RSS
Jury in Pittsburgh shooter case asks to see gunman’s weapons
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — Less than an hour after heading into deliberations, the jury considering whether to give a death sentence to the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter asked to see his weapons.
The request on Tuesday morning was a signal that the jury is proceeding to its final verdict in the trial, which has lasted for two months.
In the aftermath of the jury’s viewing of the weapons, which took less than 10 minutes, Judge Robert Colville discussed with the lawyers how sentencing should proceed on Wednesday. That prompted an alarmed protest from Judy Clark, the chief defense lawyer for Robert Bowers, who killed 11 Jews at prayer on Oct. 27, 2018, the worst antisemitic attack in U.S. history. “I think we should wait for the verdict, your honor,” Clark said.
It’s not clear why the jury wanted to see the weapons, but in weighing a death sentence, one of the statutory aggravating factors jurors must consider is the risk the gunman’s attack posed to others.
He entered the synagogue carrying three Glock pistols and an AR-15 rifle. Prosecutors have argued that the recklessness and breadth of the attack posed risks to others in the Tree of Life synagogue building, which housed three congregations, and to law enforcement.
The jurors asked a U.S. Marshall present where the shooter was carrying his handguns, how to load an AR-15 and whether a magazine on display was for the AR-15.
The weapons were loaded into six cardboard boxes and placed on a table near the jury box and were not visible to observers in the courtroom. Colville ordered white noise to be played so observers could not hear the jurors chat among themselves. The jurors seemed animated, pointing at the weapons, at times smiling. It’s not clear which weapons and ammunition were on display; the gunman left additional weapons and ammunition in his car on the day of the attack.
The defense asked the U.S. marshal, who answered the jurors’ questions, what they had asked and how he had replied. Colville called the jurors back in to tell them to disregard his answers, which were not properly classed as evidence or testimony. He also rejected a defense call for a mistrial.
The defendant was not in the courtroom when the examination took place, but he returned soon afterward and appeared more engaged than he has been since the start of the trial, peering around the courtroom.
The jury response form is 26 pages. The question about aggravated risk appears on the third page. It took the jury less than 5 hours on June 16 to find the defendant guilty and under two hours on July 13 to determine that his crimes merited the death penalty.
Since then, jurors have been hearing evidence that mitigating factors, including the gunman’s alleged mental illness and his difficult upbringing, should keep him from death. The government has argued the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors. A death penalty determination must be unanimous; a single juror opposing the penalty means the gunman will automatically get life in prison without parole.
—
The post Jury in Pittsburgh shooter case asks to see gunman’s weapons appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
RSS
Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
RSS
Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.