[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 15




CANADA:

Victims' families hope for parole reform


Notorious child killer Clifford Olson won't be dragging the families of
his 11 young victims through hell this summer.

This is their year off -- a chance to plan a vacation or lounge in the
yard, unencumbered by thoughts of once again staring down the grinning
psychopath who violently ended the lives of their sons, daughters,
brothers and sisters more than 25 years ago.

They won't be sitting around the kitchen table, sobbing as they craft
victim impact statements aimed at reminding a younger generation of
National Parole Board officials why the self-proclaimed "Beast of B.C."
should never be set free.

Next year, however, will be a different story.

Despite the many inroads victims of crime have made since the early 1990s
-- in large part the result of years of pressure from the families of
Olson's victims -- even the most prolific mass murderers can seek parole
every two years after serving 25 years of a life sentence.

Since the death penalty was abolished in 1976, 1,082 people have been
convicted of 1st-degree murder, statistics from Correctional Services
Canada indicate. Of those, 768 are currently incarcerated. Another 191 are
either deceased, on bail, have been transferred to a foreign country or
had their sentences quashed.

Of those who remain incarcerated, 64 have reached or passed their 25-year
parole eligibility date. Another 70 have been granted parole after serving
the minimum 25 years, while 51 managed to get out prior to the 25-year
mark either on day parole, because they were convicted as young offenders
or were granted early parole following a judicial review of their case.

Olson marked his 25th year behind bars in 2006, and got a parole hearing
July 18. It cost the government about $900 to staff it and another $8,000
to bring the relatives of Olson's victims to his prison in
Ste-Anne-Des-Plaines, Que.

Courtesy of a new financial assistance program for victims of crime, the
seven families who attended Olson's hearing are among 647 victims to
receive compensation to attend parole hearings since the program launched
in November 2005. The government has already doled out about $530,000 as
part of the initiative.

Olson brutally ended the life of Gary Rosenfeldt's 16-year-old son Daryn,
fuelling the father's 23-year career spent pressing for legislative reform
and helping victims cope with tragedy and the murky waters of the justice
system.

Rosenfeldt's organization, Victims of Violence, successfully lobbied for
victims to be allowed to attend parole hearings in the first place. Now
he's arguing that some hearings, such as Olson's, simply shouldn't be
taking place at all.

"Most victims want to participate," Rosenfeldt said. "They want to be part
of it and in a sense we do too, but the problem with our case and a few
others like it is there's some cases that just don't have the merit."

With the appointment in April of a new federal ombudsman for victims of
crime, Rosenfeldt hopes he won't have to spend next year reliving his
son's tragic fate for another parole hearing.

The latest in a string of good-news announcements for victims of crime by
both the previous Liberal government and Stephen Harper's Conservatives,
the ombudsman position is being heralded as a major coup for the rights of
victims.

Newly appointed ombudsman Steve Sullivan said part of his role will be to
advise the government on policies that tend to revictimize victims, such
as the parole issue.

"I think it's fair to say that the current process isn't working from the
perspective of victims of crime and that it's emotional and painful for
people to go through these things every two years," said Sullivan, a
former research director with Victims of Violence and past president of
the Canadian Research Centre for Victims of Crime.

There are those, however, who caution against eroding the rights of those
behind bars.

Craig Jones, the new executive director of the John Howard Society of
Canada, said it's dangerous to start formulating law on the basis of a few
extreme cases.

"It's due process and due process of law protects even that small handful
because it protects everybody, or tries to," said Jones.

(source: Guelph Mercury)






BRUNEI:

Tutong Murder: Man Charged


Public prosecutors yesterday filed murder charges against a local
20-year-old man in the killing of a couple at a residential area in Tutong
almost 3 weeks ago.

Prosecutors charged Mohd Hazri Besar with 2 counts of manslaughter, but
the court has yet to take the plea from the accused.

The next hearing has been fixed for July 28.

A relative found the bodies of the deceased couple, Joffri Ahmad Juni and
Desrona Jumat, lying on the compound of their residence in Kg Telamba,
Tutong district about 2pm. He then alerted relatives before making a call
to the police.

A large crowd gathered outside the court yesterday while the hearing
proceeded.

Bus driver Joffri, 41, left behind 10 children, 6 from a previous marriage
and four from his second wife, Desrona, aged 35. The couple married in
1995.

The accused, who has been detained in custody since June 30 following a
public tip-off, will be further remanded in Jerudong prison for the next 2
weeks. It is believed that the accused is a neighbour of the victims.

The police have yet to disclose the reasons for ruling the case as murder,
or any information with regards possible motives for the murder.

If found guilty, Mohd Hazri will face the death penalty pursuant, to
Section 302 of the Penal Code (Chapter 22).

