Germany sees record number of politically motivated crimes

Politically motivated crimes in Germany increased by 7% to a new high, according to the police. Offenses connected with the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine were not the only reasons for the jump.

Germany recorded 58,916 cases of politically motivated crime in 2022, an increase of some 7% compared with the previous year, according to figures released on Tuesday.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said right-wing extremism remained the greatest threat to German democracy, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic also cited as important factors for the rise in politically motivated crime.

A significant increase was also recorded in crimes and acts of violence by the far-right Reichsbürger (citizens of the Reich) movement.

What the report said on Ukraine and COVID

Germany recorded 5,510 politically motivated crimes in connection with the Russian war in Ukraine. This was accompanied by a soaring number of "foreign ideology" cases, totaling 3,886 — a rise of 237%.

The war of aggression by Russian President Vladimir Putin, which is in violation of international law, "was a turning point for internal security in Germany," Faeser said.

Braving the pandemic of conspiracy theories  02:06

There was also a significant increase in cases linked with the coronavirus pandemic — a jump of 52% to 13,988.

However, Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) President Holger Münch emphasized that the high point of these cases was at the beginning of 2022. They then "continuously decreased with the lifting of state restrictions."

Rise in Reichsbürger cases

The criminal offenses of Reichsbürger and Selbstverwalter (Sovereign Citizen) movements increased by around 40% to 1865 cases.

Both terms describe a loose grouping of people who do not recognize the authority of Germany's current system of government and many of them refuse to pay taxes or fines. The Reichsbürger insist that the laws of both the German Empire and Nazi Germany still apply today.

While these crimes mainly involved coercion, threats, and insults, the number of violent crimes in this area also increased by 40% to 333.

Germany: Fresh raids on Reichsbürger group 01:34

Faeser said the state would continue to act "with all severity against the Reichsbürger," referring to a major raid at the end of last year against an alleged attempted coup from the scene.

Faeser said care should be taken when it came to the availability of weapons, with some 400 Reichsbürger adherents having at least one gun permit.
Right-wing threat lingers

Faeser and Münch emphasized that overall right-wing extremism continued to be the greatest threat to democracy. The number of such cases rose by 7% to 23,493. While the number of acts of violence in the left-wing extremist area fell significantly, they increased in the right-wing spectrum by more than 12% to 1,042.

The number of acts of violence across the board rose by 4% to 4,043. There were 2,386 cases of physical injury.

In the area of climate and environmental protection, 1,716 politically motivated crimes were registered, including street and other infrastructure blockades attributed to the Last Generation protest group. This was 72% more than in the previous year.

The minister said she had "not the slightest understanding" of such crimes, adding that the climate crisis must be "democratically fought."

rc/sms (dpa, KNA, AFP)

Criminal or hero? Man who dethroned Austrian far-right speaks out

Blaise GAUQUELIN
Tue, May 9, 2023 

Julian Hessenthaler speaks at the Vienna Volkstheater on April 20, 2023

Four years after a far-right Austrian politician was revealed to have cut deals with a woman posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch, the private detective who dreamt up the sting operation is speaking out.

The "Ibiza scandal" caught the then leader of Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) Heinz-Christian Strache promising the purported Russian public contracts in exchange for election campaign support.

Filmed in 2017, but not released until 2019, the video led to the spectacular collapse of the coalition Strache was part of and triggered corruption investigations. It ultimately dethroned former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

Julian Hessenthaler, the detective who conceived of the video filmed on Spain's resort island of Ibiza, was jailed in 2021 for trafficking cocaine and possessing forged documents.

Venerated by supporters as a heroic whistle-blower who exposed the corrupt nature of Austrian politics, to his critics he is a venal criminal deserving of imprisonment.

Now fresh out of jail, the 42-year-old told AFP in an interview that Austria "has not learned much" from the scandal as the FPOe again surges in the polls.

Released from prison on April 7, the former "security consultant" has been giving his side of the story in rounds of interviews and talks.

