[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 4


INDONESIA:

136 in death row including 64 drug convicts: Attorney general


The attorney general office said there are 136 convicts in death row in the 
country including 64 drug convicts and 2 terrorists.

They are still in the waiting list for execution as they are still in the 
process of seeking clemency, chief spokesman of the attorney general office 
Tony T Spontana said here on Thursday.

6 other convicts with death penalty are still at large, and 5 are to be 
executed this year, Tony added.

Tony said the attorney general office has executed 27 convicts with death 
penalty in the past 15 years since 2000.

He cited Suryadi from Palembang, convicted for the murder of the whole members 
a family in South Sumatra in 1991 was already executed in 201S.

Among the foreign convicts with death penalty already executed included drug 
dealers Mohammad Abdul Hafeez of Pakistan and Adami Wilson alias Adam alias Abu 
from Malawi.

Tony said the 5 convicts to be this year had gone through all available ways to 
seek clemency but failed.

Earlier the Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs, Security and Law Tedjo 
Edhy Purdijatno said execution of the five convicts is awaiting a letter from 
the Attorney General.

Appeal for clemency by the five convicts has been rejected by the president, 
therefore, their verdict has been final, Tedjo said after a meeting with 
President Joko Widodo Thursday morning.

"The execution is not ordered by the president, but the president has passed 
order that the legal process must be properly carried out. That is in line with 
the government commitment in law enforcement," he said.

(source: Antara News)






VIETNAM:

Vietnam court halts execution of murder convict amid allegation of miscarriage 
of justice


In a last-minute decision, a court in the Mekong Delta province of Long An on 
Thursday halted the lethal injection of a 29-year-old man for a grisly murder 
of 2 local women after his dogged mother has relentlessly appealed to high 
places.

Ho Duy Hai is set for lethal injection Friday. In an appeal sent to the Long 
An's People's Court on Thursday morning, his family called for the delay in the 
execution, saying more time was needed to prove his innocence.

Le Quang Hung, the provincial deputy chief justice, told Thanh Nien News the 
court agreed to shelve the lethal injection after getting the approval from the 
Supreme People's Court. Central authorities said late Thursday that President 
Truong Tan Sang ordered the delay.

Hai's mother, Nguyen Thi Loan, said she has sent stacks of documents to appeal 
to a raft of agencies concerned in Hanoi over the past 6 years.

In April 2009, a court of appeals in Ho Chi Minh City upheld the death sentence 
against Hai, who was convicted of robbing and murdering 2 female post office 
staffs a year earlier.

According to the verdict, Hai, from Long An Province's Thu Thua District, 
killed Nguyen Thi Thu Van, 21, and Nguyen Thi Anh Hong, 23, at the Cau Voi Post 
Office in the district where the duo were on duty on the night of January 13, 
2008.

Hai, an acquaintance of the victims, had asked Van to go out and buy some 
fruits at around 7 pm on that day, the verdict said.

It said after Van left, Hai wanted to have sex with Hong but she refused. He 
then hit her head with a chopping-board to make her unconscious before slitting 
her throat. When Van returned, Hai used an inox chair to hit her head, leaving 
her unconscious. He also slit her throat.

According to the verdict, Hai had also stolen VND1.4 million (US$66), around 50 
SIM cards, one mobile phone and jewelry from the victims.

But after the verdict was delivered, Hai's lawyer Tran Hong Phong and his 
counterparts said they found a slew of "unusual details" in the case.

"The most unusual thing is that fingerprints collected at the crime scene did 
not match Ho Duy Hai's [based on official forensic tests]," Tran Van Tao, a 
HCMC-based seasoned lawyer and former deputy director of the city's police 
department, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

Nguyen Minh Tam, deputy secretary general of the Vietnam Bar Association, said 
his agency would propose the Supreme People's Court reconsider this case.

"A case with such dubious details needs to be reconsidered to prevent a 
wrongful conviction," Tuoi Tre quoted Tam as saying on Thursday.

It remains to be seen how this case unfolds.

Only the chief justice of the Supreme People's Court or the head of the 
Supreme's People Procuracy -- Vietnam's highest prosecutors' agency -- have the 
mandate to order the setting up of a panel to review the case. This panel will 
determine whether fresh investigations are needed.

In 2013, Hai sent an appeal to President Truong Tan Sang asking for clemency. 
Sang rejected the appeal.

Miscarriages of justice in Vietnam have been found on the rise in recent years.

The most recent high-profile case happened to Nguyen Thanh Chan, 54, of the 
northern province of Bac Giang.

Chan was found guilty of murdering a local woman and was sentenced to life in 
prison in March 2004. 4 months later, the Supreme People's Court dismissed his 
appeal and upheld the sentence.

But his wife's persistent investigation forced the real murderer, another local 
man, to give himself up in October 2013. Chan was released a month later and 
the Supreme People's Court officially cleared his name in January this year.

