■ AUSTRALIA
Euthanasia brings jail term
A 60-year-old woman was sentenced yesterday to spend her weekends in jail for nearly two years for killing her partner in a controversial euthanasia case. Shirley Justins had believed she was doing what 71-year-old Alzheimer’s sufferer Graeme Wylie wanted but knew the former Qantas pilot lacked the capacity to decide whether to take his own life, Judge Roderick Howie said. He accused her of being “selfish and cruel” for denying Wylie’s daughters the chance to say goodbye in 2006 when she gave her partner of 18 years the drug Nembutal, a powerful barbiturate. Howie sentenced Justins, who was convicted of manslaughter, to at least 22 months of periodic detention, with a maximum term of 30 months.
■ FIJI
Conspiracy charges dropped
A court yesterday struck out charges against a businessman of plotting to kill military ruler Voreqe Bainimarama. New Zealander Ballu Khan and nine others were arrested last November and charged with conspiracy to kill Bainimarama. High Court judge Andrew Bruce put a permanent stay on the charges against Khan, citing the illegal treatment he received at the hands of the police and military after he was arrested. Khan was hospitalized for two months after being beaten by the police and military and the judge found his personal rights were breached when he was unlawfully detained after his arrest. The nine others charged in the case are still due to go on trial on charges of conspiring to kill Bainimarama and other leaders in the military regime.
■ HONG KONG
Couple’s battle kills one
An 81-year-old grandfather was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly murdering his 76-year-old wife in a fight, which left both of them with multiple injuries. The couple allegedly attacked each other in their home on Monday armed with a hammer and a meat knife when a dispute about their relationship became violent. Their 20-year-old granddaughter, who lives with them, called her father who arrived to find his mother with head injuries inflicted by a hammer and his father with knife wounds to his neck and head. A police spokesman said both husband and wife were taken to hospital and arrested. The woman later died of her injuries.
■ INDIA
Man dies for urinating
A man beat his neighbor to death for urinating against the wall of his house after a drinking binge, the Hindustan Times reported yesterday. Shri Pal, 35, died of his injuries after Durga Prasad erupted in fury and attacked him, the paper reported.
■ NETHERLANDS
Rwandan brought to court
Prosecutors sought a life sentence on Tuesday for a Rwandan ex-militiaman accused of murder and rape during the 1994 genocide of some 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus in his homeland. The Hague district court will try Joseph Mpambara, 40, on five counts of war crimes. Mpambara stands accused of murdering seven occupants of an ambulance, women and children, according to prosecution documents. He is also charged with the killing and maiming of Tutsis seeking refuge at a church complex in Mugonero in western Rwanda. Other charges include: taking hostage and torturing a German doctor, his wife and their baby; the rape of four women and subsequent murder of three of them; and the abduction and murders of three children aged two, six and eight from one family.
■ RUSSIA
Baikalsk factory closes
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