ReportWire

Tag: Organized crime

  • 2.5M Genworth policyholders and 769K retired California workers and beneficiaries affected by hack

    2.5M Genworth policyholders and 769K retired California workers and beneficiaries affected by hack

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The country’s largest public pension fund says the personal information of about 769,000 retired California employees and other beneficiaries — including Social Security numbers — was among data stolen by Russian cybercriminals in the breach of a popular file-transfer application.

    It blamed the breach on a third-party vendor that verifies deaths. The same vendor, PBI Research Services/Berwyn Group, also lost the personal data of at least 2.5 million Genworth Financial policyholders, including Social Security numbers, to the same criminal gang, according to the Fortune 500 insurer.

    The California Public Employees Reitrement system said they were offering affected members two years of free credit monitoring. Genworth said in a statement posted online it would offer credit monitoring and ID theft protection.

    The breach of the MOVEit file-transfer program, discovered last month, is estimated by cybersecurity experts to have compromised hundreds of organizations globally. Confirmed victims include the U.S. Department of Energy and several other federal agencies, more than 9 million motorists in Oregon and Louisiana, Johns Hopkins University, Ernst & Young, the BBC and British Airways.

    The criminal gang behind the hack, known as Cl0p, is extorting victims, threatening to dump their data online if they don’t pay up.

    Genworth disclosed the hack of the MOVEit instance managed by PBI Research in a June 16 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    Minnesota-based PBI Research did not immediately return a phone message seeking details on which of its other customers may have been affected. The company’s website lists the Nevada, New Jersey and Tennessee public pension funds as among customers of its mortality verification service.

    “This external breach of information is inexcusable,” CalPERS CEO Marcie Frost said in a news release. “Our members deserve better. As soon as we learned about what happened, we took fast action to protect our members’ financial interests, as well as steps to ensure long-term protections.”

    CalPERS had more than $442 billion in assets as of Dec. 31 and about 1.5 million members.

    Security experts say such so-called supply-chain hacks expose an uncomfortable truth about the software organizations use: Network security is only as strong as the weakest digital link in the ecosystem.

    The stolen data included names, birth dates and Social Security numbers — and might also include names of spouses or domestic partners and children, officials said. CalPERS planned to send letters Thursday to those affected by the breach.

    CalPERS said PBI notified it of the breach on June 6, the same day cybersecurity firms began to issue reports on the breach of MOVEit, whose maker, Ipswitch, is owned by Progress Software.

    PBI reported the breach to federal law enforcement, and CalPERS placed “additional safeguards” to protect the information of retirees who use the member benefits website and visit a regional office, officials said. The agency did not elaborate on those safeguards, citing security reasons.

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    Bajak reported from Boston.

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    Sophie Austin is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on Twitter: @sophieadanna

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  • 41 women die in grisly riot in Honduran prison that president blames on ‘mara’ gangs

    41 women die in grisly riot in Honduran prison that president blames on ‘mara’ gangs

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    TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — A grisly riot at a women’s prison in Honduras Tuesday left at least 41 women dead, most burned to death, in violence the country’s president blamed on the “mara” street gangs that often wield broad power inside penitentiaries.

    Most victims were burned but there also were reports of inmates shot or stabbed at the prison in Tamara, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, said Yuri Mora, the spokesman for Honduras’ national police investigation agency.

    At least seven female inmates were being treated at a Tegucigalpa hospital for gunshot and knife wounds, employees there said.

    “The forensic teams that are removing bodies confirm they have counted 41,” said Mora.

    Local media interviewed one injured inmate outside the hospital who said prisoners belonging to the feared Barrio 18 gang burst into a cell block and shot other inmates or set them afire.

    Honduran President Xiomara Castro said the riot was “planned by maras with the knowledge and acquiescence of security authorities.”

    “I am going to take drastic measures!” Castro wrote in her social media accounts.

    Julissa Villanueva, head of the country’s prison system, suggested the riot started because of recent attempts by authorities to crack down on illicit activity inside prisons and called Tuesday’s violence a reaction to moves “we are taking against organized crime.”

    “We will not back down,” Villanueva said in a televised address after the riot.

    Gangs wield broad control inside the country’s prisons, where inmates often set their own rules and sell prohibited goods.

    The riot appears to be the worst tragedy at a female detention center in Central America since 2017, when girls at a shelter for troubled youths in Guatemala set fire to mattresses to protest rapes and other mistreatment at the badly overcrowded institution. The ensuing smoke and fire killed 41 girls.

    The worst prison disaster in a century also occurred in Honduras, in 2012 at the Comayagua penitentiary, where 361 inmates died in a fire possibly caused by a match, cigarette or some other open flame.

    Tuesday’s riot may increase the pressure on Honduras to emulate the drastic zero-tolerance, no-privileges prisons set in up in neighboring El Salvador by President Nayib Bukele. While El Salvador’s crackdown on gangs has given rise to rights violations, it has also proved immensely popular in a country long terrorized by street gangs.

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  • Ugandan border town prepares to bury victims of rebel massacre that left 42 dead, mostly students

    Ugandan border town prepares to bury victims of rebel massacre that left 42 dead, mostly students

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    KAMPALA, Uganda — A bereaved Ugandan border town on Sunday prepared to bury victims of a brutal attack by suspected extremist rebels on a school that left 42 dead, most of them students, as security forces stepped up patrols along the frontier with volatile eastern Congo.

    One of eight people wounded in Friday night’s attack, in which 38 students were killed, died overnight, said Mpondwe-Lhubiriha Mayor Selevest Mapoze.

    “Most of the relatives have come to take their bodies” from the morgue, he said.

    Some students were burned beyond recognition, and others were shot or hacked to death after militants armed with guns and machetes attacked Lhubiriha Secondary School, co-ed and privately owned, which is located about 2 kilometers (just over a mile) from the Congo border. Ugandan authorities believe at least six students were abducted, taken as porters back inside Congo.

    In addition to the 38 students, the victims include a school guard and three civilians.

    U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack in a statement, urging “the importance of collective efforts, including through enhanced regional partnerships, to tackle cross-border insecurity between (Congo) and Uganda and restore durable peace in the area.”

    The atmosphere in Mpondwe-Lhubiriha was tense but calm Sunday as Ugandan security forces roamed the streets outside and near the school, which was protected by a police cordon.

    Ugandan security forces have not given a detailed account of how the rebels, active in eastern Congo, were able to carry out the attack. The group, known as the Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, rarely claims responsibility for attacks. It has established ties with the Islamic State group.

    The ADF has been accused of launching many attacks in recent years targeting civilians in remote parts of eastern Congo, including one in March in which 19 people were killed.

    The ADF has long opposed the rule of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a U.S. security ally who has held power in this East African country since 1986.

    The group was established in the early 1990s by some Ugandan Muslims, who said they had been sidelined by Museveni’s policies. At the time, the rebels staged deadly attacks in Ugandan villages as well as in the capital, including a 1998 attack in which 80 students were massacred in a town not far from Friday’s raid.

    The attack followed the same playbook: violence against students. The attackers targeted two dormitories, using extreme force when the boys resisted, according to Ugandan officials.

    “This terrorist group couldn’t enter, so they threw in a bomb, they threw in a petrol bomb,” said Education Minister Janet Museveni, who also is Uganda’s first lady. “So, these children were burnt.”

    Students have been attacked because schools are considered soft targets, pupils are sometimes recruited into rebels ranks or used to carry food and supplies for insurgents, and such raids provide media coverage coveted by extremists.

    The raid appears to have taken Ugandan authorities by surprise, and first responders arrived after the attackers had left.

    Some villagers have temporarily moved away from the Mpondwe-Lhubiriha community, fearing more attacks, Mapoze said.

