Woman bags death sentence over alleged comments about prophet Mohammed in Pakistan

Asia Bibi, pictured, has seen her appeal against the death sentence denied

A Pakistani Christian woman has been sentenced to death after she was accused of making 'blasphemous' comments about the prophet Mohammed during an argument. 

While working as a berry picker in 2009, 46-year-old Asia Bibi got into a dispute with a group of Muslim women who objected to her drinking their water because as a Christian she was considered 'unclean'.

Hours after the incident one of the women reported mother-of-five Ms Bibi to a local cleric, claiming she had made disparaging remarks about the prophet Mohammed during the row.

As a result of the allegations, a furious mob arrived at Ms Bibi's home and savagely beat her and members of her family. 

She was later arrested, charged with blasphemy and eventually sentenced to death - with her entire family forced to go into hiding after receiving threats on their lives.

This week, despite international outrage and hundreds of thousands of people signing a petition for her release, Ms Bibi lost an appeal to have her sentence overturned, meaning she now faces death by hanging.

The shocking case hit global headlines after two prominent politicians who tried to help Ms Bibi were assassinated, one by his own bodyguard.

Lawyers showered the killer with rose petals when he appeared in court and the judge who convicted him of murder had to flee the country. 

Ms Bibi's lawyer, Naeem Shakir, said her accusers have contradicted themselves many times since first raising their complaint.

Two witnesses allegedly involved in the incident did not appear in court, he said. 

A Muslim prayer leader did appear, saying he did not witness the original altercation, but that Ms Bibi had confessed to the supposed crime in front of him.

Speaking of Ms Bibi's failed appeal against her death sentence, Mr Shakir said: 'I was expecting the opposite decision. We will file an appeal to the Supreme Court of Pakistan in a few days.'

But Gulam Mustafa, the lawyer for the complainant, said the court's decision was correct.

'Asia's lawyer tried to prove that the case was registered on a personal enmity but he failed to prove that,' he said. 

Over the past four years Ms Bibi has languished in the high-security District Jail Seikhupura, 22 miles north-west of Lahore, before being moved to a more remote prison.

Officials now make her cook her own food every day because they fear that Ms Bibi has so many enemies - within both the prison population and its staff - that she is at serious risk of poisoning.

Ms Bibi's death sentence has drawn international outrage from human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch who say Pakistan's blasphemy laws amount to form of religious persecution.

Ashiq Maseeh, husband of Asia Bibi, along with his daughters Sidra, second left, and Esham, left, speak to Pakistani Minister of Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, right. He was later murdered

Human rights groups say Pakistan's blasphemy law is increasingly exploited by religious extremists as well as ordinary Pakistanis to settle personal scores.

The law does not define blasphemy and evidence might not be reproduced in court for fear of committing a fresh offence. There are also no penalties for false accusations.

Those accused are sometimes lynched on the spot. If they are arrested, police and the courts often allow trials to drag on for years, as in the case of Ms Bibi. 

The delays tend to be caused because officials are afraid of being physically attacked if they release anyone they feel had been wrongly accused of blasphemy.

Only one person has been executed since Pakistan imposed a de facto moratorium on executions in 2008. This year has seen a record number of blasphemy cases as well as increasing violence against the accused. 

The daughters of Mrs Bibi pose with an image of their mother who faces death by hanging

Mrs Bibi - a farm worker from rural Punjab - released a memoir called 'Blasphemy' last year, in which she described her torment at not knowing how long she has left to live.

Talking about how she ended up being accused of blasphemy, she says: 'I drank water from a well belonging to Muslim women, using 'their' cup, in the burning heat of the midday sun.

'I, Asia Bibi, have been sentenced to death because I was thirsty. I'm a prisoner because I used the same cup as those Muslim women, because water served by a Christian woman was regarded as unclean by my stupid fellow fruit-pickers.'

In the book, Mrs Bibi describes how - tired of being considered a second-class citizen simply because of her religion and insulted by constant calls for her to convert to Islam - she decided to stand up to the crowd and defend Christianity.

Pushing and shoving ensued, forcing Ms Bibi to flee the scene. 

