Families taken to identify Swiss bus crash victims

Grief-stricken relatives of those killed in a horrific bus crash inside a Swiss tunnel earlier this week were taken to identify the bodies Thursday, police say. Relatives were driven from a hotel in the Swiss town of Sion to a nearby morgue where the bodies of 22 school children and six adults killed in Tuesday's crash were being held ahead of repatriation. "Where possible the bodies will be shown to the families," police spokesman Jean-Marie Bornet said. "In some cases this is not possible because the bodies are too badly injured." "The families are there to identify the bodies and to give information to help in the formal identification of those who cannot be identified" visually, a police spokesman told AFP. Some of the bodies are to be repatriated to Belgium Thursday, he confirmed. The bus from Belgium was carrying 52 people when it hit a wall inside the Tunnel de Geronde about an hour after heading home from a skiing trip in the...

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12 dead in Afghanistan helicopter crash

Twelve people died today when a Turkish helicopter crashed into a house near the Afghan capital Kabul. Ten of the victims were on board the aircraft and two were on the ground. Authorities were trying to determine the nationalities of the people who were in the helicopter when it crashed. Some of the bodies were almost completely burned. The house hit by the helicopter collapsed. Rescue workers were searching through the rubble to determine whether there were any more casualties. Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu confirmed that a Turkish helicopter crashed near Kabul, but he did not have information about casualties. Mr Davutoglu said the Turkish commander of the Kabul regional command has left for the area. The aircraft went down in the Hassian Khail area of the Bagrami district of Kabul province. It was unclear what caused the helicopter to crash. Friday 16 March 2012 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/12-de...

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Guatemalan ex-soldier jailed for 6,060 years over Dos Erres massacre

Pedro Pimentel Rios is fifth member of elite military force to be imprisoned for role in killings of 201 people in 1982 A former Guatemalan special forces soldier has been sentenced to 6,060 years in prison for his role in the killings of 201 people in a 1982 massacre. Pedro Pimentel Rios was the fifth member of the elite military force to be sentenced to 6,060 years or more for what became known as the Dos Erres massacre after the killings in the northern Guatemala village during the 1960-96 civil war. The sentence handed down by a three-judge panel is largely symbolic since under Guatemalan law the maximum time a prisoner can serve is 50 years. It specified 30 years for each of the 201 deaths, plus 30 years for crimes against humanity. Pimentel Rios, 54, is a former instructor at a training school for the military force known as the Kaibiles. He lived in Santa Ana, California, and worked in a clothing factory for years until being...

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