A grandson of the creator of the Red Bull energy drink has been arrested for driving a Ferrari that struck a police officer and dragged his dead body down a Bangkok street in an early-morning hit-and-run.
Police took Vorayuth Yoovidhya, 27, for questioning after tracing oil streaks for several blocks to his family’s gated estate in a wealthy neighbourhood of the Thai capital.
He was facing charges of causing death by reckless driving and escaping an arrest by police but was released on a 500,000 baht (€12,615) bail.
Vorayuth admitted he drove the charcoal grey sports car but said the police officer’s motorcycle abruptly cut in front of his vehicle, said police Major General Anuchai Lekbamroong, the lead investigator in the case.
Hackers shut down Swedish websites
Swedish government websites were jammed by hackers for hours yesterday, with some supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claiming responsibility on Twitter.
The websites of the Swedish government, Armed Forces and the Swedish Institute were among those experiencing problems.
Niklas Englund, head of digital media at the Swedish Armed Forces, said it was unclear who was behind the so-called denial-of-service attacks, in which websites are overwhelmed with bogus traffic.
But he noted that an unidentified group urging Sweden to take its “hands off Assange” claimed responsibility on Twitter.
Teenage girl to receive 100 lashes for sex
A Maldivian court has ordered 100 lashes and eight months’ house arrest for a 16-year-old girl convicted of having sex with an older man, a report said yesterday.
She “confessed” to having sex with the 29-year-old after her family pressed charges. The man was found guilty of having sex with a minor and sentenced to 10 years in jail, the private Minivan News reported.
The girl would be flogged when she reaches adulthood, that is 18, the report said.
The court ruling came 10 months after UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay urged the Maldives to stop publicly flogging women for having extra-marital sex.
An unusual stuffing for roast chicken
A man has been arrested at an international airport in Nigeria after he was caught trying to bring into the country a roasted chicken with unusual stuffing: €126,128 worth of cocaine.
National Drug Law Enforcement Agency spokesman Mitchell Ofoyeju said suspect Vincent Chegini Chinweuwa sarrived at Lagos’ Murtala Muhammed International Airport this weekend from Sao Paolo in Brazil.
He said Chinweuwa told investigators he had hoped to start a business in Nigeria with the drug money.
100 cattle thieves killed in unrest
Villagers in Madagascar have killed nearly 100 cattle thieves in a wave of weekend attacks in southern areas of the Indian Ocean island plagued by rustling, officials said yesterday.
Lieutenant Colonel Tahina Rakotomalala of Madagascar’s gendarmerie, or paramilitary police, said 23 cattle rustlers were killed in an ambush by villagers armed with rocks, spears and firearms.
The authorities had also said that nine people – two gendarmes, one policeman and six other thieves – were killed on Sunday in the southern Ihaborano region of the island.