When she returned to work five days later she was attacked again, but this time the crowd were accusing her of having insulted the Prophet Mohammed. 

Battered and bruised, Ms Bibi was dragged before the local Islamic teacher who told her the only way she could redeem herself was by converting to Islam. Otherwise, he said, she would face death. 

In November 2010 Ms Bibi was sentenced to death in a Sharia law court, becoming the first woman in Pakistan's history to be given the death penalty for blasphemy.

Protesters hold up placards while demanding the release of Mrs Bibi at a rally in Lahore in 2010

On news that Ms Bibi's appeal against her conviction had been overturned, Kate Allen, UK Director of Amnesty International, said: 'This is the latest blasphemy outrage to come out of Pakistan. It seems obvious that this is a case of religious persecution, and it’s very likely the result of a squabble which escalated out of all proportion.'

'Blasphemy accusations in Pakistan are often used to settle petty vendettas and persecute minority groups. It’s a complete disgrace that the courts are complicit in these vendettas.' 

Pope Benedict XVI publicly called for clemency for Ms Bibi, describing his 'spiritual closeness' with her and urging that 'human dignity and fundamental rights of everyone in similar situations' be respected.

Her case also attracted the attention of a number of online petitions calling for her release, one of which attracted over 400,000 signatures from the citizens of over 100 countries.

Culled from DAILY MAIL

Florida policeman set suspect free in exchange for oral sex - Cops

Ted Arboleda

A sheriff's deputy in Florida accepted oral sex from a woman in exchange for not arresting her, Police authorities said.

Ted Arboleda, 32, was arrested Monday and charged with unlawful compensation or reward for official behavior.

Arboleda allegedly spoke with a woman at a Dania Beach gas station in July 2013 and learned that she did not have a valid Florida driver's license. The woman was also found in possession of marijuana and a bottle of prescription medication.

The woman, who was on probation, reportedly offered the Arboleda money not to arrest her. Officials said he refused the bribe, but accompanied the woman to her home. The woman let him inside the home and offered him oral sex.

"She said something to the effect of, 'I know you won't take the money, but I'll perform oral sex,"  Sheriff Scott Israel of the Broward County Sheriff's Public Corruption Unit said.

The Sun-Sentinel reports:

Arboleda told the woman he had never done anything like that before but agreed to the sex act, according to the arrest warrant. After the sex act, Arboleda told the woman "he could not believe he agreed" and told her not to tell anyone. He left without arresting her.

Police began investigating the case after the woman's boyfriend reported what happened. Officials said they suspect this isn't the first time Arboleda's done this.

He's been suspended without pay.

Culled from Huff Post

Passenger arrested after attempted rape during flight

Michael Tanouye

A Japan Airlines flight had to return to Honolulu after a male passenger sexually assaulted a female passenger in the airplane's bathroom, the FBI said.

The flight was en route to Kansai International Airport when Michael Tanouye forced his way into a bathroom and sexually assaulted a woman, according to an FBI affidavit. The woman, who was returning home to Japan with her mother after a four-day vacation in Hawaii, went to use the restroom about an hour and 45 minutes after takeoff. Tanouye forced his way inside, grabbed her by the shoulders and began to forcefully pull down her pants and underwear. "Tanouye also began to take down his pants and underwear, exposing his penis," the document said.

While struggling with Tanouye the woman was able to push the bathroom's emergency button. The woman's "mother, the flight attendants and other passengers tried to open the lavatory door but were unable because Tanouye was blocking the door, FBI Special Agent Necosie Wilson wrote in the affidavit. They had to open the door by removing screws from its hinges.

Flight attendants and passengers told the FBI that a male passenger was injured while struggling to subdue Tanouye.

Prior to the incident, Tanouye was heard shouting something incomprehensible and his mother told a flight attendant he suffers from depression and is on medication. He stood up to walk around and appeared calm, telling flight attendants he was going to visit his grandmother. Flight attendants agreed not to serve him alcohol because he was on medication.

After the incident, Tanouye's mother gave him a dose of his medicine and he fell asleep, the affidavit said.

The captain of the plane decided to turn around two hours after takeoff after hearing it took three passengers to keep Tanouye calm.

