Day: September 29, 2021

LONDON (AP) — A prosecutor argued Wednesday that a serving London police officer handcuffed a woman on the pretext of breaking COVID-19 lockdown rules before he kidnapped and killed her.

Wayne Couzens, 48, appeared at London’s Central Criminal Court charged with the kidnap, rape and murder of 33-year-old Sarah Everard, who disappeared while walking home from visiting a friend in south London on March 3.

Couzens has pleaded guilty to the charges. He sat in court with his head bowed as members of Everard’s family listened to prosecutor Tom Little open his case.

Little said Couzens wore his police belt with handcuffs and used his police warrant card when he detained Everard “by fraud.” He also had booked a car rental, the prosecutor argued.

There was “no credible alternative explanation for his need to hire a car other than to use that car to kidnap and rape a lone woman,” Little said.

“His movements were consistent with the defendant looking for, or hunting, for a lone young female to kidnap and rape, which is precisely what he did,” the prosecutor argued.

As a Metropolitan Police office, Couzens worked on COVID-19 patrols and enforcing coronavirus regulations, Little said. Everard being out after going to a friend’s house for dinner while Britain remained under lockdown made her more vulnerable to the officer’s claim that she had breached pandemic rules, according to the prosecutor.

A passenger in a passing car witnessed the kidnapping but mistook it for an arrest by an undercover officer, he added.

Everard’s body was found in woodland in Ashford, Kent, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southeast of London, a week after she went missing.

Her disappearance led to one of the most widely publicized missing person investigations the U.K. has ever seen, Little said.

The case also sparked national outrage and triggered large-scale protests denouncing violence against women.

Ahead of the court hearing, the Metropolitan Police department said it was “sickened, angered and devastated by this man’s crimes, which betray everything we stand for.” The force said it would not further comment until the hearing is over.

A judge is expected to sentence Couzens on Thursday.

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PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — The head of the European Union’s executive branch on Wednesday called on Kosovo and Serbia to resolve their disputes through the dialogue and deescalate the recent tension over license plates.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was in Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, to meet with senior leaders as part of her regional tour before an EU-Western Balkans summit on Oct. 6.

“It is vital that Kosovo and Serbia normalize their relations,” she said at a news conference with Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti. “The EU-facilitated dialogue … is the only platform to resolve the current crisis.”

Representatives of the two countries were meeting Wednesday in Brussels, facilitated by the EU envoy Miroslav Lajcak.

Last week, Kosovo’s government deployed special police forces to the border crossings to impose a new rule of removing Serb license plates from cars coming into the country, saying that a 10-year-old deal had expired. Pristina said they were replicating what Serbia had done for the last 10 years.

Kosovo Serbs blocked the border with trucks and people could only pass it on foot. Serbian military jets and helicopters have been flying close to the border with Kosovo in an apparent show of force.

“We understand it’s not only a question of license plates,” von der Leyen said. “We all know that it’s more it’s a question how this region will move forward and whether we are going to be able to go together, the path toward integration and towards our European values here.”

Kurti has repeated the offer that both countries drop the temporary license plate rule as a solution.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has demanded that Kosovo first withdraws all special police at the border before launching the EU-mediated negotiations.

The EU, NATO and the U.S. have urged Kosovo and Serbia to exercise restraint and refrain from taking unilateral actions.

Von der Leyen is visiting the six Balkan countries to assure their future is in the EU.

The Western Balkan countries — Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia — are at different stages on the EU membership path. The bloc’s stalled interest in enlargement and years of diplomatic turmoil with Britain over Brexit are some factors delaying their progress.

“I am a staunch supporter of the process of enlargement. I want the Western Balkans by our side. That’s where you belong. We want you. We need you,” she said.

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Llazar Semini reported from Tirana, Albania.

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LJUBLJANA, Slovenia (AP) — Slovenia on Wednesday suspended vaccinations with the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus jab while it probes the death of a 20-year-old woman, as thousands started gathering for a protest against vaccination in the small European Union nation.

The suspension will be in place until experts examine whether there is a link between the woman’s death from a stroke and the vaccine she had received two weeks earlier, said Health Minister Janez Poklukar.

The one-dose jabs have grown in popularity in recent weeks in Slovenia after authorities widely introduced COVID passes, including for going to work in all state-run firms. The government has approved the purchase of an additional 100,000 J&J doses from Hungary in response to the growing demand.

The woman’s death this week was the second serious case of adverse effects of the Johnson & Johnson jabs that have been administered to about 120,000 people in Slovenia, the official STA news agency reported.

However, “benefits continue to outweigh the risks,” Poklukar said.

Still, the announcement is likely to fuel Wednesday’s protests planned in the capital, Ljubljana, against vaccination and coronavirus measures.

Previous similar protests have drawn thousands, and demonstrators recently clashed with police. Ahead of Wednesday’s rally, police put up metal fences and urged participants to remain calm.

