BALTIMORE (AP) — Lawyers for six Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray demanded the removal of the city's top prosecutor from their case on Tuesday, saying she was the one who asked for "enhanced" police attention at the intersection where they encountered the young black man.

An email sent to police weeks before Gray died from the spinal injury he suffered in police custody shows State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby has a conflict of interest, the attorneys argued, because she had wanted police to target North Avenue and Mount Street, the intersection in West Baltimore where Gray ran from police on April 12.

The defense motion filed Tuesday says Mosby "is now an integral part of the story ... both as an advocate and a witness."

Officers caught up to Gray two blocks away, restrained him and put him in a police van that made several stops before reaching the station roughly 45 minutes later. By then, he was unresponsive, and died after a week in a coma.

Mosby charged the officers May 1 with crimes ranging from misdemeanor assault to second-degree "depraved-heart" murder. Mosby also said Gray's arrest was illegal because officers handcuffed him prior to discovering the knife that became the basis for the charges.

On March 17, Joshua Rosenblatt, division chief of Mosby's crime strategies unit, emailed Police Cmdr. Osborne Robinson, saying "Mosby asked me to look into community concerns regarding drug dealing in the area of North Ave. and Mount St."

In the email, Rosenblatt praised earlier police efforts there, and said "we'd like to build on that success by targeting that intersection for enhanced prosecutorial (and hopefully police) attention."

Robinson forwarded Rosenblatt's email on March 20 to his lieutenants, including Brian Rice, who is charged with reckless endangerment, assault and misconduct in office in Gray's death, and said he would be monitoring their results.

"You will conduct a daily narcotics initiative addressing North and Mount St. Your units need to utilize the cameras, activate/develop informants, conduct covert, etc.," Robinson wrote. "This is effective immediately."

A spokeswoman for Mosby, Rochelle Ritchie, declined comment Tuesday, saying "we will litigate this case in the courtroom and not in the media."

In other recent action on the case, Judge Charles Peters on Thursday turned down Mosby's request for a gag order that would have barred attorneys, police and witnesses from talking about the case publicly.

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis approved on Wednesday an unprecedented Vatican tribunal to judge bishops accused of covering up or failing to prevent sexual abuse of minors, but one victims' group branded the move as too little too late.

A statement said the tribunal would come under the auspices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's doctrinal arm, "to judge bishops with regard to crimes of the abuse of office when connected to the abuse of minors".

Victims' groups have for years been urging the Vatican to establish clear procedures to make bishops more accountable for abuse in their dioceses, even if they were not directly responsible for it.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told reporters the bishops could also be judged if they had failed to take measures to prevent sexual abuse of minors.

The complaints against the bishops would initially be investigated by one of three Vatican departments, depending on the jurisdiction under which the bishops fall, before being judged by the doctrinal tribunal.

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Pope Francis smiles during a private audience with Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez at the V …

The U.S.-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said the pope should have gone much further.

"(The pope) could have sacked dozens of complicit bishops. He has, however, sacked no one," SNAP said in a statement.

SNAP urged victims of abuse to "stay vigilant and withhold judgment until we see if and how this panel might act".

However, Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org, an independent group that helps tackle the issue in the Catholic Church, cautiously welcomed the announcement.

"This development is potentially quite significant. For the first time there may be a clear road map for disciplining bishops who conceal or enable child sexual abuse," she told Reuters in an email.

"But the path already promises to be bumpy. How can the Vatican discipline enablers when its own top ranks are occupied by them?"

"POLITICALLY HARROWING"

"Disciplining such powerful colleagues will be politically harrowing. But for the pope to make good on 'bishop accountability' this new program must begin at the top. Diocesan bishops cannot be expected to comply with standards that Vatican officials have ignored with impunity," she added.

The Vatican said the pope had approved proposals made to him by a commission advising him on how to root out the abuse.

Part of the task of the commission, which is made up of 17 clerics and lay people from around the world, is to help dioceses put in place "best practices" to prevent abuse and work with victims in a process of healing. Eight members are women.