Hawaii sheriff deputies took Tanouye off the plane when it landed in Honolulu and FBI agents arrested him, said Special Agent Tom Simon, spokesman for FBI in Honolulu.

The 29-year-old Hilo man was arraigned in a federal court on Tuesday.

Tanouye couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday at the Honolulu Federal Detention Center, where he's being held pending arraignment.

Culled from Huff post, Pix from Daily Mail

Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, donates $25m to fight Ebola

Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan announced on Tuesday that they are donating $25 million to the Centers for Disease Control Foundation to fight Ebola.
Zuckerberg revealed the donation in a post on Facebook (of course), the site that has made him into the $33 billion man he is today.
In a status update, Zuckerberg compared the disease to Polio and HIV, noting that 84,000 people have already been infected by Ebola and that it has the potential to spread quickly. Here's his full update:

Post by Mark Zuckerberg.

There is no cure for Ebola yet, but the chairman for the CDC said earlier this month that he is "confident" the United States will not experience an Ebola outbreak.

Fellow tech billionaire Bill Gates announced last month that his foundation would give $50 million to fight Ebola, the largest donation that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has ever made to a humanitarian cause.
Culled from HUFF Post

Suspects had sex while in transit inside police van - cops

from left to right, Travis Husnik and Heather Basten

After being arrested, a Wisconsin couple had sex in the back of a police cruiser, an encounter that was interrupted when a cop heard the woman “begin to moan loudly” while her legs were “touching the ceiling” of the vehicle,according to a criminal complaint.

Heather Basten, 29, and Travis Husnik, 33, were taken into custody by Oconto County Sheriff’s Department deputies after their car was spotted drifting into oncoming traffic on August 3.

During questioning by cops, Basten, who was driving, and Husnik admitted they had been drinking. A deputy noted that there were two open cans of Busch Light on the car's floorboard, and that Husnik “indicated one been belonged to him and the other to Heather.”

Husnik, who was on probation, was handcuffed and placed in the rear of a police cruiser. He was soon joined there by Basten, who was driving without a license and had a used syringe in her purse. Basten reportedly said that she “used to shoot up meth with it.”

While subsequently transporting the suspects, Deputy Adam Zahn “observed Travis lay onto of Heather in the backseat.” The cop then saw “Heather’s legs go up touching the ceiling and heard her begin to moan loudly.”

Zahn stopped the cruiser, opened the rear door, and saw “Travis onto of Heather having sexual intercourse.” The complaint does not indicate whether the lovebirds were handcuffed (though it seems likely).

Husnik’s pants and underwear were around his ankles and Basten’s shorts were “hiked up.” Which allowed Zahn to “see both of their privates,” the complaint notes.

Details of the couple’s autoeroticism emerged following their recent Circuit Court sentencing. Husnik, a convicted felon with a lengthy rap sheet, was sentenced to 90 days in jail for lewd and lascivious conduct. Basten, who pleaded guilty to drunk driving and disorderly conduct, was sentenced to 48 days in custody and hit with fines and fees totaling $1236. (3 pages)

Culled from The Smoking Gun

Man who served 30 yrs in jail kills mother 2 days after regaining freedom

Steven Pratt,

Steven Pratt was detained at the scene of his mother's slaying, and charged with murder. He's being held on $1 million bail. (N.J. Department of Corrections)

A convicted murderer, Steven Pratt, beat his mother to death during an argument, just two days after he was released from prison, authorities said.

Pratt's mother, 64 yr-old Gwendolyn Pratt, was found dead around 6:30 a.m. Sunday at a home in Atlantic City, The Press of Atlantic City (http://bit.ly/1vZP5ox ) reported. An autopsy determined she died from massive blunt injuries to the head, Atlantic County prosecutor Jim McClain said in a statement.

Her 45-year-old son, Steven Pratt, was detained at the scene and charged with murder. He was being held on $1 million bail, and it was not known if he has retained an attorney.

A neighbor of the victim told the newspaper that the Pratt family had just thrown a welcome-home party for Steven. The neighbor, Ruan Tilghman-Pugh, said Steven had asked a cousin whether he could stay with him after having a disagreement with an aunt with whom he was staying over the weekend.

