upon Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a campaign war chest that dwarfs its rivals
- Bollywood stars have backed its ideological commitment to more closely align with the country’s majority religion and politics
MUMBAI: A parade of India’s business and entertainment elite — many of them supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi — went to the polls Monday as the financial capital Mumbai voted in the latest round of the country’s six-week election.
Modi, 73, is widely expected to win a third term when the election concludes early next month, thanks in large part to his aggressive championing of India’s majority Hindu faith.
“My vote is for the BJP and Modi,” said Deepak MaHajjan, 42, who works in banking. “There is no other choice if you care about the future of the economy and business. I have always voted this way.”
Big conglomerates have bestowed upon Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a campaign war chest that dwarfs its rivals, while Bollywood stars have backed its ideological commitment to more closely align with the country’s majority religion and its politics.
Latest data shows that the BJP was by far the single biggest beneficiary of electoral bonds, a contentious political donation tool since ruled illegal by India’s top court.
Leading companies and wealthy businesspeople gave the party $730 million, accounting for just under half of all donations made under the scheme in the past five years.
Conglomerate owners support Modi’s government because it caters to the needs of India’s “existing oligarchic business elite,” Deepanshu Mohan of OP Jindal Global University told AFP.
Lower corporate tax rates, less red tape and a reduction in “municipal regulatory corruption” have also helped Modi win the affection of corporate titans, he said.
N. Chandrasekaran, the chairman of Tata Sons, a sprawling Indian conglomerate with interests ranging from cars and software to salt and tea, cast his ballot at a polling station in an upper-class Mumbai neighborhood.
“It’s a great privilege to have the opportunity to vote,” he told reporters.
Asia’s richest man, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, also voted at the same polling station, accompanied by his wife, son, and a media scrum, posing to show his ink-stained finger.
Anand Mahindra, chairman of the eponymous automaker, told news agency PTI after voting: “If you look at the world around us, there is so much uncertainty, there is such instability, there’s terror, there’s war.
“And we are in the middle of a stable democracy where we get a chance to vote peacefully, to decide what kind of government we want. It’s a blessing.”
Modi’s cultivated image as a champion of the Hindu faith is the foundation of his enduring popularity, rather than an economy still characterised by widespread unemployment and income inequality.
This year he presided over the inauguration of a grand temple to the deity Ram, built on the grounds of a centuries-old mosque in Ayodhya razed by Hindu zealots in 1992.
Construction of the temple fulfilled a longstanding demand of Hindu activists and was widely celebrated across the country with back-to-back television coverage and street parties.
The ceremony was attended by hundreds of eminent Indians including Ambani, whose family donated $300,000 to the temple’s trust.
Also present were cricket star and Mumbai native Sachin Tendulkar along with actor Amitabh Bachchan — the single most famous product of Bollywood, as the financial hub’s film industry is known.
Numerous screen stars have established themselves as vocal champions of Modi’s administration since he was swept to office a decade ago.
Former soap actor Smriti Irani is one of the government’s most recognized ministers and beat India’s most prominent opposition leader Rahul Gandhi in the contest for her current parliamentary seat in 2019.
Filmmakers have also produced several provocative and ideologically charged films to match the ruling party’s sectarian messaging, which critics say deliberately maligns India’s 200-million-plus Muslim minority.
Last year’s “Kerala Story” was heavily promoted by the BJP but condemned elsewhere for falsely claiming thousands of Hindu women had been brainwashed by Muslims to join the Daesh group.
But some in Mumbai, like delivery driver Sunil Kirti voted for the opposition Congress party.
“In the past year I am earning less, but prices of basic essentials... food and vegetables have gone up,” said Kirti, 29. “Who is to blame for that?“
India’s election is conducted in seven phases over six weeks to ease the immense logistical burden of staging the democratic exercise in the world’s most populous country, with more than 968 million eligible voters.
The fifth round is taking place as parts of India endure their second heatwave in three weeks.
Scientific research shows climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.
Turnout is down several percentage points from the last national poll in 2019, with analysts blaming widespread expectations of a Modi victory as well as the heat.
Temperatures reached 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit) in Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh, one of the states where tens of millions of people voted on Monday.
Blinken says ICC arrest warrants could jeopardize ceasefire, hostage release efforts
- “We reject the prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas,” Blinken said
WASHINGTON: The United States rejects the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants for Israeli officials and Hamas, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
“We reject the prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas,” Blinken said on Monday. The ICC arrest decisions could jeopardize efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement, hostage deal and to increase humanitarian aid in Gaza, Blinken said in the statement.
ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrant for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu
- Karim Khan believes Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity
- The prosecutor must request the warrants from a pre-trial panel of three judges, who take on average two months to consider the evidence
THE HAGUE, Netherlands: The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Monday he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in connection with their actions during the seven-month war between Israel and Hamas.
Karim Khan said that he believes Netanyahu, his defense minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders — Yehia Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.
The prosecutor must request the warrants from a pre-trial panel of three judges, who take on average two months to consider the evidence and determine if the proceedings can move forward.
Israel is not a member of the court, and even if the arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution. But Khan’s announcement deepens Israel’s isolation as it presses ahead with its war, and the threat of arrest could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad.
Both Sinwar and Deif are believed to be hiding in Gaza as Israel tries to hunt them down. But Haniyeh, the supreme leader of the Islamic militant group, is based in Qatar and frequently travels across the region.
There was no immediate comment from either side.
Israel launched its war in response to an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 others hostage. The Israeli offensive has killed over 35,000 Palestinians, at least half of them women and children, according to the latest estimates by Gaza health officials. The Israeli offensive has also triggered a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, displacing roughly 80 percent of the population and leaving hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of starvation, according to UN officials.
Speaking of the Israeli actions, Khan said in a statement that “the effects of the use of starvation as a method of warfare, together with other attacks and collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza are acute, visible and widely known. ... They include malnutrition, dehydration, profound suffering and an increasing number of deaths among the Palestinian population, including babies, other children, and women.”
The United Nations and other aid agencies have repeatedly accused Israel of hindering aid deliveries throughout the war. Israel denies this, saying there are no restrictions on aid entering Gaza and accusing the United Nations of failing to distribute aid. The UN says aid workers have repeatedly come under Israeli fire, and also says ongoing fighting and a security vacuum have impeded deliveries.
Of the Hamas actions on Oct. 7, Khan, who visited the region in December, said that he saw for himself “the devastating scenes of these attacks and the profound impact of the unconscionable crimes charged in the applications filed today. Speaking with survivors, I heard how the love within a family, the deepest bonds between a parent and a child, were contorted to inflict unfathomable pain through calculated cruelty and extreme callousness. These acts demand accountability.”
After a brief period of international support for its war, Israel has faced increasing criticism as the war has dragged on and the death toll has climbed.
Israel is also facing a South African case in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide. Israel denies those charges.
