Life Imprisonment

Former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam was sentenced to life imprisonment, ending a 12-year trial on charges of genocide and other crimes committed during his rule. Mengistu, tried in absentia, is unlikely to ever spend a day behind bars, however, as he lives comfortably in exile in Zimbabwe, which says it won't deport him as long as he refrains from political activity.

The only attacker known to have survived the 2004 Beslan school siege, which ended with the deaths of 331 hostages, was convicted of murder Friday and sentenced to life imprisonment. The sentence triggered anger among some victims' relatives who had demanded that the defendant be executed, but others supported the decision.

A nurse in Lucerne, Switzerland, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of 22 elderly patients in nursing homes over a six-year period. Roger Andermatt, 36, killed the patients, mostly women between ages 66 and 95, with injections or by smothering them. He said he had acted to end their suffering, and because he and his colleagues were overburdened.

An Israeli military court sentenced a Palestinian militant to 67 terms of life imprisonment for preparing bombs -- in belts, a computer case and a guitar case -- that killed dozens of people. The court said Abdullah Barghouthi of the Hamas group confessed and "boasted he had trained dozens of 'engineers' who he hoped would carry out even more deadly attacks."

NORTHERN IRELAND A former Protestant guerrilla was sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1989 killing of Catholic lawyer Pat Finucane. Kenneth Barrett, who was also a police informer, was ordered to serve a minimum of 22 years. He had admitted the charge and 11 other offenses. Barrett, 41, was one of two gunmen who burst into Finucane's Belfast home while he was dining and shot him 14 times. The lawyer had defended Irish Republican Army suspects.

A German law student who kidnapped and murdered the 11-year-old heir to a private banking dynasty was sentenced to life imprisonment. Magnus Gaefgen, 28, confessed to abducting Jakob von Metzler in September 2002 and killing him. He was arrested one day after collecting a ransom of about $1 million.

It was nearly 3 p.m. on a wet, blustery afternoon when Bob Simon arrived at East Jerusalem's American Colony Hotel in a trench coat, his battered 40-year-old attache case belying how high his star is ascending at CBS News. The week's agenda: interviews for a "60 Minutes II" story on Palestinian young women-turned-suicide bombers.

Adriana Vasco, the Anaheim woman convicted of arranging a murder that took the life of a doctor she had had an affair with as well as his wife, was sentenced Friday to life imprisonment without hope of parole. Vasco, a 35-year-old mother of two and former medical receptionist, wept and pleaded for forgiveness during the proceeding.

The state Supreme Court rejected prosecutors' requests for life imprisonment of a man who served as a lookout during a double murder when he was 15. Leon Miller, 20, agreed on the spur of the moment in 1997 to stand watch while Chicago gang members killed two members of a rival group. He was tried as an adult and convicted of murder.

Andrea Yates murdered her children. So said a Texas jury. That jury would now be morally right to vote against killing Yates. Life imprisonment would be the harshest possible sentence for this woman, who, by all indications, cared deeply for her children before she slaughtered them. She has already attempted suicide. It is hard to imagine that a life in which she had to think about her actions would be anything less than a living hell.