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Father
Minor Given Conditional Liberty
The polemic priest, Father Minor Calvo Aguilar, obtained his
freedom yesterday following a Hererida court decision to give him
conditional liberty.
Calvo has been in preventive detention since December last year, when he was
arrested by judicial officials for being the principal author in the murder
of journalist Parmemio Medina Pérez, who was assassinated in July of 2001.
The priest will, as a condition of his liberty, be prohibited from leaving
the country, cannot go near the witnesses in this case and must report to
sign in at the local police station every 15 days.
Calvo Aguilar was arrested at the end of last year in Liberia, Guanacaste
and was brouhgt back to San José to face the charges. Several days later,
businessman Omar Chaves was also arrested with being an accomplice of Calvo
and still remains in detention.
Group Wants Priest
Abuse List
A group in San Antonio, Tezas, is pushing to make public a list of priests
who are known to have sexually abused children while serving in the San
Antonio Archdiocese.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said some victims
want to know who the 20 priests were who abused children over the past 50
years.
"Some of these people just want to know if the priest is alive and still
serving," said Barbara Garcia-Boehland, of SNAP.
Garcia-Boehland said naming names will help victims heal.
But Deacon Pat Rogers of the San Antonio Archdiocese disagrees.
"We don't believe that a list of names will help people heal," Rogers said.
"What possible good, what possible healing, will come from that list?"
Rogers said none of the priests on the list are still serving in the
archdiocese. He also said eight names have already been made public for one
reason or another, six priests have died, four are out of the country and
two are in their 70s.
But the Rev. Alfredo Prado, a notorious Oblate priest who is in exile in
Costa Rica, is not on the list.
Rogers said no one came forward to file a sexual allegation against Prado.
The Defenders found that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the Archdiocese of
Baltimore, the Diocese of Tuscon, Ariz., and the Diocese of Phoenix released
its list of sexually abusive priests.
Dioceses in Toledo, Ohio, Trenton, N.J. and Anchorage, Alaska, are
considering releasing lists.
Canadian Faces Life
Sentence
Julia Yvonne Elliott, the Canadian woman arrested in Paso Canoas
on Wednesday, wanted in Canada for having murder her companion, assures
authorities that she had been living in Costa Rica for several months.
Elliot, 34 years of age, is shown on immigration records to have entered
Costa Rican soil on two occasions - 24 September and 15 October in 2003, in
both cases coming from Venezuela.
Elliot was arrested last Wednesday when she tried to enter Costa Rica at the
Paso Canoas border point with Panama. An immigration official noted on his
computer screen, after entering her passport details, that the woman before
him was wanted by INTERPOL .
Canadian authorities claim that Elliot murdered a man she had been living
with in Kemptville, Ontario, in August of 1995 and had been on the run
since.
According to authorities in Toronto, Canada, Elliot faces life in prison if
she is extradited to Canada.
A request for extradition was made in a San José court while Elliot will be
in preventative detention for two months while the court considers the
extradition request.
P2P Calls May Not
Be Illegal
The Procuraduría General de la República, which acts a legal
counsel to the government, made the conclusion in 2001 that Internet calls
are free of regulations if they are limited to "point to point" or P2P.
Thus, calls made using the Internet to carry the conversation, not matter
the distance, that converts an analog signal to digital and then carries it
over the world wide web, similar to an emails, is not considered a telephone
conversation and thus no regulation is attached to it.
The judgment was made on the 18 September 2001 does not obligate ICE, it is
simply a guideline for the government agency.
A typical Internet call consists of the user connecting his telephone line
to a digital converter that then carries the call over the Internet service
provided by ICE and RACSA.
This news comes on the heels of ICE - the Instituto de Electricidad
Costarricense - the national power and telephone company, that considers
calls made using the Internet illegal.
ICE says that Internet calls are illegal because they evade the monopoly it
has on telephone service and communications in the country. Notwithstanding,
a caller using the Internet can reduce the cost of the call up to 90%.
Former Panamanian
Dictator Noriega Denied Parole
Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega failed in his third
attempt at parole, despite getting support in his bid for freedom from the
federal judge who sentenced him in 1992.
Noriega's bid for parole was opposed by the U.S. government.
Miami judge William Hoeveler, who imposed a 30-year sentence in 1992, said
in a letter to Edward F. Reilly Jr., the chairman of the parole commission
that he thinks Noriega should be released. The single-page letter was sent
Feb. 20. Hoeveler's letter said new information has tempered his view of
Noriega, who was captured in Panama in 1989 and brought to Miami for trial.
He was convicted of eight counts of conspiracy to smuggle drugs and launder
money, and imprisoned at the Federal Correctional Institute in southwest
Miami-Dade County in 1992.
Hoeveler declined to speak on camera about his letter to the U.S. parole
commission, but told NBC 6 reporter Nick Bogert by phone, "I felt having put
in 13-14 years, that he's served sufficient time for his crimes."
Hoeveler's letter cited Noriega's conversion to the Baptist faith 12 years
ago as one reason he'd be a good candidate for parole.
