Tag Archives: Houston

U.S. investigators to begin hunt for cause of Texas petrochemical disaster

FILE PHOTO: A petrochemical facility is shown after Hurricane Ike hit in Deer Park, Texas September 13, 2008. REUTERS/David J. Phillip

By Collin Eaton and Erwin Seba

HOUSTON (Reuters) – U.S. investigators hope this week for the first time to enter the site of a massive fuel fire and chemical spill outside Houston to begin the hunt for a cause and to determine whether the operator followed safety regulations.

The blaze, at Mitsui & Co’s Intercontinental Terminals Co (ITC) storage facility in Deer Park, Texas, began March 17 and released toxic chemicals into the air and nearby waterways. Shipping along the largest oil port in the United States remained disrupted on Monday, as did operations at two nearby refineries.

Fumes from benzene-containing fuel and fear of another fire have prevented investigators from going into the tank farm’s “hot zone,” officials said Monday. Three tanks holding oils remain to be emptied this week, and responders continue to sop up fuels on the tank farm grounds.

Investigators from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) and Environmental Protection Agency, as well as state and local authorities, plan to enter the site once it is safe.

Access to the site, along the Houston Ship Channel, will help determine what happened and how a fire at one tank holding tens of thousands of barrels of naphtha spread quickly to 10 other giant tanks.

“The escalation of the event, looking at how the fire spread from a single tank to others in the tank battery, is certainly something we’re interested in,” said CSB lead investigator Mark Wingard, who arrived in Houston last week.

Before CSB investigators enter the site, possibly later this week, they will focus on interviewing ITC personnel and witnesses of the fire, and collecting documentation on the facility and its tanks. The CSB’s investigation will also examine the “outside impacts” of the fires, Wingard said.

“There’s huge public interest in this case,” he said. “People in this community want to know what happened and what they were exposed to.”

Access also could provide officials with information critical to state and local lawsuits accusing the company of improperly releasing tons of volatile organic compounds into the surrounding air and water.

“We need to get to what was the root cause of this event and then begin to understand any aspect of negligence or obstruction that led to the event,” Harris County Commissioner Adrián García said in an interview.

The county last week filed a lawsuit against ITC seeking to recoup the costs of emergency responders and healthcare clinics set up in response to pollution from the fire. The county has not yet estimated the cost, which Garcia said is “going to be very significant.”

An ITC spokeswoman declined to comment, citing pending litigation. In the past, a company official said ITC responded immediately to the fire and had no lack of resources to put out the fire.

Asked how long it would take for investigators to get onto the grounds, ITC Senior Vice President Brent Weber said he hoped it would be days not weeks. “They have been on the site,” Weber said on Monday. “They’re staying out of the hot zone right now.”

Fumes and clean-up efforts continued to affect shipping for a third week. Twenty-two cargo vessels were able to transit the area near the ITC tank farm on Sunday, the Coast Guard said, between 40 percent and 50 percent of normal.

Another 64 were in a queue waiting to pass on Monday. In total, 118 ships were anchored outside the port, said U.S. Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Derby Flory.

In addition to the state and county lawsuits, seven members of a Houston family have filed suit, claiming injuries from air pollution caused by the fire. Their lawsuit, which seeks $1 million in damages, alleges ITC failed to prevent the fire and did not adequately warn residents of the dangers once it began.

The seven were exposed to toluene, xylene, naphtha and benzene “causing them severe injuries and damages,” according to the lawsuit.

“The warnings were too little, too late,” said Benny Agosto Jr., who represents the family and whose firm is among at least four working to bring cases against the company.

(Reporting by Collin Eaton in Houston and Erwin Seba in Pasadena, Texas; editing by Gary McWilliams and Steve Orlofsky)

Petrochemical disaster still hampers efforts to clear Houston shipping bottleneck

Smoke covers the Houston area from a fire burning at the Intercontinental Terminals Company in Deer Park, east of Houston, Texas, U.S., March 18, 2019. Michael Sahrman/Handout via REUTERS

HOUSTON (Reuters) – The backlog of vessels waiting to move through the Houston Ship Channel grew on Monday while it remained closed to traffic for a third day as emergency workers attempted to clear a petrochemical spill from the Intercontinental Terminals Co (ITC) storage facility in Deer Park, Texas, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday.