    The border is porous, with multiple footpaths not monitored by authorities. Many parts of eastern Congo are lawless, allowing groups like the ADF to operate because the central government in Kinshasa, the capital, has limited authority there.

    But attacks by the ADF on the Ugandan side of the border are rare, thanks in part to the presence of an alpine brigade of Ugandan troops in the region. Ugandan forces have been deployed to eastern Congo since 2021 under a military operation to hunt ADF militants down and stop them from attacking civilians across the border.

    The deployment of Ugandan troops inside Congo followed attacks in which at least four civilians were killed when suicide bombers believed to be members of the ADF detonated their explosives at two locations in Kampala, the capital, in November 2021. One attack happened near the Parliament building and the second near a busy police station.

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  • At least 25 killed in rebel attack on Ugandan school near Congo border

    At least 25 killed in rebel attack on Ugandan school near Congo border

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    KAMPALA, Uganda — Suspected Ugandan rebels with ties to the Islamic State group attacked a school near the Congo border, killing at least 25 people, abducting others and setting a dormitory on fire, officials said Saturday.

    Police said the rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces, who have been launching attacks for years from their bases in volatile eastern Congo, carried out the raid late Friday on Lhubiriha Secondary School in the border town of Mpondwe.

    The school, co-ed and privately owned, is located in the Ugandan district of Kasese, about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the Congo border.

    “A dormitory was set on fire and a food store looted. So far 25 bodies have been recovered from the school and transferred to Bwera Hospital,” police said in a statement, adding that eight others were in critical condition.

    A government official and a military spokesman said others were abducted.

    It was not immediately clear if all of the victims were students.

    Police said Ugandan troops tracked the attackers into Congo’s Virunga National Park. The military confirmed in a statement that Ugandan troops inside Congo “are pursuing the enemy to rescue those abducted.”

    Joe Walusimbi, an official representing Uganda’s president in Kasese, told The Associated Press over the phone that authorities were trying to verify the number of victims and those abducted.

    “Some bodies were burnt beyond recognition,” he said.

    Winnie Kiiza, an influential political leader and a former lawmaker from the region, condemned the “cowardly attack” on Twitter. She said “attacks on schools are unacceptable and are a grave violation of children’s rights,” adding that schools should always be “a safe place for every student.”

    The Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, has been accused of launching many attacks in recent years, targeting civilians, in remote parts of eastern Congo.

    The ADF has long opposed the rule of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a U.S. security ally who has been in power since 1986.

    The group was established in the early 1990s by some Ugandan Muslims, who said they had been sidelined by Museveni’s policies. At the time, the rebels staged deadly attacks in Ugandan villages as well as in the capital, including a 1998 attack in which 80 students were massacred in a town not from the scene of the latest attack.

    A Ugandan military assault later forced the ADF into eastern Congo, where many rebel groups are able to operate because the central government has limited control there.

    The group has since established ties with the Islamic State group.

    In March , at least 19 people were killed in Congo by suspected ADF extremists.

    Ugandan authorities for years have vowed to track down ADF militants even outside Ugandan territory. In 2021, Uganda launched joint air and artillery strikes in Congo against the group.

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  • Energy Department among federal agencies breached by Russian ransomware gang

    Energy Department among federal agencies breached by Russian ransomware gang

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    The Department of Energy and several other federal agencies were compromised in a Russian cyber-extortion gang’s global hack of a file-transfer program popular with corporations and governments, but the impact was not expected to be great, Homeland Security officials said Thursday.

    But for others among what could be hundreds of victims from industry to higher education — including patrons of at least two state motor vehicle agencies — the hack was beginning to show some serious impacts.

    Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told reporters that unlike the meticulous, stealthy SolarWinds hacking campaign attributed to state-backed Russian intelligence agents that was months in the making, this campaign was short, relatively superficial and caught quickly.

    “Based on discussions we have had with industry partners … these intrusions are not being leveraged to gain broader access, to gain persistence into targeted systems, or to steal specific high value information— in sum, as we understand it, this attack is largely an opportunistic one,” Easterly said.

    “Although we are very concerned about this campaign and working on it with urgency, this is not a campaign like SolarWinds that presents a systemic risk to our national security or our nation’s networks,” she added.

    A senior CISA official said neither the U.S. military nor intelligence community was affected. Energy Department spokesperson Chad Smith said two agency entities were compromised but did not provide more detail.

    Known victims to date include Louisiana’s Office of Motor Vehicles, Oregon’s Department of Transportation, the Nova Scotia provincial government, British Airways, the British Broadcasting Company and the U.K. drugstore chain Boots. The exploited program, MOVEit, is widely used by businesses to securely share files. Security experts say that can include sensitive financial and insurance data.

    Louisiana officials said Thursday that people with a driver’s license or vehicle registration in the state likely had their personal information exposed. That included their name, address, Social Security number and birthdate. They encouraged Louisiana residents to freeze their credit to guard against identity theft.

    The Oregon Department of Transportation confirmed Thursday that the attackers accessed personal information, some sensitive, for about 3.5 million people to whom the state issued identity cards or driver’s licenses.

    The Cl0p ransomware syndicate behind the hack announced last week on its dark web site that its victims, who it suggested numbered in the hundreds, had until Wednesday to get in touch to negotiate a ransom or risk having sensitive stolen data dumped online.

    The gang, among the world’s most prolific cybercrime syndicates, also claimed it would delete any data stolen from governments, cities and police departments.

    The senior CISA official told reporters a “small number” of federal agencies were hit — declining to name them — and said “this is not a widespread campaign affecting a large number of federal agencies.” The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the breach, said no federal agencies had received extortion demands and no data from an affected federal agency had been leaked online by Cl0p.

    U.S. officials “have no evidence to suggest coordination between Cl0p and the Russian government,” the official said.

    The parent company of MOVIEit’s U.S. maker, Progress Software, alerted customers to the breach on May 31 and issued a patch. But cybersecurity researchers say scores if not hundreds of companies could by then have had sensitive data quietly exfiltrated.

    “At this point, we are seeing industry estimates of several hundred of victims across the country,” the senior CISA official said. Federal officials encouraged victims to come forward, but they often don’t. The U.S. lacks a federal data breach law, and disclosure of hacks varies by state. Publicly traded corporations, health care providers and some critical infrastructure purveyors do have regulatory obligations.

    The cybersecurity firm SecurityScorecard says it detected 2,500 vulnerable MOVEit servers across 790 organizations, including 200 government agencies. It said it was not able to break down those agencies by country.

    The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in the Treasury Department uses MOVEit, according to federal contracting data. Spokeswoman Stephanie Collins said the agency was aware of the hack and has been monitoring the situation closely. She said it was “conducting detailed forensic analysis of system activity and has not found any indications of a breach of sensitive information.” She would not say how the agency uses the file-transfer program.

    The hackers were actively scanning for targets, penetrating them and stealing data at least as far back as March 29, said SecurityScorecard threat analyst Jared Smith.

    This is far from the first time Cl0p has breached a file-transfer program to gain access to data it could then use to extort companies. Other instances include GoAnywhere servers in early 2023 and Accellion File Transfer Application devices in 2020 and 2021.

    The Associated Press emailed Cl0p on Thursday asking what government agencies it had hacked. It did not receive a response, but the gang posted a new message on its dark web leak site saying: “We got a lot of emails about government data, we don’t have it we have completely deleted this information we are only interested in business.”

    Cybersecurity experts say the Cl0p criminals are not to be trusted to keep their word. Allan Liska of the firm Recorded Future has said he is aware of at least three cases in which data stolen by ransomware crooks appeared on the dark web six to 10 months after victims paid ransoms.

