[Deathpenalty] [SPAM] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 3



BOTSWANA----execution

Death row inmate hanged


The Department of Prison and Rehabilitation confirmed that death row inmate, 
Zibani Thamo, hanged yesterday morning.

In a statement the department says that the execution was carried out on 
Tuesday morning but did not state who carried it out and where the body was 
buried. However, it is common knowledge that prison warders are the one who 
carry out the execution and burial in the prison compound.

Thamo was convicted of the 2007 murder of his girlfriend Sihle Dube. The 
Francistown High Court learnt that Thamo mutilated his girlfriend and scattered 
her pieces along the Tati riverbank. He was sentenced to death in March 2011 
and immediately sought the intervention of the Court of Appeal in September, 
which upheld the sentence.

His execution leaves 3 death row inmates being, Modise Tlhokamolelo, Mangombe 
Tadubane and Gatlhalosamang Gaboakelwe. Thamo's execution brings the number of 
hanged convicts to two since President Ian Khama took office in 2008.

The 1st one was Modise Fly in 2010, who was convicted of the murder of his son 
in Francistown while he was avenging the sour relationship between him and the 
mother of his son. Meanwhile former death row inmates Brandon Sampson and South 
African Michael Molefhe are due for release this year. Prisons spokesman 
Wamorena Ramolefhe would not disclose when the duo is going to walk free nor 
would he reveal where they are currently kept for security reasons.

(source: Mmegi Online)






NIEGERIA:

High court orders hanging for hit men in political murder case


Convicted killers of the activist wife of business mogul Chief Moshood Abiola 
were sentenced to death this week in a long-delayed decision by Nigeria's high 
court.

Alhaja Kudirat Abiola was murdered 16 years ago in a gruesome murder 
orchestrated by an aide to the former military ruler Sani Abacha and a protocol 
officer of her husband as she was being driven to the U.S. embassy. The two 
major conspirators to her death, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha and Alhaji Lafeef 
Sofolahan, received the ultimate penalty at the Lagos High Court sitting at 
Igbosere.

The Abiolas were a distinguished political family. MKO Abiola, a self-declared 
pan-Africanist, was the founder of over a dozen enterprises that included 
banks, ocean liners and a soccer club. He was President of the Nigerian Stock 
Exchange, Patron of the Kwame Nkrumah Foundation and patron of the WEB du Bois 
Foundation, among others.

The Congressional Black Caucus hailed him "as a hero in the global pursuit to 
preserve the history and the legacy of the African diaspora."

MKO's successful run for the presidency was annulled by the military in June 
1993, after which he was jailed by the Sani Abacha regime. This led Kudirat to 
take an active part in the pro-democracy movement, including a role in the 
freedom march in Lagos in 1995.

She was killed on June 4, 1996. The trial is said to be the longest in Nigerian 
history, spanning over 5 judges and the recantations of several witnesses. An 
appeal has already been filed by Major Al-Mustapha, according to the BBC.

(source: New York Amsterdam News)






CHINA:

Death is too high a price for Wu to pay


The death sentence handed last month to businesswoman Wu Ying for fraud has 
prompted a rare unanimous plea for mercy from the mainland public, and rarer 
still, some rational discussions on the use of capital punishment.

If the public's concerns are heeded, this could perhaps also provide impetus 
for a bolder change to death sentence reviews in the upcoming amendment of the 
Criminal Procedure Law.

The 29-year-old Wu, who started her own hair salon at the age of 15 and went on 
to become the billionaire owner of Bense Holding Group in Zhejiang , was 
arrested in 2007 and convicted in 2009 for illegally collecting public funds 
worth up to 770 million yuan (HK$947.6 million) with the intention to defraud.

More recently, on January 18, the Zhejiang High Court upheld the death 
sentence, shooting down defence lawyers' arguments that Wu was only borrowing 
money for an overambitious business that ultimately failed. Now her life is in 
the hands of the Supreme People's Court, which will hold a final review of the 
death sentence soon.

Wu's case has drawn widespread sympathy from the mainland public for several 
reasons. Compared to most suspended death sentences imposed on corrupt 
officials in recent years, Wu's punishment seems unnecessarily harsh.

It is also a well-known fact that, due to policy restraints, it is very 
difficult for private mainland entrepreneurs to obtain loans from banks. The 
line between private borrowing and illegal fund-raising has become dangerously 
blurry.

