Prosecutor: terror proof strong against Fla. imam

MIAMI –  Evidence is overwhelming from hundreds of recorded conversations and financial records that an elderly Muslim cleric enthusiastically supported the violent Pakistani Taliban terror organization, a prosecutor said in a closing argument Monday.

Quoting several passages from FBI intercepts of Hafiz Khan's conversations, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sivashree Sundaram said Khan repeatedly praised Taliban suicide bombers and grenade attacks that killed both Americans and Pakistanis. She pointed to other recordings in which Khan said he wished a 2010 attempt by a Taliban-linked operative to detonate a bomb in New York's Times Square had succeeded.

"This is a straightforward case," Sundaram told jurors as the two-month trial drew to a close. "This defendant convicted himself with his own words and actions. These are not the words of a peace-loving man."

Khan, the 77-year-old imam at a Miami mosque, is charged with conspiracy and terrorism material support for allegedly sending about $50,000 between 2008 and 2010 to the help the Taliban cause in his native Pakistan. If convicted, Khan faces up to 15 years in prison on each of the four charges. He has been jailed since his May 2011 arrest.

Khan, a naturalized U.S. citizen who came from Pakistan in 1994, testified over four days in his own defense, insisting that he opposed Islamic extremists and lied about supporting them in hopes of getting $1 million from a man he believed was another Taliban backer. In fact, that man was an FBI informant who wore a wire to record many of their discussions.

Khan also claimed the money he sent overseas was for family or business purposes, or for a religious school called a madrassa he owns in Pakistan's Swat Valley.

Authorities have acknowledged that not every dime from Khan went to extremists. But Sundaram said Khan contradicted his own words on FBI recording in which he talked about helping wounded mujahedeen fighters and buying weapons.

"He told you the most fantastic stories," she said. "He had answers — just nothing that made sense or rang true."

Khan's attorney will deliver a closing argument later, with jurors likely to begin deliberations Tuesday. While Sundaram laid out the U.S. case, the white-bearded, bespectacled Khan sat hunched at the defense table listening to a Pashto translation, occasionally grumbling aloud in that language.

Earlier Monday, U.S. District Judge Robert Scola denied a defense request to acquit Khan on all charges based on lack of evidence. To the contrary, Scola ruled that there was "more than sufficient evidence" for jurors to potentially convict Khan on all charges. Jurors were not present when the ruling was made.

Two of Khan's sons were previously charged in the same case, but Scola ordered the acquittal of one and prosecutors dropped the case against the other. Three other people, including one of Khan's daughters and his grandson, were also indicted but remain in Pakistan, which does not extradite its citizens to face U.S. criminal charges.

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Follow Curt Anderson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Miamicurt

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Venezuela diplomat reads letter from ailing Chavez

CARACAS, Venezuela –  Venezuela's foreign minister read a lengthy letter from ailing President Hugo Chavez on Friday to a gathering of African and South American leaders in Equatorial Guinea.

In the letter, read on television by Foreign Minister Elias Jaua, Chavez said he was sorry not to be able to attend the meeting.

Chavez hasn't spoken publicly since before he underwent his latest cancer surgery on Dec. 11, and even written statements have been rare. Government officials have said Chavez is breathing through a tracheal tube, but they have also shown a few letters and other documents with his signature.

In the letter, which ran for about 1,500 words, Chavez denounced Western intervention in Africa and reiterated his criticisms of NATO's military involvement in Libya in 2011, when his ally Moammar Gadhafi was ousted and killed.

Chavez also called for more "South-South cooperation" and said of Africa and South America, "We are the same people."

The letter ended with the words: "We will live and be triumphant!"

Last month, Vice President Nicolas Maduro read a similarly lengthy letter from Chavez to leaders at a summit in Chile.

The Venezuelan government provided an update on Chavez's condition Thursday night, saying that he remained at a military hospital in Caracas and that "the medical treatment for the fundamental illness continues without presenting significant adverse effects."

The government has not given details about the treatment Chavez is undergoing, and hasn't identified the type or exact location of the tumors that have been removed from his pelvic region.

Information Minister Ernesto Villegas read the statement on television, saying that a "respiratory insufficiency" that arose in the weeks after the surgery "persists and its tendency has not been favorable, thus it continues to be treated."

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Cuba names Raul Castro to new term as president

Published February 24, 2013

Associated Press

HAVANA –  Cuba's parliament has named Raul Castro to a new five-year term as president and rising star Miguel Diaz-Canel his first vice president.

The 52-year-old Diaz-Canel is now the first in line to succeed Castro. He is the highest-ranking Cuban official who didn't directly participate in the 1959 Cuban revolution.

The selections were reported by state media Sunday.

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Texas man indicted for carving symbol on his son

Published February 25, 2013

Associated Press

FORT WORTH, Texas –  A North Texas grand jury has indicted a man who admitted in a 911 call that he carved a pentagram on his 6-year-old son's back.

