A Colombian high court unseated the country’s chief prosecutor on Tuesday on the grounds that she was improperly elected. Her marriage to a former member of Congress tied to drug lords had cast a shadow over her tenure.
Prosector Viviane Morales, who held the second-most powerful post in Colombia after the president, had been elected by the Supreme Court in December 2010 from a list of candidates proposed by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.
However, a different court, the Council of State, ruled 15-9 on Tuesday that Morales did not get the required number of votes.
There was no immediate comment from Santos or Morales on the decision. She will be replaced by her deputy while a new chief prosecutor is chosen.
Morales has been under intense scrutiny since her marriage late last year to Carlos Alonso Lucio.
An M-19 rebel in his youth, Lucio has in recent years served as an adviser to far-right paramilitaries and had contacts with extradited drug lords. In 1996, he was stripped of his US visa over his relation with Cali cartel leaders.
However, Morales has also upset Colombia’s right.
She has led the prosecution of a number of former close associates of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe on corruption and criminal conspiracy charges.
Morales has not commented publicly about her relationship with Lucio other than to confirm her marriage to him. They had originally married in 2000, but later separated.
Lucio is not known to currently be facing any criminal investigations, though he has acknowledged meeting with drug-trafficking paramilitary warlords to help them negotiate an eventual peace pact with Uribe’s 2002-2010 government.
Lucio had in the 1990s been at the center of another controversy as an ardent defender of then-Colombian president Ernesto Samper during an unsuccessful impeachment attempt over the acceptance by Samper’s campaign of US$6 million in contributions from the Cali cocaine cartel.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
France on Friday showed off to the world the gleaming restored interior of Notre-Dame cathedral, a week before the 850-year-old medieval edifice reopens following painstaking restoration after the devastating 2019 fire. French President Emmanuel Macron conducted an inspection of the restoration, broadcast live on television, saying workers had done the “impossible” by healing a “national wound” after the fire on April 19, 2019. While every effort has been made to remain faithful to the original look of the cathedral, an international team of designers and architects have created a luminous space that has an immediate impact on the visitor. The floor shimmers and
CHAGOS ISLANDS: Recently elected Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam told lawmakers that the contents of negotiations are ‘unknown’ to the government Mauritius’ new prime minister ordered an independent review of a deal with the UK involving a strategically important US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean, placing the agreement under fresh scrutiny. Under a pact signed last month, the UK ceded sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius, while retaining control of Diego Garcia — the island where the base is situated. The deal was signed by then-Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Oct. 3 — a month before elections in Mauritius in which Navin Ramgoolam became premier. “I have asked for an independent review of the
LAOS: The bars of bustling Vang Vieng remain open, but information on the investigation into the deaths of six backpackers from suspected methanol poisoning is scarce The music is still playing and the alcohol is still flowing at the bars along one of the party streets in Vang Vieng. Inside a popular venue, a voice over the speaker announces a special offer on beers, as disco lights flicker on the floor. Small paper flags from nations across the world — from the UK to Gabon — hang from the ceiling. Young people travel from all corners of the globe to party in the small town nestled in the Laos countryside, but Vang Vieng is under a global spotlight, following a suspected mass methanol poisoning that killed six
RSS