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6 Tuesday, October 31,1995 IN THE NEWS Top stories from the state, nation and world Elizabeth Dole Leaves Job, Joins Campaign WASHINGTON, D.C. Elizabeth Dole is taking a year’s leave as president of the American Red Cross to join her husband’s presidential campaign, but she said Monday she will reclaim her job if Sen. Bob Dole is elected next year. That would make the former Labor and Transportation secretary the first first lady to work full time outside the White House. “I’m leaving now to help my hus band. I hope one day to help him as first lady,” she said today. “But I’ll al ways be a Red Crosser l’ll be back.” The Red Cross Board ofGovemors on Sunday ap proved a one-year leave of absence for M Sen. 808 DOLE'S wife is leaving her position as the American Red Cross' director to aid in his campaign. Mis. Dole to join her husband’s campaign for the Republican nomination. The un paid leave from her $200,000-a-year job takes effect this week. Norm Augustine, national chairman of the Red Cross, told USA Today in a story published Monday there would be no prob lem with Mrs. Dole resuming her role. “If a woman were considered for being president, do you think we would be debat ing whether her husband would have time to continue his career?” Augustine asked. Mrs. Dole said the two roles are in many ways complementary. “I believe, both as first lady and presi dent of the Red Cross, I could help the country rekindle its spirit of volunteerism and philanthropic giving,” she said. Lying Charges Dropped Against Rep. Funderburk LILLINGTON Authorities dis missed their charge that U.S. Rep. David Funderburk lied to a state trooper follow ing a traffic accident after Funderburk pleaded no contest Monday to a minor traffic violation. Funderburk, who denied that he was driving when the accident happened, was fined $25 and court costs after he pleaded no contest to driving left of center, said Kay Upchurch, assistant clerk of court for Harnett County Superior Court. Calls to Funderburk’s offices in Wash ington, D.C., and Dunn were not immedi ately returned. His attorney, Michael McLeod ofDunn, also did not immediately return a phone call. Funderburk was charged Friday with filing a false report to a law enforcement dr sk f f am U p*i GMAT ""get results — with the best combination of review, skill building, practice, and test-taking strategies S small classes (5-8 people) / experienced teachers / FREE tutorial help / FREE diagnostic pre-test COURSES START SOON in Chapel Hill & Raleigh for December/January tests! 919-929-PREP o*o Select Test Prep EDUCATIONAL SERVICES. INC. ROMANO’S PIZZA KITCHEN Fast, Free Delivery • 929-5005 i ..non w , Dinner! Tftade SeuttcA " * Build Your Own Ptaal We Use 100% SMALL I MEDIUM I LARGE I X-LARGEI SOTreiltO CheflSS 10" 12” 14" 10" Products dwosa $4.99 SB.IO $7.10 SB.IO IMT topping $0.75 SI.OO $1.35 $1.85 Cheese Award) Pouter Tertyakl Qrillad Chicken Marinated Grilled Chicken Barbecued Grilled Chicken Turkey Slices Milti Pepperonl Ground Beef Ham Sausage Bacon Rlbeye Steak Chowo Mozzarella Romano Cheddar Fhcotta Ciwtf Thin Hand Tossed I PIZZA TOPPINGS! | DON'T FORGETI Every time you enjoy a meal from Romano's, we will make a donation to the Ronald McDonald House and the American Red Cross. officer in connection with an Oct. 21 acci dent in Harnett County that left three people injured. Funderburk and his wife, Betty, insisted that she was driving when their 1995 Ford crossed a double yellow line and forced an oncoming van into a bridge abutment. Witnesses have said the congressman was behind the wheel during the accident. After the accident, the Funderburks con tinued driving down the road and out of sight, the witnesses said. They returned in several minutes with Betty Funderburk behind the wheel. Dow Chemical Cos. Loses Breast Implant Lawsuit RENO, Nev. Dow Chemical Cos. must pay $lO million in punitive damages to a woman who blames her ill health on leaky silicone breast implants, a jury ruled Monday. The Washoe District Court jury on Sat urday awarded Charlotte Mahlum $3.9 million to compensate her for her losses. It deliberated only 45 minutes Monday before awarding the additional damages as punishment for wrongdoing. “I’m stunned. Maybe now these big companies these doctors will under stand we’re not crazy, we’re sick,” Mrs. Mahlum said after the verdict. “There is no amount of money whatso ever that could give me back my health.” Her lawyers had asked for