Ex-Nazi, 102, dies awaiting appeal for over 3,500 accessory to murder convictions

A 102-year-old man who was convicted last year on more than 3,500 counts of accessory to murder for serving as a guard at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II has died, German news agency dpa reported Wednesday.

The man, whom local media have identified only as Josef S. in line with German privacy rules, was sentenced to five years in prison last June but remained free pending appeal.

SWITZERLAND TO ERECT ITS FIRST OFFICIAL HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL

He had denied working as an SS guard at the Sachsenhausen camp. But the state court in Neuruppin concluded that documents with the man’s name, date and place of birth showed he had in fact been an enlisted member of the Nazi Party’s paramilitary wing stationed at the camp on the outskirts of Berlin between 1942 and 1945.

Tens of thousands of inmates — including Jews, political prisoners and captured Soviet soldiers — died at the Sachsenhausen camp from starvation, disease, forced labor and other causes, as well as through medical experiments and systematic executions carried out by the SS.

WOMAN'S SEDUCTIVE POSE AT AUSCHWITZ PROMPTS OUTRAGE, RESPONSE FROM MUSEUM DEMANDING RESPECT

Delivering the court's verdict, presiding Judge Udo Lechtermann said the defendant had assisted the murderous system established by the Nazis. According to a legal precedent set in 2015, anyone who helped a Nazi camp function can be prosecuted in Germany for being an accessory to the murders committed there.

"You willingly supported this mass extermination with your activity," Lechtermann said at the time. "You watched deported people being cruelly tortured and murdered there every day for three years."

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Sudan lab takeover by fighters does not 'dramatically change the existing health threat posture': US official

A U.S. official said on Wednesday that the takeover of a national health lab by Sudanese fighters does not "dramatically change the existing health threat posture," pushing back against a warning from the World Health Organization that the seizure poses "a huge biological risk."

Fighting broke out on April 15 between the Sudanese military, led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary force led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo. The two leaders partnered up to orchestrate a military coup of Sudan's Western-backed administration in 2021, but have since turned against each other during negotiations over how to incorporate the RSF into the country's armed forces.

Dr. Nima Saeed Abid, the WHO's representative in Sudan, said that "one of the fighting parties" took over the National Public Health Laboratory in the capital of Khartoum on Tuesday, calling it an "extremely, extremely dangerous" development. 

"We have polio isolates in the lab. We have measles isolates in the lab. We have cholera isolates in the lab. So here is a huge biological risk associated with the occupation of the central public health lab in Khartoum by one of the fighting parties," he told a United Nations briefing on Tuesday.

A U.S. official familiar with the matter said on Wednesday that it is "clearly" not a good situation, but downplayed the WHO's assessment. 

"The National Public Health Laboratory in question is the Sudanese’s reference lab for its health system. This means the pathogens stored there are already in the population (e.g., TB, COVID, Cholera). Therefore, medical and intelligence experts assess at this time the current situation does not dramatically change the existing health threat posture," the official said. 

"There is also at this time no assessed tie between the looters and terrorist organizations; nevertheless, we continue to track the situation with allies and partners."

FIRST IMAGES FROM SUDAN EVACUATION EMERGE, AS US PULLS OUT ALL DIPLOMATIC STAFF

Diplomatic staff at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum were evacuated over the weekend. 

The U.S. brokered a 72-hour ceasefire between the two sides that started at midnight on April 24, though there have still been reports of sporadic violence. 

Two American citizens have been killed in Sudan since the fighting broke out. 

"We continue to make clear at the highest levels of our government the leadership of both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces that they are responsible for ensuring the protection of civilians and noncombatants, including people from third countries and humanitarian staff that are working to save lives," White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday. 

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Putin critic Navalny says Russia has launched 'absurd' new case against him that threatens more jail time

Jailed Vladimir Putin critic and Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny revealed Wednesday that prosecutors have launched an "absurd" new case against him that could keep him behind bars for an additional 30 years.

The fresh extremism charges against Navalny relate to the activities of his anti-corruption foundation and statements by his top associates, with ally Leonid Volkov telling the Associated Press that the accusations retroactively criminalize all the activities of the foundation since its creation in 2011. 

Supporters of Navalny published a statement on Twitter quoting him as saying he has also been accused of carrying out "terrorist attacks" while in jail and is going to face a separate military trial over those allegations. 

"They made absurd charges that threaten me with 30 years in prison," the statement read. "Investigator Vidyukov said yesterday that a terrorist case was singled out separately from this case that I, while in prison, commit terrorist attacks. And in this case I will be judged separately by a military court." 

UNITED NATIONS CONDEMNS ‘SUMMARY EXECUTION OF PRISONERS OF WAR’ BY BOTH RUSSIA, UKRAINE 

Navalny is currently being held at the IK-6 penal colony on Melekhovo, east of Moscow, on fraud and contempt of court charges he argues are politically motivated. 