Thirty-one vessels waited to enter the busiest U.S. oil port on Monday, while another 31 waited to leave, up from 26, respectively, on Sunday morning. The seven-mile (11-km) section of the Houston Ship Channel from Light 116 to Tucker’s Bayou remained closed, said Coast Guard Vessel Tracking Service Watch Supervisor Ashley Dumont.

Fuels spilled after a 10-foot (3-meter) wide section of a containment barrier breached on Friday at Mitsui & Co Inc’s ITC facility outside of Houston, sending fuel, water and fire suppressant foam to a waterway that connects Houston to the Gulf of Mexico.

The Coast Guard opened the San Jacinto River to allow two-way vessel traffic for three hours until 12 p.m. CDT (1700 GMT)on Monday. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality continued to assess the contamination levels in the channel. The Coast Guard did not have a timeline to reopen the port, Dumont said.

(Reporting by Collin Eaton in Houston; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Marguerita Choy)

Texas petrochemical fire spreads to more storage tanks after firefighting snag

HOUSTON (Reuters) – A raging fire at a petrochemical storage terminal in Houston has engulfed two more massive tanks after firefighting water pumps stopped working for six hours, the company said on Tuesday.

The blaze at Intercontinental Terminals Co (ITC) in Deer Park, Texas, has been burning since Sunday when a leaking tank containing volatile naphtha ignited and quickly spread to other tanks within close proximity, the company said.

The tanks hold tens of thousands of barrels of products used to boost gasoline octane, make solvents and plastics.

The storage terminal on the Houston Ship Channel, the nation’s busiest petrochemical port, is home to nine refineries and petrochemical storage and loading facilities.

Pumps on two boats feeding water to firefighters malfunctioned for about six hours, ITC spokesman Dale Samuelsen said. That allowed the fire to spread late Monday to the two tanks, one empty and the other containing toluene, a volatile liquid used to make nail polish remover and paint thinner.

ITC, which is owned by Japan’s Mitsui & Co, said it will bring in high-pressure pumps Tuesday morning to help firefighters trying to contain the inferno within the area of 15 closely spaced tanks.

The company said on Monday the fire, which has spewed thick, acrid smoke that is visible dozens of miles away, could burn until Wednesday. Samuelsen said he had no new timetable for when the blaze will be extinguished.

“We are still in defensive mode,” said Samuelsen. “We will be bringing in additional pumps to increase the water and foam applied to the fire.”

He said the burning tanks are within an earthen berm that is collecting water and chemicals leaking from the tanks.

Ships continued to move through the 50-mile-long channel, which is part of the Port of Houston linking refineries and chemical plants in Houston and Texas City, with the Gulf of Mexico.

(Reporting by Gary McWilliams; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Fire engulfs eight massive petrochemical storage tanks in Houston

Smoke rises from a fire burning at the Intercontinental Terminals Company in Deer Park, east of Houston, Texas, U.S., March 18, 2019. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

HOUSTON (Reuters) – A fire at a fuels storage company at the Houston Ship Channel spread on Monday to eight massive petrochemical storage tanks, shutting schools and forcing residents in the suburb of Deer Park to stay indoors.

The fire, which sent a plume of black smoke across the city’s eastern half and was visible from 10 miles (16 km) away, began in a giant storage tank containing naphtha, a volatile component of gasoline, at about 10:30 a.m. on Sunday.

No evacuations or injuries were reported.

School officials in Deer Park, population 32,000, and nearby La Porte, Texas, with about 34,000 residents, suspended classes and told employees not to report to work on Monday.

Tanks containing naphtha and xylene, petrochemicals used to make gasoline and base oils commonly used as machine lubricants, were burning, officials of the Intercontinental Terminals Co (ITC) said.

