| Court accuses and sentences ex-president of Costa Rica |
To the jail for corruption |
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| Rafael Angel Calderón (center), ex-president of Costa Rica, speaks at the end of the judgment that accused it and pronounced itself to five years of prison, in San Jose. PHOTO: Kent Gilbert / AP |
Rafael Angel Calderón withdraws candidacy for the presidency and appeals to the Supreme Court.
Marianela Jiménez
San Jose / AP
A court declared the ex-president Rafael Angel Calderón guilty of corruption and sentenced it to five years of jail, in a mistake that strikes letalmente his aspirations to be postulated to the Costa Rican elections of 2010.
On Monday, the 5th, the judges found the ex-leader (1990-94) responsible for two crimes of peculation, who punishes with sorrow of between three and 12 years of prison. The detail of the judgment will be announced of finished form until November 3.
The district attorney's office was requesting for Caldron a whole of 24 years of prison.
“ I am very astonished... it hurts very much and the whole family, but it is a battle, the war continues and we are going to continue in the Third Room (of appeals) over the Supreme Court, where we should wait for the justice and the truth triumph”, Caldron reacted.
The 60-year-old ex-chief, confirmed that it will withdraw his postulation as presidential candidate for the elections of February 7, 2010 for the party Christian Social Unit, of opposition.
“ I said that it was withdrawing it with any type of judgment, for minor who had been, although there is possibility of appeal, there is no moral authority to ask for votes”, it showed.
His wife Gloria Bejarano, who aspires to a delegation, expressed that “we were not waiting for this”.
“ I feel that Costa Rica has lost, has lost the faith in a judicial system, decisions of political order have been taken because to what I listened was of political cut, one listened neither to any certainty of anything, nor forceful tests”, expressed the first ex-lady.
Caldron left immediately the judgment room along with his family after informing him the mistake.
The district attorney general Francisco Dall'Anese showed that “it has not finished here the matter”, and made sure that the case will go to cassation.
It is the first time in Costa Rica that an ex-president is judged for corruption. A process stays hanging to the ex-leader Miguel Angel Rodríguez (1998-2002) for another scandal related to supposed illegal commissions. For this case Rodríguez turned out to be forced to resign the general secretariat of the Organization of the American States (OEA).
| In search of peace and democracy |
Honduras opens door for the dialogue
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| (Left) José Miguel Insulza, General Secretary of the OEA, installs the dialogue table. Along with him, of left to der: Carlos López, for the Micheletti government; the chancellor of Canada, Peter Kent, and Víctor Meza, representative of the demolished president Zelaya. PHOTO: Eduardo Verdugo / AP |
OEA asks for national unit delegates of Zelaya and Micheletti.
Kathia Martínez
Tegucigalpa / AP
The General Secretary of the OEA, José Miguel Insulza, asked that the dialogue initiated on Wednesday, the 7th between the government of fact and delegates of the demolished president Manuel Zelaya should achieve a consensus on five points fix to restore the democracy in Honduras, interrupted on June 28 by a coup d'état.
“ We are not here to create a debate, are to find concrete solutions to a situation that cannot extend”, affirmed the secretary of the Organization of the American States (OEA) during the installation of the dialogue between the delegates of Zelaya and of the government of fact presided by Roberto Micheletti. He urged the negotiators to look for a consensus on the Zelaya reestablishment in the charge and that could complete normally his period of four years on January 27 in order to deliver the control to the winner of the general elections of November 29.
Exortó to both groups to form a government of national unit “because the emergency needs of the contest of all and nothing better, to cure the wounds, that to return the confidence for the good of the country”.
Also, it exhorted Zelaya to guarantee that he will not propose new initiatives tending to reform the Honduran Constitution of 1982, intentions that took the Honduran military men to the coup d'état.
Argentina
They stop trains
Six lines of underground trains of this capital remained paralyzed on Wednesday, the 7th for three hours by a strike of personnel who demand from the government that he should recognize a new trade union for this transport way. The force measurement harmed approximately 200.000 passengers who use the tubes service between 6 and 9 o'clock in the morning.
Mexico
They kill them in the prison
Four supposed kidnappers who were making pass like “Zees“, a group of assassins associated with the Cartel of the Gulf, were murdered in the penalty of New Laredo, to 880 kilometers to the north of the city of Mexico and frontier with Texas.
Chile
Plebiscite
The president Michelle Bachelet and three of his predecessors remembered on Monday, the 5th the defeat of the ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet in the plebiscite that it forced to summon for democratic elections. Bachelet said that on October 5 he remembers the date in which “there came to fruition the reunion that allowed to have democracy again in our country”.
Peru
Fujimori appeals
César Nakazaki pleaded of the ex-president Alberto Fujimori thought that the process of appeals of three judgments that a court of the Supreme Court imposed on him will take between one year and a half and two years, although he doubts to obtain in the local dais the freedom of his sponsored one.
Colombia
Officers to prison
A judge arranged on Monday, the 5th the imprisonment of a captain of the police and eight military men involved in the sequestration and later murder of a peasant who was presented like guerrilla knocked down in combat in 2005; the victim was innocent.
Brazil
Another face of the economy
Brazil is granting for the first time funds for financing to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a historical step for a country that one day was an important borrower. The Minister of Finance, Guido Mantega, he said on Monday, the 5th that his country is buying 10.000 million dollars in bonds of the IMF.
Nicaragua
New interoceanic channel
The president Daniel Ortega presented to the chancellor of United Arab Emirates, Sheik Abdallah Bin Zayid Al The Nahyan, a project to construct an interoceanic channel that crosses Nicaragua and is an alternative to the Canal of Panama. |
