Day: September 30, 2023

Lawyers for Bryan Kohberger, the Idaho quadruple murder suspect, recently accused FBI agents of interfering with a witness involved in the case.

Kohberger, 28, was charged with four counts of murder in the first-degree and one count of felony burglary, in the fatal stabbings of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20 and Xana Kernodle, 20. All four victims were students at the University of Idaho and were killed in an off-campus residence last November.

Kohberger has maintained his innocence in the case, previously standing silent during his arraignment, resulting in Judge John Judge entering not guilty pleas for each charge on his behalf.

During a recent court appearance, Kohberger’s main lawyer, Anne Taylor, spoke about a recent witness, Gabriella Vargas, a genetic genealogy expert, who recently took the stand to speak about DNA and DNA matching related to the case.

Bryan Kohberger looks on during a hearing at the Latah County courthouse on June 27 in Moscow, Idaho. Lawyers for Kohberger, the Idaho quadruple murder suspect, recently accused FBI agents of interfering with a witness involved in the case.
August Frank-Pool/Getty Images/Getty Images

“Last night, she was visited by two FBI agents and interrogated about her testimony,” Taylor said in court while speaking about Vargas, Law & Crime reported on Saturday. “That, in our view, impacts Mr. Kohberger’s due process right.”

In response, Latah County prosecutor Bill Thompson responded in court, saying that he “reached out to investigators and said, ‘Can you find out what’s going on?'”

According to Law & Crime, Thompson added that the request for FBI agents to speak with Vargas came in response to her possibly questioning parts of her own testimony.

Last month, Kohberger’s attorneys called several DNA experts to the stand as a witness to help dispute portions of the case and evidence related to a DNA match prosecutors discovered from Kohberger and the DNA profile found on a knife sheath that was found at the murder scene.

Newsweek reached out to Kohberger’s attorney and the FBI via email for comment.

Meanwhile, a grand jury previously indicted Kohberger on each of the charges he currently is facing. However, his legal team has continued to file motions in attempt to have the indictment thrown away.

“A grand jury was empaneled at a time when the small community of Moscow, Idaho had been exposed to 6 months of intense local, national, and international media coverage,” Kohberger’s lawyers said in a motion in June. “Because the state has provided extensive discovery, Mr. Kohberger knows that exculpatory evidence exists. Whether a fair and impartial panel of grand jurors was assembled amidst intense media coverage is a significant question the Defense must evaluate.”

The state of Idaho previously announced that they were planning to seek the death penalty for Kohberger who recently waived his right to a speedy trial.

GENEVA, Sept 30 (Reuters) – More than 100,000 refugees have arrived in Armenia since Azerbaijan’s military operation to retake control of Nagorno-Karabakh, the United nations said, while thousands more endured long hours of delay in a huge traffic jam at the border.

“Many are hungry, exhausted and need immediate assistance,” Filippo Grandi, head of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, said on social media late on Friday. “International help is very urgently required.”

Italy said Armenia had asked the European Union for temporary shelters and medical supplies to help it deal with the refugees.

Siranush Sargsyan, a freelance journalist who has been reporting on the flight of the ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, told Reuters thousands of people, their belongings crammed into cars, trucks and tractors, were stuck on the mountain highway leading to Armenia.

Many required urgent medical attention, Sargsyan said. “As you can see, we are still stuck on the road.”

“This exodus is already unbearable physically because we have already spent 16 hours on this road… It seems in the next 24 hours we still won’t be able to reach the border.”

Following a lightning Azerbaijani offensive that returned the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijani control, many of Karabakh’s 120,000 Armenians began what became a mass exodus towards Armenia, saying they feared persecution and ethnic cleansing despite Azerbaijan’s promises of safety.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but is populated mainly by Armenian Christians who set up the self-styled Republic of Artsakh three decades ago after a bloody ethnic conflict as the Soviet Union collapsed.

One refugee vowed to return home eventually.

“The world should not believe that we are willingly leaving Artsakh, ever,” she said. “We fought till the very end, with our blood, with our lives to protect our country.”

Azerbaijan said that one of its servicemen was killed by sniper fire from Armenian forces in the border district of Kalbajar, but the alleged incident was denied by Armenia.

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