20/08/2026

THURSDAY | AUG 20, 2026

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Convicted ‘mushroom murderer’ appeals sentence

TOKYO: In a rare criticism of its ally, Japan yesterday described Washington’s decision to impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court’s Japanese president and a senior trial lawyer as “very unfortunate”. The pushback came Japan criticises US over ICC sanctions

o A miscarriage of justice, say defence lawyers

after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was imposing sanctions on Japanese judge and ICC President Tomoko Akane (pic) and Abdoulaye Seye, a Senegalese lawyer on the prosecution team that sought an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

MELBOURNE: Mushroom killer Erin Patterson suffered a “substantial” miscarriage of justice in her trial, her lawyers said yesterday as they sought to quash her conviction in a triple murder case. The 51-year-old was found guilty last year of murdering her husband’s parents and an elderly aunt in 2023 by serving them a beef Wellington lunch laced with lethal death cap mushrooms. Patterson was also convicted of the attempted murder of her husband’s uncle, a small-town pastor who survived the beef-and pastry dish after weeks in hospital. A judge sentenced her to life imprisonment, eligible for parole after 33 years. Her lawyers sought to overturn that conviction, alleging a litany of irregularities and the misuse of evidence during her trial. Lawyer Veronika Drago argued that some evidence allowed by the judge – relating to cell towers and posts of death cap mushroom sightings – was “innocuous” and unreliable. Obliging her to answer questions based on this evidence “arises to the level of a substantial miscarriage of justice”, Drago said. Other evidence about mushroom images on a memory card in Patterson’s home was wrongly excluded, her defence said. Patterson watched the proceedings at Melbourne’s Supreme Court via a live video link from her maximum-security prison, the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Melbourne’s western suburbs. She was wearing a blue prison jumper, national broadcaster ABC said. Her other defence lawyer, Richard Edney, said there was “unfair and oppressive” cross examining of Patterson during her trial. Edney also argued that the fact that members of the jury had stayed in the same hotel as a witness for the police – as well as members of the prosecution – undermined the fairness of the trial. He said it represented a “fundamental failure” of the legal process “in perhaps one of the most high-profile criminal trials this state has ever had”. However, he conceded there was no evidence to suggest the jury had communicated with others. Prosecutor Brendan Kissane said in response that placing the jury in the hotel was an “accident”. The prosecution also defended the use of evidence intended to demonstrate that Patterson had been able to source the deadly

“Japan has consistently supported the ICC, which is a permanent international criminal court, in its efforts to prosecute and punish the most serious crimes of concern to the international community,” Japan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The latest escalation in US President Donald Trump’s campaign against the Hague-based court puts Washington directly at odds with Tokyo over an institution that was set up in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Japan joined in 2007. Japan, which relies heavily on US military power for its defence, rarely criticises Washington. The sanctions campaign has also put the US at odds with its European allies. Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen earlier said on X that the Netherlands, which hosts the court, opposed the latest US sanctions and he invited Akane to“discuss our continued support”. Akane warned in December that US sanctions could “rapidly undermine the court’s operations in all situations and cases and jeopardise its very existence”. Washington last year sanctioned several ICC prosecutors and judges, citing the court’s arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, as well as an earlier investigation into US troops in Afghanistan. The measures freeze any US assets held by those sanctioned and largely shut them out of the US financial system, to which most international banks are closely connected. – Reuters India hotel fire kills 9 KOLKATA: At least nine people were killed and several others injured in a fire at a hotel in Kolkata yesterday, a senior fire department official said. “Nine people were killed, including a child, in the fire that broke out early yesterday,” said Anuj Sharma, the fire services director of West Bengal state. “Thick smoke enveloped the hotel. Some victims were found in the bathrooms.” Preliminary information suggested an air conditioner in the budget hotel may have exploded and caused the blaze, Sharma said. He said nine people – six men, two women and a child – were rescued and taken to hospital. Some victims seemed to be Bangladeshi nationals who had travelled to Kolkata for medical treatment, Santosh Pathak, a member of West Bengal’s ruling party, said. “We are trying to confirm the nationality of the victims,” he told reporters. A total of 60 guests were in the hotel when the fire broke out. The hotel is located in a congested area in central Kolkata and is known for budget accommodations and restaurants. Building fires are common in India due to a lack of firefighting equipment and routine disregard for safety regulations. – AFP

Patterson was found guilty last year. – AFPFILEPIC

Ian (left) and Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall leaving court yesterday. – AFPPIC

to help, but they were unable to operate at all on Tuesday due to low clouds. Rain falling intermittently on the area has slowed the fire’s spread by increasing humidity levels, but the weather has badly hampered aerial support since Monday. The fire triggered evacuation orders in the German border town of Monschau as well as two Belgian villages, although residents of the hamlet of Sourbrodt have returned home. Even once brought under control, officials have warned it will take weeks or even months of soaking and dousing to prevent the fire from reigniting. – AFP and this “infected” his decision on parole. A 12-person jury found Patterson guilty in July last year of murdering her husband Simon’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, as well as his aunt, Heather Wilkinson, at her home in the Victorian farming village of Leongatha. She was also found guilty of attempting to murder Heather’s husband Ian, a pastor who fell gravely ill but eventually recovered. – AFP

mushrooms before the fateful lunch. The three judges will also hear an appeal today from the prosecution seeking a stiffer sentence. Prosecutors have said the non-parole period of 33 years imposed by the judge was “manifestly inadequate”. They say the judge erred in finding there was a substantial chance Patterson would be held in solitary confinement for years to come,

Belgian wildfire ‘encircled’ but situation still complicated MALMEDY: Firefighters managed to fully surround Belgium’s largest wildfire in a century, but the situation on the ground “remains complicated” with crews battling several new flare-ups, authorities said yesterday. pine trees and hiking trails grew over the weekend to 3,000ha although hundreds of firefighters working night and day have managed to stop it spreading further.

The last area to be circumscribed was a hard to-access front closest to the German border, with ground crews working all night to close the gap, coming in from the east and north under very difficult conditions. On-site operations have been complicated by the fens’ terrain: a patchwork of heath, peat bogs and raised wooden boardwalks. Water-bombing aircraft from Norway, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands flew in

Crisis cell spokesman Tony Hosmans said the fire raging in the High Fens nature reserve “has been encircled” and is not moving east towards Germany, with the goal today to bring it under control “if possible with aerial support”. “The situation remains complicated due to a number of flare-ups that have occurred in various parts of the site,” he said. The blaze charring the expanse of peatland,