The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, February 18, 2000, Page 4, Image 4
_Nation & World_
Infrared used at Waco
can detect gunfire,
government admits
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Mittelstadt'
Associated Press
Washington—Government officials
now say a type of infrared camera used
by the FBI during a siege on the
Branch Davidian compound in Waco,
Texas, in 1993 is capable of detecting
gunfire — an about-face.
Lawyers for Branch Davidian plain
tiffs who have filed a wrongful-death law
suit against the government called the
acknowledgment a “stunning reversal”
from prior claims the camera could not
capture images of gunfire.
The government’s admission
comes just weeks before a demonstra
tion will test the Branch Davidians’ claim
that federal agents fired their weapons.
“What we’re seeing is the govern
ment can read the handwriting on the
wall, so to speak, and their experts
have told them, ‘Expect to see gunfire
flashes on the (infrared) demonstration
tapes that are going to look just like the
flashes on the April 1993 tape,”’ the Da
vidians’ lead counsel, Michael Caddell,
said Thursday.
A day earlier, U.S. Attorney Michael
Bradford, one of the government’s lead
attorneys, said the Forward Looking
Infrared camera, or FLER, is capable of
detecting gunfire “in some circum
stances.” However, he reiterated the gov
ernment’s stance that no shots were fired
by federal agents on April 19,1993.
The court-ordered field test is ex
pected to play a key role at trial, due to
begin in mid-May. Some 80 Davidians
died during the siege, some from the fire,
others from gunshot wounds. Federal of
ficials say the cult members died by their
own hands.
The Davidian survivors and relatives
of the dead allege that government
negligence, and excessive force con
tributed to the tragedy. The government
has denied wrongdoing, saying the Da
vidians set the stage for their own deaths.
Three monihs ago, the government
was skeptical about FLIR’s ability to de
tect gunfire. In a filing in federal court
in Waco, the Justice Department pro
posed to test the plaintiffs’ “hypothesis”
that gunfire can be captured on camera.
And the FBI’s own FLIR operators,
in more recent depositions, denied the
infrared camera could detect muzzle
blasts, Caddell and co-counsel Jim Bran
non said.
“‘Now they see they are going to lose
the test, they are shifting gears,” Bran
non said. “To diminish the test before
you ever run u, mai j> uie ue^i aiegy
you could ever follow, isn’t it?”
The government has long insisted that
no shots were directed at the Davidians
during the culmination of the 51-day
siege, which ended when the compound
was consumed by flames several hours
into an FBI tear-gassing operation de
signed to flush them out.
In an interview Thursday, Bradford
denied any shift in the government’s
stance. As for statements made during
the depositions, he said the plaintiffs’
lawyers interviewed “individual FBI
agents that we did not offer as ex
perts.”
The field test, scheduled to be held
at an Army outpost in central Texas in
mid-March, is about more than whether
FLIR can capture gunfire, Bradford said.
Also central to resolving the controver
sy is whether the cameras used during
the field test will detect people on the
ground, he said, noting the 1993 FLIR
did not capture any agents stationed out
side the compound when the bursts of
light appear.
People, like bullets, give off heat, so
both should appear, the government con
tends.
“In our opinion, what will show up
on that tape will be so starkly different
from what is on the April 19th tape
that it will be evident that (what occurred)
April 19th is not gunfire,” Bradford said.
Primary
from page 4
Litchfield for a question-and-answer ses
sion. One woman asked why so many
GOP leaders back him, not McCain.
“They’re sick and tired... of the peo
ple who simply talk the talk,” Bush said,
digging at McCain. “They’re interested
in having a leader who knows how to
walk the walk.”
Behind the scenes, McCain’s staff
appeared upbeat, happy to be within strik
ing distance of Bush. The governor’s ad
visers were clearly more tense, perhaps
because they have more to lose.
Bush is getting help from all quarters
of the GOP establishment.
Adjutant General Sutn Spears, com
mander of the South Carolina National
Guard, signed a glowing letter of en
dorsement for distribution by the Bush
campaign. Without naming McCain, it
also implied that the Arizonan would sac
rifice his principles to impress the me
dia.
McCain said he was shocked that a
military commander would engage in po
litical activity.
Spears said in a telephone inter
• view that he is an elected official, not
bound by rules against political activity
that federal employees in the Guard must
abide by. “I don’t answer to anybody,”
ho caiH
E-mails are being circulated in the
Asian-American community criticizing
McCain for calling Asians “gooks.” The
former Vietnam prisoner of war said he
has used the term for his prison guards.