"It's so devastating," Tilghman-Pugh told the paper. "You just never know what people are going through."

Pratt was 15 when he shot and killed his next-door neighbor, Michael Anderson, in 1984. He was tried as an adult and convicted of first-degree murder in 1986. He received a 30-year prison sentence and was freed on Friday.

According to court records, Pratt and Anderson argued after Pratt and some of his friends refused to leave an apartment hallway where they were noisily hanging out. Pratt returned to Anderson's apartment with a lead pipe, but Anderson took the weapon away and bloodied Pratt's face.

Pratt then returned with a borrowed handgun and shot Anderson.

Culled from HUFF Post

___

Indian mob castrates rapist caught attacking teenage girl in alleyway

Suresh Kumar is left bleeding and in shock after being beaten and castrated after locals in Ganganagar, in India's northwestern Rajasthan state, caught him trying to rape a teenage girl 

An Indian man who was caught trying to rape a teenage girl yesterday is in a critical condition in hospital after locals chopped off his genitals with a meat cleaver.

Suresh Kumar was set upon in Ganganagar, in India's northwestern Rajasthan state, after locals heard the girl's screams for help.

After finding the 40-year-old pinning the girl against a wall, a lynch mob dragged him to a butchers shop where they beat him with sticks for an hour before castrating him.  

They then dumped the severed remains in the middle of a road and lefta bloodied Kumar nearby.

Aamir Dhawan, 30, said no one 'went to help' Kumar because they knew he had been punished for a 'sex crime'.

Mr Dhawan said: 'We have had a lot of intolerable offences against women in this country recently, with girls being raped, hung, and molested, and it's time it stopped.

'This sends out a very strong message to anyone like that - if you do it you will be punished.'

But the police have called for those responsible to come forward, saying people can't take the law into their 'own hands'. 

The spokesman said: 'As deplorable as these crimes are, law and order has to be maintained, and not lynch justice. 

'We ask those men who carried out this attack to hand themselves in before we find them.'

Kumar was eventually taken to hospital where doctors described his condition as critical.

The girl involved was treated for shock, and given counselling.

The castration follows a string of violent sex crimes in India that have prompted vigilante justice.   

In July, one man was killed and two others were badly hurt after being accused of raping and hanging a seven-year-old girl.

The girl was discovered hanging from a tree near the village of Kaliabazar, West Bengal, and angry villagers quickly rounded up a local 'Tantrik' holy man and his two friends.

The trio were mercilessly beaten. One later died in hospital and the two others required extensive treatment.

That incident was a grim reminder of an incident in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh, some weeks before where two sisters were raped and then hanged from a tree outside their village. 

Kumar, who is now in a critical condition in hospital, covers himself up, as angry locals watch on

Kumar, right,  has visible scratches and abrasions to his face, after being beaten with sticks

Kumar, middle, is stripped naked and awaits his fate, as locals record the punishment he is about to face


Culled from DAILY MAIL

Son who killed and raped mother says he lost his virginity to her corpse.

Kevin Davis,

A teenager who killed his mother and raped her corpse  told investigators that he lost his virginity to her dead body.

Kevin Davis, 18, beat Kimberly Hill, his 50-year-old mother, with a hammer, strangled her with a cord and stabbed her in the head on March 27.

Davis pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in June, but investigators played video in court on Tuesday showing him confessing to the crime, KIII TV reports.

"If I was to ask you what did she do to deserve this, what would you answer?" an investigator asked in the interview footage.

"Absolutely nothing. I'm just a terrible, disgusting person," Davis said.

In the video confession, jurors heard Davis explain how he stuck his hand into the open wound and moved her brain around to make sure she was dead, KZTV-TV reports.

After that, the accused told investigators that he raped his mother’s dead body, adding "Guess I lost my virginity to a dead corpse."

Davis tells detectives in the video that he had “the best mother,” one who didn’t deserve to die.

When police asked if he regretted his action, Davis said, “In a way, yes, but I wouldn’t take back what I did,” adding, “I did love her in a way. I’m a terrible, disgusting person.”