The company said on Monday that a tank containing Toluene also caught fire. Toluene is used to manufacture nail polish remover and paint thinner.

The burning tanks are surrounded by several other storage tanks within a spill containment dike. Firefighters used a foam fire retardant on nearby tanks to try to limit the fire from spreading.

“ITC officials continue working with local first responders to contain the fire,” the company said in a statement. “The safety of our employees, the surrounding community and the environment is our first priority.”

Ships continued to cross the channel linking refineries and chemical plants in Houston and Texas City, with the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. Coast Guard ordered ships not to dock at ITC or an adjoining terminal.

Air emissions tests detected the presence of a volatile organic compound six miles away from the facility. Levels were below those considered hazardous, ITC said.

The fire was not affecting operations at the nearby Royal Dutch Shell Plc joint-venture refinery in Deer Park, said Shell spokesman Ray Fisher.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Additional reporting by Rich McKay and Gary McWilliams; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Former President George H.W. Bush laid to rest in Texas

By Loren Elliott

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (Reuters) – Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush was laid to rest at his presidential library in College Station, Texas, on Thursday, following funeral services at his longtime church in Houston.

Bush’s casket traveled in a special train car about an hour northwest from Houston to College Station and was then carried to the gravesite behind his library by a military honor guard, in a ceremony overseen by his son and former President George W. Bush.

Bush, the 41st U.S. president, died last week in Texas at 94. His remains were flown to Texas on Wednesday following a state funeral at the Washington National Cathedral attended by President Donald Trump, the four living former presidents and foreign leaders.

“The memorial was a beautiful tribute to President Bush’s extraordinary life and a noble legacy to public service,” Trump said at a Hanukkah reception at the White House on Thursday. “He was a wonderful man. We will always remember this great statesman and beloved American patriot. He really was very special.”

Thursday’s funeral service in Houston was held at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, where Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush worshipped for more than five decades and took on a more personal tone with remarks by family members.

George W. Bush, who followed his father to the White House after President Bill Clinton’s two terms, sat in a front pew near the flag-draped casket and joined in as some 1,000 mourners sang “America the Beautiful.”

George P. Bush, son of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and one of the former president’s 17 grandchildren, remembered fly fishing and sharing ice cream with the man he called “Gampy.”

James Baker, a longtime friend who served as Bush’s secretary of state, eulogized the former Republican president as a peacemaker and “a truly beautiful human being.”

“He was not considered a skilled speaker, but his deeds were quite eloquent and he demonstrated their eloquence by carving them into the hard granite of history,” Baker said.

Mourners laughed as Baker recalled how Bush would let him know a conversation was over: “‘Baker, if you’re so smart, why am I president and you’re not?'” His voice cracking at moments, Baker said he was at his friend’s deathbed last week.

Raised in an Episcopalian family in Massachusetts, Bush fused his preppy New England background with the more free-wheeling traits of his adoptive state of Texas, where he moved as a young man to work in the oil industry.

That mix was reflected in the music heard at his funeral: the St. Martin’s Parish Choir sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” country music star Reba McEntire performed “The Lord’s Prayer,” and the casket was carried out of the church to the thunderous strains of “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

People pay their respects as the train carrying the casket of former President George H.W. Bush passes Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018, along the route from Spring to College Station, Texas. David J. Phillip/Pool via REUTERS

LOCOMOTIVE 4141

Following the funeral service, Bush’s remains were taken by train some 80 miles (130 km) northwest to College Station for the burial alongside his wife, Barbara, who died in April, and their daughter Robin, who died of leukemia at age 3 in 1953.

Residents of small towns along the route gathered to wave at the train, a Union Pacific Corp locomotive numbered 4141 and bearing the name “George Bush 41” on the side, as it passed.

Bush, a U.S. Navy aviator who narrowly escaped death when he was shot down by Japanese forces over the Pacific Ocean during World War Two, was honored with a 21-plane flyover in a “missing man” formation before he was carried to his gravesite for a private interment.A light rain that had fallen for much of the day in College Station ended just before the train carrying his body pulled into the station.