    —

    AP reporters Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Eugene Johnson in Seattle and Nomaan Merchant and Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • Somali security forces end hourslong extremist attack on Mogadishu hotel, state media says

    Somali security forces end hourslong extremist attack on Mogadishu hotel, state media says

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    State media in Somalia are reporting that security forces have ended an hourslong extremist attack on a beachside hotel in the capital, Mogadishu, that began Friday night

    ByOMAR FARUK Associated Press

    Destroyed tuktuk is seen outside the Pearl Beach hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, Saturday, June. 10, 2023. Witnesses and state media in Somalia say extremists have attacked the beachside hotel in the capital, Mogadishu, and security forces are responding at the site as some people remain trapped inside.(AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)

    The Associated Press

    MOGADISHU, Somalia — Security forces in Somalia have ended an hourslong extremist attack on a beachside hotel in the capital, Mogadishu, state media reported Saturday.

    There was no immediate official word on any deaths.

    Al-Qaida’s East Africa affiliate, al-Shabab, claimed responsibility for the attack, which began Friday night. The Somalia-based extremist group is known for carrying out attacks on hotels and other high-profile locations in Mogadishu, usually starting with a suicide bombing.

    Witnesses had told The Associated Press that some people were trapped inside the Pearl Beach hotel, which is popular with government officials. The Lido Beach area is one of Mogadishu’s most popular.

    An eyewitness, Abdulle Ali, who went to the scene to look for a missing relative, told the AP that he saw four bodies being put into an ambulance. They all appeared to be civilians, he said.

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  • Oath Keepers convicted in Jan. 6 Capitol riot get prison in latest extremist sentencings

    Oath Keepers convicted in Jan. 6 Capitol riot get prison in latest extremist sentencings

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    WASHINGTON — Two Florida men who stormed the U.S. Capitol with other members of the far-right Oath Keepers group were sentenced Friday to three years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other charges — the latest in a historic string of sentences in the Jan. 6. 2021 attack.

    David Moerschel, 45, a neurophysiologist from Punta Gorda, and Joseph Hackett, a 52-year-old chiropractor from Sarasota, were convicted in January alongside other members of the antigovernment extremist group for their roles in what prosecutors described as a violent plot to stop the transfer power from former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden after the 2020 election.

    Both men were among the lower-level members charged with seditious conspiracy. Moerschel was sentenced to three years in prison and Hackett got three and a half years.

    All told, nine people associated with the Oath Keepers have been tried for seditious conspiracy and six were convicted of the rarely used Civil War-era charge in two separate trials, including the group’s founder Stewart Rhodes. Rhodes was sentenced last week to 18 years in prison — a record for a Jan. 6 defendant. Three defendants were cleared of the sedition charge but found guilty of other Jan. 6 crimes.

    Moerschel and Hackett helped amass guns and ammunition to stash in a Virginia hotel for a so-called “quick reaction force” that could be quickly shuttled to Washington, prosecutors said. The weapons were never deployed. Moerschel provided an AR-15 and a Glock semi-automatic handgun and Hackett helped transport weapons, prosecutors said.

    On Jan. 6, both men dressed in paramilitary gear and marched into the Capitol with fellow Oath Keepers in a military-style line formation, charging documents stated.

    “The security of our country and the safety of democracy should not hinge on the impulses of madmen,” Justice Department prosecutor Troy Edwards said.

    Moerschel told the judge he was deeply ashamed of forcing his way into the Capitol and joining the riot that seriously injured police officers and sent staffers running in fear.

    “When I was on the stairs, your honor, I felt like God said to me, ‘Get out here.’ And I didn’t,” he said in court, his voice cracking with emotion. “I disobeyed God and I broke laws.”

    Moerschel was a neurophysiologist who monitored surgical patients under anesthesia before his arrest, though he’s since been fired and now works in construction and landscaping. A former missionary, he is married with three children.

    Hackett similarly said he remembered feeling horrified as stepped foot in the Capitol that day: “I truly am sorry for my part in causing so much misery,” he said.

    He originally joined the group after seeing vandalism at a commercial area near his house during the summer of 2020, when protests against police brutality were common, his attorney Angela Halim said. “He did not join this organization because he shared any beliefs of Stewart Rhodes,” she said.

    Still, he later attended an “unconventional warfare” training, and in the leadup to Jan. 6 he repeatedly warned other Oath Keepers about “leaks” and the need to secure their communications, and later changed his online screen names, authorities have said.

    “Taken together, his messages show he perceived the election as an existential threat,” said prosecutor Alexandra Hughes.

    How the chiropractor and father ended up storming the Capitol, though, is “hard to wrap one’s head around,” said U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta. The group’s increasingly heated online conversations and false claims of a stolen election “can suck you in like a vortex make and make it very difficult to get out.”

    Neither man was a top leader in the group, and both left shortly after Jan. 6. Both sentences were far lower than the 12 years prosecutors sought for Hackett and 10 for Moreschel.

    Moreschel was in the Capitol for about 12 minutes, and didn’t do anything violent or scream at police officers, Mehta noted. He also handed his guns over to police.

    “Sentencing shouldn’t be vengeful, it shouldn’t be such that it is unduly harsh simply for the sake of being harsh,” said the judge, who also imposed a three-year term of supervised release for both men.

    Moerschel’s attorneys had asked for home confinement, arguing that he joined the Oath Keepers chats shortly before the riot and was not a leader.

    “He was just in the back following the crowd,” attorney Scott Weinberg told the judge.

    Defense attorneys have long said there was never a plan to attack the Capitol and prosecutors’ case was largely built on online messages cherry-picked out of context.

    The charges against leaders of the Oath Keepers and another far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys, are among the most serious brought in the Justice Department’s sprawling riot investigation. Prosecutors have also won seditious conspiracy convictions in the case against former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and three other group leaders in what prosecutors said was a separate plot to keep Trump in the White House.

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  • Panama launches operation in Darien jungle targeting organized crime, migrant smugglers

    Panama launches operation in Darien jungle targeting organized crime, migrant smugglers

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    Panama has launched a security operation along its shared border with Colombia to combat organized crime groups and migrant smugglers involved in record-setting migration through the perilous Darien Gap this year

    ByJUAN ZAMORANO Associated Press

    Panamanian border police attend a launch ceremony for Operation Shield in Nicanor, Darien province, Panama, Friday, June 2, 2023. Security officials said Operation Shield is part of the agreement reached with the governments of Colombia and the United States in April to stop the flow of migrants through the border’s jungle-clad mountains known as the Darien Gap. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)

    The Associated Press

    NICANOR, Panama — Panama launched a security operation along its shared border with Colombia on Friday to combat criminal gangs and migrant smugglers involved in record-setting migration through the perilous Darien Gap this year.

    Security officials said Operation Shield is part of the agreement reached with the governments of Colombia and the United States in April to stop the flow of migrants through the border’s jungle-clad mountains.

    Panama will use previously U.S.-donated helicopters to increase aerial patrols of the largely roadless region, but stressed that it was a Panamanian operation. The government will also send more special border police units into the area to try to root out the criminal gangs.

    “This is an action by the Panamanian government against criminals who are earning fortunes from human pain,” Panama Security Minister Juan Manuel Pino said.

    Some 1,200 immigration agents, border police and members of the naval air service will participate. Pino denied that the operation represented the militarization of the Darien.

    Earlier this week, authorities said border police had killed three suspected bandits in a shootout in Darien.

    Officials dismissed any suggestion of closing the border. It was the first visible example of the efforts promised by the three governments.

    Last year, nearly 250,000 people crossed the Darien Gap, nearly double the 133,000 who crossed in 2021, and a new record. That increase was driven largely by Venezuelans, who accounted for some 60% of the migrants crossing there last year.

