Russian Destroyer Fires Warning Shot to Scare Off Norwegian Longliner

Admiral Levchenko (file image courtesy Neill Rush / CC BY SA 3.0)

Published Sep 24, 2024 9:29 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

 

The crew of a Norwegian fishing vessel had a hair-raising run-in with a Russian warship in the Barents Sea during a massive naval exercise earlier this month. According to the skipper, the Russian vessel approached and fired warning shots to drive them out of the area - even though they were within the Norwegian exclusive economic zone. 

In mid-September, Russia launched the "Ocean-24" naval exercise, a mass drill involving more than 400 warships and 120 aircraft. It was the largest Russian exercise of its kind in decades, and it involved elements of China's PLA Navy. In the Pacific Ocean, heightened activity involving the Russian Navy's Pacific Fleet near the Aleutian Islands prompted the U.S. military to reinforce the garrison on Shemya Island.

Russia's Northern Fleet conducts many of its exercises in the Barents Sea, and its operations sometimes overlap with Norwegian fishing interests. The Russian Navy declared a live-fire exercise area in international waters of the Barents Sea for Ocean-24, and on September 12, one Russian destroyer commander decided to enforce the boundaries.

Øystein Orten, co-owner of the 50-foot fishing vessel Ragnhild Kristine, said that he received a call from an unnamed warship as he and his crew were working a line. The message was brief: "'This is Russian warship, you need to leave the area,'" Orten recalled in a conversation with NRK. (From photos Orten provided, the vessel had the pennant number 605, corresponding to the Udaloy-class destroyer Admiral Levchenko.)

Orten responded that there was no question of whether the Ragnhild Kristine would depart. "They didn't have the right to banish us, and we had a line to follow," he said. "Then the warship came at full speed with the cannons towards us."

The warship closed to within 200 meters and fired what appeared to be a warning shot from a cannon. The round landed near the fishing vessel, Orten said; given the circumstances, he reopened negotiations with the warship and agreed to relocate a bit to the west for about six hours. 

Luckily, the agreement did not cost him his catch when he came back to pull in the line. "I caught a lot of cod, and some haddock and halibut," he told NRK. 

Orten did not blame the Russians - they were trying to keep civilians out of a live-fire zone - but he called Norwegian authorities "cowards" for allowing Russia's navy to exercise in the Norwegian EEZ in the first place. (Under UNCLOS, the EEZ gives Norway sovereign authority over fishing and seabed rights only, and navigation and military activity are outside of its control in international waters.)

Norway's coastal agency said that it had broadcast a safety warning about the Russian exercise area in advance, including the location, and said that it was the responsibility of commercial operators to follow the warning. But even though the drills are preannounced for safety, the exercises are a regular source of friction with Norway's commercial fishermen, who risk losing out on a good catch if they can't access prime fishing areas. 

Top image: Admiral Levchenko (Neill Rush / CC BY SA 3.0)

 

First Containership with Integrated Automation Systems Departs Korea

POS Singapore during her float out earlier this year (Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries)

Published Sep 23, 2024 6:11 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

South Korea highlights that the first containership designed with an integrated automation system has completed its installation and testing and is now starting international service. The project which was supported by South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries is designed to advance and commercialize autonomous shipping.

The automation systems for the vessel, POS Singapore (22,867 dwt) were designed in South Korea as part of a government-sponsored program to develop the new technologies. PAN Ocean, South Korea’s bulk shipping company, is participating in the program and worked to integrate the systems into the 1,800 TEU vessel. 

POS Singapore was ordered in 2022 and built by Hyundai Mipo Dockyard in Ulsan. It measures 576 feet (172 meters) in length and is registered in Liberia. The ship was floated in March and delivered in April. Since then, it has been undergoing the outfitting and testing of the automation system.

During today, September 23, sendoff ceremony, government officials highlighted that the ship will be used for the next year in testing and validation of the automation systems. The ship is currently underway bound for Shanghai. It will operate for the next year on routes between Korea and Southeast Asia.

The ship integrates core technologies including intelligent navigation and monitors and interprets the weather conditions for situation awareness and navigation. Other systems provide for engine automation and maintain cybersecurity. The ministries have invested $119 million in the project which they view as a blueprint for the commercialization of automation technology.

Using the results from this year of demonstrations, Korea also looks to lead the development of international standards for the automation of ships. The International Maritime Organization launched the effort to develop the MASS Code (international automation standards). Academics, researchers, and government officials are contributing to the creation of the new standard.

Korea looks to lead the development of automation to create a competitive edge in the next generation of shipbuilding. HD Hyundai led the first test of automation during a Pacific voyage on an LNG carrier in 2022. Korea has conducted additional tests including last year with a smaller domestic cargo ship.  

