Australian woman accused of murdering husband in Bahamas found not guilty in retrial

NASSAU (Reuters) – An Australian woman previously convicted of her husband’s murder in the Bahamas was found not guilty on Thursday in a retrial.

Donna Vasyli was charged with stabbing Phillip Vasyli, a millionaire podiatrist and her husband of three decades, to death in 2015 at their home in the Caribbean nation.

Her conviction, which had come with a 20-year prison sentence, was later thrown out by the Bahamas Court of Appeal in 2017 which cited a mishandling of the trial by the judge. A retrial was ordered and she was released from jail.

The jury’s not-guilty verdict on Thursday was unanimous.

Vasyli was “relieved” by the verdict, her lawyer Owen Wells told Reuters. “Her life was put on hold for eight years.”

(Reporting by Jared Higgs in Nassau and Isabel Woodford in Mexico City; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)