Shorts (right)
Video claims family held by Nigerian extremists
LAGOS, Nigeria — A French family kidnapped last week on the Cameroon-Nigeria border appeared on a video posted on YouTube Monday, with one of the hostages and a gunman claiming that the family is being held by Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram.
The family — three adults and four children — are shown sitting on the ground inside a sort of tent made from prayer mats, in front of a black Qaida-style banner, grim-faced but apparently in good health. The children, boys ages 5 to 12, fidget and glance at the camera. The family is flanked by two masked, fatigues-wearing men holding rifles, and in front of them is another masked hostage taker, who reads out a statement in Arabic demanding the release of “brothers” and “sisters” and threatening twice to “slaughter those we took” unless the group’s demands are met.
The French military campaign against Islamist militants in Mali is obliquely referred to by the masked gunman, who says “the president of France” has “waged war against Islam.”
—Adam Nossiter, The New York Times
Ex-director of Goldman Sachs told to repay legal costs
NEW YORK — A federal judge on Monday ordered Rajat K. Gupta, a former Goldman Sachs director, to pay the bank more than $6.2 million to reimburse it for legal expenses connected to his insider trading case.
Last June, a jury convicted Gupta, 64, of leaking boardroom secrets about Goldman to hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, who himself was convicted of insider trading in 2011 and sentenced to 11 years in prison. The presiding judge, Jed S. Rakoff, sentenced Gupta to two years in prison. He is free on bail while appealing the conviction.
Goldman had sought $6.9 million in reimbursement from Gupta, which represented the total amount the bank had paid to its primary outside counsel at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell for an internal investigation and other expenses.
—Peter Lattman, The New York Times
Cannibal case trial begins
NEW YORK — Kathleen Mangan-Valle, said that when she delved into her husband’s electronic chat history, she found he had been communicating with others about plans to torture and kill women, including herself. “I was going to be tied up by my feet and my throat slit, and they would have fun watching the blood gush out of me,” she said, sobbing repeatedly through her afternoon on the witness stand.
The officer, Gilberto Valle, has been charged with plotting on the Internet to kidnap, rape, kill,
—Benjamin Weiser, The New York Times