FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — An Army officer who shot and killed an Iraqi detainee during an interrogation was convicted of murder last night by a military jury.

First Lt. Michael Behenna of Edmond, Okla., avoided conviction on the more serious charge of premeditated murder in the death of the detainee he took aside for questioning last May. A military panel of seven officers at Fort Campbell also found him guilty of assault but acquitted him of making a false statement after three hours of deliberation.

A sentencing hearing was scheduled for today, and Behenna faces up to life in prison on the murder conviction.

JETS SCRAMBLE FOR RUSSIAN BOMBER

TORONTO — Fighter jets were scrambled to intercept a Russian bomber in the Arctic as it approached Canadian airspace on the eve of President Barack Obama's visit to Ottawa last week, Canada's defense minister said yesterday.

Peter MacKay said the bomber never entered Canadian airspace. But he said two Canadian CF-18 jets met the bomber in international airspace and sent a "strong signal that they should back off."

HOSTAGES USED IN BANK ROBBERY

DUBLIN — Police recovered millions in stolen cash and were interrogating seven suspected robbers today, a day after a gang took a bank employee's family hostage and forced him to rob his own branch.

Six men and a woman were arrested and were being interrogated separately at Dublin police stations.

Yesterday, six armed, masked men stormed into the rural home of Bank of Ireland worker Shane Travers. They tied up his partner, her 5-year-old son and her mother and told Travers they'd be killed unless he cooperated.

CHINA TRIES NEW FOOD-SAFETY LAW

BEIJING — China's legislature enacted a new food-safety law today, promising tougher regulations and severe punishment for makers of bad products after scandals over tainted products showed serious flaws in the food industry.

China's government has been trying to restore confidence in the country's food system since the disclosure in September that infant formula was contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine. The tainted milk is blamed in the deaths of at least six Chinese babies and the sickening of nearly 300,000 others. The law goes into effect June 1.