Here is some international news in brief.
Published at 7:56 a.m.
China on Monday executed the perpetrator of a car-ramming attack that killed 35 people in the city of Zhuhai in November. The alleged perpetrator of the murder of three girls at the end of July in the United Kingdom pleaded guilty on Monday, the first day of his trial.
Execution of the author of the car-ramming attack that left 35 dead in China
China on Monday executed the perpetrator of a car-ramming attack that killed 35 people in the city of Zhuhai last November, the worst attack in China in ten years, according to state media .
A court in Zhuhai, a township in the southern province of Guangzhou, “executed Fan Weiqiu in accordance with the execution order issued by the Supreme People’s Court”, state television CCTV announced.
On November 11, the man deliberately drove his SUV into people exercising outside a sports complex in Zhuhai, killing 35 people and injuring 43 others, according to state media.
The court sentenced the 62-year-old man to the death penalty at the end of December for an act carried out “in a particularly cruel manner” and for “extremely despicable” reasons, in the words of the court then reported by official media.
Fan Weiqiu reportedly “decided to express his anger” due to “a broken marriage, personal frustrations, and his dissatisfaction with the division of property after the divorce,” according to the same source.
Agence France-Presse
Suspect in UK murder of three girls pleads guilty
The alleged perpetrator of the murder of three girls at the end of July in the north of England, a knife attack which sparked violent riots in the country, pleaded guilty on Monday, on the first day of his trial at Liverpool Criminal Court .
Aged 18, Axel Rudakubana admitted the murders of Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice da Silva, 9, on July 29 in Southport.
The victims were taking part in a dance class inspired by pop star Taylor Swift. Ten other people were injured, including eight children, in one of the worst stabbing attacks in this country in years.
He also admitted to producing a highly toxic poison, ricin, and to possessing an Al-Qaeda training manual. However, the “terrorist” motivation was not considered for these murders.
At his trial on Monday, Axel Rudakubana refused to stand in court and responded “guilty” to each charge. The fact that he pleaded guilty shortened the proceedings, and the judge announced that he would pronounce his sentence on Thursday.
In December, the suspect refused to speak to the court, which then considered his silence to be tantamount to a plea of not guilty and decided to try the case in a trial initially expected to last four weeks.
Agence France-Presse
-Life prison for man who killed doctor in India
An Indian court on Monday sentenced to life in prison a man convicted of the rape and murder of a doctor, a crime that shocked this country where sexual violence against women is very common.
The victim’s parents, who had called for the murderer to be sentenced to death by hanging, declared, in tears, to be “shocked” by the sentence which was handed down.
Judge Anirban Das ruled that this crime did not deserve the death penalty because it was not the “rarest of rare cases”.
He ordered that Sanjoy Roy, 33, a volunteer working at the Calcutta hospital where the bloodied body of the 31-year-old practitioner was discovered, spend his life behind bars.
Arrested last August, the day after the crime, and declared guilty on Saturday by the same court, he proclaimed his innocence throughout his trial, claiming to have been “trapped”.
This tragedy sparked indignation across the country and some healthcare workers went on strike and demonstrated, demanding stricter security measures in public hospitals.
Agence France-Presse
Eight dead in Belgrade retirement home fire
Eight people were killed and seven others injured in a fire that occurred overnight from Sunday to Monday in a retirement home in Barajevo, an outlying district of the Serbian capital Belgrade, according to a new report.
“Unfortunately, eight people lost their lives in the fire. I must salute the rapid reaction of the security services who saved, or rather evacuated, 13 people. But first of all, I would like to offer my condolences to the families of the victims,” Nemanja Starovic, Minister of Labor, Veterans and Social Affairs, told local media.
A previous report reported six dead and seven injured.
“An investigation is underway, and I think that the prosecutor’s office will be able to give official information very quickly, during the day,” he added.
According to Luka Causic, head of the emergency sector, 30 people were in the retirement home when the fire broke out at 3:30 a.m. local time (9:30 p.m. Eastern time).
The injured were taken by emergency services and cared for by the Belgrade military hospital.
Early Monday, research was still underway to ensure that no fire remains, “and the cause of the fire will be established in the coming hours,” according to the official.
Agence France-Presse