 

ATB Captain Tried to Counteract Assist Tug, Resulting in Bridge Allision

AN ALLISION IS NOT A COLLISION BUT A SCRAPING OF THE SHIP AGAINST ANOTHER SHIP OR AGAINST BRIDGES OR PORT STRUCTURES

Damaged fendering after the casualty (Courtesy NSTB)

Published Sep 24, 2024 8:27 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

The NTSB has released a report on an allision between a tugboat and a bridge fender in Tacoma last year, which resulted in the destruction of an already-deteriorated fendering system. 

On the night of October 12, 2023, the tug Olympic Scout was assisting the ATB tug-barge combination Montlake/Sodo underneath the Hylebos Bridge, a roadway over a small waterway of the same name. Montlake/Sodo was departing and was outbound on the waterway. 

Olympic Scout was made up alongside the barge's port side near the bow, stern facing in the direction of motion. This arrangement is a common regional practice, but puts the tug close to the pivot point of the barge. 

Montlake/Sodo got under way from her berth at 2333 hours and paused when she reached the Hylebos Bridge, which had still not opened despite an earlier request. As the ATB waited for the bridge opening, the bow of the barge drifted to port, taking Olympic Scout with it. 

When the bridge opened at 2337, Montlake/Sodo resumed her outbound transit, building speed towards four knots. As they approached the bridge span, the ATB was set to port, towards the south side of the channel. Montlake's captain attempted to steer back to the middle of the channel, and as they got closer to the bridge, Olympic Scout's captain radioed to ask Montlake to maneuver to starboard to leave enough clearance for the assist tug to make it through the span. Montlake's captain instructed Olympic Scout's captain to "do what he needed to do" to get the ATB back to the center of the channel. 

Olympic Scout put rudders to starboard, port engine ahead and starboard engine astern to generate thrust to Montlake/Sodo's starboard. At the same time, Montlake's captain decided that he needed to counteract Olympic Scout's turning moment at his end, fearing that his stern would be pushed to port by Olympic Scout's maneuvers. Montlake's captain put rudders to port, starboard engine ahead and port engine astern. 

The bridge was rapidly approaching, and the situation was largely unchanged. Olympic Scout put both engines full ahead and Montlake put both engines full astern in an attempt to stop the ATB, but it was too late. At 2341, Olympic Scout's starboard quarter smashed the wooden fender on the south pier of the Hylebos Bridge. The ATB's speed over ground was three knots at the time of impact. 

Courtesy NTSB

Montlake/Sodo was undamaged, and Olympic Scout suffered paint scrapes. The bridge pier and bridge mechanism were undamaged, but the wooden fender - having done its job - was smashed.

A previous engineering assessment had determined that the old piles and planks of the fender had "heavy fungal decay" and "heavy marine borer damage" in some areas. A below-water survey after the allision determined that there were "significant areas of wastage, rot, and marine worm and borer tracks." The level of damage caused by Olympic Scout was likely a result of "inherent loss of structural strength," and a new, non-rotten fender would likely have been less damaged. 

According to NTSB, Montlake's engines outclassed Olympic Scout's by a factor of two to one, and Montlake had the advantage of a longer distance from the barge's pivot point. This gave Montlake a bigger "lever" to turn the barge. When Montlake's captain put rudders to port and "twisted" his twin-screw propulsion, he easily overpowered Olympic Scout's attempt to change the lineup; by the time Montlake began backing down, it was too late. The probable cause of the casualty, according to NTSB, was the Montlake captain's failure to stop or slow the ATB and correct the lineup before transiting out through the bridge span. 

FLOATING BOMB

Denmark Sets Restrictions for Transit of Ammonium Nitrate Laden Vessel
Ruby with its cargo of ammonium nitrate would pass through the shipping channel under the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark (L-BBE -- CC BY 3.0 Deed)

Published Sep 21, 2024 5:14 PM by The Maritime Executive

The saga of the bulker Ruby, laden with a potentially explosive cargo, continues with the authorities in Northern Europe closely tracking the vessel’s movements. The resolution of the situation remains unclear as the ship continues to hold 20,000 tons of ammonium nitrate which is causing concern over the dangerous nature of the cargo under certain conditions. Reports say it has seven times the amount of the material that caused the devastating explosion in Beirut in 2020.

The vessel arrived off Denmark on Friday, September 20, continuing to declare it is bound for Klaipeda, Lithuania where it was scheduled to undergo repairs. The vessel’s hull cracked in an Arctic storm in late August, which was confirmed in a Port State inspection in Norway. Media reports are saying the rudder and propeller are also damaged.