Bush was president from 1989 to 1993, navigating the collapse of the Soviet Union and expelling former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s forces from oil-rich Kuwait.

He supported the passage of the American with Disabilities Act, a major civil rights law protecting disabled people from discrimination.

A patrician figure who served as vice president to Ronald Reagan, Bush lost re-election to a second term in part for failing to connect with ordinary Americans during an economic recession.

He has also been criticized for supporting tough drug laws that led to the disproportionate incarceration of black people, as well as what activists call an insufficient response to the AIDS epidemic.

But tributes in recent days have focused on the former president as a man of integrity and kindness who represented an earlier era of civility in American politics.

(Reporting by Loren Elliott in College Station, Texas; Additional reporting by Liz Hampton and Gary McWilliams in Houston, Steve Holland in Washington and Jonathan Allen in New York; Writing by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Frances Kerry and Peter Cooney)

Houston mourns former U.S. President George H.W. Bush

People pay their respects as the flag-draped casket of former President George H.W. Bush lies in repose at St. Martin's Episcopal Church Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2018, in Houston. David J. Phillip/Pool via REUTERS

By Liz Hampton

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush will be mourned on Thursday at the Houston church where he worshipped for many years, a final public farewell before his remains are taken to their resting place at his Texas presidential library.

Bush, the 41st U.S. president, died last week in Texas aged 94. His remains were flown to Texas on Wednesday evening after a formal state funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral.

The casket was accompanied by members of his family, and taken by motorcade to St. Martin’s Episcopal Church.

The church remained open through the night so mourners, who began lining up on Wednesday morning, could pay their final respects.

Country music star Reba McEntire was due to be among the musical performers at the service, which was scheduled to start at 10 a.m. CT (1600 GMT).

Following the funeral at St. Martin’s, where Bush and his late wife, Barbara Bush, were long-time worshippers, a train will carry his remains about 80 miles (130 km) northwest to College Station, Texas, where he will be laid to rest at his presidential library.

The train is a Union Pacific Corp locomotive, numbered 4141 and bearing the name “George Bush 41” on the side that has been in service since 2005.

Bush, who narrowly escaped death as a naval aviator who was shot down by Japanese forces over the Pacific Ocean in World War Two, will be buried with military honors, including a flyover by 21 aircraft from the U.S. Navy.

Bush was president from 1989 to 1993, navigating the collapse of the Soviet Union and expelling former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s forces from oil-rich Kuwait.

He supported the passage of the American with Disabilities Act, a major civil rights law protecting disabled people from discrimination.

A patrician figure, Bush was voted out of office in part for failing to connect with ordinary Americans during an economic recession. He has also been criticized for supporting tough drug laws that led to the disproportionate incarceration of black people, as well as what activists call an insufficient response to the AIDS epidemic when he was in power during some of its deadliest years.

But many tributes in recent days have focused on the former Republican president as a man of integrity and kindness who represented an earlier era of civility in American politics. That image has been burnished in recent years by the divisiveness and anger in the United States that accompanied the rise of President Donald Trump.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton in Houston; Additional reporting by Gary McWilliams in Houston, Steve Holland in Washington, D.C., and Jonathan Allen in New York; Writing by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Texan who published 3-D guns plans jailed on sex assault charge

Cody Wilson, a Texan 3-D printed gun maker who flew to Taiwan as police investigated an accusation he had sex with an underage girl, stands in the lobby of Your Hotel in Taipei, Taiwan, September 20, 2018 in this still image from CCTV footage. Courtesy "Your Hotel"/via Reuters TV

(Reuters) – A Texas man running a 3-D printed guns company was booked into a Houston jail on a charge of sexual assault on Sunday after Taiwanese officials sent him back to the United States, where he is accused of having sex with an underage girl.

Cody Wilson, 30, flew to Taiwan after learning he was under investigation, police said, and was picked up by Taiwanese authorities on Friday after his U.S. passport was annulled. He was deported to the United States on Saturday.

