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Suriname’s President Shrugs Off Murder Sentence in Re-election Bid

If President Desi Bouterse can hang on to immunity, past crimes could become just another chapter in his four-decade battle to stay in power.

Foto © Roberta Petzoldt

by Anatoly Kurmanaev

Suriname’s president looked straight at the judge as she read his sentence for crimes committed during the 1982 political purge that cemented his grip on the small South American nation.

“You have been sentenced to 20 years in prison for committing murder,” she said that day this past January, according to witnesses.

The spectacle, virtually unheard-of for a sitting president, stunned the audience.

Further reading in The New York Times, May 24, 2020

on 25.05.2020 at 9:04
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