International
Lula asks for severe sanction if the guilt of general arrested for coup is proven
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Sunday that reserve general Walter Braga Netto, accused of leading an attempted coup d’état in 2022, has the right to the presumption of innocence, but must be severely punished if his guilt is proven.
The head of state referred to the arrest of Braga Netto in a brief comment that he slipped during the interview he gave after being discharged from the hospital where he was admitted on Monday and in which he underwent surgery to treat an intracranial hemorrhage.
“About what happened this week with the arrest warrant issued against General Braga Netto… I’m going to show you that I have more patience and that I’m democratic. I think he has every right to the presumption of innocence. I didn’t have it, but I want them to have it,” he said in reference to his imprisonment for two corruption processes that ended up annulled.
But, he added, “if those people did what they tried to do, they have to be severely punished.”
The arrest of Braga Netto
The former Minister of Defense and the Presidency in the Government of the far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro was arrested this Saturday at his residence in Rio de Janeiro by order of the Supreme Court after the Federal Police accused him of obstructing the investigation of the coup plot.
The Army reserve general, who was a candidate for vice president as Bolsonaro’s running mate in the 2022 elections, is accused of being the main articulator of an attempted coup d’état to prevent Lula’s investiture and an alleged plan to assassinate the progressive leader.
“It is not possible for us to admit that, in a generous country like Brazil, there are people of high military grade plotting the death of the President of the Republic, plotting the death of his vice president and plotting the death of a judge who was president of the Supreme Electoral Court,” Lula said in reference to the accusations against Braga Netto.
The defendants
Both the detained general and Bolsonaro are among the 37 defendants to whom the Federal Police requested that charges be opened for having planned a coup to prevent Lula’s investiture in January 2023.
Despite these accusations, Braga Netto arrested him preventively because, according to the Federal Police, he had been making steps to hinder the investigation and prevent the collection of evidence.
Magistrate Alexandre de Moraes, a member of the Supreme Court responsible for the case and for the arrest warrant, said in his sentence that the investigations “revealed the very serious participation of Walter Braga Neto in the facts investigated and his true role as leader, organizer and financier.”
The reserve general was taken to the headquarters of the First Army Division on the same Saturday, in the so-called ‘Military Villa’ in Rio de Janeiro, where he was placed in the custody of the Armed Forces for having the right to remain in a special cell in a military barracks.
International
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
A 65-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested at a border checkpoint in Croatia after attempting to enter the country in his car with a deceased woman sitting as a passenger, police announced on Tuesday.
The man was detained in a routine check in late November in Gunja, a border area separating Bosnia from Croatia, the police told AFP. Suspicious because they saw “no consciousness or movement” from the passenger, Croatian officers called a doctor, who confirmed the death of the 83-year-old woman, also Austrian, according to her identification.
The woman’s relationship to the suspect is unknown. She had died in Bosnia, and the man intended to repatriate her body to Austria to “avoid the formalities related to transporting a corpse,” according to the police. Croatian media reported that the man was her legal guardian.
Once her death was confirmed, a funeral service took charge of the body.
International
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Colombian authorities arrested two nationals accused of the illegal trafficking of migrants to the United States and of endangering lives due to the disappearance of a boat with 40 people aboard, U.S. Department of Justice officials reported on Tuesday.
Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, 52, and Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were arrested on December 13 in Colombia at the request of the United States for their alleged involvement in a “transnational human trafficking operation,” the department said in a statement.
According to the charges, the detainees were transporting migrants to San Andrés Island in the Caribbean, where they would then be taken by boat to Nicaragua. The goal was to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico.
The accused are said to have advised the migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, where they personally received them, arranged accommodations, and “took them to the boats that transported them to Nicaragua so they could enter the United States illegally,” the statement reads.
“These defendants put several migrants on the boat that disappeared off the coast of Nicaragua in 2023,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as cited in the statement.
Both men are “directly and personally responsible for the illicit trafficking of migrants on that vessel,” according to the indictment dated October 23.
International
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
Two soldiers were killed and five others were injured by the explosion of homemade landmines planted by a criminal group in a mountainous area of the Mexican state of Michoacán (west), the Secretary of Defense reported on Tuesday.
The attack occurred on Monday morning in the municipality of Cotija, a border area between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, when the military was conducting a reconnaissance mission after receiving information about an armed camp in the area, explained Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla.
“At that moment, an improvised explosive device detonated. Unfortunately, two soldiers lost their lives, and five others were injured,” the military leader detailed. The affected soldiers were airlifted to hospitals in the region by a military helicopter, while the rest of the team continued with the reconnaissance of the area.
Trevilla stated that before the explosion, the military unit had located the dismembered bodies of three people, and upon continuing the mission, they confirmed the camp was abandoned.
Asked about the individuals responsible for placing the explosives, the general suggested they could be criminals linked to the local group Cárteles Unidos, which operates in Michoacán and uses these tactics in their territorial dispute with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
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