Ruby has been holding near the entrance to the Skagerrak, the first leg of the passage around Denmark and into the Baltic. The vessel has been sitting there for approximately 48 hours with an anchor handler tug, Amber II, also registered in Malta, appearing to be escorting the ship. For a time earlier in the week, the vessel was displaying an AIS message of not under command likely being towed by the tug.

The Swedish Coast Guard believes the vessel may be holding in its current position waiting for additional instructions from its managers. The indications are that the vessel although owned by Syrian interests is operating under charter to a company based in the UAE. As of Sunday, both the Danes and Swedes are saying they believe the managers are continuing to work on a location to offload the cargo and as such the ship was instructed to wait south of Norway for further instruction.

The Danish Maritime told the local media that it is aware of the vessel. In a statement to the Danish broadcaster, DR, the Authority reports it has placed several restrictions on the vessel that has limited maneuverability as it seeks to transit Danish waters into the Baltic.

The reports indicate that Denmark is requiring Ruby to make the transit with a Danish pilot aboard. Also, the bulker is required to have a tug accompanying the transit. So far, as of late on Sunday, the vessel has not made the request for the pilot. Previously, it was through the ship would make the transit during the weekend,

Swedish authorities have confirmed that they are also following the movements of the ship. They understand that Denmark has also issued a general warning to all shipping in the area for caution and to maintain a maximum distance from Ruby during the transit.

The current risk from the ship is low according to the Swedish Coast Guard. They believe that the protocols for the transport of the dangerous material are being followed, but they too are monitoring the movement of the ship.

The previous public statements from the government of Lithuania were that the ship would not be permitted to enter Klaipeda unless it first offloaded its cargo. The Western Shipyard in that city won a tender to repair the vessel.

The ship has been caught in its current situation since August. It loaded the cargo in Russia and was making a trip it declared to the Canary Islands when it encountered a storm and sought refuge in the sheltered waters of Norway. It was permitted to dock in Tromsø but later ordered to move to a remote area outside the city due to the nature of the cargo. Unconfirmed reports in the Lithuanian media said the owners had sought to offload the cargo in Norway so that the ship could proceed to a yard for repairs. The authorities in Malta as the ship’s flag state, DNV and its class society, and its insurers have been working to find a solution to the current situation.


Top photo by L-BBE in 2013 -- CC BY 3.0 DEED

 

Global Maritime Forum Says Shipping is "Off Track" on Emissions

iStock

Published Sep 25, 2024 10:29 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

 

The Global Maritime Forum warns that the industry is not making enough progress on decarbonization and risks "falling irreparably behind its climate goals" if it does not change course - and fast.

In a new report, the forum says that most actors across the industry are moving too slowly to meet the IMO's 2030 target of running five percent of the fleet on zero-emissions fuel. Time is running out to change course, the forum said, and the trajectory set by mid-decade will determine whether the 2030 timeline will be met or not.

The forum's report - produced in conjunction with the UCL Energy Institute, UN Climate Change High-Level Champions, and the Getting to Zero Coalition - acknowledges that multiple actors all have to play a role in the transition, not just shipowners or fuel manufacturers. But the majority of actors across the shipping "ecosystem" are not on track to meet the agreed five-percent target. 

On the fuel demand side, the much-publicized spate of new orders for methanol- and ammonia-capable vessels will only provide a quarter of the zero-emissions fuel consumption required to meet five percent target. On the fuel supply side, the capacity isn't available either, as many shipowners, suppliers and OEMs have complained. The current development pipeline for green fuel production plants will deliver less than half of the energy needed to meet the international target. 

"The 5% target is considered the critical mass at which the infrastructure, supply chains, and technology that support zero-emission fuels mature and enable exponential growth. This means if the five percent target is not achieved, it could jeopardize the industry's entire 2050 net-zero goal," warned the authors. 

13 out of 35 actions for delivering on the 2030 target are currently "off track," and several are especially important. The fuel supply pipeline is too small, though the forum reports that there are glimmers of new project development activity that could solve the shortage. Vessel demand is too low, and more green-fueled ships are needed. Funding for zero-emissions projects has slowed, and financing for fossil-fueled tonnage has increased, moving the shipping finance sector "off track." 

As others have noted, much of shipping's green transition will ultimately come down to regulatory action at IMO, where member states will soon decide whether to impose a global price on bunker fuel and set a technical standard for fuel carbon content. "In the shorter term, the outcome of negotiations in relation to GHG pricing is likely to be one of the
stronger [green fuel] signals, whereas in the long term, developments around an ambitious global fuel standard (GFS) could be more relevant," the authors concluded. 

Suicide Drone Hits Port of Eilat

IDF air defenses destroy a UAV over Eilat, Sept. 25 (IDF)

Published Sep 25, 2024 3:57 PM by The Maritime Executive

[Breaking] On Wednesday night, a suicide drone hit a target in the port of Eilat, the southernmost city in Israel. 

