A Spanish judge on Friday upgraded charges relating to the death of the Chinese-born, 12-year-old adopted daughter of a couple from homicide to murder in a case that has gripped Spain.
Rosario Porto, a 44-year-old lawyer, and her ex-husband, 49-year-old journalist Alfonso Basterra, were charged last month with “homicide, possible murder” and imprisoned without bail while awaiting the results of toxicological tests on their daughter’s body.
However, after questioning the two suspects again on Friday, the judge leading the investigation raised the charges against them to murder because of “the aggravating circumstances of treachery and kinship,” the High Court of Galicia said in a written statement.
Homicide is the legal term for killing without premeditation, while murder charges apply in the case of a planned homicide.
The body of the girl, Asunta Yong Fang Basterra Porto, was discovered in the early hours of Sept. 22 in woodlands near Santiago de Compostela in the northwestern region of Galicia, just hours after her parents had reported her missing.
Police on Friday searched for the second time a rural home in the area belonging to Rosario Porto’s recently deceased parents. Porto and her former husband, their lawyers, and the investigating judge were at the house during the search.
The girl’s body was found about 5km from the house.
Porto, a Spanish citizen who acted as French honorary consul in Galicia from 1996 to 2006, and Basterra both denied having killed their adopted daughter during their appearance in court last month.
Newspapers and TV talk shows have devoted intense coverage to each twist and turn of the case against the parents, who reportedly adopted their daughter in China when she was a baby.
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) was “highly concerned about the case,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) said at a briefing in Beijing on Sept. 27.
“Upon learning [about] the case, our embassy immediately got in touch with the Spanish police, requiring the Spanish side to launch an investigation at once,” a transcript posted on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Web site read.
It further called on Spanish authorities to “hold the perpetrators to justice and take concrete measures to ensure the safety, as well as the legitimate rights and interests, of adopted Chinese children.”
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS