[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 4



CANADA:

A gruesome history of capital punishment in Toronto


In 1798, John Sullivan, an illiterate Irish immigrant new to the town of York, 
was on a drinking spree with his friend Flannery, nicknamed "Latin Mike" for 
his habit of reciting quotations he had learned in church. During a spirited 
drinking bout, Flannery forged a note for three shillings and ninepence (less 
than a dollar) under the name "Fisk" and persuaded Sullivan to hand it in to 
the bank.

Successful, the pair spent the money on whisky at a local bar, but when they 
were found out Flannery fled town leaving his friend to take the fall. Sullivan 
was tried, convicted and hanged from a makeshift rig on King Street opposite 
Toronto Street where a crowd of people in their best clothes had turned out to 
witness the spectacle. When he finally swung from the gallows — a poorly tied 
knot failed to kill him the 1st time — John Sullivan became the 1st recorded 
person to be executed in the town of York.

The history of execution in Toronto is a grisly one filled with tales of 
sickening murder, heinous and petty criminals. Take the case of a Whitby 
resident known as De Benyon. He threw his son out of the house on a freezing 
night without proper clothes. When the boy finally got back inside De Benyon 
tied the boy in front of the fire and slowly burned him to death.

De Benyon fled when his crime became public and a lynch mob formed to hunt him 
down. He was eventually caught in the Don Valley near Eastern Avenue and strung 
up to a nearby tree. As John Ross Robertson says in his book Landmarks of 
Toronto "this is the only case of Judge Lynch which is known to have occurred 
in Toronto."

Before the death penalty was officially repealed on July 14, 1976, more than 
700 people had been executed for murder, theft, rape and other crimes in 
Canada. A number of hangings, 34 in total, took place at the Don Jail between 
1908 and 1962.

Completed in 1865 in an Italianate style designed by William Thomas, the 
architect behind St. Lawrence Hall on King Street, the building aimed to 
inspire a sense of awe to those arriving in shackles. The face of father time 
was carved above the main door as a strong message to those entering its 
cavernous main hall, never to leave.

The 1st executions were ticketed public events and took place in a special part 
of the yard behind the jail. People without entry to the grounds would climb 
trees or stand on the roofs of nearby buildings to get a good view of the 
gallows. The 1st person to die at the jail was John Boyd, a hotel porter 
convicted of killing E. S. Wandle, a restauranteur, on York Street. The photo 
earlier in the piece shows the hanging of Stanislaus Lacroix in Hull, Quebec in 
1902 — it's representative of the scene that would have taken place at the Don 
Jail.

Executions were moved inside to a converted bathroom when a botched public 
execution caused the authorities to put a stop to the practice. By this time 
the Don Jail had developed a truly fearsome reputation. The brick cells were 
just 6 feet deep and 3 feet wide wide with no bed or plumbing. Talking was 
forbidden and most prisoners only left their cells for an hour of daily 
exercise. Frequently overcrowded, the cells often held 3 people at a time, 
providing barely enough room to stand.

The Gemini nominated documentary Hangman's Graveyard by Mick Grogan and Craig 
Thompson — which is well worth a watch — follows the excavation of a graveyard 
beneath a parking lot when the Don Jail was undergoing redevelopment in 2007. 
The film tells the story of some of the most notable prisoners, their crimes 
and executions as the skeletal remains are removed from the ground.

Take George Bennet, a sacked employee of the Globe newspaper who bought a gun 
to the office of his former employer, Senator George Brown, a father of 
confederation, and after an argument over a reference fired a shot into his 
leg. The wound itself wasn't fatal but Senator Brown developed gangrene and 
died several weeks later.

Bennet was the 1st person to be executed at the Don Jail on July 23, 1880. His 
body, clad in a 3-piece suit, was excavated along with that of the gold-toothed 
Frederick Davis in the documentary.

Davis' story is perhaps one of the most gruesome in the history of the jail. In 
August 1920, eight-year-old Philip Goldberg was found dying between 2 
billboards south of High Park. Bleeding from a severe head wound and a deep 
gash across his throat, the boy's fists were full of grass and candy wrappers. 
A post-mortem examination would show he had been sexually assaulted.

During an investigation that focused on an illegal booze ring on McCaul Street 
near present day OCAD, Frederick Davis emerged as the prime suspect. A 
neighbour of Goldberg, the syphilitic Davis walked with a pronounced limp, had 
many open sores and was likely was suffering from pronounced dementia as a 
result of the advanced stages of his disease. A U.S. citizen, Frederick Davis 
was discovered serving time in the Auburn State Penitentiary in New York and 
sent back to Toronto to face trial.

A jury took just a minute to return a guilty verdict and Davis was sentenced to 
death despite being found mentally unsound by a physician. Of all the bodies 
removed from the burial ground, Davis' was the only one that had not had the 
brain removed for examination. It was common practice for prisoners at the Don 
Jail to be dissected after execution to look for a physical reason to explain 
their crimes.