sl2 million, saying that “the conduct of this company was criminal.” Saturday’s verdict was the first reached solely against the parent company of Dow Coming Corp., which for years was the leading manufacturer of silicone breast implants. The jury already has found that Dow Chemical gave Dow Coming “sub stantial assistance or encouragement” by testing materials used in breast implants. U.S. Delegation Plans Trip To China in November SEATTLE—A high-level government delegation will visit China to begin re building defense contacts that were broken by Beijing to protest the U.S. visit of Taiwan’s president, Defense Secretary William Perry said Monday. Perry said Joseph Nye, the assistant secretary of defense for international secu rity affairs, will lead the delegation trip in November as part of what Perry called a policy of engaging rather than confronting China. In a speech to the Washington State China Relations Council, before starting a Defense Secretary WILLIAM PERRY says he will go to China to mend U.S.-Chinese relations. week-long visit to Japan and Korea, Perry argued against the less ac commodating ap proach to commu nist China favored by many congres sional Republicans. He called this a flawed logic that, if pursued, would cost the United States the support of key allies such as Japan and South Korea and, in the long run, would make more likely a dangerous mili tary confrontation with China. The defense secretary also had a few harsh words for China. He cited “serious and ongoing” human rights abuses, criti cized China’s nuclear weapons testing and said the Communist Party “often practices politics in the old Cold War ways.” FROM WIRE REPORTS Ever thought about a career in publishing? Develop skills and career opportunities in book and magazine publishing from insiders at Texas Monthly , The New Yorker , Harper Collins, Random House, Little, Brown and others. For a free brochure contact: School of Continuing Studies, Rice University 6100 Main, MS 550, Houston, TX 77005 Phone: (713) 527-4803, Fax: (713) 285-5213 E-mail: rupp@rice.edu, Internet: http://www.rice.edu/rupp Publishing Program July 14-August 9,1996 William Marsh Rice University is an EO/AA institution VtottaMf Sliced Tomato VeNow Onions Mushrooms Black Olives BrooooN HfftH kMm Basil Parsley Oregano Fresh Garlic Pineapple Banana Peppers Red Bad Peppers Yellow BeH Peppers Green BeN Peppers Sliced Baked Potato STATE & NATIONAL Army Says Fort Bragg Sniper Had Clean Record ■ Statewide flags flew at half mast in honor of the soldier slain Friday. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FORT BRAGG The soldier being held in a sniper attack on 1,300 airborne troops had a college degree in criminology and a clean record, the Army said Mon day. Sgt. William Joseph Kreutzer, 26, also had served in an elite long-range surveil lance unit in the 18th Airborne Corps prior to joining the 82nd Airborne Division on March 25,1993. Kreutzer had not been charged by late Monday, pending the outcome of a mili tary investigation into the shooting that left an intelligence officer dead and several other soldiers wounded. Kreutzer’s clean background adds little in the search for explanations for the pre dawn attack Friday as a brigade prepared for a four-mile run. “It’s still being investigated,” said Maj. Country in Mourning After 300 Die in Train Fire ■ Azerbaijan officials blame “outdated Soviet equipment” for the deadly incident. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BAKU .Azerbaijan—lslamic holy men blessed the dead Monday, and funeral mu sic filled the airwaves in mourning for 300 people who died in the world’s worst sub way disaster. Thepackedtraincaughtfire Saturday in a tunnel in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, trapping hundreds of terrified passengers in a deadly mix of flames and ftimes. Sur vivors said Monday that it took firefighters and medical teams more than two hours to reach them after the blaze broke out. “There were screams, and everyone was trying to jump out of the train," said Khirami Khankishiyeva, a 33-year-old English teacher whose legs were cut as she stumbled a mile through the dark, smoke filled tunnel to the next subway station. People massed at the windows of the subway trying to escape, said Ilhan Hussein Hired Look-Alike to Protect His Son During War ■ Latif Yahia spent five years standing-in for Saddam Hussein’s son. