Accused in health insurance CEO killing struggles with officers after arriving at courthouse
The suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO struggled with deputies and shouted Tuesday while arriving for a court appearance in Pennsylvania, a day after he was arrested at a McDonald’s and charged with murder.
Luigi Nicholas Mangione emerged from a patrol car, spun toward reporters and shouted something partly unintelligible referring to an “insult to the intelligence of the American people” while deputies pushed him inside.
Prosecutors were beginning to take steps to bring Mangione back to New York to face a murder charge while new details emerged about his life and how he was captured.
The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland real estate family was charged with murder hours after he was arrested in the Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, who led the United States’ largest medical insurance company.
At the brief hearing, defence lawyer Thomas Dickey informed the court that Mangione will not waive extradition to New York but instead wants a hearing on the issue. Mangione was denied bail after prosecutors raised concerns about public safety and a potential flight risk.
Mangione, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, mostly stared straight ahead at the hearing, occasionally consulting papers, rocking in his chair or looking back at the gallery. At one point, he began to speak to respond to the court discussion but was quieted by his lawyer.
“You can’t rush to judgment in this case or any case,” Dickey said afterward. “He’s presumed innocent. Let’s not forget that.”
Mangione likely was motivated by his anger with what he called “parasitic” health insurance companies and a disdain for corporate greed, according to a law enforcement bulletin obtained by The Associated Press.
He wrote that the U.S. has the most expensive health-care system in the world and that profits of major corporations continue to rise while “our life expectancy” does not, the bulletin said, based on a review of his hand-written notes and social media posts.
Mangione called Ted Kaczynski — known as the Unabomber — a “political revolutionary” and may have found inspiration from the man who carried out a series of bombings while railing against modern society and technology, according to the police bulletin.
Mangione remained jailed in Pennsylvania, where he was initially charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. Manhattan prosecutors have obtained an arrest warrant, a step that could help expedite his extradition from Pennsylvania.
End to five-day manhunt
Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pa., about 370 kilometres west of New York City, after a McDonald’s customer recognized him and notified an employee, authorities said.
Officers found him sitting at a back table, wearing a blue medical mask and looking at a laptop, according to a Pennsylvania police criminal complaint.
He initially gave them a fake ID, but when an officer asked Mangione whether he’d been to New York recently, he “became quiet and started to shake,” the complaint says.
When he pulled his mask down at officers’ request, “we knew that was our guy,” said police officer Tyler Frye.
Images of Mangione released Tuesday by Pennsylvania State Police showed him pulling down his mask in the corner of the McDonald’s while holding what appeared to be hash browns and wearing a winter jacket and beanie. In another photo from a holding cell, he stood unsmiling with rumpled hair.
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Mangione was carrying a gun like the one used to kill Thompson and the same fake ID the shooter had used to check into a New York hostel, along with a passport and other fraudulent IDs.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Mangione also had a three-page, handwritten document that shows “some ill will toward corporate America.”
A law enforcement official — who wasn’t authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity — said the document included a line in which Mangione claimed to have acted alone.
“To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone,” the document said, according to the official.
It also had a line that said, “I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.”
Pennsylvania prosecutor Peter Weeks said in court that Mangione was found with a passport and $10,000 in cash, $2,000 of it in foreign currency. Mangione disputed the amount.
Thompson, 50, was killed Wednesday as he walked alone to a Manhattan hotel for an investor conference.
Police quickly came to see the shooting as a targeted attack by a gunman who appeared to wait for Thompson, came up behind him and fired a 9-mm pistol.
Investigators have said “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on ammunition found near Thompson’s body. The words mimic “delay, deny, defend,” a phrase used to criticize the insurance industry.
From surveillance video, New York investigators determined the shooter quickly fled the city, likely by bus.
From wealth and success to murder suspect
A grandson of a wealthy, self-made real estate developer and philanthropist, Mangione is a cousin of a current Maryland state legislator.
Valedictorian at his elite Baltimore prep school, he went on to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science in 2020 from the University of Pennsylvania, a spokesperson said.
“Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest,” Mangione’s family said in a statement posted on social media late Monday by his cousin, Maryland Del. Nino Mangione.
“We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved.”
From January to June 2022, Luigi Mangione lived at Surfbreak, a “co-living” space at the edge of the touristy Waikiki neighbourhood in Honolulu.
Like other residents of the shared penthouse catering to remote workers, Mangione underwent a background check, said Josiah Ryan, a spokesperson for owner and founder R.J. Martin.
“Luigi was just widely considered to be a great guy. There were no complaints,” Ryan said.
“There was no sign that might point to these alleged crimes they’re saying he committed.”
At Surfbreak, Martin learned Mangione had severe back pain from childhood that interfered with many aspects of his life, from surfing to romance, Ryan said.
Mangione left Surfbreak to get surgery on the mainland, Ryan said, then later returned to Honolulu and rented an apartment.
Martin stopped hearing from Mangione six months to a year ago.
