Dead woman served jail time

Luke E. Saladin
Post staff reporter

A Northern Kentucky woman whose partially clothed body was found in the Ohio River Thursday in Ludlow had had extensive run-ins with police and been convicted of prostitution.

A man walking his dog spotted the body of Krystal Michelle Coy, 23, a few feet from the shore at the foot of Butler Street.

The death is being investigated as a homicide by the Kenton County Police Department, which is typical until a cause of death is determined.

According to records at the Kenton County Detention Center, Coy, whose last know arrest was Latonia, has faced at least 22 charges in Kenton County since March 2004, and been convicted of prostitution and loitering for prostitution purposes.

Among the other charges: giving an officer a false name, alcohol intoxication in a public place, disorderly conduct, operating on a suspended license, failure to appear in court and contempt of court. Her last visit to the jail was Dec. 21, when she was sentenced to serve 10 days in jail for probation violation. There was also an active bench warrant issued in October for Coy's arrest in Boone County, on a charge of theft of services for under $300.

Kenton County Commonwealth Attorney Rob Sanders said because an initial medical examination found that there was no severe trauma to the body, authorities would check for drug use.

"We're awaiting the police report to see what they find, then we'll try to locate the last people who saw her alive and try to piece the puzzle together," Sanders said.

"The bottom line is a partially clothed body doesn't just appear along the river. Somebody knows what happened."

Kenton County Deputy Coroner Ron Cook said results of an autopsy should be known early next week.

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Navy Searches For 3 From Copter Crash

ALLISON HOFFMAN,
Associated Press Writer

Navy vessels about 50 miles off the California coast searched Saturday for three crew members of a Navy helicopter that crashed during a training operation.

The Friday crash killed one crew member and left the remaining three missing as darkness fell over the Pacific.

The sailor died after being pulled alive from the water, said Navy spokesman Cmdr. Jack Hanzlik.

"It's a sad time whenever we lose shipmates like this, so our hearts and prayers go out to the families," Hanzlik said.

The helicopter, based at Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado, was on a training mission when it crashed at about 5:30 p.m. EST. The MH-60S, commonly known as a Seahawk, was on a mission off the USS Bonhomme Richard, near San Clemente Island, directly west of the Camp Pendleton Marine base.

Hanzlik said the helicopter crew put out a mayday call before the crash. Navy sailors and Marines who were training with them aboard ship arrived at the crash site in inflatable boats within minutes.

The sailor pulled alive from the water died aboard the Bonhomme Richard while receiving medical attention, the Navy said.

His name was being withheld pending family notification. The names and rank of the others aboard also had not been released.

It was not clear whether mechanical malfunction or pilot error might have contributed to the crash, the Navy said. An investigation was under way.

Hanzlik said he did not know what type of maneuver the helicopter was performing when it crashed.

The USS Bonhomme Richard is an amphibious assault craft that took Marines to Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami.

The ship was training with two other Navy ships, the destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and the cruiser USS Chosin. Both of those ships were also participating in the rescue mission, Hanzlik said.

Two additional vessels, the destroyer USS Milius and the amphibious craft USS Rushmore, were deployed to assist with the search.

The MH-60 Sierra is a twin-turbine craft based on the UH-60L Black Hawk and the Navy's SH-60B Seahawk, according to the manufacturer, United Technologies Corp.'s Sikorsky Aircraft. It is designed to operate off aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and frigates, ranging up to 100 nautical miles from the ship.

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Singapore Snubs Nigeria, Others; Executes Tochi Iwuchukwu

SINGAPORE yesterday snubbed Nigeria, the United Nations, Amnesty International, and a host of other anti-death penalty activists when it hanged convicted Nigerian, Tochi Amara Iwuchukwu (21), and one Nelson Malachy Okeke (35), said to be stateless. Both were hanged at dawn yesterday.

Singapore's Central Narcotics Bureau confirmed the executions in a statement.

"The appeals of both Tochi and Malachy to the Court of Appeal and to the President (S.R. Nathan) for clemency have been turned down. Their sentences were carried out this morning at Changi Prison," it said.

Last Tuesday President Olusegun Obasanjo in a letter appealed to Singapore for clemency on behalf of Tochi. A statement from his office said that "President Olusegun Obasanjo has sought the personal intervention of the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong, in the imminent execution of a Nigerian, Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi, in Singapore," adding that the President "had asked that the death sentence be commuted to imprisonment."

In reply, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong wrote to President Obasanjo to explain why his government was rejecting his appeal for clemency.

"Mr. Tochi has committed a serious offence under Singapore law," Lee said, adding that the amount of drugs he carried amounted to more than 48,000 doses of heroin on the streets.

Lee said that his government "takes a firm stance against drugs to deter Singaporeans and others from importing drugs into Singapore or using the country as a transit hub for narcotics," and had made its position publicly known."

And in Lagos, Tochi's lawyer accused the government doing too little, too late to help his client. The lawyer, Princewill Akpakpa who is also head of litigation at the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) said "the Nigerian government just woke up at the eleventh hour... belatedly writing letters to authorities in Singapore" to grant him clemency, said in a televised interview after the execution.

