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Villalobos Case: A
Critical Week
This
Saturday, September 27th, the latest extension to
keeping Osvaldo Villalobos, brother to Enrique
Villalobos, will expire. The prosecutor must either
bring formal charges against Osvaldo or obtain a
further extension to his preventive detention.
Under Costa Rican law, a prosecutor can ask a judge
to order preventive detention against a suspect
while an investigation is conducted. The preventive
detention is not an admission of guilt, rather a
mechanism to keep a suspect from impeding an
investigation or fleeing the country. The detention
can be up to 18 months, with periodic reviews, at
which time, the suspect is formally charged or
released.
The Villalobos case is now over one year old.
Prosecutor Walter Espinoza has come under pressure
from the various investor groups, in their calls for
a declaration of evidence against the Villalobos
brothers or to drop the case.
This past week, Judge Sánchez retired from the
case. It was his original order and renewals thereto
that placed Osvaldo in preventive detention. It has
been rumoured that Judge Valverde Lopez will take
over the case. There is mixed reaction by several
investors who talked to insidecostarica.com, that
the case can now go either way.
Some comments of payoffs, though not clear on who
and for what, have been thrown about.
Notwithstanding, Walter Espinoza is still in charge
and will face the new judge, whose job is to decide
to keep continue Osvaldo's preventive detention or
release him. The new judge cannot make a decision on
whether to there is enough evidence against Osvaldo to
take him to trial; that is for a higher court judge.
In either case, a "fresh" judicial look at
the case is welcome by many. As one investor,
Skip, wrote in regular forum, "one this
is for sure, the fiscales
and the courts
need watching. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will watch the watchmen?"
Beaches To Shine
Clean
As of this
weekend, the country's beaches are shining clean, as
almost 1000 Costa Ricans takes part in a custom that
is now practiced in 117 other countries.
The beaches of Samara, Nicoya, Puntarenas, Punta
Cocles and the wildlife refuge Gandoca Manzanillo
are some of the sites that will benefi from the
massive cleaning. This is the 18th edition of the
cleaning of the coastal beaches.
To give you an idea of the garbage littering the
beaches, last year 2000 plastic bottles, 300 glass
bottles, 1500 plastic bottle caps and 1000
soda cans was among the haul.
The clean up campaign is also full of cultural
activities and environmental education seminars, at
the cultural centre in Puntarenas. The idea is to
make aware to the coastal communities the importance
of the conservation of marine resources.
Child Trafficking
Ring Busted
The lawyer
Carlos Hernán Robles, ex-president of the former
Banco Anglo Costarricense, was detained yesterday in
his home in Escazú by the Organismo de
Investigacion Judicial (OIJ), as part of an ongoing
investigation of the Ministry of Public Security, tied
to the case related to the trafficking of Guatemalan
children.
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Following
his arrest, Robles, Oaks were taken his
office, where the OIJ agents supposedly
gathered evidence tied to the case.
Robles
told judicial officials that his law practice
and the firm where he is a partner,
specializes in adoptions. Robles argued with
investigators, telling them that the firm is
duly registered with Patronato Nacional de la
Infancia (PANI) - the children's welfare
agency.
The
investigation arose from the arrest by OIJ on
the 4th of September of a Guatemalan woman who
entered the country with a 2 year old boy she
had taken in Guatemala with the intention of
selling him in Costa Rica.
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Lawyer, Carlos Hernán
Robles,
former president of Banco Anglo. Foto: Diario
Extra
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Hours
earlier, the OIJ raided a house located in La
Uruca, west of San José, where they found 9
children ranging in ages from infant to 2 years
of age, 8 of which were from Guatemala and one
Costa Rican of a Guatemalan mother.
Police were aware of the existence of the
children in the home, stemming from charges
brought by PANI and complaints from neighbours.
At the home, 6 persons were arrested, one
Honduran and 5 Guatemalans.
All the children are now in the hands of PANI.
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American drug-spraying plane crashes in northern Colombia, U.S. pilot killed
A U.S. plane crashed while fumigating cocaine-producing crops in volatile northern Colombia on Sunday, killing the American pilot, the army said.
The crash in Catatumbo, an area filled with coca crops, appeared to be an accident and not a rebel attack, as officials had believed earlier.
"Initially, there was talk of the plane being hit, but then those who went to the site said there were no (bullet holes)," Defense Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez told reporters. "We are not sure what caused the accident."
Army Gen. Jairo Duvan Pineda told RCN Television the weather was bad at the time of the crash.
The pilot was a U.S. citizen originally from Costa Rica. Officials did not release his identity or say where he lived.
Rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, are fighting for control of Catatumbo against the army, another rebel group and outlawed paramilitary fighters.
Colombia is the world's biggest producer of cocaine, and the coca crops generate huge profits for the illegal groups.
The U.S. government has given billions of dollars in aid and training to the Colombian military to support its nearly four-decade war against leftist rebels and to wipe out cocaine and heroin production.
Galileo
Ends Jupiter Mission With Plunge
NASA's aging Galileo spacecraft plunged into
Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere Sunday, bringing a
deliberately fiery conclusion to a 14-year, $1.5
billion exploration of the solar system's largest
planet and its moons.
The unmanned spacecraft, traveling at nearly 108,000
mph, was torn apart and vaporized by the heat and
friction of its fall through the clouds after it
dove into the atmosphere at 2:57 p.m. EDT as
planned.
At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, hundreds of
scientists, engineers and their families counted
down the last seconds before the spacecraft ended
its 2.8 billion-mile journey from Earth.
"We haven't lost a spacecraft, we've gained a
new stepping stone in exploration," said
Torrence Johnson, the mission's project scientist.
Rosaly Lopes, another scientist on the mission,
called Galileo's descent "a spectacular end to
a spectacular mission."
"Personally, I am a little sad. I had the time
of my life on Galileo and I'm a little sad to say
goodbye to an old friend," Lopes added.
W.H.O., Declaring
Crisis, Plans a Big Push With AIDS Drugs
Saying that the failure to deliver AIDS drugs to impoverished people is so grave that it has become a global health emergency, the World Health Organization plans to provide such drugs to three million people, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa, by the end of 2005.
The number of people in these countries who would receive drugs under the W.H.O. plan would be nearly four times the total to be covered by 2005 under all existing programs. For example, President Bush's initiative calls for treating two million people in 14 countries by 2008.
W.H.O. plans to adapt many of the rapid response skills it learned in controlling the SARS epidemic and in responding to health emergencies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Liberia, said Dr. Jong Wook Lee, the United Nations health agency's director general. Dr. Lee is expected to announce the plan at a United Nations General Assembly meeting on AIDS today and to ask countries to appeal to his agency for help.
"From a public health perspective, we need to treat at least three million people by 2005 to avert an enormous catastrophe," Dr. Jim Kim, who is overseeing the AIDS treatment program as an adviser to Dr. Lee, said in an interview. "We cannot wait any longer."
If the 34 countries with the highest H.I.V. rates "each get 50 percent of those who require treatment into treatment by the end of 2005, we will reach 92 percent of our goal," Dr. Kim said.
One AIDS expert said that AIDS researchers had been discussing such an idea for two years. The health agency's goal is a good one, the expert said, but is unlikely to be met because "we lost two years from inaction." Still, the expert said, "we have to get on track, and even if we reach one to two million, that would be a huge success."
W.H.O., with a $1 billion annual budget, plans to add $100 million a year for the new initiative to the $50 million it already spends on AIDS as it appeals for more money from governments and other sources.
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