[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 13



SAUDI ARABIA----female executions

Women executed by sword in Saudi Arabia


2 Saudi women and 2 Yemeni men have been executed by the sword for separate 
murders, the interior ministry says, bringing the number of executions there to 
at least 62 this year.

Suad bint Hosni al-Enzi and her sister Muna were convicted of murdering Namsha 
bint Khozaim al-Enzi after breaking into her house, the ministry said in a 
statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

The 1st woman stabbed the victim to death while the second held her daughter to 
prevent her from rescuing her mother.

Both women were executed in Riyadh overnight.

In the 2nd case, two Yemenis were condemned after storming a house near the Red 
Sea city of Jeddah and killing an Ethiopian guard, the ministry said.

The pair were executed in Jeddah.

On Tuesday, the UN human rights office expressed distress at Saudi Arabia's 
execution of 10 men, including 8 Bangladeshis, and urged the ultra-conservative 
kingdom to place a moratorium on the death penalty.

The 8 Bangladeshis were beheaded on Saturday for stealing goods from a 
warehouse and leaving its Egyptian guard to die.

On the same day, 2 Saudis were also beheaded.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable 
by death under the oil-rich Gulf state's strict interpretation of Islamic 
sharia law.

(source: Perth Now)






KENYA:

2 convicts to face the hangman


High court judge Mohamed Warsame has faulted a 2009 presidential decree that 
commuted the sentences of 4,000 people on death row to life imprisonment and an 
appellate court ruling that declared the mandatory death penalty for murder 
unconstitutional.

While delivering a sentence to two murder suspects accused of killing the son 
of former Gatundu North Member of parliament Patrick Muiruri Wednesday, Warsame 
said the decision was in breach of the constitution.

In the month of August 2009, President Mwai Kibaki announced that more than 
4,000 prisoners on death row will have their sentences commuted to life 
imprisonment in a move meant to ease the mental anguish of prison inmates.

At the time, the president insisted that the decree did not mean that courts 
will stop issuing death sentences but said he had directed the government to 
assess whether the punishment was having any impact on the fight against crime.

It was a pronouncement that attracted censure from high court Judge Mohamed 
Warsame while sentencing to death a police inspector and a businessman charged 
in connection with the killing former Assistant Minister Patrick Muiruri son.

Warsame convicted Inspector Dickson Munene and Alex Chepkonga for the 2009 
murder.

The two were found guilty of the murder last week but the judge put the 
sentencing on hold to give the State time to prepare a victim-impact statement 
from the family of Muiruri, the former Gatundu North MP.

In a landmark decision the Court of Appeal had in 2010 declared the mandatory 
death penalty for murder to be unconstitutional.

In their unanimous judgment, the Court of Appeal ruled that the automatic 
nature of the death penalty in Kenya for murder violates the right to life and 
amounts to inhuman punishment, as it does not provide the individuals concerned 
with an opportunity to mitigate their death sentences.

The last known official executions in Kenya were in 1987.

Among those hanged then were Hezekiah Ochuka and Pancras Oteyo Okumu, accused 
of masterminding the Aug. 1, 1982 attempted coup.

(source: KBC News)