Informers

Chile's lower house of Congress voted 104 to 0 to approve a measure granting confidentiality to people who provide information on the whereabouts of those who disappeared during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. Police in Valparaiso removed from the Chamber of Deputies several human rights activists who protested the measure. The demonstrators said they feared that officials might be settling for letting the truth come out, rather than prosecuting the offenders.

The man who gave police the tip that led to arrests in the killings of nine people at a Buddhist temple has been indicted on murder and other charges, authorities said Friday. Michael Lawrence McGraw, 24, was indicted on nine counts of first-degree murder, nine counts of armed robbery and one count each of burglary and conspiracy, the Maricopa County attorney's office said. McGraw was one of four Tucson men named in a criminal complaint filed Tuesday. The suspects were arrested Sept.

Hundreds of people gathered at a village square in the West Bank to watch Palestinian militants hack to death an Arab man who admitted being an informer for Israel, Arab reporters said Friday. The body of the victim, Mohammed Khatatbeh, was left in the central square in the village of Beit Furik, and his family was not allowed to bury him in the town, the reporters said.

A City Council committee recommended Monday that an unidentified person be given a $50,000 reward for providing information leading to the March arrest of Kody DeJohn Scott, one of the LAPD's 10 most-wanted gang members. The full council has yet to act. The council offered the reward in February, and Scott, also known as "Monster," was arrested March 7 on suspicion of burglary, beating a man and stealing his car.

A federal grand jury returned a sweeping 45-count criminal indictment against Mark Whitacre, a former vice president of Archer-Daniels-Midland and the chief informant in a major antitrust investigation of the giant agribusiness concern. Whitacre was charged with wire fraud, interstate transportation of stolen property, money laundering, forfeiture, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and filing false income tax returns.

A drug informant who tried to frame Gov. Guy Hunt's press secretary in a cocaine deal received a five-year prison sentence Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Harold Albritton also ordered Hilda Teague to pay $5,000 in restitution to press secretary Terry Abbott to cover the costs of hiring former Atty. Gen. Charlie Graddick to defend him.

An Irvine man who says he worked as an undercover informant for the FBI, most notably as a Muslim convert in an anti-terrorism case, filed a lawsuit Friday accusing his law enforcement handlers of violating his civil rights and endangering his life. Craig Monteilh, 47, says he worked as an informant for the FBI from 2004 through 2008, providing information and assistance in narcotics, bank robbery and murder for hire investigations before being asked to go undercover as part of an anti-terrorist effort in Orange County, according to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

In an effort to coax forward additional informants in the ongoing LAPD corruption probe, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti said Tuesday that he will offer confidentiality to police officers who witnessed their colleagues' crimes or misconduct but failed to report the activity to their superiors.

An Irvine man who says he was recruited by the FBI to go undercover as part of an antiterrorist effort in Orange County had been working with the bureau in 2007 and had provided "very, very valuable information" that had proven "essential" to a federal prosecution, according to a court transcript made public Friday. FBI officials have declined to publicly address Craig Monteilh's assertion that he was an informant, and, citing bureau policy, continued to do so following the release of the previously sealed transcript.

Federal prosecutors have charged a southern Utah man with threatening to beat a confidential informant who was pivotal in a widespread investigation into the looting of Native American artifacts, authorities said Monday. Charles Denton Armstrong, 44, was arrested Saturday and charged with one count of retaliation against an informant. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in federal prison.