On Wednesday, he appeared by video link at Moscow’s Basmanny District Court to discuss the extremism allegations, according to the AP.

However, the judge closed the session minutes after it opened, ruling that it should be held behind closed doors because the case involved sensitive information. It was not clear when the trial might start. 

"It’s an attempt to unlawfully restrict my ability to study the materials of the case and prevent anyone from knowing about it," Navalny reportedly said inside the courtroom before public access to the hearing ended. 

SUPPORTERS OF NAVALNY PLACE REPLICA CELL OUTSIDE RUSSIAN EMBASSY 

The court ruled Wednesday to give Navalny 10 days to study the extremism case after he asked for more time to examine the almost 200 pages of case materials, The Moscow Times reports. 

The Russian state-run TASS News Agency reported Wednesday that an investigator at the court said the "case investigation with regard to Navalny involves extremist circles."

"Eleven people are on an international warning list in connection with this," he told TASS. 

In 2021, Navalny was jailed after he returned to Russia following an incident where he was poisoned. At the time, Navalny received medical treatment in Germany. He blamed the attack, which involved a Soviet-era nerve agent, on Russian President Putin. 

Fox News’s Lawrence Richard and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Travelers entering China won't need to provide negative PCR tests starting Saturday

Travelers entering China will no longer need to provide a negative PCR test result starting Saturday, in another easing of China's "zero COVID" policies.

Travelers can instead show a negative antigen test result taken within 48 hours before boarding, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters Tuesday.

Over the last three years, China imposed an array of anti-virus controls to try to eliminate the coronavirus from the country, including lockdowns and regular mass testing. But after the regulations hammered the economy and sparked protests, the government suddenly rolled back the onerous measures in December and made a major step to drop its quarantine rule in early January.

CHINA, UKRAINE ON MAINSTAGE AS SOUTH KOREA'S PRESIDENT VISITS BIDEN, ADDRESSES CONGRESS FOR 1ST TIME IN DECADE

Last month, the country resumed issuing all types of visas as part of its efforts to revive tourism. Still, it kept PCR testing requirements for passengers arriving from some countries, a costly requirement that was a major deterrent for visitors.

PCR tests are highly accurate but cost time and money, while antigen tests are easier to obtain.

CHINA VOWS ‘STRONG' MEASURES AFTER MCCARTHY MEETS TAIWAN'S TSAI ING WEN 

"To further facilitate cross-border travel, China is taking new steps to refine pre-departure testing requirements guided by the principle of ensuring safe and orderly travel and keeping the measures science based and well targeted," Mao said.

She added that airlines will no longer be required to check test results before departure.

At a briefing on Wednesday, He Qinghua, an official of the National Health Commission, said the number of COVID-19 cases in early April had dropped to the lowest level since December. Although the figures have risen slightly since mid-April, massive outbreaks in the short term are unlikely, he said.

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Mexico: Authorities find 8 bodies in Cancun resort as drug cartel violence rages

The bodies of eight people were found dumped in the Mexican resort of Cancun, one of the country’s most popular tourism destinations, authorities said Tuesday.

The bodies were discovered over the weekend about 10 miles from Cancun's beach and hotel zone after police launched a coordinated effort to search for missing people in wooded lots and even sinkhole ponds, also known as cenotes, Mexican authorities said.

Oscar Montes de Oca, the head prosecutor of the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo said five of the bodies were found at an abandoned construction site. Three were subsequently identified as previously reported missing people.

Three sets of skeletal remains were discovered at a separate site in a wooded area on the outskirts of Cancun near a poor neighborhood, close to the resort's airport, authorities said. They have not yet been identified.

MAN ALLEGEDLY LINKED TO DRUG CARTEL FATALLY SHOT AT STARBUCKS IN MEXICO CITY

Montes de Oca said authorities estimated the bodies were dumped there between one week and two months ago.

According to the government, more than 112,000 people are listed as missing throughout the country. While crimes are more common in other areas of the country, Cancun and other resorts were typically regarded as safe travel destinations.

Drug cartels have begun disposing of the bodies of their victims in clandestine body dumping grounds, especially as several cartels fight for control of the Caribbean coast and its drug trade.

3 FOUND DEAD IN CANCUN'S HOTEL ZONE, AMIDST TROUBLING SURGE IN VIOLENCE

Authorities carried out similar searches in Felipe Carrillo Puerto, which is about 140 miles south of Cancun.

Volunteers, including the relatives of missing people, assisted investigators in the searches. Search dogs were also used.

