Drugged tourist admits killing woman

Indian policemen carry a coffin containing the body of a female British tourist after conducting medical examination in Srinagar, India. Picture: Mukhtar Khan Source: AP

WHILE you were sleeping a tourist allegedly confessed to stabbing a British woman to death in India while high on drugs.

Richard De Wit, 43, told police he had murdered Sarah Groves on the New Beauty houseboat at Dal Lake in the Indian Kashmir city of Srinagar while he was under the influence of an unspecified drug. Mr De Wit was arrested as he tried to flee in a taxi, soon after the 24-year-old was found dead in a pool of blood in her cabin.

Dutch tourist held on suspicion of murder after the body of a British woman is found in Kashmir. Paul Chapman reports.

Looking to the rising tension in the Koreas, South Korea believes the North's next big move may come as soon as Wednesday, with fears Pyongyang will stage another missile test or find some other way to provoke Seoul, Washington and their allies. Meanwhile, Australians are being told they can travel to South Korea as per usual despite the threats being issued by Kim Jong-un and his government.

This photo taken by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency shows North Korean soldiers taking part in a shooting training towards targets with images of South Korean Defence Minister Kim Kwan-Jin (left) and a US soldier (back right), at an undisclosed location. Source: AFP

The world's premier Nazi-hunting organisation has given Australia an "F" in its report card, one-time Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf has been allowed to stand for election again, a topless protester says she has to get out of Tunisia before she is killed, China is promoting tourism to islands embroiled in a territorial dispute and a NATO air strike is said to have killed 11 Afghan children.

An Afghan girl tries to peer through the holes of her burqa as she plays with other children in the old town of Kabul, Afghanistan. Picture: Anja Niedringhaus Source: AP

Fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer has died at the age of  81, a friend of the mother of Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza believes the attack may have been revenge for bullying, the home in which a UK couple burned six of their children to death will be demolished and a 64-year-old US woman allegedly asked her grandson to kill his grandfather, after which they used his money for a shopping spree.

FILE - In this March 16, 1965 file photo, Palm Beach the fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer, wears her own design and creation of the Lilly shift, in Palm Beach, Fla. Pulitzer, known for her tropical print dresses, dies in Florida at 81. (AP Photo/Robert H. Houston, File) Source: AP

A teen appointed as a youth crime commissioner has been found to be tweeting things like “I want to f****** cut everyone around me", pay phones are so dated that if you pick one up in NYC you can be connected to the year 1993, the world's greatest chef Ferran Adria wants to leave more than a soupcon of his genius for posterity, Singaporeans are being told to lift their standards after a spate of people peeing in elevators, IMF chief Christine Lagarde says the euro has a great future and the Germans are deeply embarrassed by the much-delayed opening of a new airport in Berlin – which has suffered problems like no one being sure how to turn off the lights there.

Youth Police and Crime Commissioner Paris Brown appears before the media in Maidstone, Kent, apologising for the offensive tweets. Picture: AP/Gareth Fuller Source: AP

And you may have been asleep by the time the Gold Logie was announced but that went to Asher Keddie, while Molly Meldrum bestowed an unexpected F-bomb on the audience. Outside of the Australian television scene, camo-clad mourners have said goodbye at BUCKWILD star Shain Gandee's funeral,  Kim Kardashian's baby bump was proudly displayed on Instagram and the Evil Dead staggered to the top of the US box office.

Kim Kardashian posted this belly-exposing picture to Instagram with the caption "baby love". Source: Supplied

Wrapping up the weekend's sport events, the jockey who won Saturday's Grand National steeplechase was airlifted to hospital after a fall the following day, Chelsea rose to third in the English Premier League, Australian golfer Wade Ormsby won his first Asian Tour event, Mercedes says a repeat of their 2012 China GP success is far from assured,  Fabian Cancellara won the famed Paris-Roubaix cycling race, and where there's smoke, there's a Mario Balottelli controversy.

Chelsea's Fernando Torres carries the ball back after Sunderland scored an own goal during their English Premier league match. Picture: Alastair Grant Source: AP

 

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Eight men rape Swiss tourist in India

The Swiss woman, centre, is escorted by policewomen for a medical examination at a hospital in Gwalior, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh on Saturday. Picture: AP Source: AP

SIX villagers have confessed to gang-raping a Swiss tourist in central India, police said, in an incident that has renewed focus on the rampant violence against women in the country.

The woman was on a biking holiday with her husband in central Madhya Pradesh state when she was attacked on Friday night while putting up a tent in a remote forested area.

Her husband was tied up as she was assaulted and the pair were also robbed, police said.

"We have detained five men and they have confessed to gang-raping the woman and attacking her husband,'' local police official M.S. Dhodee told AFP.

Mr Dhodee said they had recovered a laptop, some cash and a mobile phone stolen during the assault, which occurred as the couple were getting ready to spend the night ahead of a trip to the Taj Mahal in the town of Agra.

"They were passing by, noticed the couple putting up their tent and saw an opportunity to attack and rape the woman," Mr Dhodee said.

"We found the laptop buried carefully under a pile of leaves, near some shrubs in the forest. The mobile phone was recovered from the home of the mother-in-law of one of the men," he added.

Indian children participate in a protest against child abuse and rising crimes against women, in Bhubaneswar, India, on Saturday. Picture: AP

The five arrested men face charges of rape and robbery. The sixth suspect is expected to face the same charges.

Their confessions to police will likely be inadmissible as evidence under Indian law, which rarely allows court prosecutors to cite such statements since they are seen as unreliable and involuntary.

The alleged rapists live in a village near the scene of the assault, which took place about 70 kilometres from the nearest town of Gwalior, which is about 290 kilometres south of New Delhi.

After the attack, the 39-year-old rape victim and her husband, a 30-year-old mechanic, stopped a motorcyclist who took them to the nearest police station, said SonntagsBlick, a Swiss German-language newspaper.

She underwent a medical examination at a local hospital before leaving for the Indian capital Delhi, police said.

The woman's mother-in-law told AFP in Switzerland that she had spoken to her son and the couple were recovering.

"This morning he phoned me to say they are in New Delhi and that they are both alright," she said in a phone interview from the family's farm in central Switzerland.

U.C. Shadangi, another local police officer, said that his force was in touch with the Swiss embassy who declined to comment to AFP about the case.

The couple arrived in Mumbai last month after visiting Iran and began a cycling holiday across India, making their way to Orchha, a popular foreign tourist haunt in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday, police said.

The Swiss foreign ministry in Bern released a statement on Saturday expressing deep shock at the "tragic incident".

The ministry had issued an advisory for Swiss nationals travelling in India last month, warning that sexual violence was on the rise across the country, and urging both women and men to travel in large groups and with local guides.
In January, a South Korean student holidaying in Madhya Pradesh said she had been raped and drugged by the son of the owner of the hotel where she stayed.

That incident came just six weeks after thousands took to India's streets in nationwide protests following the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi.

The victim, a physiotherapy student died from internal injuries after being savagely assaulted by six men. One of her alleged attackers was found dead in his prison cell in New Delhi on Monday.

Police suspect he hanged himself, but his family says he was murdered. The government has since opened an investigation into his death.

India's government is facing heavy pressure to step up efforts to protect women after the deadly gang-rape in the capital last December.

Under a new bill approved by India's cabinet last week, rapists face a minimum 20-year jail term and the death penalty if the victim dies from injuries or is left in a persistent vegetative state.

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