Latin America: Week in Review, Peru
Peruvian President Ollanta Humala’s Brother Complains of Prison Beating
April 4, 2012 By Staff
Today in Latin America
Top Story — Peruvian President Ollanta Humala arranged to have his younger brother Antauro transferred to solitary confinement while he serves a 19-year prison sentence, but he showed up at his court hearing saying that guards there beat him. Antauro Humala is serving time in prison for leading an attempted coup in 2005 against former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo that killed four police officers, and he reportedly angered his brother when cell phone footage surfaced showing the younger Humala smoking marijuana and cavorting with women behind bars. On Tuesday during a televised hearing to reduce his sentence, Antauro said that he was “attacked by troops wearing hoods” and showed bruises on his body to the judge, who sent him to be examined by a doctor. He is in the same prison as Abimael Guzman, the founder of the Shining Path rebels, and Vladimiro Montesinos, known for waging a brutal campaign against insurgents during the 1990s.
Read more from the Chicago Tribune.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- Mexican President Felipe Calderón said in a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the U.S. needed to renew its ban on assault weapons to stem drug war violence.
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is pursuing the deportation of Onyango Obama, an uncle of U.S. President Barack Obama, back to his native Kenya.
- U.S. sculptor Elizabeth Catlett, a political activist who emigrated to Mexico during the McCarthy era, died in Cuernavaca at age 96.
Caribbean
- At least 18 suspects, including a Santero priest, were arrested in Puerto Rico by late Tuesday and face drug trafficking charges.
- Jamaica’s homicide rate dropped to its lowest level in 9 years, with 69 murders in February.
- Rene Gonzales, one of the “Cuban Five” who has served 13 years in U.S. prisons for espionage, returned to Cuba Friday to visit his sick brother but must finish the remainder of his 3-year parole in the U.S.
Central America
- Police and UN investigators in Guatemala said they’d arrested Horst Overdick, alias “El Tigre”, a suspected drug lord thought to have ties to Mexico’s Zetas cartel.
- Costa Rican Finance Minister Fernando Herrero’s resignation on Monday may cause a delay in a congressional vote on tax reform.
Andes
- Former Venezuelan governor Jesus Aguilarte died Monday after being shot in a restaurant on March 24 by unidentified gunmen.
- A report by a coalition of NGOs said that the Colombian government has not done enough to prevent the recruitment of child soldiers.
- The Bolivian government said Tuesday that a Bolivia-flagged ship captured by Somali pirates last week has been freed.
Southern Cone
- Chilean Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter said the government would form a committee to address security issues in Araucania after a police officer was allegedly shot during a raid of an indigenous Mapuche community.
- Argentine human rights secretary Eduardo Luis Duhalde, a former exile and professor, died Tuesday in Buenos Aires at the age of 72.
- Brazil launched a second lawsuit against Chevron and Transocean for damages caused by an offshore oil leak in March after filing a lawsuit for a different leak in November.
Image: Casa de América @ Flickr.