CANCUN QUADRUPLE HOMICIDE LIKELY GANG RELATED, AUTHORITIES SAY

Earlier this month, four men were killed in Cancun following a dispute related to drug gang activity. The dead men were found in the city’s hotel zone near the beach.

A U.S. tourist was also shot in the leg in the nearby town of Puerto Morelos in March.

Cancun remains the top destination for Americans vacationing in Mexico.

The U.S. State Department issued travel guidance last month that warns travelers to "exercise increased caution," especially near resorts like Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum anytime after dark.

In 2022, two Canadians were killed in Playa del Carmen, which is about 40 miles south of Cancun.

In 2021, in the town of Tulum — about 80 miles south of Cancun — two foreign tourists including one American and one German were killed when they were apparently caught by gunfire from rival drug dealers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Underwhelmed by police, Haitian vigilantes fight off gangsters themselves

Armed with machetes, bottles, and rocks, residents in the hilly suburbs of Haiti’s capital fought back against encroaching gangs Tuesday, a day after a crowd burned 13 suspected gangsters to death in a gruesome outburst of vigilante violence.

Tired of relying on an understaffed police department, scores of men in the Canape Vert neighborhood of Port-au-Prince spent the night on roofs and patrolled entrances of their community blocked with big trucks spray-painted with the words, "Down with gangs."

"We are planning to fight and keep our neighborhood clean of these savages," Jeff Ezequiel, a 37-year-old mechanic, told The Associated Press. "The population is tired and frustrated."

MOB IN HAITIAN CAPITAL BURNS 13 SUSPECTED GANGSTERS TO DEATH

The makeshift brigade is the latest example of growing attempts by Haitians to fight gangs on their own. Earlier this year, people elsewhere in Port-au-Prince and in the central Artibonite region, which has been hit by heavy gang violence, have lynched several suspected gang members.

Until now, Canape Vert and nearby Turgeau — the site of a major hotel chain and a local university — had largely avoided the gang-fueled violence that has been consuming the capital and surrounding areas since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. The United Nations estimates that gangs now control up to 80% of Port-au-Prince.

"Gang expansion into areas previously considered safe…has been alarming," according to a U.N. Security Council report released on Tuesday.

Reported killings from January to March 31 have risen by more than 20% compared with the last quarter of 2022, and 637 kidnappings have been reported so far this year, an increase of 63% compared with the last three months of 2022, the report stated.

Meanwhile, Haiti’s National Police has 1.2 officers per 1,000 inhabitants in this country of more than 11 million people.

"The police remain under resourced and face overwhelming odds in their struggle to keep gangs from tightening their grip on the country," the U.N. report said.

On Monday, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres urged the immediate deployment of an international armed force to Haiti — a request Haiti’s prime minister first made in October last year — and warned in a report that violence in Port-au-Prince "has reached levels comparable to countries in armed conflict."

More than 130,000 Haitians have fled their neighborhoods as gangs break into homes, kill and rape residents in a fight to control more territory, and nearly 40% of them are now living in makeshift shelters lacking basic services, according to the U.N.

But on Tuesday, many in Canape Vert returned to their homes after temporarily fleeing the area on Monday when the 13 suspected gang members were killed.

"There’s nowhere to run," said Samuel, 25, who declined to give his last name out of fear of being killed. "We have to stand and fight back. If there has to be a war, I will be part of it, because authorities are not taking responsibility and are letting everyone die under their eyes."

He was walking back to his home Tuesday along with other residents, including Sandra Jenty, 26, who took shelter under her bed with her 4-year-old son on Monday night, losing control of her bladder as gunshots rang out in her neighborhood before she fled around dawn.

"It felt like they were shooting inside of my house," she said. "I’m not hurt by the grace of God."

She cradled her son as they walked back to their house, with Jenty confident that the makeshift neighborhood brigade would protect them. Meanwhile, authorities dragged one body of a suspected gang member along the pavement and into a van for removal. It was one of 13 suspected gang members who had been killed with rocks and sticks and burned to death with gasoline-soaked tires.

At one checkpoint in Turgeau, more than a dozen masked men with machetes stood guard. They declined to speak to the AP and warned that no images of them be taken.

It’s a movement that resident Reynald Jean Pierre, 30, said he supports, adding that he was "willing to die" to protect his neighborhood from gangs.

"People are being kidnapped, people are being raped, people are being extorted, but we are not going to let it happen under our watch," he said. "We don’t have another home to go to."

‘LAWLESS’ HAITI PLAGUED BY CORRUPTION AND DEADLY GANG VIOLENCE FUELS HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

The U.N. said Haitian police estimate that there are seven major gang coalitions in the country and some 200 affiliated groups.

Residents believe that the 13 suspected gang members who were killed by the crowd Monday were members of the Kraze Barye gang, which translates to "Breaking Barriers."

