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Venezuelan Olympic medallist says she was victim of homophobic attack

AFP

Stefany Hernandez, a bronze medallist in BMX at the 2016 Rio Olympics, said she was the victim of a homophobic attack in a restaurant in Caracas, while the prosecutor’s office announced an arrest.

“They hit us,” Hernandez posted on Instagram on Saturday night. “A security man hit me (in the) face and ear. There was also pushing and shoving and insults.

“They kicked me out of the place with a group of friends because some homophobes who wanted to attack us didn’t like me.”

Hernandez, 30, competed in the London Games in 2012 and then took third place in Rio in BMX cycling.

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“The violent people, and the owners of the venue, were surely satisfied. How sad!” she added.

Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced on Twitter on Sunday that an investigation had been opened and a man “accused of the crime of aggravated physical violence” had been arrested.

In a statement, the managers of the restaurant said the incident occurred in a bar that operates on their premises and whose concession they had immediately revoked.

“We have made available the audiovisual material recorded by our security cameras” to “assist in the investigation,” the text said.

Hernandez married Marina Chali in 2018 in Switzerland, where she lived and coached. The couple have since separated.

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In Venezuela, gays and lesbians cannot marry, adopt children or make medical decisions on behalf of their partners.

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FBI Most Wanted Fugitive Arrested in Mexico and Deported to U.S.

Authorities in Mexico announced Thursday that Samuel Ramírez Jr., a U.S. citizen accused of murdering two women and listed among the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, was arrested in the northern state of Sinaloa.

Ramírez Jr., 33, was detained Tuesday in Culiacán just 1 hour and 13 minutes after being added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Ten Most Wanted list, the agency said in a statement.

The suspect, who was born in California, has already been deported to the U.S. state of Washington, where he faces charges related to the fatal shooting of two women at a bar in Federal Way in May 2023.

A court issued an arrest warrant for Ramírez in November last year, and the FBI initially offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to his capture, later increasing the amount to up to $1 million.

“To protect individuals’ privacy and ensure continued cooperation from the public, the FBI does not confirm the identity of those who provide information,” the agency said in its statement.

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UN experts warn Nicaragua runs vast transnational network to monitor exiled dissidents

Nicaragua maintains an “extensive” transnational network to monitor and intimidate opposition figures living in exile, affecting “hundreds of thousands” of people, the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua warned on Tuesday.

In a statement, the experts said their report “details an extensive transnational architecture of surveillance and intelligence used to monitor, intimidate and attack the hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans living abroad.”

The report, which will be presented on March 16 to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, states that the structure maintained by the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo includes the army, the police, migration authorities and diplomatic missions.

According to the statement, “the government has arbitrarily stripped 452 Nicaraguans of their nationality, left thousands more exiled in a situation of de facto statelessness, and prevented many from returning to Nicaragua.”

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Trump: ‘We Think It’s True’ Amid Claims Iran’s Supreme Leader Was Killed

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he believes multiple reports claiming the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during the U.S. and Israeli offensive against the Islamic Republic are likely true, though he stopped short of confirming the news.

“We have a feeling that the information is correct,” he said, according to NBC News. “I don’t want to say anything definitive until I see it, but we think that’s the case. And many of their leaders have disappeared,” he added.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were “many indications” that Khamenei had died in an attack on his residential compound.