Office of judge in Russian soldiers' trial torched

KIEV • Unknown assailants on yesterday threw Molotov cocktails and set alight the Kiev office of a Ukrainian judge overseeing the trial of two alleged Russian soldiers captured in the separate east. The attack comes two weeks after police found the body of a Ukrainian lawyer who was brutally murdered after representing one of the two Russian suspects captured during a deadly battle in the pro-Moscow region of Lugansk last May.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Ex-minister in bomb plot sees jail term doubled

BEIRUT • A Lebanese military court yesterday increased to nearly 10 years the jail term for a former minister convicted last year of smuggling explosives and planning attacks, in a case that has underscored the country's sharp political divisions.

Former information minister Michel Samaha, who has close ties to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was detained in August 2012 and confessed to involvement in a plot for which Damascus security chief Ali Mamluk was also indicted.

Syrian officials have denied Damascus was involved. The court ruling has more than doubled Samaha's initial four-year sentence.

REUTERS

Nato to hold talks with Russia over Ukraine

BRUSSELS • Nato head Jens Stoltenberg said yesterday the US-led alliance will hold formal talks shortly with Russia to discuss the Ukraine crisis and other issues, the first such meeting since 2014.

He said in a statement the meeting would take place in the next two weeks in Brussels.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE