Jail term upheld for Cambodian who infected people with HIV
Phnom Penh: Cambodia’s Supreme Court has upheld the decision of a lower court to sentence an unlicensed medical practitioner to 25 years in prison for infecting over 200 villagers with HIV.
Yem Chrin, 60, was arrested in 2014 in Battambang province after most of his patients had their blood tested positive for HIV and accused him of transmitting the virus via the reuse of unsterilized needles, Xinhua new agency reported on Saturday.
In December 2015, the Battambang Provincial Court found him guilty of committing “cruel torture” and decided to sentence him to 25 years in prison.
The court also ordered him to pay between $500 and $3,000 in compensation to each of more than 100 victims, who filed the complaints.
In September 2017, the Appeal Court decided to uphold the Battambang Provincial Court’s ruling against Chrin.
“The Supreme Court sees that the Appeal Court’s decision against Yem Chrin is correct, so the court decides to uphold the decision,” Supreme Court Judge Nil Non said as he pronounced the verdict on Friday.
During a hearing last month, Chrin, who had been a village medical practitioner for almost 20 years, acknowledged his mistake and pleaded the court to reduce his jail sentence to 10 years.
He told the court that he reused syringes on multiple patients because it was difficult to get new ones.
The HIV outbreak in Battambang province’s rural Roka commune, which came to light in 2014, had left some 290 people infected. (IANS)
Russian mine yields 1st diamond-within-diamond stone
Moscow: A diamond containing another, free-moving gem inside unearthed from a mine in Siberia is the first stone of its kind in recorded history, Russian state mining company Alrosa PJSC said Friday.
The diamond may be more than 800 million years old, Alrosa said in a statement.
Dubbed the Matryoshka diamond in reference to the Russian nesting dolls of that name, the stone weighs 0.62 carats, while the internal gem weighs 0.02 carats, the Efe news reported.
“As far as we know, there were no such diamonds in the history of global diamond mining yet. This is really a unique creation of nature, especially since nature does not like emptiness. Usually, some minerals are replaced by others without cavity formation,” Oleg Kovalchuk, deputy director for innovations at ALROSA’s Research and Development Geological Enterprise, said.
The diamond came out of the Nyurba mine in the Siberian region of Yakutia, but it was sorters at the Yakutsk Diamond Trade Enterprise who discovered the nature of the stone and passed it on to the Research and Development Geological Enterprise for analysis.
Scientists examined the stone using several different methods of spectroscopy along with X-ray microtomography.
“Based on the results of the study, the scientists made a hypothesis about how the crystal was formed. According to them, there was an internal diamond at first, and the external one was formed during the subsequent stages of growth,” Alrosa said.
“The most interesting thing for us was to find out how the air space between the inner and outer diamonds was formed,” Kovalchuk said.
While the scientists have to decide on the exact mechanism, with the existence of a dissolved zone, “one diamond began to move freely inside another on the principle of Matryoshka nesting doll,” he said.
An Alrosa spokesman said the company plans to send the Matryoshka diamond to the Gemological Institute of America for further analysis. (IANS)
Woman sentenced in death of boy who wouldn’t eat hot dog
Wichita: A Kansas woman has been sentenced to more than 19 years in prison in the death of her 2-year-old son after he refused to eat a hot dog.
Elizabeth Woolheater of Wichita was sentenced Friday for the May 2018 death of Anthony Bunn. The Wichita Eagle reports that the 24-year-old Woolheater pleaded guilty in August to second-degree murder and two counts of child abuse.
She was sentenced to 19 years and five months. The boy died two days after he was beaten unconscious.
Woolheater said she hit the boy for not eating the hot dog and then heard her boyfriend, Lucas Diel, hitting him more. Diel, who denied hitting the boy, is serving a 49-year sentence for second-degree murder. (AP)