A South African mother and two accomplices were sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday for trafficking her then-6-year-old daughter, in a case that gained nationwide attention since the child went missing last year. Kelly Smith, her boyfriend Jacquen Appollis and their friend Steveno Van Rhyn were convicted of kidnapping and trafficking the girl, Joshlin Smith, after she disappeared from a small town in the Western Cape. In a trial that shocked the country, a witness said Kelly Smith told her that she had sold her daughter to a sangoma, or traditional healer, for 20,000 rand ($1,100) and that the girl was desired for her “eyes and skin.” Joshlin Smith has still not been found despite an extensive police search. Announcing their sentences on Thursday, high court judge Nathan Erasmus said the fact Kelly Smith, Appollis and Van Rhyn were drug users was no excuse. “There is nothing that I can…

Inside Vatican City, the home of Pope Leo, lies a vast collection of Indigenous artifacts that some people say shouldn’t be there. The collection includes thousands dozens of colonial-era objects, including a rare Inuvialuit sealskin kayak from the western Arctic, a pair of embroidered Cree leather gloves, a 200-year-old wampum belt, a baby belt from the Gwich’in people and a beluga tooth necklace. They are relics of a time of cultural destruction, critics say, taken by the Roman Catholic Church a century ago as trophies of missionaries in far-off lands. Pope Francis promised to return the artifacts to communities in Canada as part of what he called a “penitential pilgrimage” for abuses against Indigenous people by the Church. But several years on, they remain in the Vatican’s museums and storage vaults. Indigenous leaders are now urging Pope Leo to finish what Francis started and give the artifacts back. “When things…

A judge has stepped down from the criminal proceedings regarding the death of Argentine football legend Diego Armando Maradona. An Argentine court had removed the judge, Julieta Makintach, after one of the defendants in the Maradona trial requested her disqualification due to a possible lack of impartiality and for allegedly authorizing the filming of a documentary during court hearings. Makintach accepted the court’s disqualification. In a previous hearing, she had stated that her brother is a partner at the production company mentioned in the case, but it had nothing to do with a potential documentary about Maradona. Maradona, world-famous for scoring the goal that won Argentina the 1986 World Cup, died of heart failure in November 2020. Argentine prosecutors have accused eight medical staff of “simple homicide” in the footballer’s death. The trial for seven of the eight defendants began in March, with the eighth due to be tried by…

Keith Siegel has been free for nearly four months, but he is still pained by vivid images of his 484 days as a Hamas hostage and of those still held in Gaza’s tunnels. Siegel isn’t just talking about the physical and psychological abuse he was subjected to by his captors or the suffocating conditions and malnutrition he faced in tunnels deep underground. He’s also terrified that Israel’s intensifying bombardment and ground offensive will kill the remaining living hostages – or drive Hamas to execute them. Hamas and other militant groups kidnapped 251 people from Israel during the October 7, 2023 terror attacks. As Israel marks 600 days since the war began, Siegel and dozens of former hostages and relatives are renewing their call for a deal that will end the conflict and secure the release of all 58 still held captive, living and dead. Protesters blocked roads in Tel Aviv…