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Mexico authorities arrest suspected killer of well-known priest who was shot dead right after officiating Mass
Mexican authorities have arrested the alleged murderer of a Catholic priest and prominent human rights defender whose killing triggered international condemnation, officials announced Tuesday.
Father Marcelo Perez, 51, was shot dead on Sunday in the southern state of Chiapas, which has been shaken by escalating gang-related violence.
The Chiapas public prosecutor’s office identified the alleged “material author” of the crime as Edgar “N,” in line with the usual practice of not giving full names.
It said it had used security camera footage, witness testimony and other leads to identify the suspect.
Perez’s work on human rights had been recognized by international organizations.
The Mexican office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights denounced the Indigenous priest’s murder and called for an “exhaustive” investigation.
AP Photo/Isabel Mateos
Rodrigo Aguilar Martinez, bishop of the southern city of San Cristobal de las Casas, called for “decisive action to restore peace in the country and especially in Chiapas.”
The state prosecutors’ office said Rev. Pérez was shot dead by two gunmen when he was in his van, just after he had finished celebrating Mass.
“Father Marcelo was leaving the … parish after officiating mass and was heading to Guadalupe Church, when two people aboard a motorcycle opened fire,” the office said.
He had received threats after speaking out against drug trafficking and related violence in Chiapas, which has been gripped by a cartel turf war.
Hundreds of mourners attended a funeral for Perez in his hometown on Tuesday, chanting “Long live Father Marcelo, priest of the poor!”
Mexico has seen more than 450,000 murders since a controversial military anti-drug operation was launched in 2006, according to official figures.
In 2022, two Jesuit priests were killed inside a church in a remote mountain community in northern Mexico. In 2016, three priests were killed in just one week in Mexico.
Boeing reported a massive third-quarter loss of more than $6 billion, as the airplane manufacturer was dragged down by a strike and billions in charges tied to its commercial aircraft and defense programs.
Boeing’s loss comes as the company is struggling to right itself after manufacturing problems and multiple federal investigations following a mid-air panel blowout in January. And in September, 33,000 of its machinists went on strike after failing to agree on a contract, shutting assembly plants in the Seattle area.
In August, the company brought in Kelly Ortberg, a seasoned aerospace executive, as its new CEO with the mandate to right Boeing’s safety and manufacturing issues. Ortberg, who earlier this month announced job cuts of 10% of the company’s workforce, or 17,000 employees, on Wednesday wrote in prepared remarks he’ll deliver to investors later today that Boeing is “at a crossroads.”
“The trust in our company has eroded,” he wrote. “We’ve had serious lapses in our performance across the company which have disappointed many of our customers.”
Boeing can’t produce any new 737s until it ends the five-week-old strike by 33,000 machinists. In his remarks, Ortberg wrote that one of his top goals is ending the strike.
On Wednesday evening, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers will reveal whether striking workers are ready to go back to their jobs. Union members in the Seattle area and elsewhere will vote on a Boeing offer that includes pay raises of 35% over four years, $7,000 ratification bonuses and the retention of performance bonuses that Boeing wanted to eliminate.
“I’m very hopeful that the package we put forward will allow our employees to come back to work so we can immediately focus on restoring the company,” Ortberg wrote. “Once we get back, we have the task of restarting the factories and the supply chain.”
On a per-share basis, Boeing lost $9.97 for the period ended September 30, with an adjusted loss of $10.44 per share. Analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research were calling for a loss of $10.34 per share.
Revenue totaled $17.84 billion, matching Wall Street estimates.
contributed to this report.
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Appeals court upholds freeing of Sandra Hemme, imprisoned 43 years for murder lower court ruled she didn’t commit
An appellate court in Missouri ruled Tuesday that a lower court was right when it decided to overturn the murder conviction of a woman who spent 43 years behind bars for a killing that her attorneys argue was committed by a discredited police officer.
Sandra Hemme was freed in July while the decision to overturn her conviction was reviewed — at the insistence of Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who argued she should remain imprisoned.
Presiding Judge Cynthia Martin wrote in the scathing 71-page ruling that some arguments raised by Bailey’s office bordered “on the absurd.” She gave prosecutors 10 days to refile charges.
