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The men, aged 27 and 29, were whipped across the back and winced with pain as a team of five enforcers wearing robes and hoods took turns, relieving one another after every 40 strokes. The men were arrested in November after residents became suspicious and broke into their rented room where they were caught having sex, said Heru Triwijanarko, Aceh’s acting Sharia police chief. A Shariah court last month sentenced each man to 80 strokes, but they were caned 77 times after a remission for time spent in prison. Four other people received 17 strokes for extra-marital relations and 40...

A group of unmarried couples were whipped in Indonesia's Aceh province on Thursday after they were caught behaving amorously -- a crime under the conservative region's Islamic law. Flogging is common for a range of offences in the region at the tip of Sumatra island, including gambling, drinking alcohol and having gay sex. It is the only province in the world's biggest Muslim-majority country that imposes Islamic law. The five couples flogged Thursday received between four and 22 strokes from a rattan cane outside a mosque in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, after they served several months in prison. Religious...

Jurors convicted an 81-year-old woman of felony battery Wednesday for hitting a police officer with her cane. Betty Chambers showed no reaction when the guilty verdict was announced, but outside the courtroom she used a newspaper to hide her face from cameras. "I'm sick of seeing my picture on TV! I've done nothing wrong!" she said. The verdict came one day after a judge dropped a charge of resisting law enforcement against Chambers, who claimed she acted in self-defense. Chambers could face six months to three years in prison when she is sentenced May 15 in St. Joseph Superior Court....

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness. Kennedy, D-R.I., addressed the issue after a spate of news reports. His initial statement said: "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident."'Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis.Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes...

Australia protests after expatriate flogged in Saudi Arabia SYDNEY March 5 - Australian Prime Minister John Howard lashed out Wednesday at Saudi Arabia's ``appallingly inhumane'' treatment of a middle-aged Melbourne man jailed and flogged for a crime he did not commit. Foreign affairs officials have already protested to Saudi Arabia about its treatment of hospital technician Robert Thomas, 55, who was arrested last June and jailed for a theft allegedly committed by his Filipina wife, Lorna. She denied a charge of stealing hospital equipment, but was convicted and, under Saudi Arabia's strict system of Islamic justice, Thomas was held to...