The authorities have taken various steps in recent years towards easing back on 
capital punishment, in line with international trends. One such step in 
February last year was cutting the list of crimes punishable by death to 55 
from 68. Those trimmed off the list were mostly economic and non-violent crimes 
where the death penalty was rarely used.

The supreme court has also regained the final say on all death sentences, with 
a new review procedure introduced in 2007, adding an extra layer of judicial 
oversight before anyone is executed.

Still, China ranks No1 in the world in terms of the number of crimes punishable 
by death and the number of annual executions - estimated in the thousands by 
some human rights groups. The actual figure remains a state secret.

The authorities have said their ultimate goal is to abolish capital punishment 
- but the process should be gradual. Their rationale for this is that the crime 
rate is still high, the country is still in an economic transition and the 
public still rely on the death penalty as a just punishment for certain crimes.

When the penal code was passed in 1979, there were 28 crimes punishable by 
death, and more than 1/2 were counter-revolutionary crimes. In the 1980s and 
1990s, when combating crime was the authorities' top priority, more crimes were 
added to the death list, including economic crimes such as forgery and fraud.

Last year's penal code amendment marked the 1st time that the list was 
shortened, and the consensus was to start with non-violent economic crimes. 
However, for unspecified reasons, fund-raising fraud was not included in the 13 
crimes taken off the list.

Nevertheless, in Wu's case, there are several simple grounds on which the 
supreme court could stop her execution. First, the 11 so-called victims of the 
fraud were all friends and colleagues of Wu, making the transactions private - 
meaning the charge against her was too severe. Further, none of them complained 
about being defrauded. Wu was also operating her business and trying to repay 
loans up to the moment she was detained. Lawyers argue that this is, at most, a 
lesser crime of illegal fund collection or, more appropriately, a massive civil 
dispute.

Second, given the authorities' policy in recent years of reducing death 
sentences for economic crimes, Wu would be a test case to prove this 
commitment. Capital punishment is a final measure with no room for amends, and 
there are already doubts on whether fund-raising fraud should be punishable by 
death. Even if Wu is guilty and her penalty is right in the eyes of the law, 
why must she be immediately executed rather than given a 2-year suspended 
sentence like many corrupt officials and even some killers?

There is also, of course, wide speculation that many local officials wanted Wu 
dead because while in detention she gave police the names of corrupt officials 
she had bribed. This raises more questions.

Why is her co-operation not considered a sentence-mitigating factor? Who 
exactly are these officials she mentioned? And what happened to them? The 
secrecy surrounding this part of the trial has cast doubt on its fairness.

Beyond Wu's case, there is also one more thing authorities could do immediately 
to further limit use of the death sentence as the Criminal Procedure Law is due 
for revision in March. In the 1st proposed draft amendments, it was stipulated 
that when the supreme court reviewed a death penalty imposed by a lower court, 
a judge "must" interview the defendants - a move welcomed by mainland's rights 
advocates. But in the second draft, the word "must" was changed to "may".

This step backwards has baffled many, and it is certainly a departure from the 
path to reducing the number of death warrants - a path that authorities have 
already started to take, albeit slowly.

(source: South China Morning Post)



YEMEN:

Execution of oppositionists is a violation to immunity law


The alliance of Yemen's main opposition parties has condemned the execution of 
2 Yemeni oppositionists in a political case.

Spokesman of the JMP Abdu Al-Odaini said that the execution of Khalid Nahshal 
and Abdu Nahshal was a clear cut violations of the immunity law granted to the 
outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

He further said that the execution was a political retaliation due to their 
support to the opposition candidate in 2006 presidential elections.

Meanwhile, a high-ranking officer of Hood human rights body ,Abdul-Rahman 
Barman, said that the Yemeni authorities politically-motivated executed on 
Tuesday 2 persons, pointing out that the execution is a crime against humanity.

"Khalid Nahshal and Abdu Nahshal were executed by a political decision , not by 
a judicial sentence" Barman said.

He made clear that their case was caused by political conflict of the 2006 
presidential elections.

He further said that the outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his 
followers put pressures on the judiciary to issue such unfair sentence.

"Many lawyers previously called for reconsidering the sentences issued against 
the defendants as their case were not put before an independent judicial 
authority" he said.

