BOGOTA, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - Former Colombian justice minister Alberto Santofimio was sentenced to 24 years behind bars Thursday for his 'decisive' role in the murder of a presidential candidate in 1989, court officials said.

The presiding judge said Santofimio played a 'decisive and terrorist' role in the murder of Carlos Galan that was ordered by the late Medellin drug cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar.

In addition to 24 years in prison, Santofimio was also banned from holding or running for public office for a period of 10 years after his release.

LOS ANGELES, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - Actress Michelle Rodriguez was slapped with a 180-day prison sentence by a Los Angeles judge on Wednesday for probation violation in a hit-and-run case, justice officials told AFP.

The 29-year-old Texas-born star, most famous for her role in hit US television drama 'Lost,' must report to jail to begin her sentence by December 24, the Los Angeles city attorney's office said.

Rodriguez was given the jail term after it emerged she had failed to carry out community service she had been ordered to undertake last year.

LA PLATA, Argentina, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - A Roman Catholic priest was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday for collaborating in murders, kidnappings and torture during Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

Christian Von Wernich, 69, was chaplain to the Buenos Aires police force. He used this position to obtain confessions from prisoners, which he then passed on to police who tortured them at secret detention centers.

The priest was convicted for complicity in seven killings, 31 cases of torture and 42 abductions in the Buenos Aires region.

FREETOWN, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - The UN-backed war crimes tribunal for Sierra Leone on Tuesday jailed for six and eight years two former commanders of a tribal-based militia force that supported government troops during a gruesome civil war.

Moinina Fofana and Allieu Kondewa, leaders of the Civil Defence Forces (CDF), a notorious paramilitary force which recruited traditional Kamajor hunter militias to fight rebel forces during the 1991-2001 conflict, were jailed for six and eight years, respectively.

NEW YORK, Oct 5, 2007 (AFP) - An Afghan heroin kingpin who was the first person ever extradited to the United States from Afghanistan was jailed for more than 15 years on Friday for running an international drugs ring.

Baz Mohammad, 51, who has been described by President George W. Bush as one of the world's most-wanted drug kingpins, pleaded guilty in a New York federal court in July last year to charges of conspiring to import heroin.

He was extradited to the United States under an order signed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai in October 2005.

WASHINGTON, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - The US Supreme Court Tuesday grappled with federal sentencing rules that are accused of throwing a disproportionate number of blacks behind bars for drug crimes.

The top court deliberated over two cases in which appeals courts threw out sentences given by judges that were lighter than suggested by the federal guidelines.

The first case concerned the politically explosive matter of sentences for crack cocaine -- seen typically as a blight of urban black ghettos -- and powder cocaine, which is said to be taken by more affluent whites.

MONROVIA, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - A Liberian court on Wednesday sentenced a 58-year-old man to life for repeatedly raping an 11-year-old girl over two months.

Indicted a year ago, Allen Rogers was found guilty of raping the girl in Barnesville, a working-class suburb on the outskirts of the steamy oceanside capital Monrovia.

Rogers kidnapped his victim and her 13-year-old brother and kept them under lock-and-key until the brother escaped and alerted the police.

'Every day he used to rape my sister,' said the tearful boy pointing at Rogers in the courtroom.

PRETORIA, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) - South Africa's apartheid-era police minister Adriaan Vlok was handed 10-year suspended jail sentence Friday after pleading guilty to the attempted murder of a top opponent to white rule 18 years ago.

In a plea bargain agreed with state prosecutors, Vlok and his former police chief Johan van der Merwe admitted seeking to kill Frank Chikane, now a top aide to President Thabo Mbeki, by having his clothes laced with poison.

BEIJING, Aug 13, 2007 (AFP) - A Chinese court has handed down prison terms of up to two and a half years to people who took part in violent and much-publicised hospital riots, an official said Monday.

Eleven people were sentenced on August 4 at the Guangan District People's Court in southwest China's Sichuan province, a secretary at the court told AFP, giving her surname as Tang.

'They were sentenced from six months to two and a half years for provoking the disturbance,' she said.

BEIJING, Aug 10, 2007 (AFP) - A former high-ranking Chinese lawmaker and his policeman accomplice have been sentenced to death for murdering the politician's young mistress with a car bomb, state press reported Friday.

Duan Yihe, 61, former chairman of the parliament in Jinan, a major city in eastern China, organised for the policeman to carry out the killing last month, the China Daily reported, citing a local court's ruling.

BEIJING, Aug 4, 2007 (AFP) - A former Chinese police officer has been sentenced to death for running a 34-member gang that engaged in murder, extortion and prostitution, state media said Saturday.

