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

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 14



INDIA:

Commute death sentence to life: Kasab tells Supreme Court


Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab, convicted for the 26/11 Mumbai terror 
attack, today pleaded the Supreme Court to commute his death sentence to life 
imprisonment.

Arguing for Kasab, Raju Ramachandran, who was appointed by the top court to 
represent him, said that the cost of keeping the terrorist alive should not be 
considered by the court while deciding whether to hang him or not. He further 
added that it is for the legislature to consider the cost criteria.

Kasab is lodged in a special cell in Mumbai's high-security Arthur Road jail, 
the construction of which alone cost the state exchequer over Rs. 5.24 crore.

Stressing on the Pakistani gunman's age as an important factor to commute his 
sentence, Mr Ramachandran said, "Kasab is young and was drawn into this by 
exploitation of religious faith, false ideology and distortion...young age 
coupled with economic conditions drove Kasab to this path."

Saying that "Kasab has not waged war against India", Mr Ramachandran told the 
court that there was a denial of fair trial to him. "The choice before the 
Supreme Court is life and irreversible death penalty. It would not be prudent 
to affirm the extreme penalty," he said. He also told the court that Kasab 
should be treated like any other accused.

To this, the top court observed that the Pakistani gunman's trial was unlike 
any ordinary murder trial. "There may be hundreds of murder trials going in 
this country because of the facts and circumstances of the case. But in many 
ways, this is entirely different. Application of law is one thing but the 
manner of trial is different - venue of the trial (inside jail), special court, 
day to say hearing etc,", the court said.

The Maharastra government will counter the arguments by Kasab's counsel 
tomorrow. Former Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam is representing the state 
government.

The trial court sentenced Kasab to death on May 2010, an order which was later 
upheld by the Bombay High Court in February last year.

(source: NDTV News)






YEMEN----executions<

3 Executed by Militants for Helping U.S. in Yemen


Islamist militants in southern Yemen said they executed 3 men on Sunday for 
giving the United States information used to carry out drone strikes in the 
area.

Residents of the towns of Jaar and Azzan said 2 Saudis and 1 Yemeni were 
beheaded at dawn by the militant group Ansar al-Sharia.

A spokesman for the group later said none of those executed were Saudi 
citizens, but all three had been working for the intelligence services of the 
kingdom, a close ally of the United States.

A number of important figures in Al Qaeda’s wing in Yemen are Saudi militants 
wanted by the authorities in Riyadh.

The United States has been launching drone strikes against militants in the 
south. Last month, at least 12 people were killed in one such attack.

Federal prosecutors in the United States said Friday that Anwar al-Awlaki, a 
leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate who was killed in a drone strike last 
year, had personally directed and approved the 2009 attempt to blow up an 
airliner over Detroit.

Weakened by months of protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen’s 
government has lost control of whole chunks of the country, giving Islamist 
militants room to tighten their grip in the south.

In Aden late on Saturday, witnesses said, separatists set fire to a tent camp 
housing about 100 antigovernment protesters, in opposition to an election on 
Feb. 21 to replace Mr. Saleh. About 10 people were injured.

Last year, southern separatists joined protesters calling for Mr. Saleh to 
leave, but the 2 sides have since grown apart.

The separatists want to revive a southern socialist state that was united with 
the north in 1990. They fear that the election will not serve their goal.

Anti-Saleh demonstrators broadly back the vote as a step toward ending his 
33-year rule.

Northern Shiite rebels have said they too will boycott the vote, in which 
acting leader Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi is the sole candidate.

Mr. Saleh is in the United States receiving medical treatment for injuries 
inflicted during an assassination attempt, but he has said he will return home 
before the vote, shedding doubt on his commitment to leave office in line with 
a Persian Gulf-brokered plan to end a year of political upheaval.

(source: Reuters)






INDONESIA:

Prosecutors say will push for death penalty – Suspected Bali bomber on trial in 
Indonesia


A Muslim militant arrested in the same Pakistani town where US commandos later 
killed Osama bin Laden stood trial in Indonesia yesterday on charges including 
murder for the 2002 Bali bombings. Umar Patek, 45, faces 5 other counts, 
including bomb-making and illegal firearms possession, and prosecutors say they 
will push for the death penalty.

Amid a security lockdown, with anti-terrorism units deployed in Jakarta, Patek 
arrived at the court in an armored police vehicle, giving a 2-thumbs up gesture 
with his handcuffed hands, but said nothing. The Indonesian is charged with 
premeditated murder and assembling bombs for the October 2002 Bali nightclub 
attacks, which killed 202 people including 88 Australians, and strikes on 
churches in Jakarta on Christmas Eve of 2000.

