NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
7
Fridav.October 16,1992
Senate reviews POW leads
Questions raised by etchings found in Laos rice field
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The letters "USA" and "K" etched into a Laotian rice paddy only four years ago could be distress signals from American POWs, according to Senate testimony given yesterday.
Atop U.S. intelligence official told a Senate committee that the symbols have not been linked to any unaccounted-for POW. But lawmakers who visited the scene and other officials involved in the POW search process said the letters were almost certainly manmade and meant to be seen from the air.
As in past hearings of the Senate Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs, the testimony sparked disagreement among panel members and between senators and witnesses over the possibility that U.S. POWs may still be alive in Southeast Asia.
"This may be the only evidence that we find that points to specific men," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
The committee head, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., warned against encouraging family members of the missing to think their loved ones are still alive.
"If we pretend to them that something is a symbol when it's not, we are falsely raised hopes," Kerry said.
Duane Andrews, the assistant defense secretary for communications and intelligence, testified that the Defense Intelligence Agency, using highly sophisticated and classified photographic techniques, has analyzed several aerial images purporting to show letters, numbers and symbols. DIA rejected most as shadows cast by trees or overly optimistic interpretations of markings on buildings.
In two instances, DIA has concluded that symbols were manmade but has reached no conclusion on what they mean, Andrews said.
"It's easy to be misled," Andrews said. "Our photo analyses are trained to report what's on the imagery, not what they'd like to be on the imagery."
On Jan. 22, 1988, an aerial image was taken of a ricky paddle in northern Laos near the village of Sam Neua as part of a Defense Department POW mission. By the time the photo was analyzed the following December and follow-up missions flown, the letters had disappeared. But the photos showed a clearly delineated "USA" symbol carved out of the paddy in letters about 12 feet high and 6 feet wide. Below the "USA" letters was another marking that could be the letter "K," a letter used by Air Force pilots to communicate with rescuers.
In May and July of 1973, after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords between the United States and North Vietnam, unmanned air reconnaissance craft photographed what appeared to be the numbers "1973" followed by the letters "TH" or "TA." The symbols were etched in the ground or grass in central Laos on the Plane of Jars, a contested area during the civil war between U.S.-supported Royal Laotian forces and communist guerrillas.
"The USA' and possible 'K remain unexplained, despite having tasked every means of information collection available through the intelligence community," Andrews said. He said the 1973 symbol was unexplained and probably would remain so.
William Gadoury, the head of a Pentagon-directed POW task force based in Thailand, raised the possibility that one of the many privately-run POW rescue outfits, called Operation Skyhook II, might have planted the letters "USA" and then reported them to the Pentagon as an indication of live POWs.
'Forest Strip Killer' gets death sentence
The Associated Press
ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia — For Lydia Khobotova, the death sentence handed down to the world's bloodiest serial killer was not enough.
"Give him to us! Let us have him!" she screamed yesterday as a judge sentenced Andrei Chikatilio for murdering 52 children and women in a series of cannibalistic sex crimes.
Khobotova's 10-year-old son was one of the former schoolteacher's victims.
She and other mothers tried to push past the guards around the cage from which Chikatilo watched his six-month trial.
Nina Belovetskaya, whose 12-year-old son died at Chikatilo's hands, also had to be restrained.
"He should be taught a lesson for all the horrors he committed!" she said. "He should have been given to us right here in the courtroom. I would have done the execution myself."
The 56-year-old grandfather — dubbed the "Forest Strip Killer" for the place where he dumped the bodies — was convicted Wednesday of killing and mutilating 25 girls, girls
and women between 1978 and 1990. Some of the victims were dismembered while they were still alive.
Court-appointed psychiatrists had certified Chikatilo as sane.
He kicked a wooden bench in his steel courtroom cage as the sentence was read in the court in this southern Russian city.
"Con man' Swindler!" Chikatto
velled at Judge Leonid Akubzhanov.
"Chikatilio, I warned you," Akubzhanov said as armed policemen pulled the slight, gray-haired man out of the cage and nearly pushed him down a flight of stairs and out of the courtroom because of his outburst.
