ABOUT 2000 Hong Kong senior citizens, including a popular actress, have marched in a show of support for youths at the forefront of month-long protests against an extradition bill in the semi-autonomous territory in China.
That protest was mostly peaceful but ended in mayhem when violent scuffles in a shopping mall saw dozens injured, including a policeman who had a finger bitten off, and more than 40 people detained.
Veteran actress and singer Deanie Ip said police should not use heavy-handed tactics against young protesters, who “have no guns” and were peacefully expressing their frustrations.
“They are young people and they are doing the right thing. Why are they being mistreated?” she said.
Organisers said about 8000 people participated in the demonstration.
Hong Kong has been jolted for over a month by a series of large-scale and occasionally violent protests amid widespread anger over a proposed extradition law that would send suspects to mainland China to face trial. The bill is seen as a threat to Hong Kong’s freedoms that were guaranteed for 50 years when China took back control of the former British colony in 1997.
MEXICAN drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been sentenced to life behind bars in a US prison.
A federal judge in Brooklyn handed down the sentence, five months after Guzman’s conviction in an epic drug-trafficking case.
The 62-year-old, who had been protected in Mexico by an army of gangsters and an elaborate corruption operation, was taken to the US to stand trial after he twice escaped from Mexican prisons.
AN appeal court in India has overturned the acquittal of one of two suspects in the rape and murder of a teenage British girl whose body was found on a beach in the resort city of Goa in 2008.
The High Court in Goa convicted Samson D’Souza for the attack on 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling.
Prosecutors said the court upheld the acquittal of another suspect accused of leaving Scarlett to die on the beach after drugging and sexually abusing her.
Police originally said Scarlett had drowned after taking drugs but changed their story after her mother complained. A second post-mortem concluded she had been raped and murdered.
A trial court acquitted both in 2016, and the High Court took up the case in 2017.
The court will sentence D’Souza on Friday. He faces up to life in prison.
Under Indian laws, both the accused and prosecutors can appeal a trial court’s verdict to the High Court and the Supreme Court.
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