WORLD
Cannibal gets 30 years
ROUEN, France: A French
prisoner dubbed Hannibal
Lecter has been sentenced
to serve another 30 years in
jail for killing his cellmate
and devouring his lung.
Nicolas Cocaign had admitted to beating and stabbing
Thierry Baudry with a pair of
scissors before smothering
him with a rubbish bag in
January 2007 in the prison in
the city of Rouen.
In a sensational four-day
trial, the 38-year-old testified
that he cut open Baudry’s
chest with a razor blade and
ripped out the lung, eating
part of it raw before frying the
rest with onions on a camping
stove in his cell.
The court in Rouen followed the request of prosecutors who had asked for 30
years with no possibility of
parole for 20 years.
‘‘A man who plunges into
horror is not necessarily afflicted with madness,’’ prosecutor Elizabeth Pelsez argued
at the trial, echoing the view of
a majority of psychiatrists
who testified in court.
The defence countered that
he should be declared
‘
A man who plunges into horror is not
necessarily afflicted with madness
criminally insane and declared not guilty.
‘‘He killed him because he is
mad, totally mad,’’ said defence lawyer Fabien Picchiottino, addressing Baudry’s
mother in the audience.
Cocaign, whose face is tattooed with a skull, told the
court this week the murder
might have been avoided if
prison authorities had not
ignored his repeated appeals
’
for psychological help.
‘‘No one was listening to
me,’’ the defendant said. ‘‘I
made several appeals for
help, saying I was a man
capable of being dangerous. I
took action, and then they
took me seriously.’’
In his final arguments, the
defence lawyer stressed that
the case had highlighted ‘‘the
failure of the system’’ that
failed to take seriously sev-
eral warning signs about
Cocaign’s mental state.
In demanding a 30-year sentence, the prosecutor stressed
Cocaign was not only charged
with murder but with torture
and committing barbaric acts.
Cocaign’s case has
prompted comparisons with
the serial killer character
Hannibal Lecter in the bestselling novel and movie, The
Silence of the Lambs.
He was in jail for armed
robbery and was awaiting
trial for attempted rape at the
time. Baudry was serving
HORROR: Nicolas Cocaign
time for sexual assault.
PUB: NT NEWS
Oil spill a
tourism
disaster
DATE: 26-JUN-2010 PAGE: 20 COLOR:
K
NEW ORLEANS: BP has resumed
full siphoning operations from
the ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil
well, but Florida was forced to
close down popular tourist
beaches at the height of the
summer season as more crude
washed ashore.
The vast slick has already
soiled the coastlines of Louisiana,
Mississippi and Alabama, but
could spell disaster for Florida,
one of the world’s top tourist
destinations that attracts more
than 80 million visitors a year.
The state’s 2000km of western
coastline is home to scores of
popular beaches as well as pristine coral reefs and an important
fishing industry.
‘‘There’s oil both in the water
and in the sand,’’ said Warren
Bielenberg, an official with the
Gulf Islands National Seashore,
one of the areas in northwestern
Florida affected by the spill.
The swimming ban runs from
far western Florida to the east
side of Pensacola Beach through
Santa Rosa Island, one of the
region’s most popular tourist attractions, Bielenberg said.
State officials have mounted an
aggressive beach and coastline
cleanup effort to stop the oil from
reaching Florida beaches.
Tourism in Florida generates
more than a million jobs, generating $A75 billion in revenue.
Oil siphoning operations however resumed about 11 hours after
a containment cap was accidentally knocked off the gushing well.
India seeks
Bhopal boss
NEW DELHI: India’s Cabinet has
approved pushing for the former
head of Union Carbide to be
extradited over the toxic gas leak
in 1984 that killed an estimated
15,000 people.
Public ire over the world’s
worst industrial disaster in the
Indian city of Bhopal resurfaced
this month after a court convicted
seven former employees.
They were found guilty of
‘‘death by negligence’’ and sentenced to two years in prison.
On December 3, 1984, a pesticide plant run by Union Carbide
leaked about 40 tons of deadly
methyl isocyanate gas into the air
of Bhopal, killing about 15,000
people over the years.