There also are taped phone calls
going out from Bush, his wife, Laura, and
Sen. Strom Thurmond Letters have been
sent out signed by former presidential
candidite Elizabeth Dole and by Bush s
mother, Barbara Bush.
With fewer resources, McCain is re
lying on volunteer phone banks aiming
at 150,000 supporters, including veter
ans and independents.
Human rights groups allege
Russian torture in Chechnya
by Andrew Kramer
Associated Press
Malgobek, Russia—Chechens try
ing to leave their war-ravaged republic
are being tortured in Russian detention
camps and subjected to severe beatings,
rapes and other brutality, refugees and
human rights groups say.
The allegations come on the heels of
other complaints of human rights abuses
in the Russian offensive in Chechnya, in
cluding reports of summary executions
of civilians in Grozny, the Chechen cap
ital.
Russian officials deny the allegations,
but Chechens who have fled into neigh
boring republics tell similar, grisly ac
counts of their detention in camps that
Russia says it set up to filter out rebels
who are trying to escape disguised as civil
ians.
A 21 -year-old Chechen, lying in pain
in a bed in Malgobek in neighboring North
Ossetia, said his ordeal began Jan. 22 when
police dragged him off a bus of refugees
and took him to a camp in the Chechen
village of Chemokozovo.
The man, who asked that he be iden
tified only by his first name, Ruslan,
said he was forced to run a gantlet of
masked policemen swinging truncheons,
had his clothes tom off and was forced to
stand naked in a cold storage room.
“I asked what they were detaining
me for, but they didn’t answer,” he
said He was released only after his moth
er paid a bribe to the camp'directors, he
said.
At least three such camps are oper
ating, according to Peter Bouckaert, a re
searcher for the Human Rights Watch
group in the region.
“Russia appears to have declared any
Chechen male to be a suspected rebel
subject to arbitrary arrest and brutal treat
ment,” he said.
The allegations were echoed by the
Wbrld Oiganization Against Torture, which
issued a statement in Geneva on Thurs
day, saying, “We cannot ignore that the
filtration camps are indeed concentration
camps where Russian soldiers are com
mitting the worst atrocities, in all im
punity, against their prisoners.”
In Washington, State Department
spokesman James P. Rubin said Thursday
that “Russia has a clear obligation to in
vestigate the numerous credible reports
of civilian killings and alleged miscon
duct by its soldiers promptly.”
Sergei Yastrzhembsky, who is acting
President Vladimir Putin’s aide for Chech
nya information, on Thursday reiterat
ed denials of torture at Chemokozovo.
The allegations are “the No. 1 topic
in the information war the Western mass
media have unleashed,” he said on Rus
sia’s ORT television. “Routine work like
in any other detention center is going on
there.”
He said that European Union observers
would be allowed into the camp to see
the situation for themselves but gave no
date of a possible visit. The Council of
Europe’s human rights commissioner, Al
varo Gil-Robles, is due to arrive in
Moscow Feb. 24, but his office could give
no details of the trip.
Ruslan, the refugee, told of a routine
of torment, in which detainees were of
ten beaten in a hallway in the early morn
ing, their cries awakening others in their
cells. Ruslan saidguards told him “don’t
look me in the eyes, yoif black face,” and
then one hit him in the spine with a ham
mer. He says he has not been able to stand
erect since then.
An investigator accused him of fight
ing on the side of the Islamic rebel groups
that have battled Russian soldiers during
the six-month war and demanded names
and addresses of rebels, Ruslan said.
“Those who signed confessions, or
said they could identify other men who
were fighters, did not come back to the
ceils, according 10 anoiner rerugee wnu
said he had also been at Chemokozovo.
The refugee, Eli, said a masked po
liceman once opened a peephole to the
cell and said, “Who wants a smoke?”
When a prisoner approached the hole,
the guard sprayed tear gas into the cell,
and those inside reeled and were racked
by coughs for minutes, Eli said.
Eli said a man from their cell was
called out, and he heard guards rape him.
Then a guard said he should answer to a
woman’s name, Fatima. Other de
tainees described similar acts.
After this event, when guards rapped
on the cell door with a truncheon, the
detainees were to call out the number of
people in the cell as “fifteen men and
one woman,” said Eli.
Yastrzhembsky said Thursday there
are 16 women among the 235 people cur
rently held in Chemokozovo. But he re
jected a report by the French newspaper
Le Monde that said there were children
in the camp.
‘Russia appears to have declared any Chechen male
to be a suspected rebel subject to arbitrary arrest
and brutal treatment.’
Peter Bouckaert
researcher for Human Rights Watch
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