GUILTY Switzerland - Peter Nielsen, 36, stabbed to death, Zurich, 24 Feb 2004

It is difficult. Usualy the penalty for negligence is not death.
One nation jailed a controller for using the split seconds before a crash to yell a warning in his native language rather than in English; I felt that was unfair.
Idi Amin Dada had the controllers who were on duty during the Entebbe Raid beheaded: it is even rumored that he himself beheaded them.

Controllers are sometimes at fault and sometimes it is rather blatant inattention to their duties; sometimes is equipment and workload related.

Pilot error is a standard rubric in air crash investigations and there are often alot of pilot errors but I recall one crash where despite alot of such pilot errors and controller stupidity it was still pilot skill and experience that saved lives! The problem is that as the posters in a pilot's lounge say " A mid air collision can ruin your whole day ". Once two planes collide at high altitude its a bit hard for the pilots to do anything at all, even if they are still alive.

Controller negligence is common though it usually listed as a 'contributing cause' rather than the sole cause of a crash.

Either way, the penalty should not be death.

ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) -- A Swiss court on Wednesday sentenced a Russian architect to eight years in prison for the premeditated homicide of an air traffic controller who was on duty at the time of a mid-air plane collision in which the Russian man's wife and child were killed.

The Zurich Superior Court found Vitaly Kaloyev guilty of premeditated homicide, which is a lesser charge than murder and carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison under Swiss law. Kaloyev had acknowledged that he must have killed Peter Nielsen in February 2004, but said he could not remember the slaying.

Ulrich Weder, the Zurich cantonal, or state, prosecutor, had asked the court to sentence Kaloyev to 12 years' imprisonment, asserting that the crime was clearly premeditated homicide, but fell short of murder because Kaloyev had not acted out of malice.

Kaloyev, 49, told the court Tuesday that he had not wanted to cause any physical harm and only sought an apology from the head of the air navigation service Skyguide, whom he called the "main culprit" in the July 1, 2002, air crash that killed his family.

Nielsen, 36, died of multiple stab wounds in front of his wife in his back yard. Kaloyev was later arrested in Zurich.

Kaloyev's lawyers pleaded for manslaughter and said the defendant was tormented by great psychological distress at the time of the crime. They said any prison term should not exceed three years.

The Swiss they make the law the way they want. But to me to say is not malice when the man stabbed bunch of times is very strange, eh?
I think that in America the premeditated is the highest of the mirder forms no?

While I am not familiar with Swiss law, in America the malice intended is indeed not a requirement.
My understanding of what happened is that the man blamed the controller for the air crash that killed his family. He approached the man at his own home and sought an apology or explanation or something. Then he ended up killing him with a knife after repeated stabbings.
In America, I think they would call that a homicide (murder) and would look at premediated, since he evidently took the time to track the man's home address,

Why bring a knife when trying to get an apology...?

Details said:

Why bring a knife when trying to get an apology...?

Click to expand...

EXACTLY!

Murder I, with premeditation, IMO.

JMHO
fran

This was an excellent episode of the series,"Seconds From Disaster," involving a Swedish air traffic controller and a Russian man whose wife and two children perished in the crashed. See if I can find a link for it. I watched it not too long ago.

It was the Seconds From Disaster episode entitled,"Death In Midair." It was on the National Geographic Channel in the US, but not all episodes are available on NG. It can be found on Amazon Instant Video under Air Disasters and several other sites by entering the search term, "Seconds From Disaster." Very excellent documentary series.

Is there a media link anywhere??
Thanks