GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Guyana’s government on Sunday appointed a group of international experts to investigate the recent sinking of a state ferry that killed dozens of passengers in the country’s worst maritime disaster on record.
The 87-year-old MV Barima capsized in Atlantic waters on June 18 after it departed the capital, Georgetown, en route to Port Kaituma, an Indigenous community near Venezuela.
Authorities have said they believe 179 passengers were aboard, but divers so far have found only 73 bodies, with another 76 people rescued. International teams are still trying to recover the vessel so experts can inspect it.
President Irfaan Ali said in a state address Sunday that the investigative team has been given widespread powers and is expected to operate independently.
Belize’s former attorney general, Phillip Godfrey Smith, was appointed chairman of the five-person team tasked with the investigation, including whether professional negligence is to blame. Other members include an attorney, a naval architect and maritime experts from Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
Local authorities have so far arrested three people, including the rescued captain, who was accused of testing positive for marijuana, along with another crew member.
Ali said the team will be asked to scrutinize the “passenger management including embarkation, manifest preparation, the possible overcrowding of the vessel, the storage of cargo, the availability and use of life saving equipment and adherence to passenger safety requirements.”
Dozens of people rescued after clinging to debris for hours have claimed that the ferry was overloaded with passengers and cargo including vehicles and large pallets. They also asserted that the MV Barima was taking in water but that crews had dismissed this as “normal.”
Ali said his administration wants the commission to determine whether there were “any acts of negligence, misconduct, dereliction of duty and other failures by any individual, entity or institution contributed to or caused the disaster, including neglect of its condition, maintenance history, sea tides, functioning navigation and communication equipment and other operational factors.”
Ali said authorities hope the commission will recommend institutional and operational reforms as well as any other measures necessary to strengthen maritime safety, “improve emergency preparedness and response and reduce the likelihood of similar tragedies occurring in the future.”
FILE - People sit on the seawall as the sun sets in Georgetown, Guyana, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Four years after being extradited to the United States for his drug trafficking trial, former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández arrived in his country Sunday to face corruption charges that lawyers fear will be a sham process.
Hernández, once considered an ally by the U.S. in the drug war, led Honduras from 2014 to 2022, during which he boasted that he would "shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos,” according to U.S. prosecutors.
His extradition shortly after leaving office marked a rare chance at justice for Hondurans, who feared his hold on the country's justice system would never allow a conviction on Honduran soil.
But the former leader, sentenced to 45 years in prison in the United States, was released in December, to the shock of many in the U.S. and Honduras, after receiving a presidential pardon from U.S. President Donald Trump. He said Hernández did not receive a fair trial and that it was a setup orchestrated by the Biden administration.
Hernández now returns to Honduras to face corruption charges amid concerns that a weak justice system and his party’s return to the presidency will ensure his impunity.
“There is a social majority that is outraged but doesn’t speak out because of fear,” said Joaquín Mejía, lawyer and researcher for the human rights organization Reflection, Research and Communication Team. "We’re talking about the boss of all drug bosses.”
Some in the country welcomed his return. Hernández was greeted at Palmerola International Airport by his mother, wife, kids and granddaughter as well as dozens of supporters of his National Party.
“The moment has arrived. After four years, I can finally tell you that we will see each other again,” Hernández said in a video posted on social media before his arrival.
Hernández, 57, faces charges related to a case known as Pandora I, which alleges that a network of former high-ranking officials from 2010 to 2013 participated in the expansion and approval of public funds disbursements totaling more than 288 million lempiras ($10.8 million) to various foundations, according to an investigation by the country's Specialized Prosecutor’s Unit Against Corruption Networks, or UFERCO.
According to UFERCO, Hernández benefited from these disbursements, receiving at least 62 million lempiras ($2.3 million) for his political campaign through various schemes, including the creation of shell companies, the use of straw men and fictitious contracts.
Hernández has said he is innocent and that the case “lacks any legal basis.”
In June, a judge suspended his arrest warrant and the international red notice issued to Interpol at the request of Hernández’s lawyer, although the case is still pending. The former president has agreed to appear before the judge on Aug. 3 for his arraignment.
Other high-level officials implicated in Pandora I whose cases have been dismissed indicate the likely outcome for Hernández, according to legal experts.
“Everything points to the suspension being the first step,” Mejía said. “He’ll come, they’ll likely issue him alternative measures to imprisonment to keep up appearances, and then he’ll end up without any problem, without any sanction.”
For Luis Javier Santos, the former head of UFERCO who investigated the case against Hernández, the former leader’s return represents a failure to prosecute him for his crimes rather than a chance for justice.
Santos was removed from his role in UFERCO in February in what he believes demonstrated attempts to stifle anti-corruption investigations by the new government of Nasry Asfura, of Hernández's National Party, which took office in January after gaining Trump's backing during elections.
“We have gone backward to an even worse point than when all the work to fight corruption began,” Santos said.
Brigida reported from Mexico City.
FILE - Honduras' President Juan Orlando Hernandez speaks during the opening ceremony of the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, Monday Nov. 1, 2021. (Andy Buchanan/Pool via AP, File)