In what was Vietnam's 1st public review of police torture in September, Truong 
Trong Nghia, an outspoken lawmaker who is also vice chairman of the Vietnam Bar 
Association, condemned the practice as a threat to the integrity and stability 
of the regime.

"Wrongful verdicts, threats and torture are critical threats to the system 
itself. The [victims'] descendants will hold us accountable," he said at the 
meeting, called by the National Assembly -- Vietnam's legislature.

Vietnam switched to lethal injection from the firing squad in November 2011.

However, an European Union refusal to sell Vietnam the deadly injection led to 
a delay in executions until August 2013, when Vietnam began manufacturing its 
own lethal serum.

At that time, the number of death-row prisoners was reported to hover 600.

The EU banned the exportation of lethal injection drugs because it regards 
capital punishment to be a violation of human rights.

Although there are no official statistics, the death penalty is most frequently 
handed down in Vietnam to those convicted of drug offences and murder.

(source: Tranh Nien News)






BAHAMAS:

Ag Confident Death Penalty Will Be Upheld By Appeal Courts


Attorney General Allyson Maynard Gibson is confident appellate courts will 
uphold the death penalty in accordance with the law despite recent suggestions 
from the Court of Appeal that capital punishment is over.

Mrs Maynard-Gibson stressed that the death penalty "is still on the books". Her 
statement came a week after Constitutional Commission Chairman Sean McWeeny, 
QC, said that because of the Privy Council's "philosophical opposition" to 
capital punishment, hangings are unlikely to ever be upheld unless substantial 
changes are made to this country's legal and judicial system through 
constitutional amendments.

He was speaking after Court of Appeal justices said "hanging is over" during 
back and forth discourse with prosecutors at a hearing last week where they 
squashed the death sentence of Anthony Clarke Sr, who was convicted last year 
of a contract killing.

"Offering her view on the matter yesterday, Mrs Maynard-Gibson said: "When you 
review the text, the Court of Appeal did not say that hanging is over. The 
comments were made as back and forth between the bench and bar and not as part 
of an official announcement or position on the matter. Therefore it is wrong to 
say the court has made that determination. The death penalty is on the books. 
We are aware that we live in a changing world but so long as we feel the matter 
is one that warrants the death penalty, should the jury and judge agree, we 
will pursue it."

When asked for his perspective on the matter yesterday, prominent attorney 
Wayne Munroe lamented that criticism is levied at the Privy Council on the 
matter, saying that Bahamian politicians knowingly let the "voiceless" 
London-based institution take blame for an issue they "can, but do not want" to 
address.

"The Privy Council tells us that we can do it," Mr Munroe said, adding: "When I 
talk about us being the singularly dumbest people, what I mean is we are not 
reinventing the wheel. Other people are imposing and carrying out the death 
penalty and the Privy Council is a part of their system."

Mr Munroe disagreed with Mr McWeeney's position that constitutional changes 
should be made to tie the hands of appellate courts by defining what crimes 
constitute the "worst of the worst" and should therefore be punishable by 
death.

"The solution, he said, is to not allow judges to rely on their judgement about 
whether the death penalty is merited. Such issues, he said, should be decided 
upon by a jury.

"When someone is convicted of murder, for instance, you should have a 
sentencing trial where a judge would direct a jury on whether the offense may 
be considered the worst of the worst or the convict is beyond redemption," he 
said. "When a jury is empanelled, they hear evidence from the prosecution and 
the convict and come to determination on the death penalty. If they don't 
recommend the death penalty or conclude that the crime constitutes the worst of 
the worst, the person cannot be sentenced to death. But the point is you have a 
jury say how they arrived at their conclusions and in some jurisdictions, the 
judge must then sentence the convict to death if the jury reaches that 
conclusion. No appellant court would set aside a finding in such an instance."

"He added: "The Privy Council has said over and over again, you can execute 
people. We like every other jurisdiction can carry it out. If parliament has 
failed to do what is necessary then don't sit back and blame the Privy Council. 
But maybe (parliamentarians) don't want to do what is necessary because they 
don't want to meet the children whose parent they executed and have to live 
with that."

"In 2011, after a ruling from the Privy Council, the Ingraham administration 
amended the Penal Code to specify the "worst of the worst" murders which would 
warrant execution.

"Mr Munroe blasted the amendment, however, saying: "When the (government) did 
act, it did so in an inadequate manner. The FNM passed nonsense that they 
didn't talk to anybody about. These guys who never saw the insides of a court 
or consulted the private bar did something that was ineffective.

"No politician who talks about hanging people is serious about it, especially 
if they accuse the courts about standing in the way," Mr Munroe contended. "And 
you don't have to mess with the Constitution to fix this issue either. Most of 
what needs to be done can be done by ordinary legislation."

(source: Tribune242)