The worldwide scandal, which first became prominent in Boston in 2002, has seen known abusers shunted to other parishes instead of being defrocked and handed over to authorities.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella; editing by Tom Heneghan and Gareth Jones)

BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — Al-Qaida-linked militants in eastern Libya declared holy war — or jihad — on the local Islamic State affiliate after one of their senior leaders was killed Wednesday by masked gunmen, which set off clashes between the rival groups that left 11 people dead on both sides, including a top militant commander.

The hours-long fighting in the eastern coastal city of Darna erupted after gunmen opened fire on Nasser Akr, an al-Qaida-inspired militant once held in the United Kingdom on terrorism charges. The 55-year-old veteran jihadi, who fought in Afghanistan, was killed along with his aide.

Akr's group — known as Shura Council of Darna's Jihadis — announced his death in a statement Wednesday, blaming it on Islamic State militants. It accused the IS fighters of "tyranny and criminality," and vowed to wage "holy war against them until none of them are left." It also called on residents to rise up against the extremist group.

The ensuing clashes killed at least nine IS militants and two from the Shura Council, including Salem Derbi, the commander of the so-called Abu Salem Brigade, which has history of enmity with the IS affiliate.

Meanwhile, in Berlin, the U.N. envoy to Libya urged the North African country's rival political groups to agree quickly to a power-sharing deal for their fractured nation, saying that time is running out for Libya.

"The time has come to make an agreement," said Bernardino Leon, the U.N. envoy leading talks aimed at stemming Libya's collapse into a failed state.

Libya is split between an Islamist-led government backed by militias that seized the capital of Tripoli last August and its elected parliament, which is forced to convene in the country's far east. Amid the crisis, militants — including the extremist Islamic State group and al-Qaida-linked militants— have gained a foothold, benefiting from the chaos.

The IS group in Libya is a mixture of homegrown militants, former al-Qaida affiliates and foreign nationals who were trained in Syria and sent to join IS in Libya. The clashes in Darna mirrored regional rivalry between the two groups, which are also fighting against one another in Syria.

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An armed motorcade belonging to members of Derna's Islamic Youth Council, consisting of former membe …

A member of the Abu Salem Brigade, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, told The Associated Press that among IS members killed in Wednesday's exchange was the group's top ideologue Hossam Abu-Rashed.

Libyan militias prepare to fight ISIS (video)

"Now we are searching for the Wali," the Brigade member added. He was referring to a Yemeni militant sent from Syria to fight for Libya's IS affiliate and known by his nom de guerre Abu al-Baraa el-Azdia.

The member added that many of those killed are foreign nationals.

The slain Abu Salem Brigade commander, Derbi, belonged to a generation of Islamic militants who turned Darna into a jihadist stronghold in the 1980s and 1990s during an insurgency against longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. In a 2012 interview with the AP, Derbi said that under Gadhafi, he hid in the mountains of Darna for over 10 years while a heavy crackdown on Islamic militants was underway.

Darna was also the main source of Libyan jihadis and suicide bombers who joined the insurgency in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Entire brigades of Darna natives have also been fighting in Syria's civil war.

An IS affiliate seized control of Darna last year after veteran militants returning from Iraq and Syria united the city's fractured extremist factions and killed off rivals, including members of Derbi's militia.

Libya's turmoil accelerated last year when militias allied with Islamist factions seized Tripoli and the second largest city of Benghazi, forcing the elected parliament and government to relocate and reconvene in the country's far est.

IS fighters have also taken the central coastal city of Sirte and are marching toward the third largest city of Misrata in western Libya and toward the oil terminals in the east.

In Darna, IS has set up its own religious courts and police to inforce a strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.

Hamad al-Bondoqi, a Darna lawmaker in the country's elected parliament, said that al-Qaida-linked groups and the IS affiliate have clashed repeatedly in the past months in Darna, mostly over power and resources. He cited battles over imposing taxes on merchants, fighting for control of a local factory, and over who has the right to set up checkpoint at the southern entrance to the city.

Later in the day, al-Bondoqi said that an airstrike by government forces targeted the courthouse in Darna where IS has based their religious police, but missed and hit a nearby house, killing at least five members of the same family.

___

Associated Press Writer Geir Moulson contributed to this report from Berlin.




Al-Qaida in Libya attack IS after leader killed

A holy war is declared on a local Islamic State affiliate as clashes kill 11 so far.
Call to residents to rise up