Murder

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Moroccan Migrant Slit Italian’s Throat Because “He Looked Happy”

April 3, 2019


A 27-year-old Moroccan migrant confessed to the murder of 33-year-old Italian Stefano Leo, saying that he killed Leo because “he looked happy”.

Said Mechaout slit Leo’s throat during a brutal attack on 23 February of this year in Turin.

He later told authorities that Leo’s pleasant demeanor had been the only trigger needed for the murder.

“I am the murderer of Stefano Leo. I have to turn myself in,” said Mechaout. “I feel hunted by the Carabinieri. I don’t want to commit other crimes. Among all the people who were passing, I chose to kill this young man because he looked happy. And I chose to kill his happiness.”

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Leo (pictured above) probably “looked happy” because he had recently returned from spending two years with a Hare Krishna community in Australia and described himself as a “pacifist”.

The killer said he decided to kill someone that morning and emphasized that he specifically targeted Leo because of his smiling face.

“I decided I would have to kill someone,” said Mechaout. “I went to buy a set of knives, then threw away all but the sharpest. Then I went to Murazzi and waited. When I saw that guy I decided I couldn’t bear his happy look.”

“I saw him, he looked at me and I thought that he should suffer like me. I cut his throat with my knife,” he added.

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Quite how Mechaout was ‘suffering’ is unknown. Perhaps he took Leo’s smiling face as a racist microaggression.

Around 8% of all illegal immigrants living in Italy are Moroccan. More Moroccans have arrived in Europe since the “refugee” wave accelerated four years ago.

Last year, two female Scandinavian hikers were raped and beheaded by ISIS followers in Morocco. One of the girls had previously posted a video on her Facebook page protesting against “Islamophobia”.

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Source: InfoWars

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AMC Theatres pursues Saudi expansion despite journalist’s killing

April 3, 2019

FILE PHOTO: Two Saudi men take a selfie at Saudi Arabia's first commercial movie theater in Riyadh
FILE PHOTO: Two Saudi men take a selfie at Saudi Arabia’s first commercial movie theater in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia April 18, 2018. REUTERS/Faisal Al Nasser

April 3, 2019

By Lisa Richwine

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Theater operator AMC Entertainment Holdings is forging ahead with its expansion in Saudi Arabia, Chief Executive Adam Aron told Reuters, after a journalist’s killing six months ago clouded the future of the kingdom’s newly opened cinema market.

Aron said his company reconsidered its plans to open dozens of theaters, which the company announced last spring, following the October murder of Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate. The killing sparked an international outcry.

The CIA and some Western countries suspect Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing just over six months ago. Saudi authorities vehemently deny he was involved.

“It certainly made us think in great depth,” Aron said in an interview this week in Las Vegas at CinemaCon, an annual convention for theater owners.

“What we concluded at AMC is that if we continued with the opening of theaters in the Middle East, that we were doing something very good for the people of the country,” he said. “And we decided that what was in the best interest of the people was the right course of action for us.”

AMC, the biggest cinema chain in the United States and the world, is working on the theaters through a partnership with Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF).

John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners, said on Tuesday that at least three theater chains were moving forward with plans to add screens in Saudi Arabia. He declined to name the companies.

Fithian told reporters the killing of Khashoggi was “a tragic, awful human rights violation”, but added: “I don’t think it’s our business to make foreign policy as a trade association.”

“The idea of having the freedom to see movies in a country … can only help to open up thinking in that country,” he said. “Movies have always been a sword for freedom.”

The Saudi government communications office did not immediately respond to a request to comment.

A year ago, Saudi Arabia lifted a nearly four-decade ban on cinemas. AMC screened the first film, Walt Disney Co’s superhero hit “Black Panther”, at a movie house in Riyadh, and other companies announced plans to operate theaters in the country.

But shortly after Khashoggi’s killing, cinema chain Vue International put on hold plans to open as many as 30 locations in Saudi Arabia, Chief Executive Officer Tim Richards told The Guardian newspaper at the time.

Hollywood talent agency and media company Endeavor also returned a $400 million investment to the Saudi Arabian government to protest the killing.

