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1 of 3 killed in Nevada prison brawl was white supremacist gang member who killed an inmate in 2016

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1 of 3 killed in Nevada prison brawl was white supremacist gang member who killed an inmate in 2016
News

News

1 of 3 killed in Nevada prison brawl was white supremacist gang member who killed an inmate in 2016

2024-08-03 12:52 Last Updated At:13:00

RENO, Nev. (AP) — One of three inmates killed in a Nevada prison brawl this week was a member of a white supremacist prison gang who was serving a life sentence for his role in a murder at another Nevada prison, authorities said Friday.

The local county sheriff identified Anthony Williams, 41, as the third of the three people killed in Tuesday's fight at Nevada's maximum security prison in rural Ely. Nine other inmates were injured.

Prison and state officials have released few details since then, although White Pine County Sheriff Scott Henriod confirmed Friday that all three men died of stab wounds, or "multiple sharp force injuries.”

“This is an ongoing investigation,” Henriod said in an email to The Associated Press.

The other victims identified earlier were Connor Brown, 22, of South Lake Tahoe, California, and Zacharia Luz, 42, of Las Vegas.

Luz was identified as a street-level leader of the Aryan Warriors white supremacist prison gang. He and Williams were among 23 reputed members of the gang who were indicted in a sweeping racketeering case in Las Vegas involving murder, drug trafficking and identity theft in 2019.

That indictment tied Williams and another person to the 2016 stabbing death of Andrew Ryan Thurgood in a cell at High Desert State Prison in southern Nevada.

Williams pleaded guilty to open murder in Las Vegas in 2021 in a plea deal that took the death penalty off the table. He also was convicted of being a habitual offender and was sentenced to life without parole at the prison in Ely, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of the Utah line, the Nevada Department of Corrections said.

Luz was sentenced last year to seven to 18 years in prison for his conviction on felony racketeering and forgery charges, the department said.

Brown was serving a seven- to 20-year sentence for robbery with use of a deadly weapon, the department said. He was sentenced in 2021 after pleading guilty to stabbing a gas station clerk and a casino patron in downtown Reno in 2020.

Authorities have not said what prompted the violence at the prison this week. Henriod said sheriff’s deputies were summoned about 9:40 a.m. on Tuesday.

No corrections officers were injured, prison officials said.

Ely State Prison is one of six Nevada prisons. It has almost 1,200 beds and houses the state's death row for convicted killers and a lethal injection chamber that has never been used. Nevada has not carried out an execution since 2006.

Conditions behind bars in the state have drawn criticism from advocates, particularly during hot summers and cold winters. In December 2022, several people incarcerated at Ely State Prison held a hunger strike over what advocates and some family members described as unsafe conditions and inadequate food portions.

Efforts stalled before reaching the state Legislature last year to respond to a yearslong state audit that found widespread deficiencies in prison use-of-force policies.

Anthony Williams, center, appears in court at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas, Sept. 11, 2019. Williams, one of three inmates killed in a Nevada prison brawl, was a member of a white supremacist prison gang who was serving a life sentence for his role in the 2016 murder of a person incarcerated at another Nevada prison, authorities said Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

Anthony Williams, center, appears in court at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas, Sept. 11, 2019. Williams, one of three inmates killed in a Nevada prison brawl, was a member of a white supremacist prison gang who was serving a life sentence for his role in the 2016 murder of a person incarcerated at another Nevada prison, authorities said Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

Anthony Williams, center, and Tarik Goicoechea, left, appear in court at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas, Sept. 11, 2019. Williams, one of three inmates killed in a Nevada prison brawl, was a member of a white supremacist prison gang who was serving a life sentence for his role in the 2016 murder of a person incarcerated at another Nevada prison, authorities said Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

Anthony Williams, center, and Tarik Goicoechea, left, appear in court at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas, Sept. 11, 2019. Williams, one of three inmates killed in a Nevada prison brawl, was a member of a white supremacist prison gang who was serving a life sentence for his role in the 2016 murder of a person incarcerated at another Nevada prison, authorities said Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

FILE - A sign marks the entrance to Ely State Prison near Ely, Nev., July 11, 2018. Officials say several inmates are dead and others have been transported for medical treatment as a result of an “altercation” at the prison Tuesday, July 30, 2024. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

FILE - A sign marks the entrance to Ely State Prison near Ely, Nev., July 11, 2018. Officials say several inmates are dead and others have been transported for medical treatment as a result of an “altercation” at the prison Tuesday, July 30, 2024. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

ROME (AP) — Human rights groups voiced outrage Wednesday after Italy released a Libyan warlord on a technicality, after he was arrested on a warrant from the International Criminal Court accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Hague-based court, for its part, issued a more diplomatic response but its anger appeared evident. In a stern statement late Wednesday, the ICC reminded Italy that it is obliged to “cooperate fully” with its prosecutions and said it was still awaiting information about what exactly Rome had done.

The reaction came after the Italian government on Tuesday released and sent back home Ossama Anjiem, also known as Ossama al-Masri, who heads the Tripoli branch of the Reform and Rehabilitation Institution, a notorious network of detention centers run by the government-backed Special Defense Force.

Al-Masri had been arrested Sunday in Turin, where he reportedly had attended the Juventus-Milan soccer match the night before. The ICC warrant, dated the day before, accused al-Masri of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Mitiga prison in Libya starting in 2015 that are punishable with life in prison.