The court is still awaiting DNA forensic test results to arrive from
Singapore.

(source: The Brunei Times)






NIGERIA:

Will you take the job of a hangman?----Killers for the nations


There are so many countries that still apply capital punishment that
recommend people who commit certain offences to face the executioner in
whatever manner. Some countries use the electric chair, some apply
poisonous injections, some countries in the Arabian world still sharpen
their cutlasses and with a single fatal blow sever the head off the torso.

A certain Nigerian suffered that fate in Saudi Arabia last year while
Tochi Amara Iwuchukwu, a Nigerian also was hanged in Singapore for drug
offence.

In Nigeria, the law defines hanging by the neck until confirmed dead. The
list of Nigerians who get confirmed to be hanged by the Supreme Court
every year is a long one.

But there is a major problem in the execution of such court orders - the
hangmen are nowhere to be found.

Ironically, unless they are there to carry out the sentence as defined by
law, every other means of execution is extrajudicial and would be deemed
an act of murder. So as you read, can you give Nigeria hope of filling the
vacuum? Hear what other Nigerians said to this poser:

How do you ask a titled man such question? - Chief Sunny Onyolu

Does that mean you journalist do not have any other thing to do? How can
you ask a titled man like me if I want to be a hangman? God forbid. Those
who do that job are not normal beings. That is why the job can never be
advertised. Tell those that sent you that I am not interested, if that is
the only job to do I better join the beggars on the streets.

It's a good job - PDP leader

Peoples Democratic Party youth leader in Abia State, John Oguelu Okwun,
says he will gladly welcome the job of a hangman with open hands if that
will lead to sanitising the society. Okwun notes that people who commit
crimes which punishment is death by hanging should face the hangman.

According to him, he doesn't see any thing wrong or bad with the job of an
executioner and cannot fathom why people should avoid such job. " Who will
do the hangman's job if everybody runs away from it? So it means that
criminals who should die by hanging should be set free."

"If the job is offered to me, I will not hesitate to take it and I will
gladly see to the execution of the enemies of the society no matter their
number. No, I'm a Christian - Eke,community leader

For Chief Cheche Eke, a community leader, taking the job of hangman is
against his Christian faith which is against killing and so will not touch
it no matter the price tag on it. "The Bible says, thou shall not kill no
matter the circumstance. In line with this biblical injunction, I will not
take a job that will involve killing a fellow being."

When asked who should do the job if everybody turns it down, he maintains
that somebody should do it but it must not be him.

Count me out - businessman

Eme Igwe, Church elder and businessman, says, he will not come an inch
close to accepting the offer of a hangman's job because of his Christian
faith which forbids killing.

It is a sympathetic job - Anonymous

I will be hangman for free. It would be done based on sympathy. I can do
it to assist the condemned criminal from having brain turmoil. When he was
condemned by the judge that was the day his spirit left this world. This
man is between life and death. I will only be a saviour sent to hasten his
journey to meet his maker.

God forbid - Ngozi Nwachukwu,evangelist

God forbid. I cannot stand and see God's creature being hanged. No matter
how horrible the person's offence is, there is room for repentance. Even
if a prophet would appear today and say that he was told, I rather disobey
God than be a hangman. Don't even try to convince me, it is not humanly
possible.

Yes, only as last resort - Jonathan, police officer

It is just like any other job. Everybody cannot be a doctor, someone must
do the job of a hangman. So long as it is legal, it is a job. and God has
appointed that kind of job for some people.

For me I can do the job but that would be if it is the only job left on
earth.

It is a good offer - Owesile, a lawyer says that he would comfortably take
the job. "It is the law that condemned a convict, not me. I will only be
doing my job".

Abolish capital punishment - Anonymous

At my age I cannot even kill a fowl not to talk of a goat. You are now
asking me to hang a human being. In my own opinion that law that condemns
one to death should be abolished. Why must one end a life that you did not
create. Looking at it, the law that says one should be hanged is meant to
punish. That is no punishment. You are only sending that criminal home at
ease. Send him to jail with hard labor. Let him stay alive and feel the
agony he made people to pass through. Let the law be abolished.

It could be taken, but not me - Ugwo, Accountant

Everyone has got a profession. For him, he is an accountant and will never
come close to taking the job hanging human beings because his Christian
faith abhors killing. Any one can take up such a job but not me.

Thou shall not kill - Uche, Architect

Life is sacrosanct. According to him, no one should kill another no matter
the reason. He maintains that people are bound to make mistakes and should
be given opportunity to remedy such mistakes. " I don't support death
penalty or killing in any form. Life is so sacrosanct. The society should
put in place ways for the condemned to remedy their mistakes."