Aron said his company had a “significant number” of theaters under lease in Saudi Arabia and many will open in 2019. He also expects to have “50 theaters open four to five years from now”.

The AMC theater in Riyadh has shown dozens of films over the past year, he added.

“The theater has been immensely popular,” he said, “as you would expect in a city of 7 million people that now has two movies theaters, in a country that likes movies and saw movies frequently, just not in theaters.”

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Sonya Hepinstall and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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Saudi women activists back in court, temporary release ruling expected

April 3, 2019

Demonstrators from Amnesty International protest outside the Saudi Arabian Embassy on International Women's day in Paris
FILE PHOTO – Demonstrators from Amnesty International stage the protest on International Women’s day to urge Saudi authorities to release jailed women’s rights activists Loujain al-Hathloul, Eman al-Nafjan and Aziza al-Yousef outside the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Paris, France, March 8, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

April 3, 2019

By Stephen Kalin

RIYADH (Reuters) – Nearly a dozen prominent Saudi women activists returned to court on Wednesday to face charges related to their human rights work and contacts with foreign journalists and diplomats, in a case that has intensified Western criticism of a key Mideast ally.

Three of the women – blogger Eman al-Nafjan, academic Aziza al-Yousef and conservative preacher Ruqayya al-Mohareb – were temporarily released last week on the condition that they attend future sessions. They were seen entering the courthouse on Wednesday.

Riyadh’s criminal court had been expected to rule earlier this week on requests for temporary releases for the other women, but sources familiar with the case said the decision had been postponed until Wednesday’s hearing. The reason was unclear.

Western diplomats and media, including Reuters, have been denied entry to the hearings.

The trial, now in its third session, has drawn global attention to the kingdom’s rights record, which was already in the spotlight following the murder last year of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.

Three dozen countries, including all 28 EU members, Canada and Australia, have called on Riyadh to free the activists. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the issue during recent visits.

The temporary releases and the cases’ transfer from a high-security terrorism court at the last minute without explanation are seen as possibly signaling a more lenient handling of the case after months of lobbying by Western governments.

Yet it remains to be seen if Riyadh will bend to international pressure or pursue harsh sentences in a case critics say has revealed the limits of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s promises to modernise Saudi Arabia.

The activists were detained weeks before a ban on women driving cars in the conservative kingdom was lifted last June.

At least five men were detained in the same sweep, though none of them are currently on trial. Rights groups say two of them have been released, but the status of the others is unclear.

Some of the women on trial told the court last week they had been subjected to torture in detention, including electric shocks, flogging, and sexual assault. The Saudi public prosecutor previously denied those accusations.

Dozens of other activists, intellectuals and clerics have been arrested separately in the past two years in an apparent bid to stamp out opposition to the government.

(Reporting By Stephen Kalin; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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‘Like a Ferrari, you don’t need it’: New Zealanders set to turn in guns

April 3, 2019

Noel Womersley, from Canterbury Homekill butchery, lies down to shoot a cow with his Tikka T3 rifle before butchering it outside Christchurch
Noel Womersley, from Canterbury Homekill butchery, lies down to shoot a cow with his Tikka T3 rifle before butchering it outside Christchurch, New Zealand March 27, 2019. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

April 3, 2019

By Jorge Silva

CHRISTCHURCH (Reuters) – The pre-dawn quiet of New Zealand’s South Island is shattered by the crack of a bullet from Noel Womersley’s Finnish Tikka T3 rifle, followed by the shot thudding into the skull of a cow he is targeting, one of three.

For 14 years Womersley has worked at “home kill,” shooting beasts for small farmers and cutting them up, but tough new gun laws to be adopted after the nation’s worst mass murder by a lone gunman will require him to surrender another of his guns.

“Guns are a way of life for me, really,” says Womersley, 48, who received his first firearm, a .22-calibre rifle, for his 12th birthday, and now hunts with his 15-year-old daughter.

“It’s pretty much what I live and breathe. I (shoot) on the weekends for fun and then I do it during the week for a job.”

As the first beast slumps, he rapidly draws back and pushes forward his riflebolt, firing again and then a third time. In seconds, three cattle are dead on the damp ground. He gathers his knives and begins to cut them up.