    In April, the United Nations warned that the unprecedented number of crossings to start the year suggested that some 400,000 migrants could cross this year. According to government data, nearly 170,000 migrants crossed the Darien in the first four months of the year, five times the number from the same period last year.

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  • Lebanese army court charges 5 men allegedly linked to Hezbollah for Irish peacekeeper’s death

    Lebanese army court charges 5 men allegedly linked to Hezbollah for Irish peacekeeper’s death

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    BEIRUT — Lebanon’s military tribunal on Thursday charged five men with the killing of an Irish U.N. peacekeeper in December, a senior judicial official said. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, alleged all five are linked with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

    The indictment followed a half-year probe after an attack on a U.N. peacekeeping convoy near the town of Al-Aqbiya in Lebanon’s south, a stronghold of Hezbollah. The shooting resulted in the death of Pvt. Seán Rooney, 24, of Newtown Cunningham, Ireland, and seriously wounded Pvt. Shane Kearney, 22. The wounded peacekeeper was medically evacuated to Ireland. Two other Irish soldiers sustained light injuries.

    The indictment includes evidence from bystanders’ testimonies, as well as audio recordings and video footage from surveillance cameras, the Lebanese official said. In some of the recordings of the confrontation, the gunmen reportedly could be heard telling the peacekeepers that they are from Hezbollah.

    Hezbollah has denied any role in the killing, and a spokesperson for the group declined to comment on the indictments Thursday.

    One of five indicted, Mohamad Ayyad, is currently in custody of Lebanese authorities. The four others facing charges – Ali Khalifeh, Ali Salman, Hussein Salman, and Mustafa Salman – are at large.

    On the fatal night, Rooney and several other Irish soldiers with the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, UNIFIL, were on their way from their base in the south to the Beirut airport. Two U.N. vehicles apparently took a detour through Al-Aqbiya, which is not part of the area under the peacekeepers’ mandate.

    Initial reports said angry residents confronted the peacekeepers, but the indictment concludes that the shooting was a targeted attack. The U.N. peacekeeper vehicle reportedly took a wrong turn and was surrounded by vehicles and armed men as they tried to make their way back to the main road.

    UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said the indictment was an “important step towards justice”.

    “Attacks on men and women serving the cause of peace are serious crimes and can never be tolerated,” Tenenti told the AP. “We look forward to justice for Private Rooney, his injured colleagues, and their families.”

    UNIFIL was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion. The U.N. expanded its mission following the 2006 war between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah, allowing peacekeepers to deploy along the Israeli border to help the Lebanese military extend its authority into the country’s south for the first time in decades.

    Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon frequently accuse the U.N. mission of collusion with Israel, while Israel has accused the peacekeepers of turning a blind eye to Hezbollah’s military activities in southern Lebanon.

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    Associated Press writer Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.

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  • Supreme Court avoids ruling on law shielding internet companies from being sued for what users post

    Supreme Court avoids ruling on law shielding internet companies from being sued for what users post

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    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with Google, Twitter and Facebook in lawsuits seeking to hold them liable for terrorist attacks. But the justices sidestepped the big issue hovering over the cases, the federal law that shields social media companies from being sued over content posted by others.

    The justices unanimously rejected a lawsuit alleging that the companies allowed their platforms to be used to aid and abet an attack at a Turkish nightclub that killed 39 people in 2017.

    In the case of an American college student who was killed in an Islamic State terrorist attack in Paris in 2015, a unanimous court returned the case to a lower court, but said there appeared to be little, if anything, left of it.

    The high court initially took up the Google case to decide whether the companies’ legal shield for the social media posts of others, contained in a 1996 law known as Section 230, is too broad.

    Instead, though, the court said it was not necessary to reach that issue because there is little tying Google to responsibility for the Paris attack.

    “We therefore decline to address the application of Section 230 to a complaint that appears to state little, if any, plausible claim for relief,” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion.

    The outcome is, at least for now, a victory for the tech industry, which predicted havoc on the internet if Google lost. But the high court remains free to take up the issue in a later case.

    Anna Diakun, staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

    “The Court will eventually have to answer some important questions that it avoided in today’s opinions. Questions about the scope of platforms’ immunity under Section 230 are consequential and will certainly come up soon in other cases,” Anna Diakun, staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in an emailed statement.

    The families of victims in both attacks asserted that the internet giants did not do enough to prevent their platforms from being used by extremist groups to radicalize and recruit people.

    They sued under a federal law that allows Americans injured by a terrorist attack abroad to seek money damages in federal court.

    The family of a victim in the bombing of the Reina nightclub in Istanbul claimed that the companies assisted in the growth of the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for the attack.

    But writing for the court, Justice Clarence Thomas said the family’s “claims fall far short of plausibly alleging that defendants aided and abetted the Reina attack.”

    In the Paris attack, the family of college student raised similar claims against Google over her killing at a Paris bistro, in an assault also claimed by the Islamic State. That was one of several attacks on a June night in the French capital that left 130 people dead.

    The family wants to sue Google for YouTube videos they said helped attract IS recruits and radicalize them. Google owns YouTube.

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that most of the claims were barred by the internet immunity law.

    The Supreme Court’s decision in October to review that ruling set off alarm at Google and other technology companies. “If we undo Section 230, that would break a lot of the internet tools,” Kent Walker, Google’s top lawyer, said.

    Yelp, Reddit, Microsoft, Craigslist, Twitter and Facebook were among the companies warning that searches for jobs, restaurants and merchandise could be restricted if those social media platforms had to worry about being sued over the recommendations they provide and their users want.

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  • UN chief in Jamaica urges international response to Haiti’s spiraling crisis

    UN chief in Jamaica urges international response to Haiti’s spiraling crisis

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    SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — U.N. Secretary General António Guterres warned Monday that Haiti’s “tragic situation” is threatening the security of the Caribbean region and beyond as he pressed the international community for a response.

    Guterres spoke after meeting behind closed doors with Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness in his first visit to the island, which comes more than three months after Holness announced that his government was willing to send soldiers and police officers to Haiti as part of a proposed international armed forces deployment.

    Guterres noted that no other country has stepped forward despite the plea from Haiti’s prime minister and other top officials last October for the immediate deployment of an international force to fight a surge in gang violence.

    “We are kind of in a stalemate right now,” he said, adding that it’s been difficult to mobilize the will of countries who could best lead such an operation.

    Holness, who visited Haiti in February as part of a regional push to help mediate the country’s crisis, said countries that would support such a deployment want to first see political consensus in Haiti and a timeframe for ending the proposed deployment.

    “It is not that our pleas have fallen on deaf ears,” he said. “It is being heard to and listened to. The question is the pace of action.”

    Haiti’s capital and surrounding areas have largely succumbed to warring gangs that have invaded neighborhoods and killed people in a fight to control more territory, with the U.N. estimating that they now control up to 80% of Port-au-Prince.

    The violence has worsened since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. More than 840 people were killed in the first three months of this year, in addition to more than 600 people slain in the month of April alone, according to the U.N. More than 400 people also have been kidnapped so far this year.

    “You have dramatic humanitarian needs. You have a political system that is paralyzed, and you have levels of violence by gangs that are absolutely appalling,” Guterres said.

    He previously said that insecurity in Haiti had reached “levels comparable to countries in armed conflict.”

    The deaths have prompted a growing number of angry and frustrated Haitians to unleash gruesome vigilante justice, lynching at least 164 alleged gang members last month, according to the U.N.

    Frantz Elbé, director of Haiti’s National Police, said in a video posted on social media Saturday that officers are fighting gangs, seizing weapons and releasing hostages, but he did not provide any figures.