He argues that he was "wrongfully convicted" without material evidence after stepping on powerful people's toes and describes the whole procedure as "dubious to say the least".

- 'Deterrant effect' -

Dubbed the "Ibiza detective" by the press -- a nickname he despises -- Hessenthaler was behind the trap for Strache, a boozy evening in a luxury Ibiza villa during which the FPOe's illegal dealings came to light.

Hessenthaler alleges that a wealthy, Iranian-born lawyer based in Vienna paid at least 100,000 euros ($110,000) to orchestrate the fateful video.

At the time the lawyer had as a client a former bodyguard of Strache who felt he had been unjustly fired and was seeking revenge.

Published by German media in May 2019, the video and its fallout have prosecutors buried in work to this day.

Some 50 personalities from the world of politics, business and media are under scrutiny in various offshoots of the scandal.

But in contrast to Hessenthaler, so far no trials or indictments have produced any convictions for the political heavyweights implicated in the scandal.

The minute Hessenthaler became a free man again, Vienna's renowned Volkstheater staged public debates with him, featuring journalists and artists.

Press rights group Reporters Without Borders and a dozen other non-profits praised Hessenthaler's "courage" and warned his conviction could have a "deterrent effect" on potential future whistle-blowers.

- Leftist 'darling' -

German investigative website Correctiv wrote a long article about Hessenthaler, casting doubt on the prosecution's findings that put him behind bars for drugs.

But conservative Austrian daily Die Presse dismissed him the new "darling of many leftists", while far-right supporters have denounced him as a drug-pushing criminal.

Now Hessenthaler questions whether it was worth producing the video that ousted the FPOe from office, given that the far-right party has since gained national momentum.

"The FPOe has already become the leading political force in the polls," he told AFP.

The far-right party enjoys nationwide support levels of 29 percent, up from the 16 percent it won at polls in 2019.

With the governing coalition weak, the FPOe has tapped into voter anxieties over the war in Ukraine and inflation, as well as anger over strict measures during the pandemic, on top of its trademark opposition to migration.

As for reforms mooted in the immediate aftermath of the scandal, there was "a lot of talk," Hessenthaler said. But the most important legislative changes brought in to tackle corruption "have still not been implemented", he added.

Nevertheless, he said he would "do it again without hesitation", calling Austrian politicians peanuts compared to "far more dangerous" people he has dealt with in the past, albeit without elaborating.

bg/anb/kym/gil/jm

Illegal mining booms in Brazilian Amazon 'promised land'

Marcelo SILVA DE SOUSA
Tue, May 9, 2023 

A miner works at an illegal copper mine in Canaa dos Carajas, Brazil, in April

Working under an improvised shed hidden in the rainforest, Webson Nunes hears a shout and flips on his winch, hauling a colleague up from deep inside a giant hole with a bucket full of riches.

Nunes, 28, and his four colleagues are "garimpeiros," illegal miners who dig for precious minerals -- in their case, at a wildcat copper mine outside Canaa dos Carajas, a small city at the edge of the Brazilian Amazon that has become a boom town in recent years thanks to mining.

Canaa -- Portuguese for Canaan, the Biblical "Promised Land" -- is a place of extremes: At one end of the spectrum sits mining giant Vale, which runs one of the world's biggest open-air mines here.

Known as S11D, the iron-ore mine made the city the richest in Brazil in 2020 in GDP per capita.

At the other end are an estimated 100 illegal mines like the one where Nunes is employed, bootstrap operations where "garimpeiros" -- Portuguese for "prospectors" -- make a living digging holes in the earth, living on constant alert in case of a raid.

"I work with one eye here (on the mine), and the other outside. The police could arrive at any moment," says Nunes, inside the tarp-covered shack above the narrow, wet, 20-meter (22-yard)-deep hole into which he lowers his colleagues with a harness and steel cable to haul up big blue buckets of shiny, mineral-rich rocks.

But Nunes, who has been doing this for seven years, says he sees it as just another job -- albeit a lucrative one. The mine owner pays him 150 reais ($30) a day, a nice salary in these parts.

