Word: mahone
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Minorca was ruled by Arabs from the 8th to the 18th century, then by Spaniards from the ancient city of Ciudadela (Ciutadella, in the Minorcan language), at the western end of the island. In 1713 the British moved their administrative capital to the town of Mahon (Mao) in the southeast, where it remains to this day. While Ciudadela boasts a Catholic cathedral and the imposing town houses of ancient nobility, Mahon is Georgian in flavor, with a commercial, matter-of-fact bustle. "Minorca is different in so many ways," observes a longtime resident, British-born historian Bruce Laurie...
...Mahon's star attraction is its fabulous natural harbor, three miles long and big enough to shelter a whole fleet of ships. The legendary British Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson, is said to have called Mahon's harbor the finest in the world. He is also said to have been so captivated by the island that he brought along Lady Emma Hamilton for a few days of relaxation in the colonial-style Golden Farm mansion that still overlooks the port. British influence lives on in a taste for gin drinking ("Lord Nelson" was one of the brands produced on the island...
...Mahon's former strategic importance is captured in a visually exciting museum in British-built Fort Marlborough, near the harbor mouth. Quieter testimony can be found in the small, peaceful harborside cemetery, whose chipped slate gravestones carry pitifully meager details of the young seamen buried there--all that remains of an early 19th century American naval presence on the island. Elsewhere in the broad sweep of the harbor, several tiny islands, which formerly housed military and quarantine hospitals, highlight Minorca's colorful past...
Government sources say that Howe's tapes didn't even provide evidence for busting Strassmeir or Mahon on weapons charges. In autumn 1994, Howe invited Strassmeir and other Elohim residents to her apartment in Tulsa. She asked them to paint three unarmed grenades orange and green like Halloween pumpkins. They obliged. But when she asked them to help her arm the grenades, they refused, as Mahon says he later did too. "I knew she was bent," he says. "She was the one always talking about killing and bombing," in an attempt, he contends, to entrap others at the compound...
...unclear if his lawyer Stephen Jones will risk calling her to the stand. Her testimony could be effectively attacked by prosecutors, citing ATF records that show she was fired as an informant because of erratic behavior and unreliability. Still, Jones believes the government has proof that Strassmeir and Mahon were involved in a bombing plot and was "obligated" to disclose it. At any rate, in the wake of recent reports about faulty FBI lab procedures, the government does not need Howe's tales to muddy the case...