Examiner: Lee document is the work of jailed forger.
A National Park Service volunteer cleaning out a fort on the Colorado River earlier this year found a rolled piece of lead with a shocking statement etched on it. The letter appeared to be written by John D. Lee, the lone person tried and executed for the 1857 massacre of 120 people in Utah. The letter said the killings were on the orders of Mormon leader Brigham Young.

This week a private forensics examiner announced the document is a fraud. Though examinations are not complete, William Flynn says the etching on the sheet does not match Lee's handwriting, was made with a tool Lee could not have used, and may be the work of imprisoned forger Mark Hofmann.

Both of the experts hired by the park service to inspect the sheet, Flynn and George Throckmorton, manager of the Salt Lake City police crime lab, helped to convict Hofmann in 1986. Hofmann was found guilty of forging Mormon historical documents. When he was about to be exposed, he murdered two people in a bomb explosion.

Gujarat officials accused in the death of hundreds of Muslims.
Human Rights Watch has accused state officials of Gujarat, India of covering up their involvement in the Hindu-Muslim conflict that rocked the area in February.

"What happened in Gujarat was not a spontaneous uprising, it was a carefully orchestrated attack against Muslims," said the group's South Asia senior researcher, Smita Narula, in a press release. "The attacks were planned in advance and organized with extensive participation of the police and state government officials."

A 75-page report written by Narula says police officials not only stood by while the violence occurred but also led charges, pointed out Muslims to attackers, and delivered victims into the hands of the mobs.

Charges of state involvement in the massacre have sent ripples through the country's government. The ruling BJP government has survived votes of no confidence this week, but reports claim the party is now divided. In an intense 16-hour censure debate yesterday, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee ruled for an aid package to go to victims and denied charges of being anti-Muslim. Said Vajpayee: "It is being said I am against Islam. I take that as a slur against my image."

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