Davis told police he asked his mother for permission to die because he was bored with life and did not like other people,

He said she was upset but told him she could not control what he did so he decided to kill her, Davis told detectives, according to RawStory.com.

“I don’t have standards, I don’t have morals. A body’s a body -- a piece of meat,” Davis said.

The trial began Tuesday, but both sides rested early Wednesday morning after the defense chose not to call any witnesses. Davis' attorney did ask jurors not to give his client the 99-year maximum punishment.

Prosecutors argued that medical experts did not say Davis has mental or psychotic issues, and pointed out that he admitted to police that, if given the chance, he would probably kill again, according to KIII TV.

He was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison.

Culled from HUFF post

71 yr-old woman hired 'assassin' to kill her daughter-in-law

Diana Reaves Costarakis

A 71-year-old Florida woman has been sentenced to seven years in prison for soliciting an undercover detective to kill her daughter-in-law.

Diana Reaves Costarakis pleaded guilty in September to a charge of solicitation to commit a capital felony. Prosecutors say she offered the detective $5,000 and gave him a $2,000 down payment in the 2013 murder-for-hire plot. The Florida Times-Union (http://tinyurl.com/npm3zbk ) reports she was sentenced Wednesday.

Costarakis told police she wanted her daughter-in-law dead because she was a drunk and a bad mother to her 6-year-old granddaughter.

After the arrest, Angela Costarakis said she did not know why her mother-in-law would be so angry with her.

The police report said Diana Costarakis claimed her daughter-in-law was leaving her son and moving to Denver with her granddaughter. But Angela Costarakis denied that.

Culled from HUFF Post

Outrage in Spain over the killing of Ebola-infected dog

Ebola victim Teresa Romero Ramos with her beloved dog Excalibur, which authorities have put down

A Spanish ebola victim’s pet dog was put down last night over fears it could transmit the disease, prompting outrage from animal lovers who chanted ‘murderers’ outside the woman’s home.

Fury erupted after a government health spokesman confirmed that Teresa Romero Ramos’s dog, Excalibur, had been destroyed. The official explained: ‘Unfortunately we had no other choice.’

The animal was put to sleep inside Mrs Romero Ramos’s home, which was disinfected before the animal’s body was taken away in a white van to a nearby incinerator. 

Demonstrators who mounted a vigil outside to try to stop the move shouted ‘murderers’ and several threw themselves on the ground as the vehicle left.

Some 300,000 people had already signed a petition urging authorities to spare Excalibur.

Twitter was awash with photographs of dogs, cats and birds which were posted alongside the hashtag ‘SalvemosAExcalibur’ – Spanish for ‘Let’s save Excalibur’.

Mrs Romero Ramos, 44, from Galicia in north-west Spain, who is one of the medical team that treated two repatriated Spanish priests who died from ebola, has been in quarantine since it was confirmed she was carrying the virus. 

She has now admitted touching her face with her gloves as she took off a protective suit after leaving the room of one of the priests.

Mrs Romero Ramos confessed her accident to a doctor after earlier insisting that she had no idea how she became infected.

Hospital chief German Ramirez said yesterday – 48 hours after the launch of a probe into how Mrs Romero Ramos caught the virus – ‘It looks like we have found the origin.’

But the speed with which he attributed the shock transmission to a ‘slip-up’ failed to silence critics who demanded that heads rolls after a string of spectacular mistakes by health co-ordinators. 

Health minister Ana Mato is facing calls for her resignation after it emerged that Mrs Romero Ramos complained of feeling unwell six days before she was eventually admitted to hospital.She was rushed to hospital by unprotected paramedics in a normal ambulance only taken out of service 12 hours later and found out she had ebola by reading a Spanish newspaper website as she waited to be quarantined.

Her home in Alcorcon near Madrid that she shares with husband Javier Limon Romero, one of those quarantined at Madrid’s Carlos III Hospital, was not disinfected until yesterday morning.

Six people in total have now been quarantined since the start of Monday’s crisis.

They include three other hospital nursing staff who helped treat Miguel Pajares and Manuel Garcia Viejo, the Spanish priests who died after they were repatriated from West Africa. 

