Parents Murderer, Jennifer Pan Sentenced To Life In Prison With No Parole

Paola Loriggio The Canadian PressA Toronto-area woman committed an “unfathomable” betrayal by arranging to have her parents killed in their own home over their strict parenting style, an Ontario judge said Friday in sentencing her to life in prison.

Jennifer Pan, 28, was convicted of first-degree murder and attempted murder last month in the Nov. 8, 2010 attack that killed her mother, Bieh Ha Pan, and left her father, Hann Pan, with a serious head wound.

Her three co-accused — Lenford Crawford, David Mylvaganam and her on-again, off-again boyfriend Daniel Wong — were also found guilty of the same charges.

Chinese Businessman Jailed For 13 Years For Buying And Killing Tigers To Eat

A wealthy Chinese businessman has been jailed for 13 years for hiring poachers to kill three tigers so he could eat their penises and drink their blood. Xi Pat had 'a special hobby of grilling tiger bones, boning tiger paws, storing tiger penis, eating tiger meat and drinking tiger blood alcohol'.

A court heard he ate the genitals and drank the animals' blood before giving the rest of the meat to his business friends and partners.

The court also heard he organised three separate trips last year for 15 people, including himself, to Leizhou in the southern province of Guangdong, where they bought tigers for a 'huge amount of money' that were killed and dismembered as they watched.

One of the group filmed the entire process of a tiger slaughter with his mobile phone. The footage was later obtained by police.

Couple Charged With First Degree Murder After Neglecting Hungry Baby In Car Seat To Die

A couple, Ruby Stephens, 23, and Roy Stephens, 48, of Indiana have been charged with first-degree murder for neglecting their 22-day-old baby to die of hunger while strapped in her car seat at the back of their car while they went in to eat at a Florida restaurant. 

The mother who came out hours later to check the baby, found out she was completely unresponsive and cold to the touch and called 911.

The police later arrested the couple and the mother confessed she had strictly breastfed the baby every two-three hours on their long trip to Florida. 

Mauritania Court Sentenced Journalist to Death for Apostasy

A court in Mauritania has sentenced 28 year old journalist Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir to death for apostasy for criticizing Prophet Muhammed. According to Reuters, the journalist was sentenced by a court in the northwestern city of Nouadhibou for an article he published almost a year ago, questioning some of the decisions Prophet Mohammed took during holy wars.

Some folks saw the article which he posted online and appeared on a number of websites and called for his arrest. He was arrested on January 2nd 2014 after the article sparked street protests and has been in custody ever since. When he appeared in court, he pleaded not guilty, telling the court that it was 'not his intention to harm the prophet' but he was still found guilty and sentenced to death under Sharia law. The prosecutors recommended that he be shot to death.

AFP reported that the blogger fainted when the ruling was read out in court yesterday Dec. 25th. He was revived and taken to prison. His lawyers say they will appeal the sentence.

According to AFP, Mauritania hasn't executed a prisoner since 1987, and has not given a death sentence for apostasy since it gained its independence from France in 1960.

Luka Magnotta sentenced to life imprisonment for first degree murder

Luka Rocco Magnotta is taken by police from a Canadian military plane to a waiting van on Monday, June 18, 2012 in Mirabel, Quebec.

The Canadian Press
Luka Rocco Magnotta remained impassive as one of the 12 jurors who deliberated his fate uttered the word “guilty” to all five charges against him in the slaying and dismemberment of Jun Lin, including first-degree murder.

Magnotta was later sentenced to life imprisonment on the murder charge, with no chance of applying for parole for 25 years.

On the four non-murder charges, the native of Scarborough, Ont., was given the maximum terms allowed under the Criminal Code, ranging from two to 10 years. The sentences are concurrent.

His lawyer, Luc Leclair, told reporters his client was “disappointed” but “relieved.”

“He came here to face the jury, to put his life in the jury’s hands,” said Leclair, who continued to argue that Magnotta is schizophrenic.