Images posted on social media showed one large blast at an undetermined location along the waterfront. The source of the attack is under investigation, but early accounts suggest that it may have arrived from the east - potentially suggesting attackers in Iraq, or a drone from Houthi territory diverting and then arriving from an unexpected direction. 

 

The Israeli Defense Forces reported shooting down two UAVs on Wednesday night, indicating that the attack may have had broader aims. 

 

The extent of the damage is still being assessed. 

Eilat's once-busy commercial seaport has been largely shut down by Houthi attacks on Israel-bound shipping, and occasional attempted missile strikes from Houthi territory have added an additional level of risk. Vessels arriving from the Mediterranean can offload their cargoes in Haifa or Ashdod instead, without transiting the Suez Canal to get to Eilat; vessels that would ordinarily transit to Eilat from the east, primarily ro/ros from Asia with cargoes of cars for the Israeli market, often choose to avoid the Red Sea because of the Houthi threat. 

AMERIKA

A college student lost her pregnancy. 

Then she was charged with homicide

Kelly Rissman
Wed 25 September 2024 at 1:46 pm GMT-6·5-min read


Demonstrators rally in support of abortion rights at the US Supreme Court (AFP via Getty Images)


A South Carolina State University junior suffered a pregnancy loss — then two months later, she was charged with homicide.

Amari Marsh, 23, is now speaking out about the harrowing ordeal, which her lawyers have argued was a devastating health emergency that had no business getting tied up in the court system. Her case serves as yet another example of how pregnancy is at risk of being criminalized in the wake of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade — which protected the right to an abortion — in 2022.

“I couldn’t breathe,” Marsh told KFF Health News, recalling how in 2023, still in her second trimester, she suddenly gave birth in the middle of the night in her off-campus apartment. She said she screamed and cried as blood spilled across the bathroom floor, but she never could’ve imaged the loss would result in murder charges.


Just two months before the premature birth, Marsh had gone to Planned Parenthood in Columbia, South Carolina — where abortion has been banned after about 22 weeks — to “take the Plan-C pill which would possibly cause an abortion to occur,” according to an incident report obtained by the outlet. It doesn’t detail whether she actually took the pill. The report also notes that Marsh was advised to return to the clinic for a follow-up, which she never did.

But Marsh claimed to the outlet that she never went to Planned Parenthood and never took a pill to induce abortion.

“I’ve never been in trouble. I’ve never been pulled over. I’ve never been arrested,” she said. “I never even got written up in school.”

A month later, on February 28, the college junior went to the hospital after experiencing abdominal pains, and was informed she was pregnant and that a heartbeat had been detected. Marsh felt the “energy was off,” according to the report, and returned home. In the wee hours of the next morning, she gave birth in her toilet. “I screamed because I was scared, because I didn’t know what was going on,” she told the outlet.

Her then-boyfriend called 911, and the emergency dispatcher on the line “kept telling me to take the baby out” of the toilet, Marsh said. But she refused to do that: “I couldn’t because I couldn’t even keep myself together.”

Marsh’s ordeal is a “prime example of how pregnancy loss can become a criminal investigation very quickly,” said Dana Sussman, senior vice president of nonprofit Pregnancy Justice (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

As Marsh was transported to Regional Medical Center in Orangeburg, first responders retrieved the baby from the toilet and tried to perform life saving measures, which were ultimately unsuccessful.

While at the hospital, after Marsh was told that her baby hadn’t survived, a sheriff’s office deputy in her hospital room informed her that she was being investigated “due to the nature of the incident,” but that she was “currently not in any trouble,” the report states. Marsh insisted that she “did not feel as though she did anything wrong.”

Weeks later, in mid-May, an officer informed Marsh via text that he needed to meet with her in person “before I can close the case out. I am so sorry,” KFF Health News reported.

The meeting took place on May 2, 2023. It ended in her arrest, records show. She was charged with homicide by child abuse — which can result in a sentence of 20 years to life behind bars.

But a sentencing won’t happen. This August, more than a year after she was arrested, a grand jury declined to indict her.

The arrest warrant, obtained by KFF Health News, claims that refusing to move the baby from the toilet was “a proximate cause of her daughter’s death.”

Marsh’s attorneys believe her case belongs nowhere near the court system.

“This is not a criminal matter,” Zipporah Sumpter, one of Marsh’s lawyers, told the outlet. She accused authorities of treating the college student as a criminal rather than a grieving mother.

South Carolina Democratic state Rep Seth Rose, who is also one of Marsh’s attorneys, called it a “really tragic” case. He told the outlet: “It’s our position that she lost a child through natural causes.”

