Latest news with #JoseCabezas
Straits Times
6 days ago
- Politics
- Straits Times
El Salvador judge orders pre-trial detention of prominent lawyer Ruth Lopez
Ruth Lopez, anti-corruption and justice director of Cristosal, arrives at a courthouse for a hearing, after she was arrested for alleged embezzlement while she served as a state official, in San Salvador, El Salvador, June 4, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas Ruth Lopez, anti-corruption and justice director of Cristosal, leaves a courthouse after a hearing, following her arrest over allegations of embezzlement during her time as a state official, in San Salvador, El Salvador, June 4, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas Ruth Lopez, anti-corruption and justice director of Cristosal, leaves a courthouse after a hearing, following her arrest over allegations of embezzlement during her time as a state official, in San Salvador, El Salvador, June 4, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas Ruth Lopez, anti-corruption and justice director of Cristosal, arrives at a courthouse for a hearing, after she was arrested for alleged embezzlement while she served as a state official, in San Salvador, El Salvador, June 4, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas Supporters of Ruth Lopez, anti-corruption and justice director of Cristosal, protest as she leaves a courthouse after a hearing, following her arrest over allegations of embezzlement during her time as a state official, in San Salvador, El Salvador, June 4, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas SAN SALVADOR - A judge in El Salvador ordered the provisional detention of prominent lawyer Ruth Lopez, human rights group Cristosal said on Wednesday. Lopez, a well-known human rights and anti-corruption advocate, was arrested by Salvadoran authorities last month over allegations of embezzlement during her time as a state official. She left Wednesday's hearing shouting that she was innocent and said she had now been charged with illicit enrichment. "I am a political prisoner. All the charges are because of my legal work, due to my denunciation of corruption in this government," Lopez added. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
6 days ago
- Politics
- Straits Times
El Salvador judge orders detention of prominent lawyer Ruth Lopez
Ruth Lopez, anti-corruption and justice director of Cristosal, arrives at a courthouse for a hearing, after she was arrested for alleged embezzlement while she served as a state official, in San Salvador, El Salvador, June 4, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas Ruth Lopez, anti-corruption and justice director of Cristosal, arrives at a courthouse for a hearing, after she was arrested for alleged embezzlement while she served as a state official, in San Salvador, El Salvador, June 4, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas SAN SALVADOR - A judge in El Salvador ordered the provisional detention of prominent lawyer Ruth Lopez, human rights group Cristosal said on Wednesday. Lopez, a well-known human rights and anti-corruption advocate, was arrested by Salvadoran authorities last month over allegations of embezzlement during her time as a state official. She left Wednesday's hearing shouting that she was innocent and said she had now been charged with illicit enrichment. "I am a political prisoner. All the charges are because of my legal work, due to my denunciation of corruption in this government," Lopez added. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
6 days ago
- General
- Straits Times
Top Salvadoran ex-military officers sentenced for wartime killing of Dutch journalists
Army cadets rehearse before El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele arrives to deliver a speech at an event, to mark the first year of his second term in office, in San Salvador, El Salvador June 1, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas A boy holds an image of El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, as he waits him to arrive to deliver a speech at an event, to mark the first year of Bukele's second term in office, in San Salvador, El Salvador June 1, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas Supporters watch El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele deliver a speech at an event, to mark the first year of his second term in office, in San Salvador, El Salvador June 1, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele arrives to deliver a speech at an event, to mark the first year of his second term in office, in San Salvador, El Salvador June 1, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas Supporters watch El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele deliver a speech at an event, to mark the first year of his second term in office, in San Salvador, El Salvador June 1, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas SAN SALVADOR - A jury in El Salvador sentenced three retired high-ranking military officers to 15 years in prison for the murder of four Dutch journalists in 1982, one of the highest profile cases of the Central American nation's civil war. The three were charged on Tuesday for the killings of journalists Koos Joster, Jan Kuiper Joop, Johannes Jan Wilemsen and Hans ter Laag, who were reporting for IKON Television during a 1982 military ambush on a group of former Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas - some of whom were armed. A U.N. truth commission 11 years later found the ambush was "deliberately planned to surprise and kill the journalists." The trial was closed and details about the defendants' pleas and arguments were not made public. El Salvador's civil war stretched from 1980 to 1992, pitting leftist guerrillas against the U.S.-backed Salvadoran army and leaving 75,000 people dead and 8,000 more missing. Former Defense Minister General Jose Guillermo Garcia was sentenced by a jury in the northern town of Chalatenango, alongside two colonels: former Treasury Police chief Francisco Moran and former infantry brigade commander Mario Reyes. All three - respectively aged 91, 93 and 85 - were sentenced in absentia. Garcia and Moran are in hospital under custody and Reyes currently lives in the United States though El Salvador is in the process of seeking his return. "Truth and justice have prevailed, we have won," Oscar Perez, a representative of the Comunicandonos Foundation that represents some of the relatives, told reporters. "The victims are the focus now; not the perpetrators." Prosecutors had requested the 15-year sentence, taking into account the military officers' age and health conditions. The jury also issued a civil condemnation to the Salvadoran state over the delay in delivering justice, a symbolic measure that obliges the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, President Nayib Bukele, to publicly ask for forgiveness from the victims' families. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