    The U.N. has noted that just over 13,000 officers are on active duty in a country of more than 11 million people, with at least 21 police officers reported killed in the first three months of this year.

    “I want to once again ask the international community to understand that an effective solidarity with Haiti is not only a matter of generosity,” Guterres said. “It’s essentially a matter of enlightened self-interest because the present situation in Haiti reflects a threat, a threat to the security of the whole region and further afield.”

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  • Alleged killer of Iraqi security analyst sentenced to death

    Alleged killer of Iraqi security analyst sentenced to death

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    BAGHDAD — An Iraqi court on Sunday issued a death sentence against the alleged killer of a prominent Iraqi security analyst known for his expertise on the Islamic State group, nearly three years after his assassination amid threats from militias.

    A criminal court convicted of a terrorism charge and sentenced to death police officer Ahmed Hamdawi al-Kinani for the killing of Hisham al-Hashimi, according to a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council. A video of al-Kinani appearing to confess to his purported involvement in the crime was released shortly after his arrest two years ago, but many say he had the backing of armed groups.

    A relative of al-Hashimi’s said the family supported the verdict, but said those who ordered the assassination should be brought to justice in addition to those who carried it out.

    “Until now, we have not learned who is backing the killer of Hisham al-Hashimi and who gave the orders to execute,” the relative said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to fear of armed groups.

    The family expressed concern over Sunday’s sentence being pardoned or commuted at the Court of Cassation, which the case has been referred to.

    Al-Hashimi, 47, was gunned down in July 2020 in front of his home in Baghdad by two attackers on a motorcycle after receiving threats from Iran-backed militias. His killing was captured on surveillance footage and sent a chilling effect through the nation already experiencing a climate of fear amongst activists who accused the government of failing to reign in the powerful armed groups.

    A regular commentator on television, al-Hashimi become well-known in Iraq and abroad as an expert on the inner workings of the Islamic State group and advised the U.S.-led coalition during its years of long battle with the extremists.

    Following the territorial defeat of IS in December 2017, he became an outspoken voice criticizing the growing influence of some of the Iran-backed militias that helped to defeat IS.

    Al-Kinani identified himself as a police officer with the rank of first lieutenant in the Interior Ministry in the video aired on state media in 2021. Shortly after his arrest, two security officials speaking on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that he was connected to a militia group but did not specify which one.

    His purported confession did not acknowledge any links to armed groups.

    After Sunday’s ruling, the case will be referred to the Court of Cassation, which is a judicial body that considers the ruling.

    Many government and security personnel have links to the rival powerful militias that have varying degrees of incorporation into the Iraqi state. For this reason, successive governments have been criticized for allowing them to operate with impunity.

    The killings of activists and other critical voices became pervasive in Iraq during a crackdown on a mass protest movement that erupted in 2019, with many blaming Iran-backed militias. Al-Hashimi had reportedly received multiple threats from such groups in the period before his death.

    —

    Mosimann reported from Irbil, Iraq.

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  • Erdogan says Turkish forces killed IS chief in Syria

    Erdogan says Turkish forces killed IS chief in Syria

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    ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish forces have killed the leader of the Islamic State group during an operation in Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said late Sunday.

    Recep Tayyip Erdogan told TRT Turk television in an interview that the IS leader, code-named Abu Hussein al-Qurayshi, was killed in a strike conducted on Saturday.

    Erdogan said the Turkish intelligence agency, MIT, had been following him “for a long time.”

    “We will continue our struggle against terrorist organizations without discriminating against any of them,” Erdogan said in the interview.

    There was no immediate confirmation from the IS group.

    Turkey has conducted numerous operations against IS and Kurdish groups along the Syrian border, capturing or killing suspected militants. The country controls large swaths of territory in northern Syria following a series of land incursions to drive Kurdish groups away from the Turkish-Syrian border.

    Abu Hussein al-Qurayshi was named leader of the militant group after its previous chief was killed in October, with an IS spokesman calling him “one of the veteran warriors and one of the loyal sons of the Islamic State.”

    He took over leadership of IS at a time when the extremist group has lost control of the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria. However, he had been trying to rise again, with sleeper cells carrying out deadly attacks in both countries.

    Islamic State founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was hunted down by U.S. forces in a raid in northwest Syria in October 2019. His successor, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed in a similar raid in February 2022. He was followed by Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, who according to the U.S. military was killed in mid-October in an operation by Syrian rebels in Syria’s southern province of Daraa.

    None of the al-Qurayshis are believed to be related. Al-Qurayshi is not their real name but comes from Quraish, the name of the tribe to which Islam’s Prophet Muhammad belonged. IS claims its leaders hail from this tribe and “al-Qurayshi” serves as part of an IS leader’s nom de guerre.

    The Islamic State group broke away from al-Qaida about a decade ago and ended up controlling large parts of northern and eastern Syria as well as northern and western Iraq. In 2014, the extremists declared their so-called caliphate, attracting supporters from around the world.

    In the following years, they claimed attacks throughout the world that killed and wounded hundreds of people before coming under attack from different sides. In March 2019, U.S.-backed Syrian fighters captured the last sliver of land the extremists once held in Syria’s eastern province of Deir el-Zour that borders Iraq.

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  • Italy wants to build the world’s longest suspension bridge. The Mafia and geography might make that difficult | CNN

    Italy wants to build the world’s longest suspension bridge. The Mafia and geography might make that difficult | CNN

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    Rome
    CNN
     — 

    There is a popular saying in Italian – similar to how Anglophones use “when hell freezes over” – that translates as “I’ll do it when the bridge to Messina is finished.”

    The dream of a bridge connecting the mainland to Sicily across the Straits of Messina goes back to Roman times, when Consul Metellus strung together barrels and wood to move 100 war elephants from Carthage to Rome in 252 BCE, according to writings by Pliny the Elder.

    Since then, various plans, including a short-lived idea for a tunnel, have come and gone – like water under the bridge.

    If built, the bridge across the Straits of Messina would span two miles (3.2 kilometers) and would be the longest suspension bridge in the world.

    Now the massive engineering project might actually be realized, thanks to a decree passed by the government of Giorgia Meloni last month after Transport Minister Matteo Salvini revived a plan last pushed forward when Silvio Berlusconi was prime minister.

    In 2006, the bid to build the bridge was awarded to a consortium led by the Italian firm Salini Impregilo, now called WeBuild. When Berlusconi’s government fell that year, the plans to build the bridge collapsed with his government after the next prime minister, Romano Prodi, deemed it a waste of money and a risk to the environment.

    Since then, various governments have tried to revive it, and the current ruling coalition under Meloni, Salvini and Berlusconi put it on their list of campaign promises. When Salvini became transport minister, he made it his priority, betting his legacy on the bridge.

    WeBuild, which still has the bid award on paper, sued the government for breach of contract after the project was paused, but it remains the most likely company to be given the job back despite “expressions of interest from all over the world, including China,” Salvini told the Foreign Press Association in Rome in March when he presented the plan.

    “The ones who won the 2006 tender are the ones who will most likely continue with the final version of the project,” he said, without naming WeBuild directly.

    WeBuild’s engineering director, Michele Longo, was invited to parliament to talk about the revived plan April 18.

    “The bridge over the Strait of Messina is a project that can break ground immediately. As soon as the contract is reinstated and updated, the project can start,” Longo told parliament. “The executive design is expected to take eight months, while the time needed to build the bridge will be a little more than six years.”

    The cost of the project is 4.5 billion euros ($4.96 billion) for the bridge alone and 6.75 billion euros ($7.4 billion) for the infrastructure to support it on both sides, which includes upgrading road and rail links, building terminals and doing the prep work on the land and seabed to “reduce hydrogeological risks” during construction, according to the plan presented to the transportation ministry.