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LONDON His feet, shod in expen sive patent leather, twist in and out while he turns a large onyx ring on his right hand. Latif Yahia cannot shake the tastes and habits of his double, the man he hates most: Saddam Hussein’s eldest son, Odai. Yahia says Odai is a wife-beating, brandy-swigging, looting, conniving mur derer. “So am I,” says Yahia, who worked five years as a stand-in for Odai before defecting. Except, he quickly collects himself, he was not a murderer. Rivers Johnson, the division spokesman, when asked if authorities had determined why the attack happened. “That’s one of the key questions.” Maj. Stephen Mark Badger, 37, the 2nd Brigade intelligence officer, was killed by a bullet to his head. Twenty others were injured, including 18 by gunfire. By Mon day, only five remained in the hospital. Some 600 soldiers crowded the division chapel for a memorial service to Badger on Monday morning, and about 430 attended a funeral at his Mormon temple off the sprawling military post. Gov. Jim Hunt ordered flags at all state government buildings lowered to half-staff Monday in honor of Badger. Badger’s body is scheduled to be flown to Utah on Tuesday for burial in Holden, Utah, on Thursday, said his widow, Diane Badger. Mrs. Badger said she planned to show their eight children the shooting scene so they could understand what happened during the attack. She saidher husband ran toward the sniper’s muzzle flashes. “If Steve could have picked the way he Gamidov, 26. A woman that he helped out of a train car was burned badly on her legs after her stockings caught fire and was forced to leave behind one of her two children as she fled, he said. Most of the victims were killed by car bon monoxide poisoning from burning materials in the carriages, officials said. At least 200 other people were injured. The former Soviet republic declared two days of mourning. Officials blamed the tragedy on the subway’s “outdated Soviet” equipment. Chanting mid-day prayers, mullahs blessed bodies that had been brought to the main Teze Pir mosque wrapped in cloth ing and blankets for ritual cleansing before burial. Some of the bodies had not been identified. The subway was filled with commuters Monday, although police patrolled the sta tions and guarded the mosque in central Baku. The Azerbaijani government has imposed a news blackout on the fire. There have been no pictures of the carnage on television, and most channels were off the air. “I am trying to get rid of the way I get angry, the way I behave if I’m provoked, the way I get violent and want to hit some one,” he said in a recent interview. “1 have changed a lot. I used to hit my wife; I sent her to the hospital. I’m no longer that person.” Yahia now lives under the carefiil watch of Scotland Yard. Western officials will not comment on his story, but other Iraqi exilescorroborate some ofhis charges about Odai’s behavior, and there have been re cent reports out of Iraq that Odai may be on the outs with his father because ofhis excesses. Although he is not in hiding, Yahia is careful about giving out his address and phone number and meets with strangers only if they are known to people he trusts. He said by telephone that he has changed his appearance since the interview. Fortune and design combined to make the strange five-yearcareerthatLatifYahia recounts: In 1987, when he was a 23-year old soldier on the front lines of the Iran- Iraq war, he received a letter asking him to appear at the presidential palace in Baghdad within 72 hours. It was not Saddam Hussein, but Odai who made the call. The two had gone to school together Odai Hussein is just four days younger than Yahia—and Odai had remembered how much classmates remarked on their resemblance. Yahia remembered his classmate as the fellow who rolled up to school in a Porsche, who returned to the all-male dorm with girlfriends who later emerged bruised and weeping, who fired his gun into the air when teachers crossed him. Odai wasn’t just the local bully, but the bully backed by the most powerfiil dad in the land. Understanding all too well why Odai might need a double, Yahia politely declined. Yahia was kept in an all-red cell, lit 24 hours a day by red light. “I wasn’t physi cally tortured, but it was a mental torture. It was worse. After seven days I agreed.” That was followed by six months of intense training: learning to roll his “r’s” like Odai, watching videos to get the tics and mannerisms right. “Odai is taller, so I had to wear platform shoes," Yahia said, blushing. To perfect