El Paso – A military policeman has been sentenced to three months in prison after pleading guilty to assault and two counts of making a false statement in the 2002 beating death of a prisoner in Afghanistan.
In a plea bargain, Army prosecutors agreed not to pursue a charge of maltreatment against Spec. Brian Cammack. Cammack agreed to testify in other cases related to the deaths of two inmates at the Bagram Control Point.
Cammack was sentenced Friday during a court-martial at Fort Bliss. He will be demoted to private, fined more than $3,200 and given a bad-conduct discharge.
Cammack, a member of the Army Reserve’s 377th Military Police Company in Cincinnati, said he was angry when he struck the prisoner, Mullah Habibullah, twice in the thigh with his knee. The prisoner had allegedly spit on his chest.
Habibullah died of a pulmonary embolism apparently caused by blood clots formed in his legs from the beatings, according to a 2004 military report.
PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla.
Man admits abducting, raping two young girls
A man kidnapped two girls from their homes while their parents slept, took them to a construction site and raped them before sending them home, threatening to kill their families if they said anything, authorities said.
Erick Thomas Knapp Jr., 31, confessed to investigators that he kidnapped, bound and raped the girls, ages 13 and 7, in separate incidents, a sheriff’s spokesman said. He said there may be more victims.
“He went into occupied residences and snatched children while their parents were sleeping in the next room,” the spokesman said. “I don’t know how much more of a monster” one can be.
Knapp was charged with kidnapping, armed burglary and sexual battery and was being held in the Charlotte County Jail without bail. If convicted, he could face the death penalty for allegedly raping a person younger than 12.
ATLANTA
Medical group urges gay-nuptials approval
Representatives of the nation’s top psychiatric group approved a statement Sunday urging legal recognition of gay marriage.
If approved by the association’s directors in July, the measure would make the American Psychiatric Association the first major medical group to take such a stance.
The statement supports same-sex marriage “in the interest of maintaining and promoting mental health.”
The psychiatric association’s statement, approved at its annual meeting in Atlanta, cites the “positive influence of a stable, adult partnership on the health of all family members.”
BROWNSTOWN, Ind.
Inmate freed after giving false confession
A man charged with murdering a 10-year-old girl after falsely confessing to the crime was released from an Indiana jail, one day after prosecutors charged another man in the slaying.
Charles Hickman was released from the Jackson County Jail, where he had been held on unrelated charges of molesting another minor two years ago.
Prosecutors dropped murder charges against Hickman, a 21-year-old high school dropout who police said confessed to killing Katlyn “Katie” Collman – purportedly after she saw people making methamphetamine at an apartment complex.
Anthony Stockelman, who previously had been charged with molesting Katie, now faces additional charges of murder and confinement.
Authorities and Hickman’s attorney were unable to explain why he confessed to a crime he did not commit.
BEIJING
Pirated “Star Wars” uses wrong subtitles
Counterfeiters were selling illegal DVDs of the latest “Star Wars” movie on Beijing’s streets Sunday, just three days after it opened in Chinese cinemas.
The copies of “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith,” priced at $2.40, were being offered by vendors on Beijing’s main avenue.
Viewers using the English subtitles were likely to be confused because they were from the 2003 action movie “Detention” starring Dolph Lundgren and didn’t match the on-screen action. The Chinese subtitles, however, were accurate.
ULSAN, South Korea
N. Korean ship docks in South; 1st since ’80s
A North Korean cargo ship arrived in South Korea on Sunday to pick up fertilizer for the impoverished country, the first such vessel from the isolated communist nation to dock here in 21 years.
The ship traveled to the southeastern port of Ulsan after South Korea last week agreed to give 200,000 tons of fertilizer to the North in a deal reached after rare bilateral talks. Those talks failed to persuade the North to return to talks on its nuclear program but did lead to Cabinet- level talks between the two rivals again next month.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
Seven teens drown, 1 missing after riptide
Seven teenage girls drowned Sunday in a riptide off South Africa’s east coast and a boy was missing after a beach outing turned tragic. The swimmers ventured out before lifeguards were on duty.
Lifeguards later managed to rescue 20 swimmers. The bodies of the seven who drowned were found later in the day.
The swimmers arrived at the beach in the town of Richards Bay on South Africa’s east coast at about 7 a.m., entering the water on an ebb tide.
