Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 29, 2002
Cyanide truck still missing
MEXICO CITY -- Mexican officials still haven't found 8 tons of stolen cyanide.
Police say that common criminals probably stole the truckload of cyanide May 10 and panicked when they realized the cargo was 96 drums containing sodium cyanide bricks.
Despite a search of the area, nothing has been found since May 16, when police found the stolen truck along with 20 of the drums, one of them open, in Puebla state, about 95 miles southeast of where it was stolen in Hidalgo state.
"We are all certain that (the cyanide) is still in the state of Hidalgo," said federal police Commander Arturo Jimenez, according to a text released Tuesday by the federal Public Security Department. "We believe that we are dealing with common thieves who accidentally robbed a vehicle with that merchandise."
Even so, U.S. Customs officials have been alerted to watch for the missing cyanide.
"The FBI is working with its Mexican counterparts to try and determine the nature of this crime and to determine where the missing cyanide is," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the U.S. Office of Homeland Security.
Sodium cyanide is used in mining to extract gold and silver from other rock. If sniffed, ingested or absorbed through the skin, it attacks the nervous system and can cause suffocation.
ISABELA, Philippines -- Most U.S. military forces in the southern Philippines, the largest Pentagon deployment outside Central Asia in the war against terrorism, will leave this summer even though an Islamic extremist group linked to al-Qaida continues to operate in the region, according to U.S. and Philippine government officials.
About 660 U.S. troops, including 160 Special Forces members, were sent this year to support a long-stalled Philippine military effort to crush Abu Sayyaf guerrillas and free three hostages, including American missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham. The Kansas couple was kidnapped from a nearby resort a year ago this week.
Officials said this week that the six-month deployment of U.S. troops will end as planned July 31, and most U.S. troops will withdraw whether the Burnhams are freed, or Abu Sayyaf is eliminated.
Attorneys for John Walker Lindh won't be allowed to interview al-Qaida prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay and must instead rely on government interrogators to ask questions they have provided, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
But U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III warned prosecutors that he would supervise the process and could change the arrangement if he finds that it "ends up impairing (the defense's) right to get reasonable and decent answers."
Both sides agree that 20 of the detainees, who were captured with Lindh in Afghanistan last winter, have information that could help the California man defend himself at his August trial.
The hearing in Alexandria, Va., reflected Ellis' struggle to find a balance between Lindh's right to prepare for a trial that could put him behind bars for life and the government's contention that keeping the detainees incommunicado in Cuba is crucial to protecting the country from terrorist attacks.
FLORIDA BOMB PLOT: A federal magistrate ordered two men held without bail Tuesday after listening to government recordings of the men planning attacks in South Florida. Imran Mandhai, 19, and Shueyb Mossa Jokhan, 24, will be held in federal custody until their trial on charges that they conspired to bomb electrical transformers and a National Guard Armory in Hollywood, Fla.