I wont take job - Slvester, Okadaman

He says he can not kill and so cannot dream of taking up such job.
According to him, after hanging others, when you meet God, your creator at
death, what reason will you give Him for killing people? It is not good to
kill. "We should device a suitable punishment for the condemned criminals
instead of hanging them."

With good pay, I will - Taofeek, an Okadaman doesn't see why the hangman's
job should be an issue. He says he will take the job if the remuneration
is good. According to him, the hangman is not the one killing the
condemned. They killed themselves by committing crime. The law helpled
them by finishing what they started. If the salary is better than riding
okada with all the risks on the road, I will choose the hangman's job."

It will be fun to hang robbers - It will be fun to hand robber was
Waisu's, a welder response. He says he will derive pleasure in hanging
condemned criminals especially, armed robbers, to assuage his ordeals in
their hands. " It is not good to kill but I wouldn't mind taking the job
of hanging armed robbers because of what they have done to me."

(source: Daily Sun)


LIBYA:

The families of 438 children infected with the AIDS virus in Libya have
accepted $US1 million ($1.16 million) in compensation each, opening the
way for 6 accused foreign medics to escape death row, a source close to
the case said today.

"The families have apparently accepted the principal of $USS1 million in
compensation (per family)," the source said, speaking on condition of
anonymity.

Libya's supreme court last week confirmed the death penalty against five
Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted in May 2004 of
deliberately infecting the children with HIV-tainted blood at a hospital
in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

Fifty-six of the children have since died of the disease.

However, the Gaddafi Foundation, a charitable body headed by the son of
the Libyan leader, announced earlier in the week that a financial
compromise had been reached with the victims' families that could see the
death sentences commuted.

Libya's top legal body is due to meet next week to examine that deal.

The spokesman for the children's families, Idriss Lagha, repeated on
Thursday that they were open to a settlement that would see the medics
freed, in accordance, he said, with the Islamic principles of forgiveness
and clemency.

This "deal also opens the way to the possibility that the death sentence
will be commuted to a life prison term that could be served in Bulgaria,"
one of the lawyers for the families, Frenchman Emmanuel Altit, said today.

The source close to the case meanwhile said the more than $US400 million
($462 million) compensation deal "does not mean (the families) will
receive any money in the end".

Some European Union countries such as Croatia and the Czech Republic could
"erase Libya's debt to them to show their goodwill and help advance this
case", she said.

"It is in everyone's interest to maintain the confusion, since this
compromise enters into the framework of a larger accord between Libya and
the Western countries."

A Scottish review panel's decision late last month to grant a Libyan man
jailed for the 1988 bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie the right to a
second appeal "is obviously part of a more wide-reaching deal" connected
to the Bulgarian nurses, she said.

Following the Scottish announcement, a high-ranking Libyan official said
Tripoli was likely to show more "flexibility" in the case of the foreign
medics.

(source: Courier Mail, Australia)






IRAN----public execution of female

Rare public execution for woman in Iran


An Iranian woman who killed her husband and paid 2 men to murder 3 of her
in-laws has been hanged along with her 2 accomplices at a joint execution
watched by thousands of people, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The woman, identified only as Houriyeh, 29, and the 2 men were sentenced
to death for the murders 3 months ago in northwestern Iran, the Teheran-e
Emrouz daily said on Sunday. They were hanged on Saturday.

Hanging is the most usual form of execution in Iran but women are rarely
executed in public.

The daily published a picture of Houriyeh, and the 2 men, Farhad and Reza,
hauled into the air by ropes attached to cranes. Houriyeh was wearing a
head-to-toe black chador.

The newspaper said the woman had strangled her husband while he slept. The
same night her two male accomplices, who were paid 1 billion rials
($108,000), strangled her husbands parents and stabbed his brother to
death, it added.

'She had serious problems with her husband and hated his family. She hired
Farhad and Reza to kill her brother-in-law and his parents,' an unnamed
judiciary official told the paper.

The case attracted great public interest and about 5,000 people, including
judiciary and police officials, gathered to watch the hangings.

Murder, rape, adultery, armed robbery, apostasy and drug trafficking are
all punishable by death under Iran's Islamic Sharia law, imposed since the
1979 Islamic revolution.

(source: Reuters)






SAUDI ARABIA----execution

Pakistani man beheaded for murder


Saudi Arabia yesterday beheaded by the sword a Pakistani man convicted of
murder, the interior ministry said, bringing to 104 the number of
executions announced by the kingdom this year.

Abdul Karim Al Rahman was executed in the holy city of Makkah for stabbing
to death a Bangladeshi man, Yacoub Miyah, following an argument, the
ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

The numbers of executions so far this year is the highest since 113 people
were put to death during the whole of 2000.

(source: The Peninsula)