21-05-2025
- Business
- Straits Times
El Salvador Congress passes law taxing foreign donations to NGOs
FILE PHOTO: Representatives take part in the inaugural session of the Salvadoran congress, in San Salvador, El Salvador, May 1, 2024. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas/File Photo SAN SALVADOR - El Salvador's Congress passed a law on Tuesday that levies a 30% tax on transactions from foreign donors to local organizations in a crackdown on "foreign agents" that critics say will boost state control over non-governmental organizations. The Central American country's Congress approved the law with 57 votes in favor and three against. It will come into effect eight days after it has been published in the official gazette. Lawmakers said the law will promote transparency in how local entities operate and their influence within El Salvador, and will include a registry to which organizations must sign up. Funds raised by the new tax are destined for general, public or social interest, according to the legislation, which does not give further details. "We are filling a legal vacuum, since until now these activities were not under any specific regulations. The activities of foreign agents will be ordered and supervised through this new registry," ruling New Ideas lawmaker Suecy Callejas said in a speech. "It seeks to protect national sovereignty and avoid covert external interference." REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
New York Post
13-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Emerging Venezuelan gang ‘more violent' than Tren de Aragua targeting rural America, expert warns
Advertisement An emerging Venezuelan gang has the potential to be 'more violent' than Tren de Aragua and target rural America, according to an expert. Members of the Venezuelan-based gang have formed the 'Anti-Tren' gang, which federal authorities say is made up almost exclusively of former members of Tren de Aragua. In a newly unsealed April federal indictment, prosecutors accused 21 men of running drug and prostitution rings in New York City. According to the indictment, members of Anti-Tren 'protect their power and territory through various criminal acts, which includes violence towards members of Tren de Aragua. Advertisement 'Preserving and protecting the power and territory of Anti-Tren and its members and associates through acts involving murder, assault, other acts of violence, and threats of violence, including acts of violence and threats of violence directed at members and associates of Tren de Aragua,' the indictment states. Members of Anti-Tren are also enriched through illegal smuggling, which includes young Venezuelan women, sex trafficking of young women, drug trafficking and armed robberies, federal officials allege. Alleged gang members in custody at El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center on April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas Robert Charles, assistant secretary of state at the US State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs from October 2003 to March 2005 and Maine gubernatorial candidate, told Fox News Digital he thinks the Anti-Tren group has the potential to become more violent than Tren de Aragua. Advertisement 'I've read some of the public accounts that suggest that this offshoot group is trying to distinguish itself by being more violent,' Charles said. 'With MS-13, they had various tests and things that they went through, and there were offshoots there that became more violent than the original group.' Charles said gangs like Anti-Tren attempt to dominate an area geographically and one of the ways they accomplish that is through violence and intimidation. Experts are warning Americans about a new gang called 'Anti Tren' formed by ex-members of Tren de Aragua. via REUTERS 'They are also doing violence in an environment which they're taking advantage of people. They're taking advantage of the homeless, they're taking advantage of rural America,' Charles said of Anti-Tren. Advertisement Charles said gangs like Anti-Tren are targeting rural parts of America because that's where they can 'maximize their gain' with little risk. 'We don't have the infrastructure in a very rural state to put patrols up through the northern part of the state and, frankly, to even keep drugs from coming in and the gangs from coming here,' Charles said of his state, Maine. 'Criminals are bad guys, but they are not stupid. And so what they look for is they look for opportunities to maximize their gain with the least possible risk.' Charles said he thinks the group will be eager to get into fights with Tren de Aragua, which is why authorities need to work fast to quash the group. 'I think right now their numbers are relatively modest,' Charles said. 'If you look away from it, if you pretend that it's not important, if you appease it instead of deterring it, then absolutely it will grow. That's just the nature of crime.' The Anti-Tren gang has a presence that expands beyond New York City. In September 2024, a Texas woman was robbed at gunpoint, pistol-whipped and tied up in her Dallas-area home located in the ritzy neighborhood of Bluffview, where the average home value is $880,000, according to Zillow. The robbery happened around 10 p.m. on Sept. 21, 2024, after the woman had just returned home from dinner. Advertisement The men involved in the incident allegedly targeted the woman in her driveway, forced her into her home, then tied her up at gunpoint, according to records obtained by Fox News. The men involved allegedly threatened to cut her fingers off. Using Google Translate to communicate with the victim, the suspects left the house with $75,000 worth of jewelry, a Ferragamo handbag, a Judith Leiber handbag, a Gucci purse, coins from a box inside the house and the victim's phone. Documents obtained by Fox News at the time indicated that Manuel Hernandez-Hernandez, one of the men arrested, said the other men were part of the Anti-Tren gang, something the Dallas Police Department didn't comment on. Fox News Digital's Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.