- 'Severe environmental damage' -

Illegal mines make around $800 per metric ton of copper they sell on the black market.

This one typically produces more than that in a day, the miners told AFP.

Authorities say the copper mined illegally in Canaa mainly gets exported to China.

Police say they have also detected illegal gold mines in the area, which cause greater environmental damage because of the mercury used to separate gold from soil.

Canaa's population has boomed along with its economy.

Since 2016, when Vale launched S11D, employing 9,000 people, the town has nearly tripled in size, from 26,000 inhabitants to 75,000.

The town, located in the northern state of Para, voted heavily in Brazil's presidential elections last year for far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, who narrowly lost to veteran leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro, whose father was a garimpeiro, defended wildcat miners as president, pushing to allow mining on protected lands in the Amazon and drawing condemnation from environmentalists.

Since taking office in January, Lula has cracked down on illegal mining in the world's biggest rainforest.

Police have staged six raids in the Canaa region since August 2022, unearthing what they called "severe environmental damage" in the form of "severely" discolored rivers and forestland turned into giant pools of toxic mud.

Officers typically destroy miners' operations, flooding their mine shafts and seizing or burning their equipment.

But it does little to stop them: The same miners can sometimes be seen back at work the next day, says Genivaldo Casadei, a garimpeiro leader.

Casadei, 51, is treasurer of a local small-scale miners' cooperative trying to win legal status for their work.

Under Bolsonaro, miners were in advanced talks with the federal mining agency to do just that, he says.

Lula's victory put an end to that.

"In the cities, people see garimpeiros as criminals. But we're just workers trying to feed our families," says Casadei.

"If (wildcat mining) were regulated, it would create jobs and tax revenue. Canaa could be the richest city in the world."

- 'Dangerous job' -

Garimpeiros say it is unjust that Vale, the world's biggest iron ore producer, has a monopoly on mining rights on local land, but uses just 13 percent of it.

Getting authorization for small-scale mines is nearly impossible, they say.

Crouching over a pile of shiny rocks from a mining pit, Valmir Souza bangs at them with a hammer, separating the copper from the rest.

"It's a hard, dangerous job," says Souza, 33, who works in gloves, rubber boots and a white helmet.

He arrived here seven months ago from his northeastern home state, Maranhao, the poorest in Brazil, where he worked teaching capoeira, a Brazilian dance form and martial art.

There is more opportunity in Canaa, he says.

But "we have to work in secret," he adds. "What else can we do?"

msi/jhb/nro/md/dva

Hong Kongers find new ways to defend democratic ideals

Holmes CHAN and Xinqi SU
Tue, May 9, 2023

Hong Kongers like Lau Ka-tung are still grappling with the aftermath of huge protests that roiled the city in 2019

Two years after being released from a Hong Kong prison, Lau Ka-tung has lost count of the times he has returned -- not as an inmate, but to offer support to pro-democracy activists in jail.

Hong Kongers like Lau, 27, are still grappling with the aftermath of huge, and often violent, protests that roiled the Chinese finance hub in 2019, and a subsequent crackdown by Beijing that saw thousands arrested.

Despite the collapse of organised opposition or pro-democracy activism due to a sweeping national security law passed in 2020, some Hong Kongers are still looking for ways to fight for their values.

During the protests, Lau, a registered social worker, had tried to mediate at a clash between police and demonstrators, an act that landed him in jail for six months for "obstructing police".

"Everything felt incomprehensible and frightening... at the time I had an emotional breakdown, I was crying non-stop," Lau said.

Now, he has made it his mission to ease those anxieties for jailed protesters and their families, making near-daily visits to prisons dotted around Hong Kong.

"Those who have spent a long time in custody are looking for emotional support, while those who just arrived often want to learn about the procedures and unspoken rules," he said.

Frequently asked questions include how to write to judges to request leniency, and what types of supplies prisoners are allowed to receive.