“I shoot animals, I don’t shoot targets. I shoot food,” says Womersley.

Wearing black overalls and gumboots for protection against the gore, he pushes the cattle on their sides, removes heads and hide and uses a hoist to load the carcasses on his refrigerated truck.

Womersley was on a similar job in the hinterland beyond Christchurch on March 15, when a man in combat gear entered the city’s Al Noor mosque, and then another, and turned his high-powered military-style weapons on unarmed worshippers.

“I didn’t really comprehend it was real. I thought it was like a movie, or something that’s happened overseas,” Womersley says, adding that he had been shocked to discover after work what had unfolded just a few kilometers away.

Fifty people were killed and scores wounded, prompting an outpouring of support for the nation’s bereaved Muslim community, and a swift crackdown on guns.

The semi-automatics used in the attack will be banned, with exemptions for working hunters, and tougher licensing rules are on the drawing board.

A wide swathe of New Zealand’s quarter-million gun owners, who account for about 1.5 million weapons, say they accept there must be change after the tragedy.

“I think the gun laws were too slack…the laws gave this bad man a gun,” says Womersley, who owns eight or nine guns, stored in a safe in the garage of a home decorated with game heads. “He ruined it for everyone. Not everyone is like that.”As part of a new national firearm buyback scheme, he expects to hand in one military-style AR-15 assault rifle, a type of weapon used in the Christchurch massacre.

“I don’t think we need military-style weapons in our society. I definitely don’t need them in my job,” he says. “It’s like driving around in a Ferrari, you don’t need it.”

(Reporting by Jorge Silva in Christchurch; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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Australia’s Senate condemns lawmaker over New Zealand massacre Muslim comments

April 2, 2019

Senator Anning speaks during a news conference in Brisbane
FILE PHOTO – Senator Fraser Anning speaks during a news conference in Brisbane, Australia, March 18, 2019. AAP Image/Dan Peled/via REUTERS

April 3, 2019

Sydney (Reuters) – Australia’s Senate censured an independent right-wing lawmaker on Wednesday for his comments that New Zealand’s mosques shooting massacre which left 50 people dead was a result of letting “Muslim fanatics” migrate to the country.

Senator Fraser Anning has been widely condemned for his comments made shortly after a lone gunman attacked two mosques in Christchurch on March 15.

“There is no room for racism in Australia. Sadly, what Senator Anning said after the Christchurch massacre, however shocking isn’t out of character,” Australian Muslim Senator Mehreen Faruqi told the Senate.

“Just a week before I joined this place, he gave a speech calling for a ban on people like me coming to this country.”

Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, has been charged with one murder following the attack and was remanded without a plea. He is due back in court on April 5, when police said he was likely to face more charges.

Sitting for the first time since the attack, Australia’s upper house overwhelmingly passed a censure motion against Anning – the first such public rebuke of a lawmaker in four years. A censure motion has no direct legal consequences but acts as an expression of the Senate’s disapproval.

Senator Anning denied he had blamed the victims, insisting the censure was an attack on his civil liberties.

“This censure motion against me is a blatant attack on free speech,” Anning told Reuters via email.

Leaders of the major parties in the Senate condemned Anning’s comments, with opposition Labor Senator Penny Wong rejecting his “free speech” defense.

“There is a difference between freedom of speech and hate speech. The former is a feature of our democracy. The latter is an attack on democracy,” Wong said.

“This motion makes it clear he doesn’t speak for us. He doesn’t speak for the Senate. He doesn’t speak for this nation. He doesn’t represent Australian values.”

Anning’s comments gained international attention after footage of a teenager smashing an egg on the head of the right-wing senator was widely shared on social media.

(Reporting by Alison Bevege; Writing by Colin Packham; Editing by Michael Perry)

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NFL notebook: Wilson gives Seahawks April 15 deadline

April 2, 2019

FILE PHOTO: MLB: Spring Training-Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees
FILE PHOTO: Mar 15, 2019; Tampa, FL, USA; Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson works out prior to the game between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox at George M. Steinbrenner Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

April 3, 2019

Quarterback Russell Wilson has told the Seattle Seahawks that he wants a new contract by April 15, the first day of the offseason workout program, the Seattle Times reported Tuesday.

