UK teen who planned school massacre jailed for minimum 49 years

MOSCOW: A Moscow court has toughened an embezzlement conviction against a French banker who left the country years earlier, converting his initial suspended sentence to jail time, Russian state media reported Wednesday.
Philippe Delpal, a former senior executive at the Baring Vostok investment group, received a four-and-a-half year suspended sentence in 2021 for allegedly swindling funds from Vostochny Bank — partly owned at the time by a businessman linked to Vladimir Putin.
Delpal was sentenced alongside his business partner, US investor Michael Calvey, both of whom vehemently denied the charges.
The case shocked Russia’s business community and triggered an outflow of foreign capital from Russia.
The latest move, while likely to have little impact, comes as relations between Moscow and Paris plummet to new lows as the Kremlin shifts blame for the three-year Ukraine conflict from the United States to Europe.
Both Calvey and Delpal left Russia once the travel restrictions in their suspended sentences were lifted.
Moscow’s Tverskoy Court on Wednesday replaced Delpal’s initial suspended sentence “with a real one” following a petition from Russia’s federal prison service, Russia’s state TASS news agency reported.
Delpal, who spent six months in jail before he was put under house arrest, received the suspended sentence in 2021.
Five Russian associates who said they were innocent also received suspended sentences of between three-and-a-half years to five years.
A Moscow court later reduced Delpal’s sentence from four-and-a-half years to three-and-a-half-years.

SKOPJE, North Macedonia: The deadly nightclub fire in North Macedonia at the weekend has struck the young of this country the most, with the emotional devastation it brought apparent everywhere, from classrooms to the streets.
Most of the victims — the 59 killed and dozens injured in a frantic escape — were in their late teens or early 20s, enjoying a night out with friends at Club Pulse in the eastern town of Kocani. There was live music, drinks and dancing until flames ripped through the packed club.
Now the nation’s youth, already doubtful about its future amid the young republic’s economic troubles, has been at the forefront of an outpouring of grief and anger. The disaster also exposed deep-seated frustrations among them.
In a language school in Skopje, the nation’s capital, 14-year-old Mila Krstevska said she is shocked and disappointed.
“I am very angry about everything that happened,” she told The Associated Press, her voice shaking. “It’s a sad thing to go to a disco to have fun and then turn to ashes.”
“I am disappointed in our country,” she added. “I love Macedonia but I would like to go abroad when I am older.”
North Macedonia’s unemployment rate is 12.8 percent, the second-highest in Europe, according to the International Monetary Fund. Almost one-fifth of those aged 15-24 are neither working nor in school or getting training, according to most-recent data from the International Labor Organization.
The country’s population shrank by nearly 10 percent over the past two decades, dropping below 2 million, according to census data. Most of those who leave are young people seeking better opportunities elsewhere.
For those left behind, Sunday’s fire is the first major tragedy for their generation, born after North Macedonia’s independence from war-torn former Yugoslavia. Candlelight vigils and demonstrations in the wake of the tragedy have been led by the young.
At one vigil this week in Kocani, a town of about 25,000 people, students dressed in black knelt silently, placing thin yellow candles in trays of sand, their flames flickering in the night.
Nearby, angry youths began chanting “Justice! Justice!” overturned a van as police stood by without stepping in, then used chairs and umbrella stands to trash a cafeteria run by one of the nightclub’s owners.
As the nation mourns, soccer games have been postponed, schools are holding vigils, television presenters are dressed in black on air. Flowers and candles are left in central locations of every town and city.
Skopje social worker and therapist Tanja Marcekic said the fire has profoundly impacted young people.
“There is a sense of revolt and great dissatisfaction. We all feel it,” she said.
But, she added, there could be a small silver lining. “I also see another side of young people — how they organize themselves, how they want to help and be active. Maybe that is the best way to improve their mental health.”
In Kocani, home to about 25,000 people, every family was touched by the disaster.
“I am a parent of two. I can’t even talk — sorry,” said Branko Bogatinov. His grown children, who now live in Germany, used to visit the nightclub when they were still in school.
“This could have happened to anyone,” he said.