FT264

A Chinese student who stabbed his roommate to death because of his loud snoring was given a suspended death sentence. Guo Liwei, 24, stabbed Zhao Yan, 23, in the chest and back in their room at Jilin Agricultural University in northeast China. Guo previously complained to Zhao and posted a video of him snoring on a university website. [AP] 27 Mar 2010.

Robert Jones, 38, of Woodstock, Georgia, was jogging along the beach on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina on 15 March when he was hit from behind and killed instantly by a small plane making an emergency landing. He was unable to hear the plane because its single engine had stalled and he was listening to his iPod. The plane started leaking oil at 4,000m and its propeller sheared off. Pilot Edward Smith had been trying to reach an airport but was forced down near the Hilton Head Marriott Resort. His vision was obscured by oil on the windshield. Smith and his passenger were unhurt. [AP] Metro, 17 Mar 2010.

A Muslim woman was strangled to death in Sydney, Australia, on 9 April when her hijab tangled up in the wheels of a go-kart – just like Suzanne Cornwall. The 24-year-old’s headscarf wrapped around a wheel axle as she raced, and quickly tightened around her neck. She went into cardiac arrest and was airlifted to hospital, but died soon after. (Sydney) D.Telegraph, 9 April 2010.

After winning a lengthy legal battle for the right to keep exotic pets, the Canadian owner of a tiger was mauled to death by the 300kg cat. Norman Buwalda, 66, was found dead in the tiger’s pen in rural Ontario on 10 January. There were no witnesses to the attack. Less than a month later, a doctor who won a legal battle to save his three dogs from being put to sleep for attacking people was mauled to death by the same animals. The 52-year-old victim was attacked in his garden in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and died before police arrived. Officers shot one of the bullmastiffs dead and the other two were destroyed. They had seriously injured a passer-by four years earlier and spent years in custody during legal hearings, but when one of them attacked a dog-handler, authorities ordered them to be put down. However, in June 2009 the doctor had the order overturned and got his dogs back. The Australian, 13 Jan; Sky News, 3 Feb; Metro, 4 Feb 2010.

A Vietnamese worker who climbed into a cooking vat to fix a pipe and two colleagues who went to his aid suffocated to death inside a vat of fish sauce, in a condiment made of anchovies. (Sydney) D.Telegraph, 22 Sept 2009.

A man was on trial in Norway in February for shooting dead his mother and cutting her body into “bite-sized” cubes with a chainsaw – because she refused to read a book he liked. The 40-year-old recommended Girl in the Cellar by Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch, but his mother didn’t fancy it. Sun, 16 Feb 2010.

A bricklayer was killed by labourers who cut off his head and burnt it in a kiln to redden their bricks, according to police in northern Bangladesh. Four suspects arrested over the 26-year-old’s death claimed they acted on orders of the brickyard’s owners, after a fort­une teller recommended human sacrifice to turn the bricks red. D.Telegraph, 22 Mar 2010.

A 22-year-old man beheaded three people with a spade to “celebrate” Hitler’s birthday in Chernigov, Ukraine. Sun, 23 April 2010.