The last people to be executed at the Don Jail, and in Canada, were Ronald 
Turpin and Arthur Lucas, two men convicted of separate murders, on December 11, 
1962. The executioner charged with springing the trap beneath the condemned 
men's feet was "John Ellis," Canada's last official hangman.

To maintain his anonymity, Ellis had assumed the name of another Canadian 
executioner — Arthur Ellis — who himself had borrowed the name of an English 
executioner, another John Ellis. The most recent John Ellis, the one who 
performed the last execution in Canada, appeared on Take 30 in an interview 
Paul Soles in 1976. He wore a black hood with eye-holes to hide his face and 
spoke candidly about the process of ending someone's life and the detachment 
required for such a job.

The concept of taking someone's life as punishment usually rears its head when 
there is a particularly heinous high-profile crime. Most recently Conservative 
senator Pierre-Hughes Boisvenu made an off-the-cuff remark, for which he later 
apoligized, advocating giving convicted murderers a rope to hang themselves in 
their cells.

(source: blogto)






IRAQ:

Iraq Court Confirms Death Sentences For Church Attack


An Iraqi appeals court has confirmed death sentences for 3 men convicted of a 
2010 attack on a Syrian Catholic church in Baghdad that left more than 50 
people dead and scores injured.

A spokesman for the Supreme Judicial Council said the sentence is “final" and 
was sent to the presidential council.

Under the Iraqi Constitution, the presidential council, comprising the 
president and two vice presidents, must ratify death sentences before they are 
carried out.

The 3 were sentenced to death on August 2, 2011, while an accomplice was given 
20 years in prison.

At least 52 hostages and police were killed and 67 wounded in the attack, which 
ended when security forces stormed the church.

Al-Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility 
for the attack.

(source: Radio Free Europe)






TRINIDAD:

Jack Warner suspends death penalty petition


Just 2 days after launching a campaign to petition support for the resumption 
of the death penalty, Government Minister Jack Warner yesterday suspended the 
initiative saying he does not want to “endanger” the Government.

“It is not my desire, however, well intentioned to do anything, however, 
remotely to injure or fracture or in any way endanger the People’s Partnership 
Government and if that were the case I say fine I will withdraw, however, well 
intentioned,” Warner told the media yesterday during the Parliament’s tea 
break.

Earlier in the day, Warner’s office issued a release stating, “Following a 
meeting of the Cabinet yesterday (Thursday), I wish to inform the general 
public that, with immediate effect, I have decided to suspend the initiative 
that was started to implement the death penalty. My thanks are hereby extended 
to all those persons and/or organisations that had assisted me at the launch. 
This is my final statement on this matter.”

He launched the campaign on Wednesday—entitled “A Fisherman’s Cry” at his 
constituency office, with the parents of murdered fishermen, Ravi and Kasinath 
Ramsaran, pleading for the return of the hangman. A third man, Pream Squires, 
was also murdered at sea. Two men are now before the court charged for the 
killings.

Pressed yesterday whether he was instructed or forced in any way to suspend the 
campaign, Warner said: “Nobody gave me any instructions, I repeat, my motive, 
my initiative was well intentioned but then following the Cabinet meeting I got 
the impression that, however, remote it was, it may have caused some 
disaffection and I withdrew it.”

Asked if he felt defeated in his purpose, he responded: “There is no defeat in 
something that is good. It might be some kind of postponement but it can’t be a 
defeat … this is not a case where you win or lose, you know.”

Warner has been complaining over the past few months with his ministry being 
split into 2 last year and an audit into the Programme for Enhancing Road 
Efficiency (PURE) has halted road works under his ministry.

Asked if he was happy, Warner said: “But look I smiling. In life sometimes you 
have a good day and a bad day but overall life is good and so is the UNC.”

He said the campaign to resume hanging, however, short lived, “opened people’s 
eyes” and in the fullness of time the legislation will return to Parliament.

Warner’s hanging campaign was born after three Felicity fishermen were murdered 
last month.

He said yesterday he promised to take care of the families of the men for three 
months and he extended it for another three.

At the launch of his campaign, Warner had said that the petition called upon 
every parliamentarian to “get serious with fixing the laws concerning the 
enforcement of the death penalty, including addressing the issue of lengthy 
delays with petitions to the human rights bodies”.

However, the campaign saw trouble the very day when it was launched with Prime 
Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar saying this was not Government policy, but 
Warner’s own initiative.

A day after, Government ministers Bhoendradatt Tewarie, Vernella Toppin Alleyne 
and Winston Peters distanced themselves from Warner’s campaign, citing 
collective Cabinet responsibility when questioned during the post-Cabinet press 
briefing.

