Tag: Extradition

Sydney court postpones extradition hearing of former US military pilot until May

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SYDNEY — A Sydney court on Monday postponed an extradition hearing for a former U.S. military pilot accused of illegally training Chinese aviators until May as his lawyers attempt to further build their case.

Boston-born Dan Duggan, 55, was scheduled to fight his extradition to the United States at a Nov. 23 hearing in the downtown Downing Center Local Court.

But a magistrate decided to use that date to rule on what additional information that the Australian defense department and security agencies should provide defense lawyers.

U.S. lawyer Trent Glover told the court the United States was ready to proceed with the extradition, but had agreed with defense lawyers the hearing should take place after November.

Duggan’s lawyer, Dennis Miralis, told reporters outside court that the stakes were high for his client, who faces up to 65 years in prison if convicted.

“This is existential, which means that every right that Dan has under the Australian legal system on the basis that he’s presumed innocent … needs to properly and carefully be considered,” Miralis said.

Duggan’s wife, Saffrine, has said she asked Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to advocate against the extradition when he meets President Joe Biden in Washington this week.

But in a news conference on Sunday before departing for the United States, Albanese said Duggan, who became an Australian citizen in 2012, was not on the agenda of his meetings with U.S. officials.

“I don’t discuss things that are legal matters on the run, nor should I,” Albanese told reporters.

Duggan has been in custody since Oct. 21 last year when he was arrested near his home in Orange, New South Wales.

Duggan’s grounds for resisting extradition include his claim that the prosecution is political and that the crime he is accused of does not exist under Australian law. The extradition treaty between the two countries states that a person can only be extradited for an allegation that is recognized by both countries as a crime.

Duggan’s lawyers say they expect additional material will demonstrate the overtly political aspects of the extradition request.

They claim the former U.S. Marine Corps flying instructor was lured by Australian authorities from China in 2022 so he could be arrested and extradited.

Duggan maintains he has done nothing wrong and is an innocent victim of a worsening power struggle between Washington and Beijing.

In a 2016 indictment, prosecutors allege Duggan conspired with others to provide training to Chinese military pilots in 2010 and 2012, and possibly at other times, without applying for an appropriate license.

Prosecutors say Duggan received about nine payments totaling around 88,000 Australian dollars ($61,000) and international travel from another conspirator for what was sometimes described as “personal development training.”

Duggan has said the Chinese pilots he trained while he worked for the Test Flying Academy of South Africa in 2011 and 2012 were civilians, and nothing he taught was classified.

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October 23, 2023
Ex-NFL player Sergio Brown arrested in Southern California in connection to mother’s slaying

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Former NFL player Sergio Brown was arrested in Southern California in connection with the death of his mother, authorities said, as he tried to reenter the United States from Mexico just weeks after the 73-year-old woman was found slain behind her suburban Chicago home.

Brown, 35, was detained Tuesday afternoon and booked into San Diego County Jail without bail following a “fugitive arrest,” records show.

Brown agreed to be extradited to Illinois during a Wednesday court hearing, San Diego District Attorney’s office spokesperson Steve Walker told The Associated Press in an email.

Authorities in Illinois have until Nov. 13 to retrieve Brown, Walker said.

Walker said an attorney from the San Diego County Public Defender’s office represented Brown at the hearing. A spokesman for the public defender’s office said the office had no comment Wednesday on the case.

It was unclear what the exact charges are against Brown, but a warrant for his arrest cited first-degree murder, according to a news release from Maywood, Illinois police. The police department did not immediately return a call and email from the AP to verify the charge.

Maywood police announced Wednesday that Brown was arrested after he attempted to reenter the United States from Mexico, WMAQ-TV reported.

The search for Brown began after Myrtle Brown’s body was found Sept. 16 near a creek in Maywood, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) west of Chicago. Relatives had told officers that they could not find Sergio Brown or Myrtle Brown.

A medical examiner ruled her death a homicide and determined that she had been injured during an assault.

Following her death, police began checking the authenticity of Instagram videos that appear to show Sergio Brown discussing her death. In a video posted Sept. 18 to an Instagram page that appeared to belong to Sergio Brown, a man resembling Brown calls reports about his mother’s death “fake news.”

“Fake news, fake news, fake news. It has to be the FBI,” the man says in the rambling, expletive-filled video, in which he says he thought his mother “was on vacation” in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

In another video posted to Instagram, the man references the film “Finding Nemo,” repeating the movie’s famous line, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming,” the Chicago Tribune reported.

Sergio Brown, who graduated from Proviso East High School in Maywood, played college for Notre Dame before his time with the NFL. He played defensive back from 2010 through 2016 with the New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars and Buffalo Bills.

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Williams reported from West Bloomfield, Michigan.

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October 12, 2023
Caroline Ellison, saying Sam Bankman-Fried corrupted her values, found relief when truth came out

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NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Sam Bankman-Fried’s former top executive, testifying in Manhattan federal court Wednesday, blamed the FTX founder for corrupting her values so she could lie and steal and got emotional when describing the cryptocurrency empire’s final days, saying the collapse of his businesses resulted in a “relief that I didn’t have to lie anymore.”

Caroline Ellison, who eventually was made chief executive of Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency hedge fund, Alameda Research, blamed the man she was entwined with romantically for several years since 2018 for creating justifications so that she could do things that she now admits were wrong and illegal.

Testifying for a second day, she recalled that Bankman-Fried said he wanted to do the greatest good for the most people and that rules like “don’t lie” or “don’t steal” must sometimes be set aside, effectively that the ends justified the means.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon asked Ellison how she was affected by Bankman-Fried’s philosophy.

“I think it made me more willing to do things like lie and steal over time,” she said.

Ellison spent much of the last two days walking the jury through how she, at Bankman-Fried’s direction, repeatedly had to tap into the customer deposits at FTX to solve problems at the hedge fund or at the exchange. FTX deposits would be withdrawn to pay for new investments or political donations, or to hide steep losses on Alameda’s balance sheet, she testified. All of this was done at the direction of Bankman-Fried.

All the while, Bankman-Fried put on a public veneer of being a good steward of cryptocurrency markets, cultivating relationships with politicians and the public. Ellison testified that Bankman-Fried once described his then-unkept hair as “valuable” to his image, and deliberately drove a Toyota Corolla to appear modest.