It is believed Wilson’s side and the Seahawks have met recently.

Wilson, 30, is entering the final year of a four-year, $87.6 million contract signed July 31, 2015, and he is scheduled to earn a base salary of $17 million in the 2019 season.

While the Seahawks tend to finalize contracts the summer before the season begins, Wilson wants to move up the timeline to remove the distractions of contract talks like the ones he endured before signing in 2015.

–The New England Patriots and newly acquired Michael Bennett agreed on a reworked contract that gives the defensive lineman a raise heading into the 2019 season, ESPN reported.

The base value of the final two years of Bennett’s contract increases from $15.7 million to $16.75 million and includes a $4 million signing bonus, according to the report. Bennett, 33, will earn $3 million this season with $1.5 million in per-game roster bonuses. He stands to earn a base of $7 million in 2020.

The move also frees up about $700,000 in cap space for the Patriots this season, giving the club $18 million overall.

–The Denver Broncos began their offseason workout program without Pro Bowl cornerback Chris Harris Jr.

The conditioning program is voluntary, but Harris’ absence is noteworthy because the eight-year veteran has never previously skipped a voluntary workout.

The Broncos exercised their $1 million option on Harris last month and the 29-year-old has one year and $7.8 million remaining on his contract. His no-show most likely indicates he wants to see his contract extended sooner rather than later.

–Houston Texans safety and cancer survivor Andre Hal announced his retirement, saying his decision was not health-related.

Hal was diagnosed last June with Hodgkin lymphoma after experiencing blurry vision while practicing. Four months later, with the cancer in remission, he returned to the Texans and played in eight regular-season games and their playoff loss to the Indianapolis Colts.

“My health did not have anything to do with my decision,” Hal wrote Tuesday. “I am completely healthy. Thank you to the Houston Texans organization for giving me the opportunity to live my childhood dream. I also want to thank my family and friends for all of their support. I truly appreciate it.”

–The Texans have hired Jack Easterby, the Patriots’ former “character” coach, as their executive vice president of team development, the team announced.

The Patriots hired Easterby in 2013 to help the team cope with the murder charges against tight end Aaron Hernandez. Easterby’s contract expired this winter, and he decided to pursue other interests.

He left the Patriots in February. After his departure, the Boston Globe reported Easterby thought his job “had run its course,” but he also wasn’t comfortable with the solicitation charges against team owner Robert Kraft.

–The Dallas Cowboys extended defensive end Randy Gregory’s contract for one year and $735,000, NFL Network reported.

Gregory was set to enter the final year of his contract, but it’s unclear if he will be eligible to play in 2019 after being suspended indefinitely in February, his fourth suspension under the league’s substance abuse agreement.

–The Jacksonville Jaguars signed running back Benny Cunningham, one day after reaching an agreement with running back Alfred Blue.

Both visited the team on Monday, and now both will back up Leonard Fournette on the depth chart. No terms were disclosed.

–The Indianapolis Colts claimed safety Derrick Kindred off waivers from the Cleveland Browns.

Kindred, 25, was cut by Cleveland on Monday. A fourth-round pick in 2016, he has two interceptions and 12 passes defensed in 42 career games (17 starts).

–The Kansas City Chiefs signed free agent tight end Blake Bell, multiple outlets reported.

Bell, 27, was a college quarterback at Oklahoma. He has 30 catches for 357 yards in 50 games (12 starts) with three teams through four NFL seasons.

–Field Level Media

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Slovakia’s president-elect boosts liberal parties, ruling leftists fall: poll

April 2, 2019

Newly elected Slovakia's President Zuzana Caputova arrives to attend a televised debate in Bratislava
Newly elected Slovakia’s President Zuzana Caputova arrives to attend a televised debate in Bratislava, Slovakia, March 31, 2019. REUTERS/David W Cerny

April 2, 2019

BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – The election of anti-graft lawyer Zuzana Caputova as Slovakia’s president has boosted her liberal, pro-European Union party’s prospects in EU elections, against the grain of rising populism across the continent, an opinion poll showed on Tuesday.

Caputova’s success has given a dose of optimism to Europe’s liberal camp ahead of the May elections, where eurosceptic parties are expected to make gains around the continent.