Reports say Hoeveler is a religious man who was reportedly impressed by the
fact that Noriega, 70, was baptized while in the prison system, one source
told NBC 6.
The judge also cited the fact that Noriega is being incarcerated away from
other prisoners in Miami-Dade County, essentially solitary confinement.
Under sentencing guidelines, Noriega must serve at least two-thirds of his
30-year sentence unless he is granted early release. With his latest request
denied, he is scheduled to remain in prison until 2007.
Hoevler's support for Noriega's release is considered highly unusual, but
they are not the first positive signs between the men. Just prior to the
trial in 1991, Noriega said of Hoevler in open court, that: "the one shining
light through this legal nightmare has been your honor. You have acted as
honest and fair as anyone could hope for." During the trial, Hoevler
referred to Noriega as a "prisoner of war."
Hoevler was appointed to the federal court by President Jimmy Carter.
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US vows to
help Spain find those behind deadly attacks
The United States will do whatever it can to help Spain find
those responsible for the deadly attacks and bring them to justice,
President George W. Bush said on Friday.
"We will lend our expertise, our intelligence-gathering to help the Spanish
authorities bring these people to justice. That's what he Spanish people
expect. These people need to be brought to justice. And we will help anyway
we can," Bush said in an interview with the Television of Spain.
Bush vowed to help Spain "find out the facts, and it these terrorists are
overseas or plotting from overseas, or anywhere in Europe."
However, Bush said the United States still had no idea who was behind the
terrorist attacks. "We do not know yet," he said.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher on Thursday denied suggestion
that Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks,
was behind the bombing attacks in Spain and believed ETA was responsible.
"The Spanish government has made clear that they believe, based on the
evidence they have collected and the patterns they've detected, that ETA is
responsible for this. That's a Basque terrorist organization," Boucher said.
Boucher said the United States was cooperating with Spain to dig out the
terrorists. "The US government, our law enforcement people, our intelligence
people are in touch with their Spanish counterparts. We have a long history
of cooperation with Spain in matters regarding terrorism. We're in touch
with Spain, diplomatically -- very high levels," Boucher said.
Both President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have
condemned the deadly terrorist attacks, which killed more than 190 and
injured 1,400 others on packed trains in Madrid.
Spain has been a vehement supporter of the US-led war against Iraq and a
staunch ally of the US-led war against terrorism.
Colombia
voices solidarity with Spain over terror attacks
Colombian Defense Minister Jorge Alberto Uribe Echavarria voiced
Friday the solidarity of his country with Spain over the terror attacks that
hit Madrid Thursday.
In a letter sent to his Spanish counterpart Federico Trillo, Uribe
highlighted that the "suffering of thousands of fellow Colombians caused by
the actions of terrorists" did "sensitize and draw near" both people.
He also regretted how hard it was to fight "against a coward enemy" but
showed confidence that "this terrible crime will not remain unpunished but,
on the contrary, will be judged and punished in name of the free people of
the world."
The minister reiterated the commitment of the Colombians and their public
forces in "the fight against all the terrorists, regardless of their origin
and motivation."
Uribe added that "in Spain, like in Colombia, those barbaric acts must
strengthen us and stimulate us to tighten the cooperation that will allow us
to give a definite answer against these criminal networks."
Colombia, EU
expand peace program
The peace program was launched Friday in the Cauca and Narilo
departments, southwestern Colombia,as a part of the Colombian and European
Union (EU) initiative to overcome the armed conflict that has afflicted the
South American nation for the last four decades, local press said.
This is the second peace program financed and assessed by the EU in the
country. The first one was carried out a few years ago in the oil port of
central Colombia's Barracabermeja. The second program provided an investment
of 50 million US dollars, local press reported.
The chief of the European Commission delegation for Colombia and Ecuador,
Adrianus Koetsenrujiter, said that the aim of this project was to establish
specific points of actions that would favor an integral human development
and the defense of the fundamental rights.
Colombia has been ravaged by a four-decade civil war between the government
and leftist guerrillas and paramilitary groups. At least 3,500 people are
killed each year, mostly civilians.
Venezuelan opposition claims enough signatures to cut Chavez term
The Venezuelan opposition Sumate claimed Friday that it has
collected enough new signatures in order to conduct a referendum on cutting
short President Hugo Chavez's term, according to local reports.
Reports quoted Alberto Quiroz Corradi, an opposition leader, assaying that
the opposition now has 867,000 more signatures, or more than the 600,000
that would be needed for a referendum to be called.
The opposition had said it collected 3.4 million signatures to back a
petition seeking a recall referendum against Chavez. But the electoral
council claimed that all but 1.8 million of the signatures are questionable,
leaving the opposition well short of the minimum 2.4 million signatures
needed to force a referendum.
Earlier Friday, Sumate's director, Luis Enrique Palacios, declared that the
data base presented by the electoral body "does not support" its conclusion
that 1.3 million signatures are not valid.
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