He was booked into Harris County jail in Houston on Sunday, according to the jail’s website.

Wilson’s attorney, Samy Khalil, said in a statement late on Sunday: “We are glad that Cody is back in Texas again where we can work with him on his case. That’s our focus right now, representing our client and preparing his defense.”

As the founder of Defense Distributed, Wilson became a notable figure in the U.S. debate over guns after the company posted on the internet the blueprints for plastic guns that can be made with a 3-D printer.

The files could previously be downloaded for free but a federal judge issued a nationwide injunction last month that blocked the posting of the blueprints online.

Wilson was placed under investigation after a counselor told authorities on Aug. 22 a 16-year-old girl said she was paid $500 to have sex with Wilson at an Austin hotel, police said.

Investigators later interviewed the girl and obtained a warrant for Wilson’s arrest on Wednesday, but by then he had caught a flight to Taiwan. Police said at the time they were aware Wilson traveled often for business but that it was not clear why he had flown to Taiwan.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Paul Tait)

Texas Governor unveils school safety plan after deadly shooting

Community members stood in support as students and administrators returned for the first day of class since a deadly mass shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, U.S., May 29, 2018. REUTERS/Pu Ying Huang

By Gina Cherelus

(Reuters) – Texas Governor Greg Abbott unveiled a $110 million program intended to increase school safety by putting additional trained marshals inside schools and more closely monitoring social media for threats in the aftermath of a deadly school shooting earlier this month.

The plan was announced nearly two weeks after a 17-year-old armed with a shotgun and pistol killed 10 students and educators at Santa Fe High School in the Houston area.

It followed a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February in which 17 people, mostly students, were massacred.

“Everybody in this entire process and everybody in the state of Texas never wants to see another occasion where innocent students are gunned down in their own schools,” Abbott told a news conference in Dallas on Wednesday.

The proposed funding works out to about $20 per student in a state that has about 5.5 million students enrolled in its public schools.

The 40-point plan, which followed meetings last week between Abbott and education and law enforcement officials, calls for enhanced mental health resources for students and new metal detectors for extra security at schools, Abbott said in a statement.

The Texas Democratic Party issued a statement condemning the governor’s plan, claiming that he failed to directly address gun crimes that occur in the United States.

“Nothing in Abbott’s plans address the reality that it is too easy for a weapon to end up in the hands of someone wanting to cause harm,” Texas Democratic Party chair Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement.

Abbott is an ardent defender of the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Soon after the shooting at Santa Fe High School he said that any proposed legal changes that he would consider to improve school safety would “protect Second Amendment rights.”

His proposals include eliminating a rule that requires some school marshals to store their weapons in a safe while on campus.

Abbott said he would ask lawmakers to consider legislation to allow law enforcement, families, school staff or a district attorney to file a petition seeking the removal of firearms from a potentially dangerous person only after legal due process was provided.

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus; Editing by Scott Malone)

Bus carrying students crashes in Alabama, killing at least one

Emergency service vehicles gather on Interstate 10 at the scene of a bus crash in Baldwin County, Alabama, U.S., March 13, 2018 in this still image obtained from social media video. Jesus Tejeda via REUTERS

(Reuters) – A bus carrying dozens of Texas high school students on a trip veered across the median separating two lanes of an interstate highway in Alabama and plunged into a ravine, killing at least one person and injuring several others, authorities said.

The bus was taking about 45 passengers back home to Houston from Florida when it plunged into a 50-foot (15-meter) ravine at about 5:30 a.m. CDT (6.30 a.m ET), Baldwin County, Alabama, Sheriff Hoss Mack told reporters at the scene.

“For whatever reason, the charter bus got into the median and ended up going into a ravine,” Mack said near the scene of the accident on Interstate 10 between Mobile, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida.

“We have one confirmed fatality,” he said.

The injured passengers, including one listed in critical condition and five in serious condition, were taken by helicopter or ambulance to 10 hospitals in Alabama and Florida, Mack said.

The students were from Channelview High School in the Houston area, local media reported. School officials could not be reached for immediate comment.

