A French doctor who claimed to have COVID-19 and coughed at police responding to a domestic violence call has received an effective two-year jail sentence, officials said on Tuesday.
The 66-year-old doctor from a hospital in the northern city of Lille was taken into custody at his home on Saturday last week, a police source said.
His wife told police that the doctor was on medical leave on suspicion that he might have contracted COVID-19.
Arresting officers provided the doctor with a mask and gloves for the ride to the station, but “he took off his mask and coughed in the car ... declaring that he had COVID-19 and that they will now catch it,” the Lille prosecutor’s office said.
“He coughed in an exaggerated manner while telling the officers he knew it scared them,” it added.
On top of initial charges of domestic violence were added charges of “violence against persons discharging public authority,” police sources said.
The doctor was on Monday taken before a court in Lille and given a three-year prison sentence — one year of which was suspended.
He was placed in detention after the sentence was passed. The doctor has also been prohibited from contacting his wife.
The officers who were inside the car with the doctor are under medical surveillance.
Last week, a Northern Irish man was charged with attempting to commit grievous bodily harm after he coughed on police officers and claiming to carry the virus while being arrested for domestic assault.
In Belgium, spitting or coughing on a police officer now carries punishment of up to two years in prison, an updated offenses list showed.
The deed is considered an “attack with dangerous substances,” officials said.
The penalty has already been applied seven times in the city of Antwerp alone.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
RSS