After several hours on the witness stand, Ellison got choked up as she described the final days of FTX and Alameda, saying that the early November period before the businesses filed for bankruptcy “was overall the worst week of my life.”

Still, she said she felt bad for “all the people harmed” when there wasn’t enough money left for all of FTX’s customers and Alameda’s lenders.

When the end arrived, Ellison said it left her with a “sense of relief that I didn’t have to lie anymore.”

Alameda was seen as a dumping ground for the problems of FTX and Bankman-Fried, and its fuel was FTX customer money. When FTX lost hundreds of millions of dollars on a cryptocurrency known as Mobilecoin due to failures of FTX’s systems, the losses were moved onto Alameda’s balance sheet.

Some of the more surprising testimony from Ellison came as she described what she said was a large bribe of over $100 million that was paid to Chinese officials to get them to free up $1 billion that was frozen in 2021 in cryptocurrency exchanges in China because of a money laundering investigation of someone who had once been an Alameda customer.

She said FTX and Alameda executives tried hiring a lawyer in China to negotiate the release of the funds and tried to siphon away the $1 billion through accounts set up in the names of “Thai prostitutes” before finally settling on the bribery scheme.

“Sam initially said no, but eventually changed his mind,” Ellison said. The funds were eventually released. While the payments came out of Alameda’s accounts, the funds ultimately came from FTX customer deposits.

Bankman-Fried was charged earlier this year with conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with what prosecutors said was a $40 million bribe, but the charge was withdrawn because Bahamian authorities had not approved it as part of Bankman-Fried’s extradition.

Ellison revealed that she had to doctor balance sheets to try to hide that Alameda was borrowing about $10 billion from FTX customers in June 2022, when the cryptocurrency market was falling dramatically and some lenders were demanding that Alameda return their investments in full. She said she once created seven different balance sheets after Bankman-Fried directed her to find ways to conceal things that might look bad to Alameda’s lenders.

“I didn’t really want to be dishonest, but I also didn’t want them to know the truth,” Ellison said.

She said a few years earlier, she would never have believed that she would one day be sending false balance sheets to lenders or misallocating customer money, “but I think it became something I became more comfortable with as I was working there.”

Ellison said she was in a “constant state of dread” at that point, fearful that a rush of customer withdrawals from FTX couldn’t be met or that what they had done would become public.

“In June 2022, we were in the bad situation and I was concerned that if anybody found out, it would all come crashing down,” she said.

The crash came last November, when FTX couldn’t fulfill a rush of customer withdrawals, forcing it into bankruptcy and prompting investigations by prosecutors and regulators.

“I was terrified,” she said. “This was what I had been worried about the past several months and it was finally happening.”

Ellison, 28, pleaded guilty to fraud charges in December, when Bankman-Fried was extradited to the United States from the Bahamas.

She is expected to be cross-examined on Thursday.

Bankman-Fried, 31, has pleaded not guilty to fraud charges. His lawyers say he was not criminally to blame for what happened to his businesses.

Initially confined to his parents’ Palo Alto, California, home under terms of a $250 million bond, Bankman-Fried has been jailed since August after Judge Lewis A. Kaplan concluded that he had tried to improperly influence potential witnesses, including Ellison.

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For more AP coverage of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX: https://apnews.com/hub/sam-bankman-fried

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October 11, 2023
Ex-NFL player Sergio Brown arrested in Southern California in connection to mother’s slaying

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Former NFL player Sergio Brown was arrested in Southern California in connection with the death of his mother, authorities said, as he tried to reenter the United States from Mexico just weeks after the 73-year-old woman was found slain behind her suburban Chicago home.

Brown, 35, was detained Tuesday afternoon and booked into San Diego County Jail without bail following a “fugitive arrest,” records show.

Brown agreed to be extradited to Illinois during a Wednesday court hearing, San Diego District Attorney’s office spokesperson Steve Walker told The Associated Press in an email.

Authorities in Illinois have until Nov. 13 to retrieve Brown, Walker said.

Walker said an attorney from the San Diego County Public Defender’s office represented Brown at the hearing. A spokesman for the public defender’s office said the office had no comment Wednesday on the case.

It was unclear what the exact charges are against Brown, but a warrant for his arrest cited first-degree murder, according to a news release from Maywood, Illinois police. The police department did not immediately return a call and email from the AP to verify the charge.

Maywood police announced Wednesday that Brown was arrested after he attempted to reenter the United States from Mexico, WMAQ-TV reported.

The search for Brown began after Myrtle Brown’s body was found Sept. 16 near a creek in Maywood, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) west of Chicago. Relatives had told officers that they could not find Sergio Brown or Myrtle Brown.

A medical examiner ruled her death a homicide and determined that she had been injured during an assault.

Following her death, police began checking the authenticity of Instagram videos that appear to show Sergio Brown discussing her death. In a video posted Sept. 18 to an Instagram page that appeared to belong to Sergio Brown, a man resembling Brown calls reports about his mother’s death “fake news.”

“Fake news, fake news, fake news. It has to be the FBI,” the man says in the rambling, expletive-filled video, in which he says he thought his mother “was on vacation” in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

In another video posted to Instagram, the man references the film “Finding Nemo,” repeating the movie’s famous line, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming,” the Chicago Tribune reported.

Sergio Brown, who graduated from Proviso East High School in Maywood, played college for Notre Dame before his time with the NFL. He played defensive back from 2010 through 2016 with the New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars and Buffalo Bills.

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Williams reported from West Bloomfield, Michigan.

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October 11, 2023
US: Mexico extradites Ovidio Guzmán López, son of Sinaloa cartel leader ‘El Chapo,’ to United States

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MEXICO CITY — Mexico extradited Ovidio Guzmán López, a son of former Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, to the United States on Friday to face drug trafficking, money laundering and other charges, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

“This action is the most recent step in the Justice Department’s effort to attack every aspect of the cartel’s operations,” Garland said.

The Mexican government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mexican security forces captured Guzmán López, alias “the Mouse,” in January in Culiacan, capital of Sinaloa state, the cartel’s namesake.

Three years earlier, the government had tried to capture him, but aborted the operation after his cartel allies set off a wave of violence in Culiacan.

