Politics
Australian mushroom meal survivor says ‘half alive’ after wife’s killing
The only guest to survive a toxic mushroom lunch with Australian murderer Erin Patterson said Monday he feels “half alive” without his wife — one of the killer’s three poisoning victims.
Pastor Ian Wilkinson wept in court as he spoke of the loss of his wife Heather after she ate a beef Wellington dish laced with death cap mushrooms — the world’s deadliest fungi.
Patterson, 50, was convicted in July of triple murder for serving the poisonous fare to her estranged husband’s parents, aunt and uncle during a sumptuous lunch at her home in rural Leongatha in the state of Victoria in 2023.
Within days of the meal, the parents and aunt were dead.
But the uncle, a local Baptist pastor, survived after weeks in hospital and gave testimony at his host’s murder trial, which became a global media sensation.
Patterson, wearing a paisley shirt, black trousers and sandals, attended the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne for a two-day pre-sentencing hearing, facing a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.
“The silence in our home is a daily reminder. I continue to carry a heavy burden of grief over her untimely death,” the pastor said of his murdered wife, Heather.
“It is a truly horrible thought to live with, that somebody could decide to take her life. I only feel half alive without her,” he said.
‘Offer of forgiveness’
Wilkinson said his own health had never fully recovered from the meal, leaving him with reduced liver function, ongoing respiratory issues and less energy.
“I very, very nearly died,” he told the court.
With regards to the harm done to him, Wilkinson said: “I make an offer of forgiveness to Erin.”
But for her three murder victims, he added: “I am compelled to seek justice.”
The home cook’s husband Simon Patterson, who had declined an invitation to the deadly lunch, told the court of his grief over the loss of his relatives.
“I miss my parents and aunt more than words can express. I will be aware for the next 30 years that they could still be alive had Erin chosen not to murder them,” he said.
“My children, two children, are left without grandparents as a result of these murders. They have also been robbed of hope for the kind of relationship with their mother that every child naturally yearns for,” he added.
The killer’s husband said their children were strong and would overcome the hurdles to thrive.
But he criticised “callous” media and strangers for following his family and forcing them to dodge reporters or leave cafes to avoid the cameras.
Mystery motive
During the hearing, defence and prosecution lawyers agreed that Patterson should face life imprisonment for the murders.
The defence argued that she should be eligible to apply for parole after 30 years, citing the security restrictions placed on her movements in jail because of her “notoriety”.
The prosecutor, however, said the crime was “so cruel and so horrific” that she did not deserve such mercy.
The judge said he would hand down her sentence on September 8 at the court in Melbourne.
At the trial last month in the rural Victorian town of Morwell, a 12-person jury found Patterson guilty of murdering her husband’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, as well as his aunt Heather, by cooking and serving the meal in July 2023.
Jurors also pronounced her guilty of the attempted murder of Wilkinson.
At the time of the deadly meal, Patterson’s relationship with her husband had turned sour as the pair — long apart but still legally married — fought over his child support contributions.
The motive of the murders, however, remains a mystery.
A man in India’s south brutally killed his estranged wife at a women’s hostel and took a selfie with her dead body, according to NDTV.
The victim, identified as Sripriya, employed at a private firm in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, had separated from her husband, Balamurugam, who was from Tirunelveli.
Police said the suspect arrived at the hostel on Sunday afternoon, concealing a sickle in his clothes, and was seeking to meet her.
They had an argument soon after the couple met, and the feud turned into a violent attack by Balamurugan, who drew the sickle and hacked the woman to death.
Furthermore, the police said he then took a selfie with her body and shared it on his WhatsApp status, accusing her of “betrayal”.
The incident spread panic and chaos in the hostel.
Following the brutal murder, the suspect did not escape from the spot but waited until the police arrived, and he was arrested at the crime scene. The murder weapon was recovered.
The initial investigation suggested that he suspected his wife of being in a relationship with another man.
- Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand witness large scale devastation.
- At least 176 people perish in Thailand and three in Malaysia.
- Indonesia’s death toll reaches 502 with 508 more still missing.
