Swiss order air controller's killer freed
LAUSANNE, Switzerland - The nation's highest court yesterday ordered the release of a Russian imprisoned since 2004 for killing an air traffic controller he blamed for the death of his family in a plane crash. The Swiss Federal Tribunal rejected an appeal by Zurich prosecutors against the reduction of Vitaly Kaloyev's sentence. The sentence had been reduced to 51/4 years from eight years. Kaloyev was ordered released because he has served more than two-thirds of his sentence with good behavior.
LAUSANNE, Switzerland - The nation's highest court yesterday ordered the release of a Russian imprisoned since 2004 for killing an air traffic controller he blamed for the death of his family in a plane crash.
The Swiss Federal Tribunal rejected an appeal by Zurich prosecutors against the reduction of Vitaly Kaloyev's sentence. The sentence had been reduced to 51/4 years from eight years. Kaloyev was ordered released because he has served more than two-thirds of his sentence with good behavior.
Two of the court's five judges dissented from the majority, saying the change reduced the sentence too much.
Kaloyev was convicted in October 2005 of premeditated homicide in the killing of Danish-born Peter Nielsen, an air traffic controller with the Swiss company Skyguide.
Nielsen was the only person on duty when a Bashkirian Airlines plane and a DHL cargo jet collided July 1, 2002, in airspace he was responsible for over southern Germany. The collision killed 71 people, mostly Russian schoolchildren on a holiday trip to Spain.
The sentence against Kaloyev, whose ordeal brought him widespread sympathy in his native Russia, was reduced by a regional court in July. The court agreed that he acted with diminished responsibility because of the deaths of his wife and two children.
Zurich prosecutors appealed the decision, but their defeat yesterday means there are no more legal obstacles to Kaloyev's release.