Marsh’s ordeal is a “prime example of how pregnancy loss can become a criminal investigation very quickly,” Dana Sussman, senior vice president of nonprofit Pregnancy Justice, told the outlet.

“The Dobbs decision unleashed and empowered prosecutors to look at pregnant people as a suspect class and at pregnancy loss as a suspicious event,” Sussman said.

In Ohio, Brittany Watts was criminally charged with abuse of a corpse after law enforcement found the remains of a fetus stuck in her toilet in September 2023; she had been repeatedly denied medical care to treat her miscarriage due to doctors’ uncertainty over whether she could legally abort the fetus. A grand jury ultimately declined to indict her.

Marsh told KFF Health News she is still processing the harrowing series of events, and keeps daughter’s ashes on a bookshelf in her bedroom. She’s taking classes at a local community college and hopes to soon re-enroll at South Carolina State University. She aspires to become a doctor.

“Through all of this, I found my strength. I found my voice. I want to help other young women that are in my position now and will be in the future,” Marsh told the outlet. “I always had faith that God was going to be on my side, but I didn’t know how it was going to go with the justice system we have today.

ABOLISH DEATH PENALTY

Did Missouri execute an innocent man? Marcellus Williams’s furious supporters decry ‘injustice system’

Justin Rohrlich
Wed 25 September 2024 

Deacon Dave Billips, with the Office of Peace and Justice with the St. Louis Archdiocese, holds a sign as he stands with protesters holding space to halt the execution of Marcellus Williams on Sept. 24 (AP)


When the state of Missouri put Marcellus Williams to death on Tuesday night, it did so over the strenuous objections of the same prosecutor’s office that tried him for the 1998 murder of former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Lisha Gayle.

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, along with Williams’ legal team, had moved, unsuccessfully, to have the 55-year-old’s conviction vacated based on new information they said raised questions about his identification as Gayle’s killer. At 6:01 p.m. local time, Williams was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital while his son, an up-and-coming prizefighter named Marcellus Jr., watched from the witness gallery. Nine minutes later, Williams was pronounced dead.

“There was reasonable doubt,” Obie Alexander, a staunch Williams supporter who spent nearly two decades in prison on a wrongful murder conviction, told The Independent. “How can you execute a man when there is reasonable doubt?”


No one was there from Gayle’s family, who continued to believe in Williams’s guilt up until the very end but had been pushing for his sentence to be commuted to life without parole.

In a statement issued shortly before Williams was executed, his attorney Tricia Rojo Bushnell, executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project, said, “We must all question any system that would allow this to occur. The execution of an innocent person is the most extreme manifestation of Missouri’s obsession with ‘finality’ over truth, justice, and humanity, at any cost. Tonight, we all bear witness to Missouri’s grotesque exercise of state power. Let it not be in vain. This should never happen, and we must not let it continue.”

Afterward, Bell — who is presently running for Congress as a Democrat — took to social media with a statement of his own, writing, “Marcellus Williams should be alive today. There were multiple points in the timeline that decisions could have been made that would have spared him the death penalty. If there is even the shadow of a doubt of innocence the death penalty should never be an option. This outcome did not serve the interests of justice.”

“We must all question any system that would allow this to occur,” Williams’s attorney Tricia Rojo Bushnell, executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project, said (AP)

Sister Helen Prejean, the anti-death penalty activist portrayed by Susan Sarandon in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking, said Williams’s execution called into question “the legitimacy of the entire legal process.” Rep. Cori Bush, Democrat of Missouri, called Williams’ execution a “depravity.” And the NAACP said Williams had been “lynched,” placing the blame directly at the feet of Missouri Gov. Michael Parson, a self-described “pro-life” Republican.

Reached by phone on Wednesday, Gayle’s former husband, Daniel, a radiologist who has since remarried, declined to comment. Marcellus Williams Jr. was unable to be reached.

The top concern Americans have about the death penalty, studies have shown, is the possibility of executing an innocent person, according to attorney Justin Brooks, a professor at University of San Diego School of Law and the founder of The California Innocence Project.

“Every time an innocent person is freed from death row, that concern is amplified,” Brooks told The Independent. “Now that 200 innocent people have been freed from death row, we can longer pretend that innocent people are not sentenced to death, nor that it has only happened a few times.”

Williams was set to be executed in January 2015 but was granted a last-minute reprieve by then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, for more DNA testing to be performed. In August 2017, he was hours away from being put to death when Greitens ordered the execution stayed after new testing techniques unavailable at the time of Gayle’s killing determined that DNA on the handle of the murder weapon could not have come from Williams. His execution on Tuesday generated global outrage largely because Parson cravenly pushed for Williams to die in the face of serious concerns about his guilt, Brooks went on.

