Policeman gets suspended jail term over migrant child death
(AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)BRUSSELS – A Belgian court handed a one-year suspended prison sentence to a police officer on Friday over the shooting death of a two-year-old toddler who was in a van during a high-speed chase of suspected migrant smugglers. According to local media, the van’s driver was sentenced to four years in prison while another alleged smuggler was acquitted. Police shot at the van during the chase, striking two-year-old Kurd Mawda Shawri in the head. AdThe police officer said he fired his weapon after the van swerved in the direction of the police car. Mawda’s death has become a symbol for many Belgians of the injustice that confronts migrants and refugees fleeing their homelands to seek a better life in Europe.
'First Cow,' 'Nomadland' top AP's best films of 2020
This image released by Searchlight Pictures shows Frances McDormand in a scene from the film "Nomadland" by Chloe Zhao. Here are our picks for the best movies of 2020:JAKE COYLE1. “David Byrne’s American Utopia”: Spike Lee’s fiction films make more noise but he’s quietly one of the best documentary filmmakers we have. He may have made the best film of the year in his short film “New York, New York,” a tribute to an undefeatable pandemic-stricken city. It's also, with a glorious rendering of Harlem, one of the best New York movies in years.
Trial opens in death of toddler in migrant smuggling case
A woman hangs a piece of children's clothing on a line during a solidarity event for Mawda Shawri at the courthouse in Brussels, Monday, Nov. 23, 2020. A trial opened on Monday in the shooting death of two-year old toddler, Mawda Shawri, who was in a van during a high-speed chase between police and suspected migrant smugglers seeking to get to Britain. At the trial in Belgium's southern Mons, a policeman stands accused of involuntary manslaughter and two other men for being suspected migrant smugglers. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)BRUSSELS – A trial opened Monday in the shooting death of a two-year-old toddler who was in a van during a high-speed chase in Belgium between police and suspected migrant smugglers seeking to get to Britain. At the trial in Belgium's southern city of Mons, a policeman stands accused of involuntary manslaughter and two other men for being suspected migrant smugglers.