Date:11/03/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/03/11/stories/2006031103681400.htm

International

Jail for tennis father

PARIS: An obsessive French father accused of drugging his children's tennis rivals, and unintentionally killing one of them, was jailed for eight years on Thursday. Christophe Fauviau (46), was found guilty of manslaughter. One of the players whose drink he had spiked, died after losing control of his car on the way home from a match. Fauviau had faced a potential 20 years in jail for ``premeditated administration of a harmful substance that caused death without intention''. But the advocate general, Serge Mackowiak, called for a lighter sentence of between eight and 10 years. He accepted that Fauviau had not sought to kill or injure the players. However, the prosecutor described the defendant as ``an adult who turned his children into objects of his own fantasies of success''. —