American journalist killed by attack near Kyiv
Lviv, Mar 13: A US journalist being treated at a hospital in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv says that he and a US colleague were shot after they were stopped at a checkpoint just after a bridge in Irpin, a town near Kyiv.
Juan Arredondo told Italian journalist Annalisa Camilli in an interview from the hospital before being taken for surgery that the colleague who was with him was hit in the neck and remained on the ground earlier on Sunday.
Camilli told The Associated Press that she was at the hospital when Arredondo arrived and that Arredondo had himself had been wounded, hit in the lower back when stopped at a Russian checkpoint.
Arredondo told Camilli he didn't have further information on the fellow U.S. journalist, whom he identified as Brent Renaud, a friend. He told Camilli they were filming refugees fleeing the area when they were shot at while in a car approaching a checkpoint. The driver turned around but the firing at them continued, Arredondo added.
A statement from Kyiv regional police said that Russian troops opened fire on the car, and that one journalist died. Arredondo said that an ambulance brought him to the hospital and that Renaud was left behind.
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Malaysian Indian sentenced to jail and caning for raping Indonesian woman in Singapore
Singapore (PTI): An Indian-origin Malaysian man was sentenced in Singapore to 12 years' jail and 12 strokes of the cane for raping a domestic worker outside a train station after tricking her into thinking that he was a police officer.
Sharveen Chetty, 48, pleaded guilty on February 4 to one charge of raping the 35-year-old Indonesian woman in the bushes outside Exit F of a subway, Little India Mass Rapid Transit station, at about 8pm on July 11, 2022.
The victim was with her friends at the time, but Chetty lured her away before he sexually assaulted her, according to a report by The Straits Times on Thursday.
Two other charges – a second rape charge and a charge of impersonating a police officer – were taken into consideration during sentencing on Wednesday.
The witnesses who testified on the first day of the trial included a doctor from Women’s and Children’s Hospital who examined the victim a day after the rapes, and forensic scientists from the Health Sciences Authority.
Chetty had initially contested the charges in a High Court trial that began on February 3. But he changed his mind and pleaded guilty on what would have been the second day of the trial, according to the daily report.
In sentencing, Justice Dedar Singh Gill considered it aggravating that Chetty had targeted the victim because she was a foreigner who might be unfamiliar with the local authorities.
The judge rejected the defence's arguments that the rape was not premeditated.
The judge, however, noted that Chetty had pleaded guilty before the victim and key prosecution witnesses testified, thus sparing her and her friends from going through cross-examination.
The prosecution had sought a sentence of between 11 and 13 years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane, noting Chetty’s extensive efforts to disguise himself, and his predatory act of leading the victim away from the rest of the group.
Chetty admitted that he became sexually attracted to the victim.
