Iraqi teen found guilty of planting bomb
LONDON -- A teenage Iraqi asylum-seeker who told police that he had been trained by the Islamic State militant group was convicted of attempted murder Friday for planting a homemade bomb on a London subway train.
Ahmed Hassan, 18, showed no emotion as he was found guilty at London's Central Criminal Court.
The bomb partially exploded on a London Underground train at Parsons Green station Sept. 15, sending a fireball down the packed carriage that left 23 people with burn injuries. Police say 28 more were hurt in a rush to leave the train.
Prosecutors said there would have been many more injuries and probably deaths if the device had operated properly. Prosecutor Alison Morgan told jurors that it was just "a matter of luck" that the bomb didn't fully detonate.
Hassan admitted building the bomb but denied attempted murder, saying he had not meant for it to explode. On the witness stand he said he only wanted to cause a fire because he was "bored and stressed."
18 suspects arrested in Mexico killings
MEXICO CITY -- Mexican authorities arrested 18 people Thursday in the abduction of two prosecution agents forced to appear on a video by a drug gang before they were slain, the attorney general's office said.
Those arrested included members of the police force in Puerto Vallarta who allegedly provided protection and intelligence for the unidentified drug cartel as well as Colombian citizens.
Acting Attorney General Alberto Elias Beltran said at a news conference late Thursday that the arrests were made earlier in the day during a series of raids in western Nayarit and Jalisco states. Nayarit is dominated by the Jalisco New Generation cartel.
The agents' remains were found in Xalisco, a town in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit, two weeks after their disappearance. They had worked for the Criminal Investigation Agency, a kind of federal detectives' bureau.
In the video, they were accused of being undercover agents, but the government said they were off duty when they were abducted.
Ex-S. African president to face charges
JOHANNESBURG -- Former South African President Jacob Zuma will face old charges of fraud, racketeering and money laundering, prosecutors announced Friday.
Shaun Abrahams, head of the National Prosecuting Authority, noted the "long history" of the reinstated charges against Zuma, which were thrown out by prosecutors nearly a decade ago in a contentious decision that opened the way for him to become president. The charges relate to an arms deal in the 1990s, when Zuma was deputy president.
The chief prosecutor said there were 16 counts against Zuma and that the former president had said he was a victim of misconduct by prosecutors as well as leaks to the media.
Zuma, 75, resigned as president last month after he was ordered to do so by his party, the African National Congress. He was replaced by his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, who has promised a robust campaign against corruption and also faces the task of rebuilding the popularity of a ruling party whose moral stature has diminished since it took power at the end of white minority rule in 1994.
Vatican convicts, removes archbishop
VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican on Friday removed the suspended Guam archbishop from office and ordered him not to return to the Pacific island after convicting him of some charges in a sex abuse trial.
The Vatican didn't say what exactly Archbishop Anthony Apuron had been convicted of, and the sentence was far lighter than those given high-profile elderly prelates found guilty of molesting minors. It amounts to an early retirement anywhere in the world but Guam, a remote U.S. Pacific territory.
Apuron is 72, while the Vatican retirement age is 75.
The Vatican spokesman declined to comment. Calls placed to the tribunal judge weren't answered. Apuron's whereabouts weren't immediately known.
Pope Francis named a temporary administrator for Guam in 2016 after Apuron was accused by former altar boys of sexually abusing them when he was a priest. Dozens of cases involving other priests on the island have since come to light, and the archdiocese is facing more than $115 million in civil lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by priests.
Apuron strongly denied the charges and said he was a victim of a "calumny" campaign. He wasn't criminally charged. The statute of limitations had expired.
A statement from the tribunal in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles sex abuse cases, said Apuron had been convicted of some of the accusations against him. It said he had been ordered removed from office and could no longer live in the archdiocese of Guam.
A Section on 03/17/2018