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Newly Appointed Honduras Leader Orders 48-hour Curfew

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AFP)--The newly-appointed leader of Honduras, Roberto Micheletti, ordered a 48-hour curfew starting late Sunday, after denying there had been a coup d'etat on deposed President Manuel Zelaya.

"A curfew begins today and ends on Tuesday," Micheletti said at his first news conference since being appointed by Congress to replace Zelaya.

"I came to the presidency not by a coup d'etat but by a completely legal process as set out in our laws," Micheletti, a member of Zelaya's own Liberal Party, said earlier after being sworn in by Congress.

"What we have done here is an act of democracy, because our army has complied with the order of the court, prosecutors and judges," he added, to loud applause from lawmakers.

"Our national army...complied with the constitution."

Honduran forces ousted Zelaya on Sunday and flew him out of the country to Costa Rica, ending a bitter power struggle with the military, as parliament swiftly voted in a new leader.

The Supreme Court said Sunday it had ordered the president's ouster to protect law and order in the nation of about seven million people.

As Congress approved speaker Micheletti as the new interim president, it said it had voted unanimously to remove Zelaya from office for his "apparent misconduct," and for "repeated violations of the constitution and the law and disregard of orders and judgments of the institutions."

Micheletti promised to govern with "transparency and honesty" and "work tirelessly to restore peace and tranquility that we have lost."

He will stay in office until Jan. 27, 2010, when the new president, elected in November elections, is due to take over.

Zelaya, who was elected in November 2005 to a nonrenewable four-year term, had sought to revise the constitution through a referendum to allow him to run again in the next elections.

The Supreme Court had ruled such a referendum illegal, but Zelaya had tried to press ahead with a vote on Sunday anyway.

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires
  06-28-092050ET
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