Fan Zezhong, previously of the forestry police, was sentenced Friday at the Zhaotong Intermediate People's Court in southwest China's Yunnan province, the Xinhua news agency reported.

CAMP PENDLETON, California, Aug 3, 2007 (AFP) - A US Marine sergeant convicted of killing an Iraqi civilian was sentenced to 15 years in prison Friday, the toughest sentence of the eight US servicemen who took part in the war crime, a military source said.

Sergeant Lawrence Hutchins, 23, the mastermind of the murder plot, was also demoted to private and will be dishonorably discharged from the military once he completes his sentence.

CAMP PENDLETON, California, Aug 3, 2007 (AFP) - A US marine sergeant convicted of killing an Iraqi civilian was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison, a military source said.

Sergeant Lawrence Hutchins, 23, was also dishonorably discharged while his rank was reduced to private, a day after being found guilty at his court martial of unpremeditated murder and conspiracy to murder.

Hutchins was accused of killing Hashem Ibrahim Awad, 52, on April 26, 2006 in the town of Hamdania, north of Baghdad.

CAMP PENDLETON, California, Aug 3, 2007 (AFP) - A Marine corporal convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and other charges in the shooting death of an Iraqi civilian was sentenced Friday to a reduction in rank and the 448 days in prison he has already served.

Corporal Marshall Magincalda had faced a maximum term of life in prison after his conviction for his role in the abduction and shooting death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad on April 26, 2006 near Hamdania, south of Baghdad.

BEIJING, Aug 2, 2007 (AFP) - A policeman and a social security worker were among 31 people jailed for their roles in a Chinese slave scandal, state press reported Thursday, bringing the total number of convictions to 60.

The pair and two other local government employees in northern China's Shanxi province were each sentenced on Wednesday to three years in prison for abuse of power and dereliction of duty, Xinhua news agency said.

STOCKHOLM, Aug 1, 2007 (AFP) - Swedish prisoners allowed to serve the end of their sentences outside of jail while under electronic surveillance re-offended less than those who remained in prison, a study published Wednesday said.

Among prisoners with electronic tags, which allowed them to sleep at home and have a job, the rate of second offences was 32 percent less, the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, which conducted the study, announced in a statement.

The study observed a group of 260 people who had been tagged for three years after their release.

DENVER, Colorado, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - A federal judge Friday handed Joseph Nacchio, former chief of imploded Telecommunication giant Qwest, six years in prison for insider trading and forfeiture of 71 million dollars.

US District Judge Edward Nottingham in Denver, Colorado ordered Nacchio to pay a 19-million-dollar fine and forfeit 52 million dollars, a total of 71 million dollars.

DENVER, Colorado, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - A US federal judge Friday sentenced Joseph Nacchio, the former chief of telecoms giant Qwest Communications International, to six years in prison for illegal insider trading.

US District Judge Edward Nottingham in Denver, Colorado, also ordered Nacchio to pay a 19 million dollar fine and an additional 52 million dollars in compensation for his crime.

LOS ANGELES, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - Reality television star Nicole Richie, the pal of former jailbird socialite Paris Hilton, was sentenced to four days in jail Friday after pleading guilty to charges of driving while intoxicated.

The Glendale Superior Court in California also handed the 25-year-old daughter of soul singer Lionel Richie a 2,048-dollar fine and placed her on probation for three years, court sources said. She was also ordered to attend a drug and alcohol education program.

MUMBAI, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - An anti-terror court in India on Friday sentenced to death one of the main conspirators behind serial bomb blasts in Mumbai in 1993 that killed 257 people, prosecutors said.

Yaqub Memon, the brother of the alleged main plotter and fugitive Tiger Memon, faces the gallows for his role in the devastating 'Black Friday' attacks which also injured more than 800 people.

His brothers Essa and Yusuf and sister-in-law Rubina were each sentenced to life in prison.

ALGIERS, July 25, 2007 (AFP) - An Algerian shoe vendor who sold footwear bearing his country`s flag has been booted into prison for three years for insulting the national emblem.

The 47-year-old man, who ran a store in the northeast town of Guelma, had pleaded ignorance, saying he did not know the shoes sported the flag`s symbol, a red crescent and star on a green-and-white background.

Shoes are often associated with disrespect in Arab cultures. Showing the soles of shoes to someone or walking on an object can be seen as an insult.

MUMBAI, July 24, 2007 (AFP) - An Indian anti-terrorism court on Tuesday sentenced three more people to death over serial bomb attacks in the financial capital Mumbai in 1993 that killed 257 people, prosecutors said.

The 'black Friday' attacks, which also injured over 800 people, were allegedly organised by Mumbai's Muslim-dominated underworld in revenge for deadly Hindu-Muslim clashes a few months earlier.