“And of course, it is devastating to those of us in the innocence community because this time, no one was able to save him,” he said.

Joseph Amrine, who was exonerated two decades ago after spending years on death row, speaks at a rally to support Williams (AP)

Williams’ execution had one of his fiercest supporters, an exoneree who himself spent nearly two decades in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, wrestling on Wednesday with what he described as feelings of “profound, deep pain.”

At the age of 19, Obie Anthony was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole for a crime he didn’t commit. In 2011, after 17 years behind bars — which followed some 18 months in the LA County lockup — Anthony was exonerated thanks to new evidence uncovered by a team of Innocence Project lawyers. He later founded Exonerated Nation, a nonprofit that helps other exonerees find their footing upon release.

Today, Anthony, a Missouri native, splits his time between California and the St. Louis area, where he emerged in recent years as a firm believer in Williams’ innocence.

By executing Williams, “first and foremost, our presumption of innocence has been removed from the court,” Anthony told The Independent.

“Even with evidence of [Williams’] innocence, that didn’t even matter,” he said, voice shifting from outrage to deep sorrow and back again. “... Justice has been cuffed and put behind the bench. Reasonable doubt no longer matters.”

Putting Williams to death, Anthony went on, constituted “a perversion,” and, “a tragedy in all forms.” The justice system, in Williams’ case, contorted itself into “an injustice system,” according to Anthony.

“We know this is not justice,” he said. “The family members said this is not justice. The prosecutor said this is not justice. Over a million people [who signed a petition against Williams’ execution] said this is not justice… How can people stand for this?”

Was Marcellus Williams, Muslim executed in Missouri, innocent or guilty?

Evidences of innocence and guilt of Marcellus Williams struck a debate on whether the sentence should have been converted to a life in prison, which was supported by victim's family.


Williams' execution Tuesday has left others to debate whether it should have occurred. / Photo: AFP via Missouri Department of Corrections

With the end of his life approaching, Missouri death row inmate Marcellus Williams was offered an opportunity to make a final statement to the world.

His words were few — neither proclaiming innocence nor admitting guilt in the 1998 murder of Lisha Gayle, a social worker and former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter who was stabbed 43 times during a burglary of her suburban St. Louis home. Williams instead seemed to express peace with his fate, writing simply: "All Praise Be To Allah In Every Situation!!!"

Williams' execution Tuesday has left others to debate whether it should have occurred.

Missouri's governor, attorney general and top court remain convinced of his guilt. Those who advocated for him continued to insist he was innocent. The St. Louis County prosecutor, citing lingering questions, believes Williams' sentence should have been converted to life in prison. Gayle's family, though not publicly outspoken, also joined in a request to let Williams live.




What evidence points to Williams' guilt?

When Gayle was killed, items stolen from her home were later sold by Williams or found in his possession. A former girlfriend and an inmate who shared a cell with Williams also testified at his trial that he confessed to killing Gayle.

The ex-girlfriend told police that when Williams picked her up on the day of the Gayle's death, she noticed he was wearing a jacket even though it was hot outside, and that there was blood on his shirt, scratches on his neck and a laptop in his car.

She told police that when she looked in the car's trunk the next day, she found a purse that contained Gayle's identification.

When police searched Williams' car more than a year after Gayle's death, they found a St. Louis Post-Dispatch ruler and calculator that had belonged to Gayle. Police also recovered a laptop stolen from Gayle's home from a man who had bought it from Williams.

Williams' attorneys argued that the ex-girlfriend and cellmate were convicted felons who wanted part of a $10,000 reward.

Williams' former cellmate was paid a $5,000 reward. The ex-girlfriend never requested the reward, the governor's office said.

What evidence is cited for Williams' innocence?

Authorities did not find physical evidence at the crime scene linking Williams to Gayle's death.

Williams' attorneys noted that a bloody shoeprint, fingerprints and hair found at the scene did not match Williams. But a prosecutor said such tests were merely inconclusive.

The knife used in the killing also was left at the scene. A crime scene investigator testified at Williams' 2001 trial that the killer had worn gloves. But questions swirled for years about DNA testing of the knife.

The state Supreme Court cancelled Williams' scheduled execution in 2015, allowing time for further DNA testing. Just hours before Williams was again scheduled to be executed in 2017, then-governor Eric Greitens also cancelled the lethal injection amid DNA questions. Greitens appointed a board of retired judges to investigate the case. But the panel never reached a conclusion before Governor Mike Parson dissolved it in 2023.

In August, new testing revealed that DNA on the knife matched that of prosecution team members who had handled it without wearing gloves.

