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MEAN STREETS MEDIA
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Honduras Denies That Syrian Detainees Have Links with Extremists
TEGUCIGALPA – The Honduran government said on Thursday that the five Syrians arrested two days ago at Tegucigalpa’s Toncontin airport as they were trying to travel to the United States using stolen Greek passports have no links with terrorist groups.“It’s been completely ruled out that (the arrested Syrian men) belong to a violent group,” the director of the National Immigration Institute, Carolina Menjivar, told reporters.
The detainees, who have not been publicly identified, arrived on Tuesday night at Toncontin airport on a flight from Costa Rica and their ultimate destination evidently was to be the United States.
The men have been held since Wednesday at a police station in the Honduran capital and will be placed at the disposal of the Attorney General’s Office on charges of falsification of documents.
The arrested men left Greece and traveled through “Peru (and) Costa Rica, until they arrived in Honduras,” Menjivar said.
Four of the men “are university students and the other holds a university degree,” said the official, who insisted that the Syrians “do not belong to any body or entity that engages in violence, nor do they have criminal records in their (homeland).”
She said, in addition, that the arrested men “cannot request asylum” in Honduras because they tried to enter the Central American country on stolen passports.
The Honduran government reported on Wednesday in an official communique that it had turned the case of the five Syrians over to Interpol.
Last Friday, Honduran authorities arrested another Syrian citizen at the Toncontin airport.
The man was detained for investigation and after determining that he was carrying a false passport he was refused entry by Honduran authorities and the following day he traveled to Paraguay, but later he was arrested in Argentina with a stolen passport, the Honduran government said.
The National Immigration Institute emphasized that it has a biometric security system in place that enabled authorities to arrest the six Syrians when they tried to enter the country with false documentation.
Syrian Woman Arrested for Using Greek Passport in Costa Rica
SAN JOSE – Costa Rican police on Thursday arrested a Syrian woman who entered the country earlier this week on a stolen Greek passport, a case similar to the one that occurred this week in Honduras, where five Syrian men using Greek passports were taken into custody.The arrest was carried out by the Public Force at a small San Jose hotel and the woman is being held while authorities investigating her case determine the legal and immigration implications.
The Syrian woman arrived in Costa Rica on Tuesday from Argentina and identified herself as Maria Pirri, a spokesman for the Public Security Ministry told EFE.
The spokesman said that the woman is being held while Interpol confirms her identity and determines if she has any criminal record or pending legal matters.
Costa Rican authorities confirmed that the Greek passport had been reported to be “lost” in Greece and that it had been altered with a photo of the Syrian woman.
The woman will face charges of using a false document, a crime for which she could face up to six years in prison, and at this time she is being held on the order of the Costa Rican Attorney General’s Office.
The AG’s Office will also determine if any immigration official facilitated her entry into the country, given that an Interpol alert had been put out on the passport in question, prosecutor Celso Gamboa told reporters.
Costa Rica is investigating whether or not the woman has any link with the case in Honduras, where two days ago five Syrian men were arrested in the Tegucigalpa airport carrying stolen Greek passports.
The Costa Rican Immigration Directorate confirmed that the five men had been in Costa Rica from Nov. 11-17.
The Honduran government said Thursday that the five men were intending to travel to the United States on the stolen Greek passports but do not have any links with terrorist groups.
Thousands of people have been fleeing from Syria since the civil war broke out there in 2011. That conflict has left over 250,000 people dead and 13 million refugees, according to UN figures
Three Killed in Restaurant Shooting in Western Mexico
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – At least three people were killed and one was wounded in a restaurant shooting in Guadalajara, capital of the western Mexican state of Jalisco, state prosecutors said.Several armed men burst into the restaurant and killed three people seated at a table, local media reported, adding that the assailants fled the scene in an SUV.
The state Attorney General’s Office has not yet confirmed the media reports but it said Thursday that its personnel were not the victims, as had been initially reported.
One other diner was seriously wounded and rushed to a local hospital.
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