German courtroom killer gets life imprisonment

LONDON - A man was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday after being convicted of murdering a pregnant Egyptian woman in a German courtroom last July.

The court ruled earlier Wednesday that Aleksandr Wiens, a German of Russian origin, was motivated by hatred of foreigners when he stabbed 31-year-old Marwa el-Shirbini to death in the same Dresden courtroom in Germany last July.

Speaking at a press conference during an introductory visit to London, Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the life sentence passed by a Dresden court showed that “violence and racial hatred” had no place in German society.

The sentence was of “international significance”, said Westerwelle.