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New Delhi gang rape suspect kills self in jail<p></p>

 
Published March 11, 2013

India

Delhi gang rape suspect kills self in jail

The main suspect in the gang rape and fatal beating of a woman on a New Delhi bus, an attack that horrified Indians and set off national protests, committed suicide in jail today, officials said. Ram Singh, who is accused of driving the bus on which the 23-year-old student was raped and fatally assaulted by a group of six men in December, hanged himself with his clothes, a police official at Tihar jail said. Singh, along with four other men on trial with him on rape, murder and abduction charges, had been under a suicide watch, the official said. The sixth accused is being tried and jailed separately because he is a juvenile. The six males, the only occupants of the private bus, beat the man with a metal bar, raped the woman and used the bar to inflict massive internal injuries to her, police say. She died from her injuries two weeks later in a Singapore hospital.

Venezuela

Opposition leader to seek presidency

Henrique Capriles, a governor who ran a spirited effort to unseat Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in an October election, said Sunday he will now run against the late president's handpicked successor in a special election on April 14. Capriles, 40, will face Nicolas Maduro, who had served Chavez as vice president until Chavez died Tuesday after a long ordeal with cancer. On Friday, Maduro, 50, was inaugurated president.

Nigeria

Diplomats say 7 hostages killed

Radical Islamic fighters killed seven foreign hostages in Nigeria, European diplomats said Sunday. Nigeria's police, military, domestic spy service and presidency remained silent over the killings of the construction company workers, kidnapped Feb. 16 from northern Bauchi state. The victims were four Lebanese and one citizen apiece from Britain, Greece and Italy. Britain and Italy said all seven of those taken from the Setraco construction company compound were killed by Ansaru, a little-known splinter group of the Islamic sect Boko Haram.

Elsewhere

New York: Two plainclothes police officers shot and killed a 16-year-old boy late Saturday night on a Brooklyn street after the boy pointed a handgun at them, police said.

Pakistan: Hundreds of Christians clashed with police across Pakistan on Sunday, a day after a Muslim mob burned dozens of homes owned by members of the minority religious group in retaliation for alleged insults against Islam's prophet Mohammed in Lahore.

South Africa: Former President Nelson Mandela left a hospital after "successful" medical tests and returned to his home on Sunday, the spokesman for South Africa's president said.

Times wires