A teenage boy from Pennsylvania has been convicted of murdering his mother by slitting her throat during a holiday in India.
The 16-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sentenced on Monday to three years in an Indian juvenile detention centre for killing Cynthia Iannarelli, 51, in the popular tourist state of Rajasthan last August.
He attacked her with a knife, wrapped her body in a sheet and left it on a sand dune before being arrested when trying to board a flight back to the United States, a court in the city of Jodhpur heard.
Local reports from the Reggies Camel Camp resort in Osian said the boy had been demanding that his mother, a business consultant, get back together with his father, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
More than 30 people testified during the six-month trial, but assistant public prosecutor NK Sankhla said there were no eyewitnesses to the crime and the murder weapon had never been found.
Police said they had found the teenager's bloodied clothes.
The boy wrote a letter to the court pleading his innocence and his lawyers said he would challenge the verdict.
“Since there was no eyewitness, there is a strong case for an appeal,” defending counsel RD Mehra said. - Sapa-AFP