Thailand reports three new coronavirus cases, no new deaths

Above, joggers run in Lumpini Park in Bangkok, which was reopened after the Thai government relaxed measures to combat the spread of coronavirus, on May 3, 2020. (AFP)
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Updated 07 May 2020
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Thailand reports three new coronavirus cases, no new deaths

  • Thailand has recorded 55 fatalities from the coronavirus since the outbreak began in January

BANGKOK: Thailand on Thursday reported three new coronavirus cases, bringing its total to 2,992, a senior official said.
Of the new cases, two were Thai men who had returned from Kazakhstan and have been in state quarantine, said Taweesin Wisanuyothin, a spokesman of the government’s Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration.
The third case was a 59-year-old Thai woman in the southern province of Yala, he said.
Thailand has recorded 55 fatalities from the coronavirus since the outbreak began in January. Authorities have been cautiously allowing some businesses to reopen this week after weeks of near-lockdown.


Italy arrests Burundi man over 2014 murders of three Catholic nuns

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Italy arrests Burundi man over 2014 murders of three Catholic nuns

Guillaume Harushimana is suspected of instigating, jointly organizing and logistically supporting the murders
The nuns may have ⁠been killed for refusing to provide medical aid to Burundian militias deployed in Congo

ROME: Italy has arrested a 50-year-old Burundian man in connection with the murder of three Italian missionary nuns in the east African country’s commercial capital Bujumbura more than 10 years ago, prosecutors in Parma said on Thursday.
Guillaume Harushimana is suspected of instigating, jointly organizing and logistically supporting the murders of Olga Raschietti, 83, Lucia Pulici, 75, and Bernadetta Boggian, 79, in two separate attacks on September 7-8, 2014.
Monica Moschioni, a lawyer appointed by a court to represent Harushimana, told Reuters she could not say whether he would ⁠plead innocent or ⁠guilty as she had not yet spoken to him. She was due to do so on Friday, she added.

KILLINGS ORDERED BY GENERAL, PROSECUTORS SAY
The killings were ordered by General Adolphe Nshimirimana, then head of the Burundi secret police, who was assassinated in 2015, the prosecutors said. Harushimana was one of the general’s close associates, they added.
According to investigators, the nuns may have ⁠been killed for refusing to provide medical aid to Burundian militias deployed in Congo, disputes over the funding of a youth center in Kamenge, or as part of a sacrificial rite.
Burundi authorities did not respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors said four people were suspected of carrying out the killings. Two had made radio confessions and one described as the general’s bodyguard was questioned in Parma and had partially admitted the facts, they added. The fourth person has not been identified.
The presumed killers entered the nuns’ compound disguised in clerical robes and left wearing police uniforms, prosecutors said. In 2014, Reuters reported ⁠that two of ⁠the three victims were raped and decapitated.
Italian prosecutors said they reopened investigations into the murders in 2024, thanks to leads from a book by investigative journalist Giusy Baioni, leading them to testimonies from other nuns which had not been heard by Burundian authorities.
Harushimana’s name had already emerged in connection with the murders, Italian prosecutors said, adding that he had obtained a travel visa to Italy in 2018 to attend a training course in the northern city of Parma.
They said he was taken in for questioning at the time in Parma, but denied any involvement, saying he had been outside Burundi at the time of the murders, and providing passport stamps as evidence of his absence from the country.