“Defendant Umar Patek committed an evil conspiracy with others to commit a 
crime by bringing in, obtaining, providing or owning firearms, ammunition or 
explosive materials and other dangerous materials to carry out terrorism,” 
prosecutor Widodo Supriady said, reading part of the indictment to court. 
Wearing a white Muslim skull cap, white trousers, white shirt and an orange 
prison shirt, he smiled broadly to reporters before entering a holding cell 
inside the court building.

The West Jakarta district courtroom was packed with about 100 spectators, more 
than half of them reporters, many of whom were working for Australian media. 
Patek, facing a panel of five judges, was flanked by prosecutors and defence 
lawyers, who say attempts are being made to paint him as a Bali bombings 
mastermind. He sat in a white shirt, wearing glasses and quietly reading the 
indictment. After the session adjourned for next yesterday, he shook hands with 
judges and prosecutors and smiled as he was escorted from the courtroom.

The trial of Patek, believed to be a key member of the Al-Qaeda-linked 
Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), is expected to last over 
four months as prosecutors present evidence from 86 witnesses. They will 
testify to Patek’s decade-long involvement in terror, prosecutor Bambang 
Suharyadi told AFP. Patek allegedly used simple household tools including a 
rice ladle to assemble bombs, which were housed in ordinary filing cabinets, 
according to Suharyadi and details contained in the indictment.

The indictment states that Patek was instructed by fellow Indonesian Imam 
Samudra to assemble the bombs for the Bali attacks. Samudra, convicted of being 
one of the masterminds, was executed in 2008 by an Indonesian firing squad. 
Riduan Ismudin, also known as Hambali and widely regarded as the brain behind 
the attacks, was arrested in 2003 and is now held by US forces at Guantanamo 
Bay.

But defence lawyer Asludin Hatjani told reporters yesterday: “Prosecutors are 
trying to suggest that Patek was the mastermind of the Bali bombings, but he 
was not. He didn’t initiate the attack.” “The premeditated murder charge was 
also inappropriate,” he added. “We don’t deny that he (Patek) was involved in 
the Bali bombing but his role was really small,” Hatjani told AFP after the 
session. Among the crowd in court yesterday was Farihin, an Indonesian who goes 
by a single name and who said he had attended the same terrorist training camp 
on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan as Patek.

“Umar is an expert in demolition. He was an ordinary member of the team, not 
the mastermind or perpetrator of what happened in Bali,” said Farihin, a former 
JI member who was twice jailed in Indonesia for Islamic militancy and is now a 
cold drinks vendor. He said he last saw Patek before the Bali attacks. Patek, 
once the most-wanted terror suspect in Indonesia, who spent nearly a decade on 
the run, had a $1 million bounty on his head under the US rewards for justice 
program. He was extradited to Indonesia after being arrested in January 2011 in 
the Pakistani town of Abbottabad, where US commandos killed Al-Qaeda chief bin 
Laden in May.

(source: Kuwait Times)






IRAN:

Iran 'misleading international community' with death penalty claimsExperts 
question claims that a new Iranian penal code bans the death penalty for 
juveniles and stoning for adulterers


Iran has been accused of misleading the international community by claiming to 
have abandoned the death penalty for juvenile offenders and execution by 
stoning for those convicted of adultery.

Local news agencies reported at the weekend that Iran's guardian council, a 
body of clerics and lawyers in charge of approving parliamentary activities, 
had approved a new amendment to the country's penal code which had been passed 
into law by the MPs.

The new penal code – which will come into effect after being signed by the 
president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – is believed to have been adopted in response 
to international criticism of Iran's violations of human rights.

But experts who have studied the new code questioned claims that the country 
had fully abolished the death penalty for those convicted under the age of 18 
or abandoned its use of stoning. They also believe the amendments have 
complicated some other parts of the law, especially the punishment of 
homosexuality.

Sodomy for men was punishable by death for all individuals involved in 
consensual sexual intercourse, but under the new amendments the person who 
played an active role will be flogged 100 times if the sex was consensual and 
he was not married, but the one who played a passive role will still be put to 
death regardless of his marriage status.

Under the new code, the death sentence has been removed for juveniles only in 
crimes whose punishment can be administered at the discretion of the judge 
(such as drug offences). Under the same law, however, a death sentence may 
still be applied for a juvenile if he or she has committed crimes that are 
considered to be "claims of God" and therefore have mandatory sentences (such 
as sodomy, rape, theft, fornication, apostasy and consumption of alcohol for 
the 3rd time).