the effect, surgeons shaved and capped his teeth and added a cleft to his chin. In photos and videos ofhis died,...” she said after the memorial ser vice. “He died doing what he was trained to do. He was always my hero and a hero to his kids. He was a true American hero. He gave that last full measure of devo tion.” Since the shooting, Mrs. Badger has been accessible to news media and friends. She said she welcomed the media because she wanted others to know about her hus band so that he wouldn’t be a statistic. During his funeral service, friends praised Badger’s high spirit and ever-present smile. “He challenged himself,” said friend Tom Kem, his voice choking with emo tion at times. “Obstacles didn’t get in the way of him. He picked up and went on.” Mourners watched a slide show of Badger’s life from his childhood through his military service before they filed out aftermilitary pallbearers carried the major’s flag-draped casket to a hearse. Meanwhile, the search for information on the shooting suspect continued. Kreutzer’s background included a stint in a surveillance unit that often operated The fire broke out between two subway stations in central Baku because of a mal function of the train’s electric system, offi cials said. Monday, train drivers flashed their lights between the stations where the accident took place in memory of the victims, the independent Turan news agency reported. Red carnations tied with black ribbons were placed at the entrances to the stations. Survivors described sparks flying from high voltage cables just after the train left the busy Ulduz station Saturday afternoon. Rescuers battled the blaze until early Sunday, then pulled the injured and the dead, wrapped in rugs and blankets, from the tunnel. Axes reportedly were used to break the doors of one car and take the corpses out. Turkey’s Anatolia news agency said the dead included three rescue workers. Deputy Prime Minister Abbas Abbasov, the head of a government panel investigating the disaster, said 291 people died, and 269 were injured, Azerbaijan Radio said. Earlier, however, morgue officials said they counted at least 303 bodies, and the Iraqi President SADDAM HUSSEIN had an Iraqi soldier stand in for his son. performance, only those who know enough to spot Yahia ’ s higher fore head can tell the dif ference. Then, there was the personality. Odai was unable to contain his arro gance even in pub lic he would up braid officers at tele vised events so, to be completely convincing, the soft- spoken Yahia had to leam to be what he calls “rude.” That meant telling people, “You’re mother is a whore;” that meant beating underlings. Worst of all, he said, it resulted mtakingviolencehometo his wife, Bushra. Yahia said internalizing Odai’s way of life hard drinking, violence and con temptuousness for women prompted him to hit Bushra for the first time in his life. The beatings eventually landed her in a hospital. “My wife feels secure now, but once she didn’t trust me very well,” he said. “I love and respect my wife. She suffered a lot with me.” Murder was the only one of Odai’s enthusiasms he did not share, Yahia claims. He recites them like a gruesome resume: “Hekilled Kamel Hanna, his father’s right hand man. He killed him at a party; he shot him to death. He killed a pilot. He raped a girl she was a student at the University of Baghdad —and when her father con fronted him, Odai killed him.” Despite these displays of cruelty many of them independently corroborated by other Iraqi exiles—Yahia kept at the job. There were risks: When he visited the front in southern Iraq in 1991, where Shiite Muslims were rebelling, he took shrapnel meant for Odai. But there were also perks: On similar mis sions to the Kuwaiti front—again to prove to the Iraqi nation the courage of the president’s son he came away with $25 million in loot. These days, Yahia seems to earn a good living. He lives in a posh apartment in west London and wears impeccably tailored suits. But he won’t elaborate on his activi ties, saying only that he is in “business.” Odai shot his double in a hotel lobby. I I Tutor For Credit! ■ Receive 3.0 hours P/F credit for tutoring students once a week, 3 hours per week. The Peer Tutoring Program is recruiting tutors for the Spring semester. Applications are available in the Union, on the second floor of Steele | Building, and at the Peer Tutoring Office, Room 107, Phillips Annex. Tutors are needed for: Bio 11,52, 53; Chem 11, 21,41, 61-2; Physics 20, 