A Swiss court today 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 children were killed.

Final arguments were to be delivered today in the trial of a Russian architect accused of killing the air traffic controller on duty at the time of a midair plane collision in which his wife and two children were lost.

A Russian man accused of stabbing the air traffic controller who was on duty when his wife and two children were killed in a mid-air collision arrived in court today for the first day of his trial for premeditated murder.

A RUSSIAN architect has told investigators he may have stabbed to death an air traffic controller he blamed for the deaths of his wife and children in a mid-air plane collision, but could not remember doing so.

THE Russian man suspected of killing a Swiss air controller to avenge the death of his family in a mid-air collision was grief-stricken to the point of madness but did not publicly voice any threats, people who knew him said yesterday.