JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel has slammed the decision of the Irish parliament to adopt a non-binding resolution supporting an independent Palestinian state.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon expressed disappointment Thursday at the decision, accusing the Irish parliament of giving voice to "statements of hatred and anti-Semitism directed at Israel in a way which we have not heard before."

Some Irish lawmakers accused Israel of genocide during the parliamentary debate on Palestinian recognition.

Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan said Wednesday that Ireland is considering early recognition of Palestinian statehood as a possible tactic for kick-starting Middle East peace talks.

Lawmakers in Britain, France and Spain already have passed similar motions calling on their governments to follow Sweden, which on Oct. 30 ignited debate by recognizing Palestinian statehood.

Poland's former President Aleksander Kwasniewski (L) and former Prime Minister Leszek Miller take part in a news conference at Parliament in Warsaw December 10, 2014. REUTERS/Slawomir Kaminski/Agencja Gazeta

By Christian Lowe and Pawel Sobczak

WARSAW (Reuters) - The disclosure of details about the CIA's brutal interrogation program could provide new leads for Polish prosecutors investigating how much Poland's leaders at the time knew about a secret jail the agency was running in a Polish forest.

Prompted by a U.S. Senate report on the CIA's "black sites" for interrogating al Qaeda suspects, former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, at a joint news conference with former Prime Minister Leszek Miller, said on Wednesday he knew about the facility in Poland.

He said the CIA had denied Polish officials access to the site, a villa on the grounds of a Polish intelligence training academy, so they did not know people inside were being tortured. He said that while he and Miller knew people were detained there, they were told the detainees were cooperating willingly with U.S. intelligence and would be treated as prisoners of war.

Lawyers for former detainees say however that even if the detainees were treated as prisoners of war - which the lawyers dispute - it is illegal to detain anyone in secret, and Poland had a legal obligation to prevent this happening.

The report's publication is giving rise to uncomfortable questions in countries that hosted the "black sites" and may complicate future security cooperation with the United States.

"Based on information in the media, the public statements from Mr. Kwasniewski and Mr. Miller suggest the prosecutors certainly have reason to interview them," said Mikolaj Pietrzak, a lawyer whose client, Adb al-Rahim al-Nashiri was held at the site.

"Statements they made recently indicate for the first time that they knew people were being held at the site," Pietrzak said.

Reuters sent questions to Miller and Kwasniewski, via their staffs, asking if they knew the people being detained at the CIA site did not have the protections they were entitled to by law. Aides to both men said they had no comment.

The CIA declined all comment, including on Kwasniewski's assertion that the agency had given assurances that detainees were cooperating willingly with U.S. intelligence and would be treated as prisoners of war.

The Polish investigation, launched in 2008, is into allegations by three men - al-Nashiri, Abu Zubaydah and Walid Bin Attash - that they were held illegally and abused at the CIA facility. Prosecutors have never revealed who was under investigation. A source close to the investigation has told Reuters it is aimed at Polish officials without elaborating further.

Asked whether prosecutors would take into account the statements this week by Kwasniewski and Miller, Piotr Kosmaty, spokesman for the Appellate Prosecutor's office in the Polish city of Krakow, which is handling the case, declined to comment.

The United States itself has not launched any prosecutions of CIA operatives or others who were involved in the agency's now-defunct interrogation program over their role.

Kwasniewski, at his joint news conference with Miller on Wednesday, said they did what they believed was necessary to protect Poland's national security. He said they sought assurances from the U.S. authorities the detainees would be treated in accordance with the law, and asked Washington to close the facility when they became worried that this was not the case.

QUESTIONS IN ROMANIA, LITHUANIA TOO

The release of the Senate report has also raised questions in Romania and Lithuania. Names of countries that hosted "black sites" were redacted in the report, but details in the report were consistent with other information relating to CIA detention sites in those countries.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius said on Wednesday he hoped parliament would re-open an investigation, and called on Washington to share relevant information.

A spokesman for Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta said in an email: ​“The events mentioned in the US Senate Report about CIA had taken place approx. 10 years ago, under another leadership of Romania, the only one in the position to make comments/statement about these events.”