Without evidence pointing to anyone else, Williams' attorneys quit pursuing an innocence claim in court and refocused their arguments on alleged procedural errors, including that prosecutors had mishandled evidence and wrongly excluded a Black man from the jury based partly on race.

Why not let Williams spend life in prison?

At the time of Williams' murder trial, he already had an extensive list of burglary, robbery, theft and assault convictions in other cases. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder for Gayle's death, which in Missouri can be punishable either by death or life in prison without parole. It took jurors just 90 minutes to decide that he deserved the death penalty.

St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, a Democrat who took office in 2019 and is running for Congress, cited a relatively recent Missouri law to reopen the question of Williams' guilt or innocence.

Bell struck an agreement in August with the Midwest Innocence Project, which was representing Williams, that would have let Williams enter a new, no-contest plea to first-degree murder in exchange for a new sentence of life in prison without parole. But Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey objected, and courts kept in place the death sentence.

Ultimately, the execution decision rested with Parson, who could have used gubernatorial powers to convert Williams' sentence to life imprisonment.

A clemency request submitted on Williams' behalf pleaded for mercy, noting that Gayle's family also supported life imprisonment instead of death. But Parson disagreed, explaining in his own final statement on the case: "No juror nor judge has ever found Williams' innocence claim to be credible."

SOURCE: AP

ABOLISH DEATH PENALTY

There are 5 executions set over a week's span in the US. That's the most in decades

SEAN MURPHY
Updated Tue 24 September 2024









OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Death row inmates in five states are scheduled to be put to death in the span of one week, an unusually high number of executions that defies a yearslong trend of decline in both the use and support of the death penalty in the U.S.

The first execution was carried out on Friday in South Carolina. Two more death row inmates, in Missouri and Texas, were pronounced dead Tuesday evening following executions. If the two remaining scheduled executions, in Alabama and Oklahoma, are carried out this week, it will mark the first time in more than 20 years — since July 2003 — that five were held in seven days, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, which takes no position on capital punishment but has criticized the way states carry out executions.

If this week’s remaining executions are completed, the United States will have reached 1,600 executions since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, said Robin Maher, the center’s executive director.

“Two on a single day is unusual, and four on two days in the same week is also very unusual,” Maher said.

Here are some things to know about executions set this week across the country.

How did 5 executions get set for a 1-week span?

Experts say five executions being scheduled within one week is simply an anomaly that resulted from courts or elected officials in individual states setting dates around the same time after inmates exhausted their appeals.

“I'm not aware of any reason other than coincidence,” said Eric Berger, a law professor at the University of Nebraska with expertise in the death penalty and lethal injection.

Berger said some factors can result in a backlog of executions, such as a state's inability to obtain the lethal drugs necessary to carry them out, which happened in South Carolina, or a moratorium that resulted from botched executions, like what happened in Oklahoma.

South Carolina

The first of the five executions took place on Friday when South Carolina put inmate Freddie Owens to death for the 1997 killing of a convenience store clerk during a robbery. It was South Carolina's first execution in 13 years, an unintended delay caused by the inability of state prison officials to obtain the drugs needed for lethal injections. To carry out executions, the state switched from a three-drug method to a new protocol of using a single sedative, pentobarbital.

Missouri

In Missouri on Tuesday evening, Marcellus Williams was put to death by lethal injection for the 1998 stabbing death of a woman in the St. Louis suburb of University City. Williams’ attorneys argued on Monday that the state Supreme Court should halt his execution over alleged procedural errors in jury selection and the prosecution’s alleged mishandling of the murder weapon. But the state’s high court rejected those arguments, and Gov. Mike Parson denied Williams’ clemency request, paving the way for his execution to proceed.

Texas

Also on Tuesday, Texas death row inmate Travis Mullis was executed by lethal injection. Mullis, a man with a long history of mental illness who has repeatedly sought to waive his right to appeal his death sentence, was sentenced to death for killing his 3-month-old son in January 2008. In a letter submitted to U.S. District Judge George Hanks in Houston, Mullis wrote in February that he had no desire to challenge his case any further and stated that “his punishment fit the crime.” The 38-year-old is the fourth inmate put to death this year in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state.

Alabama

Alabama is preparing to carry out the nation’s second execution ever using nitrogen gas on Thursday, after becoming the first state to use the new procedure in January. Alan Miller is set to die by the process in which a mask is placed over the inmate’s head that forces the inmate to inhale pure nitrogen. Miller, who was given a reprieve in 2022 after his execution was called off when officials were unable to connect an intravenous line, was sentenced to die after being convicted of killing three men during back-to-back workplace shootings in 1999.

