Luigi Mangione wants access to laptop while awaiting trial in case of United HealthCare CEO killing

Attorneys for Luigi Mangione, the Towson, Maryland, man accused of gunning down a United HealthCare CEO, are requesting he have access to a laptop while in federal custody to review documents and other material related to his case, according to a court filing Monday in the Supreme Court of New York.

Without a laptop, counsel would have to print out more than 15,000 pages of discovery for Mangione to keep in his cell pending his trial, his attorneys, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Marc Agnifilo and Jacob Kaplan, said in the court filing.

However, prosecutors “do not plan on consenting to a personal laptop at this time” because of the sensitive nature of many of the documents and alleged threats to witnesses in the case.

Mangione, 26, faces federal and state charges in connection with the death of CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione, a 2016 Gilman valedictorian and graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, is charged with multiple counts of murder, including murder as an act of terrorism.

“There is no good reason why Mr. Mangione has not been provided with complete discovery, all of which is entirely in law enforcement’s possession,” Mangione’s attorney said in the court filing. “Not only is there no legitimate basis for a protective order to withhold this information from the defense, but there is also no connection between Mr. Mangione and any purported threats to anyone.”

Mangione’s counsel noted that many other federal inmates at the prison are provided laptops to review their discovery. In those cases, counsel obtains a laptop and provides it to an approved vendor to modify in compliance with the prison’s regulations by disabling the laptop’s connections to the internet, printers, wireless networks, games, and entertainment programs.

Mangione’s legal team declined to comment, referring all questions to the latest court filing.

—The Baltimore Sun

Prosecutors may call members of Bryan Kohberger’s family to testify during trial

BOISE, Idaho — In the latest drop of court filings in Bryan Kohberger’s criminal case, the prosecution hinted that it might call members of the 30-year-old’s family to testify at his upcoming trial.

Latah County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Ashley Jennings asked in the Friday filing, which was published on the court’s website Monday, that if any members of Kohberger’s family are listed as witnesses for the prosecution that they be excluded from the courtroom until they testify. The prosecution has until April 21 to file its witness list.

Kohberger is charged with the first-degree murder of four University of Idaho students after prosecutors alleged he stabbed the students to death in November 2022. The victims were: Madison Mogen, of Coeur d’Alene, and Kaylee Goncalves, of Rathdrum, both 21; and Xana Kernodle, of Post Falls, and Ethan Chapin, of Mount Vernon, Washington, both 20.

Kohberger was a graduate student studying criminal justice and criminology at Washington State University, in Pullman, Washington, just nine miles from where the three female victims lived with two other young women who went physically unharmed during the homicides. Chapin was Kernodle’s boyfriend and stayed over for the night.

If convicted, the prosecution intends to seek the death penalty.

This latest filing by the prosecution is in response to a filing by the defense, which asked last week that if any of Kohberger’s immediate family — consisting of his mother, father and two sisters — attend the trial they are allowed in the courtroom.

—The Idaho Statesman

‘No Other Land’ co-director Hamdan Ballal, bloodied and bruised, released from Israeli custody

Hamdan Ballal, one of the two Palestinian filmmakers who co-directed the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” is free. He was released Tuesday from Israeli custody, less than a day after Israeli military and police detained him and three other people following a brutal attack Monday by settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Ballal was released from an Israeli police station in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba. He had bruises on his face and blood on his clothes. Upon his release, the filmmaker told the Associated Press that he was in custody at an army base and forced to sleep under an air conditioner.

“I was blindfolded for 24 hours,” he told AP. “All the night, I was freezing. It was a room, I couldn’t see anything ... I heard the voice of soldiers laughing about me.”

Ballal was detained Monday evening after a group of masked settlers descended on the Palestinian village Susiya in the Masafer Yatta area and beat him in his head and stomach, his Israeli co-director and journalist Yuval Abraham and activist group Center for Jewish Nonviolence alleged. Abraham said in a tweet shared Monday that “soldiers invaded the ambulance (Ballal) called, and took him.” Activist Basel Adra, another Palestinian co-director of “No Other Land,” also tweeted about Ballal’s detainment Monday, sharing a photo of a person with their hands behind their back being escorted into a vehicle bearing the Israeli flag. “Hamdan ... is still missing after soldiers abducted him, injured and bleeding,” Adra said.

Palestinian residents said the settlers, some wearing masks, some carrying guns and some in military uniforms, attacked as residents were breaking for their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, AP reported.

The filmmaker’s wife Lamia Ballal recounted her husband’s detainment and the attack to AP. She said she heard Ballal being beaten outside their home and heard him screaming, “I’m dying.” Lamia Ballal said her husband was beaten by three men in uniform using the butts of their rifles. She told AP the attention surrounding “No Other Land’s” Oscar win earlier this month led settlers to “attack us more.”

The Center for Jewish Nonviolence on Monday posted dashcam footage on Bluesky of someone shoving three people and punching one member of the group. The video later shows another person — whose face is covered by a mask — joined by several others, picking up an object from the ground and hurling it at the vehicle, destroying the windshield. Video recorded and shared by Anna Lippman, a delegate for the activist group, shows an alternate angle of the confrontation. Lippman also tweeted photos of a vehicle with shards of glass in the passenger seats.

Lippman told the L.A.Times via social media messages Monday that more than a dozen settlers attacked Susiya and destroyed property. She also said that Israeli soldiers took Ballal from the ambulance where he was receiving care, and detained two other Palestinian men.

In a Monday statement, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces shared its account of the “violent confrontation.” The spokesperson said the dispute broke out after several people it described as “terrorists” allegedly hurled rocks at Israeli citizens and damaged their vehicles. The incident involved “mutual rock-hurling between Palestinians and Israelis at the scene,” the statement said.

—Los Angeles Times

Reports: Dozens killed in Sudanese military air raid on market

KHARTOUM, Sudan — At least 61 people were killed in an air attack by the Sudanese military on a market in the North Darfur region of western Sudan, a human rights group in the country reported Tuesday.

Many others were injured in the attack on the town of Tora on Monday, the Darfur Network for Human Rights said, citing eyewitnesses.

Another organization, Emergency Lawyers, put the death toll in the hundreds.

The Sudanese military has not yet commented on the reports and the information cannot be independently verified.

The Darfur Network for Human Rights said the strike took place when the market was busy and crowded with women, children and the elderly.

Sudanese government forces have recently made advances in the conflict with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, seizing strategically important areas in the east of the country, including large parts of the capital Khartoum.

The RSF maintains control over the western region, and Darfur in particular, where it is working to establish its own government along with allies.

Human rights organizations accuse both sides of serious human rights violations, such as sexual violence and the arbitrary shooting of civilians.

The conflict has caused the world's largest refugee crisis, with 12.9 million people displaced since it began in April 2023, according to the United Nations.

—dpa