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Fri May 18, 2012 7:32am EDT

* Euro lifts off four-month low vs dollar, eyes 2012 low

* Broad demand for safe havens supports dollar and yen

* Greek politics, Spanish bank problems weigh on sentiment

By Anirban Nag

LONDON, May 18 (Reuters) – The euro lifted off a four-month
low against the dollar on Friday, as investors pared bearish
bets after earlier falls but concerns about a Greek euro exit
and instability in the Spanish banking system were likely to
keep it under pressure.

Investors preferred the relative safety of the U.S. dollar
and the Japanese yen and were reluctant to buy riskier assets
after Moody’s cut the credit ratings of 16 Spanish banks on
Thursday.

The euro tumbled to $1.2642, not far from its lowest
of the year, before recovering to trade 0.2 percent higher at
$1.2715. Traders cited large option expiries at $1.2700 which
were likely to cap gains.

Some traders said the euro’s recent decline could slow,
given investors may be wary of holding positions over the
weekend when leaders of the G8 major industrial economies meet.

The euro, down 4.1 percent against the dollar so far in May,
was on track for its third straight week of losses. On the other
hand, strong demand for the greenback helped the dollar index
to a four-month high of 81.758.

The euro fell to 100.219 yen, its lowest since
early February before recovering.

Strategists said the euro would remain vulnerable to further
bad news out of the euro zone, and looked set to test the 2012
trough. A break below there would take the euro to its weakest
level versus the dollar since August 2010.

“If it’s not Greece, it’s Spain that we talk about to sell
the euro. People are looking for bad news and they are concerned
there appears to be no solution,” said Lutz Karpowitz, currency
analyst at Commerzbank.

Greece faces fresh elections on June 17, with many investors
increasingly concerned a victory for anti-bailout parties could
lead to Greece exiting the euro zone.

A recent poll showed Greece’s conservatives have overtaken
the anti-bailout leftist SYRIZA in popularity, although the
volatile political mood meant most analysts saw the outcome of
the elections as a significant risk.

Worries about Spain’s banks and prospects of more state
bailouts for lenders kept the country’s borrowing costs high.

POLICY RESPONSE

Talk of a ban on naked short-selling of Spanish banking
stocks lifted Europe’s ban shares and this brought some
respite to the euro, but the common currency’s medium-term
prospects remained bearish.

Reflecting that, one-month euro/dollar implied volatility
climbed to around 11.70 percent while three-month risk
reversals – a measure of relative demand for bets on the euro
rising or falling – were at 3.4 vols in favour of more euro
weakness.

“A lot of bad news is already priced in by now – it depends
what happens in Greece and, of Spain, whether there will be a
further decline in bank deposits – if that would happen then you
would expect euro/dollar to go down,” said Jaco Rouw, fund
manager at ING Investment Management.

No economic policy decisions are expected from the G8 but
officials said U.S. President Barack Obama hoped to promote
discussion on steps to resolve the euro zone
crisis.

The dollar was flat against the yen at 79.35 yen and
well above a three-month low of 79.13 hit on Thursday. Traders
cited stop losses orders below 79.00 yen and 78.80 yen, while
offers were likely to cap dollar gains around 79.50.

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ATLANTA — On the night George Zimmerman fatally shot unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida, a witness said he saw some of the scuffle — and described a black man in a dark hoodie on top of a white or Latino man, punching him repeatedly, “mixed martial arts style.”

Then there was a pop, the witness told police, according to documents made public Thursday in Zimmerman’s second-degree murder case. Soon, he said, the man in the hoodie was “laid out in the grass.”

The detail, one of many in a trove of discovery records released by prosecutors, could bolster Zimmerman’s contention that he acted in self-defense on the night of Feb. 26, after he called police and reported Martin as a suspicious character in his neighborhood.

But the documents also show that Sanford, Fla., police investigators believed that Zimmerman had erred in the way he dealt with the young man. That led to their recommendation in March that Zimmerman be charged with negligent manslaughter — which the state attorney’s office initially did not act on, setting off a wave of national protest and concern that racial issues had tainted the handling of the case.

Zimmerman not only reported Martin to police, he also followed him. A police dispatcher told him it wasn’t a good idea. Investigators subsequently agreed.

