[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 29


INDONESIA:

Govt won't appeal against Bali bombers' executions: Downer


Mr Downer says the bombers knew all along that murdering people in
Indonesia brings the death penalty. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says
the Government will not appeal to Indonesia to stop the execution of three
men convicted of playing key roles in the 2002 Bali bombings.

The Australian arm of Amnesty International is urging people to lobby
Indonesian authorities to save the men as part of an ongoing campaign
against capital punishment.

The 3 bombers will soon face a firing squad over the bomb attacks which
killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

Mr Downer says the bombers are Indonesian citizens and the Australian
Government will not intervene.

"The sense of anger towards them knows no bounds and I think if they get
executed, well, they knew all along that in a country like Indonesia, if
you murder people that brings the death penalty."

(source: ABC Online Australia)






GLOBAL:

Italian FM says death penalty moratorium could succeed due to shift in
public opinion


Italy's quest for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty faces stiff
opposition from countries including the United States, but a shift in
international public opinion against capital punishment could lead to its
success, Italy's foreign minister said Friday.

"I think there is a change in mood, of public opinion," Foreign Minister
Massimo D'Alema said in an interview, noting that 130 countries have now
abolished the death penalty. "Over the years we have taken some great
steps forward, which means it's possible. There are international
pressures, a maturing of public opinion. Things are changing."

D'Alema spoke following a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General
Assembly during which representatives from 101 countries agreed to form a
task force to pursue the moratorium and draft a General Assembly
resolution. The resolution will need 97 votes in the 192-member U.N.
General Assembly to pass.

"This is a positive sign, it is not the solution," D'Alema cautioned,
noting that powerful countries that apply the death penalty, including
China, the United States and Singapore, are likely to lobby against it.

"It is one thing to attend an event, it is another to vote for it because
we can expect maybe, much lobbying against (the moratorium), and these are
countries that have a great influence," D'Alema said.

The meeting was hosted by Italy and Portugal, which holds the rotating
European Union presidency. It included representatives from South Africa,
Burundi, Senegal, Angola, Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, the Ukraine and
Russia. China sent an observer, D'Alema said. Human rights organizations
including Amnesty International also attended the event, and East Timor
President Jose Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace prize winner, was among the
speakers.

Italy began a diplomatic push against the death penalty after the Dec. 30
execution in Iraq of Saddam Hussein and has been lobbying for months to
get support.

Past lobbying by Italy for U.N. action to strike down the death penalty in
1994 and 1999 was unsuccessful, partly because of opposition from the
United States, which has executed more than 40 people this year and about
1,100 people since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to
resume in 1976.

Earlier this week, Richard A. Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to
the United Nations, declined to speculate how the United States would vote
on a resolution calling for a moratorium, but said a decision about the
death penalty in the U.S. is best left to the state and federal
goverments.

Recently, many U.S. states have been examining their use of lethal
injection, and on Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a
challenge from two Kentucky death row inmates who claim lethal injection
amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. The court also halted Thursday
the execution of a Texas man convicted of killing his parents.

"There is a situation now where civilized societies, the world of culture,
of law, is questioning this topic of the death penalty," D'Alema said.

On Tuesday, Premier Romano Prodi called for the moratorium in his address
to world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, saying it would guarantee
greater justice around the globe and an end to cultures of vengeance.

D'Alema said Italy aims to have a vote in December.

"Our objective, which was approved by the European Union ... is to come to
a vote during this 62nd General Assembly of the United Nations," he said.

(source: Associated Press)






JAPAN:

Supreme Court upholds gangster's death penalty for slayings


The Supreme Court upheld the death penalty Friday for a former gangster
who killed 2 people in 2 separate cases in 2000. Since defendant Ryoji
Goto, 49, confessed in October 2005 to his involvement in 3 other murders
after he appealed to the final court against a lower court-issued death
sentence for the 2 murder cases, his lawyers have demanded he be retried.

The top court's 2nd petty bench dismissed his appeal, finalizing the death
sentence.

According to the lower court ruling, Goto, a former senior member of an
underworld syndicate, conspired with another former gangster who has been
imprisoned for life, in killing a 33-year-old male acquaintance by dumping
him in a river in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture, in July 2000.

In August that year, Goto conspired with 5 others to confine four people,
including a 24-year-old woman, in an apartment in Utsunomiya, Tochigi
Prefecture, due to trouble within the gang. He then killed the woman by
injecting her with a large amount of stimulants and injured the other 3.

Of the 3 cases for which Goto filed a petition with the Ibaraki
Prefectural Police, one in which a 67-year-old company president was
killed for insurance money has been confirmed and backed up by evidence.
Goto was subsequently indicted in the case in February, but the other 2
remain unconfirmed.

The murder-for-insurance case occurred between the 2 incidents for which
Goto was sentenced to death, leading his lawyers to say that he should
therefore be retried.

Aside from Goto, 3 family members of the victim have been sentenced from
13 to 15 years in prison.

(source: Kyodo News)