Ireland counts votes in post-bailout election (AFP)

DUBLIN (AFP) – Irish authorities counted the ballots Saturday after reports of a big turnout as voters vented their anger over the eurozone nation's widely-loathed international financial bailout.

Initial exit polls from Friday's election were due out at 8:00 am (0800 GMT), with voters expected to expel the ruling Fianna Fail party and make Prime Minister Brian Cowen's government the first victim of the eurozone debt crisis.

State media reported predictions of a turnout of around 70 percent of the 3.1 million people eligible to vote as people flocked to the ballot box to show their fury over the collapse of the "Celtic Tiger" economy.

Counting was due to start at 9:00 am and full results are not expected until late Saturday or Sunday. Polling stations closed at 10 pm on Friday.

The leader of the main opposition Fine Gael party, former teacher Enda Kenny, 59, is poised to become the new taoiseach, or prime minister, with a promise to renegotiate the terms of Ireland's massive debts.

Fine Gael has a massive lead in pre-election polls with 38-40 percent compared with Fianna Fail's 15 percent.

But opinion polls suggest Fine Gael will not win a majority in the 166-seat Dail, or lower house of parliament, and may have to form a coalition with Labour, which is on 18 percent support.

In November, Ireland was forced to go cap in hand to the European Union and International Monetary Fund for an 85-billion-euro ($115-billion) bailout after a debt crisis centred on the banks threatened to spiral out of control.

At the centre of problem was a housing bubble.

It was the second eurozone nation after Greece to seek help and the deal was widely viewed as a humiliation, just three years after Ireland was the envy of the world for the strength of its economy.

Kenny, who voted in Mayo in western Ireland with his daughter Aoibhinn, a first-time voter, has promised to "hit the ground running" if he takes office.

He has already visited Brussels and Berlin to discuss amending the bailout terms, notably the "punitive" 5.8 percent interest rate and the cost of restructuring Ireland's banks.

The EU has indicated it might review the deal, but Dublin is under pressure to cut its ultra-low 12.5 percent corporate tax rate in return -- a rate Kenny says is vital for Ireland's economy.

Polls show 82 percent of voters want the bailout renegotiated but more than half of these accept that it will not be although many cannot see a way out.

Meanwhile, Fianna Fail struggled to avoid an electoral wipeout after 14 years in power, as newspapers demanded punishment for the country's woes.

"Your Day of Revenge -- Kick Them in the Ballots", headlined the Irish Daily Star, while the Irish Sun said: "Downfail. It's time to dump this rotten lot."

Fianna Fail is led by ex-foreign minister Micheal Martin, who took over in January after Cowen quit over his handling of the economic crisis. Cowen is not standing for re-election.

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Man charged with 3 murder counts in N. Va. attacks (AP)

MANASSAS, Va. – A Salvadoran man who was ordered deported nearly a decade ago but never left has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder in a series of shootings and a knife attack in a Virginia suburb of Washington, authorities said Friday.

Jose Oswaldo Reyes Alfaro, an illegal immigrant, was charged in the pair of attacks blocks apart Thursday night that left three people dead and three others injured, Manassas Police Chief Doug Keen said.

Reyes Alfaro knew all of the victims, he said, but police were still sorting out the exact relationships. The county's chief prosecutor said he'll likely seek to upgrade the charges to capital murder, which could carry the death penalty.

The killings touched off further discussion of illegal immigration in Manassas and surrounding Prince William County, which was one of the early flashpoints in the national debate over whether local authorities should play a role in enforcing the nation's immigration laws.

"It's another abject failure of the federal government," said state Delegate Jackson Miller, R-Manassas, a former city council member and police officer. "Now we have three innocent victims in my city — about a mile from my house there's a murderous rampage. I am furious. ... Yet it happens over and over and over again, and then we have to hear all of these apologetic excuses as to why we shouldn't be addressing criminal illegal aliens on the state or local level. It's just disgusting."

A similar uproar ensued in August when an allegedly drunken driver struck a car carrying three nuns, killing Sister Denise Mosier, 66. The man charged in that crash, 23-year-old Carlos Martinelly Montano, had been turned over to immigration authorities but was released pending a deportation hearing.

Nancy Lyall of the immigrant advocacy group Mexicans Without Borders said it was misleading to link an isolated criminal case with the issue of illegal immigration. In Prince William County, she said, "the undocumented population is a very, very low percentage of those who are accused of violent crimes."

She predicted that advocates of tougher immigration enforcement would use the Alfaro case to "stereotype every person that's here without documentation."

Chief Keen said that an immigration judge ordered that Reyes Alfaro be deported in 2002 after he failed to show up for a hearing. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Cori Bassett said in a statement that Reyes Alfaro officially was classified as a fugitive in 2006 and that the agency placed a detainer on him Friday, after his arrest on the murder charges.

While the Georgetown South development where the killings happened has been plagued with crime and some gang activity, Keen said the slayings were not gang-related.

Brenda Ashcraft, 56, and her son William Ashcraft, 37, were shot and killed in the first attack, which was called into police shortly after 7 p.m. Thursday. A 34-year-old woman was injured and remains hospitalized, and a 15-year-old girl was treated and released.

In the second attack, Keen said 48-year-old Julio Cesar Ulloa was shot and killed, and a 77-year-old woman suffered head wounds from a large knife.

Brenda Ashcraft's niece, Melissa King, said Friday that her aunt had been a victim of domestic violence by her boyfriend, whom she only knew as "Jose."

"He'd been causing trouble but she was too afraid to call police," King said, standing a few doors outside Ashcraft's home.

"They were good, good family, just full of love and support. This was not drug-related. This was not gang-related ... It was just domestic violence."

King said she has lived in the same neighborhood as her aunt her entire life.

"I know it's a bad neighborhood with crime, but so many people came out last night to offer us support. It was really like one big family," she said. She called her aunt "one of the rocks in our family. She'd give you her last piece of bread, her last dollar."

Reyes Alfaro made an initial appearance Friday morning in Prince William General District Court, and was ordered held without bond. His court-appointed lawyer, Kimberly Irving, declined to comment Friday except to say that she had only spoken with her client briefly.

Prince William Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Ebert said Friday that it's likely the charges will eventually be upgraded to capital murder — which would make Reyes Alfaro eligible for the death penalty — but a final decision has not been made because the investigation is still ongoing.

"Of course it's a very heinous crime," Ebert said.

Manassas, a city of nearly 37,000 about 30 miles west of the nation's capital, has averaged about two homicides a year since 2005, according to annual crime reports through 2009.

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Associated Press writers Dena Potter in Richmond and Ben Nuckols in Washington contributed to this report.

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