Category: The Sunday Times

God wants to say a few words. General Ratko Mladic — known by many during the war as “the Butcher of Bosnia”, but who preferred his self-appointed nickname, “God” — is anxious to address the court. This is most irregular. At pre-trial hearings, such as the one now under way in Court 3 of the…

Power is not a sports car, or a thousand dollar suit, or a first-class plane ticket. It’s not a supermodel on your arm, or a 1996 Dom Perignon in your fridge. That’s just money. No, power is walking into a London hotel room at the age of 64, as Steven Spielberg has just done, wearing…

Sammy Wanjiru lived as he ran: fast. In a country overflowing with talent, he was one of the finest athletes Kenya ever produced – a man who broke world records as a teenager, a serial marathon winner, and an Olympic gold medallist. But it was not just his results that made him special. Kenya has…

On a bright spring morning, Joseph “Chubs” Lee is working his trainer hard. He pummels his coach’s outstretched palms. Bang. Right hook. Bang, bang. Right hook, left hook. Then four straight punches. Bang bang, bang bang. When his fists reach their target, the reports reverberate around the room. Joseph’s session finishes with one more shot.…

There are two things Alain Robert has never desired: safety or permission. For the past 17 years, the 48-year-old Frenchman known as the Human Spider has scaled most of the world’s tallest skyscrapers — without ropes, usually illegally, and with scant regard for consequence. The reasons he does so are numerous and complex, but there…

Latif Yahia, who claims to have been a body double for Saddam Hussein’s sadistic son, Uday, has just had his life story turned into a Hollywood film. But is Yahia all he seems? There are some life stories that were just made for the movies. Latif Yahia’s, surely, is one of them. It is because…

What turned a conscientious schoolboy from a comprehensive in Wales into the forgotten man of the WikiLeaks affair? Jordan Davis doesn’t have the words. He wants to write a letter to a friend in need, but something is stopping him. It should be no problem. He has the address — Inmate Bradley Manning, Marine Corps…

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was an environmental, political and financial catastrophe that killed 11 men. It was also completely avoidable. Jason Anderson was an oilfield man to the soles of his cowboy boots. When he was relaxing — home from working the rig at his isolated country house in Midfield,…

Michael Clohessy returned from Iraq with a distinguished war record — and ended up in prison. Our jails are swollen with former soldiers. Why can’t they stay out of trouble? When the sniper opened fire, Michael Clohessy reacted first and fastest. It was the summer of 2004, and the 26-year-old private from Walton in Liverpool…

Tony Judt is dying, cruelly. Eighteen months ago the British historian — a professor of European history at New York University and the author of Postwar, a bravura history of the continent since 1945 — was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Known in the US as Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS is a motor neurone…