Oklahoma

In Oklahoma, Emmanuel Littlejohn is set to receive a lethal injection on Thursday after being sentenced to die for his role in the 1992 shooting death of a convenience store owner during a robbery. Littlejohn has admitted to his role in the robbery, but claims he did not fire the fatal shot. The state's Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 last month to recommend Gov. Kevin Stitt spare Littlejohn's life, but the governor has yet to make a clemency decision.

LABOUR CONFRENCE 2024

Rayner and Reeves lead big turnout by cabinet for Labour Friends of Israel

David Maddox
Wed 25 September 2024 at 2:38 pm GMT-6·5-min read

Chancellor Rachel Reeves and deputy prime minister Angela Rayner were among five cabinet ministers to attend a Labour Party conference fringe event to show solidarity with Israel and the remaining 101 hostages held by Hamas.

Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) on Tuesday evening had one of the most significant and largest turnouts by senior ministers for the entire event, as Palestinian flag-waving protesters remained outside the conference in Liverpool all week.

It was a powerful symbolic gesture for a party where LFI has come under huge criticism from pro-Gaza supporters, and Starmer’s government has been facing demands from party members for a much more anti-Israel response to the crisis.

Labour lost MPs at the election, including frontbencher Jon Ashworth, because of the refusal to back down over support for Israel.

Angela Rayner addresses the Labour Friends of Israel group at party conference (LFI)

Israeli ambassador Tzipura Hotovely told the LFI event of how she was at home spending much of the day hiding with her family in a shelter on the day of the 7 October Hamas attacks.

She was cheered when she said: “If you believe in peace, you need to support Israel’s right to self-defence and Israel’s duty to self-defence.”

Ms Hotovely described how 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated from their homes because of attacks from Hezbollah.

She added: “For 11 months Israel gave so many chances for diplomatic solutions and we would still like to restore peace. Hezbollah didn’t want the diplomatic solution and it is about time for them to pay the price for all those who have been evacuated from towns destroyed by non-stop fighting since 8 October.”

And she asked: “Can you imagine Liverpool being evacuated for a year? You can’t imagine that. We gave a chance to diplomacy.”

She described Hamas as “monsters” who “rejected a hostage deal time after time”, and reminded those present that young children are among those who had been in captivity for 354 days.

Israel’s ambassador to the UK Tzipura Hotovely (AFP/Getty Images)

Hamas launched a deadly attack from the Gaza Strip into Israel on 7 October, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage, around half of which remain in Gaza.

The subsequent Israeli aerial and ground assault in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the latest update from the local health ministry in the Hamas-run strip, and forced more than 90 per cent of the enclave’s population to flee their homes.

The ambassador’s remarks appeared to be a response to Ms Rayner, who was standing in for Keir Starmer who was flying to the UN in New York.

She opened proceedings with a speech calling for “an immediate ceasefire from all sides” which was met with silence - but was cheered and applauded when she called for the hostages to be brought home “immediately”.

The event also became a celebration of the LFI’s role in helping change the party following the antisemitism row under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Ms Reeves, who was vice chair of the LFI for 14 years, said in her speech: “Our party has changed for the last five years and much of it is down to people like you.

“I want to thank all of you for the part you played in changing our party. From the bottom of my heart thank you.

She added “rooting out antisemitism was a non-negotiable” precondition to join Starmer’s frontbench.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves also gave a speech at the event (PA Wire)

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden and science and digital secretary Peter Kyle, both former LFI deputy chairs, were also in attendance alongside business secretary Jonathan Reynolds.

The new LFI chair, newly elected High Peak MP Jon Pearce, made it clear he will be pushing for a crackdown on antisemitism fuelled by hatred of Israel, as well as demanding much firmer action against Iran.

He said: “The threat posed by terror groups in Israel, in Europe and here in the UK won’t be resolved until the threat posed by the Iranian regime is acknowledged and addressed. That is why we must stop by banning Iran’s terror army, the IRGC.

“We must enhance the relations between Britain and Israel because Israel is our only ally in the region which shares our liberal democratic values. We must defend liberal democratic allies against autocrats, extremists and terrorists.

“Let’s not forget the missiles Vladimir Putin is launching against Kyiv are provided by the very same regime that provides weapons to Hezbollah to fire into Galilee. The Moscow-Tehran axis is a menace to all of us, who value freedom, peace and democracy.”

The event also heard the harrowing stories of two relatives of elderly hostages still being held by the Hamas terrorist group, but the speeches also included criticism of Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to get a hostage deal and peace.

It was noted two of the UK cabinet ministers present had gone to one of the kibutzes where hostages were taken, but Mr Netanyahu has yet to make the journey himself.

Also present was Holocaust survivor Mala Tribich, and two former Labour MPs Louise Ellman and Luciana Berger who left the party during Mr Corbyn’s leadership but returned under Sir Keir.