10A
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2009
Performing Tech-nique
Ryan Waggoner/KANSAN
Rappers (left to right) Kurt Calhoun, Tech N9ne and Krizz Kaliko perform at the Granada last Friday evening. All three artists are part of the Strange Music record label which was founded by Tech N9ne in 2000. It was announced last week that Strange Music was the #1 independent record label in the world.
INTERNATIONAL
Counterterrorism unit opens fire
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Indonesia
SOLO, Indonesia Counterterrorism forces opened fire during a raid on a house in Central Java, police and witnesses said, amid investigations into suicide hotel bombings in the capital in July.
Shots were heard for several hours starting late Wednesday night, witnesses said.
An anti-terror unit cordoned off a house in a suburb of the city of Solo, a stronghold for hardline Islamist groups, police Col. Joko Iwanto said early Thursday.
"I ran out of my house in fear when I heard the gunfire," said Widjan, a neighbor, who like many
Indonesians goes by one name.
The property was rented several months ago by a young couple, and the two work as teachers at an Islamic boarding school and a kindergarten, local village chief Suratim said.
Police were searching for key suspects believed to be hiding at the house, an official with the counterterrorism force said. Backup units with anti-explosives equipment were deployed, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to talk to the media.
Electricity was cut along streets surrounding the house, plunging the area into darkness and an ambulance was waiting nearby.
witnesses said.
The raid comes as police continue a massive manhunt for perpetrators of attacks on the J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta on July 17. The blasts
killed seven people and wounded more than 50, ending nearly four years without terrorist strikes in the world's most populous Muslimmajority country.
mind, Malaysian fugitive Noordin Muhammad Top, remains at large. Police are also still searching for several militant operatives believed to have planned the operation and recruited the bombers.
"I ran out of my house in fear when I heard the gunfire."
Widjan Solo resident
down in raids in recent weeks, but the alleged terrorist master-
Noordin allegedly leads a breakaway group of the Southeast Asian terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah, which carried out a string of bombings in Indonesia in recent years with the support of al-Qaida.
Terrorist attacks have killed 250 people in Indonesia since 2002.
NATIONAL
Millionaire sentenced for part in child sex-ring
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PHILADELPHIA — A wealthy Russian-American car exporter was sentenced to eight years in prison Wednesday for procuring girls from a Russian orphanage to have sex with them.
Andrew Mogilyansky, 39, of suburban Philadelphia raped one girl on her 14th birthday and a 13-year-old in her first sexual encounter, the victims said in letters to the court.
The original indictment and an $8 million civil lawsuit accuse Mogilansky of helping finance and run an online child-sex ring aimed at rich international customers.
However, he pleaded guilty only to being a customer of the now-defunct "Berenika" ring.
"I still feel his repugnant breath. I hate him," one of the victims, now 18, wrote in a
statement read in court
Friends from Mogiliyanksy's days at Columbia University testified Wednesday, describing him as brilliant and generous, and his wife called him a loving husband and father. A defense psychotherapist concluded he is not a sexual predator.
"To take young teenagers... and have sex with them is a grave criminal act."
But the victims wrote that he left them pained, depressed and unable to trust men since the assaults in 2003 and 2004. Mogilyansky was accused of getting the girls from an orphanage on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, then assulting them at an apartment in the Russian city.
U. S. District Judge Mary A. McLaughlin decried "this business of going abroad to have sex with young girls." She found the defendant's accomplishments impressive but called his crimes "grave."
Mogilyanks received the top of the 78- to 97-month sentencing range negotiated as part of his plea to four "sex tourism" counts.
"To take young teenagers from that orphanage to an apartment and have sex with them is a grave criminal act," McLaughlin said.
Mary A. McLaughlin U.S. district judge
Mogilyansky had lived in Richboro northeast of Philadelphia with his wife and their three toddlers until his bail was revoked following his December arrest.
"It wasn't until after I was arrested that I looked myself in the mirror and said, 'How could
Prosecutors previously estimated his wealth at $5 million to $10 million, and said he earned $750,000 a year as the owner of several businesses, including IFEX Global in Bensalem the car exporting company.
I have done this?" Mogilyansky told the judge. "This isn't me."
But defense lawyer Jack McMahon scoffed at suggestions his client remains a millionaire, and prosecutors did not challenge his request for a low fine of $12,500.
Mogilyansky must also pay each victim $5,000 restitution, register as a sex offender after his release and serve 15 years of federal probation.
More than 50 "sex tourism" cases have been brought in the U.S. under the 2003 Protect Act, which aims to prosecute Americans who travel overseas — beyond the reach of U.S. law — to have sex with children.