HOUSTON: A jury in Texas has begun deliberating whether a Jordanian immigrant convicted in what prosecutors describe as two “honor killings” will receive a death sentence or life in prison without parole.
The Harris County jury began deliberations Monday in the penalty phase of Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan’s capital murder trial. Deliberations are to continue Tuesday.
Irsan was convicted last month in the deaths of his son-in-law and his daughter’s friend. Prosecutors say the conservative Muslim became enraged when his daughter left home to marry a Christian and convert to Christianity, so he orchestrated the killings. The daughter’s friend, Gelareh Bagherzadeh, died in January 2012. And the son-in-law, Coty Beavers, died in November 2012.
Irsan testified that his daughter aggrieved his family after eloping with Beavers, and that Bagherzadeh had encouraged the union.
Jury deliberates on life or death for Jordanian immigrant
Jury deliberates on life or death for Jordanian immigrant
- Irsan was convicted last month in the deaths of his son-in-law and his daughter’s friend
Contaminated water kills 9 and hospitalizes 200 in India’s Indore city
- The drinking water in the Bhagirathpur area of the city was contaminated due to a leak, and a water test had confirmed the presence of bacteria in the pipeline
NEW DELHI: At least nine people have died and more than 200 have been hospitalized in the central Indian city of Indore after a diarrhea outbreak that officials said was linked to contaminated drinking water, according to a lawmaker and local health authorities.
Kailash Vijayvargiya, a lawmaker, said nine people had died in Indore.
Indore’s chief medical officer, Madhav Prasad Hasani, told Reuters by phone that drinking water in the Bhagirathpur area of the city was contaminated due to a leak, and a water test had confirmed the presence of bacteria in the pipeline.
“I cannot say anything on the death toll but yes over 200 people from the same locality are undergoing treatment at different hospitals of the city. The final report of the water sample collected from the affected area is awaited,” Hasani said.
Shravan Verma, the district administrative officer, said authorities had deployed teams of doctors for door-to-door screening and were distributing chlorine tablets to help purify water.
“We have found one leakage point that could have contaminated the water and that point has been fixed,” Verma said, adding that officials had screened 8,571 people and identified 338 with mild symptoms.
Indore, in Madhya Pradesh state, has been named India’s cleanest city and has topped the national cleanliness rankings for the past eight years.