Brent Troy Bartel could face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

The 39-year-old Bartel has a court hearing scheduled for Wednesday in Tarrant County, just west of Dallas.

Bartel called 911 on Dec. 12, 2012, and said he had shed "innocent blood," and etched the pentagram on his son because it was "a holy day," according to a recording of the call. It is not clear to which faith he was referring.

Police say Bartel smeared the boy's blood on the front doorway of his home.

Bartel remained jailed Monday on a $500,000 bond.

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Mexican president signs education reform

Published February 25, 2013

Associated Press

MEXICO –  President Enrique Pena Nieto has signed Mexico's most sweeping education reform in seven decades, a change widely expected to weaken the country's powerful teacher's union.

Pena Nieto signed the reform Monday after it was approved by Mexico's congress and the majority of state legislatures. The legislation creates a system of uniform standards for teacher hiring and promotion, in place of a system that critics said placed excessive power in the hands of the union, even allowing teachers' positions to be sold and inherited.

The reform also will allow the first census of schools, teachers and students. Until now, there has been no official count of the Mexican education system.

The reform was a plank of a pact signed between Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party and the two main opposition parties.

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US agency announces mortgage program in Haiti

Published February 25, 2013

Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti –  A U.S. government agency has announced a mortgage program that aims to help up to 4,000 families in Haiti.

The U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation says the effort will combine loans from OPIC and grants from other groups. The money awarded will include $1,000 mortgages. Financing will also be given for home repairs.

Many people still need to repair their homes three years after Haiti was hit with a massive earthquake. The 2010 disaster toppled thousands of buildings and killed thousands of people.

Home financing is relatively new to Haiti. Most of the population is unemployed or underemployed and banks seldom offer loans to anyone but the country's tiny elite. The bulk of Haiti's 10 million people are renters.

OPIC made the announcement Monday.

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Belgian killed in Mexico had been threatened

MEXICO CITY –  What had seemed to be another attack on a tourist in Acapulco appeared to turn into something a bit more involved but equally sinister on Monday, when the company of a Belgian businessman shot to death in the Pacific resort over the weekend said he had received death threats following a legal dispute with a former business associate.

The killing of Belgian Jan Sarens outside a shopping center on Saturday cast a pall over this once-glittering but now violence-plagued resort, which is preparing to host the Mexican Open tennis tournament this week. It was the second violent attack involving foreigners in Acapulco in less than three weeks. On Feb. 4, a band of masked gunmen invaded a beachfront home and raped six visiting Spanish women.

Sarens' company, the Belgium-based Sarens Group, said in a statement Monday that he had received death threats, after he filed a lawsuit against a former Mexican associate, Gruas Industriales Ojeda.

Both companies are involved in the industrial crane business, and the dispute apparently involved the ownership of cranes.

"A short while after the start of the activities in Mexico the Sarens Group became the victim of scams by their then partner, the Mexican enterprise Gruas Ojeda. This conflict led to a long judicial struggle, which was finally arbitrated in favor of Sarens, but the agreement has still not been executed," the Sarens Group said in a statement.

"After the Sarens Group had been able to recover a part of their material ... however this success was overshadowed by the fact that the ex-associate didn't keep to his refund obligations and the Sarens Group was forced once again to call in the help of the Mexican court. Within this situation death threats have been made against Mr. Sarens and the director of the Mexican group association," the company said.

Gruas Ojeda did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the case. Local media reported on a $9.8 million judgment against Gruas Ojeda in the case in 2011, but the Mexico City judiciary council was not immediately available to confirm the ruling.

Prosecutors in the southern state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located, said Sunday they were looking into robbery or "personal revenge" as motives in the killing.

Sarens, 59, a longtime resident of Mexico City who was visiting Acapulco on the weekend, was found dead near his Mercedes-Benz convertible; the car was not stolen.

"The lines of probable investigation point to personal revenge or robbery," the state government said.

Acapulco has been plagued by drug-related shootouts, beheadings and killings in recent years, and officials have been quick in the past to rule out any involvement of drug cartels in crimes against tourists. One of Mexico's chief arguments to support it tourism industry is that cartels don't target tourists.

One of the first statement Acapulco's mayor made after the Spanish tourists were raped was that the crime didn't appear to be related to drug cartels.

In the end Sarens' killing may not have been either, but experts say the lawlessness and impunity created by the drug gangs has created an atmosphere in which other kinds of crimes can occur. Law enforcement is overwhelmed by violence, poor prosecution and public mistrust, to the point where Mexico's National Human Rights Commission estimates that only 8 percent of crimes are even reported, and only 1 percent are punished.

Law enforcement in Guerrero has been so weak that villagers in many towns of the state have started armed self-defense patrols to combat cartels and common criminals.

Alejandro Hope, a security analyst and former high-ranking official in Mexico's national intelligence agency, said "an atmosphere where impunity thrives is an environment that gives rise to all types of violence, in which people settle their differences outside of the law."

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