A.M. Costa Rica: Third newspage

A.M. Costa Rica third newspage
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San José, Costa Rica, Friday, May 9, 2008, Vol. 8, No. 92

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Judicial police chief says agency is overwhelmed by murders

By Elise Sonray
and the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The director of the Judicial Investigation Organization said the agency's homicide unit is so flooded with murders that each investigatory team of two persons has five cases to solve.

The number of murders is up to 70 already this year, said the director, Jorge Rojas Vargas, noting that this number was not reached last year until August.

In addition, he said, the nation is faced with a wave of kidnappings. There have been five in the last two weeks. The latest victim was set free Wednesday night.

Rojas reported that his investigators had made two arrests Thursday in the murder of a man the night before in Paso Ancho. He said that the motive for the killing was robbery. Detained were two brothers with the last name of Marín.

Dead was Fernando Rueda Ahumada. Rueda, an architect for the transport ministry, was the brother of Amelia and Alejandro Rueda, two well known media figures. Rueda died when he was hit with three bullets as he got out of his car in his garage at his home.

Investigators wasted no time in making arrests. They conducted raids about 12 hours later, about 8 a.m. in the Torremolinos section of Desamparados.

That the motive of the crime was robbery suggested that the killing was unrelated to one Monday night and a another Tuesday night in the metropolitan area. Killed Monday was
a business woman who was murdered by two men on a motorcycle who pulled up near her car in Zapote.

Tuesday the victim was a police officer, Félix Ángel Ruíz

Matarrita, coincidentally in Torremolinos. For a time it appears that all three murders instead of just the first two were planned hits rather than street crimes.

Rojas said that the police officer's murder was being investigated by agents outside the homicide division because of the overwhelming workload.

Three men were detained by agents after the kidnap victim was liberated Wednesday night. The family of the victim is believed to have paid the equivalent of $50,000 for his freedom. The victim is believed to be a restaurant owner. Some of the money was recovered, agents said

Rojas said that over about the last two weeks investigators had reports of five abductions, including the one that resulted in arrests Wednesday. Three cases were in Puntarenas, and two were in San José, Rojas said.

In speaking of the growth of serious crime, Rojas noted that house burglaries have gone down but car thefts and homicides have gone up.

“This seed has now grown,” said Rojas.

As if to punctuate the point made by Rojas, investigators reported two more murders Wednesday night. A 23-year-old man with the last name of Rojas died from a beating and a stab wound after a fight outside a bar in Pérez Zeledón. A 32-year-old San José man and a 17-year-old, both residents of León XIII, were detained.

In Limón a 32-year-old man with the last name of Cordero died of a bullet to the head in the public right-of-way. He was standing outside a store near his motorcycle when a man in a ski mask appeared, fired the fatal shot and took something from the fallen man's back pocket, investigators said.

Berrocal gives lawmakers his views on terrorists infiltration

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia have used both criminal and political methods to infiltrate the country, the fired security minister told legislators Thursday.

The minister, Fernando Berrocal, appeared before a special legislative committee and distributed a 36-page, single-spaced document to support his testimony. He spoke for more than two hours until the committee ran out of time. He is to appear again Monday.

Berrocal was criticized incorrectly for saying that he had a list of Costa Rican politicians who were involved with the Colombian drug terrorist organization. He repeated Thursday that this misconception was a product of journalistic speculation.

Berrocal lost his job, in part, because of the way his comments were reported in the Spanish-language press.

Thursday he said he sought to give an integrated and coherent outline of what he learned as minister.

Berrocal said that the international committee of the Fuerzas Armadas, headed by Raúl Reyes and Rodrigo Granda, took advantage of Costa Rica' tradition of helping refugees and providing political asylum.

He branded the Dirección de Migración y Extranjería as a source of corruption and cited the thousands of Colombians who received refugee status and the thousands of marriages permitted by proxy. Some of the marriages were defended by the Sala IV constitutional court.

Berrocal supervised the immigration department until he left March 30. Upon taking over the job two years ago, he and his aides said that eliminating corruption in the immigration department was a priority.

He said he deplored the subterranean and illegal network

that sends drugs from Costa Rica to up to 27 countries. He based some of his statements on information he received from the Colombian national police, the U.S. Drug Enforcement administration and the U.S. military's Southern Command.

He said that there was no alphabetized list with names and cédula numbers and political parties of those linked to the Fuerzas Armadas. That would be simplistic, he said. But he said there were names of persons of politicians and of organizations in documents he delivered to President Óscar Arias Sánchez.

