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Shohei Ohtani holds first news conference on gambling allegations against interpreter
Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani addressed the media on Monday afternoon for the first time since the team fired his interpreter Ippei Mizuhara amid gambling allegations.
“I am very sad and shocked that someone who I trusted has done this,” Ohtani said through an interpreter.
He vehemently denied agreeing to pay off Mizuhara’s gambling debt and betting on baseball or any other sports.
“I never bet on baseball or any sports or never have asked somebody to do it on my behalf,” Ohtani said. “I have never went through a bookmaker to bet on sports.”
KCAL News
Major League Baseball opened a formal investigation after the Dodgers fired Mizuhara amid the allegations. The interpreter is accused of stealing at least $4.5 million from Ohtani’s personal bank account. Mizuhara had worked as Ohtani’s interpreter since 2017, before Ohtani joined the Los Angeles Angels, his first team in the MLB. Mizuhara’s relationship with the two-way star has been well documented during Ohtani’s tenure with the Angels, with whom he played for six seasons before signing a 10-year, $700 million mega-deal with the Dodgers.
Mizuhara told ESPN that Ohtani was aware of the gambling debts, and that while disappointed, he had agreed to pay them off. However, a spokesperson for Ohtani told ESPN that the player was not in fact aware of the gambling.
“Ippei has been stealing money from my accounts and has been telling lies,” Ohtani said.
The story first broke last Wednesday when the Dodgers fired Mizuhara while the team was in Seoul, South Korea, for the season-opening series against the San Diego Padres. Ohtani said he learned about the gambling after the first game of the two-game series.
Ohtani said the Dodgers held a meeting in the clubhouse when Mizuhara addressed the entire team. Since Mizuhara spoke in English, Ohtani said he did not understand the entire speech but felt something was “amiss.” Afterward, the pair had a one-on-one meeting in the hotel.
“Up until that meeting, I did not know Ippei had a gambling addiction and was in debt,” he said. “Obviously, at that point I never agreed to pay off the debt or make payments to the bookmaker.”
According to Ohtani, during the meeting, Mizuhara admitted to using the player’s account to pay off the bookmaker.
Ohtani said he contacted his representatives after.
“My lawyers recommended that since this is theft and fraud that we have the proper authorities handle this matter,” he said.
Ohtani added that he will let his lawyers handle the matter but will assist “in all investigations” that are taking place right now.”
In addition to the internal investigation by the MLB, the Internal Revenue Service and the United States Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles launched probes into the allegations. The federal organizations said they had no comment on the matter.
The alleged gambling organization and bookmaker, Matthew Bowyer, are under federal investigation in a case that also includes former Dodger Yasiel Puig, who faces multiple charges.
“I’m looking forward to focusing on the season,” he said. “I’m glad we had this opportunity to talk, and I’m sure there’ll be continuing investigations moving forward.”
Amy Maetzold
Israel holds over 1,200 detainees without charge. That’s the most in 3 decades, a rights group says
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel is holding over 1,200 detainees — nearly all of them Palestinians — without charge or trial, the highest number in over three decades, an Israeli human rights group said Tuesday.
The detainees, 99% of whom are Palestinians, are held under Israel’s policy of “administrative detention,” without trial and under allegations that Israeli authorities keep secret.
The detentions can range from a few months to years — and authorities often extend them for unknown reasons, according to Jessica Montell, the executive director of Hamoked, the rights group that published the figures.
Hamoked said this makes it nearly impossible for detainees or their lawyers to mount a proper defense.
“The overall figure is outrageous,” Montell said. “This is a patently illegal practice. These people should be given a fair trial or released.”
Israeli authorities can renew administrative detentions indefinitely. While detention orders are usually set for periods of three or six months, Montell said administrative detainees in Israel spend a year in detention on average.
Israel says the controversial tactic is necessary to contain dangerous militants and avoid divulging incriminating material for security reasons. But Palestinians and rights groups say the system denies due process and is widely abused.
The number of administrative detainees has more than doubled since early last year, when Israel began staging near-nightly arrest raids into Palestinian cities and towns following a series of Palestinian attacks. A quarter of all Palestinians under Israeli custody are now administrative detainees, according to Hamoked.
Administrative detention is very rarely used against Jews or Israelis, but that figure has been rising, too — 14 Israelis were held in administrative detention as of March, Montell said. Most of them are Palestinian citizens of Israel. But several are Jews suspected of violence against Palestinians during rampages in the West Bank.
Neither Israel’s Shin Bet security service nor the army immediately commented on the latest administrative detention figures.
Israel says its activities in the occupied territories are meant to stamp out militancy and thwart future attacks. The past year and a half has seen some of the worst bloodshed in the area in nearly two decades. More than 160 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press.
Israel says most of the dead are militants. But many were stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions or people uninvolved in violence. At least five of them were age 14 or younger.
Israel’s hard-line National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a West Bank settler himself, has pushed for tough measures against Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
On Monday, the Palestinian Prisoners Club and other advocacy groups reported that Ben-Gvir had done away with a policy allowing the early release for Palestinian prisoners held on national security charges.
For years, all detainees sentenced to less than four years had been eligible for early release to relieve severe overcrowding in the country’s prisons. Israel’s prison service confirmed that it was abiding by Ben-Gvir’s waiver of early releases as of Tuesday.
