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When Osama Bin Laden was killed, some commentators ranked him alongside Hitler and Stalin as the epitome of evil. After the arrest of Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic, one expert said that he had been in charge of "unbelievably evil things".

Judges in Britain regularly call killers or child abusers evil when passing sentence. But what do people really mean when they label a person evil? Is anybody inherently evil, rather than just committing evil acts? And how useful is it to call a man or woman evil?

In this BBC Heart and Soul Documentary Michael Ford seeks out the opinions of victims and self-confessed perpetrators of evil. He also hears how evil is understood in Christianity and Islam, and what its existence in the world says about God. (BBC)

See the BBC website for this programme.