International
Murderers of Mapuche youth sentenced to prison in Argentina
November 30 |
The Federal Oral Court of General Roca in Argentina sentenced Wednesday the prefects involved in the murder of young Mapuche Rafael Nahuel, who was attacked during a police operation on November 25, 2017.
Said court on Wednesday sentenced the five prefects who were involved in the death of Rafael Nahuel, the 22-year-old Mapuche youth, to sentences of four and a half and five years in prison.
Six years later, the entity sentenced prefect Sergio Cavia, author of the shooting, to five years in prison for the crime of “aggravated homicide committed in excess of legitimate self-defense”.
The prefects Francisco Javier Pintos, Juan Ramón Obregón, Carlos Valentín Sosa and Sergio García received sentences of four and a half years as they were considered necessary participants in the murder of Nahuel during “a special operation” of the Albatros Group, carried out in 2017 in the Mapuche community Lafken Winkul Mapu, in the locality of Villa Mascardi, located in the department of Bariloche.
After more than a year of court hearings, the court has announced its verdict in a hearing, where in addition to the sentences issued, the five convicted were also handed a seven-year disqualification from holding public office.
“We are not happy with the ruling but we value that there was a conviction, the court considered that the five committed a crime, and we must remember that the political authority at that time had vindicated their actions, that same person (Patricia Bullrich) will be the official of the area as of December 10, so they were defending five criminals”, shared the lawyer Mariano Przybylski, plaintiff of the Secretariat of Human Rights.
In this sense, Patricia Bullrich had stated on that occasion that the authorities had acted legally and legitimately.
For her part, Nahuel’s mother, Graciela Salvo expressed that “justice is making fun of the family, they do not feel our pain, the prefects are going to continue free as if nothing had happened, they did not even come to show their faces after having entered the community and having shot my son, Rafael Nahuel, in the back, as a mother I will continue asking for justice because we are not satisfied with the sentence given to the Albatros”.
Not even to hear the verdict did the five members of the Albatros Group of the Argentine Naval Prefecture show up in person at the hearing. Sergio Cavia, Francisco Javier Pintos, Juan Ramón Obregón, Carlos Valentín Sosa and Sergio García were present remotely, as was the case throughout the trial.
Rafael Nahuel’s family, represented by attorneys Rubén Marigo and Ezequiel Palavecino, had requested that the aggravation for “racial hatred” be added to the case and that it be considered a case of “institutional violence comparable to State terrorism”.
The 22-year-old Mapuche young man was killed from behind during the pursuit with firearms of the Albatros of the Prefecture, on November 25, 2017, two days after the violent eviction of his community Lafken Winkul Mapu of Villa Mascardi, in the framework of a case initiated by National Parks for usurpation.
International
Uribe requests freedom amid appeal of historic bribery conviction
Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe on Monday requested that the Supreme Court restore his freedom while he appeals the historic 12-year house arrest sentence he received for bribery and procedural fraud.
Uribe, the most prominent figure of Colombia’s right wing, was convicted last week by a lower court for attempting to bribe paramilitary members into denying his ties to the violent anti-guerrilla squads.
Since Friday, the 73-year-old has been under house arrest at his residence in Rionegro, about 30 km from Medellín. The judge justified the measure by citing a risk of flight.
However, Uribe’s defense team rejected that argument and formally petitioned the court to immediately lift the detention order, claiming it lacks legal basis.
Uribe, a dominant force in Colombian politics for decades, is now the first former president in the country’s history to be convicted and placed under arrest, found guilty of witness tampering and obstruction of justice to prevent links to paramilitary groups.
He has repeatedly denounced the trial as politically motivated, blaming pressure from the leftist government currently in power.
His political party, Centro Democrático, has called for nationwide protests on August 7 in support of Uribe, who remains popular for his hardline stance against guerrilla groups.
Uribe has until August 13 to submit his written appeal. The case will then move to the Bogotá High Court, which has until October 16 to uphold, overturn, or dismiss the sentence. If the deadline passes without a decision, the case will be archived.
International
U.S. Embassy staff restricted as gunfire erupts near compound in Port-au-Prince
The poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean is currently engulfed in a deep political crisis and a wave of violence driven by armed groups — a situation that an international security mission led by Kenya is attempting to stabilize.
Due to the worsening security conditions, the U.S. government has suspended all official movements of embassy personnel outside the compound in Port-au-Prince, the U.S. State Department announced Monday in a security alert posted on social media platform X.
“There are intense gunfights in the Tabarre neighborhood, near the U.S. Embassy,” the alert reads, urging the public to avoid the area.
Tabarre is a municipality located near Port-au-Prince International Airport, northeast of the Haitian capital.
According to a July report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, at least 3,141 people were killed in Haitibetween January 1 and June 30 of this year.
International
Israel says 136 food aid boxes airdropped into Gaza by six nations
The Israeli military announced on Sunday that 136 boxes of food aid were airdropped into Gaza by the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, Germany, and Belgium.
“In recent hours, six countries conducted air drops of 136 aid packages containing food for residents in the southern and northern Gaza Strip,” read the statement, which added that the operation was coordinated by COGAT, the Israeli defense body overseeing civil affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Israeli military emphasized that they will “continue working to improve the humanitarian response alongside the international community” and reiterated their stance to “refute false allegations of deliberate famine in Gaza.”
The announcement comes as UN agencies warn Gaza faces an imminent risk of famine. More than one in three residents go days without eating, and other nutrition indicators have dropped to their worst levels since the conflict began.
The agencies also noted the difficulty of “collecting reliable data in current conditions, as Gaza’s health systems —already devastated by nearly three years of conflict— are collapsing.”
Meanwhile, Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry reported on Sunday that hospitals in the enclave recorded six deaths from hunger and malnutrition on Saturday, all of them adults.
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Uribe requests freedom amid appeal of historic bribery conviction