European court throws out appeal for assisted suicide
"The law has taken all my rights away," said Diane Pretty, speaking in London with the aid of a keyboard and a computer voice synthesizer.
Pretty, 43, suffers from a motor neuron disease that has left her paralyzed from the neck down. Her husband, Brian, said doctors had told them his wife's life expectancy was "limited to months."
Pretty brought her case to the European court after Britain's highest appeals court ruled in November that her husband could not be guaranteed immunity from prosecution if he helped her die. Suicide is legal in Britain, but helping someone else commit suicide is a crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison.Student shoots teacher
to death, then kills himself
VLASENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina — A 17-year-old shot and killed one teacher and wounded another yesterday before taking his own life in front of 30 other students.
Officials said the teen, Dragoslav Petkovic, opened fire with his father's 7.65-mm pistol shortly after noon at his high school, killing his history teacher, 53-year-old Stanimir Reljic, in front of the school. He then walked inside and shot math teacher Saveta Mojsilovic as she stood at the blackboard in front of her class.
Petkovic, who was described by the principal as "quiet and sensitive," then put the gun to his head and killed himself.
U.S. heir battling courts in Germany guilty of slander
POTSDAM, Germany — An American heir to a Jewish family battling to regain land sold during the Nazi era was found guilty of slander and fined yesterday for accusing judges of anti-Semitism and deliberately holding up a settlement.
The state administrative court fined Peter Sonnenthal, 48, a Denver lawyer, $12,200 for accusing the judges of "anti-Semitic delaying tactics" in a German television interview a year ago.
Heirs to the wealthy Sabersky family, which fled in the 1930s in the face of increasing Nazi pressure, have been trying for more than a decade to recover 210 acres in a leafy neighborhood in the Berlin suburb of Teltow, but have regained only one-sixth of the property.
Russian ex-finance chief jailed for abuse of power
MOSCOW — A former Russian military finance chief was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday for abuse of power after one of his deals cost the cash-strapped Defense Ministry more than $300 million.
Under the agreement put together by Gen. Georgy Oleinik, neighboring Ukraine was to pay for natural gas by sending Russia $450 million in building materials. Most of the promised construction materials never arrived, resulting in $327 million in losses.
But the court decided not to deprive the general of his military rank or the possibility of him taking up another government position after his release.
Russia's military remains locked in a cash crisis, hampered by corruption, confusing accounting and a virtual absence of auditing.
Bosnian Muslims awarded
$140 million in torture case
ATLANTA — A federal judge awarded $140 million yesterday to four Bosnian Muslims who claimed they were beaten and tortured by a Bosnian-Serb soldier who moved to the United States after the war.
The four men sued the former soldier, Nikola Vuckovic, in 1998 under laws allowing torture victims to seek redress in U.S. courts, even if the offenses occurred elsewhere.
U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob awarded $35 million each to Kemal Mehinovic, Muhamed Bicic, Safet Hadzialijagic and Hasan Subasic. In an October trial, they told of being detained and tortured at the hands of Vuckovic and other Bosnian-Serb soldiers. Two of the plaintiffs are now U.S. residents and live in Salt Lake City.
The award will be difficult to collect, since Vuckovic disappeared just before the trial.