Daily Edition: San José, Costa Rica, October 19, 2005
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Hurricane Wilma Expected to
Strengthen, Rain on Costa Rica
Hurricane Wilma will gather force today as it blows northwestward up the Caribbean, bumping it from a category one hurricane, where it was yesterday, to a category two, meteorologists predict. Its possible effect on Costa Rica is uncertain, but National Meteorology Institute forecaster Irena Katcham said it will probably push rain this way until tomorrow.
(Click for more)
Parmenio Medina
Murder Trial Begins
The trial of nine people alleged to have played a role in the 2001 murder of journalist Parmenio Medina began yesterday with the interrogation of John Gilberto Gutiérrez, whom prosecutors finger as one of the middlemen who hired the killers.
(Click for more)
Police Arrest Mexican with
Kilo of Cocaine On His Genitals
Tipped off to the possibility that a drug-bearing foreigner would head for the Panamanian border, anti-drug police searched buses in the border town Paso Canoas and arrested a Mexican man carrying a kilo of cocaine around his genitals.
(Click for more)
October 19
American Ballet Show
Performances Oct. 19-20, 8 p.m. at the National Theater.
Free Karate Seminar by Japanese Senseis (Masters)
Directed by senseis of various martial arts styles, Oct. 19-21, 6-8 p.m., at the National Gymnasium, La Sabana Park. Info: 296-1650.
Fuzzy Rojas and David Tucker in Concert
Fuzzy Rojas will perform “Motown and More” with David Tucker and the Urban Ways band at the Jazz Café, tonight at 10 p.m. in San Pedro. The show will feature solos and soulful duets by Fuzzy Rojas and David Tucker. Info: 253-8933.
Edited By Robert Goodier
Tico Times Staff
rgoodier@ticotimes.net
Hurricane Wilma Expected to
Strengthen, Rain on Costa Rica
By Robert Goodier
Tico Times Staff
rgoodier@ticotimes.net
Hurricane Wilma will gather force today as it blows northwestward up the Caribbean, bumping it from a category one hurricane, where it was yesterday, to a category two, meteorologists predict. Its possible effect on Costa Rica is uncertain, but National Meteorology Institute forecaster Irena Katcham said it will probably push rain this way until tomorrow.
“In Costa Rica it will increase the rain, but intense rain is not expected. Everything depends on the evolution of the storm and the course it takes,” Katcham said.
Already swamped with the work of providing for nearly 2,400 people in temporary shelters, displaced by ceaseless rains and swelling rivers in the Pacific, the National Emergency Commission (CNE) is bracing for yet another onslaught of suddenly homeless flood victims. It has stocked its warehouses in preparation and sent 60 metric tons of food to the temporary shelters distributed throughout the Pacific coastal and lowland areas, most of which are in the northern Pacific province of Guanacaste.
Damages in the province include 22 segments of roads, 13 bridges, two dikes and more than 100 drinking wells, among other structures.
CNE maintains a red alert in the cantons of Bagaces, Carrillo, Santa Cruz, Hojancha, Nandayure, Nicoya and Aguirre, a yellow alert in Abangares, La Cruz, Liberia, Tilarán and Upala, and a green alert in the Caribbean watershed from the mountains to the coast, the Northern Zone and the Central Valley.
Yesterday at 3 p.m. the storm was 200 kilometers ( 124 miles ) south of the Grand Cayman Islands moving west, northwesterly at 12 km ( 7.5 miles ) per hour. The winds within its system blew at 130 km ( 80 miles ) per hour with gusts that are more powerful, and could increase today to 170 km ( 105 miles ) per hour.
Parmenio Medina
Murder Trial Begins
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Gutiérrez and his lawyer |
The trial of nine people alleged to have played a role in the 2001 murder of journalist Parmenio Medina began yesterday with the interrogation of John Gilberto Gutiérrez, whom prosecutors finger as one of the middlemen who hired the killers.
The Prosecutor's Office called 145 witnesses and entered 803 pieces of evidence, nine volumes of files and 91 tapes of bugged phone calls, all of which will come into play throughout the course of the trial, the length of which is impossible to estimate, wire service EFE reported.
The road to the trial has been tedious – judges decided to take the nine to trial in June, more than six months after they were formally accused on Dec. 7, 2004, and nearly four years after Medina was gunned down outside his home on July 7, 2001 (TT, Dec. 10, 2004).
All nine will face trial for homicide, while Catholic priest Minor Calvo, who, together with businessman Omar Chaves, is considered the impetus and brains behind the murder, will be tried for coercion as well.
The alleged triggerman, Luis Alberto Aguirre, and a journalist for the daily Diario Extra, Adrián Marrero, who allegedly gave Aguirre a cell phone when he was in prison, will also be tried for coercion. Marrero is not accused of Medina's murder, but is on trial because Aguirre called a witness with his phone and told the witness he knows where the witness's house is (the witness's name and sex have not been released).
Aguirre, a Nicaraguan known as “El Indio,” told The Tico Times from his cell last year that he confessed to the murder and claimed Chaves and Calvo are innocent (TT, April 16, 2004).
Colombians John Gutiérrez, Jorge Castillo, Danny Smith and Juan Hernández will be tried for murder, as will Costa Ricans Juan Gabriel Carvajal and Randall González.
Medina, a Colombian-born Costa Rican radio journalist, was shot point-blank three times in the head and torso outside his home. He had produced a series of investigative reports denouncing financial irregularities in the then-widely popular and now-defunct Catholic radio station Radio María, which was founded and managed by Calvo and bankrolled by Chaves (TT, Jan. 9, 2004).
Police Arrest Mexican with
Kilo of Cocaine On His Genitals
By Robert Goodier
Tico Times Staff
rgoodier@ticotimes.net
Tipped off to the possibility that a drug-bearing foreigner would head for the Panamanian border, anti-drug police searched buses in the border town Paso Canoas and arrested a Mexican man carrying a kilo of cocaine around his genitals.
“It wasn't under his testicles exactly. It was all in his pants under his belt,” Security Ministry spokesman Nicolás Aguilar told The Tico Times.
The man, last name Morales, 46, could be sentenced to up to 15 years for international drug trafficking.
The police tip came down the Central American drug trafficking information wire from anti-drug police in another Central American country, but Aguilarsaid he wasn't sure which.
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