Prosecutors said Mitchell faked mental illness to avoid prosecution
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A jury has convicted an itinerant street preacher of kidnapping and transporting for sex a 14-year-old girl from Utah in 2002.
Brian David Mitchell faces up to life in prison for kidnapping Elizabeth Smart.
He did not contest the facts but pleaded insanity, and frequently interrupted court proceedings with rambling songs and outbursts.
His estranged wife Wanda Barzee last year pleaded guilty to kidnapping.
Authorities say Mitchell kidnapped Ms Smart, now 23, from her parents’ home in Utah at knife point.
He had met the family when Ms Smart’s parents hired him for casual handiwork.
The couple then held her through what Ms Smart described in court as “nine months of hell” on a mountainside camp, while Mitchell forced her into a self-styled polygamous marriage and raped her daily, prosecutors said.
Ms Smart was reunited with her family after she was spotted – wearing a dark wig and a veil – in the company of Barzee and Mitchell about 10 miles (15km) from her home.
During the trial in federal court, Ms Smart testified that Mitchell was motivated by drug and alcohol use and a desire for sex, not religious fervour.
The case was delayed for years after a state court found Mitchell incompetent to stand trial. Federal prosecutors stepped in, contending Mitchell was pretending to have a mental illness in order to avoid prosecution.
As the verdict was read Mitchell sang and appeared to be praying. He is to be sentenced on 25 May, prosecutors said.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
India and the EU may reach a free trade deal in the new year
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A row between the EU and India over the transit of generic drugs through Europe has been resolved, negotiators told Reuters news agency.
As a result of the deal at an India-EU summit in Brussels, an Indian complaint to the World Trade Organization will be suspended, India’s trade minister said.
EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said the shape of a broad free trade agreement (FTA) had been agreed.
The pact, one of the world’s biggest, should be finalised in 2011, he added.
Details of the proposed FTA were not released but medical rights campaigners fear its provisions may undermine future supplies of cheap Indian generic drugs for HIV/Aids and other conditions.
India and Brazil brought a case to the WTO in 2009, accusing the EU of wrongly stopping and inspecting shipments of generic drugs in transit.
Both Indian Trade and Industry Minister Anand Sharma and EU trade chief Karel De Gucht confirmed to Reuters on Friday that the transit dispute had been resolved.
“This is a great breakthrough which will of course lead to a suspension of WTO proceedings, so the dispute is over,” said Mr Sharma.
Mr De Gucht said: “I reconfirmed we are going to amend present regulation so as to put into practice what has been agreed.
“[Generic drug] transports in transit will no longer be checked, except for counterfeiting.”
The EU has still to negotiate with Brazil, Reuters adds.
In a joint statement, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and Mr Barroso said they looked forward to a FTA being concluded in the spring.
In a separate statement, Mr Barroso said “very important progress” had been made towards a broad-based FTA.
Having agreed on its basic contours, the parties would work on “the final political push”, he said.
“This free trade zone will bring together markets of 1.5 billion people,” he said.
“It will be a key contribution to the global recovery and a signal for global openness and also a signal against protectionism,” Mr Barroso added.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Nobel chairman Thorbjorn Jagland presents the prize Courtesy: Nobelprize.org
China has said the awarding of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo is a “political farce”.
China’s foreign ministry said the move by the prize committee in Oslo “does not represent the wish of the majority of the people in the world”.
There were standing ovations at the ceremony in Norway for Mr Liu, who was represented only by an empty chair.
The committee’s chairman called for the immediate release of the dissident.
Thorbjorn Jagland praised China for lifting millions of people out of poverty, calling it an “extraordinary achievement”.
But he warned China that its new status as a leading world power meant Beijing “must regard criticism as positive”.
In response, the foreign ministry in Beijing said in a statement: “We resolutely oppose any country or any person using the Nobel Peace Prize to interfere with China’s internal affairs or infringe upon China’s legal sovereignty.”
China says that Mr Liu is a criminal, and insists that giving him a prize is an insult to China’s judicial system.
Beijing has also waged a campaign in recent weeks to discredit the Nobel prize.
During the award ceremony in Oslo, Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann read out a statement that Mr Liu had made in court during his trial in December 2009.
