Life sentence in India rape case

A court in the Indian state of Rajasthan has sentenced a guest house owner to life imprisonment for raping a British journalist.

The accused, Parbat Singh, was also fined 25,000 rupees ($625; £312).

The trial, which concluded within four months of the charges being brought against Singh, is one of the fastest in India's usually slow legal system.

This is the third such conviction handed out by special fast-track courts in Rajasthan in the past three years.

The 40-year-old female journalist was raped in the guest house in the town of Udaipur last December.

Police arrested Singh in January after the journalist informed the British High Commission in the capital, Delhi, of the incident.

In 2006, a court in Rajasthan sentenced the son of a top police official to seven years in prison for raping a German student.

The trial was completed in 10 working days.

In 2005, a similar court handed out a life sentence to two men in Rajasthan for abducting and raping a German tourist.

Both trials were unusually swift for India, where courts often take years to hand out verdicts.