International
The phase of initial allegations in the criminal trial of Trump in New York begins on Monday
The trial in New York against former President Donald Trump (2017-2021), accused of falsifying documents to buy the silence of a porn actress and thus protect her career at the White House in 2016, enters this Monday the phase of filing initial allegations.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, Trump, 77, who seeks to return to the White House in the November elections, participated in a plan with his then lawyer Michael Cohen and others to influence the 2016 elections by suppressing negative information for his image.
This plan included an alleged payment of $130,000 to silence the porn actress Stormy Daniels and not air a Trump relationship with her at the time his wife Melania was pregnant.
On Monday of last week, the process began and Trump thus became the first former president of the United States to be subject to a criminal trial.
The jury selection process concluded last Friday after the six alternate members were appointed, who were chosen from a total of twenty-two candidates and thus join the twelve holders, seven men and five women, already selected.
Among the elected members is a woman of Spanish origin who passed the suitability filters applied by Judge Juan Merchán, in charge of the case, the prosecutor’s office and the defense lawyers of the former governor.
However, multiple candidates were discarded after assuring that they suffered from anxiety or “douts” at the prospect of having to be part of the jury.
On Friday, a hearing was also held in which prosecutors confirmed that, if Trump gets on the rune in this criminal trial, they will also ask him about his other legal battles, including two high-profile civil sentences for which he has been convicted in New York.
They also asked Judge Merchán for permission to interrogate the former president about alleged sexual attacks committed against other women, a matter on which the magistrate could rule on Monday.
Trump appeared on April 4, 2023 before the judge of the New York court in Manhattan, heard the notification of the charges against him and pleaded not guilty.
He is accused of 34 serious crimes related to his attempt to silence Daniels, who in 2016 sought to sell his story about the sexual relations he allegedly had with the former president a decade earlier.
Each of the crimes could result in Trump a prison sentence of up to 4 years.
The defense is expected to harshly attack the credibility of the Prosecutor’s Office’s Witnesses, in particular Michael Cohen, Trump’s then right-hand man, who made the payment to Daniels and pleaded guilty in 2018 of violating campaign funding and other federal laws.
Judge Merchán expressed his concern about the safety of the jury this week and said that he would prohibit journalists from revealing any information about the current and past work histories of the jury members, as well as exposing physical characteristics that make them identifiable.
The Manhattan case is the first to go to trial of the four criminal cases that Trump faces, it is also the sharpest personally and may be the only one to be held before the presidential elections next November.
In addition to this process in New York, Trump will also have to answer in the courts of Georgia and Washington DC for his alleged attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential elections that he lost against the current Democratic president, Joe Biden.
And in Florida, for the accusation of illegally stealing and keeping in his Mar-a-Lago mansion classified documents that he took from the White House after leaving power.
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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