    Since 1965, 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in public funds has already been spent on feasibility studies, according to Italian treasury department. Salvini is fond of saying it will cost more “not to build the bridge than build it.”

    The plans may seem well advanced but the challenges are complex.

    Southern Italy is prone to corruption with two major organized crime syndicates – the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta and the Sicilian Cosa Nostra – excelling in infiltrating construction projects.

    The recent arrest of Cosa Nostra boss Matteo Messina Denaro after 30 years on the lam in Sicily represented a victory.

    Denaro was against the building of the bridge, as are some other mob bosses, according to testimony from informants who contributed to Denaro’s arrest, in part because the organized crime syndicates feed off poverty and underdevelopment.

    Despite this, fears remain. An anti-Mafia from study from the Nomos Centre think tank published 20 years ago and now being updated warned parts of the project, such as transport and supply could fall under criminal control, as well as there being the possibility local mobs could demand protection money.

    Salvini has played down concerns. “I’m not afraid of criminal infiltration,” he told parliament recently, “we will be able to guarantee that the best Italian, European and global companies work there. There will be supervisory bodies that we are working on for every euro invested on the bridge.”

    There are also geophysical problems that may be even more difficult to contend with.

    The government says it will provide a huge boost to the local economy but the scheme faces many challenges.

    The Strait of Messina is along a fault line where a 7.1 earthquake in 1908, killed more than 100,000 people and spawned tsunamis that devastated the coastal areas on both the Calabrian and Sicilian sides of the water. It remains the deadliest recorded seismic event in Europe to date.

    The waters, too, are turbulent. Currents are so strong they often rip seaweed off the seabed, and they change every six hours, according to NASA, which notes that the strong wave patterns are visible from space.

    Under WeBuild’s original plan, which is the only one currently under consideration since bids have not been, and may not be, opened, the bridge deck would be built to withstand winds of up to 300 kilometers an hour – and could stay open to traffic with winds up to 150 kilometers an hour.

    There would be three vehicle lanes in each direction – two for traffic, and one for emergency, with train lines in the middle. Under the current plan, 6,000 cars and trucks could pass each hour, and 200 trains could pass each day.

    The bridge would be around 74 meters above sea level and allow a navigation channel of 600 meters, allowing cargo vessels and even the tallest cruise ships to pass. It would also be designed to withstand a 7.5 magnitude earthquake, slightly stronger than the devastating one in 1908.

    The construction phase alone would contribute 2.9 billion euros to the national GDP and employ 100,000 people and 300 suppliers, Longo told parliament, adding “most of these people would come from the regions of Sicily and Calabria where there the rates of unemployment are high.”

    On the geographical challenges, Longo told CNN it is “one of the most dynamic straits of water anywhere between the depths and currents, but it is also one of the most studied areas. There millions of pages of studies dedicated to this area. We’ve read them all.” On the dangers of organized crime getting involved he said “nothing is impossible, but this is low risk.”

    Environmentalists have long argued the bridge would be devastating to the terrain and wildlife.

    “In the Strait of Messina, a very important place of transit for birds and marine mammals, one of the highest concentrations of biodiversity in the world is concentrated,” a spokesperson for the group Legambiente says, adding that the bridge – both during and after construction – would disrupt migration routes between the Africa and Europe.

    The World Wildlife Fund has also campaigned against reviving the project. “The entire Strait of Messina area is a protected area under the EU Habitats Directive,” WWF Institutional Relations director Stefano Lenzi said in a statement. Back in 2006, before the plan was shelved, the group was preparing a lawsuit to try to stop it for breaching European Union protected areas.

    Salvini unveiling the bridge scheme in March.

    The environmental groups contend that the half-hour ferry is the least disruptive route.

    The post-bridge impact to the economy would be unarguably high, Salvini insists, saying that cargo ships from Asia could dock in Sicily and those goods could be transported on high-speed trains to Europe, once high-speed rails are built on Sicily – although they do not currently exist.

    Public opinion on both sides of the straits remains mixed, with those in a position to prosper through increased trade and easier tourism generally in support of it and those who don’t mind keeping Sicily isolated largely against it.

    The bridge has never been as close to being built as it is now, after Meloni signed the decree to pave the way for concrete plans to be put in place. The decree will become law in June, and Salvini said he hopes to break ground by July 2024.

    The Straits of Messina have long been equated with troubled waters. Homer created the sea monsters’ den for Scylla and Charybdis there for a reason. And while the only monsters might be ecological and criminal, there is little question that no matter when it happens, the dream for some of building the bridge to Messina won’t be put to rest until it’s finished.

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  • Telegram app back on in Brazil after judge lifts suspension

    Telegram app back on in Brazil after judge lifts suspension

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    RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — The Telegram messaging app was up and running in Brazil on Saturday after a federal judge revised an earlier ruling suspending it over the company’s failure to hand over data on neo-Nazi activity.

    But in lifting the suspension, the judge kept in place a daily fine of $1 million reais (about $200,000) for Telegram’s refusal to provide the data, according to a press statement provided by the federal court that issued the ruling.

    Complete suspension “is not reasonable, considering the wide affectation throughout the national territory of the freedom of communication of thousands of people who are absolutely strangers to the facts under investigation,” judge Flávio Lucas was quoted as saying in the statement.

    Telegram had been temporarily suspended in the context of a police inquiry into school shootings in November, when a former student armed with a semiautomatic pistol and wearing a bulletproof vest fatally shot three people and wounded 13 after barging into two schools in the small town of Aracruz in Espirito Santo state.

    The 16-year-old is believed to have been a member of extremist groups on Telegram, where tutorials on murder and the manufacture of bombs were disseminated, the court’s statement said.

    The Federal Police ordered Telegram to provide details on names, tax identity numbers, profile photos, bank information and registered credit cards, among other things.

    The messaging app has not delivered the registration data of the channel members, saying the extremist group had been suspended and therefore it was unable to provide the information. Police maintain the group was active on Telegram when the request was formalized, the court statement said.

    Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said Thursday that the company would appeal the decision blocking access to its platform in Brazil, claiming in a statement posted to his Telegram account that compliance was “technologically impossible.”

    The company says it has never shared data on users with any government.

    People need only a phone number to sign up for a Telegram account and they can use a pseudonym. Further, beginning in December, Telegram offered the option of creating accounts with anonymous numbers

    The court statement noted Telegram’s “past clashes with the judiciary” in Brazil. Last year, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered a nationwide shutdown of Telegram, arguing it hadn’t cooperated with authorities.

    “Technology companies need to understand that cyberspace cannot be a free territory, a different world (…) with its own rules created and managed by the agents who commercially exploit it,” Lucas, the judge in the current case, said in Saturday’s statement.

    Brazil has been grappling with a wave of school attacks. There have been almost two dozen attacks or violent episodes in schools since 2000, half of them in the last 12 months, including the killing of four children at a day care center April 5.

    Brazil’s federal government has strived to stamp out school violence with a particular focus on the influence of social media. The goal is to prevent further incidents, particularly holding platforms responsible for failing to remove content that allegedly incites violence.

    Regulation of social media platforms was a recurring theme earlier this month when President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met with his Cabinet ministers, Supreme Court justices, governors and mayors.

    Telegram has been blocked in the past by other governments, including Iran, China and Russia, while in the latter country Kremlin partisans have also employed it as a digital force to support President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Because Telegram is so loosely moderated, it has become extremely popular with outlaws.

    Security researchers and intelligence agencies regularly track certain Telegram groups, focusing on ransomware gangs and other cybercriminals, so-called “patriotic hackers” allied with Russia’s government, disinformation purveyors, terrorist groups and others inciting violence.