January’s arrest set off similar violence that killed 30 people in Culiacan, including 10 military personnel. The army used Black Hawk helicopter gunships against the cartel’s truck-mounted .50-caliber machine guns. Cartel gunmen hit two military aircraft forcing them to land and sent gunmen to the city’s airport where military and civilian aircraft were hit by gunfire.

The capture came just days before U.S. President Joe Biden visited Mexico for bilateral talks followed by the North American Leaders’ Summit.

On Friday, Garland recognized the law enforcement and military members who had given their lives in the U.S. and Mexico. “The Justice Department will continue to hold accountable those responsible for fueling the opioid epidemic that has devastated too many communities across the country.”

Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said he believed the Mexican government facilitated the extradition, because for someone of Guzmán López’s high profile it usually takes at least two years to win extradition as attorneys make numerous filings as a delaying tactic.

“This happened quicker than normal,” Vigil said, noting that some conservative members of the U.S. Congress had raised the idea of U.S. military intervention if Mexico did not do more to stop the flow of drugs. Vigil dismissed that idea as “political theater,” but suggested it added pressure on Mexico to act.

Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall said in statement that the extradition “is testament to the significance of the ongoing cooperation between the American and Mexican governments on countering narcotics and other vital challenges, and we thank our Mexican counterparts for their partnership in working to safeguard our peoples from violent criminals.”

Sherwood-Randall made multiple visits to Mexico this year to meet with President Andrés Manuel López-Obrador, most recently last month.

In April, U.S. prosecutors unsealed sprawling indictments against Guzmán and his brothers, known collectively as the “Chapitos.” They laid out in detail how following their father’s extradition and eventual life sentence in the U.S., the brothers steered the cartel increasingly into synthetic drugs like methamphetamine and the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.

The indictment unsealed in Manhattan said their goal was to produce huge quantities of fentanyl and sell it at the lowest price. Fentanyl is so cheap to make that the cartel reaps immense profits even wholesaling the drug at 50 cents per pill, prosecutors said. The brothers denied the allegations in a letter.

The Chapitos became known for grotesque violence that appeared to surpass any notions of restraint shown by earlier generations of cartel leaders.

Vigil described Guzmán López as a mid-level leader in the cartel and not even the leader of the brothers.

“It’s a symbolic victory but it’s not going to have any impact whatsoever on the Sinaloa cartel,” he said. “It will continue to function, it will continue to send drugs into the United States, especially being the largest producers of fentanyl.”

Fentanyl has become a top priority in the bilateral security relationship. But López Obrador has described his country as a transit point for precursors coming from China and bound for the U.S., despite assertions by the U.S. government and his own military about fentanyl production in Mexico.

López Obrador blames a deterioration of family values in the U.S. for the high levels of drug addiction in that country.

An estimated 109,680 overdose deaths occurred last year in the United States, according to numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 75,000 of those were linked to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.

Inexpensive fentanyl is increasingly cut into other drugs, often without the buyers’ knowledge.

Mexico’s fentanyl seizures typically come when the drug has already been pressed into pills and is headed for the U.S. border.

U.S. prosecutors allege much of the production occurs in and around Culiacan, where the Sinaloa cartel exerts near complete control.

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September 15, 2023
US: Mexico extradites Ovidio Guzmán López, son of Sinaloa cartel leader ‘El Chapo,’ to United States

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US: Mexico extradites Ovidio Guzmán López, son of Sinaloa cartel leader ‘El Chapo,’ to United States

ByThe Associated Press

September 15, 2023, 8:33 PM

MEXICO CITY — US: Mexico extradites Ovidio Guzmán López, son of Sinaloa cartel leader ‘El Chapo,’ to United States.

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September 15, 2023
Judge sends FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to jail, says crypto mogul tampered with witnesses

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NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried left a federal courtroom in handcuffs Friday when a judge revoked his bail after concluding that the fallen cryptocurrency wiz had repeatedly tried to influence witnesses against him.

Bankman-Fried drooped his head as Judge Lewis A. Kaplan explained at length why he believed the California man had repeatedly pushed the boundaries of his $250 million bail package to a point that Kaplan could no longer ensure the protection of the community, including prosecutors’ witnesses, unless the 31-year-old was behind bars.

After the hearing ended, Bankman-Fried took off his suit jacket and tie and turned his watch and other personal belongings over to his lawyers. The clanging of handcuffs could be heard as his hands were cuffed in front of him. He was then led out of the courtroom by U.S. marshals.

It was a spectacular fall for a man who prosecutors say portrayed himself as “a savior of the cryptocurrency industry” as he testified before Congress and hired celebrities including Larry David, Tom Brady and Stephen Curry to promote his businesses.

Prosecutors said Bankman-Fried stole billions of dollars in FTX customer deposits to fund his businesses and speculative venture investments, make charitable donations and spend tens of millions of dollars on illegal campaign donations to Democrats and Republicans in an attempt to buy influence over cryptocurrency regulation in Washington.

Kaplan said there was probable cause to believe Bankman-Fried had tried to “tamper with witnesses at least twice” since his December arrest, most recently by showing a journalist the private writings of a former girlfriend and key witness against him and in January when he reached out to FTX’s general counsel with an encrypted communication.

The judge said he concluded there was a probability that Bankman-Fried had tried to influence both anticipated trial witnesses “and quite likely others whose names we don’t even know” to get them to “back off, to have them hedge their cooperation with the government.”

The incarceration order signed by the judge said Kaplan found probable cause to believe Bankman-Fried had committed the federal crime of attempted witness tampering.

Bankman-Fried’s lawyers insisted that their client’s motives were innocent and he shouldn’t be jailed for trying to protect his reputation against a barrage of unfavorable news stories.

Attorney Mark Cohen asked the judge to suspend his incarceration order for an immediate appeal, but Kaplan rejected the request. Within an hour, defense lawyers had filed a notice of appeal.

Bankman-Fried was sent for the night to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, which has previously housed convicted “pharma bro” pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli and convicted sex offenders R. Kelly and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Bankman-Fried had been under house arrest at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California, since his December extradition from the Bahamas on charges that he defrauded investors in his businesses and illegally diverted millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency from customers using his FTX exchange.

