Mexico president says campaign aides didn’t take cartel drug funds
MEXICO CITY — Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador denied allegations contained in a U.S. media report published Thursday about a U.S. inquiry into accusations that people close to him took money from drug traffickers shortly before his 2018 election and again after he was president.
The New York Times story cited unidentified U.S. officials familiar with the now-shelved inquiry and noted that a formal investigation was not opened, nor was it known how much of the informants’ allegations were independently confirmed. It is the second time in recent weeks that the foreign media has published stories signaling that the U.S. government has looked into alleged contacts between López Obrador allies and drug cartels.
“It’s all completely false,” López Obrador said during his morning news briefing, criticizing the Times. “The U.S. government is going to have to address this.” Later Thursday, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said: “There is no investigation into President López Obrador.”
In late January, ProPublica, Deutsche Welle and InSight Crime published stories describing an earlier U.S. investigation into whether López Obrador campaign aides took money from drug traffickers in exchange for facilitating their operations during an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 2006.
In that instance, López Obrador placed blame squarely at the feet of the U.S. government and wondered aloud why he should continue discussing issues like immigration with a government that was trying to damage him.
López Obrador is in the final months of his presidency, but his protégé Claudia Sheinbaum is leading polls to replace him in the June 2 election.
Albania OKs asylum deal:
Albania’s Parliament voted Thursday to approve a deal for the country to hold thousands of asylum seekers for Italy, despite protests from opposition lawmakers and human rights groups.
Under the five-year deal, Albania would shelter up to 3,000 migrants rescued from international waters at any one time. With asylum requests expected to take around a month to process, the number of asylum seekers sent to Albania could reach up to 36,000 in a year.
Albania is not a European Union member, and the idea of sending asylum seekers outside the bloc is controversial. The deal was endorsed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as an example of out-of-the-box thinking but has been widely criticized by rights groups.
The Parliament, dominated by Prime Minister Edi Rama’s left-wing Socialist Party, quickly voted 77-0 to approve the deal while opposition lawmakers sat out the vote and tried to disrupt it with whistles.
A Canadian man found guilty of using his pickup to kill four members of a Muslim family was sentenced Thursday to life in prison as a judge ruled that the actions of the admitted white nationalist amounted to terrorism.
Nathaniel Veltman has also been sentenced to a concurrent life sentence for the attempted murder of a boy who survived the 2021 attack.
Veltman, 23, was found guilty in November of four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder for hitting the Afzaal family while they were out for a walk.
Prosecutors argued that Veltman purposely ran his truck into the family June 6, 2021, to intimidate Muslims into leaving Canada. The defense sought to show he wasn’t criminally liable, saying he had mental health problems.
Adults found guilty of first-degree murder in Canada face an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Life term in killings:
A Minnesota man who repeatedly attacked police officers during the U.S. Capitol riot, wielded a police baton as a weapon and stole two riot shields was sentenced
Prison for Capitol rioter:
Thursday to two years and nine months in prison.
Brian Mock, 44, helped remove two police barricades before he assaulted four officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, siege. He shoved one officer in the chest and knocked him to the ground, where other rioters kicked and hit the officer.
Chief Judge James Boasberg convicted Mock of all 11 counts in his indictment, including felony assault charges, after hearing testimony without a jury. Mock testified and represented himself at his July 2023 trial.
Prosecutors recommended sentencing Mock to nine years and one month in prison. He’ll get credit for the nearly one year that he spent in jail awaiting trial.
Accused OAS rep quits:
The former chief of Haiti’s National Police who was recently accused in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse announced his immediate resignation Thursday as permanent representative of Haiti to the Organization of American States.
Léon Charles’ announcement on X, formerly Twitter, comes just days after a final report from a judge investigating the July 2021 killing detailed the charges against dozens of suspects, including Charles.
He is accused of murder, attempted murder, possession and illegal carrying of weapons, conspiracy against the internal security of the state and criminal association. Charles wrote on X that he was implicated “in an absolutely unjust and slanderous manner.”
An international investigative team said Thursday that its probe into a 2015 attack in Syria found “reasonable grounds to believe” that the Islamic State group used mustard gas, the latest finding of use of poison gas and nerve agents in Syria’s grinding civil war.
The report by the Investigation and Identification team of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons found that mustard gas, also known as sulfur mustard, was used during attacks on Sept. 1, 2015, as Islamic State attacked the town of Marea.