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Slender Man Case Remains in Adult Court

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — Two young Wisconsin girls accused of stabbing their classmate to please the horror character Slender Man must stand trial as adults for attempted homicide, a judge ruled Friday.

Both girls face a count of being a party to attempted first-degree intentional homicide, which automatically places them in adult court under Wisconsin law. They each could face up to 65 years in the state prison system if convicted. Both defendants and the victim, Payton Leutner, were 12 at the time of the stabbing.

Both girls' attorneys have argued that the girls legitimately believed they had to kill Leutner to protect their families from Slender Man's wrath. Anthony Cotton, an attorney for one of the girls, called his client a schizophrenic in court Friday.

Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren found there was enough evidence to order a trial in adult court.

The defense teams had asked him to dismiss the charges during a hearing last month. They contended second-degree attempted intentional homicide would be a more fitting charge because the girls, as misguided as they were, thought they were defending themselves and their loved ones from Slender Man by attacking Leutner.

Second-degree attempted intentional homicide is a lesser crime that prosecutors would have to pursue in juvenile court. The girls could be held in the juvenile system only until they turn 25.

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One of two 12-year-old girls accused of stabbing a classmate to please the fictional character Slend …

After delivering a half-hour analysis Friday of statutes governing homicide charges and potential defenses, Bohren rejected the self-defense claims. He noted that the girls also thought killing Leutner would make them Slender Man's servants, earn them the right to live in his mansion and prove to others the creature was real. Those motivations outweigh self-defense, he said.

The girls' attorneys promised Friday to keep trying to move the case into the juvenile system. Bohren set hearings on transferring the girls for May and June.

Prosecutors allege the girls had plotted for months to kill their friend. They coaxed her into attending a sleepover at one of their homes in May and the next morning lured her into a wooded park in Waukesha. They stabbed her 19 times and then fled, according to court documents.

Police captured them later that day on city's outskirts as they were trying to walk to far northeastern Wisconsin's Nicolet National Forest, where they believed Slender Man lived in his mansion.

A passing bicyclist found Leutner and called for help. According to a criminal complaint, a doctor told investigators that one of the stab wounds just missed her heart.

The Associated Press isn't naming either of the girls charged in case they end up in juvenile court, where proceedings are closed to the public.

Girls in Slender Man case to stand trial as adults

Two 12-year-olds accused of stabbing their classmate could face up to 65 years in prison if convicted.
Judge rejects self-defense claims

Kiev (AFP) - Tragedy, foul play or fear of prosecution? A spate of mystery suicides by allies of Ukraine's deposed president Viktor Yanukovych has been called all three.

Three former lawmakers close to the ousted leader have been found dead in Ukraine in the past two weeks, in what their party has called a consequence of their persecution by Kiev's new pro-Western government.

Their deaths followed four suicides earlier this year of regional officials who were working under the old regime.

Although Kiev rejects allegations of any connection between the three events, some are calling for a thorough probe to quash any suspicion that top figures in the corrupt old regime are being extrajudicially punished.

- Deaths connected? -

On February 28, former deputy Mykhaylo Chechetov, a prominent lawmaker in Yanukovych's time, was found dead near his house in Kiev.

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Ukrainian soldiers burn an effigy of the former president Viktor Yanukovych and Russian President Vl …

He jumped out of a window from his 17th floor apartment, leaving a suicide note which said that "he had no more moral energy to live and asked that he be forgiven and understood", said interior ministry spokeswoman Yulia Mustash.

Chechetov had been arrested a few days earlier as part of a probe into a series of draconian laws passed in a controversial vote last January to crack down on the massive Maidan protests.

He paid bail and went home on February 23 before taking his life five days later.

On Tuesday, former lawmaker Stanislav Melnyk, also from Yanukovych's Party of Regions, was found by his wife dead in his bathroom. He left a suicide note asking for forgiveness.

Finally Oleksandr Peklushenko, another ally of Yanukovych targeted in a probe into the violent dispersal of the pro-Western rally in the city of Zaporizhia where he was governor last year, was found dead from a gunshot to the neck on Thursday.

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Ukrainian protesters walk past a burning barricade during the 2014 clashes that forced the overthrow …

The Party of Regions -- dormant since Yanukovych's ouster -- said in a statement that the death of Peklushenko and others was a consequence of "political reprisals" by the new regime, accusing it of "terror" toward opponents.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov however explained the suicide as a choice to avoid the looming trial over charges that Peklushenko was involved in hiring thugs to beat pro-Western activists at the rally.

- Fear of jail -

"The main motive that could explain such an act was that the trial was coming up," Avakov said at a briefing Friday, adding that he rejected any "speculation" into the recent deaths being somehow tied.

"I don't see any pattern here," he said.

Deputy Prosecutor General Oleksiy Baganets told AFP that the suicides may be motivated by "fear of being held responsible" for crimes committed, and that preventing such acts was the job of a psychologist rather than that of the authorities.

"When a former high official feels that he may end up in prison, this possibility can bring about a psychological breakdown," said Mykhaylo Korniyenko, who was a deputy interior minister during the previous pro-Western revolution in Ukraine in 2004, after which at least two highly-placed officials killed themselves.

"That suicides start after regime change has an explanation," said Valentyna Telychenko, a renowned lawyer in Ukraine: "People understand they can no longer expect protection from criminal justice."

Even those who have not committed any crimes may fear that the new leadership will spin the justice system in a way they see fit. "They decide that killing themselves makes more sense than giving an opportunity to jail them," she told AFP.

The head of the anti-corruption committee in parliament, Yegor Sobolev, said that the best way to show there was no foul play was to conduct a comprehensive investigation.

"It's very important for the prosecutors to carefully investigate each of these deaths so that we know for a fact that this is not an act of punishment, or getting rid of a witness, or a foreign operation on Ukrainian territory," he told AFP.

Istanbul (AFP) - The Turkish coastguard opened fire to stop a cargo vessel carrying 337 mainly Syrian migrants heading towards European Union waters and arrested the suspected traffickers, a top local official said Friday.

The coastguard had on Thursday evening launched an operation to chase down the 59 metre (194 foot) Dogan Kartal as it headed through the Dardanelles Straits in northwest Turkey.

The vessel initially paid no heed to calls to stop, including warning shots, but was eventually forced to halt when the guards fired on the engines, the official Anatolia news agency reported.

"It stopped when the engines were fired on and then came to a complete halt when the steering wheel was locked," Ahmet Cinar, the head of the western Canakkale province where the Straits are located, told the agency.

He did not gove further details on how the vessel was halted.

Anatolia said 337 mainly Syrian migrants were on board the ship, including 85 children and 68 women.

It said that two Turkish crew members identified as Y.Y. and N.K. along with three suspected foreign organisers of the trafficking were arrested.

Traffic in the Dardanelles Straits -- one of the world's busiest shipping lanes -- was temporarily halted during the operation.

The Syrian refugees were taken off the ship and housed in a sports hall in the nearby town of Gelibolu.

Where the ship had been headed was not immediately clear.

Turkey, which is hosting some 1.7 million refugees who have fled the Syrian civil war, has become a key transit point for migrants seeking a better life in Europe.

Many pay traffickers thousands of dollars to take perilous journeys in small boats which often end in disaster.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House delivered a fresh warning to the U.S. Senate late Saturday to stay out of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, asserting that pending legislation would likely have a "profoundly negative impact" on the ongoing talks.

President Barack Obama's chief of staff, Denis McDonough, told Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker in a letter that legislation sponsored by the Tennessee Republican would go far beyond ensuring a role for Congress in any deal with Iran.

"Instead, the legislation would potentially prevent any deal from succeeding by suggesting that Congress must vote to 'approve' any deal," McDonough said. He criticized a provision that would eliminate Obama's authority to lift some sanctions on Iran as part of any agreement.

The talks are to resume Sunday in Switzerland, with the U.S. and other world powers facing an end-of-March deadline to reach a framework deal.

"The administration's request to Congress is simple: Let us complete the negotiations before the Congress acts on legislation," McDonough said, adding that he does expect a robust congressional debate if a final deal is struck by the end of June.

McDonough reiterated Obama's repeated threats to veto the legislation should Congress pass it.

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at a news conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Saturday, …

Corker and Senate colleagues in both parties insist that Congress be allowed to consider and vote on any agreement designed to block Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Corker argued his case in a letter to Obama earlier this week, and did so again in response to McDonough.

