Second fatal blast a bomb, Bolivia says
LA PAZ, Bolivia — Bolivian officials said Wednesday that a bomb caused an explosion that killed four people during Carnival celebrations.
The explosion occurred late Tuesday in the middle of Carnival celebrations in the city of Oruro, the capital of President Evo Morales’ home province, killing four people and wounding
- Police Gen. Faustino Mendoza told reporters that the device was made of dynamite, ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, all commonly used in homemade explosives.
Mendoza said the bomb had left a crater nearly 4 feet wide and 1.5 feet deep.
On Saturday, an explosion along the Carnival route two blocks from Tuesday’s attack left eight dead and 40 wounded. Police blamed the first explosion on a food vendor’s gas canister, but said they are re-evaluating that in the wake of the second attack.
“The proximity of one to the other raises doubts,” Defense Minister Javier Zavaleta said. Officials said three people had been detained for questioning in the second explosion.
Parisian innocent of harboring terrorists
PARIS — A French court on Wednesday acquitted a Frenchman accused of harboring Islamic extremists after they carried out the 2015 Paris attacks, bringing a surprising end to the first criminal trial linked to the country’s deadliest extremist violence since World War II.
The presiding judge said the Paris court found Jawad Bendaoud innocent of providing lodging in Paris to two of the attackers and helping them hide from police.
The court also convicted and sentenced two co-defendants in the case to prison terms Wednesday.
The Nov. 13, 2015, attacks on Paris cafes, the national stadium and the Bataclan concert hall left 130 people dead. The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility.
Addressing Bendaoud at a verdict hearing, Judge Isabelle Prevost-Desprez said the evidence was “insufficient to prove your guilt.”
“It has not been proven that Jawad Bendaoud provided accommodation to two individuals whom he knew to be terrorists,” she said in her ruling.
Bendaoud, standing behind a glass-enclosed dock, raised his fist in victory and blew kisses to the public and his lawyers at the news. He faced up to six years in prison if convicted of harboring terrorists.
Ukrainian exile surfaces in Netherlands
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Ukrainian opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili flew to the Netherlands, his wife’s home country, on Wednesday after being ejected from Ukraine into neighboring Poland.
It was not immediately clear how long he planned to stay or what he will do in the Netherlands.
Asked Wednesday by Dutch national broadcaster NOS if he would stay long, Saakashvili replied, “We will see.”
He added he was there “because of what happened in Ukraine … but obviously it’s a country I come to very often anyway.”
Saakashvili was Georgia’s president from 2004 to 2013, and later was given a governorship in Ukraine by then-ally President Petro Poroshenko. He has since criticized Poroshenko for failing to stem corruption and has led anti-government protests.
At a news conference in Warsaw on Tuesday, Saakashvili described his detention in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, by armed, masked men and immediate expulsion to neighboring Poland as a violation of international laws and vowed to continue encouraging Ukrainians to oppose authorities he described as “corrupt elites.”
Denmark’s Prince Henrik, 83, dies
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Prince Henrik, the French-born husband of Danish monarch Queen Margrethe who publicly vented his frustration at not being the social equal of his wife or son who is in line to become Denmark’s king, died late Tuesday. He was 83.
He was diagnosed with dementia last year and was hospitalized late last month with a lung infection. Earlier in the day, Henrik was moved from a Copenhagen hospital to the family’s residence north of the capital, where the royal palace said he wished “to spend his last moments.”
A later statement said Henrik died at 11:18 p.m. in his sleep and that the queen and their two sons were at his side.
“The royal family has lost an anchor,” Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said in a statement, who said Henrik “kept his good spirits till the end.”