Sometimes, prisoners just need someone to talk to, such as during one recent visit when Lau found himself engaged in a spirited chat about Chinese literature with a young pro-democracy protester.

Lau said there were very few social workers in Hong Kong specialising in protest-related cases.

"If I quit, the very small minority will become even smaller."

- Living through a crackdown -

Hong Kong's protest movement kicked off in June 2019 over an unpopular bill that would have allowed extraditions from the semi-autonomous city to the Chinese mainland.

The movement soon morphed into a wider push for democratic change that brought hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers from all walks of life onto the streets to take part in huge protests, some of which turned violent.

The subsequent crackdown saw more than 10,000 people arrested over the protests, with more than 6,000 still awaiting formal charges.

Under Beijing's national security law, which sounded the death knell for the protest movement, another 150 people have been charged, with dozens of the city's best-known democrats facing allegations of "subversion" and "foreign collusion".

National security cases have, so far, had a 100 percent conviction rate.

The crackdowns have decimated Hong Kong's once-vibrant civil society, which was made up of dozens of political parties and advocacy groups across a wide spectrum.

At least 60 groups -- including the two largest pro-democracy labour unions and the organiser of a yearly Tiananmen vigil -- have disbanded.

Still standing, however, is the political party League of Social Democrats, where 31-year-old Dickson Chau serves as external vice-chairperson.

"Civil society has been seriously atomised," Chau told AFP.

The LSD was once known for its boisterous street-level campaigning, with activists using megaphones to deliver pro-democracy messages.

"The situation (now) is so bleak that we can only run into each other in courts or prisons and all we can have is small talk -- no one would collaborate for any actions," Chau said.

The group is now allowed only to operate a single booth at a designated location, and police scrutinise every word on their banners.

Police question every new volunteer, Chau said, and group members are warned not to protest around "politically sensitive" days, such as the anniversary of the city's 1997 handover to Chinese rule.

Still, the LSD continues to oppose some government policies, such as a recent $74 billion project to develop new artificial islands around Hong Kong.

"Citizens can no longer speak out in public... but Hong Kong is not yet a pond of stagnant water," Chau said.

- Creating space -

With the streets of Hong Kong cleared of rallies and protests, some have tried to build alternative spaces.

"Civil society around a decade ago was very different... Now, having a space is precious because we don't have many groups and venues left," said Sum Wan-wah, a veteran journalist who recently opened a bookshop named "Have A Nice Stay".

Sum's business partners are former reporters of Stand News, an independent online news platform that closed after police raided its newsroom and arrested its editors for "sedition".

Since opening last May, the bookstore has registered over 1,500 members and organised more than 50 closed-door events -- mostly talks by journalists, authors and documentary filmmakers.

Many of the books on sale focus on media literacy, democratic development and authoritarianism. Events cover a range of topics, from Russia's invasion of Ukraine to documentary production workshops.

The store also displays award-winning news photography and sells handicrafts made by reporters who have lost their jobs since the crackdown.

"As long as people can have a place to gather, there is no limit to what can be imagined," Sum said.

"You won't know whether it will make a difference or how many people it will nurture, but I want to give it a chance."

The bookstore is not immune from pressure and surveillance, with the shop sometimes subject to inspections and event participants once questioned by police in the last year.

Sum remains undeterred.

"I don't want a situation where nothing can happen," he said.

"I am making a choice between zero and 0.1, and I choose 0.1 even though all the efforts may eventually go down the drain."

su-hol/aha/dhc/ser

iPhone maker Foxconn buys huge site in India tech hub

Aishwarya KUMAR with Sean GLEESON in New Delhi
Tue, May 9, 2023 

Apple is making its own push into India and last month opened its first two retail stores in the world's most populous country

Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn has bought a huge tract of land on the outskirts of Indian tech hub Bengaluru, the key Apple supplier said in a filing Tuesday as it looks to diversify production away from China.

Also known by its official name, Hon Hai Precision Industry, Foxconn is the world's biggest contract electronics manufacturer and a principal assembler of Apple iPhones.

