‘Dr Death’ guilty of manslaughter
An India-born surgeon dubbed “Dr Death” was found guilty on Tuesday of killing three Australian patients and permanently harming another, after a trial which heard evidence of botched and needless operations.
After about 50 hours of deliberations, a jury found Jayant Patel guilty of three counts of manslaughter committed during his time as director of surgery at Australia’s Bundaberg Base Hospital between 2003 and 2005, reports said.
Patel, branded “Dr Death” by the media during initial investigations into his conduct at the hospital in the state of Queensland was also found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm to another patient, Australian Associated Press reported.
The doctor, who had pleaded not guilty to all charges, looked stonily at the floor as the jury announced its verdict. He will face a sentencing hearing on Thursday.
Patel, who was extradited from the United States to face the Supreme Court in Brisbane, had conducted dangerous, unnecessary and inappropriate operations on some of his patients, the court heard during the marathon 14-week trial.
The prosecution argued that James Phillips, 46, Gerry Kemps, 77, and Mervyn Morris, 75, would not have died except for the surgeries Patel performed on them, while Ian Vowles was left with permanent injuries after the US-trained surgeon removed his healthy bowel in October 2004.
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50 couples are Russia spies in US: Gordievsky
London, June 29: One of the Cold War’s most famous defectors said on Tuesday that Russia may have as many as 50 deep-cover couples spying inside the United States.
Oleg Gordievsky, a former deputy head of the KGB in London who defected in 1985, said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev would know the number of illegal operatives in each target country. The 71-year-old ex-double agent said that, based on his experience in Russian intelligence, he estimates that Moscow likely has 40 to 50 couples operating under cover in the US. “For the KGB, there’s usually 40 to 50 couples, all illegal,” said Mr Gordievsky, who defected to Britain after supplying information during the Cold War to the UK’s MI6 overseas spy agency. Mr Gordievsky said he spent nine years working in the KGB directorate in charge of illegal spy teams. —AP
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