Mrs Romero Ramos was reportedly feeling better after being treated with antibodies from an ebola survivor. She told a Spanish TV station by phone: ‘Today I’m better. It’s slow going but I’m better.’

Revealing how she discovered she was infected, she said: ‘Nobody told me anything.

‘I suspected something because at the beginning the nurses and doctors came in every hour, then they stopped coming in and I thought that something was up.

‘I got hold of my mobile and that’s when I saw on the website of El Pais newspaper that I had tested positive for ebola twice. Nobody ever told me to my face, “Teresa you’ve got ebola”.’

She went on to say that she had been given only 20 minutes’ training in how to put on and take off her protective suit.

Fury: A demonstrator blocking the road to stop the van transporting Excalibur is removed by a police officer, outside the housing development in which the nurse lives in Alcorcon, outside Madrid

women cry after locals and members of animal rights groups clashed with police to stop the removal and euthanasia of Excalibur 

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 A woman is helped after fainting following the exit of the van transporting Excalibur in Alcorcon, Spain

Demonstrators run in front of policemen and in front of the van transporting Excalibur

Culled from DAILY MAIL

Man who had sex with chicken is accused of raping guinea fowl

Michael Bessigano is accused of having sex with a guinea fowl (pictured in a stock photo). The birds weigh between two and four pounds.

An Indiana man previously convicted of having sex with a chicken is now accused of having sex with a guinea fowl.

Michael Bessigano, 42, was arrested last Friday at his home on felony charges of bestiality and killing a domestic animal, Huff post reported.

The suspect allegedly went to a local park and entered a building where guinea fowls were being housed. Witnesses who identified Bessigano to police said the man sexually assaulted one of the birds, killed it, and attempted to hide the carcass in a trash barrel.

Authorities executed a search warrant and said they found bird feathers at the residence. More from Times of Munster:

DNA testing showed the feathers at Bessigano's home matched the bird found dead in the Buckley Homestead trash barrel, according to police.

Police said Bessigano was wearing blue jeans covered in blood when they searched his home. An analysis by the Indiana State Police Laboratory found the blood on the jeans belonged to an undetermined species of animal.

The animal abuser allegedly had a rubber wolf mask and an altar of candles set up at his residence.

Bessigano, whose mother says suffers from schizophrenia, has a long history involving animal cruelty and bestiality.

In 1992 he was convicted of having sex with and killing a Rottweiler. He served two years.

In 2002, Bessigano was sentenced to four years in prison after having sex with and killing a chicken. In that incident, police said he took the chicken to a hotel room, plucked its feathers, then sexually abused the animal before killing it.

While in jail, Bessigano would reportedly paint stripes on himself and refer to himself as the "master of cats," according to the Chicagoist.

After the 2002 incident, a law was passed making sexual relations with animals a crime.

Culled from HUFF post

Ex-Counselor and pediatric nurse arrested for sexual abuse of newborn baby

Stephen H. Schaffner and Michael Lutts



An ex-counselor and a pediatric nurse have been arrested in connection to the sexual assault of a 6-week-old premature infant, and the exchange of graphic photos of the child who was in the foster care of one of the men.

Stephen H. Schaffner, 34, of Greensboro, Maryland, is accused of conspiring with Michael Lutts, 50, of San Diego, California, “to abuse a six-week-old foster child and transmit recorded images and videos of the abuse to Schaffner,” reports Courthouse News Service.

Lutts, a pediatric nurse, brought the 6-week-old preemie home to foster on August 4. That night he texted Schaffner images of the baby, prosecutors allege.

"Over the next several hours, Schaffner allegedly exchanged numerous graphic and sexually explicit messages with Lutts about Lutts engaging in sexually explicit conduct with the infant,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore said. “Lutts sent Schaffner videos with the infant, including images of an adult performing oral sex on the infant. Schaffner is alleged to have directed Lutts to sexually abuse the infant in order to produce sexually explicit images and videos and send them to Schaffner."

Lutts reportedly can be seen in one of the videos touching the infant’s genitals while masturbating, reports RawStory.

FBI agents claim the newborn can be heard crying in many of the videos.