Her Progressive Slovakia (PS) party, which will run in the EU election on a joint slate with Spolu (Together) party, saw their joint support double since February to 14.4 percent, an AKO agency poll of 1,000 people conducted on April 1-2 said.

Neither of the two parties have any seats in the national or European parliaments at the moment.

If successful, the PS candidates would join the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) in the European Parliament while Spolu would join the European People’s Party (EPP).

President-elect Caputova said she would quit PS in coming days in a nod to a tradition that the president, who does not wield day-to-day power, is usually non-partisan.

On the other end of the political spectrum, the AKO poll also showed rising support for the anti-European, far-right People’s Party-Our Slovakia which rose to 11.5 percent in April from 9.5 percent in February.

Its leader, Marian Kotleba, had also run for president and together with another anti-system, anti-immigration candidate, supreme court judge Stefan Harabin, clinched 25 percent in the presidential election’s first round last month.

The ruling leftist but socially conservative party Smer, whose candidate lost to Caputova in the run off vote on Saturday, saw its support fall to 19.7 percent in the opinion poll, under 20 percent for the first time in more than a decade.

Smer remains the biggest group in parliament but has seen losses since last year’s murder of an investigative reporter that triggered mass protests and led to the resignation of Smer leader Robert Fico as prime minister.

The three-party coalition Smer leads would lose its parliamentary majority after junior partners, Slovak national party (SNS) and ethnic-Hungarian Most-Hid, also lost support.

A national parliamentary election is due in a year.

Slovakia’s daily Dennik N reported on Monday that outgoing President Andrej Kiska, who endorsed Caputova before the vote, would announce the launch of a new party this week.

Kiska, who has been a staunchly pro-western voice in Slovak politics and has often clashed with Fico’s Smer, is Slovakia’s most trusted politician with an approval rating of 57 percent, according to a separate AKO poll this month.

(Reporting By Tatiana Jancarikova, Editing by William Maclean)

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NRA Tries to Prevent Domestic Violence Act Reauthorization

April 1, 2019

The National Rifle Association is gearing up to prevent Congress from reauthorizing the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, The New York Times reported Monday.

The NRA opposes the reauthorization bill, which the House is scheduled to vote on this week, because it includes a new measure that seeks to curb sexual violence by expanding the ability of law enforcement to take away guns from domestic abusers. The proposal does so by closing the “boyfriend loophole” and barring those convicted of abusing, assaulting, or stalking a dating partner or those subject to a court restraining order from purchasing or owning guns.

NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker told The New York Times the new provision is “too broad and ripe for abuse,” because “the behavior that would qualify as a stalking offense is often not violent or threatening; it involves no personal contact whatsoever.”

The NRA also accuses Democrats of “playing politics” with the bill by putting in the “boyfriend” measure as a “poison pill,” so they can then say Republicans who vote against it are against protecting woman.

The NRA, however, faces a more challenging situation in Congress than before, as many freshman Democrats were elected on a promise to enact new gun restrictions by proudly campaigning against the association.

The new legislation is to a large extent a reaction to reports from such gun safety groups as Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, for example, that abused women are five times more likely to be killed by their abuser if he owns a gun.

Another study, according to the National Center for Victims of Crime,  shows three-quarters of all intimate partner murder victims were also victims of stalking by their partners.

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Source: NewsMax Politics

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U.N.’s Bachelet urges Brunei not to apply death penalty for gay sex, adultery

April 1, 2019

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Bachelet attends a session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet attends a session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 6, 2019. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

April 1, 2019

GENEVA (Reuters) – Brunei will deal a serious setback to human rights if it applies laws allowing death by stoning for adultery and gay sex, marking an end to a de facto moratorium on capital punishment, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Monday.

Bachelet said Brunei’s revised Penal Code would enshrine serious breaches of international human rights law into law.

“I appeal to the Government to stop the entry into force of this draconian new penal code, which would mark a serious setback for human rights protections for the people of Brunei if implemented,” she said in a statement.

Brunei, a Muslim-majority former British protectorate with a population of around 400,000, plans to implement the Islamic Sharia laws from April 3.

