Cable briefs

Press, 2 December 1981, Page 8

Cable briefs

576-year jail term A hotel cashier has been jailed for 576 years' in Bangkok for embezzling about $14,000,. the Thai News Agency has reported. Thanes Narkphong, aged 39, was originally sentenced to 865 years but a local criminal court reduced this by 289 years because his testimony had proved useful, the agency said. For 173 days last year the cashier allegedly withheld receipts from a hotel restaurant which should have been passed, on to the hotel’s central financial department. The court first , sentenced him to -five, years for each daily embezzlement offence, the sentences to run consecutively.—Bangkok. Inquiry into police The New South Wales deputy police commissioner, Bill Allen, has been suspended on full pay pending the results of an inquiry into allegations made in the State Parliament. The Government’s inquiry, into Mr Allen’s activities was begun after. questions by the state Opposition in Parliament about his visits to casinos in Las Vegas and Macao? On November 5 the New. South Wales Country Party leader, Leon Punch, alleged -in Parliament that the deputy commissioner was a ‘‘bag man” for the Labour Party and the Premier (Mr Neville Wran). Mr Wran rejected the charge, describing it as the “most despicable and most horrendous” he had heard in Parliament.—Sydney.

Actress sues Gina Lollobrigida, the Italian actress, has filed a SUSS million damage suit against a fashionable New York restaurant,- Trader Vic’s, claiming she suffered “serious and severe personal injuries” when she bit into a hard object while dining there. The 53-year-old actress claimed that after biting on a hard foreign object in the food she suffered severe injuries to various parts of her head, body, limbs, and nervous system. In 1979, Yul Brynner reached an out-of-court settlement for an undisclosed amount in a SUS 3 million suit against Trader Vic’s after he contracted trichinosis, allegedly caused by improperly cooked pork, after dining on spareribs at the restaurant in 1974.—New York. Airline parley Officials of about 25 American and European air- ' lines will meet today to try to cut losses on the North Atlantic route, possibly by raising fares by up to 15 per cent next year. It will be the first time since 1978 that American and European air carriers have met to tackle what they consider a chaotic fares structure of scheduled flights between the two continents, the International Air .Transport Association said. On any given day there are 125 different fares available and because of the price war I.A.T.A. member airlines have collectively lost money on the route every year since 1970, according to airline officials—Geneva. Getty summonsed A Los Angeles Judge has blocked a move by the oil millionaire, J. Paul Getty, jun., to avoid facing a summons. in-a suit asking him to support his physically incapacitated son. Denying the motion, Superior Court Judge Bruce Geernhaert said: “I think it is shameful that he (Mr Getty, Jun.) is spending all this money on legal gymnastics.” The suit filed in the Superior Court asked Mr Getty, Jun., to provide $30,000 a month in support of his son, J. Paul Getty 111, aged 25, who suffered a stroke on April 5. The suit said the stroke had left him blind, paralysed and unable to speak articulately.—Los Angeles. Afghan air cut Britain will cut its air links with Afghanistan because the Soviet-backed Government in Kabul has not extradited three men who hijacked a Pakistani airliner last March. The. Deputy Foreign Minister (Mr Humphrey Atkins) told Parliament that France and West Germany, the only other nonCommunist industrial nations with air links to Kabul, would ..do the same. But flights ’ will continue until December next year because France and Germany have air-service agreements with Afghanistan which require one year’s notice of repudiation, the Foreign Office said. — London? W. Bank arms Israeli authorities are to arm Palestinians appointed to protect members of the Village League, sponsored by Israel to counter Palestine Liberation Organisation influence in the West bank, Israel Radio has said. Quoting the Defence Minister (Mr Ariel Sharon), the radio said that the move was decided at the request of members of the Village League, which was set up three years ago. Two of its members for Ramallah were murdered on November 17 in an attack claimed'by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a hard-line P.L.O. faction. — Jerusalem.