His bail package severely restricted his internet and phone usage.

The judge noted that the strict rules did not stop him from reaching out in January to a top FTX lawyer, saying he “would really love to reconnect and see if there’s a way for us to have a constructive relationship, use each other as resources when possible, or at least vet things with each other.”

At a February hearing, Kaplan said the communication “suggests to me that maybe he has committed or attempted to commit a federal felony while on release.”

On Friday, Kaplan said he was rejecting defense claims that the communication was benign.

Instead, he said, it seems to be an invitation for the FTX general counsel “to get together with Bankman-Fried” so that their recollections “are on the same page.”

Two weeks ago, prosecutors surprised Bankman-Fried’s attorneys by demanding his incarceration, saying he violated those rules by showing The New York Times the private writings of Caroline Ellison, his former girlfriend and the ex-CEO of Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency trading hedge fund that was one of his businesses.

Prosecutors maintained he was trying to sully her reputation and influence prospective jurors who might be summoned for his October trial by sharing deep thoughts about her job and the romantic relationship she had with Bankman-Fried.

The judge said Friday that the excerpts of Ellison’s communications that Bankman-Fried had shared with a reporter were the kinds of things that somebody who’d been in a relationship with somebody “would be very unlikely to share with anybody, lest The New York Times, except to hurt, discredit, and frighten the subject of the material.”

Ellison pleaded guilty in December to criminal charges carrying a potential penalty of 110 years in prison. She has agreed to testify against Bankman-Fried as part of a deal that could lead to a more lenient sentence.

Bankman-Fried’s lawyers argued he probably failed in a quest to defend his reputation because the article cast Ellison in a sympathetic light. They also said prosecutors exaggerated the role Bankman-Fried had in the article.

They said prosecutors were trying to get their client locked up by offering evidence consisting of “innuendo, speculation, and scant facts.”

Since prosecutors made their detention request, Kaplan had imposed a gag order barring public comments by people participating in the trial, including Bankman-Fried.

David McCraw, a lawyer for the Times, had written to the judge, noting the First Amendment implications of any blanket gag order, as well as public interest in Ellison and her cryptocurrency trading firm.

Ellison confessed to a central role in a scheme defrauding investors of billions of dollars that went undetected, McCraw said.

“It is not surprising that the public wants to know more about who she is and what she did and that news organizations would seek to provide to the public timely, pertinent, and fairly reported information about her, as The Times did in its story,” McCraw said.

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August 11, 2023
Italy approves extradition of priest charged with murder and torture during Argentina dictatorship

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ROME — Italy’s justice minister has approved extraditing an Italian priest sought by Argentina on charges of murder and torture during that country’s last military dictatorship, but the priest has an appeal in Italian courts seeking to block extradition, a lawyer and rights groups said Thursday.

Attorney Arturo Salerni, who represents Argentina, told The Associated Press that Justice Minister Carlo Nordio on Wednesday signed off on the request to extradite the Rev. Franco Reverberi, an 85-year-old priest who served as military chaplain during Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

However, according to an Italian human rights group monitoring the case, Reverberi is appealing his extradition to Italy’s top criminal court and a ruling isn’t expected for weeks.

The Argentine Embassy in Rome issued a statement Thursday evening confirming the approval of the extradition as well as Reverberi’s appeal that has put the process on hold.

Due to a clerical error, the justice minister was unaware of the appeal when he issued his ruling Wednesday, explained Jorge Ithurburu, who represents the March 24 human rights advocacy group. Even if the top court rejects Reverberi’s appeal, the justice minister would have to rule again on his extradition, Ithurburu said.

“The submission of the appeal by the defendant constitutes a legitimate exercise of their right to defense, and this embassy will continue to participate in the extradition trial to obtain the confirmation of the sentence,” Argentina’s embassy said.

The justice ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for details. There was no answer Thursday evening at the office of the Italian lawyer who filed the appeal.

Meanwhile, Reverberi must sign in every day at the local police station in Sorbolo, a small town in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region where he was born and where he occasionally says Mass, Salerni said.

Reverberi, who holds Italian citizenship, is sought for trial in Argentina for charges including the 1976 slaying of 22-year-old José Guillermo Berón and the torture of several other men, Salerni said.

The alleged torture took place in the town of San Rafael, near Mendoza, Argentina, Salerni said.

Reverberi left Argentina in 2011 after the first trial for crimes against humanity carried out during the dictatorship took place in the western Mendoza province and “the testimonies of survivors and family members began to point to his responsibility,” according to Argentina’s government.

“We’re interested (in) where the body was buried,” Ithurburu said in a telephone interview. “We’re hoping the priest would know,” so the family can be informed, he added.

Human rights activists say as many as 30,000 people were killed or disappeared during Argentina’s military dictatorship.

The decision by Italy’s justice ministry “reflects a shared vision by both countries regarding crimes against humanity and a joint commitment to fighting against impunity. Moreover, it sets an important precedent for the bilateral relationship in terms of commitment to memory, truth, and justice,” the Argentine Embassy said.

The Catholic church’s hierarchy in Argentina has been widely criticized for being allied with Argentina’s military regime that ran a campaign to illegally detain and kill people it deemed “subversive.” When Pope St. John Paul II visited the country in 1987, critics lamented his failure to decry church support for military rulers, especially since the pontiff had just arrived from Chile, where he had denounced the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

During the current papacy of Pope Francis, who is Argentine, the Vatican and bishops in his homeland finished cataloging their archives from the military dictatorship with the goal of making them available to victims and their relatives who have long accused church members of being complicit with the military dictatorship.

Reverberi emigrated from Italy to Argentina when he was about seven years old, said Ithurburu. The rights group he heads takes its name from the date March 24 in 1976, when a U.S.-backed coup in Argentina installed a military government.

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Associated Press writers Daniel Politi and Almudena Calatrava in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed to this report.

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August 3, 2023
Sam Bankman-Fried should be jailed until trial, prosecutor says, citing bail violations

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NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Sam Bankman-Fried should be immediately jailed, a prosecutor told a federal judge on Wednesday, saying the FTX founder violated his bail conditions by sharing information with a reporter designed to harass a key witness against him.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon said the government had concluded there were no set of bail conditions that would ensure that Bankman-Fried wouldn’t try to tamper with or influence witnesses.

