Posts tonen met het label Crime. Alle posts tonen
Posts tonen met het label Crime. Alle posts tonen
woensdag 13 mei 2015
vrijdag 16 mei 2014
Odessa massacre victims died in seconds, not from smoke – emergency service chief
Violent clashes erupted on May 2 between rival rallies of anti-government protesters and radicals supporting the coup-imposed authorities in Kiev. The confrontation led to a tragedy that left 48 people dead and 247 injured as nationalists burnt the protester camp and then set fire to the Trade Unions House with anti-Kiev activists trapped inside. According to witnesses, many of those who managed to escape the flames were then strangled or beaten with bats by radicals.Victims of the Odessa fire massacre died within seconds, but not from smoke or carbon monoxide suffocation, the head of Odessa's emergency service department, Vladimir Bodelan, said on his Facebook page.
"I'm sure that 99.9 percent of the people were killed in the Trade Unions House within seconds and did not suffocate from smoke...[or burn in the] fire. But there are forensic experts, we will wait for their findings,"Bodelan said.
Bodelan was by the building when it was set on fire and said that even before the smoke spread inside, he saw people leaning outside windows trying to take a breath of fresh air.
“I cannot explain why they were having such trouble breathing, but I am 100 percent sure that it was not because of the smoke caused by the fire,” Bodelan said.
He added that there was a bang after the fire started inside the building, which apparently extinguished the blaze on the central staircase. “In that second, a few people jumped from the building...The majority of them were alive and they were even able to walk on their own two feet. But a couple dozen meters later, they lost consciousness and fell to the ground, with their tragic end known to all.”
He witnessed rescuers carrying more than 350 individuals out of the building while others who managed to jump out of the windows were heavily beaten by radicals – which led to many choosing to stay inside the building.
Bodelan said that several thousand individuals who were gathered outside the building prevented firefighters from getting close to the scene of the fire for quite some time.
"The worst thing in this situation was that fire brigades that arrived at the site on time could not begin putting out the fire because the attackers were shooting and resisting,” he said.
All of Bodelan’s attempts to increase police presence in the area went unanswered.
“I was forced to negotiate with activists, who looked to me as heads of fighter units, that we could work calmly,” he said.
At the same time, Kiev has made public its report, in which it also revealed what caused the death of nearly 50 people. According to “official information,” six people died of gun shots, 32 suffocated or died in the flames and another 10 fell to their deaths.
Forty-eight of those killed in the massacre have been identified by both local and social media. Three bodies people are still considered missing, according to various sources. Over 60 people remain in hospitals, 26 of whom are in grave condition.
Residents of Odessa gathered last weekend for a memorial service to commemorate the victims of the May 2 bloodshed.
woensdag 11 september 2013
Chemical attack was Syria rebel provocation, former hostages say
In a number of interviews to European news outlets, the former hostages - Belgian teacher Pierre Piccinin and Italian journalist Domenico Quiric - said they overheard an English-language Skype conversation between their captors and other men which suggested it was rebel forces, not the government, that used chemical weapons on Syria’s civilian population in an August 21 attack near Damascus.
“It is a moral duty to say this. The government of Bashar al-Assad did not use sarin gas or other types of gas in the outskirts of Damascus,” Piccinin said during an interview with Belgium's RTL radio station.
Piccinin stressed that while being held captive, he and fellow prisoner Quirico were secluded from the outside world and had no idea that chemical weapons were deployed. But the conversation which both men overheard suggested that the use of the weapons was a strategic move by the opposition, aimed at getting the West to intervene.
"In this conversation, they said that the gas attack on two neighborhoods of Damascus was launched by the rebels as a provocation to lead the West to intervene militarily,”Quirico told Italy’s La Stampa. "We were unaware of everything that was going on during our detention in Syria, and therefore also with the gas attack in Damascus."
While stating that the rebels most likely exaggerated the accident’s death toll, the Italian journalist stressed that he could not vouch whether “the conversation was based on real facts." However, he said that one of the three people in the alleged conversation identified himself as a Free Syrian Army general, La Stampa reported.
Based on what both men have learned, Peccinin told RTL that it would be “insane and suicidal for the West to support these people.”
“It pains me to say it because I've been a fierce supporter of the Free Syrian Army in its rightful fight for democracy since 2012," Piccinin added.
“I am extremely surprised that the United States could think about intervening, knowing very well how the Syrian revolution has become international jihadism – in other words Al-Qaeda," Quirico said, as quoted by Italy’s Quotidiano Nazionale.
The 62-year-old La Stampa journalist believes that radical Islamic groups operating in Syria to topple Assad “want to create a caliphate and extend it to the entire Middle East and North Africa.”
In a number of news appearances, both Quirico and Piccinin shared stories of how they were subjected to two mock executions, beaten, and starved during their five-month captivity.
"These have been very tough months. We were beaten on a daily basis, we suffered two mock executions," Quirico told reporters upon his arrival in Rome, AFP reported.
"There was sometimes real violence...humiliation, bullying, mock executions...Domenico faced two mock executions, with a revolver," Piccinin told RTL.
Both men were kidnapped in Syria last April by a group of armed men in pickup trucks who were believed to be from Free Syrian Army.
According to Piccinin, the captors soon transferred them over to the Abu Ammar brigade, a rebel group "more bandit than Islamist."
"We were moved around a lot...it was not always the same group that held us, there were very violent groups, very anti-West and some anti-Christian," Piccinin said.
Both men tried to escape twice but their attempts were unsuccessful, prompting the rebel group to punish them for their actions.
The Italian government announced on Sunday that both men had been freed after Rome intensified negotiations with the rebels for the release of the prisoners ahead of an anticipated US strike on Syria.
Another 13 journalists are still believed to be missing in Syria, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Source: http://rt.com/news/chemical-weapons-rebels-captives-632/
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