Milestones

SENTENCED

Murder is among the most heinous of crimes, but the slaying of Marwa el-Sherbini, a pregnant 31-year-old Egyptian, was more terrible than most. During a July 1 hearing in Dresden, Germany, Russian-born Alex Wiens, in court to appeal his conviction for spewing racial epithets at el-Sherbini, leaped from the defendant's dock and stabbed her to death. Wiens then turned his knife on el-Sherbini's husband, who was mistakenly shot by police in the scuffle. (He survived.) Recognizing a "special burden of guilt," the court sentenced Wiens to life in prison on Nov. 11. The case, which sparked protests across the Muslim world, has taken on a broader resonance. Outraged Muslims have dubbed el-Sherbini, who wore a hijab, the "headscarf martyr," making her a symbol of the hostility Muslims face in the West. Germany's Foreign Secretary, intent on heading off wider conflict, declared that the judgment "makes it very clear that violence, racial intolerance and hatred have no place in Germany."