Fritzl will spend his life sentence in a secured psychiatric hospital. The verdict effectively brings a fitting end to the compelling and sickening tale of a father who drugged, imprisoned, raped (more than 3,000 times) and fathered seven children with his own daughter over the course of 24 years.

Fritzl told the jury ”I regret from the bottom of my heart what I did to my family.” He also told them he wished there was a way he could “make amends” for his behavior. I don’t think anyone really cares to help him clear his guilty conscience now.

Fritzl was found guilty on all charges including rape, incest, enslavement, imprisonment, negligent homicide and slavery. Fritzl’s lawyer said he will not appeal the decison and called it “the logical consequence of his guilty plea,” according to the Times. Just two days earlier, Fritzl refused to plead guilty for the murder of one of his newborn sons, the cornerstone of the case against him. The baby, one of twins, developed breathing problems just 66 hours after birth. Fritzl refused to seek medical help and as a result, the child passed away.

Three of the seven children Fritzl fathered with his daughter were raised in the house by him and his wife. Fritzl led his wife to believe his daughter had run away from home at a young age and had abandoned the young children at home for them to care for. Elisabeth Fritzl was, all the while, living in a windowless cellar in the basement of the very same house.

Fritzl’s plot was discovered after Elisabeth’s eldest daughter, Kerstin, fell gravely ill. Fritzl agreed to seek medical attention and took her to a hospital, an event which provided the first tug on the web of incestuous and horrible behaviour that Fritzl had been weaving for nearly a quarter of a century.

Due to his age, it is unlikely Fritzl will ever be released. However, in 15 years, if he is still living, a panel of judges will decide if he is fit to re-enter normal society. I seriously doubt that is going to happen.

It went down like this. Several prisoners would play cards at a strategically placed table blocking the guards’ view, while others dug away at the wall, finally breaking through with a shower rod. Just like in the movies, they used braided bedsheets and blankets to make their way down the side wall, and finally escape.

“Idle hands are the Devil’s tools,” claims the Saskatchewan government report, referring to the fact that prisoners at Regina Correctional Center have very little to do. ”They tend to gravitate toward doing whatever they can get away with.”

The report made 23 recommendations for improvements in security for holding such prisoners, all of which were accepted. The government will spend $68 million to construct a new facility, and another few million to bolster security in existing facilities.

According to the report, more than 80 prisoners had supervised the six men without seeing anything. Some thought something was being planned, but none of the guards intervened or asked the prisoners anything.

Pretty ridiculous. If you’re a prison guard and you have a bad feeling about some murder victims, you should probably act on it. You know, for the good of the people and stuff.

Muntader al-Zaidi, a journalist, was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison for the shoe throwing ordeal, charged with aggression towards a visiting head of state, a crime that carries a maximum 15 year jail sentence in Iraq.

Zaidi pleaded not guilty before Judge Abdulamir Hassan al-Rubaie, arguing that in that one moment, he was overcome with a brutal passion as he remembered the scores of civilians that had been killed in his home land, all because of Bush.

“I am innocent. It was a natural reaction to the crime of occupation…In that moment, I saw nothing but Bush, and I felt the blood of the innocents flowing under his feet while he was smiling that smile,” he said at the hearing, according to the New York Times.

The trial was set to take place a while ago, but was postponed while the judge took time to decide whether or not Bush’s trip to Iraq was an official visit. Since Bush spoke in the Green Zone which is controlled by American Military, it could be argued that his visit was not official. The judge however decided that the visit was official.

Zaidi was tried, oddly, in Iraq’s Central Criminal Court, a court set aside for major cases including terrorism. Zaidi’s lawyers – all 18 of them – said they would appeal the decision.

As Zaidi, who has been in prison since the incident, approached the courthouse before his hearing, scores of followers greeted him outside chanting “hero.”

It’s clear the Iraqi people don’t like the ruling.

One of the officials said that Gitmo’s approach has failed to prosecute terrorists on several accounts.

There was some speculation that Obama would wait a while to close the prison, after his answer on ABC’s “This Week” to whether he would shut the prison down in his first 100 days was a little ambiguous.

With this news, speculation has effectively been squashed.

Gitmo is not in keeping with Obama’s idea of national security. The prison has a long history of torture, and Obama’s view for the new America cannot and will not be associated with such a place.

Great move.