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Ecuador claims complete control of prison where riot killed 68

AFP

Ecuadoran police and soldiers took complete control Tuesday of a prison where riots between rival gangs left 68 dead over the weekend, the head of the prison system said.

After horrific violence that broke out Friday night and stretched into Saturday — with inmates attacking each other with guns, machetes and explosives — authorities had described the prison in the city of Guayaquil as quiet on Sunday.

Authorities have said the gangs that went after each other are tied to drug trafficking organizations.

On Monday, a combined 1,000-strong security force started penetrating successive security perimeters around and inside the prison but had not yet entered the wings with the inmates’ living quarters, or blocks.

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On Tuesday police and soldiers finally did go into that part of the overcrowded penitentiary and took control.

The head of the prison system, Fausto Cobo, called the situation “under control.”

“We are intervening inside the blocks,” Cobo told reporters.

Another riot in the same prison in Ecuador’s southwest in September left 119 dead — making it the largest such massacre in the country’s history, and one of the worst in Latin America.

More than 320 inmates have been killed so far in 2021, and the latest riot happened despite a state of emergency enforced in Ecuador’s prison system after the riot in September.

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Nestled between the world’s biggest cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has seen a surge of violence blamed on fighting between rival drug groups.

The country of 17.7 million people is popular with traffickers because of its porous borders, a dollarized economy and major seaports for export.

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International

Trump urges Putin to reach peace deal

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his desire for Russian President Vladimir Putin to “reach a deal” to end the war in Ukraine, while also reaffirming his willingness to impose sanctions on Russia.

“I want to see him reach an agreement to prevent Russian, Ukrainian, and other people from dying,” Trump stated during a press conference in the Oval Office at the White House.

“I think he will. I don’t want to have to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil,” the Republican leader added, recalling that he had already taken similar measures against Venezuela by sanctioning buyers of the South American country’s crude oil.

Trump also reiterated his frustration over Ukraine’s resistance to an agreement that would allow the United States to exploit natural resources in the country—a condition he set in negotiations to end the war.

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International

Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links

A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.

Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.

However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.

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International

Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”

Guatemalan court decides Wednesday whether to convict journalist José Rubén Zamora

The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.

“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.

The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.

His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”

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