Government of Pakistan to execute 500 terrorist

Pakistan plans to execute around 500 militants after the government lifted a moratorium on the death penalty in terror cases, Sky News reports.

It comes after Taliban gunmen killed 149 people, including 133 children, in a school massacre in the northwestern city of Peshawar last week.

Six militants have been hanged since Friday amid rising public anger over the slaughter.

Around nine gunmen stormed the army-run school on 16 December taking teachers and students hostage and killing them in classrooms.

After the deadliest terror attack in Pakistani history, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ended the six-year moratorium on the death penalty, reinstating it for terrorism-related cases.

“Interior ministry has finalised the cases of 500 convicts who have exhausted all the appeals, their mercy petitions have been turned down by the president and their executions will take place in coming weeks,” a senior government official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Of the six hanged so far, five were involved in a failed attempt to assassinate the then-military ruler Pervez Musharraf in 2003, while one was involved in a 2009 attack on army headquarters.

Montreal duck lover who caused fatal crash, gets 3mths behind bars

Peter Rakobowchuk, The Canadian Press 
A widow whose husband and daughter died when their motorcycle crashed into a woman's car as she helped ducks on a highway is satisfied with the 90-day jail term the accused received Thursday.

Besides serving the time on weekends, Emma Czornobaj must do 240 hours of community service and is prohibited from driving for 10 years.

After Czornobaj stopped her car in June 2010 to rescue ducklings on the side of the highway, the motorcycle carrying Andre Roy and his teenager daughter Jessie slammed into her vehicle.

A jury convicted her of two counts of criminal negligence causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing death.

Pauline Volikakis, the wife and mother of the victims, welcomed the sentence.

70 years after 14yr old boy executed in South Carolina in 1944 exonerated

70 years after 14 year old George Stinney Jnr. was executed for allegedly beating two young white girls to death in Alcolu, South Carolina, a judge yesterday Wednesday Dec 17th threw out his murder conviction.

When George was executed in 1944, he was so small he had to seat on a phone book in the electric chair. He's officially the youngest person to be executed in the U.S. in the 20th century.

George was found guilty of beating the girls, 11 and 8 years old with a railroad spike. His trial lasted only three hours and it took the a jury of all white people just 10 minutes to find him guilty - this was just 3 months after the girls were found murdered. This was back when there was a lot of segregation in America.

George was arrested after he confessed to the crime, but his older sister always maintained that George was coerced into confessing and couldn't have committed the murder because he was with her the day of the murder.

Civil rights advocates have been trying for years to clear George Stinney Jr's name. They managed to get the case reopened and yesterday morning, Judge Carmen Mullins tossed the murder conviction.

Unbelievable! Dad sentenced to life in prison for killing his two daughters after fight with ex-wife

The Tanzania man, Charles Mihayo, 36, who murdered his two daughters at his home in Melbourne on April 20th 2014 and then dressed them in floral dresses in an act of revenge against his ex-wife has been sentenced to life in prison.
 
According to prosecutors, after his wife divorced him, an angry Charles killed his own children just to make their mother suffer. He smothered Savannah, 4, and Indianna, 3, after playing with them.

Though he was sentenced to life in prison, Charles is eligible for parole after 31 years. Charles, who has since regretted his action, has refused to go into details as to how and why he killed the little girls, only saying he deserves to be punished.

Why now! China exonerates man 18 years after his execution

 The Associated Press
A court in northern China on Monday cleared a man of the rape and murder of a woman in a public toilet 18 years after he was executed for the crime.

The Inner Mongolia Higher People’s Court announced on its microblog that it had overturned the conviction of Huugjilt, who was 18 when he was sentenced to death and executed for the 1996 crime. Like many ethnic Mongolians, Huugjilt used only one name.

