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 Swiss Alps, killing 21 Belgians and seven Dutch passengers.

Twenty-four other children were hurt in the crash, some suffering serious injuries.

In Belgium, efforts were being made to repatriate the injured and killed as early as Thursday.

Police are focusing on three potential causes of the crash that include mechanical failure, a health issue with the driver or human error, CTV's Ben O'Hara-Byrne reported Wednesday.

Swiss and Belgian media reported Thursday that survivors of the crash claimed the driver had reached to change a disc on the onboard entertainment system shortly before the crash.

It was unclear whether that could have contributed to the crash. Neither police nor prosecutors could be reached for comment.

Residents in the town of Sierre where crash occurred were shocked over the tragedy and the fact most of the victims were children.

"I am very sad because I have children and today I awoke with them and I think very strongly about these people because it's really very hard," said pharmacist Genevieve Romailler.

"It's very hard to come to terms with this kind of situation and even if we didn't know these young victims we are really taking this to heart and we really moved by this tragedy," said barman Franck Bartolucci.

A Catholic church in the town was opened for the public to pay their respects and a memorial mass was planned for Thursday night.

Thursday 15 March 2012

http://m.ctv.ca/topstories/20120315/families-swiss-bus-crash-identify-bodies-120315.html

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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-dead-in-afghanistan-helicopter-crash-7574831.html

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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 detained by immigration authorities in May 2010. He was extradited to Guatemala last year.

The civil war claimed at least 200,000 lives, with the country's US-backed army being responsible for most of the deaths, according to the findings of a truth commission.

In December 1982, several dozen soldiers stormed Dos Erres, searched homes for missing weapons and systematically killed men, women and children. Soldiers bludgeoned villagers with a sledgehammer, threw them down a well, and raped women and girls before killing them, according to court papers filed in a case brought by US prosecutors against another former kaibil.

Pimentel denied being present at the massacre, saying he left the area in November 1982 to prepare enrolment papers for the US military training centre at the School of the Americas in Panama.

Guatemala opened an investigation into the killings in 1994 and unearthed 162 skeletons. Several years later, authorities issued arrest warrants for 17 kaibiles but the cases languished.

In August 2011, a Guatemalan court sentenced each of three other former special forces soldiers to 6,060 years in prison for the massacre, and sentenced a former army second lieutenant to 6,066 years.

The ruling comes as Guatemala seeks to clean up atrocities from the civil war in which nearly a quarter of a million people died or went missing.

In January, courts opened a trial against the former dictator Efrain Rios Montt who ruled the country for 17 months during the war's bloodiest period from 1982-1983.

Montt, denied amnesty by a judge last month, faces charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. He is accused of ordering the killings of at least 1,700 innocent Mayan people during a government crackdown on leftist insurgents. Montt appealed the amnesty decision to Guatemala's constitutional court and is awaiting a verdict.

His defence lawyers have said the 85-year-old did not control battlefield operations and that commanders were responsible for making decisions in their own posts.

Tuesday 13 March 2013

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/13/guatemalan-ex-soldier-jailed-dos-erres?CMP=twt_gu

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