17 soldiers killed
in helicopter crash
ANKARA — A Turkish military helicopter carrying soldiers on a mission against Kurdish rebels crashed because of bad weather on Saturday, killing all 17 troops onboard, officials said. Thirteen soldiers and four military crewmembers were killed in the crash in a mountainous part of southeastern Turkey, where the rebel Kurdistan Worker’s Party is fighting for self-rule. President Abdullah Gul said the soldiers were on their way ‘‘to help their friends’’ in an operation against the rebels.
(AP) Analyst helped
leak documents
A Vatican court on Saturday convicted a Holy See computer technician of helping the former papal butler in the embarrassing leak of confidential papal documents and gave him a two-month suspended sentence. Claudio Sciarpelletti, 48, a computer program analyst in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, had testified earlier in the trial that he had played no role in helping to leak the documents, which later formed the core of a book alleging corruption at the Vatican. (AP)