PALEMBAYAN: Rescue teams in western Indonesia were battling on Monday to clear roads cut off by cyclone-induced landslides and floods, as improved weather revealed more of the scale of a disaster that has killed close to 700 people in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have seen large scale devastation after a rare tropical storm formed in the Malacca Strait, fuelling torrential rains and wind gusts for a week that hampered efforts to reach people stranded by mudslides and high floodwaters.
At least 176 have been killed in Thailand and three in Malaysia, while the death toll climbed to 502 in Indonesia on Monday with 508 missing, according to official figures.
Under sunshine and clear blue skies in the town of Palembayan in Indonesia’s West Sumatra, hundreds of people were clearing mud, trees and wreckage from roads as some residents tried to salvage valuable items like documents and motorcycles from their damaged homes.
Men in camouflage outfits sifted through piles of mangled poles, concrete and sheet metal roofing as pickup trucks packed with people drove around looking for missing family members and handing out water to people, some trudging through knee-deep mud.
Months of adverse, deadly weather
The government’s recovery efforts include restoring roads, bridges and telecommunication services.
More than 28,000 homes have been damaged in Indonesia and 1.4 million people affected, according to the disaster agency.
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto visited the three affected provinces on Monday and praised residents for their spirit in the face of what he called a catastrophe.
“There are roads that are still cut off, but we’re doing everything we can to overcome difficulties,” he said in North Sumatra.
“We face this disaster with resilience and solidarity. Our nation is strong right now, able to overcome this.”
The devastation in the three countries follows months of adverse and deadly weather in Southeast Asia, including typhoons that have lashed the Philippines and Vietnam and caused frequent and prolonged flooding elsewhere.
Scientists have warned that extreme weather events will become more frequent as a result of global warming.
Marooned for days
In Thailand, the death toll rose slightly to 176 on Monday from flooding in eight southern provinces that affected about three million people and led to a major mobilisation of its military to evacuate critical patients from hospitals and reach people marooned for days by floodwaters.
In the hardest-hit province of Songkhla, where 138 people were killed, the government said 85% of water services had been restored and would be fully operational by Wednesday.
Much of Thailand’s recovery effort is focused on the worst-affected city Hat Yai, a southern trading hub which on November 21 received 335 mm (13 inches) of rain, its highest single-day tally in 300 years, followed by days of unrelenting downpours.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has set a timeline of seven days for residents to return to their homes, a government spokesperson said on Monday.
In neighbouring Malaysia, 11,600 people were still in evacuation centres, according to the country’s disaster agency, which said it was still on alert for a second and third wave of flooding.
- Ex-Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina, sister Rehana also sentenced.
- Case relates to illegal allocation of a plot of land: local media.
- Prosecutors highlight political influence, collusion abuse of power.
DHAKA: A Bangladesh court sentenced British parliamentarian and former minister Tulip Siddiq to two years in jail in a corruption case involving the alleged illegal allocation of a plot of land, local media reported.
The verdict was delivered in absentia as Siddiq, her aunt and former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and Hasina’s sister Sheikh Rehana — all co-accused in the case — were not present in court.
Hasina was sentenced to five years in jail and Rehana to seven, the local media reports said.
Hasina, who fled to neighbouring India in August 2024 at the height of an uprising against her government, was sentenced to death last month over her government’s violent crackdown on demonstrators during the protests.
Last week, she was handed a combined 21-year prison sentence in other corruption cases.
Prosecutors said that the land was unlawfully allocated through political influence and collusion with senior officials, accusing the three powerful defendants of abusing their authority to secure the plot, measuring roughly 13,610 square feet, during Hasina’s tenure as prime minister.
Most of the 17 accused were absent when the judgement was pronounced.
Siddiq, who resigned in January as the UK’s minister responsible for financial services and anti-corruption efforts following scrutiny over her financial ties to Hasina, has previously dismissed the allegations as a “politically motivated smear”.
Britain does not currently have an extradition treaty with Bangladesh.
UK budget mildly deflationary; debt to climb past 106%: Fitch
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