The Brunei prime minister’s office said on Saturday that elements of the laws had been rolled out in phases since 2014 and would be fully implemented this week, aiming to “educate, respect and protect the legitimate rights of all individuals, society or nationality of any faiths and race”.

The change would allow the death penalty for rape, adultery, sodomy, extramarital sexual relations for Muslims, robbery, and insult or defamation of the Prophet Muhammad, as well as introducing public flogging as a punishment for abortion, and amputation for theft.

It would also be a criminal offence to expose Muslim children to the beliefs and practices of any other religion.

Brunei has a de facto moratorium on capital punishment, having carried out its last execution in 1957. According to international human rights laws, the death penalty should only be used, after a fair trial, to punish murder or intentional killing.

“In reality, no judiciary in the world can claim to be mistake-free, and evidence shows that the death penalty is disproportionately applied against people who are already vulnerable, with a high risk of miscarriages of justice,” Bachelet said.

Brunei is ruled by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, 72, the world’s second-longest reigning monarch, who ranks as one of the world’s wealthiest people.

The expected implementation of the strict Islamic laws has drawn widespread criticism. Politicians in Europe and the United States have attacked the plans and raised concerns with Brunei.

Last week former U.S. vice president Joe Biden called the plan “appalling and immoral” and said there was no excuse for such “hate and inhumanity”.

Oscar-winning actor George Clooney has called for a boycott of luxury hotels owned by The Brunei Investment Company, such as the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Dorchester in London and the Plaza Athenee in Paris.

(Reporting by Tom Miles, Editing by William Maclean)

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Murder at the airport: the brazen attack on Kim Jong Nam

April 1, 2019

A newspaper vendor arranges newspapers showing front pages with images of Kim Jong Nam, at a news-stand outside Kuala Lumpur
FILE PHOTO – A newspaper vendor arranges newspapers showing front pages with images of Kim Jong Nam, at a news-stand outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia February 15, 2017. REUTERS/Lai Seng Sin

April 1, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Early on a February morning last year, a balding man in a gray suit entered Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur airport, glanced up at the departures board and walked to check in for his flight to Macau. Moments later, his killers struck.

A few steps away from a Starbucks cafe and a Puffy Buffy Malaysian food stall, a woman stood in front of Kim Jong Nam, estranged half-brother of North Korea’s leader, to distract him.

Her partner approached from behind, pulled from her handbag a cloth drenched in liquid VX, a chemical weapon, reached around his head and clamped it onto his face.

That was enough to deliver deadly poison to the portly 46-year-old relative of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Carrying a backpack containing $100,000 and four North Korean passports, Kim Jong Nam had been traveling under his pseudonym “Kim Chol”, police said.

After the attack, he approached a help desk and explained that someone seemed to have grabbed or held his face and now he felt dizzy. He was taken to the Menara Medical Clinic, a small glass-fronted surgery one floor down near the arrivals area.

It was too late. Kim Jong Nam died aged 46 in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.

The assassination has captivated the world due to its audacious nature and lasting geopolitical implications, with South Korean and Western officials accusing North Korea of a state-sponsored hit. Pyongyang denies any involvement.

The brazen murder was caught on grainy CCTV footage that was broadcast around the world, yet many details remain a mystery.

On Monday, Malaysian prosecutors dropped a murder charge against Doan Thi Huong, the 30-year-old Vietnamese woman who smothered Kim Jong Nam, after she pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of causing harm using dangerous means.

Huong was sentenced to three years and four months in prison but could be released as early as May for good behavior, her lawyer Hisyam Teh said.

He said Huong was not a criminal but by pleading guilty she had taken responsibility for her actions on Feb. 13, 2017.

Huong’s Indonesian accomplice, Siti Aisyah, 26, was freed on March 11 after a Malaysian court dropped charges against her.

Both women say they believed they were playing parts in a TV prank. Huong was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with “LOL”, or “laugh out loud”, at the time of the attack.

Their lawyers have maintained that the women were pawns in an assassination orchestrated by North Korean agents.

Four North Koreans who were identified as suspects by Malaysian police and had left the country hours after the murder remain at large.

(Writing by Joe Brock and John Chalmers; Editing by Michael Perry)

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