The deputy head of the court, Zhao Jianping, offered his “sincere apologies” to Huugjilt’s parents, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported. The parents received 30,000 yuan ($5,000) as an expression of the court’s sympathy and were told they could claim an unspecified amount of compensation.

Chinese state media carried photos of a court official handing over the verdict to Huugjilt’s weeping parents at their home in Inner Mongolia’s regional capital of Hohhot.

Ontario Woman Found Guilty Of Murder In Attack On Parents

A court exhibit photo of Jennifer Pan submitted during her murder trial

Will Campbell, The Canadian Press
A woman convicted of orchestrating a phoney home invasion that left her mother dead and father seriously injured wept as a Toronto-area jury handed down its verdict on Saturday after a lengthy trial.

Jennifer Pan, 28, dropped her head in silence as the first-degree murder verdict was read against her in a Newmarket, Ont., court.

She looked down even further as she received a second conviction of attempted murder. Unlike her three co-accused, the jury was not given the option of finding her guilty on a lesser offence of second-degree murder.

Dressed in all black, Pan later wept into a tissue before being led away in shackles.

The three co-accused, Lenford Crawford, David Mylvaganam and Pan's on-again, off-again boyfriend Daniel Wong, were convicted of the same charges in the attack that killed Pan's mother, 53-year-old Bieh Ha Pan.

Her father, 60-year-old Hann Pan, suffered a critical head wound in the Nov. 8, 2010 attack that occurred at the family's Markham, Ont. home.

Supreme Court of Canada to rule on mobile phone privacy

The Canadian Press
The Supreme Court of Canada delivers a precedent-setting ruling Thursday that’s expected to dictate how much warrantless access police can have to a person’s cellphone.

The case centres on a 2009 armed robbery at a Toronto jewelry kiosk that saw police seize and search the cellphone of Kevin Fearon.

Police were responding to a call about the robbery when they arrested Fearon. Upon perusing his unlocked cellphone, they found photos of cash and a gun, as well as a text message mentioning jewelry.

A judge convicted Fearon after rejecting his lawyer’s argument that his Charter right to unlawful search and seizure had been breached because police didn’t immediately get a search warrant to look at his phone.

NHL suspends Winnipeg Jets’ Evander Kane For Misconduct

Anaheim Ducks Clayton Stoner (3) and Sami Vatanen (45) fight with Winnipeg Jets' Evander Kane (9) during second period NHL hockey action in Winnipeg Sunday, December 7, 2014. Kane would be given a game misconduct. The Canadian Press

The Canadian Press
The NHL has given Winnipeg Jets forward Evander Kane a two-game suspension for boarding.

Kane hit Anaheim Ducks defenceman Clayton Stoner into the boards from behind at 19:49 of the second period of Sunday’s game in Winnipeg.

Kane was assessed a major penalty for checking from behind and a game misconduct.

He will forfeit US$56,451.62 in salary.

Winnipeg will be without Kane for games Tuesday in Dallas and Thursday in Colorado.

He is eligible to return for another home date with the Ducks on Saturday.

Uber banned in New Delhi after rape accusation

British business man Shrien Dewani cleared of honeymoon murder

Dan Newling | Guardian
The British businessman Shrien Dewani has been cleared of murdering his wife in a elaborate taxi hijack plot on their honeymoon in South Africa.

The Cape Town judge Jeanette Traverso declared Dewani to be not guilty of charges that he coordinated Anni’s 2010 murder. Evidence meant to connect the Briton to his wife’s death was so poor, Traverso ruled, that the only way Dewani might be convicted was if he confessed.

She said the prosecution case rested entirely on the witness testimony of a “self-confessed liar” who “does not know where the truth ends and a lie begins”. The judgment cannot be appealed.

Dewani, 34, from Bristol, showed no emotion as Traverso delivered her two-and-a-half-hour-long verdict. His parents, Prakash and Shila, sister Preyal and brother Preyen all shed tears.

