Brazil arrests a U.S. most-wanted man
RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazilian authorities said they’ve captured an American sect leader wanted for sex crimes against girls in the United States and who is on the U.S. marshals’ most wanted list.
A statement posted Saturday on the website of the Public Security Secretariat for the Rio Grande do Norte state government confirms the arrest of Victor Arden Barnard.
Barnard faces 59 counts of criminal sexual conduct related to two young women who said they were abused for nearly a decade at his secluded River Road Fellowship in Minnesota.
Brazilian police did not immediately return multiple telephone calls seeking more details about his arrest Friday night in northeastern Brazil.
Hamas officially a ‘terrorist’ group
CAIRO – An Egyptian court declared Hamas a “terrorist organization” on Saturday, further isolating the blockaded rulers of the Gaza Strip once openly welcomed by the country’s toppled Islamist-dominated government.
The ruling is unlikely to have any immediate effect on Hamas, still reeling from last summer’s war with Israel and choked by an Egyptian-Israeli blockade set up in 2007. Moussa Abu Marzouk, Hamas’ No. 2 leader, is based in Cairo and is receiving medical treatment there, members of the group say.
The move underlines Egypt’s increasing hostility to Hamas, which the court blamed for violence in the country’s restive Sinai Peninsula. The secretive movement, founded in Gaza in 1987 as an offshoot of the region’s Egyptian-originated Muslim Brotherhood, faces a growing cash crunch and has yet to lay out a strategy to extract Gaza from its increasingly dire situation.
The ruling Saturday by Judge Mohamed el-Sayed of the Court For Urgent Matters said Hamas had targeted both civilians and security forces inside the Sinai Peninsula and that the group aimed to harm the country. Sinai has been under increasing attack by extremists since the Egyptian military ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.
Mexico captures another drug lord
MEXICO CITY – It’s another big score for the Mexican government, which has been tearing through its list of most-wanted drug lords in recent years.
Still, no one expects drug trafficking or violence to decrease after the capture of Servando “La Tuta” Gomez, a former grade-school teacher whose Knights Templar cartel once terrorized the western state of Michoacan.
Crime will only shift around as the now weakened cartel regroups, or even splinters, as has happened with some of Mexico’s drug gangs after the capture or killings of top leaders. Others continue business as usual after top leadership hits.
Gomez, 49, was arrested early Friday as he left a house in Morelia, the capital of Michoacan, along with eight bodyguards and associates toting a grenade launcher, three grenades, an Uzi machine pistol and assault rifles, National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said.
They were taken without a shot fired after a months-long intelligence stakeout, in which Gomez’s associates were identified when they gathered for his birthday Feb. 6 with cakes, soft drinks and food.
Peña Nieto’s government, which took office a little over two years ago, has been aggressive in capturing drug lords, including the biggest capo – Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel – a year ago. In all, 10 top leaders of various cartels have been captured or killed in the last six years, six of them under Nieto. Of Mexico’s top criminal leaders, only Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada of the Sinaloa Cartel remains at large.
Associated Press