Published at Wed, 04 Dec 2024 17:39:06 +0000
Austria wants to send Syrians home. Refugees and their advocates say it’s too soon
As It Happens7:06Austrian threat to deport Syrians is more rhetoric than reality, says refugee advocate
Lukas Gahleitner-Gertz’s refugee advocacy organization has been fielding a lot of panicked calls from Syrians living in Austria.
That’s because the country has threatened to start sending Syrians back to their home country now that rebels have toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
“Many of them are asking whether they can be deported right away,” Gahleitner-Gertz, a legal expert with Asylkoordination Österreich, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
“We are trying to calm the people down.”
Austria is one of several European countries that have paused asylum applications from Syria until a clearer picture emerges about the country’s political future.
Canada, which has not seen the same influx as its European counterparts, will continue to process claims as they come, says Immigration Minister Marc Miller.
Austria vows ‘orderly return and deportation’
Germany, Britain, Italy, Croatia, Norway, Poland and Sweden have also temporarily stopped issuing decisions on asylum claims from Syrians, citing the evolving situation in the war-torn country. France is considering a similar move.
Gahleitner-Gertz says that’s to be expected. Asylum claims, he says, must be based on facts. Right now, with a power vacuum in Syria, those are hard to come by.
But Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner took it a step further, saying on Tuesday: “I have instructed the ministry to prepare an orderly return and deportation program to Syria.”
Karner didn’t offer any further details about what this would look like or who would be impacted.
Gahleitner-Gertz says there’s no legal basis for mass deportations.
“It is kind of a show that is more a signal for their own electorate, but it does not have to do that much with reality,” he said.
“[They’re saying,] ‘We don’t want those people. We want them to go back. We don’t want more people to come.’ And this creates a climate of fear.”
The Syrian government collapsed early Sunday. CBC’s Briar Stewart breaks down what happened and what this could mean for the future of the country and conflict in the Middle East.
That fear is palpable in Austria’s Syrian communities, says Abdulkheem Alshater of the Free Syrian Community Austria, an organization that helps integrate Syrians in the country.
“Many people are afraid of deportation,” he told CBC via messaging app, translated from German.
Alshater, 43, fled from Homs, Syria, nine years ago after participating in demonstrations against the Assad regime.
He says he and his fellow Syrians in Austria are celebrating the fall of Assad, a president he says brutally terrorized and imprisoned his own people for years, and the emptying of Syria’s notorious prisons where many opponents of the regime were detained and tortured.
But just because Assad is no longer in power doesn’t mean Syria is safe, he said. The country is still reeling from the effects of more than a decade of war.
He says it’s still not clear who will be in charge, what will become of the people who worked for Assad’s regime, or what kind of political system will ultimately emerge.
“Syrians will return once a free democracy is in place,” he said.
As It Happens7:55Former Syrian detainee ‘overwhelmed by joy’ as rebels free inmates
When rebels opened the doors of Syria’s notorious Sednaya prison, Omar Alshogre celebrated. Alshogre, a former Sednaya detainee now living in Sweden, spoke to As It Happens guest host Peter Armstrong about what he calls “the worst place humanity has created.”
Amloud Alamir, a Syrian journalist in Berlin, agrees.
She works for Amal Berlin, a news site that reports in Arabic, Ukrainian and Dari/Farsi for the German city’s refugee and immigrant population.
She says many Syrians believe pressure to return is “premature and ignores the realities on the ground in Syria,” which includes warring factions and their international backers with competing interests and ideologies.
“The fall of the Assad regime represents a major political shift, and it has a great significance for our future as the Syrians. We couldn’t have imagined it, tears mixed with laughter. Finally, we are free from the Assad family and from this fascist regime,” she told CBC in a voice memo.
“But establishing a peaceful and democratic Syria is not easy.”
The International Refugee Committee, a humanitarian aid organization, is urging countries not to force Syrians to return against their will.
“The events in Syria are devastating proof that humanitarian misery, mass displacement and widespread killing are no basis for a sustainable state,” David Miliband, the organization’s president, said in a press release.
“We call on all countries where Syrians are living as refugees to uphold the principle of safe and voluntary return. Syria needs its people, in all their variety, but it must be their choice.”
More rhetoric than reality, says legal expert
Gahleitner-Gertz says Austria’s deportation threats are more rhethoric than reality.
Syrian refugees in Austria are granted protection under the country’s asylum system, he says, and that can’t be taken away arbitrarily without a hearing and legal representation.
In order to deport someone, he says, the government would have to prove their country of origin is safe — something that’s unlikely in light of recent events.
Currently, the rebels who ousted Assad have backed an interim leader, and promised Syrians safety and unity. But the international community remains wary of Hayat Tahrir al-Shams (HTS), the former al-Qaeda affiliate that led the revolt.
Alshater notes that Iran and Libya have also experienced revolutions, and both countries ended up with oppressive regimes.
“We can’t let the same thing happen in Syria,” he said. “The West and Europe must work for a democratic and independent Syria.”
With files from Elizabeth Withey, The Canadian Press and Reuters. Interview with Lukas Gahleitner-Gertz produced by Katie Toth.
Published at Tue, 10 Dec 2024 23:45:13 +0000