24, 25; Astron 31; Philos 21, 22 French 1-4; Spanish 1-4; German 1-4; Latin 1-4 Math 10,16,17,18, 22, 30, 31, 32, 33; Slat 11,23; Busi 24, 71; Econ 10,100 Other subjects as needed i ® APPLICATION DEADLINE NOV. Uiljp (Daily @ar Heel detached from the rest of the troops on a battlefield. “They’re the eyes and ears of the corps commander,” Johnson said. “They’re very self-sustaining.” Kreutzer received a bachelor’s degree in criminology from the University of Mary land on Dec. 20, 1991. He entered the Army on Feb. 19,1992, and his enlistment was scheduled to expire Feb. 16,1996. Kreutzer was assigned to Fort Bragg Aug. 15,1992, when he joined the surveil lance unit. He was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division’s 4th Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment on March 25, 1993. Kreutzer had received a good conduct medal, expert infantry badge, wings for training with the Jordanian airborne forces, U.S. Army jump wings, an Army service ribbon and a National Defense Service Medal. At the time of the shooting he was a weapons squad leader. A review of Kreutzer’s record showed no Article 15s, a military designation for administrative punishment by his com manders, or any courts-martial. independent Azerbaijani news agency Turan quoted medical officials as putting the death toll at 337. President Geidar Aliev promised vic tims’ families compensation of 1 million manats ($220) each. Abbasov blamed the disaster on Baku’s “outdated Soviet” sub ways, which needed urgent repairs, Turan reported. Last year, some 20 people were killed in two separate terrorist attacks on the Baku subway. Both cases are still under investi gation. Immediately after Saturday’s fire, rumors began circulating around Baku that the fire was also a terrorist act. Authorities insisted there was no indication of terror ism. Azeibaijan, an oil-rich Turkic nation on the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea that borders Georgia, Iran and Armenia, has been weakened by economic and po litical turmoil and war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. With a cease-fire in the war now holding, Azerbaijan is looking for an economic boost, especially after concluding a multibillion-dollar oil deal with a Western consortium. It was probably only a warning th? shot just grazed Yahia —but he got the message. He got into his Oldsmobile and drove north, later sending for his wife and daughter. At first, thinking they had Odai, rebels in northern Iraq imprisoned Yahia and his wife. It was there that they became hus band and wife again and that she forgave him, Yahia says. “She has proved she cared,” he said. It is for the sin of beating his wife the one crime in which Odai was not directly involved that Yahia is least forgiving. For turning him into someone who would do that, he would gladly kill Odai, Yahia said. Kurdish rebels finally got Yahia, an ethnic Kurd, released from prison. He was questioned by American agents. What he had to say impressed the State Department enough for it to organize his asylum in Vienna, Austria, where he moved in March 1992. Yahia still shares one of Odai’s more pronounced traits: paranoia. He claims assassins twice attempted to kill him in Vienna. That, and the fact that Iraq’s big gest European embassy is in the Austrian capital, prompted him to move to London last March. He says the opposition is riddled with Saddam’s agents and has started his own opposition group, the Iraqi Liberation Or ganization, although he is unable to name anypartners in this venture. He has written a book about his experiences. Yahia, however, seems animated en tirely by personal hatred for Odai. He still admires Saddam. “Saddam is viewed as a war criminal, but he has shown generosity towards his own people; he has helped the poor and the needy,” he said. Still, Yahia is jittery. He checks out reporters before agreeing to interviews. Six months in England, his English is practi cally non-existent, and he speaks through an interpreter. The one-time high-living playboy confines his leisure time to week end country outings with his family. He has given up drinking Odai’s favorites were Napoleon brandy and Dimple whisky—because it always made him sick. Are there any vices he couldn’t give up? He gave the Cuban cigar between his fin gers a fond glance. “I couldn’t give up smoking cigars.”
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Oct. 31, 1995, edition 1
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