Three Afghans found guilty of the high-profile kidnapping of an Italian aid worker, Clementina Cantoni, have been given 20 year prison sentences.
Two of them have also been sentenced to death for kidnapping and killing an Afghan businessman, Hafizullah Zadran.
The verdicts were handed down after a one-day trial in the capital, Kabul. The three have the right to appeal.
Ms Cantoni was released in June after being held for more than three weeks after armed men dragged her from a car.
Photographs
Ms Cantoni's abduction in Kabul led to street protests by Afghan widows that she worked with.
The court said the three-man gang was led by Temur Shah.
Italian newspapers have reported that Ms Cantoni identified Temur Shah from photographs shown to her by investigators.
The Afghan government had denied at the time that any concessions were made in order to secure Ms Cantoni's release.
But Italian newspapers had said that hundreds of thousands of dollars had been paid to the kidnappers
Ms Cantoni had been in Afghanistan since September 2003, in charge of a programme supporting more than 10,000 widows and their children.
<MUNICH, Germany - A former Nazi commander was acquitted of murder in three massacres in Slovakia after a court said Monday there was no reliable evidence he was involved in the killings.
Ladislav Niznansky, 88, sat stone-faced as his acquittal on 164 counts of murder was announced in the Munich state court.
The charges against him were filed in connection with the slaughter of 146 men, women and children in two Slovak villages and the later killing of 18 Jewish civilians after a failed uprising against Slovakias Nazi puppet government.
Presiding Judge Manfred Goetzl cited contradictory evidence from witnesses as a reason for the acquittal, noting that some withdrew testimony given when Niznansky was convicted in absentia by communist Czechoslovakia in 1962.
Prosecutors leaned heavily on evidence from that trial, but several witnesses sought out by the court this time either contradicted or withdrew their previous testimony.
The court said evidence from the 1962 trial was suspect because Communist-era documents show officials had planned it from start to finish.Elt;/p>
A judgment can't be based on thisElt;/strong>
A judgment cant be based on this,EGoetzl said.
The Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center called Mondays verdict unpleasantEand urged German authorities to keep pursuing Nazi suspects.
Kurt Schrimm, head of the special German prosecutorsEoffice that has hunted Nazis since 1958, said his work would go on even if the chances of success diminish year by year.Elt;/p>
He said about 20 investigations were under way, including at least three in Germany.
Prosecutors said Niznansky was an active commander and sought the maximum sentence of life in prison. Prosecutor Konstantin Kuchenbauer promised an appeal.
Niznansky, a former Slovak army captain who at first supported the 1944 revolt, changed sides after he was captured and took charge of the Slovak section of a Nazi unit, code-named Edelweiss, that hunted resistance fighters and Jews.
He was convicted of the massacres and sentenced to death in absentia by Czechoslovakia in 1962.
By then, he had moved to Germany, where he retired. He became a German citizen in 1996.
Niznansky was arrested in Germany in January 2004 after a Slovak request, but the court released him from police custody, citing contradictory testimony from a key witness in the old trial.
Defendant acknowledged participation in raid
Niznansky acknowledges fighting partisans after being forced to join the Nazi unit to avoid incarceration in a concentration camp, and he admits participating in the bloody operation against two villages in central Slovakia on Jan. 21, 1945, as punishment for local support of Soviet-backed rebels.
The defense said Niznansky and his men were in nearby hills but not in the villages when German troops and allied Slovak irregulars carried out the executions. The court said testimony from survivors showed that the Edelweiss unit was not present.
Judge Goetzl said it was unclear who carried out the third massacre Eof 18 Jewish civilians discovered hiding in underground bunkers at Ksina on Feb. 7, 1945.
Niznansky appeared exhausted as the judge explained the verdict and awarded him compensation for the months he spent in custody, bowing his head and closing his eyes.
I always hoped it would come to a fair verdict,ENiznansky told reporters afterward. Im relieved after these two years of mental torture.Elt;/p>
Although it was not at issue in the trial, Niznansky said during the proceedings he was present during the 1944 capture in Slovakia of U.S. agents and an American war correspondent, who later were executed.
A hospital in Switzerland says it will allow assisted suicide on its premises for terminally ill patients.
A spokesman for the university hospital in Lausanne said the decision was taken after a long reflection.
He added that the conditions for permitted an assisted suicide remained very strict.
The practice is legal in Switzerland, but only for patients who are mentally competent and suffering from an incurable disease.
From the start of next year terminally ill patients in Lausanne's main hospital will be allowed to take their own lives on hospital premises, as long as they are of sound mind, are already too ill to return home, and have expressed a persistent wish to die.
Until now, hospitals across Switzerland had refused to allow assisted suicide on site and had denied access to the Swiss voluntary euthanasia society, Exit.
This meant that patients wishing to die by assisted suicide had to leave hospital to do so.
The new ruling will give patients access to an external doctor or to a member of Exit.
Hospital staff can choose whether or not they wish to attend the death.
Senior doctors at Lausanne's hospital say the decision was taken after almost three years of consideration and reflects the position of the Swiss Medical Association and the National Committee on Ethics.
Both bodies say that in order to respect the wishes and independence of patients assisted suicide should be permitted in exceptional cases, but that it should never become a routine procedure.