Both companies are seeking to shift manufacturing away from China after strict Covid policies, a bout of industrial unrest and ongoing diplomatic tensions with the United States hurt production.

The 1.2 million-square-metre (13 million-square-foot) acquisition in Devanahalli, near the airport for Bengaluru, was announced in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.

It said that subsidiary Foxconn Hon Hai Technology India Mega Development was paying three billion rupees ($37 million) for the site, the size of more than 50 Manhattan city blocks.

Another Foxconn unit was acquiring land use rights to a 480,000-square-metre site in Vietnam's Nghe An province, it added.

Karnataka state chief minister Basavaraj S. Bommai said in March that Apple would "soon" manufacture iPhones at a new plant that would create "about 100,000 jobs".

Bloomberg News reported that month that Foxconn was planning to invest $700 million in a new factory in Karnataka.

Foxconn chairman Young Liu visited the state then and also met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has urged foreign firms to manufacture goods in the South Asian nation.

Foxconn has manufactured Apple handsets in India since 2019 at its plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

The company is expected to break ground on a new facility in Telangana state next week, local media reported.

Two other Taiwanese suppliers, Wistron and Pegatron, also manufacture and assemble Apple devices in India.

- 'Good growth' -

Apple has been making its own push into India and chief executive Tim Cook last month opened its first two retail stores in the world's most populous country.

The California-based firm is betting big on the nation of 1.4 billion people -- home to the second-highest number of smartphone users in the world, after China.

Navkendar Singh of market intelligence firm International Data Corporation told AFP that Apple had already proved "quite successful" in India, with domestic iPhone sales of 6.7 million last year.

"This is good growth considering that Apple plays at the price range of more than $500 all the time," he added.

The world's biggest company in terms of market value is also expanding its manufacturing footprint in India.

Apple said last September it would manufacture its latest iPhone 14 in India, just weeks after launching the flagship model.

The country last year accounted for seven percent of Apple's iPhone production, according to Bloomberg, lagging behind the United States, China, Japan and other countries.

China, by far the leading producer of Apple products, saw production disrupted by violent protests last November at the country's largest iPhone factory, also owned by Foxconn.

Hundreds of employees protested over conditions and pay at the plant in the central city of Zhengzhou, spurred in part by public frustration over the government's zero-tolerance approach to Covid during the pandemic.

"Having contingency or diversification plans helps so you are not too dependent on one region," Counterpoint Technology Market Research senior analyst Prachir Singh told AFP.

"It's not like the Chinese operations will come down to zero," he added. "It is about building a similar world in India so they have multiple locations to rely on."

ash-gle/mtp

ASEAN at a ‘crossroad’ as Myanmar violence escalates

ASEAN’s diplomatic attempts to resolve the crisis have been fruitless as the junta ignores international criticism and refuses to engage with its opponents. Above, a vacant chair for the Myanmar delegation during the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Labuan Bajo, Indonesia on May 9, 2023. (AFP)

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Updated 09 May 2023
AFP

Myanmar has been ravaged by deadly violence since a military coup deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s government more than two years ago


LABUAN BAJO, Indonesia: Southeast Asian nations are at a “crossroad,” a senior Indonesian minister warned Tuesday, as escalating violence in junta-controlled Myanmar loomed over a regional summit.

Myanmar has been ravaged by deadly violence since a military coup deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s government more than two years ago and unleashed a bloody crackdown on dissent.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) — long-decried by critics as a toothless talking shop — has led diplomatic attempts to resolve the crisis.

But those efforts have been fruitless, as the junta ignores international criticism and refuses to engage with its opponents, which include ousted lawmakers, anti-coup “People’s Defense Forces” and armed ethnic minority groups.

An air strike on a village in a rebel stronghold last month that reportedly killed about 170 people sparked global condemnation and worsened the junta’s isolation.

It also fueled calls for ASEAN to take tougher action to end the violence or risk being sidelined.

“ASEAN is at a crossroad,” Mahfud MD, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for politics, legal and security, warned Tuesday on the first day of the summit.