HG Biggs / The Kansas City Star via AP, File
“It is time for this miscarriage of justice to end,” Hemme’s attorneys said in a statement following the ruling in the Missouri Court of Appeals Western District.
Hemme had been the longest-held wrongly incarcerated woman known in the U.S., according to her legal team at the Innocence Project.
A spokeswoman for Bailey didn’t immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Hemme was being treated with heavy doses of antipsychotic drugs when she was first questioned about the 1980 murder of 31-year-old library worker Patricia Jeschke in St. Joseph. One of Hemme’s attorneys, Sean O’Brien, likened the drugs to a “chemical straightjacket” in an October hearing and said they raised questions about her ultimate confession.
“It makes her compliant,” he said. “It makes her subject to susceptibility.”
O’Brien also outlined evidence that was withheld that pointed to Michael Holman — a former police officer, who died in 2015. Evidence showed that Holman’s pickup truck was seen outside Jeschke’s apartment, that he tried to use her credit card, and that her earrings were found in his home.
The appellate court’s ruling said the record “strongly suggests” that police buried their investigation into Holman.
The same conclusion was reached in June when Judge Ryan Horsman in Livingston County overturned her conviction. He found that Hemme’s attorney had established “clear and convincing evidence” of “actual innocence.”
But Bailey asked the appellate court to review that decision, arguing that Horsman had exceeded his authority and that Hemme failed to present sufficient evidence on some of her claims.
What ensued was a month-long fight over whether she should be freed while that review took place. A circuit judge, an appellate court and the Missouri Supreme Court all agreed Hemme should be released, but she was still held behind bars as Bailey argued that she still had time to serve on decades-old prison assault cases.
Hemme walked free only after Horsman threatened to hold the attorney general’s office in contempt.
At the latest hearing in October, Andrew Clarke, an assistant attorney general, faced tough questioning.
One of the appellate court judges noted particular concern about what happened when Holman, the discredited police officer, couldn’t be ruled out as the source of a palm print detected on a TV antenna cable found next to the victim’s body.
The FBI asked for clearer prints, but police didn’t follow up. Jurors never heard about that or other evidence because the police never informed prosecutors.
“The court,” Clarke said in response to questions about the significance of suppressed evidence, “has to consider what its value is at a future trial, what it would look like. And if it undermines confidence in the prior verdict.”
Clarke contended that some of the evidence at issue might not have met the bar to be presented in court — a contention the judges questioned.
Bailey has a history of fighting overturned conviction cases. In July, a St. Louis circuit judge overturned Christopher Dunn’s murder conviction and ordered his immediate release. Among the key evidence used to convict him of first-degree murder was testimony from two boys who later recanted, saying they had been coerced by police and prosecutors.
Bailey appealed to try and keep Dunn locked up before he ultimately was released.
Mexican troops shot dead 19 suspected members of the Sinaloa cartel after they came under attack in the northwestern state, the ministry of defense said Tuesday.
Military personnel were attacked on Monday by more than 30 people near the state capital Culiacan, and the ensuing firefight left 19 cartel members dead, the ministry said in a statement.
Sinaloa has seen a surge in violence since the July arrest of the cartel’s co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in the United States.
Zambada’s arrest triggered a war between his relatives and the sons of drug trafficker Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who co-founded the cartel.
The ministry of defense said the cartel members killed on Monday were presumed to be linked to Zambada’s faction.
IVAN MEDINA/AFP via Getty Images
Zambada, 76, was arrested on July 25 in the southern United States, where he landed with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of “El Chapo’s” sons, who led a faction of the cartel known as the “Chapitos.” The veteran drug trafficker has accused Lopez of kidnapping him and handing him over to US law enforcement.
According to an indictment released by the U.S. Justice Department last year, the “Chapitos” and their cartel associates used corkscrews, electrocution and hot chiles to torture their rivals while some of their victims were “fed dead or alive to tigers.” El Chapo’s sons were among 28 Sinaloa cartel members charged in a massive fentanyl-trafficking investigation announced in April 2023.
El Chapo is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado after being convicted in 2019 on charges including drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons-related offenses.