"On this issue where Congress has played such a vital role, I believe it is very important that Congress appropriately weigh in before any final agreement is implemented," Corker said in a statement late Saturday.

Tensions between the administration and lawmakers over Iran have been rising for weeks.

McDonough's letter follows one this past week that was signed by 47 Republican senators and addressed to Iran's leaders warning that any nuclear agreement with the U.S. could expire the day Obama leaves office. The White House blasted the letter as a politically motivated attempt to undermine the president's ability to conduct foreign policy and advance U.S. national security interests.

The Republican letter follows a controversial March 3 speech to a joint meeting of Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he warned that the emerging nuclear agreement would all but guarantee that Iran gets nuclear weapons. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, invited the prime minister to speak without input from the White House and State Department, in what the White House said was a departure from protocol.

The Huffington Post first reported on McDonough's letter.

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A protester wears tape over her mouth during a silent demonstration against what they say is police brutality after the Ferguson shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by a white police officer, in St. Louis, Missouri March 14, 2015. REUTERS/Jim Young

By Nick Carey

FERGUSON, Mo. (Reuters) - As the hunt for suspects in the shooting of two police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, extended into a third day, activists took the first steps on Saturday to force the mayor out of office while residents awaited signs of progress in the investigation.

A group called Organization for Black Struggle (OBS) said it is starting a petition to recall Mayor James Knowles. He is one of the few senior city officials remaining after the police chief, a municipal judge and others resigned following a U.S. Department of Justice report March 4 depicting a Ferguson police force mired in racial bias.

An uneasy quiet prevailed in the St. Louis suburb, in contrast with the mayhem that erupted near midnight on Thursday when gunshots rang out during a protest rally, wounding a pair of officers.

Police arrested two people on Saturday night in neighboring St. Louis when about 70 protesters tried to block a street, a Reuters witness said. They were later released.

The shooting on Thursday sent a fresh jolt of tension through a city that has become a symbol of racial conflict since a black teenager was killed by a white police officer last August and a grand jury returned no criminal charges.

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A protester marches through the streets as he demonstrates against what they say is police brutality …

"There has been a lot of outrage here over the past seven months," Montague Simmons, executive director of OBS, explaining why activists were determined to press ahead with their demands. "We feel this could be a moment of transformation where people go from being outraged to being involved."

Knowles, a Republican who was 31 when he was first elected in 2011 in a non-partisan election, said on Friday that it would be up to voters to remove him from the part-time job.

Residents will have 60 days to gather signatures from 15 percent of registered voters in the last mayoral election to prompt a special election, OBS said in the statement.

Steve Moore, owner of the Celebrity Soul Food Restaurant, said that when he moved to his current location, Knowles was one of his first customers, asking if there was anything the city could do to help.

"He's continuing to make changes and if people get behind him and hold him accountable he's a good leader for the city," said Moore. He added that he had lost about 80 percent of his business since the unrest began in August.

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A protester marches through the streets as he demonstrates against what they say is police brutality …

Some Ferguson residents said they were growing weary, especially after the latest spasm of violence, despite sympathy for protesters who have been out in force since the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

"It's been emotional here. We all want justice for Mike Brown, but we also have to heal," said Jerome Parker, 26, who lives in the area and works in a store. "I support the protests, but I need to make a living."

Parker also worries about the impact the shooting of the officers will have on the push for reforms in Ferguson.

Authorities had nothing new to add to the scant information disclosed about the manhunt for suspects in the police shootings.

A day earlier, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said investigators had dozens of leads and authorities had "a pretty good idea" where the gunshots had originated, but said no arrests were imminent. He had nothing to say about the kind of gun used, the shooter's motivation and any connection to the protesters.

In Thursday's shooting, a 41-year-old county police officer suffered a shoulder wound and a 32-year-old colleague from a nearby police department sustained a facial wound that left a bullet lodged near his ear. Both were treated and released from hospital.

(Additional reporting Jim Young in St. Louis, David Bailey in Minneapolis and Fiona Ortiz in Chicago; Writing by Mary Milliken and Frank McGurty; Editing by Paul Simao, Marguerita Choy and Grant McCool)