Ezequiel dismissed concerns about possible retribution by gangs for Monday’s killings, adding that he was saddened by the slayings of the young men he said could have been doing something productive for society.

"We won this fight, but the war is not over," he said. "We are going to continue searching for gangs, and if they are still hiding, we are going to get them and make sure they don’t leave alive."

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Colombia holds multinational summit on Venezuelan political crisis

Diplomats from 20 countries gathered Tuesday in Colombia to discuss the political crisis in Venezuela, where Nicolas Maduro’s socialist administration has strengthened its autocratic rule despite international efforts to expand political freedoms in the South American nation.

The conference was hosted by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who has called for sanctions on Venezuela’s government to be lifted, but also for policies that ensure "more democracy" in Venezuela.

"The history of Latin America is in our hands" Petro said as he opened the conference with a half-hour speech that focused on the region's transition from authoritarian regimes to democratic governments. He said the region could "mark a path that leads toward war, and the deconstruction of democracy, or we can rebuild the path of peace and democracy."

UN AGREES TO HEAR CENTURY-OLD VENEZUELA-GUYANA BORDER DISPUTE CASE

Delegates from the United States, the European Union, Brazil and the United Kingdom are attending the one-day event, which will look at ways to boost negotiations between the Maduro administration and a coalition of opposition parties known as the Democratic Unitary Platform. Those talks began in Mexico in 2021 but stalled at the end of last year.

While members of the Unitary Platform are backing the Colombia meeting, some factions of Venezuela's opposition have questioned whether Colombia can be an effective mediator.

On Monday, Juan Guaidó, the former leader of Venezuela's National Assembly, traveled to Bogota intending to hold meetings with international delegates on the conference sidelines. But after he announced he was in the country, Colombia officials said he had entered illegally and escorted Guaidó to Bogota's airport, where he boarded a flight to Miami.

In the Mexico talks, opposition parties are seeking changes in the electoral system that will ensure a level playing field in next year’s presidential election, while Maduro’s government wants sanctions on Venezuela’s state run oil company to be lifted, and has demanded that the United Kingdom and the U.S. unfreeze its assets in those countries.

While the negotiations have advanced slowly, many countries now see the Mexico talks as the best path to overcome the political crisis in Venezuela, where opposition leaders have been forced into exile, while those who remain in the country claim that Maduro is an illegitimate president.

"This summit can be an incredible chance to ensure ongoing talks are a priority of the international community" said Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow on Venezuela, at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank. "It’s a way for the participants to ensure that both parties have incentives in the (Mexico) negotiations."

Maduro was re-elected in 2018, after judges banned his main opponents from competing. But most opposition parties refused to recognize the election results. Instead they challenged Maduro's rule by creating an interim government led by Guaidó, who was backed by the United States and dozens of nations that stopped recognizing Maduro as Venezuela's legitimate leader.

The U.S. government also imposed heavy sanctions on Maduro's government that cut its access to U.S. banks and crippled the nation’s oil exports, hoping that would spark regime change. But Maduro’s government dug in and resisted the sanctions with support from Russia, Turkey and Iran.

Guaidó's claim to Venezuela's presidency fizzled out over the past two years as his interim government failed to exert control over any institutions. Opposition parties in Venezuela dissolved it late last year, and replaced it with a committee that includes leaders from the nation's three main opposition parties.

After Guaidó was escorted onto the flight, Petro tweeted that the opposition figure could have applied for asylum but chose instead to enter Colombia illegally. Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva said Guaidó apparently wanted to make some "noise."

COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT PETRO SIGNS TRADE DEAL WITH VENEZUELA'S MADURO ON BORDER

As the stalemate in Venezuela continues, many countries have realized that using sanctions to bring about regime change has failed, said Ronal Rodriguez, a Venezuela expert at Bogota’s Rosario University.

That includes the United States, which last year loosened some sanctions on Venezuela’s national oil company, after the Maduro administration and the opposition made an agreement on humanitarian aid.

"We are moving away form the failed policy of the Trump administration that sought to achieve regime change through sanctions" said Juan Gonzalez, the National Security Council’s senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs, in an interview with Colombian network NTN. Gonzalez added that the U.S. is willing to ease more sanctions if concrete steps toward free and fair elections are taken in the Venezuela talks.

President Petro said Tuesday that he is attempting to convince Venezuela to rejoin the Interamerican Human Rights system, and added that establishing an electoral calendar with clear guarantees for opposition groups would be a "big achievement" in upcoming negotiations. He also said that a schedule spelling out which sanctions will be lifted would also be a desirable goal.

"The biggest conquest of all is that the hopes and dreams of the Venezuelan people come true" he said. "We want them to take decisions in liberty, without being pressured by anyone outside their country or within their country."

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