His comments had an impression on lawmakers. Marvin Rojas of the Partido Acción Ciudadana said he was convinced after hearing Berrocal that there is absolute and total penetration by the Colombian drug and terror organization in Costa Rica.

Mario Quirós of Movimiento Libertario said that he concluded after hearing Berrocal that the situation is much more grave than he had thought originally.

Wednesday the same lawmakers heard from Francisco Dall'Anese, the fiscal general or chief prosecutor. He said there was no certainty of penetration by the Fuerzas Armadas but there were indications.

He noted that in the computer of Raúl Reyes there were 36 separate mentions of Costa Rica. Reyes was the Fuerzas Armadas commander killed by Colombia soldiers March 1 in a cross-border raid into Ecuador. From the information on the computer, agents here were able to confiscate some $480,000 in a small safe in Santa Bárbara de Heredia.

Both Berrocal and Dall'Anese mentioned the case of a terrorist leader who was detained in Puntarenas. The man, Héctor Orlando Martínez Quinto, was detained Aug. 10, 2006, and sent back to Colombia.

He has been credited with organizing the Puntarenas fishing fleet as an effective drug smuggling force.

From bocas to feria fruit: enough to make your mouth water

This past weekend was devoted to two of my favorite things — good food and good company. Steve, a long-time pen pal whom I met through my column, arrived in Costa Rica with the idea of moving here, so I had a small gathering of people who might be able to tell him what life here is like.

Of course, you cannot have people over without refreshments, so I prepared some special bocas for the occasion. One was experimental but proved to be a big success. The original recipe is from Paula Dean. I added my own touches of some grated nutmeg and finely chopped nuts to spinach Gruyere puff pastry. (You can find the recipe on Food Channel.) Next time I am going to add a bit of garlic.

Another recipe I served was thanks to Grady who got it from a Tico friend. Mince at least four cloves of garlic and sauté in at least four TB of butter. Add a can or pack of refried beans (either red or black), and about a cup or more of grated white cheese, the kind you can buy in the feria, already grated, maybe the supermarket. I am passing this on without specific quantities because that is the way I got it. Just test it as you go. Keep it warm in a chafing dish — and serve with taco chips, of course.

Always a hit is a little sweet I serve — chocolate mint sticks (Milan chocolate mentas) dipped in my chocolate fudge sauce kept hot in a small fondue pot I found in a second hand store in California.

Steve accompanied three of us to the feria Saturday. He is a very curious man, who writes in a little notebook as he asks about and learns something new. And he asks a lot of questions, questions I should have asked a long time ago. Well, I did, but not with his persistence. One of the chapters in my book, "Butterfly in the City," is about how many of us live “the narrow, comfy life.”

I am guilty of that myself when it comes to fruits and vegetables. Thanks to Steve, I learned about a number of fruits that I have never bought. I do buy mangos and recently learned that there are five different types of mango.

The guaba (probably Inga edulis) is the Frankenstein-like overgrown pea pod. The white pulp inside is edible. It surrounds a beautiful mahogany lima bean shaped seed that is used for jewelry by some. I don’t think I will

Living in Costa Rica

. . .Where the living is good

By Jo Stuart
jostuart@amcostarica.com

Photos by Steve Harrington

A plate full of a mango, guaba and other fruit with a granadilla to the right.

make it part of my diet unless I go into the jewelry designing business.

The noni (Morinda citrifolia), looks like another Frankenstein creation when he thought he was making an Idaho potato. It can be quite large, yellow-white, when ripe, knobby, and has what on a potato would be eyes. It is bitter tasting and needs sweetening to be palatable. The juice of the noni is sold as a health-enhancing tonic.

I was not sure which was the naranjilla and which the maracuya. I checked with Google to clarify things and got even more confused. The maracuya is also known as passion fruit, or maybe it is also a granadilla (Passiflora ligularis), which in its turn, is also known as the golden passion fruit. We ran into Wes who has been going feria shopping even longer than I have. He had a bag of what he said were granadillas. He thinks they are delicious. If they are what I tried, they are yellow-orange and lemon-shaped and have a lot of edible seeds inside a gelatinous pulp. Not bad. But I am still confused which is which.

I guess that confusion can happen when you serve champagne, wine and tequila along with bocas. I will have to unmuddle things at the feria tomorrow.