A US citizen accused of killing two people and wounding at least seven by setting off bombs in two Bolivian hotels had been seeking a new home after renouncing his US citizenship and allegedly had tried to bomb an ATM in Argentina.
Previously known as Triston Jay Amero, he also goes by John Scheda and Lestat Claudius de Orleans y Montevideo -- Lestat being the name of a vampire in the popular Anne Rice novels.
He's traveled with altered documents and checked into hotels claiming to be a Saudi Arabian lawyer and a reverend. He was apparently running from the law in California.
The 24-year-old was detained on Wednesday alongside his girlfriend Alda Ribeiro, 40, of Uruguay. Police paraded the handcuffed pair in front of the press; Lestat, slightly overweight, with a ponytail and glasses, showed no emotion before onlookers.
Bolivian authorities and neighbors said the couple had been giving away nude calendars promoting a Bolivian business selling and exporting "explosives, fireworks and liquor."
On the calendar and to various authorities he used the name Lestat, but was not clear whether he had legally changed his name to Lestat.
Authorities have been left scratching their heads as to the pair's motive, saying it may have been "religious."
"The possible motives behind these attacks are incomprehensible. There don't seem to be any concrete objectives other than causing deaths," Deputy Interior Minister Rafael Puente told Radio Fides.
The bombings occurred in two low budget hotels frequented by foreign tourists about a kilometer apart in La Paz's historic city center. Fatalities were caused by the first explosion that hit the Alojamiento Linares hotel at about 9:30pm on Tuesday.
Police identified the dead as a Bolivian man and woman. A US citizen, identified as Jessica Wilson, was treated and released from a hospital and the other injured people are Bolivian, police said.
Police said they managed to evacuate the second hotel before the blast hit at about 2am and said the couple was planning to bomb the Chilean consulate here tomorrow.
Police initially said the blasts were "typical of terrorist crime," and President Evo Morales lost no time in denouncing them as an attack on Bolivia's democracy.
"This American was putting bombs in hotels," Morales said. "The US government fights terrorism, and they send us terrorists."
La Paz district attorney Jorge Gutierrez said the couple entered Bolivia overland from Argentina and perpetrated attacks in other Bolivian cities that left no victims. They also tried to bomb an ATM machine in northern Argentina, police said.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RSS