"However, political and tribal pressures were stronger, and lawyers were not 
allowed to attend before the court."

He cited that this case did not have any basic prosecution standards, affirming 
that witnesses were not able to testify at trial and they were beaten and 
assaulted.

"Even the judge admitted that he was not able to secure the witnesses in case 
they attended," Barman added.

"This trial was motivated by political retaliation , the law of the jungle, and 
it lacked transparency and justice."

The main Yemeni opposition parties, the Joint Meeting Parties, had called Vice 
President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi to suspend this execution, stressing that it 
was a political case that should be included in the immunity law granted to 
President Saleh.

The defendants were among 32 people charged with killing at least one 
government official during the presidential elections in September 2006 in an 
exchange of fire between a group of armed men loyal to President Ali Abdullah 
Saleh and those who supported the opposition candidate Faisal Bin Shamlan.

(source: alsahwa-yemen.net)






SOUTH AFRICA:

Bring back the death penalty, says South Africa medical chief ----The head of 
the South African Medical Association has called for the return of the death 
penalty after one of the country's senior dermatologists was gunned down by 
carjackers in the capital Pretoria.


Dr Norman Mabasa told mourners at Dr John Moche's funeral that the country was 
"under siege".

"The number of people who die at the hands of criminals is higher than in 
countries embroiled in civil wars or natural disasters," he said.

"Crime has become so bad that soon we are going to have to put burglar bars 
around our beds."

Dr John Moche, a father to 2 young children and head of Steve Biko Academic 
Hospital's dermatology department in Pretoria, was one of just 166 qualified 
dermatologists in the country because of a skills shortage in specialist 
medicine.

He was dropping off a nurse at her home last Friday when he was shot through 
the heart by carjackers who sped off in his Range Rover. The car was later 
found abandoned in Atteridgeville, a township 10 miles to the west. No arrests 
have been made yet.

Dr Mabasa said that despite a 6.5 per cent drop in the country's murder rate, 
there was nothing to celebrate.

"Why are we rejoicing when there are a thousand fewer people murdered? Surely 
we don't think the decrease is because criminals are lazy?" he asked.

"We cannot allow this killing with impunity to continue. Kill and you will be 
killed. This is the message that needs to be sent out."

Last year, 15,900 people were murdered in South Africa - or 320 per million 
people. The UK's murder rate is 13 deaths per million people - totalling 619 
last year.

South Africa's death penalty was abolished in 1995 - a year after Nelson 
Mandela came to power. At the height of apartheid, South Africa had the third 
highest judicial execution rate in the world - putting to death 1,109 people 
between 1980 and July 1989.

At the time of transition to democracy, there were more than four hundred 
prisoners on death row - many for political crimes.

(soruce: The Telegraph)






SAUDI ARABIA----execution

Saudi beheads man convicted of murder


Saudi Arabia on Thursday beheaded a man convicted of murder in the kingdom's 
southwest, the interior ministry said.

Abulrahman al-Qarni shot dead fellow Saudi Mushabab al-Khathami during a 
dispute, said the ministry statement carried by state news agency SPA.

The man was beheaded in the town of Al-Baha in southwestern Saudi Arabia, SPA 
reported.

The beheading brings to 6 the number of executions carried out in Saudi Arabia 
so far in 2012, according to an AFP tally based on official reports.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights voiced alarm last month 
at the almost threefold increase in executions in Saudi Arabia last year.

Amnesty International said the kingdom executed 79 people in 2011.

Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty for a wide range of offences, including 
rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking.

In 2010, 27 people were executed, according to the UN, citing a report by Human 
Rights Watch.

(source: The Daily Star)






CANADA:

This day in history


The last person to receive the death penalty in Hamilton died on this day in 
1953 at the Barton Street jail. His name was Harry Lee, a synagogue caretaker, 
and he was convicted of the rifle slaying of Mary Rosenblatt.

Rosenblatt’s body and Lee were found by police in a car on a side road near the 
village of Sheffield. Lee was wounded by the same weapon that killed 
Rosenblatt. He claimed the pair had been kidnapped, driven to a secluded area 
and shot.

But the jury didn’t buy it. And despite a letter-writing campaign and a 
petition, Lee was hanged on Feb. 3, 1953. He contended he was innocent right to 
the end.

(source: thespec.com)