Your daily briefToday's most important news in one place

66-year-old man sentenced to life in prison for strangling wife

A 66-year-old Luxembourg national has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife, whose body he concealed in a forest before falsely reporting her missing.
The Luxembourg City court handed down the sentence on Wednesday afternoon, with the presiding judge citing mitigating circumstances in the ruling.

The accused killed his wife on the night of 29 September 2023 at the couple’s home in Dommeldange. According to evidence presented during the trial, the man punched his wife in the face before strangling her for several minutes. The prosecution argued that the motive stemmed from his inability to cope with the couple’s separation, as the victim had informed him one week earlier that she intended to end their 40-year relationship. Following the killing, the defendant hid the body in a forest near Consdorf. Together with his adult children, he subsequently reported the woman as missing to police and attempted to cover his involvement. He only confessed one week later, after realising that authorities were closing in on him.

During the trial in January, it emerged that the man had visited the burial site in advance and purchased painter’s clothing, glue, and gloves from a hardware store prior to the murder.
The prosecution had sought a life sentence for murder. The defence, however, contended that the homicide was not premeditated but rather the result of acute psychological stress. This argument was rejected by a psychiatric expert, who ruled out an act of passion, pointing to the sustained and deliberate nature of the violence.

Also today

• The National Conference of Luxembourg Students has argued that a blanket ban on social media for under-16s is “not the right answer”, calling instead for better education and platform accountability.
• Authorities have confirmed that a brawl involving two underage students at Lycée Michel Lucius on Wednesday resulted in one of them being hospitalised.
• Luxembourg’s healthcare system suffers from “very poor” quality assurance, a lack of oversight, and ranks last in Europe for doctor training, according to Democratic Party MP Dr Gérard Schockmel.
• Bill Gates has publicly expressed deep remorse over his association with Jeffrey Epstein, acknowledging it as a serious lapse in judgment that impacted his philanthropic work.
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has met with President Xi Jinping in Beijing, seeking to build on their decades-old economic ties to weather global uncertainty sparked by Donald Trump’s tariffs and erratic foreign policy.
• An Iranian delegation headed by its top diplomat has set off for Geneva for talks with the US and trying to avert conflict

On air

Oke joined Tom in the studio to talk about his new EP, ‘Alter Ego’, released 20th February and gave us the first listen of his newest single, ‘Born in the Wild’!

Figure of the day

Hope fades in search for missing after Brazil rains kill 40

• Despair hung over two cities in southeastern Brazil on Wednesday as rescuers and residents searched for 27 people missing after torrential rains unleashed flooding and landslides that killed at least 40.
• A violent downpour on Monday in the state of Minas Gerais turned streets into raging rivers and led to landslides that swept away houses and buried dozens of people. The worst-hit city was Juiz da Fora, where 34 people were killed, while nearby Uba saw six deaths, according to the latest official tally from rescue services.
  

Stay connected: tune in to RTL Today Radio, now on DAB+, and follow the latest news as it unfolds on our website.