The ICC said he was accused of murder, torture, rape and sexual violence. It said the warrant was transmitted to member states on Saturday, including Italy, and that the court had also provided real-time information that he had entered Europe.

The court said it had reminded Italy at the time to contact it “without delay” if it ran into any problems cooperating with the warrant.

But Rome’s court of appeals ordered al-Masri freed Tuesday, and he was sent back to Libya aboard an aircraft of the Italian secret services, because of what the appeals court said was a procedural error in his arrest. The ruling said Justice Minister Carlo Nordio should have been informed ahead of time, since the justice ministry handles all relations with the ICC.

The ICC said it had not been given prior notice of the Rome court's decision, as required, and “is seeking, and is yet to obtain, verification from the authorities on the steps reportedly taken.”

Al-Masri returned to Tripoli late Tuesday, received at the Mitiga airport by supporters who celebrated his release, according to local media. Footage circulated online showed dozens of young men chanting and carrying what appeared to be al-Masri on their shoulders.

“This is a stunning blow to victims, survivors and international justice and a missed opportunity to break the cycle of impunity in Libya,” said Amnesty International’s Esther Major, deputy director of research for Europe.

Nordio appeared in the Senate on Wednesday for a previously-scheduled briefing, and was grilled by outraged opposition lawmakers who demanded clarity about what happened. Former Premier Matteo Renzi accused the right-wing government of hypocrisy given its stated crackdown on human traffickers.

“But when a trafficker whom the International Criminal Court tells us is a dangerous criminal lands on your table, it’s not like you chase him down, you brought him home to Libya with a plane of the Italian secret services,” said Renzi of the Italia Viva party. “Either you’ve gone crazy or this is the image of a hypocritical, indecent government.”

The Democratic Party demanded Premier Giorgia Meloni respond specifically to parliament about the case, saying it raised “grave questions” given the known abuses in Libyan prisons for which al-Masri is accused. Nordio didn't respond.

Italy has close ties to the internationally recognized government in Tripoli, on whom it relies to patrol its coasts and prevent waves of migrants from leaving. Any trial in The Hague of al-Masri could bring unwanted attention to Italy’s migration policies and its support of the Libyan coast guard, which it has financed to prevent migrants from leaving.

Human rights groups have documented gross abuses in the Libyan detention facilities where migrants are kept, and have accused Italy of being complicit in their mistreatment.

Two humanitarian groups, Mediterranea Saving Humans and Refugees in Libya, which have documented abuses committed against migrants in Libyan detention facilities, said they were incredulous that Italy let al-Masri go.

David Yambio, a 27-year-old from South Sudan who said he was abused by al-Masri while he was detained at the Mitiga prison in 2019-2020, said he felt betrayed by Italy. Yambio, who eventually escaped from the prison and arrived in Italy on a smuggler’s boat in 2022, said he had a “fleeting feeling of justice” when he heard that al-Masri had been arrested in Turin.

“Those who waited long before me, the Libyans who are victims of his criminal network, his war crimes, have been wanting for this day to come,” said Yambio, who received asylum and now lives in Modena and runs his Refugees in Libya advocacy group. “But when it came, it was immediately extinguished hours before it could even truly be felt in our hearts.”

But Tarik Lamloum, a Libyan activist working with the Belaady Organization for Human Rights which focuses on migrants in Libya, said Italy’s release of al-Masri was expected. He said his release shows the power of militias who control the flow of migrants to Europe through Libya’s shores.

“Tripoli militias are able to pressure (Italy) because they control the migrants file,” he told The Associated Press.

Militias in western Libya are part of the official state forces tasked with intercepting migrants at sea, including in the EU-trained coast guard. They also run state detention centers, where abuses of migrants are common.

As a result, militias — some of them led by warlords the U.N. has sanctioned for abuses — benefit from millions in funds the European Union gives to Libya to stop the migrant flow to Europe.

The European Commission spokesman reaffirmed all EU members had pledged to cooperate with the court.

“We respect the court’s impartiality and we are fully attached to international criminal justice to combat impunity," said EU commission spokesman Anouar El Anouni. In a 2023 summit, the EU leaders committed “to cooperate fully with the court, including rapid execution of any pending arrests,” he added.

Magdy reported from Cairo. Paolo Santalucia in Rome and Molly Quell in The Hague contributed.

FILE - View of the ICC, the International Criminal Court, in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)

FILE - View of the ICC, the International Criminal Court, in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)

Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi makes his remarks during Justice Minister Carlo Nordio's appearance at the Senate for the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)

Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi makes his remarks during Justice Minister Carlo Nordio's appearance at the Senate for the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)

Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi makes his remarks during Justice Minister Carlo Nordio's appearance at the Senate for the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)

Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi makes his remarks during Justice Minister Carlo Nordio's appearance at the Senate for the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)

Justice Minister Carlo Nordio addresses the Senate during the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)

Justice Minister Carlo Nordio addresses the Senate during the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)

Justice Minister Carlo Nordio puts his hand to his head during the presentation of the report on the justice administration, at the Senate, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)

Justice Minister Carlo Nordio puts his hand to his head during the presentation of the report on the justice administration, at the Senate, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)

Justice Minister Carlo Nordio addresses the Senate during the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)

Justice Minister Carlo Nordio addresses the Senate during the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)

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