Why China considers Liu Xiaobo a threat1989: leading activist in Tiananmen Square protests for democratisation; jailed for two years1996: spoke out against China’s one-party system; sent to labour camp for three years2008: co-author of Charter 08, calling for a new constitution, an independent judiciary and freedom of expression2009: jailed for subversion for 11 years; verdict says he “had the goal of subverting our country’s people’s democratic dictatorship and socialist system. The effects were malign and he is a major criminal”.
Excerpts: Liu Xiaobo’s final statement Charter 08: A call for change In pictures: Nobel Peace Prize award Liu Xiaobo: the right choice?“I, filled with optimism, look forward to the advent of a future, free China,” said the statement.
“For there is no force that can put an end to the human quest for freedom, and China will in the end become a nation ruled by law, where human rights reign supreme.”
Honouring the new laureate, Mr Jagland placed the Nobel diploma on the empty chair marking Mr Liu’s absence.
He compared China’s anger at the award to the outcry over peace prizes awarded to other dissidents of their times, including South African archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
He said Mr Liu was dedicating his prize to “the lost souls from 4 June”, those who died in the pro-democracy protests on that date in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
“We can say (Mr) Liu reminds us of Nelson Mandela,” he said. The former South African president received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
The UN says it had information that China detained at least 20 activists ahead of the ceremony.
At the scene
An image of Liu Xiaobo is being thrown on to the facade of the Grand Hotel in the centre of Oslo as night falls, after the city honoured this year’s Nobel peace laureate.
For the first time in more than 70 years the peace prize ceremony has been essentially symbolic, with the recipient in jail and none of the close family members who would be entitled to receive the prize on his behalf allowed to leave China.
The most symbolic moment of all was when the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, placed Liu Xiaobo’s medal on a chair on the podium that had been deliberately left empty.
It has been one of the most controversial peace prizes for years. To China, the award has diminished this prestigious prize. But to the Nobel committee, China’s diplomatic offensive over the award only justifies the choice of Liu Xiaobo as a deserving winner.
A further 120 cases of house arrest, travel restriction, forced relocation and other acts of intimidation have been reported.
The BBC’s English and Chinese language websites have been blocked, and BBC TV coverage was blacked out inside China during the ceremony.
Mr Liu, one of China’s leading dissidents, is serving an 11-year sentence in a jail in north-east China for state subversion.
Police are stationed outside his home in Beijing where his wife, Liu Xia, is under house arrest.
Geir Lundestad, the director of the Nobel committee, said 48 foreign delegations attended the Oslo ceremony, 16 countries – including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan – turned down the invitation and the Chinese returned their invitation unopened.
Analysts say many of those who stayed away did so as a result of Chinese pressure.
However, Serbia – which had previously said it would not attend – announced on Friday that it would be sending a representative.
Beijing had sought to prevent anyone travelling from China to Oslo to collect the prize on Mr Liu’s behalf.
Countries that boycotted the ceremonyChina, Vietnam, KazakhstanRussiaVenezuela, CubaTunisia, Morocco, Sudan, AlgeriaSaudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, EgyptPakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka
Who stayed away? Foreign websites blocked by China China’s voices of dissent Media reaction to Nobel rowThe BBC’s Mike Wooldridge in Oslo says that to the Nobel committee, Liu Xiaobo symbolises a message it was keen to send to China – that its growing economic strength and power do not exempt it from universal standards of human rights.
On the other hand, China said the committee had chosen a criminal convicted under Chinese law to serve the interests of certain Western countries, our correspondent says.
Liu Xiaobo first came to prominence when he took part in the Tiananmen protests.
He was sent to prison for nearly two years for his role, and has been a critic of the Chinese government ever since.
He was given the 11-year prison sentence in December 2009 for inciting the subversion of state power, a charge which came after he co-authored a document known as Charter 08.
The document calls openly for political reforms in China, such as a separation of powers and legislative democracy.
This year marks the first time since 1936 that the Nobel Peace Prize, now worth $1.5m (£950,000), was not handed out.
The BBC’s Damian Grammaticas reports from the prison holding Liu Xiaobo
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay on Thursday again called for Mr Liu to be released “as soon as possible”.
Last year’s peace prize winner, US President Barack Obama, has also called for his release.
As well as putting Liu Xia, the Nobel laureate’s wife, under house arrest, the authorities have put pressure on other activists and dissidents.
Some have been prevented from leaving the country, while others have been forced to leave their homes for the next few days, according to the Chinese Human Rights Defenders.
One of those to disappear, it said, was Zhang Zuhua, the man who co-wrote Charter 08.
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