VATILEAKS TRIAL OF TECHNICIAN TO BEGIN NOV. 5
VATICAN CITY: A Vatican computer technician will go on trial on November 5 on charges of helping the pope’s former butler steal secret papers, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said

on Tuesday. Claudio Sciarpelletti’s trial follows the conviction of ex-butler Paolo Gabriele, who was found guilty of stealing papers which revealed fraud scandals and intrigue at the heart of the Vatican, and sentenced to 18 months in jail. The 48-year-old technician was arrested on May 25 as the Vatican investigation into the leaks unfolded, but was released the following day. He was initially due to stand in the dock with Gabriele in earlier October, but was granted a separate trial. His alleged role in stealing and leaking the memos is considered “rather marginal” by the judiciary, Lombardi said.

GUNMAN’S WIFE VICTIM OF US SPA SHOOTING
CHICAGO: The estranged wife of a gunman who burst into a day spa and started shooting was among the three women he killed, officials said on Monday (Tuesday in Manila). The suspect—identified as 45-year-old Radcliffe Haughton—was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene in Brookfield, a suburb of the city of Milwaukee, police said. The Waukesha County medical examiner’s office identified Zina Haughton, 42, as being among the dead. Also killed were Cary Robuck, 35, and Maelyn Lind, 38. Four other people were injured in the shooting. Women who were trying to relax by getting massages and nail treatments instead ran for their lives when the gunman entered the Azana spa, police said. Clients stood dumbfounded in the parking lot in their white spa robes outside the locked-down crime scene, as police spent hours combing the large building, which had many small treatment rooms.

MEXICO DIGS UP RELATIVE TO IDENTIFY DRUG LORD
ACHUCA: Mexican authorities exhumed a relative of drug kingpin Heriberto Lazcano and took DNA samples from the corpse to remove any doubt they had killed the Zetas leader. Lazcano, one of Mexico’s most wanted men, is believed to have been killed at a baseball field in the northern state of Coahuila on October 7, but gunmen stole the cartel leader’s body from a funeral home hours later. Mexican officials had identified Lazcano with pictures and fingerprints taken at the funeral home, but authorities announced last week that they had decided to exhume one of his parents’ bodies to put to rest any doubts. Forensic experts exhumed a body on Monday in San Francisco cemetery, south of the city of Pachuca in the central state of Hidalgo, as police kept curious onlookers at bay. A source in the federal prosecutor’s office declined to say which relative had been exhumed.

NEW MYANMAR COMMUNAL VIOLENCE KILLS THREE
YANGON: At least three people have been killed in a fresh outbreak of communal violence between Muslim Rohingya and Buddhists in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, a local official said on Tuesday. The clashes laid bare festering tensions between the two communities after widespread violence in June left dozens dead, tens of thousands displaced and prompted rights groups to warn of a humanitarian crisis. Hundreds of homes were also torched in the unrest that affected two neighboring villages, while police said an overnight curfew failed to prevent violence continuing for a second day. More than 50,000 Muslims and up to 10,000 Buddhists are thought to be displaced across Rakhine state, where people from both communities were forced to flee as mobs torched entire villages in June’s flare-up.

AFP