Kosmaty, the prosecution spokesman, said Polish prosecutors planned to ask the U.S. Department of Justice to provide them with the full version of the report.

"This report has a dual significance for us because it will allow us to acquaint ourselves with what has been established and also what evidence could be useful in terms of the investigation that we are conducting," he said.

Kosmaty added that because of the time it takes to get answers from the U.S. authorities, prosecutors may have to apply for permission to prolong their investigation when it expires in April next year. It has already been extended multiple times.

In addition to the Polish investigation, lawyers for Zubaydah and al-Nashiri brought a case against Poland to the European Court of Human Rights. The court ruled Poland failed to meet its obligations under European law in the case, and ordered it to pay compensation of 100,000 euros ($124,520) to al-Nashiri and 130,000 euros to Zubaydah.

The Polish government is challenging the judgment, on the grounds that the court had not put in place procedures that would have allowed it to present confidential evidence to the court.

Adam Bodnar, vice-president of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights who helped bring the case against Poland to the Strasbourg court, said of the Polish prosecutors: "They should finish the investigation and file indictments."

But he also said the investigation, now in its sixth year, could be dragged out even longer without a conclusion, using the Senate report as a pretext.

"My feeling is that they will do whatever is possible in order not to finish the investigation," before parliamentary elections scheduled for the end of 2015, he said.

Kosmaty declined to comment on assertions that prosecutors are stalling the case, but said seeking information from the U.S. authorities was essential. In the past, Washington has delayed passing on information, or refused to provide it.

Tomasz Siemoniak, Poland's defense minister, told Polish television on Thursday there was a moral in the affair for Poland, one of Washington's staunchest European allies: "Sometimes you have to say no, even to your best friend."

($1 = 0.8031 euros)

(Additonal reporting by Wojciech Zurawski in KRAKOW, Marcin Goclowski and Adrian Krajewski in WARSAW and Mark Hosenball in Washington; editing by Janet McBride)

Katie Couric News Video
Katie Couric's exclusive interview with Lennon Lacy's family

BLADENBORO, N.C. (AP) — The FBI is reviewing the investigation into the death of a black North Carolina teenager found hanging from a swing set after relatives raised doubts about the official finding that Lennon Lacy committed suicide, a conclusion that the county coroner now questions.

A 911 caller reported spotting the 17-year-old's body in a trailer park Aug. 29 in the small town of Bladenboro, about 100 miles south of Raleigh. He was hanging by a dog leash and a belt that his family says did not belong to him, his feet suspended 2 inches off the ground.

The state medical examiner ruled that the boy killed himself, but his mother said she does not believe it.

"When I saw him, I just knew automatically he didn't do that to himself," Claudia Lacy told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "If he was going to harm himself, his demeanor would have changed. His whole routine, everything, his attitude, everything would have changed."

She last saw the youngest of her four sons alive as the middle linebacker prepared for a high school football game by putting together his uniform in the early hours of Aug. 29.

His father told him that he needed to get some sleep before the game, his first after his mother made him take a year off from the team to focus on his grades.

"OK, Daddy," he said. They then heard a door close, which was not unusual, Claudia Lacy said, because her son liked to run at night when the air was cool.

About 13 hours later, she identified her son's body in the back of an ambulance. The swing set was in clear sight of about 10 trailers.

She said she felt let down when investigators ruled it a suicide and brought her concerns to the state chapter of the NAACP, which has organized a march Saturday in Bladenboro.

On Friday, federal authorities confirmed they were reviewing the investigation. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Tom Walker said Walker's office acted at the request of attorneys from the North Carolina NAACP representing the family.

"We don't know what happened that terrible night," said the Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP chapter. "It is possible that a 17-year-old excited about life could commit suicide. The family is prepared to accept the truth. They're not prepared to accept this theory that's been posited with a rush to a conclusion of suicide so quickly. We have said there are far too many unanswered questions."

Bladen County District Attorney Jon David said Friday that he also asked the FBI to review the case because the family and the NAACP said they had information that they would provide only to federal authorities. He said he had seen no evidence of foul play.

