A boy whose remains were found in a remote desert compound in New Mexico died during a ritual ceremony, US prosecutors said.
The boy’s remains were discovered after police rescued 11 malnourished children who were being held at the site.
The children were trained to use weapons to defend the compound from police, prosecutors said.
Five adults have been arrested on charges of abusing the children – charges they have denied.
Prosecutors moved to deny all five bail in a court hearing on Monday, but the district judge ruled the prosecution had not conclusively proven they were a threat to the community.
Police raided the compound, near Amalia, on August 6, as part of their search for a missing three-year-old boy, Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj.
Abdul-Ghani’s father, Siraj Wahhaj, was arrested at the site, along with Lucas Morten, Jany Leveille, Hujhrah Wahhaj and Subhannah Wahhaj.
Mr. Wahhaj is suspected of abducting the boy from his Georgia home in December.
Abdul-Ghani was not among the 11 children rescued from the compound – but police said they later found the remains of a young boy there.
During the court hearing, prosecutors said the remains belonged to Abdul-Ghani and that the other children said the boy had died during a “religious ritual.”
It was “a ritual intended to cast out demonic spirits,” Taos Country prosecutor John Lovelace told the court.
Abdul-Ghani suffered from seizures, according to the missing person’s report filed by his mother.
But Mr. Wahhaj believed the boy was possessed by the devil and needed to be exorcised, court papers say.
But district judge Sarah Buckus did not deny any of the five defendant’s bail, setting it at $20,000 per head.
While the state “alleges there was a big plan afoot,” the judge said, they did not present evidence “to my satisfaction… what that plan was.”
…………………………………………………………………….
Omarosa Manigault Newman: Former aide taped ‘Trump phone call’
A former adviser to the US President Mr. Donald Trump has released what she says is a tape of a phone call from the US president after her dismissal last year.
In the tape played on US TV channel NBC, a voice presumed to be Mr. Trump’s expresses surprise at Omarosa Manigault Newman being fired the previous day.
“Nobody even told me about it,” the male voice can be heard saying.
She is releasing a memoir soon and the White House has described her as a disgruntled ex-employee.
Tweeting on Monday, Mr. Trump said his former employee had only started to attack him after she lost her job.
He added that he had asked his Chief of Staff John Kelly to try to “work it out.”
President Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, says she may have broken the law by recording private conversations at the White House.
Ms. Manigault Newman knew the president from her days as a star of The Apprentice reality TV show, and advised him on African-American issues during the 2016 election before taking a communications role in the White House.
In the excerpt broadcast, the voice said to be the president’s tells Ms. Manigault Newman he has seen on the news that she is “thinking of leaving” and asks, “What’s going on?”
“General Kelly came to me and said that you guys wanted me to leave,” she replies.
“No… Nobody even told me about it,” the voice replies. “You know they run a big operation but I didn’t know it. I didn’t know that. Damn it. I don’t love you leaving at all.”
Her dismissal was announced on December 13 amid US media reports that she had annoyed colleagues.
In a recording she released of her dismissal, the man assumed to be Mr. Kelly speaks of “significant integrity issues” as the reason for firing her, mentioning her use of government vehicles.
“There are some serious legal issues that have been violated and you’re open to some legal action that we hope, we think, we can control,” he says at one point.
He also says: “If we make this a friendly departure… you can look at your time here in the White House as a year of service to the nation and then you can go on without any type of difficulty in the future relative to your reputation.”
When Ms. Manigault Newman asks if President Trump is aware of what is happening, he brushes the question aside, saying, “Let’s not go down the road. This is non-negotiable discussion.”
Defending publishing the conversations, she said she had “protected” herself “because this is a White House where everybody lies.”
Mr. Trump tweeted that she had signed a non-disclosure agreement, which presumably was meant to prevent her from revealing what had gone on at work.
……………………………………………………………
Chile minister resigns over Human Rights Museum row
Chile’s culture minister, Mauricio Rojas, has resigned after criticism over comments he made in 2015 about a human rights museum.
Mr. Rojas came under fire after it was revealed that he had questioned the validity of the museum in Santiago.
He called it a montage and said its purpose was to shock visitors and manipulate history.
The Museum of History and Human Rights documents abuses during the military government of Augusto Pinochet.
In a book published in 2015, Mr. Rojas is quoted as saying the museum’s aim is to astonish and prevent visitors from reasoning.
“It’s a shameless and inaccurate use of a national tragedy that touched so many of us directly,” he said.
After the scandal broke out over the weekend, Mr. Rojas said those comments did not reflect his current view, and added that he had “never diminished nor justified unacceptable, systematic and grave human rights violations that happened in Chile.”
But pressure from human rights organisations and politicians from both left and right forced him to resign after only four days in the job.
The Chilean President Sebastian Piñera said he had accepted his resignation for the good functioning of the government.
The Museum of History and Human Rights was opened in 2010 by the then President Michelle Bachelet to remind people of the crimes and abuses committed during the years of military government, from 1973 to 1990.
…………………………………………………………………
South Korean woman jailed over secret nude model photo
A South Korean woman has been jailed for secretly photographing a male nude model and posting the image online.
The 25-year-old – who is also a nude model – was sentenced to 10 months in prison after taking the photograph at an art college in Seoul.
The rare sentence sparked accusations of double standards around “spy cam porn,” which usually involves men secretly filming women.
More than 6,000 cases are reported each year, and 80% of the victims are women.
Hidden cameras capture people going to the toilet, or undressing in clothing shops, gyms and swimming pools. The videos are then posted online on pop-up pornography sites.
Only 8.7% of those caught secretly filming people in this way are jailed on their first conviction, according to government statistics.
Of the 6,465 cases reported last year, only 119 perpetrators were sent to prison.
This had led activists to accuse the authorities of sexism following Monday’s ruling.
“The whole response by the police to this rare case in which a victim is male is truly unprecedented,” Seo Seung-hui, head of the Korea Cyber Sexual Violence civic group, told AFP news agency.
“We rarely saw them act so quickly for countless cases in which victims were female,” she added.
But in its ruling, the court said the unidentified woman “needs to be punished as she has irrevocably damaged the victim’s personal dignity.”
“The victim is having serious post-traumatic stress disorder with depression, and he is unlikely to continue his career as a nude model,” it said, according to the Korea Times.
READ ALSO: 2019: Saraki meets Obasanjo in Abeokuta
The woman was arrested in May days after the incident took place at Hongik University.
The case was highly-publicised, and provoked nationwide protests from those who said the police and courts treated male victims more favourably than women.
Organisers said women lived in constant fear of being photographed or filmed without their knowledge.
Since 2004, the country has mandated that all smart phones should make loud shutter noises when they take a photo or video to make people aware of their use.
But apps can be used to silence the noise, and perpetrators are also using miniature cameras hidden in walls, bags, shoes or toilets to photograph people without their consent.
