Addis Ababa (AFP) - An Ethiopian Airlines pilot who last year hijacked a plane to seek asylum in Switzerland was on Friday is given 19 years in jail in absentia by a court in Ethiopia.
The pilot, 32-year-old Ethiopian Hailemedehin Abera Tagegn, is currently awaiting trial in Switzerland.
Tagegn was second-in-command on the flight that was carrying 202 passengers from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to Rome.
He locked himself in the cockpit when the captain went to the bathroom and diverted the plane to Geneva.
"The defendant has committed a serious crime," Ethiopian Federal High Court judge Yosef Kiros said in his ruling.
"This case could be punished by up to 21 years in jail. However, based on the past of the defendant and the fact he has no criminal record, we agreed on 19 years and six months in prison," he said.
"This will be implemented from the first day the defendant is apprehended," the judge ruled.
Tagegn, who had been working for Ethiopia's booming flag carrier for five years, was unarmed when he took control of the flight.
The plane landed safely in Geneva, escorted by Italian and French fighters.
Once on the ground, Tagegn turned off the engines, used a rope to reach the tarmac from the cockpit window and identified himself to Swiss authorities
He said he was seeking asylum since he "felt threatened" in his country.
Swiss authorities in May rejected an Ethiopian request for Tagegn's extradition, saying he would be tried in Switzerland.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former rap music mogul Marion "Suge" Knight collapsed in a courtroom Friday shortly after a judge ordered him held on $25 million bail in a murder case.
Bailiffs cleared the courtroom, paramedics arrived with a stretcher a few minutes later and an ambulance was seen leaving the courthouse.
Defense attorney Matthew Fletcher said Knight was unconscious when the lawyer left the courtroom and an update on his condition was not immediately available.
Fletcher said his client, who is diabetic and has a blood clot, previously told him that he hadn't received any medication since Thursday.
Knight hit his head on a chair when he fell after the bail hearing, Fletcher said.
The 6-foot-4-inch tall Knight collapsed while deputies were bringing him back into the courtroom after Fletcher asked a judge to order that Knight be given his medication.
The attorney said Knight was being kept in solitary confinement in jail without proper access to medication.
"He's being treated worse than Charles Manson," Fletcher said.
The collapse marked the fourth time that Knight has been taken by ambulance from a courthouse since he was charged with killing Terry Carter, 55, in early February.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Coen set bail on Friday at $25 million for Knight, who is accused of running down and killing Carter with his truck.
Coen made his decision after Deputy District Attorney Cynthia Barnes noted that Knight was on bail in a robbery case when he struck Carter and another man in a parking lot in Compton.
"He escalated his behavior and committed murder," Barnes told the judge.
Fletcher argued that Knight's bail should be set at $2 million, but Coen said the higher amount was warranted.
The attorney said before the hearing that his client likely could not post bail if it was set at $25 million.
Knight, the 49-year-old co-founder of Death Row Records, has pleaded not guilty to murder, attempted murder and hit-and-run charges.
Barnes filed a motion Thursday accusing Knight of being part of a scheme that has extorted more than $10 million from up-and-coming and established rappers in recent years.
Fletcher countered that prosecutors should file charges involving those extortion claims if they have enough evidence.
Fletcher also said phone records and other evidence in the murder case would show that Knight was lured to the location where the men were hit by the truck. Knight was attacked when he arrived and hit the two men while trying to flee the scene, the lawyer said.
Fletcher said Cle "Bone" Sloan acknowledged to sheriff's investigators that he attacked Knight. The attorney argued his client wasn't required to remain at the scene and endure the attack, and that Sloan should be charged.
"If his name wasn't 'Suge' Knight, they wouldn't have filed this case," Fletcher said.
Knight was a key player in the gangster rap scene that flourished in the 1990s, his label once listing Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg among its artists. Knight lost control of the company after it was forced into bankruptcy.
Designed by technology volunteers and Google, it can be used even wearing gloves and in storms and high humidity.
Medecins Sans Frontieres put out a call for an Ebola-proof tablet to help teams’ record vital patient information.
At the height of the current outbreak, medics were shouting patient notes across fences to avoid contamination.
High-risk zones
Ebola is passed on through close contact with infected bodily fluids.
Even a single piece of paper leaving a high-risk zone poses a risk of passing on the infection, the charity says.
And medics caring for these patients have to be encased in full protective suits with goggles and multiple layers of gloves, despite the soaring temperatures.
But dictating notes across a fence at the end of exhausting shifts while wearing masks was a "recipe for error", MSF said.
To overcome these challenges the group of international tech volunteers came together, including Pim de Witte of Whitespell and Daniel Cunningham at Hack4Good. They were later joined by Google.
The tablet has waterproof casing at an "industrial level" according to Ivan Gayton, technology advisor at MSF.
It can be dunked in 0.5% chlorine solution which kills Ebola - if used on unprotected hands this strength of chlorine could cause chemical burns.
Sharp edges of the tablet were removed so that protective clothing would not be pierced.
And it is charged quickly and wirelessly by being placed on a table. The tablet connects wirelessly to a tiny local network server that is roughly the size of a postage stamp.
Health workers use it to track a patient's progress - comparing pulse, temperature and other results over time.
Mr Gayton said: "Although we have just treated the largest cohort of Ebola patients in human history, we still know distressingly little about the progression of the disease.
"In the longer term if we are able to collect more and better information about our patients, we will also learn more about the disease and how best to treat it."
Difficult scenarios
The device has been tested at MSF treatment centres in Sierra Leone.
The charity hopes the technology - which is open-source - will be adapted for use in other difficult scenarios such as outbreaks of cholera.
Dr Eric Perakslis, from Harvard Medical School, works on separate global health innovation projects. He said: "A handful of companies are trying to find a technological solutions for the Ebola crisis.
"But they face a lot of challenges such as unreliable electricity. This one addresses all the challenges at once.
"And it will not just be useful for single patient encounters but for research on the virus too."
Ganesh Shankar, product manager at Google, said: "I think this kind of partnership represents the future of how non-governmental organisations are going to integrate technology into the work they do."
Source: BBC