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  • Mob kills 13 suspected Haiti gangsters with gas-soaked tires

    Mob kills 13 suspected Haiti gangsters with gas-soaked tires

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    PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A mob in the Haitian capital beat and burned 13 suspected gang members to death with gasoline-soaked tires Monday after pulling the men from police custody at a traffic stop, police and witnesses said.

    The horrific vigilante violence underlined public anger over the increasingly lawless situation in Port-au-Prince where criminal gangs have taken control over an estimated 60% of the city since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

    Six more burned bodies were laid in a nearby neighborhood later Monday, and some witnesses said that police killed them and residents set them on fire, but the AP could not verify the accounts independently.

    Haiti National Police said in a brief statement that officers in the city’s Canape Vert section stopped and searched a minibus for contraband early Monday, and had confiscated weapons from suspects before they were “unfortunately lynched by members of the population.” The statement did not elaborate on how members of the crowd were able to take control of the suspects.

    A witness who gave his name as Edner Samuel told The Associated Press that members of the crowd took the suspected gangsters away from police, beat them and stoned them before putting tires on them, pouring gasoline over them and burning them.

    An AP reporter at the scene saw 13 bodies burning in a street.

    The fires drew hundreds of onlookers in the hilly suburb of the city, many of them shielding their noses from the fumes. The Canape Vert neighborhood so far has managed to evade control by the criminal gangs.

    Samuel said the suspects were believed to have been heading to another area to join a group of gang members who were battling police. Another witness, Jean Josue, said there had been a lot of shooting in the area since the early morning.

    The situation in the capital was tense, and shots could be heard ringing out from several neighborhoods.

    In the nearby area of Turgeau, a few minutes drive from Canape Vert, witnesses said that police had killed six gang suspects in a firefight, and that local residents dragged the bodies from where they fell to a central location and lit them on fire.

    An AP reporter saw the six burned bodies. Police did not release any statements about the violence in Turgeau.

    Prime Minster Ariel Henry tweeted that his government expresses its sympathy to the police officers injured in recent operations.

    “I applaud the considerable and meritorious efforts of the National Police to restore order and peace in our cities and neighborhoods,” he tweeted. “There is still a lot to do.”

    Witnesses in Canape Vert said the suspects there were believed to have been members of the Kraze Barye gang, which translates to “Breaking Barriers.” Authorities say the group is led by Vitel’Homme Innocent, who is accused of helping kidnap 17 U.S. missionaries in October 2021 and also is linked to the assassination of Moïse.

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  • UN chief: Haiti’s gang violence nears conflict, help needed

    UN chief: Haiti’s gang violence nears conflict, help needed

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    UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations chief urged the immediate deployment of an international armed force in Haiti to stem escalating gang violence and the country’s worst human rights crisis in decades, warning in a new report that insecurity in the capital “has reached levels comparable to countries in armed conflict.”

    Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued an urgent appeal for a specialized armed force to stop the crisis in Latin America’s poorest country last October at the request of Prime Minister Ariel Henry and the country’s Council of Ministers.

    But at a U.N. Security Council meeting in January neither the United States, which has been criticized for previous interventions in Haiti, nor Canada showed any interest in leading such a force, and there are no signs that opposition has changed. The international community has instead opted to impose sanctions and send military equipment and other resources.

    Guterres reiterated in a report to the Security Council circulated Monday that deploying an international force remains “crucial” to help Haitian authorities curb the violence and rights abuses, restore the rule of law, and create conditions for the holding of national elections. The council is scheduled to discuss the report on Wednesday.

    Haiti’s beleaguered National Police Force is facing increasing attacks resulting in growing rates of officers abandoning their posts, absent, retiring and more recently applying to humanitarian parole programs in the United States, the secretary-general said. The programs are open to Haitians seeking safe haven due to conditions in the country.

    “Since the beginning of 2023, 22 police officers have been killed by gangs,” Guterres said. “These trends are expected to accelerate unless efforts are redoubled to urgently equip and train police, recruit new officers and improve working conditions to retain existing personnel.”

    As of March 31, he said, the national police force stood at 14,772 officers but according to the police administration only about 13,200 personnel are available for active duties because of desertions, suspensions due to investigations, and other absences.

    Since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, Haiti’s gangs have grown more powerful and violent. In December, the U.N. estimated that gangs controlled 60% of Haiti’s capital, but most people on the streets in Port-au-Prince say that number is closer to 100%.

    “Rough estimates by the national police indicate that there are currently seven major gang coalitions and approximately 200 affiliated groups,” Guterres said. “Gangs ambushed and attacked national police infrastructure, causing serious damage to several police facilities and burning others to the ground.”

    Compounding the gang warfare is the country’s political crisis: Haiti was stripped of all democratically elected institutions when the terms of the remaining 10 senators expired in early January.

    Secretary-General Guterres said in the report that Haiti is facing escalating kidnappings and violent crimes committed by gangs competing to expand territorial control throughout the capital Port-au-Prince. He said the violence has spread to previously unaffected neighborhoods and several municipalities in the Artibonite region, which is north of the West region where Port-au-Prince is located.

    He said that during the first quarter of 2023 reported homicides rose by 21% to 815 cases from 673 during the last quarter of 2022 while kidnappings increased by 63% to 637 during the same period from 391 in the last three months of 2022.

    “The human rights situation of those living in gang-controlled areas remains appallingly poor,” he said, pointing to killings, attacks, sexual violence and snipers on rooftops frequently firing at people in their homes and on the streets. In their pursuit of more territory, he said, gangs also continued to use rape and other forms of sexual violence “to instill fear and assert control over communities” with women and girls disproportionately affected.

    Calling the socio-economic outlook for Haiti “dire,” Guterres cited a World Bank forecast that the economy is expected to contract for the fifth year by 1.1% in 2022-2023. He also warned that food insecurity is at “an all-time high” with 4.9 million Haitians in serious and critical states of malnutrition, “which is four times more than in 2017.”

    On the political front, the secretary-general said action to address gang violence must be accompanied by concrete steps to resolve the political crisis.

    He expressed hope that the three-member High Transitional Council installed in February “will help to generate the consensus required to find a way out of the political crisis” though his report cites calls for broadening efforts to reach agreement on a road map to elections.

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  • Prosecutor: Proud Boys viewed themselves as ‘Trump’s army’

    Prosecutor: Proud Boys viewed themselves as ‘Trump’s army’

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    WASHINGTON — Ready for “all-out war,” leaders of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group viewed themselves as foot soldiers fighting for Donald Trump as the former president clung to power after the 2020 election, a prosecutor said Monday at the close of a historic trial over the U.S. Capitol insurrection.

    Jurors began hearing attorneys’ closing arguments for the case against former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants. They are charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a plot to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory on Jan. 6, 2021, when the pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol.

    Proud Boys were “lined up behind Donald Trump and willing to commit violence on his behalf,” prosecutor Conor Mulroe told jurors, who heard more than three months of testimony. “These defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it.”

    The prosecution’s words underscore how the Justice Department has worked throughout the trial to link the violence on Jan. 6 to the rhetoric and actions of the former president. Prosecutors have repeatedly shown jurors a video clip of Trump telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during his first presidential debate with Joe Biden.

    Defense attorneys have said there is no evidence or a conspiracy or a plan for Proud Boys to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

    Mulroe said a conspiracy can be an unspoken and implicit “mutual understanding, reached with a wink and a nod.” A “plan,” he added, isn’t the right word for what this case is about.

    Tarrio is one of the top targets of the Justice Department’s investigation of the riot that erupted at the Capitol. Tarrio wasn’t in Washington, D.C., that day but is accused of orchestrating an attack from afar.