Under Russian law, the death sentence would be carried out by a single bullet to the back of the head. Both the sentence and the conviction can be appealed.
The judge and a two-person jury ruled Wednesday that he was guilty of killing 21 boys, 14 girls and 17 young women in a string of murders so revolting that when his crimes were recounted on yesterday, many in the courtroom openly gasped and one woman fainted.
The Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. — Too much time has passed for an elderly segregationist to get a fair trial in the 1963 ambush slaying of a civil rights leader, defense lawyers argued yesterday before the Mississippi Supreme Court.
Byron De La Beckwith, 71, is charged for a third time with killing NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers, gunned down in the driveway of his Jackson home.
Beckwith was tried twice in 1964, but all-white juries could not reach verdicts and mistrusts were declared.
In an hour of arguments in a packed courtroom, Beckwith's lawyers asked the court to dismiss the new charge. The justices did not say when they would rule.
Beckwith, who has been held without bail in the Hinds County jail since October 1981,did not attend.
October 2014 and after.
"We know the difficulties in trying to put a case together with people who are trying to deal with memories of 30 years ago," attorney Jim Kitchens said.
Assistant District Attorney Bobby Delaughter said at least four new witnesses had come forward with information about incriminating statements Beckwth made since the last trial.
Defense lawyers cited Beckwith's age, the death of many witnesses from the two previous trials and the dropping of the case in 1969.
"I am so weary of hearing people say it has been so long and that age is a problem. It has been 30 years for me, too," said Evers' widow, Myrlie Evers, after the hearing.
Prosecutors have said they did not move for a trial in 1964 because passions of the time would have made a fair trial impossible.
They argued the delay did not violate Beckwith's right to a speedy trial because the constitutional provision does not apply after the government, acting in good faith, drops charges.
There is no statute of limitations on murder in Mississippi.
"NO COUPON SPECIALS" EVERYDAY
TWO-FERS
2-PIZZAS
2-TOPPINGS
2-COKES
$9.00
PRIMETIME
3-PIZZAS
1-TOPPING
4-COKES
$11.50
10-PIZZAS
1-TOPPING
PARTY10"
$30.00
CARRY-OUT
1-PIZZA
1-TOPPING
1-COKE
$3.50
842-1212
DELIVERYHOURS
Mon-Thurs Fri-Sat Sunday
11 am-2 am
11 am-3 am
11 am-1 am
1601 W.23rd Southern Hills Center
you'll hear the music of
CAROLE KING and B.B.KING
swangin'stuff
"ATLANTA BRAVES vs TORONTO BLUEJAYS"
Established 1992
623 Vermont
Billiards
Steel Darts
749-5067
Shuffleboard
Baseball 11:00A.M-2:00A.M snuffleboard
Ball Park Day - This Saturday
Chicago Dogs & Polish Sausages - Only $2
Hard To Wet
Easy To Dry
MAD COBRA
including
FLEX
DEAD END STREET
LEGACY
RELEASE
With the likes of Shabba Ranks, Super Cat and now Mad Cobra,舞 hall reggae is about ready to explode, and Mad Cobra's latest album is just the ammunition to fuel the first Mad Cobra joins forces with the Geto Boys on this album to do "Dead End Street", and releases the innovative ballad *Flex*
COLUMBIA
Cassette
Sale Prices Good Thru 10/31/92
hastings We're Entertainment!
3051 E. Main Street
HEY,JAYHAWKS!
PARENTS COMING TO VISIT? NO ROOM IN YOUR APARTMENT?
WE HAVE THE ANSWER! Parent's Special $33
Plus Tax/Double Occupancy
113Beautifullyappointedguestrooms
- Greenery Restaurant, great food at reasonable prices
♦ Hangar #4 Club, come in and enjoy your favorite beverage
Banquet & meeting rooms available.
- Close to the Kansas University Campus
- Outdoor pool
2309iowa Street *Lawrence, Kansas 66045*
(913)843-9100
Not valid during graduation or special events
Offer expires 4-30-93