Akpakpa said that several letters he wrote last year to authorities in Nigeria, including the parliament, after Tochi was convicted, were neither acknowledged nor acted upon.

"The Nigerian governnment failed woefully. It did not look at the merit of Tochi's case," he said.

"Tochi did not know the content of the parcel that was given to him," at the airport in Dubai for delivery in Singapore, said the lawyer, who said he visited Singapore several times and led several campaigns in favour of Tochi after his conviction.

A Nigerian embassy spokeswoman told AFP they had informed Tochi's family about the execution and are waiting for instruction on what to do with the body.

In Geneva, Philip Alston, the UN Human Rights Council's special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said Tochi's trial did not respect legal safeguards around the presumption of innocence.

Singapore law provides that a person caught in possession of illegal substances is assumed to be trafficking, thus putting the burden of proof on the accused.

"It is a fundamental human right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty," Alston said.

Tochi was arrested trying to smuggle 727.02 grammes (more than 25 ounces) of heroin through Changi Airport in November 2004. He said he came to Singapore to try his luck at football clubs.

About 10 activists and sympathisers held a sombre overnight vigil outside the suburban prison compound, hanging Tochi's football kit on the wall above photographs of him surrounded by candles.

Shortly after 6:00 am (2200 GMT), the time when prisoners are normally hanged, each protester laid a bunch of red roses in front of the photographs.

Malachy was charged as an accomplice.

Under Singapore's tough anti-drug laws, the death penalty is mandatory for anyone caught trafficking more than 15 grammes of heroin, 30 grammes of cocaine or 500 grammes of cannabis.

Tochi said he was given a bag containing the substance at Dubai airport to pass on to a man in Singapore but was unaware it contained heroin.

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Lugovoi denies role in Alexander Litvinenko's death

HENRY MEYER,
Associated Press Writer

The man reported by British media to be a suspect in the murder of a former Russian agent in London hit out Saturday at "lies, provocation and government propaganda," denying any role in the radiation poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko.

Andrei Lugovoi told The Associated Press that he viewed the reports in Britain's Guardian newspaper and Sky News that he is a suspect in the murder as an attempt by the British authorities to make up for the lack of evidence against him.

"This is all lies, provocation and government propaganda by the United Kingdom," he said. "They are trying to make up for their weak hand."

Sky News reported Friday that British prosecutors believe they have enough evidence to charge Lugovoi.

Investigators have identified the teapot believed to have contained the radioactive tea, which eventually killed Litvinenko in November, Sky News said, citing unnamed Scotland Yard officials. ABC News had a similar report, citing an unidentified official.

The reports cap a week of media speculation on the direction of the British investigation into the death. The Guardian newspaper also reported Friday that police were focusing on Lugovoi and had sufficient evidence for prosecutors to decide whether to file charges against him, citing unnamed government officials.

Scotland Yard's investigation has centered on Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, two Russian ex-KGB officers who were present at the Millennium Hotel in central London when Litvinenko fell ill on Nov. 1 after contamination from a rare, radioactive substance.

ABC News said the teapot, found at the Millennium Hotel, remained in use for several weeks after the poisoning, adding that its radiation readings were extremely high.

Of the 13 people who tested positive for contamination with Polonium-210 since Litvinenko was poisoned, eight worked at the hotel. Two others who tested positive for the rare radioactive material also visited the hotel's bar.

Litvinenko, 43, died on Nov. 23. The former KGB agent fled to Britain after leaving Russia and was granted asylum. In exile, he became a vocal opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him in a deathbed statement of masterminding his death.

Russian officials have denied any involvement in his murder. The politically-charged case has driven relations between London and Moscow to post-Cold War lows.

In a reminder of the tensions, the Russian Prosecutor General's office on Saturday reaffirmed that Russia would not extradite Lugovoi to Britain.

"A Russian citizen cannot be extradited to another country under the Russian Constitution," Natalia Fyodorova, a spokeswoman for Prosecutor-General's office, told the AP.

She added that Russia would not put him on trial itself if Britain filed charges against Lugovoi, only if the Russian investigators looking into Litvinenko's murder decided to prosecute him.

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Korean hookers busted in US visa scam

Police have busted 42 prostitutes for using forged documents to get a US visa. Police in Seoul also detained a broker identified as Kim (47) on charges of faking a variety of documents to help them get the visas.

According to police, Kim and his Korean-American accomplice had been mocking up bank account records, job certificates and Family Register documents for their clients and training them for the visa interviews since September 2004, charging KRW 4 million (approximately USD $4,363.20) per person.

The two made profits of W1 billion in all by doing so. Half of their 500 clients succeeded in getting a US visa. Their clients included mostly 20-something women who wanted the visa to work in the sex trade in large US cities.

Kim, one of the women, told police the number of customers here dropped after new anti-prostitution laws were introduced two years ago, and word is that prostitutes can earn at least USD $10,000 a month in the US.

"As far as we know, some 200 Korean women were caught for prostitution in the US this year alone and 100 of them were deported," a police officer said. "The number of cases where the US Embassy seizes forged visa application documents rose to 200 a month. This is a serious stumbling block to Koreans being included in the US visa waiver program."

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