'Second JFK gunman' theory revived

by Juan Lozano
AP

TESTS on the type of ammunition used in the 1963 assassination of US president John F Kennedy raise questions about whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, according to a new scientific study.

The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that Oswald fired three shots from the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas at Kennedy's motorcade.

A further government inquiry agreed in 1979, finding that the two bullets which hit Kennedy came from Oswald's rifle.

The committee's findings were based in part on the testimony of the late forensic chemist Vincent Guinn, who said the recovered fragments came from only two bullets.

Mr Guinn testified that the bullets Oswald used were individually unique and that it would be possible to distinguish one from another even if they both came from the same box.

But in the new study researchers found that fragments were not nearly so unique and that bullets within the same box could match one another. One of the test bullets also matched one or more of the assassination fragments.

"This finding means that the bullet fragments from the assassination that match could have come from three or more separate bullets," the researchers wrote in a paper detailing their study, which is to be published later this year by the journal Annals of Applied Statistics.

"If the assassination fragments are derived from three or more separate bullets, then a second assassin is likely, as the additional bullet would not be attributable to the main suspect, Mr Oswald," the report adds.

However lead researcher Cliff Spiegelman, of Texas A&M University, stressed: "We're not saying there was a conspiracy. All we're saying is the evidence that was presented as a slam-dunk for a single shooter is not a slam- dunk."

Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, which is dedicated to Kennedy's life and assassination, insisted: "Their study can't answer anything about the assassination because they didn't test the actual fragments."

Jim Marrs, author of Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, said: "Is this going to solve the case or change anybody's mind? Probably not, but it supports the contentions of conspiracy researchers all through the years."
A CONSPIRACY FOR EVERYONE

A HOST of conspiracy theories have developed around the assassination of John F Kennedy, most of them stemming from the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald could not have been a lone gunman.

Some 35 witnesses thought that shots were fired from the now-famous "Grassy Knoll". More than 50 said they came from the Book Depository, while five thought shots came from two directions.

According to various conspiracy theories, the CIA, the Mafia, the Soviet Union, Israel, anti-Castro Cubans and/or Cuba were to blame.

Cannabis cash 'funds Islamist terrorism'

by Alex Duval Smith in Paris
THE OBSERVER

Cannabis smokers are unwittingly funding Islamist extremists linked to terror attacks in Spain, Morocco and Algeria, according to a joint investigation by the Spanish and French secret services. The finding will be seized on both by campaigners for a harsher clampdown on cannabis and by those who argue that legalisation is the only way to end a petty dealing trend that is dragging growing numbers of teenagers into crime.

The investigation by the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia and the Renseignements Generaux was launched after Spanish police found that the Islamists behind the March 2004 bombings in Madrid bought their explosives from former miners in return for blocks of hashish. The bombings claimed 191 lives.

Spain's role as a transit point for drugs was highlighted last week when Madrid hosted the US Drug Enforcement Agency's annual conference. Experts heard not only that North African hashish was funding terrorism in Europe, but also that West Africa had become a new hub for South American cocaine shipments bound for Europe.

Morocco is the world's leading cannabis exporter, with an annual crop estimated to be worth at least £2bn. Last month, the Moroccan navy seized three tonnes of Europe-bound hashish off the Mediterranean port of Nador. The same week, Spanish coastguards seized 4.3 tonnes of Moroccan resin off Ibiza.

The joint secret service investigation finds that hashish is part of a 'complex financing network' serving the Algeria-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, affiliated since last year to al-Qaeda. The group claimed responsibility for two bombings in Algiers on 11 April that killed 30 people and left 200 injured.

French terrorism expert Dominique Thomas said the link between drug dealing and Islamic terrorism was not new: 'The issue stands at the core of divisions within al-Qaeda between those who believe that the end justifies the means and others who argue that drugs are incompatible with Islam.'

Woolmer case takes a fatwa twist

‘Killer not from Jamaica’

London, PTI

Woolmer was upset that several members of the Pakistani team were followers of the Tablighi Jamaat, a Muslim revivalist movement, Pakistani media manager Pervez Mir indicated on Tuesday during the BBC’s Panorama programme.

A fatwa angle has emerged in the mysterious murder of Bob Woolmer, with the disclosure that the Pakistan coach was reportedly unhappy with the time spent by players on prayers.

Woolmer was upset that several members of the Pakistani team were followers of the Tablighi Jamaat, a Muslim revivalist movement, Pakistani media manager Pervez Mir indicated on Tuesday during the BBC’s Panorama programme, which focused on Bob Woolmer’s murder in a Jamaican hotel six weeks ago.


Focus on religion
According to Mir, Woolmer felt that the players were focusing more on their religion than on the game. He went on to claim that Woolmer could have even invited a fatwa had he gone public with his feelings about the players’ focus on prayer.

Recalling an incident, Mir said, “A Tablighi CD was being played and Bob, who was sitting behind me, said, ‘Why don’t you tell them to stop? If they want to listen to that, they can do that on their iPods or personal devices’. He thought that he shouldn’t be subjected to all that, and I agreed with Bob.”

Mir said Woolmer had apprehensions about the players’ dwindling focus on cricket.

“He wasn’t particularly pleased when players went out to pray in the middle of the game.. and substitutes kept coming in again and again. He was totally against it,” he said.

Mir’s observation that Inzamam-ul Haq and his teammates prayed more and played less irked quite a few back home and the media manager had to flee Pakistan after a fatwa was issued against him.

Mir had no doubt that “there would have been a fatwa against him (Woolmer) as well, had the coach made his observations public.”

The BBC programme said Inzamam and other key players of the Pakistani squad had become members of the Tablighi Jamat and the group listened to prayers and sermons while travelling with the rest of the squad on the team bus.

The killer
The programme also quoted the deputy commissioner of Jamaican Police Mark Shields as saying that Woolmer was murdered by someone who had come from outside the Caribbean country.

“The difference between Bob Woolmer’s murder and most of these is that Jamaican killers tend to use knives or guns. The fact that Bob Woolmer was strangled has made the police infer that his killer had come from outside Jamaica,” he stated.

He said that on March 18, the day Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room, nine murder cases had been registered across the country.

Road ahead: plotting a repair strategy

REPLACING OR FIXING RAMP WILL TAKE WEEKS OR MONTHS AND COST MILLIONS

by Erik N. Nelson
MediaNews
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

Replacing the collapsed MacArthur Maze freeway ramp and replacing or repairing the ramp below could take several months or several weeks, but until the debris of Sunday's pre-dawn gasoline tanker disaster is cleared, it's anybody's guess.

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