“The encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was ultimately avoidable by Zimmerman, if Zimmerman had remained in his vehicle and awaited the arrival of law enforcement,” they wrote in a March 13 capias document, which authorizes an arrest. “Or conversely if he had identified himself to Martin as a concerned citizen and initiated dialog in an effort to dispel each party’s concern.”

Zimmerman, 28, was arrested on April 11 and charged with second-degree murder after the case was turned over to a special prosecutor appointed by Florida’s Republican governor, Rick Scott.

Zimmerman pleaded not guilty and is out on bond awaiting trial. He claims he shot Martin in self-defense after Martin confronted him. But prosecutors, in a probable-cause affidavit, have stated that Zimmerman confronted Martin.

The documents include audio recordings of investigators’ interviews with witnesses, and 183 pages of police reports and other records, some of them partially redacted.

They include numerous detailed witness accounts of the altercation. In a March 13 police report, however, Sanford investigator Christopher Serino wrote that “the initial harmful event” had “no known eyewitnesses.”

Much of the information will likely feature prominently at Zimmerman’s trial. Some of the details have been previously leaked to news outlets. Others are new, including:

• A finding by the medical examiners that Martin had THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, in his blood. At the time of the shooting, Martin was serving a suspension from his high school for possessing a bag containing marijuana residue.

• The revelation that a Sanford police investigator, Trekell Perkins, received a phone call two days after the shooting from an anonymous woman who said Zimmerman had “racist ideologies,” and was “fully capable” of instigating a deadly confrontation. Police noted that no other information was obtained to corroborate the claim, and friends and family of the suspect, who is half Latino, say he is not prejudiced.

• A Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab report, based on a study of the bullet hole in Martin’s clothing, that determined he was shot at extremely close range.

• An FBI analysis of a 911 call made by a witness during the confrontation. The call included the sound of someone in the background yelling repeatedly for help. The analysts could not identify the person. When police played the recording for Tracy Martin, Trayvon Martin’s father, he said the voice was not his son’s.

A number of residents of Zimmerman’s gated town house community heard a ruckus when the confrontation began and called 911. When police arrived, they found Martin lying still in the grass. Eventually they found a wound, where one bullet had entered his chest and hit his heart.

They also found Zimmerman, who had a bloody nose that appeared to be broken and blood on the back of his head.

The documents include a recording of a police interview with Martin’s girlfriend, who says she was on the phone with Martin when he told her a white man in a car was watching him and then following him. From the breathing, it sounded like he was running.

“I know he was scared,” she said.

2012 May 17 21:58:55 UTC

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(CNN) — Trayvon Martin had drugs in his system when he was fatally shot earlier this year by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida, according to autopsy results released Thursday.

Martin’s blood contained THC, which is the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, according to an autopsy conducted February 27 — the day after the teenager was shot dead.

Toxicology tests found elements of the drug in the teenager’s chest blood — 1.5 nanograms per milliliter of one type (THC), as well as 7.3 nanograms of another type (THC-COOH) — according to the medical examiner’s report. There was also a presumed positive test of cannabinoids in Martin’s urine. It was not immediately clear how significant these amounts were.

FBI analysis — Zimmerman’s 911 call

Zimmerman claimed, according a police report released earlier, that he’d been “assaulted (by Martin) and his head was struck on the pavement.”

According a report from the Sanford Fire Department, released Thursday, Zimmerman had “abrasions to his forehead,” “bleeding/tenderness to his nose,” and a “small laceration to the back of his head” when he was treated at the scene.

Prosecutors have said Zimmerman, who is a white Hispanic, killed the unarmed teenager unjustly after profiling him. Zimmerman, who has pleaded not guilty, has said that he shot Martin in self-defense.

The start of the trial hasn’t been set.

The case put a spotlight on race relations, spurring protests nationwide and drawing prominent civil rights leaders to central Florida denouncing the actions of Sanford police and calling for Zimmerman’s arrest. Special prosecutor Angela Corey announced he’d been charged on April 11, weeks after Sanford police initially declined to do so.

It also raised questions about gun laws, as well as the merits of the “Stand Your Ground” law in Florida, and similar laws in other states that allow people to use deadly force anywhere they feel a reasonable threat of serious injury or death.

CNN’s Vivian Kuo and InSession’s Jessica Thill contributed to this report.

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