“Crisis after crisis is testing our strength as a community. And failure to address them would risk jeopardizing our relevance,” he said according to a copy of his remarks, listing Myanmar among the emergencies facing the bloc.

Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that last month’s air strike in the central Sagaing region was a “likely war crime,” and urged ASEAN to “signal its support for stronger measures to cut off the military’s cash flow and press the junta for reform.”

Pressure on the regional bloc increased Sunday after a convoy of vehicles carrying diplomats and officials coordinating ASEAN humanitarian relief in Myanmar came under fire.

Few details have been released about the shooting in eastern Myanmar’s Shan State, but a foreign diplomat in Yangon said diplomats from the embassies of Indonesia and Singapore were in the group.

Singapore confirmed two staff members from its embassy in Yangon were in the convoy but unharmed.

“Singapore condemns this attack,” its foreign ministry said late Monday.
Indonesia, the ASEAN chair this year, has not yet said if its diplomats were in the vehicles.

The shooting happened days before the May 9-11 ASEAN summit on the Indonesian island of Flores, where foreign ministers and national leaders will continue efforts to kick-start a five-point plan agreed upon with Myanmar two years ago after mediation attempts to end the violence failed.

The foreign ministers held talks Tuesday while their countries’ leaders were scheduled to meet Wednesday and Thursday.

Ahead of the arrival of officials in Labuan Bajo, the army deployed more than 9,000 personnel and warships to the small fishing town that serves as the entrance to Komodo National Park, where tourists can see the world’s largest lizards.

In her opening remarks Tuesday, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said the ministers had already discussed “the implementation” of the peace plan, but she did not elaborate.

A Southeast Asian diplomat said that Sunday’s shooting “raises the urgency of Myanmar as a key discussion point at this summit.”

The US State Department said it was “deeply concerned” about the shooting and urged the junta to “meaningfully implement the Five-Point Consensus.”

Myanmar remains an ASEAN member but has been barred from top-level summits due to the junta’s failure to implement the peace plan.

Marsudi said Friday that her country was using “quiet diplomacy” to speak with all sides of the Myanmar conflict and spur renewed peace efforts.

ASEAN has long been criticized for its inaction, but its initiatives are limited by its charter principles of consensus and non-interference.

US-based analyst Zachary Abuza said the group was unlikely to offer more than “another milquetoast statement of condemnation” despite Sunday’s attack.

“Had a diplomat been killed, there would have been more pressure on the organization to do something, but frankly they’ve been so feckless in the past two years that it’s hard to see them actually acting in a meaningful way,” Abuza said.

1988 Halabja chemical attacks: European companies on trial in Iraqi Kurdistan

Issued on: 09/05/2023 

01:58 Video by: FRANCE 24

A chemical weapon attack on the town of Halabja killed more than 5,000 people in March 1988. FRANCE 24’s team met one of the leading plaintiffs in an ongoing trial against eight European companies accused of having provided Saddam Hussein with the means to carry out the attack.

More than 600 people killed in Haiti gang violence in April, UN says

NEWS WIRES
Tue, 9 May 2023

© Ralph Tedy Erol, Reuters

More than 600 people were killed last month in violence in the capital of Haiti, which is in the grip of a political-economic crisis, the United Nations said on Monday.

"In the month of April alone, more than 600 people were killed in a new wave of extreme violence that hit several districts across the capital," said the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"This follows the killing of at least 846 people in the first three months of 2023, in addition to 393 injured and 395 kidnapped during that period – a 28-percent increase in violence on the previous quarter."

The Caribbean nation, the poorest in the Americas, has been gripped by a political and economic crisis since the July 2021 assassination of president Jovenel Moise, with gangs now controlling most of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

UN officials have for months asked the Security Council to send a specialised non-UN international armed force to help police restore order.

