内容摘要：During a recent visit to the zone by Al Jazeera, Rolls Royce limousines ferried gamblers to some of the city’s casinos while workers toiled on the construction of an elaborate and expansive Venice-style waterway just a stone’s throw from the Mekong river.

During a recent visit to the zone by Al Jazeera, Rolls Royce limousines ferried gamblers to some of the city’s casinos while workers toiled on the construction of an elaborate and expansive Venice-style waterway just a stone’s throw from the Mekong river.

Indigenous lawyer Haydee Valey, who represented the women, said the sentence was “historic” because it finally recognised the struggle of civil war survivors who haddemanded justice for decades

Several Maya Achi women in the courtroom applauded at the end of the trial, where some dressed in traditional attire and others listened to the verdict through an interpreter.One of the victims, a 62-year-old woman, told the AFP news agency she was “very happy” with the verdict.Pedro Sanchez, one of the three men convicted, told the court before the sentencing, “I am innocent of what they are accusing me of.”

But Judge Marling Mayela Gonzalez Arrivillaga, another member of the all-women, three-panel court, said there was no doubt about the women’s testimony against the suspects.The convictions were second in the Maya Achi women’s case against former military personnel and paramilitaries. The first trial, which took place in January 2022, saw five former paramilitaries sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Advocacy group Impunity Watch said the case “highlights how the Guatemalan army used sexual violence as a weapon of war against Indigenous women” during the

In 2016, a Guatemalan court sentenced two former military officers for holding 15 women from the Q’eqchi community, who are also of Maya origin, as sex slaves. Both officers were sentenced to a combined 360 years in prison.While Angel was suited and suave in his interactions, his deputy Doolan was more casual. He is a pastor in Angel’s Good News Church and a musician.

Doolan repeatedly told Al Jazeera’s undercover reporters that he and Angel would be able to arrange a meeting with President Mnangagwa.During the meetings, Doolan said money laundering would not be a challenge “as long as you grease the wheels.” The scheme Angel and Doolan suggested involved our reporters — who they believed to be Chinese criminals — sending over a billion dollars of illicit cash to Zimbabwe through Angel. Some of that would be used to purchase Zimbabwean gold, which Doolan said could then be transported to Dubai and sold for legitimate money. “It’s a good washing machine, right?” he said.

Told that our reporters had loads of unexplained cash, he said: “Good, I like embarrassing cash.”Doolan did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for a formal comment about the investigation.