Rescue workers attend to the scene of a bus crash in Baldwin County, Alabama, U.S., March 13, 2018 in this still image obtained from social media video. Jesus Tejeda via REUTERS

Rescue workers attend to the scene of a bus crash in Baldwin County, Alabama, U.S., March 13, 2018 in this still image obtained from social media video. Jesus Tejeda via REUTERS

Dozens of people posted messages of grief and sympathy on the school’s Facebook page, saying they were praying for the students.

Officials said the bus was one of two Houston-bound charters traveling together and that no other vehicles were involved in the pre-dawn crash.

They said the accident’s cause would be investigated by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.

The National Transportation Safety Board also said it was sending a team of six investigators to look into the crash.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Jonathan Oatis)

Father who forgave son for family’s murder asks Texas to spare his life

Thomas Whitaker appears in a booking photo by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville, Texas, U.S., obtained by Reuters on February 16, 2018. Texas Department of Criminal Justice/Handout via REUTERS

By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A Texas man who survived a deadly domestic attack hatched by his son is pushing the state to grant clemency to the condemned man, although it has never spared a death row inmate solely at the formal request of the victim’s family.

Thomas “Bart” Whitaker is set to be put to death by lethal injection on Feb. 22 for masterminding a 2003 plot near Houston that left his mother Tricia, 51, and brother Keith, 19, dead and his father Kent with a bullet wound near his heart.

In the 31 states with capital punishment, district attorneys make the decision whether to seek death, balancing the punishment that they consider best serves society with the wishes of the victim’s family. In this case, the local Texas prosecutors pursued death and jurors decided Bart Whitaker, 38, deserved to be executed.

His father, a 69-year-old devout Christian and retired executive, says if that penalty is implemented, it will only intensify his pain.

“I am going to be thrown into a deeper grief at the hands of the state of Texas, in the name of justice,” Kent Whitaker said last week, after a 30-minute meeting with the chairman of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles in Austin.

Whitaker says his son has been a model inmate and has provided letters from death row prison guards to back him up. According to the clemency petition, Kent Whitaker, his relatives and his wife’s family do not want Texas to execute Bart.

The panel’s decision is due on Tuesday, two days before the execution. If it recommends commuting the death sentence to life in prison, Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, would make the final decision.

Tim Cole, an assistant professor of law at the University of North Texas Dallas College of Law and a former Texas district attorney, said the case points to a major flaw in the U.S. capital punishment system.

With no consistent criteria for prosecutors on whether they should seek execution, he said, the system is arbitrary.

“It is completely up to that one person, the district attorney, to seek death or not,” he said.

The Whitaker case is an outlier, however. In many cases, family members want the district attorney to seek the maximum punishment, Cole said.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, clemency at the request of a forgiving victim’s family has been almost unheard of, according to the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center, which monitors U.S. capital punishment. It did happen in Georgia in 1990, the group said.

It is far more common for courts to halt executions for reasons ranging from doubts over guilt to procedural problems with prosecutions than it is for a governor to grant clemency.

Money may have motivated Bart Whitaker to plan to murder his family with the help of two other men, court documents showed. One of those men, his roommate Chris Brashear, shot the father, mother and brother after the family returned from a dinner out.

He shot Bart in the bicep to make it look he had also been attacked, court documents said. The two other men helped prosecutors pin the crime on Whitaker and were not sentenced to death.

Local prosecutors said they considered the family’s views but stood by Whitaker’s sentence as appropriate for such a brutal crime.

“We represent all of the community. It is not just one person we represent,” said Fred Felcman, first assistant district attorney for the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office. “Legally, justice says that he should be executed.”

Felcman believes Bart Whitaker is a sociopath and a master manipulator.

In the clemency petition, Kent Whitaker recalled lying in his hospital bed and facing the choice of slipping into despair or offering his son forgiveness. He said his faith led him to the latter option, which he hopes will sway Texas officials.

“We are not asking them to forgive him, or to let him go,” he added. “We just want them to let him live.”

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Rosalba O’Brien)