Like much of Central and Eastern Europe, Slovenia in recent weeks has seen a rise in infections. The country of some 2 million people has fully vaccinated nearly 48% of the population, which is lower than in many other EU states.

Slovenia has recommended Johnson & Johnson vaccines to all people over 18 years old, unlike some countries who have limited its use to older people.

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This content was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today.

Ocean City leaders used a public hearing Tuesday night on proposals to expand offshore wind-generated electricity production along Maryland’s coast for a last-ditch attempt to push the proposed turbine installations farther out to sea.

But they found themselves badly outnumbered during a three-hour virtual hearing of the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) on two companies’ bids for the next phase of offshore wind energy development in the state: About three-quarters of the people testifying favored expanding the lease area in federal waters.

Two energy companies, Ørsted and US Wind, are awaiting final U.S. government approval to build the first phase of Maryland’s offshore wind development off the coast of Ocean City. But even before the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management weighs in, state officials are seeking bidders for the second phase of wind development; both US Wind and Ørsted are interested in winning that contract as well.

But even as wind energy installations seem likely to appear up and down the Atlantic coast over the next decade, some Ocean City political and business leaders continue to insist that giant turbines located 12-20 miles offshore will damage views from the shore, jeopardizing tourism, real estate values and the local economy.

State Sen. Mary Beth Carozza (R-Lower Shore) urged the PSC to “preserve and protect the Ocean City way of life.”

“We support clean energy in Maryland, including offshore wind, but we stand in opposition to the size and location of the turbines,” she said.

The simple solution, Carozza and other officials argued, is to push the wind energy projects farther offshore, noting that similar moves are being made in other East Coast states. But designated federal lease areas off the coast of Maryland and Delaware only go so far, meaning moving them farther offshore isn’t practical.

Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan said he did not know why, with the federal approval process for the first phase of the development moving so slowly, the PSC seemed so eager to award a lease for the second phase.

“Why would the PSC rush to [approve another lease] with so many unanswered questions?” he asked, adding that the impacts of the wind turbines on the Ocean City economy would be “irreversible.”

“We can’t rely on [the wind energy companies] to protect the future of Ocean City,” Meehan said.

Danny Robinson, an Ocean City restaurant owner, laid out his opposition in more dramatic terms. He said he informally polls his customers and hasn’t found a single one who favors the wind projects.

“I understand that we in this little community are the only thing standing between the big wind cartel and billions of dollars in government subsidies,” Robinson said, calling the projects “a plunder of our resources” rather than “a solution for climate change.”

“I don’t want to have to explain to my grandchildren what a sunrise used to look like in Ocean City, Maryland,” he said.

But dozens of people testified in favor of the expansion plans, saying that Ocean City might cease to exist altogether if renewable power projects aren’t advanced aggressively.

“The fact of the matter is, if we don’t act now, there will be no Ocean City,” said Cindy Dillon, a resident of Ocean Pines.

Kathy Phillips, director of the Assateague Coastal Trust, said the current debate over offshore wind reminds her of the furor in Ocean City over beach replenishment in the 1980’s, when some residents feared that higher dunes would block views from low-level condominiums. Instead, she said, they have become natural treasures that attract red foxes and other wildlife.

“Twenty years from now, our offshore wind farms will be claimed proudly by new residents and tourists,” Phillips predicted.

Representatives from labor unions, regional business organizations, Baltimore County government and the Tradepoint Atlantic industrial development near Dundalk touted the economic development benefits of offshore wind and said the projects would provide thousands of construction jobs in Maryland and hundreds of maintenance jobs in the Ocean City area. In August, US Wind announced ambitious plans to establish a manufacturing operation and steel plant at Tradepoint Atlantic, the site of a former Bethlehem Steel factory.

The Public Service Commission will hold a second virtual hearing on the two wind companies’ bids to expand offshore wind on Thursday at 6 p.m. The commission will take written testimony on the proposals until Nov. 19. The agency has promised to make a decision on the bids by Dec. 18.

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QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — A battle between prison gangs in the coastal city of Guayaquil killed 30 inmates and injured 47, according to Ecuadorian officials.

Police Commander Fabian Bustos told reporters that a police and military operation had regained control of the prison after five hours. He said several weapons had been seized.

The violence involved gunfire, knives and explosions and was caused by a dispute between the “Los Lobos” and “Los Choneros” prison gangs, officials said.

Television images showed inmates firing from the windows of the prison amid smoke and the detonation of firearms and explosives. The Guayas state government posted images on its Twitter account showing six cooks being evacuated from one of the prison’s wings.

In July, President Guillermo Lasso decreed a state of emergency in Ecuador’s prison system following several violent episodes that resulted in more than 100 inmates being killed.

The bloodiest day occurred in February, when 79 prisoners died in a simultaneous riot in three prisons in the country. In July, 22 more prisoners lost their lives in the Litoral penitentiary, while in September a penitentiary center was attacked by drones leaving no fatalities.

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