    The Justice Department has already secured seditious conspiracy convictions against the founder and members of another far-right extremist group, the Oath Keepers. But this is the first major trial involving leaders of the far-right Proud Boys, a neofacist group of self-described “Western chauvinists” that remains a force in mainstream Republican circles.

    Seditious conspiracy, a Civil War-era charge that is rare and can be difficult to prove, carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison. The Proud Boys also face other serious charges.

    Jurors have heard 50 days of testimony by more than three dozen witnesses since the trial started in January. Two of the five defendants testified, but Tarrio wasn’t one of them.

    The foundation of the government’s case is a trove of messages that Proud Boys leaders and members privately exchanged in encrypted chats — and publicly posted on social media — before, during and after the Jan. 6 attack.

    The messages show Proud Boys celebrating when Trump, a Republican, told the group to “stand back and stand by” during his first debate with Biden, a Democrat. After the 2020 election, they discussed plans to travel to Washington for Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6. And they raged online for weeks about baseless claims of a stolen election and what would happen when Biden took office.

    “If Biden steals this election, (the Proud Boys) will be political prisoners,” Tarrio posted on Nov. 16, 2020. “We won’t go quietly … I promise.”

    Jurors also saw the string of gleeful messages that Proud Boys members posted during the Jan. 6 riot. A group of Proud Boys marched to the Capitol that day. Some entered the building after the mob of Trump supporters overwhelmed police lines.

    “Make no mistake,” Tarrio wrote in one message. “We did this.”

    Tarrio, a Miami resident, is on trial with Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. Nordean, of Auburn, Wash., was a Proud Boys chapter president. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Fla., was a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Rehl was president of a Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia. Pezzola was a Proud Boys member from Rochester, N.Y.

    Tarrio was arrested in Washington two days before the Jan. 6 riot on charges that he burned a church’s Black Lives Matter banner during an earlier march in the city. Tarrio heeded a judge’s order to leave the nation’s capital after his arrest.

    The defense attorneys called several current and former Proud Boys to the stand, trying to portray the group as a drinking club that only engaged in violence for self-defense against antifascist activists.

    Rehl, the first defendant to testify, said the group had “no objective” that day. Pezzola testified that he got “caught up in the craziness” and acted alone on Jan. 6 when he used a riot shield stolen from a police officer to smash a Capitol window.

    Prosecutors have argued that Tarrio and the others mobilized a loyal group of foot soldiers — or “tools” — to supply the force necessary to carry out their plot. Mulroe said the Proud Boys leaders wanted to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory “by any means necessary, including force.”

    “You want to call this a drinking club? You want to call a men’s fraternal organization? Ladies and gentlemen, let’s call this what it is … a violent gang that came together to use force against its enemies” the prosecutor said.

    Key witnesses for prosecutors included two former Proud Boys members who pleaded guilty to riot-related charges and are cooperating with the government in the hopes of getting lighter sentences.

    The first, Matthew Greene, testified that group members were expecting a “civil war” as they grew increasingly angry about the election results. The second, Jeremy Bertino, testified that he viewed the Proud Boys as leaders of the conservative movement and as “the tip of the spear” after the November 2020 election.

    The Proud Boys’ defense mirrored arguments made by lawyers for members of the Oath Keepers, who were separately charged with seditious conspiracy. They, too, said there was no evidence of a plan for group members to attack the Capitol.

    Several Oath Keepers — including the antigovernment group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes — also took the witness stand in their trials, with mixed results. Over the course of two Oath Keepers trials, prosecutors secured seditious conspiracy convictions against Rhodes and five other members, while three defendants were acquitted of the charge. Those three, however, were convicted of obstructing Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Capitol insurrection at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege.

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  • Curfew in Jamica district after gunmen wound 7 boarding bus

    Curfew in Jamica district after gunmen wound 7 boarding bus

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    Police are enforcing a curfew in a community on the southern fringes of Jamaica’s capital after gunmen fired on people boarding a public minibus, wounding seven, including three children

    KINGSTON, Jamaica — Police enforced a curfew in a community on the southern fringes of Jamaica’s capital Saturday after gunmen fired on people boarding a public minibus, wounding seven, including three children.

    The Jamaica Constabulary Force gave no information on the conditions of the wounded from the brazen attack, which occurred at midafternoon Friday in Seaview Gardens, a poor area of Kingston.

    There was speculation the gunmen were targeting one of the people trying to get on the bus, but authorities did not comment on a possible motive. Conflict among rival gangs has been blamed for an uptick in violence in the community.

    Authorities ordered a two-day curfew in Seaview Gardens, and police said they were looking for two men for questioning about the shooting.

    Crime statistics released by the police say 303 people were killed on the island in the first three months of this year, 20% fewer than during the same period of 2022.

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  • Pope slams ‘insinuations’ against John Paul II as baseless

    Pope slams ‘insinuations’ against John Paul II as baseless

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    ROME — Pope Francis on Sunday publicly defended St. John Paul II, condemning as “offensive and baseless” insinuations that recently surfaced about the late pontiff.

    In remarks to tourists and pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, Francis said he was aiming to interpret the feelings of the faithful worldwide by expressing gratitude to the Polish pontiff’s memory.

    Days earlier, the Vatican’s media apparatus had described as “slanderous” an audiotape from a purported Roman mobster who insinuated that John Paul would go out looking for underage girls to molest.

    The tape was played on an Italian TV program by Pietro Orlandi, brother of Emanuela Orlandi, the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee who lived at the Vatican. The disappearance of the 15-year-old in 1983 is an enduring mystery that has spawned countless theories and so far fruitless investigations in the decades since.

    Francis noted that in Sunday’s crowd in the square were pilgrims and other faithful in town to pray at a sanctuary for divine mercy, a quality John Paul stressed often in his papacy, which spanned from 1978 to 2005.

    “Confident of interpreting the sentiment of all the faithful of the entire world, I direct a grateful thought to the memory of St. John Paul II, in these days the object of offensive and baseless insinuations,” Francis said, his voice turning stern and his words drawing applause.

    Last week, Pietro Orlandi met for hours with Vatican prosecutors who earlier this year reopened the investigation into his sister’s disappearance. Italy’s Parliament has also begun a commission of inquest into the case.

    Emanuela vanished on June 22, 1983, after leaving her family’s Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See.

    Among the theories about what happened to her have been ones linking the disappearance to the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt against John Paul in 1981 in St. Peter’s Square or to the international financial scandal over the Vatican bank. Still other theories envision a role played by Rome’s criminal underworld.

    The recent four-part Netflix documentary “Vatican Girl” explored those possible scenarios and provided new testimony from a friend who said Emanuela had told her a week before she disappeared that a high-ranking Vatican cleric had made sexual advances toward her.

    Her brother has long insisted the Vatican knows more than it has said. The Vatican prosecutor in charge of the probe says the pontiff has given him free rein to try to find the truth.

    While at the Vatican last week, Pietro Orlandi provided Vatican prosecutors with an audiotape from a purported Roman mobster insinuating that John Paul would go out looking for underage girls to molest. The Vatican’s editorial director in a scathing editorial noted the insinuation lacked any “evidence, clues, testimonies or corroboration.”

    Writing in the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, Andrea Tornielli said “no one deserves to be vilified in this way, without even a shred of a clue, on the basis of the ‘rumors’ of some unknown figure in the criminal underworld or some sleazy anonymous comment produced on live TV.”

    John Paul’s longtime secretary, Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, also criticized the insinuations as “unreal, false and laughable if they weren’t tragic and even criminal.”

    Pietro Orlandi’s lawyer, Laura Sgro, has insisted her client wasn’t accusing anyone.

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