Italian judge frees Spanish rescue ship
MADRID -- An Italian judge has ordered Italy to release a Spanish aid group's rescue ship that was impounded for taking 218 migrants to Italy.
Proactiva Open Arms said Monday that the ship was free to leave the Sicilian port of Pozzallo, but that prosecutors are still investigating whether its crew should face charges of criminal association and aiding illegal aliens.
The judge, Ragusa investigating magistrate Giovanni Giampiccolo, recognized that the ship was acting under "a state of necessity" when it rescued the migrants off Libya's coast and refused Libyan coast guard commands to turn them over, Proactiva lawyer Rosa Lo Faro said.
The magistrate ruled that international standards call for those rescued at sea to be brought somewhere "safe" -- and that Libya was not safe, Italy's ANSA news agency reported.
The investigation stems from a tense high-seas standoff last month between the Open Arms crew and the Libyan coast guard. The group refused to hand over the migrants they had picked up in international waters and took them to Italy, where the ship was immediately impounded.
"At all times, we acted according to existing international norms and laws created to protect human lives at sea and the rights of those rescued," Open Arms said.
Ex-Auschwitz guard, 94, faces charges
BERLIN -- German prosecutors say they've charged a 94-year-old former SS guard at the Auschwitz death camp as an accessory to murder.
Prosecutors in Stuttgart said Monday that the suspect, a German national born in Serbia whom they didn't identify by name, was charged as a juvenile because he was 19 at the time of the alleged offenses.
They say he served as a guard at Auschwitz in late 1942 and early 1943 and estimate that 13,335 people were sent to the gas chambers during that time. According to prosecutors, the suspect has said via his lawyer that he wasn't aware of the background and aims of what was happening, or of details of the killings.
The defendant has been charged on the premise that, as a guard, he helped the camp function.
Turks seize Greek flag on disputed isle
ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkey warned Greece on Monday to refrain from "provocations" after a Greek flag was hoisted on a disputed, uninhabited islet in the Aegean Sea off the Turkish coast.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters that the Turkish coast guard had removed the flag from the island off the coast of the Aegean resort of Didim.
Yildirim said the incident was similar to one in 1996 when the two NATO allies went to war over uninhabited islets -- known as Imia in Greek and Kardak in Turkish -- which both Turkey and Greece claim.
"Our advice to Greece would be to stay away from provocations and agitations," Yildirim said, adding that Turkey was "determined to give the necessary response" to such acts.
In Athens, Greek government spokesman Dimitris Tzannakopoulos said the government had no knowledge of the incident and described the remarks by Yildirim as "provocative and reprehensible."
8th body found on Canadian's property
TORONTO -- Canadian serial killer suspect Bruce McArthur is now facing an eighth murder charge -- the death of a Sri Lankan man who had not been reported missing.
Toronto police detective Sgt. Hank Idsinga said Monday the 66-year-old landscaper has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam.
Idsinga said Kanagaratnam's remains were found at a home that McArthur used as storage for his landscaping business. The remains of seven others have also been found in large planters at the home.
Idsinga said Kanagaratnam, 37, arrived from Sri Lanka in 2010 and was not on file as missing. He lived in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough and had no direct family in Canada.
Police said there are currently no known links between Kanagaratnam and the "Gay Village" of Toronto which other victims are known to have visited.
Idsinga said investigators are looking into 15 other cold cases dating back to 1975, but have not found a connection.
A Section on 04/17/2018