Sanctions aim
to choke Iran
MOURNFUL: A flower lays on the tracks of Castelldefels Playa train station, where a high-speed train
passing through struck a group of people crossing the tracks, killing at least 13
Blame game starts over train tragedy
CASTELLDEFELS, Spain: Spanish
officials have blamed summer solstice partygoers for crossing the
tracks into the path of an express
train that killed at least 13, but
others said a new underground exit
was poorly marked and an old
crossing was blocked off, leaving
travellers confused.
In addition to the dead, at least 14
were injured in the beach resort of
Castelldefels, south of Barcelona,
shortly before midnight on Wednes-
Coxswains Course
(USL)
Coxswains course starting soon at CDU’s Casuarina
campus. Classes will be held Tuesday and Thursday
evenings from early August to mid November.
Come along to a course briefing at 7pm, 12 July 2010.
To register your interest and
for more information contact CDU
P: 08 8946 6978
www.cdu.edu.au
www.cdu.edu.au
20 — Northern Territory News, Saturday, June 26, 2010
day (local time) as crowds of young
people left a train heading for bonfires on a Mediterranean beach.
Many jammed the underpass leading to the beach, but about 30 others
climbed down from the platform and
tried to scurry across the tracks.
They were struck and mangled by
a train barrelling through the station in northeastern Spain.
Development Minister Jose Blanco
denied claims the underpass was
poorly marked, and insisted passen-
gers should have known ‘‘you never,
never, never cross the tracks’’.
‘‘Everything pointed to negligence,’’ Blanco added, saying he
hoped the tragedy would make
riders understand that they must
obey station rules.
But Arrellano Ruiz, the
Ecuadorean consul in Barcelona, said
passengers did not see the signs for
the underpass exit and mistakenly
headed to an overpass that had been
closed since a 2009 renovation.
Stampede for iPhones
SAN FRANCISCO: Apple fans mobbed stores in
Japan, Europe and the US to become the first
owners of the latest-generation iPhone, despite
early complaints of antenna problems.
Hundreds of people queued up outside the Apple
store in San Francisco, where one person reportedly sold a premier place in line for $US400 ($A460)
and another swapped a spot for an iPhone 4
(pictured). Dealers said they didn’t have enough
stock to meet demand.
NZ village at rock bottom price
AUCKLAND: Why settle for a
one million dollar mansion in
Sydney when you can have a
whole village in New Zealand for
the same price?
The tiny town of Otira, in the
Southern Alps of New Zealand, is
on the market for $NZ1 million
($A817,060).
The village’s current owners,
www.ntnews.com.au
Bill and Christine Hennah, made
the purchase in 1998 after
passing through the town and
‘‘feeling sorry for it’’, The Press
reported yesterday.
They paid $NZ80,000 ($A65,290)
for the hotel, school, railway
station, townhall and 18 houses.
Otira has a population of just
40 residents.
WASHINGTON: The US Congress
has granted President Barack
Obama tough energy and financial
sanctions on Iran, aimed at forcing
Tehran to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program.
The US Senate and House of
Representatives approved the
legislation — which backers described as the toughest-ever US
sanctions against the Islamic republic — by crushing 99-0 and
408-8 margins, respectively.
The new measures, piled atop
new UN Security Council and
European sanctions, aimed to
choke off Iran’s access to imports
of refined petroleum products like
petrol and jet fuel, and curb its
access to the international banking system.
Blast rattles
security HQ
ATHENS: A parcel bomb has
killed the head of security at the
Greek ministry of citizen protection, which is in charge of the
police and also houses its headquarters, police said.
The explosion, which police
described as ‘‘very strong’’, occurred only metres from the
office of the minister, Michalis
Chryssohoidis, who was unharmed despite being present.
The blast killed head of security Georges Vassilakis, 52, in his
seventh-floor office, police said.
The bombing marks the first
time in Greece that an attack has
targeted the heart of the nation’s
security apparatus, and was carried out despite police guards at
the ministry’s entrance.