At a news conference at Tower D of the Waterfront Complex yesterday, the Prime 
Minister, when questioned on the issue, made it clear neither she nor Cabinet 
instructed Warner to suspend the petition.

She said she cannot say what influenced Warner as she stressed that Cabinet is 
about collective responsibility.

“It would be foolhardy of any minister to step out of any decision making to 
make policy on their own, it does not work that way. I would not sign a 
petition that was not sanctioned by the Government, by the Cabinet. … There was 
no instruction or agreement by the Cabinet on the petition,” said 
Persad-Bissessar.

Government’s position, she said, is to continue pursuing the legal channels in 
order to implement the death penalty.

“So we will proceed, the AG is again drafting, we will come back with it and 
we’ll take it from there. We will never give up, we will continue to try,” she 
promised. She said it is in the interest of the country to implement the law of 
the land. She spoke of the challenges in doing so.

“I will remember well the case of Glen Ashby, when in breach of the law, when 
the matter was before the Privy Council, the then regime hanged Glen Ashby. We 
do not want to follow that route,” the Prime Minister said.

Before learning of the suspension of Warner’s petition, Justice Minister, 
Herbert Volney who has been vocal in the call for the death penalty, said he 
would be willing to sign the petition.

(source: Trinidad Express)






IRAN:

Rights groups urge international community to press Iran to end violations


Reporters Without Borders, the International Federation for Human Rights 
(FIDH), and the Iranian League for the Defence of Human Rights urge the 
international community to take a much firmer stance on respect for human 
rights in Iran by raising this essential issue in the talks currently under way 
with the country’s authorities.

These 3 human rights organizations also urge the EU and international community 
to publicly condemn the unacceptable treatment that imprisoned journalists and 
netizens receive at the hands of the Revolutionary Guards.

Farsnews, an Iranian news agency that is close to the Revolutionary Guards, 
reported on 29 January that the supreme court had upheld the death sentence 
that was passed on Saeed Malekpour, a computer specialist and Canadian 
resident. Farsnews also published a communiqué by the Centre for the 
Surveillance of Organized Crime expressing “satisfaction” with the supreme 
court’s decision. Malekpour’s execution is believed to be imminent.

2 other netizens, information technology student Vahid Asghari and website 
administrator Ahmadreza Hashempour have also had their death sentences 
confirmed by the supreme court in the past few days.

A 4th netizen, Mehdi Alizadeh, a website developer and humorist who was 
arrested for the second time in March 2011 in connection with his satirical 
posts, has just learned that he has been sentenced to death by Abolghasem 
Salevati, the head of a revolutionary court.

“We call on the international community to intercede directly with the Iranian 
authorities on behalf of these four netizens and to request the acquittal and 
release of all imprisoned journalists and bloggers,” the three human rights 
organizations said. “The issue of respect for fundamental rights must at the 
same time be raised during the ongoing economic and scientific discussions.”

These 4 netizens, aged from 25 to 40, are the victims of machinations by the 
Centre for the Surveillance of Organized Crime, an entity that was created 
illegally by the Revolutionary Guards in 2008. In March 2009, this centre 
announced the dismantling of a “malevolent” Internet network and the arrests of 
several website moderators, whose photos and “confessions” were published a few 
days later by the Gerdab website and other outlets.

Under torture, they admitted to having links with websites that criticize Islam 
and the Iranian government and to having intended to “mislead” Iranian youth by 
distributing pornographic content. They were also forced to confess to 
participating in a plot backed by the United States and Israel.

The detainees were placed in solitary confinement for long periods – more than 
a year in some cases – and the confessions obtained under torture were used 
against them at their trials. Malekpour and Asghari described how they were 
tortured during interrogation in letters to the judges in charge of their 
cases. At the same time, their defence lawyers were unable to meet with them or 
have access to their case files.

The 3 human rights organizations support the appeal that 39 political 
prisoners, journalists and intellectuals issued on 25 January, calling for the 
release of all prisoners of conscience including the leaders of the protests 
against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed reelection.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, the former Prime minister and owner of the closed 
newspaper Kalameh Sabaz, his wife, the bestselling writer and intellectual 
Zahra Rahnavard, and Mehdi Karoubi, the former President of Parliament and 
owner of the closed newspaper Etemad Melli, have been under house arrest since 
24 February 2011. Karoubi’s wife, Fatemeh Karoubi (the editor of the magazine 
Iran Dokhte), who was arrested at the same time as him, was finally released in 
September.

Mousavi, Rahnavard and Mehdi Karoubi have been deprived of all their rights for 
nearly a year. Their relatives have not been able to visit them for months and 
are very worried about their state of health.

The Islamic Republic must bring this unacceptable state of affairs to an end. 
Arbitrary arrest and the holding of political prisoners incommunicado violate 
international law. Such practices are tantamount to enforced disappearance, yet 
are widely and frequently used by the authorities.

(source: Reporters Without Borders)