Boy, 6, shot to death by Syrian troops at border Boy, 6, shot to death by Syrian troops at border ADVERTISING RAMTHA, Jordan — The family crept across farmland under night’s cover, heading for the border, when Syrian troops opened
Boy, 6, shot to death by Syrian troops at border
RAMTHA, Jordan — The family crept across farmland under night’s cover, heading for the border, when Syrian troops opened fire. Bullets whizzed around them as they broke into a mad dash, survivors say. The 6-year-old boy, holding his mother’s hand, broke away and ran ahead. He nearly made it into Jordan when he fell dead, a bullet in his neck.
The boy, killed in the early hours Friday, was the first Syrian shot to death by border guards while trying to escape into neighboring Jordan from the bloodshed of their homeland’s 17-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad. The slaying underlined not only the dangerousness of the passage, but the fine line Syria’s neighbors have to tread in trying to help Syrians while avoiding being dragged into the conflict.
Bilal el-Lababidi and his parents were in a group of around a dozen Syrians trying to sneak into Jordan just after midnight, the latest of more than 140,000 Syrians who have taken refuge in the kingdom.
“He is a martyr who is now in a better place. I’m sure he is in heaven,” said el-Lababidi’s mother before the boy’s burial later Friday at a cemetery in the northern Jordanian city of Ramtha. She made it across with her two younger sons — but her husband fled back amid the shooting.
“The criminal Bashar is the reason,” she said, slapping her face with her fists as she wept. She wore a veil over her face and a traditional Muslim head-to-toe robe. “Bashar is killing his people and the whole world is watching and doing nothing.” She would only identify herself as Umm Bilal, or “mother of Bilal,” as conservative women often do in public rather than using their real names.
Defense: Colo. shooting suspect sent package to psychiatrist he was seeing at school
DENVER — The former graduate student accused in the deadly Colorado movie theater shooting was being treated by a psychiatrist at the university where he studied, the first indication that he may have sought help before the rampage that killed 12 people and wounded 58.
Attorneys for James Holmes, 24, made the disclosure in a court motion Friday as they sought to discover the source of leaks to some media outlets that he sent the psychiatrist a package containing a notebook with descriptions of an attack.
The motion said the leaks jeopardized Holmes’ right to a fair trial and violated a judge’s gag order.
Holmes’ lawyers added that the package contained communications between Holmes and his psychiatrist that should be shielded from public view. The document describes Holmes as a “psychiatric patient” of Dr. Lynne Fenton.
The motion did not reveal when Holmes began seeing Fenton or whether he was being treated for a mental illness. Legal analysts expect Holmes’ attorneys to use an insanity defense at trial. Holmes is scheduled to be arraigned Monday. A hearing on the new defense motion also is scheduled that day.
U.S. approves permit for Keystone pipeline’s southern portion
HOUSTON — A Canadian company that wants to build an oil pipeline from Alberta’s tar sands region to Texas refineries has received a final permit for the Gulf Coast portion of the project and announced Friday that construction on the 485-mile section would start in the coming weeks.
President Barack Obama encouraged TransCanada to move ahead with the segment that will run from a refinery in Cushing, Okla., to Texas after he rejected the broader plan, saying the pipeline needed to be rerouted around Nebraska’s sensitive Sand Hills region. For that project, TransCanada needs presidential approval because it crosses an international border. The shorter portion only requires permits from state and federal agencies. TransCanada said the final of three permits it needed from the Army Corps of Engineers had been approved.
By wire sources
