Yousef Nadarkhani is currently serving a ten year sentence after being accused of crimes against the state linked to the running of churches.

He’s written to authorities saying his refusal to eat is a “cry of a father, unjustly imprisoned”.

The pastor took extreme action after hearing his 15 year old son Yoel had been told he could not return to school as he had not completed Islamic studies. Religious minorities are normally exempt from this class.

His 17 year old son Daniel has also been denied a school report card which is needed to enroll onto a higher education course.

They’re being targeted because authorities say children of Christian converts should be treated as Muslims.

Nadarkhani says this shouldn’t apply because he never practiced Islam prior to his conversion.

He says his hunger strike is for his own children but also other Christian youngsters who are targeted.

Religious freedom charity Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) is campaigning on his behalf.

Chief executive Mervyn Thomas said: “CSW is deeply concerned that Pastor Nadarkhani’s children have been denied access to education on account of their religious beliefs.

“Even more disturbing are indications that other second generation Christian children are experiencing similar difficulties.

“This directly contravenes a Supreme Leader’s fatwa permitting children raised in Christian homes to access…

The appointment of Giuseppe Pignatone came two days after Vatican police raided the Apostolic Palace and seized documents and computers from the secretariat of state.

Also searched were the offices of the Vatican’s financial watchdog agency, which is tasked with flagging possible money laundering and other suspicious financial transactions.

The Vatican press office declined to comment further on the raids, saying only that they were based on a report from the Vatican bank and auditor general’s office about past financial operations.

L’Espresso magazine said the transactions concerned the Vatican’s London property holdings.

The magazine reproduced what it said was a Vatican police directive announcing the precautionary suspension of five Vatican employees.

Mr Pignatone retired in May as chief prosecutor in Rome, where he led investigations into political corruption and organised crime as well as Italy’s probe into the suspicious death in Egypt of an Italian graduate student.

Previously Mr Pignatone had been prosecutor in Palermo, Sicily and Reggio Calabria, where he handled major anti-Mafia investigations into the Cosa Nostra and ‘ndrangheta.

The Vatican’s criminal tribunal handles crimes that occur on Vatican territory or involving Vatican diplomats.

The penal code is based on the Italian criminal code with elements of canon law.

Some of the tribunal’s most…

CCTV caught a person in a hoodie and baseball cap breaking into the rooms behind the church on Sunday morning and leafing through their items.

He stole five bank cards, mobile phones, an apple laptop and cash.

He had entered All Saints Northampton in time for the morning service and received a “hymnbook and a warm welcome” according to director of music, Jem Lowarth.

Mr Lowarth, 27, was in the church at the time and told Premier: “Our service started at 10.30, it ended around 11.45 and it was pretty quickly after that the choir members started reporting that some of their things were missing.

“We were singing, taking part in the liturgy as we do every single Sunday…I was playing the organ, I was playing the first hymn while the events took place.

“A nine year old girl was particularly upset, especially at the beginning. She was obviously sad she lost her things. She was also worried that parents would be angry at her for having lost them, which, of course, wasn’t the case.”

Mr Lowarth explained that the culprit seemed to have been checking out the church for a few days.

“He’d been hanging around the church, I was told, on Saturday – and earlier in the week – and actually on Sunday he was in the church. Before the service, he was handed the service leaflets and a hymn book and, seeing the choir process in, seeing the first hymn, was his hint that the choir rooms…

State District Judge Tammy Kemp also hugged her and gave her a Bible.

Brandt Jean, 18, said he was not speaking on behalf of his family but he himself did not want Amber Guygan to even go to prison.

Brandt’s older brother Botham Jean was murdered last September aged 26 when Amber Guygan, 31, claims she walked into his unlocked flat, thinking it was her own, and shot him.

She lived on the floor below and thought he was an intruder, when he was actually sitting eating ice cream in his own flat.

Guyger was sentenced on Wednesday for 10 years, something Jean’s mother has criticised saying it is not long enough.

Botham was an accountant for PwC but also lead Bible studies for the young adults in his church, Dallas West Church of Christ, and led worship at his Christian university.

Jessica Berry, a close friend of his and also a member of the church said shortly after his death: “It’s like a big chunk of the church’s heart has been ripped out.”

Brandt Jean said in court: “I don’t want to say twice or for the hundredth time how much you’ve taken from us, I think you know that but I just hope you go to God with all the guilt, all the bad things you may have done in the past.

“Each and every one of us may have done something that we’re not supposed to do. If you truly are sorry, I know, I can speak for myself, I forgive you…