Law

Iranian billionaire Babak Zanjani, has been sentenced to death for fraud and corruption. The 41-year-old was accused of pocketing $2.8bn (£2bn) from oil deals during the rule of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while sanctions were in place against Iran. Two of his associates were also found guilty of the more serious crime of “corruption on earth”. Sky News reports: Prosecutors claim he owed the money to Iran’s government from oil sold on behalf of the oil ministry.

A lawmaker in Alabama wants paedophiles to be castrated before being allowed to leave prison. State Rep. Steve Hurst has been proposing that sex offenders be either chemically or surgically castrated since 2011 and now he says they should pay for the procedure themselves as well. RT reports: Hurst has filed legislation that would legally require offenders convicted of sexually assaulting a child under the age of 12 to be surgically castrated before being released from prison.

Oscar Pistorius has been denied an appeal of his murder conviction by a South African court. He was asked by a journalist about the court’s decision that could see him going back to prison for 15 years. The former Olympic sprinter and convicted murderer known as the “Blade Runner” showed his frustration by replying: “Have you no soul?” The Mirror reports: The Blade Runner was found guilty of murder in December after he shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in their home on Valentine’s Day 2013.

Los Angeles police are testing a knife that was reportedly recovered from O.J. Simpson’s old property where he used to live at the time his ex-wife Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman were killed in 1994. NPR reports: Capt. Andrew Neiman of the LAPD said in a press conference Friday that the knife had been in the possession of a now-retired police officer.

A man from Pittsburgh has pleaded guilty to robbing a bank and threatening bank tellers with a fake bomb made out of phone wires, duct tape and a sex toy! On Thursday, Aaron Stein pleaded guilty in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court to charges of robbery, making bomb threats, making a fake bomb, aggravated assault and four counts of reckless endangerment. According to police a vibrator was used to construct the fake bomb.