SPAIN
Warrants issued for Russians
A judge has issued arrest warrants for 12 Russians, including some senior officials, who are alleged to be linked to one of Russia’s largest criminal syndicates that operated out of Spain, a court document showed. After a decade-long investigation into the activities of the Tambov Gang, authorities want officials, including Vladislav Reznik, a member of Russia’s lower house of parliament, to stand trial in Spain, the unpublished document said. Other prominent Russian officials named in the document included General Nikolai Aulov, deputy head of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service and a former KGB colleague of Russian President Vladimir Putin; and former deputy head of the Russian prosecution service’s investigation committee, Igor Sobolevsky. Reznik has previously denied the allegations and Russian prosecutor General Yuri Chaika was quoted as saying in March that Russia will not extradite Reznik. According to the document, all 12 people had dealings with the gang’s alleged leader, Gennady Petrov, who was arrested in Spain in 2008 with his wife and another man, but who has since fled the country. The prosecution also issued warrants for their rearrest.
ITALY
Court rules theft not crime
Stealing food from a supermarket might not be a crime if you are homeless and hungry, the nation’s highest appeals court ruled. In a case that has drawn comparisons to Les Miserables, the Supreme Court of Cassation threw out the conviction of a homeless man from Ukraine, Roman Ostriakov, who was caught trying to take 4.07 euros (US$4.70) worth of cheese and sausage from a store in Genoa without paying for it. A trial court in February last year sentenced him to six months in jail and a fine of 100 euros. “The condition of the defendant and the circumstances in which the merchandise theft took place prove that he took possession of that small amount of food in the face of the immediate and essential need for nourishment, acting therefore in a state of need,” and therefore the theft “does not constitute a crime,” the appellate court wrote in its decision, which was reported on Monday by news agency ANSA. The decision went far beyond what the appeal in the case had sought. Valeria Fazio, the prosecutor at the Genoa court where the trial was held, said in a telephone interview that her office understood that Ostriakov had stolen only out of need, and had appealed in hopes that the court might set a more lenient sentence. However, the court decided that he “doesn’t have to be punished at all,” Fazio said. The court has yet to release its full reasoning in the case, but Gherardo Colombo, a former member of the Supreme Court of Cassation, said it seemed to rely on a legal doctrine: “Ad impossibilia nemo tenetur.” The term is Latin for “no one is expected to do the impossible.”
VENEZUELA
Police kill gang leader
Police and special forces killed the nation’s most-wanted criminal, gang leader Jose Antonio Tovar Colina, in a shootout on Tuesday. The shootout went down in the central town of El Sombrero in a neighborhood where Tovar Colina and his gang led a reign of terror, Minister of the Interior Gustavo Gonzalez Lopez said. Three other gang members were killed alongside Tovar Colina, who was wanted for multiple homicides, hired killings, robbery, kidnapping and drug trafficking. “The pursuit continues of the other members of this paramilitary gang, which has done so much damage to the country,” Gonzalez Lopez said.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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