She said Bankman-Fried should be jailed because he shared personal writings about Caroline Ellison, who was the CEO of Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency hedge fund trading firm that was an offshoot of FTX.

Bankman-Fried is scheduled for trial Oct. 2 in Manhattan on charges that he cheated investors and looted FTX customer deposits. Bankman-Fried has been free on $250 million since his December extradition from the Bahamas, required to remain at his parent’s home in Palo Alto, California. His electronic communications have been severely limited.

Bankman-Fried, 31, has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His lawyer, Mark Cohen, told Judge Lewis A. Kaplan that prosecutors only notified him a minute before the hearing started that they planned to ask for his client’s incarceration.

Cohen asked the judge to let him submit written arguments first if he was inclined to grant the prosecutor’s request. He said his client should not be punished for trying to protect his reputation in the best way he can.

FTX entered bankruptcy in November when the global exchange ran out of money after the equivalent of a bank run.

Ellison pleaded guilty in December to criminal charges that carry a potential penalty of 110 years in prison. She has agreed to testify against Bankman-Fried as part of a deal that could result in leniency.

The prosecutor’s request comes after the government said last week that Bankman-Fried gave some of Ellison’s personal correspondence to The New York Times. This had the effect of harassing her, prosecutors said, and seemed designed to deter other potential trial witnesses from testifying.

Earlier this year, Kaplan had suggested that jailing Bankman-Fried was possible after prosecutors complained that he found ways to get around limits placed on his electronic communications as part of a $250 million personal recognizance bond issued after his December arrest that requires him to live with his parents in Palo Alto, California.

In February, prosecutors said he might have tried to influence a witness when he sent an encrypted message in January over a texting app to a top FTX lawyer, saying he “would really love to reconnect and see if there’s a way for us to have a constructive relationship, use each other as resources when possible, or at least vet things with each other.”

At a February hearing, the judge said prosecutors described things Bankman-Fried had done after his arrest “that suggests to me that maybe he has committed or attempted to commit a federal felony while on release.”

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July 26, 2023
US pilot accused of illegally training Chinese aviators postpones Sydney extradition hearing

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CANBERRA, Australia — A former United States military pilot’s Sydney extradition hearing on U.S. charges, including that he illegally trained Chinese aviators, was postponed Tuesday while authorities investigate the role of an Australian spy agency in his arrest.

Boston-born Dan Duggan, 54, was arrested by Australian police in October near his home, in Orange, New South Wales, and has been fighting extradition to the United States. The former U.S. Marine Corps major and flying instructor maintains he has done nothing wrong and is an innocent victim of a worsening power struggle between Washington and Beijing.

“This is a signal, signal sending. It has nothing to do with me personally,” Duggan told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in a telephone call from maximum-security prison.

“It’s more to do with the signal that they want to send in a geopolitical sense,” he added in an interview broadcast on Monday.

His lawyers successfully applied Tuesday in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court for the extradition hearing to be delayed until Nov. 24 while they await findings about their allegation that Duggan, now an Australian citizen, was illegally lured from China back to Australia in 2022 to be arrested.

Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Christopher Jessup, the regulator of Australia’s six spy agencies, announced in March that he was investigating Duggan’s allegation that the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, known as ASIO, was part of a U.S. ploy to extradite him.

Duggan returned from China to work in Australia after he received an ASIO security clearance for an aviation license. A few days after his arrival, the ASIO clearance was removed, which his lawyers argue made the job opportunity an illegal lure to a U.S. extradition partner country. They expect Jessup’s findings will provide grounds to oppose extradition and apply for his release from prison on bail before the extradition question is resolved.

Duggan’s grounds for resisting extradition include his claim that the prosecution is political and that the crime he is accused of does not exist under Australian law. The extradition treaty between the two countries that has existed since 1976 requires that a suspect can only be extradited for an allegation that is recognized by both countries as a crime.

The Australian government is reviewing laws to ensure former military personnel cannot sell their expertise to the Chinese military.

Saffrine Duggan, Duggan’s wife and mother of their six children, addressed more than 20 supporters who protested outside the court for his release.

“I would never have thought this could ever happen in Australia, let alone to our family,” she said. “My family is brave and strong and so are our friends and so is my husband, but we are all terribly torn apart.”

She complained in February that Australia was holding her husband in inhumane conditions.

Dan Duggan said the Chinese pilots he trained while he was contracted by flying school Test Flying Academy of South Africa in 2011 and 2012 — the period covered by the charges — were civilians, and nothing he taught was classified.

His lawyer, Bernard Collaery, said the Australian and Chinese navies were involved in joint training exercises around the time Duggan was accused of “consorting with the enemy.”

“It’s a double standard, it’s hypocrisy,” Collaery said.

“If Australia does extradite him, we’re liable to see him become a pawn in this China game. It is very worrying,” the lawyer added.

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July 25, 2023
Venezuela’s ex-spy chief Hugo Carvajal being extradited from Spain to U.S. on drug trade charges – lawyer and officials

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Venezuela’s ex-spy chief Hugo Carvajal being extradited from Spain to U.S. on drug trade charges – lawyer and officials

MADRID — Venezuela’s ex-spy chief Hugo Carvajal being extradited from Spain to U.S. on drug trade charges – lawyer and officials.

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July 19, 2023
Former Mozambique finance minister is extradited to the US to face trial over $2 billion scandal

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JOHANNESBURG — A former Mozambique finance minister who has been held in prison in South Africa for nearly five years was extradited Wednesday to the United States to face a fraud and corruption trial over a $2 billion scandal involving fraudulent government loans.

South African authorities said that Manuel Chang, who was Mozambique’s finance minister from 2005 to 2015, was handed over to U.S. authorities after his last-ditch court effort to avoid extradition failed in May.

Chang is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

It brings to an end a nearly five-year legal battle by Chang to avoid facing trial in the U.S. and be extradited instead to his home country, where rights groups have protested that he would likely be treated leniently.

He is accused of receiving bribes of up to $17 million during a scheme that secured loans for Mozambican state-owned companies from foreign banks and financiers for maritime projects. The money was looted through kickbacks and other corrupt dealings, according to U.S. prosecutors.

Chang was indicted in federal court in New York over his involvement in the scheme, which U.S. authorities allege defrauded American and international investors. He has not commented on the charges against him.

The loans totaling $2 billion were intended for the purchase of fishing vessels and naval patrol boats and other resources to help Mozambique’s fishing industry, but it’s alleged that never happened.

“The Ministry of Justice and Correctional Services confirms that the Republic of South Africa’s law enforcement agencies successfully surrendered Mr Manuel Chang to the United States of America on July 12, 2023,” the ministry said.

The scandal caused a financial crisis in Mozambique when the International Monetary Fund withdrew its support for the country after the so-called “hidden debts” were revealed in 2016.

Chang was arrested at the O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg in 2018 on a U.S. warrant.

The Mozambican government’s own attempts to have him face trial in Mozambique have been dismissed by several South African courts.

In 2021, Swiss bank Credit Suisse agreed to pay at least $475 million to British and American authorities to settle bribery and kickback allegations stemming from their involvement with the corrupt loans.

At least 10 people have already been convicted and sentenced to prison by a Mozambican court over the scandal, including Ndambi Guebuza, the son of former Mozambican president Armando Guebuza. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison for receiving up to $33 million from the corrupt deal.

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Associated Press writer Bobby Caina Calvan in New York contributed.

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Associated Press Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

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July 12, 2023
Suspected admin of dark web drug site Monopoly Market extradited to US from Austria

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BERLIN (AP) — Austrian authorities said Monday they have extradited the suspected administrator of a vast dark web marketplace for drugs and other illicit goods to the United States.

The U.S. Department of Justice has accused Milomir Desnica of running the Monopoly Market site and facilitating $18 million in illegal drug transactions using cryptocurrencies.

Authorities in the U.S. and Europe last month announced the arrest of nearly 300 people on both sides of the Atlantic and the seizure of more than $53 million in a bust of the site, which was the largest operation of its kind. The dark web is a part of the internet that is hosted within an encrypted network and accessible only through specialized anonymity-providing tools.

Austria’s main center-left opposition party has reversed the result of its weekend leadership election, announcing that a computer error originally led to the wrong candidate being declared the winner.

An Austrian federal court says the state can’t be held liable for a COVID-19 infection from an outbreak at an Alpine ski resort as the coronavirus pandemic hit Europe The Supreme Court of Justice on Thursday announced its verdict in a long-running legal battle involving a German resident who travele

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer conducted her second international trade mission of the year this week, spending two days in Austria and Latvia meeting with both business and government leaders.

Jessica Pegula sent the U.S. into the Billie Jean King Cup finals with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Julia Grabher of Austria.

Desnica, a citizen of Croatia and Serbia, was arrested in Vienna last November and handed over to U.S. authorities Friday, Austria’s Federal Criminal Police said.

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June 26, 2023
Danish prosecutors approve the extradition of a man suspected in a 1995 arms smuggling case in India

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Denmark’s top prosecuting authority says it has approved the extradition of a Danish national accused of involvement in an arms smuggling case in India 28 years ago, but that a court of law must make the final decision

FILE – Niels Holck smiles outside the Eastern High Court in Copenhagen, Denmark on June 30, 2011. Denmark’s top prosecuting authority said Friday June 23, 2023 that Danish national Niels Holck, accused of involvement in an arms smuggling case 28 years ago can be extradited to India but that a court of law in the Scandinavian country must take the final decision. (Ilan Brander/POLFOTO via AP, File)

The Associated Press

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Denmark’s top prosecuting authority said Friday that it has approved the extradition to India of a Danish national accused of involvement in an arms smuggling case 28 years ago, but that a court of law must make the final decision.

Niels Holck has admitted taking part in dropping assault rifles, rocket launchers and missiles from a cargo plane in eastern India in 1995. Indian police said they were meant for an Indian revolutionary group.

While a Briton and a five Latvians were arrested by Indian authorities, Holck — previously known as Niels Christian Nielsen — escaped.

Prosecutor Henriette Rosenborg Larsen said that Denmark has looked into a 2016 Indian extradition request and that “it is our assessment that the requirements in the extradition act have been met.”

It is now up to a district court to decide whether he should be extradited, and any such ruling can be appealed to a higher court, she added.

If Holck is extradited and convicted in India, he will serve any prison sentence in Denmark, Rosenborg Larsen said.

India first asked Denmark to extradite Holck, who is now in his early 60s, in 2002. The government agreed, but two Danish courts overturned the extradition decision, saying he would risk torture or other inhumane treatment in India. That led to tense diplomatic relations between the countries.

Seven years ago, Danish authorities said they had received another extradition request from India.

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June 23, 2023
Germany frees driver sought by Italy in death of cyclist Rebellin pending extradition ruling

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German prosecutors say a truck driver wanted by Italy in connection with a crash last year that killed professional cyclist Davide Rebellin has been released from jail pending a decision on his extradition

FILE – Italy’s Davide Rebellin of the Serramenti team celebrates as he wins the 73rd Walloon Arrow cycling race in Huy, Belgium on April. 22, 2009. German prosecutors say a truck driver wanted by Italy in connection with a crash last year that killed professional cyclist Davide Rebellin has been released from jail pending a decision on his extradition. Wolfgang Rieke is accused of road homicide and leaving the scene of a crash. German authorities said he surrendered last Thursday, June 15, 2023, in the western town of Rheine. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)

The Associated Press

BERLIN — German prosecutors say a truck driver wanted by Italy in connection with a crash last year that killed professional cyclist Davide Rebellin has been released from jail pending a decision on his extradition.

Wolfgang Rieke is accused of road homicide and leaving the scene of a crash. German authorities said he surrendered last Thursday in the western town of Rheine.

A spokesperson for the regional prosecutors’ office in Hamm, Daniel Dependahl, said the driver’s release was normal in cases in which there is no flight risk. It didn’t prejudge the extradition decision, which could take several months, he said.

Rebellin, one of cycling’s longest-competing professionals, was killed Nov. 30 during a training run near the northern Italian town of Montebello Vicentino. At the time, Italian media reported the truck that struck him hadn’t stopped. But prosecutors, citing roadside video and witness photos, said the driver stopped, got out of the cab and approached Rebellin, and then got back in the truck and left the scene.