The West Bank has been under Israeli military rule since Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state.
The territory’s nearly 3 million Palestinian residents are subject to Israel’s military justice system, while the nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers living alongside them have Israeli citizenship and are subject to civilian courts.
Such disparities have fueled allegations by human rights groups that Israeli policies toward the Palestinians amount to apartheid.
Pakistan holds funerals as government vows to hunt down those behind deadly suicide bombing
Pakistan held funerals on Monday for victims of a massive suicide bombing that targeted a rally of a pro-Taliban cleric the previous day as the government vowed to hunt down those behind the attack.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday’s bombing, which killed at least 43 people and wounded nearly 100. Police said their initial investigation suggests the Islamic State group’s regional affiliate could be behind the attack.
The victims were all from the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, which is headed by hard-line cleric and politician Fazlur Rehman. He did not attend the rally, held under a large tent close to a market in Bajur, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.
The IS regional affiliate — known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province — is based in neighboring Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province and is a rival of the Afghan Taliban.
Bajur was a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban — a close ally of Afghanistan’s Taliban government — before several Pakistani army offensives that ended in 2016 claimed to have driven them out of the area.
The cleric’s supporters had gathered in Bajut on Sunday as part of their party’s preparations for the next parliamentary elections, expected sometime in October or November after the current parliament’s five-year term ends.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to dissolve the parliament in August to pave the way for the vote. Rehman’s party is part of Sharif’s coalition government, which came to power in April 2022 by ousting former Prime Minister Imran Khan through a no-confidence vote in the legislature.
Khan later on Sunday also condemned the bombing, as condolences continued to pour in from across the country.
Dozens of people who received minor injuries were discharged from hospital while the critically wounded were taken to the city of Peshawar by army helicopters.
Local police chief Akhtar Hayat Gandapur told NBC News on Monday that they have confirmed 43 deaths, with around 90 people injured and under treatment in different hospitals.
Jalil Jan, a spokesperson for the Jamiat Ulema Islam political party, said earlier that the death toll was 55.
Sharif called Rehman to express his condolences and assure the cleric that those who orchestrated the attack would be punished. The bombing has also drawn nationwide condemnation, with ruling and opposition parties offering condolences to the families of the victims. The U.S. and Russian embassies in Islamabad also condemned the attack.
Pakistan holds funerals as government vows to hunt down those behind the weekend’s suicide bombing
KHAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan held funerals on Monday for victims of a massive suicide bombing that targeted a rally of a pro-Taliban cleric the previous day as the death toll climbed to at least 45 and the government vowed to hunt down those behind the attack.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday’s bombing, which also wounded nearly 200 people. Police said their initial investigation suggests the Islamic State group’s regional affiliate could be behind the attack.
The victims were all from the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, which is headed by hard-line cleric and politician Fazlur Rehman. He did not attend the rally, held under a large tent close to a market in Bajur, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.
The IS regional affiliate — known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province — is based in neighboring Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province and is a rival of the Afghan Taliban. Bajur was a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban — a close ally of Afghanistan’s Taliban government — before several Pakistani army offensives that ended in 2016 claimed to have driven them out of the area.
The cleric’s supporters had gathered in Bajut on Sunday as part of their party’s preparations for the next parliamentary elections, expected sometime in October or November after the current parliament’s five-year term ends.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to dissolve the parliament in August to pave the way for the vote. Rehman’s party is part of Sharif’s coalition government, which came to power in April 2022 by ousting former Prime Minister Imran Khan through a no-confidence vote in the legislature.
Khan later on Sunday also condemned the bombing, as condolences continued to pour in from across the country. Dozens of people who received minor injuries were discharged from hospital while the critically wounded were taken to the city of Peshawar by army helicopters. The death toll on Sunday was reported to be 44 but rose to 45 on Monday as a critically wounded person died at a hospital, physician Gul Naseeb said.
Sharif called Rehman to express his condolences and assure the cleric that those who orchestrated the attack would be punished. The bombing has also drawn nationwide condemnation, with ruling and opposition parties offering condolences to the families of the victims. The U.S. and Russian embassies in Islamabad also condemned the attack.
Abdul Rasheed, a senior leader in Rehman’s party said the bombing was aimed at weakening the party but that “such attacks cannot deter our resolve.”
The Pakistani Taliban also distanced themselves from the attack. The outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, said the attack aimed to set Islamists against each other. Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, posted on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that “such crimes cannot be justified in any way.”
The bombing came hours before the arrival of Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Islamabad, where on Monday he was to participate in an event to mark a decade of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a sprawling package under which Beijing has invested billions of dollars in Pakistan.
In recent months, China has helped Pakistan avoid a default on sovereign payments. Some Chinese nationals have also been targeted by militants in northwestern Pakistan and elsewhere.
Feroz Jamal, the provincial information minister, said police were “investigating this attack in all aspects.”
Sunday’s bombing was one of the four worst attacks in northwestern Pakistan since 2014, when 147 people, mostly schoolchildren, were killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar.
In January, 74 people were killed in a bombing at a mosque in Peshawar. And in February, more than 100 people, mostly policemen, died in a bombing at a mosque inside a high-security compound housing Peshawar police headquarters.