The images were sent to Schaffner digitally, via cellphone and a messaging app.

Lutts was arrested by the FBI as part of a child pornography ring. The federal charges against him are still being finalized.

In a grand jury indictment filed on September 26, Lutts is accused of abusing an 11-month-old girl in the same manner, reports 7 San Diego.

Schaffner has been indicted on 10 counts related to conspiracy to sexually exploit a child and sexual exploitation of a child. He is currently being held and faces up to 285 years in prison if convicted on all 10 counts.

Culled from NBC News

Incest should be legal, says German government’s Ethics Council

Incest laws could be scrapped in Germany after the government's ethics council said sex between brothers and sisters should be legal and is a 'fundamental right'.

The council recommended that the right of 'adult siblings to sexual self-determination' was more important then the 'abstract idea of protection of the family'.

It comes after the case of Patrick Stuebing, who was jailed for more than three years after having four children - two of which are disabled  - with his sister Susan Karolewski.

Stuebing was put up for adoption as a toddler and only met his sister when he was 24 and she was 16. He was imprisoned for incest in 2008.

He made an unsuccessful appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in 2012 over his right to a family life - as he and Ms Karolewski were split up and three of their children were taken into care. The youngest was allowed to remain with Ms Karolewski.

The German Ethics Council said in a statement that 'criminal law is not the appropriate means to preserve a social taboo', adding that the risk of disability to children is enough to warrant incest being illegal.

'Neither the consequences for the family nor the possibility for descendants from such incestuous relationships can justify a ban under criminal law,' it said.

'Incest between siblings appears to be very rare in Western societies according to the available data but those affected describe how difficult their situation is in light of the threat of punishment.

THE INCESTUOUS RELATIONSHIP WHICH COULD CHANGE THE LAW 

Patrick Stuebing, born in Leipzig, Germany in 1977, was fostered at the age of three after being attacked with a knife by his alcoholic father, and did not meet his mother or sister again until he was 23.

He says his relationship with Susan Karolewski became incestuous six months after their mother died from a heart attack in 2001, and Ms Karolewski gave birth to their first child in October of that year, when she was 16.

Two of their children have severe mental and physical disabilities, and another has a heart condition which required a transplant. 

Stuebing was sentenced to 10 moths in prison after his second incest conviction, and then a further two and a half years for his third conviction. 

'They feel their fundamental freedoms have been violated and are forced into secrecy or to deny their love.

'The Ethics Council has been told of cases where half-siblings did not grow up together and have only met in their adult lives,' The Independent reported it saying.

Despite saying that sex between brothers and sisters should be made legal, the council recommended that sex between parents and children should remain against the law. 

It is believed that incest increases the risk of children being born with disabilities, but the Ethics Council dismissed this as an argument for it being illegal, saying that couples with genetic defects are not banned from having children.

However, Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party have been quick to push away the idea of legalising incest.

Spokeswoman Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker said that it would give out the wrong signal, telling Deutsche Welle: 'Abolishing criminal punishment against incestuous actions within a family would go completely against protecting the undisturbed development of children.'

Around two to four per cent of Germans have had 'incestuous experiences', according to an estimate by the Max Planck Institute reported by The Telegraph.

Incest is illegal in the UK and most of Europe, though sex between consenting adults who are related is legal in France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands.

Culled from DAILY MAIL

Tennessee woman murdered mom to steal her newborn baby - police

Catherine Goins

A Tennessee woman is charged with murder after authorities say she gunned down a northwest Georgia woman because she wanted the mother's newborn baby.

Catoosa County Sheriff Gary Sisk says Catherine Goins lured the mom, Natalia Roberts, to a Ringgold home by saying she wanted to give the new mother some baby clothes.

Sisk said in a statement Wednesday that Goins then used a .380-caliber handgun to shoot Roberts in the back of her head as she went down a flight of stairs on Sept. 19.

The sheriff says Goins had been "living a ruse" that she was pregnant, and killed Roberts to get her baby.

Sisk said Goins was apprehended Tuesday in Marion County, Tennessee, by local deputies and U.S. Marshals. It wasn't known whether she has an attorney.

Culled from HUFF POST