Rebellin had retired from professional cycling only a month before the crash, ending a 30-year career with his final team, Work Service-Vitalcare-Dynatek. Rebellin’s successes included victories at Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico as well as winning a stage in the 1996 edition of the Giro d’Italia, which he also led for six stages.

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June 21, 2023
Rwanda genocide suspect to claim asylum in South Africa, lawyer says, complicating extradition

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CAPE TOWN, South Africa — One of the last remaining suspects accused of orchestrating the brutal massacres of the Rwandan genocide nearly 30 years ago plans to apply for political asylum in South Africa, his lawyer said Tuesday.

The U.N. tribunal charged Kayishema in 2001 with being a central figure in the slaughter of more than 2,000 people seeking refuge at a church.

Now 62 years old, he was arrested last month in the small town of Paarl near Cape Town, South Africa, having been on the run for half his life.

More than 800,000 people were killed when militias made up mainly of members of Rwanda’s Hutu ethnic group turned on their Tutsi neighbors. The killings, an attempt to wipe out the minority Tutsis, were triggered on April 6, 1994, when a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down, killing him.

Kayishema is accused of being one of the leaders of a Hutu mob that killed Tutsi men, women and children who were hiding in the Catholic church to escape the sudden eruption of violence. Kayishema and others tried to burn down the church and, when that failed, they used a bulldozer to smash it down, crushing to death the Tutsis inside, according to the charges against him.

Ultimately, more than 2,000 people were killed in and around the church, the genocide indictment against Kayishema says.

The U.N. tribunal wants Kayishema to be sent to one of the seats of the tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, and then to Rwanda for trial, but it’s unclear how long it would take for South Africa to extradite him.

Following his May 24 arrest, Kayishema also was charged in South Africa with 54 counts of immigration offenses and fraud. He allegedly used fake names and other falsified information to acquire documents to enter and live in South Africa, where he had been for at least 20 years, according to the charges filed by prosecutors.

He appeared in court Tuesday for that case. The proceedings could have delayed his extradition even if Kayishema did not intend to seek asylum, a move that requires further proceedings.

His lawyer, Juan Smuts, told reporters Tuesday that Kayishema left Rwanda in 1994 “out of fear for his life.”

He hid in at least three other African countries — Congo, Mozambique and Tanzania — before arriving in South Africa sometime between 2000 and 2002, Smuts said, adding that Kayishema was 62 years old and not 61, as South African police previously stated.

Smuts said the immigration and fraud case against Kayishema would have to be put on hold while his application for asylum was considered. South African prosecuting authority spokesman Eric Ntabazalila disputed that and said the asylum claim had no bearing on Kayishema’s criminal case.

However, any extradition will likely be delayed for at least two months after the judge postponed Kayishema’s South African court case until Aug. 18. He has not entered a plea on any of the charges and remains jailed.

The massacre at the Nyange church in western Rwanda was one of many horrific episodes in the 1994 genocide. A memorial to the victims now stands in place of the church.

Aloys Rwamasirabo, who lived in the Nyange area and knew Kayishema, survived the massacre but said nine of his children were killed. Rwamasirabo said Kayishema, who held the rank of police inspector at the time, ordered many of the killings.

“My wish is that he is brought back to Rwanda (to) face justice in the presence of survivors whom he committed crimes against,” Rwamasirabo said. “He carried a lot of power, and his orders were obeyed.”

Kayishema didn’t speak during his latest court hearing and stood and faced the judge through most of it while surrounded by seven armed police officers. But he smiled, waved and gave a thumbs-up to some of his family members sitting in the courtroom.

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Associated Press writer Ignatius Ssuna in Kigali, Rwanda, contributed to this report.

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More AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

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June 20, 2023
2 men who helped run popular pirating website Megaupload sentenced to prison in New Zealand

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WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Two men who helped run the once wildly popular pirating website Megaupload were each sentenced by a New Zealand court on Thursday to more than two years in prison.

The sentencing of Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk ended an 11-year legal battle by the men to avoid extradition to the United States on more serious charges that included racketeering.

The men last year struck a deal with prosecutors from New Zealand and the U.S. in which they pleaded guilty to being part of a criminal group and causing artists to lose money by deception.

Meanwhile Kim Dotcom, the founder of Megaupload, is continuing to fight the U.S. charges and threat of extradition. He has said he expects his former colleagues to testify against him as part of the deal they struck.

U.S. prosecutors say Megaupload raked in at least $175 million — mainly from people who used the site to illegally download songs, television shows and movies -— before the FBI shut it down in early 2012 and arrested Dotcom and other company officers.

Ortmann was sentenced to 2 years and 7 months while van der Kolk was sentenced to 2 years and 6 months. Each had faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison but argued they should be allowed to serve their sentences in home detention.

New Zealand Judge Sally Fitzgerald made the unusual decision to allow both men to delay serving their sentences until August on humanitarian grounds because Ortmann is expecting the birth of a child and van der Kolk’s mother is ill, news website Stuff reported.

Fitzgerald said that while the victims of Megaupload included wealthy multinational film and music companies, they also included small companies like a New Zealand software firm, Stuff reported.

Dotcom tweeted Thursday that the sentences amounted to a slap on the wrist and showed the desperation of U.S. prosecutors in the case. He said he’s been advised the men will be eligible for parole after 10 months.

“They will serve less than a year instead of the 185 years we were charged with,” Dotcom tweeted. “Good for them.”

After their 2012 arrest, Dotcom and the other two men set up a legitimate cloud-storage website called Mega. Dotcom soon sold his stake in the company and had a falling out with the other men.

Lawyers for Dotcom and the other men had long argued that if anybody was guilty in the case, it was the users of the Megaupload site who chose to pirate material, not the founders. But prosecutors argued the men were the architects of a vast criminal enterprise.

U.S. prosecutors had earlier sought the extradition of a fourth officer of the company, Finn Batato, who was also arrested in New Zealand in 2012. Batato returned to Germany, where he died last year from cancer.

In 2015, Megaupload computer programmer Andrus Nomm of Estonia pleaded guilty in the case to conspiring to commit felony copyright infringement and was sentenced to one year and one day in U.S. federal prison.