(AFP)

Autopsies reveal missing organs in Kenya cult deaths: police

By AFP
Published May 9, 2023

The discovery of mass graves last month near Kenya's Indian Ocean coastal town of Malindi has stunned the deeply religious Christian-majority country - Copyright AFP Jameson WU

Autopsies on corpses found in mass graves linked to a religious cult in Kenya have revealed missing organs and raised suspicions of forced harvesting, investigators said, with a fresh round of exhumations set to resume Tuesday.

The discovery of mass graves last month near the Indian Ocean coastal town of Malindi has stunned the deeply religious Christian-majority country in what has been dubbed the “Shakahola forest massacre”.

Police believe most of the bodies belong to followers of self-styled pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie who is accused of ordering them to starve to death “to meet Jesus.”

While starvation appears to be the main cause of death, some of the victims — including children — were strangled, beaten, or suffocated, according to the chief government pathologist Johansen Oduor.

Court documents filed on Monday said that some of the corpses had their organs removed, with police alleging that the suspects were engaged in forced harvesting of body parts.

“Post mortem reports have established missing organs in some of the bodies of victims who have been exhumed,” chief inspector Martin Munene said in an affidavit filed to a Nairobi court.

It is “believed that trade on human body organs has been well coordinated involving several players,” he said, giving no details about the suspected trafficking.

Munene said that Ezekiel Odero, a high-profile televangelist who was arrested last month in connection with the same case and granted bail on Thursday, had received “huge cash transactions,” allegedly from Mackenzie’s followers who sold their property at the cult leader’s bidding.

The Nairobi court ordered the authorities to freeze more than 20 bank accounts belonging to Odero for 30 days.

A total of 112 people have so far been confirmed dead, interior minister Kithure Kindiki said Tuesday after arriving in Malindi to supervise the resumption of exhumations, which were suspended last week because of bad weather.

“Search and rescue efforts for persons suspected to be holed up in the thickets and bushes have been going on,” Kindiki said.

Questions have been raised about how Mackenzie managed to evade law enforcement despite a history of extremism and previous legal cases.

The former taxi driver turned himself in on April 14 after police acting on a tip-off first entered Shakahola forest, where some 30 mass graves have now been found.

Prosecutors are asking to hold the father of seven, who founded the Good News International Church in 2003, for another 90 days until investigations are completed.

Senior principal magistrate Yusuf Shikanda said he would rule on the request on Wednesday.

Ukraine updates: Wagner boss says Russian army fled Bakhmut

DW

Pro-Kremlin paramilitary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin accuses a regular Russian military unit of abandoning its positions near Bakhmut. Meanwhile, Russia has launched a new attack on Kyiv. DW has the latest.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group that leads the ongoing assault on Bakhmut, on Tuesday accused the Russian army of fleeing its positions around the city.

"Today one of the units of the Defense Ministry fled from one of our flanks ... exposing the front," said Prigozhin.

Prigozhin, popularly known as Putin's chef because of the lucrative catering contracts he once held with the Kremlin, accused the Russian Defense Ministry of "scheming all the time" instead of fighting.

Prigozhin said soldiers were abandoning their positions because of the "stupidity" of Russian army commanders, who he said were giving "criminal orders."

"Soldiers should not die because of the absolute stupidity of their leadership," Prigozhin said, repeating his threat that Wagner would withdraw from the frontline city if Russia does not supply more ammunition soon.

The mercenary group has been at the forefront of Russia's efforts to take Bakhmut. Russian authorities committed to providing Wagner Group with more ammunition after Prigozhin publicly denounced Russia's military leadership in a confrontational video filmed while standing over the bodies of dead soldiers in Bakhmut.

The city has been the center of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces for months, and both sides have suffered severe casualties there. Prigozhin threatened to withdraw Wagner Group fighters from the city due to the shortage of ammunition.

"The people who were supposed to fulfill the (shipment) orders have so far, over the past day, not fulfilled them," Prigozhin said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian forces had failed to capture the city before the May 9 Russian holiday that marks the Soviet Union's World War II victory over Nazi Germany.

A Ukrainian general had said on Sunday that Moscow Russia was still hoping to capture Bakhmut before Tuesday's Victory Day events.