"Not only is the case open, but our minds are open," David said.

In the 911 call, the dispatcher advises the caller to try to get the person down in case he was still alive. When investigators arrived at the trailer park that the NAACP has described as predominantly white, the body was on the ground. Investigators told NAACP attorneys that one shoe was on the body and one was on the ground, said Al McSurely, a lawyer working for the NAACP.

The shoes were 1.5 sizes too small for Lacy and did not belong to him, his family said.

The family also questioned whether authorities took photos at the scene, and if they did, whether those photos were provided to the state medical examiner.

David said Friday that many photos were taken, but the NAACP attorneys said they were not aware of any.

Bladenboro Police Chief Chris Hunt referred all questions to the State Bureau of Investigation, North Carolina's top law enforcement agency. A spokeswoman for the bureau has said agents addressed all viable leads.

Bladen County Coroner Hubert Kinlaw said he signed a death certificate calling the cause of death a suicide, because that's how the form came back from the medical examiner. Kinlaw, who went to the scene, said he now wonders whether Lennon really killed himself.

"How did it happen? How did he wind up there?" he said. "These are all questions that are out there."

But the medical examiner, Dr. Deborah Radisch, said in a discussion with a pathologist hired by the NAACP that she based her ruling partially on Kinlaw's conclusion that Lacy killed himself.

And Claudia Lacy inadvertently contributed to the conclusion of suicide. When asked if Lennon had been depressed, she said yes, that his great-uncle had been buried the day before. She said she meant that Lennon was sad, grieving over the loss of a family member, not suicidal.

"Here's a mother who knows at the end of the day she's going to have to accept that either it was a suicide or it was a lynching," Barber said. "And because of the history of the South and the history of this country, in some strange way, she would almost rather it be a suicide."

___

Martha Waggoner can be reached at http://twitter.com/mjwaggonernc .

FBI to investigate death of North Carolina teen

An agent has been assigned to the case of Lennon Lacy, whose death was originally ruled a suicide by a coroner.
Unanswered questions

Reuters Videos
Brazilian serial killer says he murdered 42 people in a decade

Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - A Brazilian man accused of stabbing a woman to death in a Rio suburb has confessed to have murdered 41 people, almost all of them women, "for the fun of it," police said Thursday.

"He wanted to kill women -- white women, not black ones. He followed the victims, studying them closely before committing the crimes," said police commissioner Pedro Henrique Medina from the northern suburb of Nova Iguacu.

The man was identified as Sailson Jose das Gracas, a 26-year-old whom police describe as a psychopath.

They said they were checking his statements against past investigations, and so far they tally with the evidence.

Gracas says he murdered 37 women, three men and a two-year-old child over a nine-year killing spree, explaining he killed the child because he feared it would cry and attract neighbors' attention.

"I observed them, I studied them. I waited for a month, sometimes a week, depending on the place. I tried to ascertain where they lived, what their families were like. I kept watch on their houses and then after a while went there at dawn, waited for my chance and entered," broadcaster Globo's G1 news portal quoted Gracas as saying.

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Sailson Jose das Gracas, 26, is escorted by policemen at a police station in Nova Iguacu near Rio de …

He explained he started out as a petty thief.

"At 17, I killed the first woman and that gave me a buzz. I kept on doing it and I enjoyed it," he said, adding on one occasion a couple, Cleusa Balbina and her former husband Jose Messias, contracted him to kill someone for money. The pair are now under arrest.

Gracas said he used a gun in contract killings but strangled his other victims.

He planned his crimes meticulously, wearing a rain jacket in order to conceal his identity and gloves in order not to leave fingerprints, adding he became addicted to murder.

"When I wasn't killing someone I got uptight. I would pace up and down at home. Killing calmed me down.

"I'd kill someone and then would think about the victim for two or three months. After that, I'd go off hunting" for another victim, Gracas revealed.

"I don't feel remorse -- if I go to jail for 10, 15, 20 years, then as soon as I get out I'll do the same thing all over again," he insisted.

Under Brazilian law, the maximum prison term is 30 years.

The country has never had capital punishment.