Divine Mercy

Traditional Christian values are running rampant on Cyprus, where the trial of a Briton who killed his terminally ill wife of fifty years has been postponed until the autumn. Having conducted interrogations, without an interpreter or legal representation, shortly after the suspect's stomach was pumped following an overdose, the authorities have indicted him for premeditated murder. The defendant has apparently been fortunate enough thus far to escape the aid of the British Foreign Office in exacerbating the charge against him, and his legal team have argued that the lesser charge of assisting a suicide should be brought instead. The head of a British legal aid group observed that "it is difficult to see any public interest in prosecuting him for murder" - except, of course, the interest served by appeasing those who believe that leukaemia was deliberately conjured into being in order to facilitate the sufferers' moral improvement.