Woman caught trying to scale White House fence
Washington: A woman was caught by US Secret Service here while trying to climb over the White House fence when President Donald Trump was inside, according to a media report on Wednesday. “Secret Service responding to an individual who jumped the bike rack along the North Fence Line of Penn Ave. Suspect in custody,” the Secret Service said on its Twitter account about the incident on Tuesday.
It led to a lockdown at the North Fence of the White House along Pennsylvania Avenue. Officers from the Secret Service’s uniformed division apprehended the woman yesterday before she could make it over the fence. She was charged with unlawful entry, The New York Times reported. The woman was not immediately identified.
President Trump was inside at the time, and much of the West Wing was still occupied with White House staff members. There have been a string of attempts to scale the fence this spring, at least one of which was successful. On March 10, a California man scaled a series of barriers and remained on the White House grounds for 17 minutes before he was stopped by the authorities. The Secret Service is still investigating that incident, and has already fired at least two officers who were on duty that night. The agency also recently took steps to restrict public access to the sidewalk along the grounds’ southern fence line. White House fence jumpers are not uncommon, but it is rare for an attempt to come during the day, when the White House is fully occupied. (PTI)
Man jailed for 22 years over Australian backpacker attacks
Adelaide: A man who subjected two backpackers to a violent attack on a remote Australian beach has been sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Roman Heinze was previously found guilty on six charges including indecent assault, aggravated kidnapping and endangering life in the 2016 assault of two young women in South Australia.
During the attack, he sexually assaulted one of the women before beating her friend in the head with a hammer and repeatedly ramming her with his four-wheel drive as she tried to flee. South Australia Supreme Court Justice Trish Kelly dubbed Heinze “utterly depraved” on Wednesday as she handed him a 22 -year prison sentence for the attack on the women from Brazil and Germany, and for several other earlier offenses. He will be eligible for parole in 17 years. (AP)
Two Indonesians sentenced to 85 lashes of cane for gay sex
BANDA ACEH: An Islamic court in Indonesia has sentenced two men to 85 lashes of the cane for having sex together, judges in the conservative province of Aceh said, ignoring pleas for clemency from human rights groups. The public caning handed down by a panel of judges is the first time laws against homosexuality, introduced in the province in 2014, have been used.
The sentence was more severe than the 80 lashes requested by the prosecutor. “The defendants are proven to have committed sodomy and are found guilty,” the presiding judge, Khairil Jamal, said in a statement. The two men had opted to represent themselves in court and said they would not appeal the verdict. Aceh is the only province in Muslim-majority Indonesia that criminalises same-sex relations and that uses sharia as its legal code in addition to the national criminal code.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) had called on Indonesia to release the men who were detained in March after vigilantes reported them to religious police for allegedly engaging in gay sex.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Indonesia has faced growing pressure since high-ranking government officials last year expressed reservations about activism by its members.
Three years ago, Aceh province enacted a law that punishes anybody caught engaging in consensual gay sex with 100 lashes, 100 months in jail or a fine of 1,000 grams of gold. It also sets out punishment for unmarried people engaging in displays of affection, adulterous relationships and underage sex.
Authorities in the province on the northern tip of Sumatra island caned 339 people in 2016 for a range of crimes, according to HRW. (Reuters)
Dog sentenced to death for biting child in Pakistan
Lahore: In a peculiar punishment, a dog was today sentenced to death in Pakistan’s Punjab province for biting a child. The dog, which bit a child, was sentenced to death by Assistant Commissioner Raja Saleem in Bhakkar’s Kalor vicinity in Punjab province, Geo TV reported. Assistant Commissioner Saleem said that the sentence was announced on humanitarian grounds.
“The dog injured the child hence it should be killed,” Saleem ruled. An official was also instructed to check the dog’s registration, he said, stating that a case against the dog’s owner is in progress in a civil court. The dog’s owner filed an appeal with the Additional Deputy Commissioner against the peculiar punishment.
“The affected child’s family registered a case against my dog, following which it completed a one-week prison sentence. Any further punishment for it would be unfair,” the channel quoted the dog’s owner Jamil as saying. Jamil added that he would knock on the doors of all courts to get justice for his pet. (PTI)
