[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 24



INDIA:

Days from an execution, India faces questions over death penalty


India's Supreme Court said Friday that it would hear a last-ditch appeal by a 
death-row prisoner whose case has renewed questions about capital punishment in 
the world's 2nd-most populous nation.

The court said it would hear arguments for clemency Monday in the case of Yakub 
Memon, who is scheduled to be hanged Thursday in connection with a series of 
bombings that killed hundreds of people in Mumbai, India's financial capital, 2 
decades ago.

Indian authorities say Memon, now 53, assisted the 2 masterminds of the blasts, 
who are believed to be hiding in neighboring Pakistan.

An accountant, Memon was convicted of handling finances for the 1993 attack, in 
which 13 bombs exploded across the city then known as Bombay, killing 257 
people and wounding more than 700.

Critics say that Memon, the only person sentenced to death for the bombings, is 
being made a scapegoat because Indian authorities have been unable to nab the 
two suspected masterminds: Memon's older brother, Mushtaq "Tiger" Memon, and 
Dawood Ibrahim.

10 men convicted of planting the bombs in the Bombay Stock Exchange, luxury 
hotels, bazaars and other busy areas had their death sentences commuted to life 
in prison when the Supreme Court ruled 2 years ago that they were pawns of the 
main conspirators.

Hanging Memon "will only give the impression that the lone man available among 
the many brains behind the ghastly act of terrorism is being singled out," The 
Hindu newspaper wrote in an editorial.

Memon, who fled to Pakistan with his family before the attacks, was arrested in 
1994. While Indian authorities said he was captured in New Delhi, Memon said he 
turned himself in to prove his innocence.

While in custody, Memon reportedly persuaded 6 family members to return to 
India from Pakistan to face charges. 3 were sentenced to prison for aiding the 
conspirators.

Memon also supplied investigators with what they said was evidence of 
Pakistan's involvement in the attack, including the names of Pakistani 
officials who furnished the Memons with travel documents and watched over them 
in the port city of Karachi. Pakistan denies involvement in the attacks.

"He has been in jail for 20 years and has given the courts some vital 
information," said Abha Singh, a senior lawyer and activist. "Now if we hang 
him ... the international community will never be in favor of extraditing any 
terrorist to India."

The bombings were said to be in retaliation for communal bloodletting that 
began months earlier after Hindu extremists destroyed a mosque in the northern 
town of Ayodhya. Hundreds of people, both Hindus and Muslims, died in riots in 
Mumbai and other cities.

Memon's case also has raised accusations that India is quicker to apply the 
death penalty in terrorism cases, particularly when Muslims are involved.

India did not carry out any executions for nearly a decade until November 2012, 
when Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving assailant in the 2008 Mumbai 
terror attacks, was hanged in secret. Months later, Mohammed Afzal Guru, 
convicted for an attack on the Indian parliament a decade earlier, was also 
executed.

4 members of the Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger rebels who were convicted in the 1991 
assassination of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had their death sentences reduced 
to life in prison after pressure from political parties in the southern Indian 
state of Tamil Nadu.

Asaduddin Owaisi, a Muslim lawmaker, said Friday that Memon was being hanged 
because he was Muslim. A lawmaker from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, which 
has close ties to Hindu nationalist groups, responded that those who don't 
respect the Indian judiciary can "go to Pakistan."

National Law University in New Delhi recently reported that of several hundred 
Indians on death row, about 3/4 belonged to religious minorities and 
underprivileged castes.

Manoj Joshi, a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, said 
the death penalty was beginning to resemble "a whimsical lottery" biased 
against Muslims.

"Heinous criminals get away with barbaric crimes, terrorists who are 
politically convenient are given the benefit of doubt, but to make up for it, 
peripheral players in Islamist terrorist conspiracies feel the full might of 
the law," Joshi wrote on the Wire, an online news site.

(source: Los Angeles Times)

*****************

SC to hear Yakub Memon's plea challenging the death penalty on Monday


The Supreme Court will hear on Monday the plea by 1993 Mumbai serial bomb 
blasts convict Yakub Memon, challenging the death warrant issued against him 
and seeking the stay of his execution set for July 30.

"I have already assigned the bench. It will come by Monday," said Chief Justice 
H.L. Dattu as senior counsel T.R. Andhyarujina mentioned the matter before the 
bench, which also comprised Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Amitava Roy, on 
Friday.

Memon has moved the court contending that death warrant for his execution on 
July 30 was issued even before he could have exhausted the legal remedies that 
were available to him and when his curative petition was pending consideration 
by the apex court.

The apex court on July 21 had rejected Memon's curative petition saying that it 
was void of merit.

On the same day, Memon filed a mercy petition before the Maharashtra governor 
seeking commutation of his death sentence into life imprisonment.

Memon, in his petition before the apex court, has relied on the apex court's 
May 27, 2015, verdict where it had quashed the death warrant issued for the 
execution of Shabnam and her paramour Salim, both convicted for multiple 
murders of members of the girl's family members including a 10-month-old child, 
on the grounds of it being illegal as procedure was not followed.

Quashing the death warrant, the court had held that the "Right to live under 
Article 21 does not end with the confirmation of the of the death sentence by 
the Supreme Court".

Holding that "even when death sentence has to be executed, the human dignity is 
protected", the court had said: "That is the reason there are many judgments as 
to the manner in which the execution is carried should be as painless as 
possible."

It had held issuance of death warrants by the sessions judge within 6 days of 
the apex court upholding the death sentence of Shabnam and Salim was 
"unwarranted".

Memon and 11 others were slapped with the death penalty by the special TADA 
court in July 2007 for 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts in which 257 people were 
killed and 712 were injured.

The apex court by its March 21, 2013 verdict uphold his death sentence while 
commuting the death sentence of 10 others (one having died subsequently) to 
life imprisonment.

The apex court on April 9 had dismissed Memon's plea for the review of death 
sentence verdict for the 2nd time as it had earlier dismissed his similar plea 
seeking the recall of March 21, 2013 verdict.

(source: mid-day.com