NEW DELHI: India's top court on Monday granted an Italian marine detained over the 2012 killing of two fishermen off the coast of Kerala another six months at home to recover from a medical condition. Massimiliano Lattore and his fellow marine Salvatore Girone shot the fishermen while serving as part of an anti-piracy mission off southern India in 2012. The incident led to a diplomatic row between Italy and India with both marines barred from leaving India pending trial. Lattore was finally allowed to travel back to his country last year for what Italian media reports described as a minor procedure to correct a congenital heart disease. In April this year, he had sought and received a three-month stay from returning to India. The Supreme Court on Monday granted him six more months in Italy for recovery while accepting his fresh application for an extension of the stay on his return order. The other marine is living at Italy's embassy in New Delhi.

Tibetan dies in prison

BEIJING: A Tibetan monk has died in a Chinese prison, a rights group and Tibet's exiled government said on Monday, 13 years into a sentence for terrorism and separatism observers said was deeply flawed. Relatives of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, 65, were informed of his death by police in the southwestern city of Chengdu on Sunday, Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) said in a statement. He was convicted in 2002 of separatism and being involved in a bombing in a public square and was initially condemned to death. The sentence was later commuted to life in prison and then to 20 years. Delek maintained his innocence throughout his sentence, the SFT statement said, adding that his family had asked police for his body so that they could perform funeral rites.

Pilot faces 25 yrs in jail

MOSCOW: Russian investigators said on Monday that a Ukrainian pilot controversially detained in Moscow faces up to 25 years in prison for her alleged involvement in the killing of two Russian journalists. Nadezhda Savchenko, Ukraine's first female military pilot, has been accused of abetting the deaths of Russian journalists Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin, who were killed by mortar fire in eastern Ukraine last summer.Russian investigators claim they have "irrefutable evidence" the 34-year pilot informed Ukrainian forces of the journalists' movement and is thus complicit in their deaths. Investigators said they had now completed their probe and prosecutors told the TASS news agency that the case had been forwarded to a court in southern Russia.

Prez sacks army chief

ABUJA: Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday sacked his entire military top brass, his spokesman said, in a widely expected move. Chief of Defence Staff Alex Badeh and the National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki were also sacked. Major-General Abayomi Gabriel Olonishakin was named new Chief of Defence Staff while Major General Tukur Yusuf Buratai becomes the new army chief.Rear Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas was appointed to head the navy while Air Vice Marshal Sadique Abubakar becomes chief of air staff. Air Vice Marshal Monday Riku Morgan is the new Chief of Defence Intelligence while retired Major General Babagana Monguno replaces Dasuki as NSA.