Egyptian Court Sentenced 188 Police Killers To Death

An Egyptian court sentenced 188 people to death Tuesday pending the opinion of the country's top religious authority, the latest mass death sentence handed down by the country's judicial system despite widespread international criticism.

The 188 were charged over the killing of 11 policemen last year in Kerdasa, a restive town west of Cairo considered a militant stronghold. The attack, which saw the policemen's bodies mutilated, is considered one of the country's grisliest assaults on security forces.

The defendants also were accused of attempting to kill 10 more policemen, damaging a police station, setting police cars on fire and possessing heavy weapons.

The attack happened on the same day that security forces brutally cleared two protest camps of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi's supporters, killing hundreds. Protesters were demanding the reinstatement of Morsi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood group.

Ex-pastor Philip Grandine drowned his pregnant wife

Karissa and Philip Grandine are shown in this file photo. Metro/Screengrab/Myspace 

Torstar News Service
Disguised in a banana smoothie was a sedative — not enough for an overdose, but enough to make Anna Karissa Grandine drowsy and confused, the Crown told the jury in closing arguments on the final day of the first-degree murder trial.

That’s when Philip Grandine carried or coaxed his 20-weeks pregnant wife, to the bathtub, Crown prosecutor Donna Kellway said.

The former pastor and retirement home nurse may have gently held her head under the water until she drowned, or let gravity pull her non-resistant body below the surface, Kellway said.

Either way her death on Oct. 17, 2011 “was no accident and no suicide.”

Grandine, she said, acted with “intent to kill” the 29-year-old woman who stood in the way of him being with his mistress.

Sun's News Host Ezra Levant ordered to pay $80,000 in libel lawsuit

Ezra Levant is shown at the University of Ottawa in Ottawa on Tuesday, March 23, 2010. Torstar News Service

 Phillip Lucas And Tom Foreman Jr.
The Associated Press
An Ontario judge who heard a defamation lawsuit against Sun News Network host Ezra Levant ruled Thursday that the controversial media personality libelled a Saskatchewan lawyer in a series of blog posts the judge said were “motivated by malice.”

Justice Wendy Matheson ordered Levant to pay $80,000 in damages to Khurrum Awan and remove “defamatory words” about the man from his website within 15 days.

“I find that the defendant’s dominant motive in these blog posts was ill-will, and that his repeated failure to take even basic steps to check his facts showed a reckless disregard for the truth,” Matheson wrote in her decision.

Awan was completing his articling and looking for work as a lawyer when the statements were posted online by Levant. Awan was seeking $100,000 in damages.

Levant’s posts centred on Awan’s testimony at a British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal case about a complaint regarding an article in Maclean’s magazine from 2006, titled “The future belongs to Islam.”

Awan was a law student when the article was published and was among a group of students who alleged the article was Islamophobic.

The human rights tribunal hearing took place in 2008, before the inception of Sun News Network, so the posts were on Levant’s personal blog.

President Obama Speech after Ferguson Grand Jury Decision

Excerpts-
“Either way it was going to be the subject of intense disagreement,” the 53-year-old president shared during his speech to the country. “We need to accept that this decision was the grand jury’s to make.”

He added, “There are Americans who agree with it, and there are Americans who are deeply disappointed — even angry. It’s an understandable reaction.”

He continued, “We have made enormous progress in race relations over the course of the past several decades. I have witnessed that in my own life, and to deny that progress, I think is to deny America’s capacity for change. But what is also true is that there are still problems — and communities of color aren’t just making these problems up. Separating that from this particular decision, there are issues in which the law too often feels as if it is being applied in a discriminatory fashion.”

Celebs Twitter Reaction To Ferguson Jury Verdict

A lot of people have used social media to pour out their thoughts over the decision of the grand jury, especially celebrities. Darren Wilson will not be charged for the death of Michael Brown, the unarmed African-American boy who was killed back in August. This decision has sparked much controversy from the country and shocked the entertainment industry – while also causing a violent reaction on the streets of Ferguson.