LOS ANGELES

Man claims officer shot him unlawfully in 2008 incident

The police officer who shot and killed a Guatemalan immigrant who authorities said was threatening people with a knife is being sued by a man claiming he was unlawfully shot by the officer in 2008.

Joseph Wolf, who was 19 at the time of the incident, said in the civil rights and negligence lawsuit that Officer Frank Hernandez shot him in the leg then made up allegations to justify the shooting.

Hernandez is on administrative leave following Sunday’s shooting of Manuel Jaminez. Several witnesses told police Jaminez was drunk, carrying a knife and threatening people. One woman disputed the account.

In Wolf’s suit, he said he was awakened by a helicopter circling overhead the morning of Dec. 12, 2008, and went outside to investigate.

It was cold, so Wolf went back into his house to get a sweat shirt. When he re-emerged, Hernandez shot him in the leg and claimed Wolf had been carrying a weapon, the lawsuit states.

Officers never found a weapon on Wolf but later discovered a BB gun in a drawer in Wolf’s house. The case against Wolf was dismissed.

The city attorney’s office declined to comment on the case.

BRUSSELS

Hundreds in Belgium report sex abuse by Catholic clergy

Hundreds of sex abuse victims have come forward in Belgium with harrowing accounts of molestation by Catholic clergy that reportedly led to at least 13 suicides and affected children as young as 2, a special commission said Friday.

Professor Peter Adriaenssens, chairman of the commission, said the abuse may have been more rampant than the 200-page report suggests.

“Reality is worse than what we present here today because not everyone shares such things automatically in a first contact with the commission,” he told reporters.

Adriaenssens, a child psychiatrist who has worked with trauma victims for 23 years, said most of the abuse happened during the 1960s and 1970s.

Belgian Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard said he would react Monday to the report. The Vatican had no immediate comment.

TOKYO

National centenarian count comes up 230,000 short

More than 230,000 Japanese citizens listed in government records as at least 100 years old can’t be found and may have died long ago, according to a government survey.

About 77,000 of them would be at least 120, and 884 people would be 150 or older, the review of records found. The Justice Ministry ordered the count last month after several reports about how elderly people are falling through the cracks in Japan as its population ages rapidly and family ties weaken.

In all, the survey of family registration records nationwide found that 234,354 centenarians were still listed as alive, but their whereabouts were unknown, the ministry said Friday.

HAVANA

Castro claims two reporters misinterpreted comments

Fidel Castro said Friday his comments about the Cuban economic model no longer working were misinterpreted by a visiting American journalist — taking back an admission that caused a stir around the globe.

The 84-year-old ex-president said he was not misquoted but meant “the opposite” of what he was reported as having said by The Atlantic magazine reporter Jeffrey Goldberg.

Goldberg wrote Wednesday that during three days of interviews with Castro in Havana last month, he asked the former leader if Cuba’s communist system was still worth exporting to other countries. He said Castro replied: “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.”

Castro read from Goldberg’s blog during a University of Havana event and said he was misunderstood.

“It’s funny to me now how he interpreted it, word for word, and how he consulted with Julia Sweig, who accompanied him and gave a theory,” Castro told those assembled. “The reality is, my answer meant the opposite of what both American journalists interpreted about the Cuban model.”

Sweig, a Cuba expert at the Council on Foreign Relations who came to Cuba with Goldberg, confirmed Castro’s comment earlier this week, saying it was in line with calls by Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother and successor as president, for gradual but widespread economic and labor reform on the island.