A decision on whether such a death sentence for a juvenile can be issued relies 
on the "judge's knowledge" – a loophole that allows for subjective judicial 
rulings where no conclusive evidence is present.

Amnesty International's Iran researcher Drewery Dyke said: "Let's not be fooled 
by this seeming suggestion of improvements to Iran's penal code. The penal code 
still allows for stoning to be carried out. Child offenders are still at risk 
of being placed on death row, and men and women can still be convicted on 
grounds of consensual extramarital and same-sex relations."

"These new amends to Iran's penal code have done nothing to improve the 
country's human rights record.

Shadi Sadr, a prominent Iranian human rights lawyer exiled in London, said: 
"The amendments are flawed but it shows international pressure on Iran still 
works." Sadr's colleague, Nasrin Sotoudeh, who highlighted juvenile executions 
in the Islamic republic, remains in jail in the country.


Confusion over Iran's definition of a juvenile has also added to the complexity 
of the issue, said Raha Bahreini, a fellow at Amnesty International Canada. The 
country does not provide a clear distinction between the age of majority – when 
minors cease to legally be considered children – and the minimum age of 
criminal responsibility, which is 15 for boys and 9 for girls under Iranian 
law.

"Iran's penal system has often taken the minimum age of criminal responsibility 
for the age of majority," she said, "thus allowing individuals under the age of 
18 to be treated and sentenced as adults as soon they reach the minimum age of 
criminal responsibility."

According to the old penal code, people convicted of having an "illicit 
relationship outside marriage" would be sentenced to death by stoning. The new 
code, however, still considers "adultery while married" as a crime but has not 
designated any punishment for it, thus referring the judge to the fatwa of a 
reliable cleric (the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in this case) for 
a decision. Khamenei has not yet issued a fatwa for such a crime, but all other 
clerics in the country order stoning as its punishment. It would be highly 
unlikely that Khamenei would contradict his fellow clerics.

"It's simply a trick," said Sadr. "They've removed death by stoning from the 
penal code but in reality it remains in place."

The new penal code does not mention stoning as punishment for any crime but it 
does refer to it twice in a section about the criminal procedure rules and 
conditions under which such a punishment can be administered.

"The fact that stoning has been mentioned in the criminal procedures of 
administrating the punishment – it shows they are truly expecting the method to 
be used in future," said Sadr, adding there were other discrepancies in the 
code.

In recent years, Iran has been criticised by human rights organisations for its 
escalating use of the capital punishment. Recently, an international outcry 
over the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 44-year-old mother of two, 
highlighted the plight of at least a dozen Iranians behind bars who are 
awaiting death by stoning.

(source: The Guardian)






CHINA:

China court to review Wu Ying death penalty amid outcry ---- Wu Ying's case has 
raised debate about local loan laws


China's top court says it is to review a death sentence "with caution" after a 
public outcry.

Former businesswomen Wu Ying has been sentenced to death over a multi-million 
yuan fraud case.

But the case has sparked heated discussions ranging from whether it is the 
right charge to whether the sentence is too harsh.

In a rare gesture, the Supreme Court said it would scrutinise facts and 
evidence seriously in the case.

Wu Ying, 31, from the eastern province of Zhejiang, was arrested in 2007 and 
accused of fraud worth 770m yuan ($122m; £79m) through illegal investments.

She was subsequently sentenced to death and the High Court in Zhejiang upheld 
her sentence last month.

Under Chinese law all death sentences must be reviewed by the Supreme Court 
before permission to execute the defendant is granted.

However, it is rare for the court to speak out before such a review has been 
completed.

"This is a case of financial fraud from the liquidity aspect, which involves an 
especially huge amount of money, and the case is relatively complicated," said 
Supreme Court spokesperson Sun Jungong.

"The Supreme Court will, based on legal procedures, scrutinise the facts and 
evidence relating to the case during the review process and prudently handle 
the case according to law."

Some members of the public welcomed the top court's comment.

"Wu Ying is guilty, but she does not deserve the death penalty," said a 
microblog user from Shaanxi. "She is just an innocent entrepreneur who has 
failed."

Another user from Shandong said the best option was to have the case decided by 
China's parliament, while another from Fujian believed what Wu Ying was doing 
was no more than personal lending, which developed under loopholes of current 
financial rules and regulations.

The Supreme Court spokesperson did not say when the results of the review would 
be made public.

(source: BBC News)