Mexico judge acquits ex-drug czar linked to cartel

Published April 15, 2013

Associated Press

MEXICO CITY –  A Mexican judge has acquitted a former drug czar who was charged with organized crime after he allegedly accepted $450,000 to leak details of police operations against members of the Pacific cartel, an alliance once headed by the Sinaloa drug cartel.

Noe Ramirez was Mexico's top anti-drug prosecutor and the highest-ranking law enforcement official detained in 2008 as part of then President Felipe Calderon's sweeping effort to weed out corrupt officials with ties to organized crime.

Mexico's Federal Judiciary Council said in a statement that a federal judge acquitted Ramirez on Monday after determining the main witness in the case lied and prosecutors might have fabricated evidence.

Ramirez was one of five top officials and two federal agents detained in 2008 as part of Calderon's "Operation Clean House."

View the original article here

East African man linked to extremist group sentenced in New York to 9 years jail

Published March 27, 2013

Associated Press

NEW YORK –  An East African man has been sentenced in New York to just over nine years in prison for conspiring to support terrorism by associating with a violent extremist group in Somalia.

Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed was sentenced Wednesday in federal court to nine years and three months in prison. He had pleaded guilty in June.

Ahmed was detained in Nigeria in 2009 before being turned over to U.S. authorities. Prosecutors in New York had accused the Eritrean man of receiving explosives training, buying an assault rifle and raising money for al-Shabaab.

Al-Shabaab was designated by the United States as a terrorist group in 2008. Manhattan's top federal prosecutor said in a release that Ahmed traveled thousands of miles to align himself with al-Shabaab and aid their campaign of terror.

View the original article here