New Zealand’s Supreme Court has ruled that Dotcom can be extradited to the U.S. But New Zealand’s justice minister has yet to make a final decision on whether the extradition will go ahead. That decision could be appealed, taking still more time in the slow-moving New Zealand legal system.

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June 16, 2023
Erdogan says no change in Turkey’s stance on Sweden’s NATO membership

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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that NATO should not bet on his country approving Sweden’s application to join the Western military alliance before a July summit because the Nordic nation has not fully addressed his security concerns.

Sweden and Finland applied for membership together following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. Finland became NATO’s 31st member in April after the Turkish parliament ratified its request, but Turkey has held off approving Sweden’s bid.

NATO wants to bring Sweden into the fold by the time the leaders of member nations meet for a summit in Lithuania’s capital on July 11-12. Speaking to journalists on his way back from a state visit to Azerbaijan on Tuesday, Erdogan said Turkey’s attitude to the accession was not “positive.”

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency and other media reported Erdogan’s comments as senior officials from NATO, Sweden, Finland and Turkey met in Ankara on Wednesday. The officials were scheduled to discuss what Finland and Sweden have done to address Turkey’s concerns over alleged terrorist organizations.

Erdogan said the Turkish delegation at the meeting “will give this message: ‘This is our president’s opinion, don’t expect anything different at Vilnius,’” Lithuania’s capital.

Turkey’s government accuses Sweden of being too lenient toward groups that Ankara says pose a security threat, including militant Kurdish groups and people associated with a 2016 coup attempt.

A series of separate demonstrations in Stockholm, including a protest by an anti-Islam activist who burned the Quran outside the Turkish Embassy, also angered Turkish officials.

Speaking in Sweden’s parliament, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson called the Ankara meeting “very important.” Kristersson reiterated that his government had done what it promised in an agreement last year that was intended to secure Turkey’s ratification of the country’s NATO membership.

However, Erdogan remained unsatisfied. He said he told NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg last week, “If you expect us to respond to Sweden’s expectations, first of all, Sweden must destroy what this terrorist organization has done.” He was referring to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a group that has waged a separatist insurgency in Turkey.

Erdogan said that pro-Kurdish and anti-NATO rallies also took place in Stockholm while he was holding talks with Stoltenberg in Istanbul.

NATO requires the unanimous approval of all existing members to expand, and Turkey and Hungary are the only countries that have not yet ratified Sweden’s request to join. Erdogan said he planned to attend the July summit in Lithuania unless “extraordinary” circumstances arise.

On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after meeting with Stoltenberg that it was “time to welcome Sweden” into the alliance, arguing that Stockholm had “an important and I think very appropriate process on its accession to address appropriate concerns of other allies.”

Stoltenberg said: “We all of course look forward to welcoming Sweden as a member of the alliance as soon as possible.”

Sweden has amended its constitution and strengthened its anti-terror laws since it applied to join NATO just over a year ago. This week, the Swedish government also decided to extradite a Turkish citizen resident in Sweden who was convicted for drug offenses in Turkey in 2013.

It was not immediately clear if the man, who was not identified publicly, was among the main individuals for whom Turkey sought extradition.

Sweden and Finland applied to become NATO members in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, abandoning decades of nonalignment.

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June 14, 2023
Main suspect in 2005 disappearance of U.S. student Natalee Holloway departs Peru on extradition flight to United States

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Main suspect in 2005 disappearance of U.S. student Natalee Holloway departs Peru on extradition flight to United States

LIMA, Peru — Main suspect in 2005 disappearance of U.S. student Natalee Holloway departs Peru on extradition flight to United States.

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June 8, 2023
Peruvian judge affirms extradition to US of chief suspect in Natalee Holloway disappearance

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LIMA, Peru — A Peruvian judge on Tuesday affirmed this week’s planned extradition to the U.S. of the main suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of American student Natalee Holloway.

The judge’s ruling came less than 24 hours after the attorney for Dutchman Joran van der Sloot filed a writ of habeas corpus in an attempt to stop the custody transfer. Magistrate Elmer Morales informed the suspect of his decision in writing.

Law enforcement authorities scheduled the extradition for Thursday.

Van der Sloot’s attorney, Máximo Altez, filed the challenge Monday after his client changed his mind and decided to fight the government’s decision to send him to the U.S. to be prosecuted on wire fraud and extortion charges.

Van der Sloot earlier had indicated he wouldn’t challenge the extradition, but Altez said his client changed his mind after a meeting with Dutch diplomats. The lawyer argued in the habeas corpus challenge that van der Sloot hadn’t been properly notified about the extradition process.

Van der Sloot had arrived Saturday at a corrections facility in Lima, the capital, after a long ground trip under strict security measures from a prison in the Andes, where he was serving a 28-year sentence for the murder of a Peruvian woman.

The government of Peru announced May 10 that it would temporarily transfer custody of van der Sloot to authorities in the U.S. to face trial there.

Holloway, who lived in suburban Birmingham, Alabama, was 18 when she was last seen during a trip with classmates to the Caribbean island of Aruba. She was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot, who was a student at an international school on the island.

Van der Sloot was identified as a suspect and detained weeks later, along with two Surinamese brothers. Holloway’s body was never found, and no charges were filed in the case. A judge later declared Holloway dead.

The federal charges filed in Alabama against van der Sloot stem from an accusation that he tried to extort the Holloway family in 2010, promising to lead them to her body in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars. A grand jury indicted him that year on one count each of wire fraud and extortion.

Also in 2010, van der Sloot was arrested in Peru for the murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores, a business student from a prominent family who was killed five years to the day after Holloway’s disappearance. Van der Sloot pleaded guilty in Flores’ case in 2012.

A 2001 treaty between Peru and the U.S. allows a suspect to be temporarily extradited to face trial in the other country. The time that van der Sloot ends up spending in the U.S. “will be extended until the conclusion of the criminal proceedings,” including the appeal process should there be one, according to a resolution published in the South American country’s federal register. The resolution also states that U.S. authorities agreed to return the suspect to the custody of Peru afterward.

The young woman’s mother, Beth Holloway, in a statement released after Peruvian authorities agreed to the extradition last month said the family is “finally getting justice for Natalee.”

“It has been a very long and painful journey, but the persistence of many is going to pay off,” Beth Holloway said.

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June 6, 2023