[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 4



IRAQ:

Iraq hands 2 Saudis death, 3 on the list


Iraq's Central Criminal Court has sentenced 2 Saudis to death by hanging after 
finding them guilty on terrorism charges, with 3 others likely to share the 
same fate, according to a report in a local publication on Tuesday.

However, Hamed Ahmed, the Saudi lawyer who represented the 2 men in Iraq has 
claimed the verdict was politically motivated. He said his clients, Batal 
Al-Harbi and Abdulrahman Al-Qahtani, were the victims of the country's 
political turbulence.

Ahmed further claimed that there was little evidence to prove they committed 
crimes that would justify the death penalty.

He said he would appeal the decision and file a motion with the Iraqi Supreme 
Court. A decision on the appeal was likely to be made next year, he said. 
Al-Harbi was sentenced to death on Oct. 26 for having joined an armed group and 
attempting to launch a suicide attack. He was one of 25 people arrested in 2011 
and accused of belonging to Al-Qaeda.

Ahmad said 3 other Saudis, currently facing trial in a court next to Baghdad 
International Airport, are also likely to be sentenced to death.

(source: Arab News)






AFGHANISTAN:

Taliban Stone Woman To Death For Eloping


A young Afghan woman has been stoned to death by the Taliban in Afghanistan's 
western zone, officials confirmed on Tuesday.

Footages of the stoning surfacing in social media shows the woman in a hole in 
the ground as scores of violent men casually hurl stones at her.

Forced to marry against her will, the woman named Rokhshana was stoned after 
she was caught eloping with another man in Ghor province, provincial Police 
Chief Gen. Mustafa said.

"Taliban ordered stoning of the girl after she was caught eloping with a man on 
the mountains," he said. "Police has started investigations and will arrest the 
perpetrators soon."

The incident happened a week ago in a village, 40 kilometers from Firozkoh, the 
provincial capital.

Rokhshana, 19, can be heard screaming in the disturbing clip.

The governor Seema Joyenda has also confirmed the stoning and said Rokhshana 
was "stoned to death by Taliban, local religious leaders and irresponsible 
armed warlords."

According to Joyenda, 1 of Afghanistan's only 2 female governors, Rokhshana's 
family had "married her to someone against her will and she was eloping with a 
man her age."

She strongly condemned the stoning and called on the central government to take 
actions against the brutal killing as soon as possible.

According to her, the presence of more than 10,000 irresponsible armed men in 
Ghor has caused violation of women's rights.

Meanwhile, civil society and women's rights activists strongly condemned the 
stoning and called it an "unacceptable and unforgiveable act."

This is not the 1st case a woman stoned to death in public. A number of similar 
cases have occurred in the past during the Taliban regime, ousted in 2001.

(source: rawa.org)


INDIA:

Mumbai court awards death sentence to Chandrabhan Sanap, prime accused in TCS


The man, Chandrabhan Sanap, convicted for the murder and rape of a TCS employee 
Esther Anuhya in January a year ago, a Mumbai Court today has been sentenced 
him to death.

"The case falls under the category of the rarest of rare, hence the accused is 
awarded death sentence... he must be hanged by his neck till he is dead", said 
Special Women's court judge Vrushali Joshi while pronouncing the verdict.

On March 3, Sanap was arrested from Nashik and was charged with murdering and 
raping Esther. Pretending to be a cab driver, he offered to drop her off at 
Andheri on his 2-wheeler where he raped and murdered her at an isolated place. 
The victims family welcomed the courts decision and said, that they were happy 
with the judgement.

"His cruelty did not stop at banging the victim's head and smothering her. He 
poured petrol on her and abandoned the partially burned body in the open". 
Sanap later told awaiting mediapersons that the police as usual have accused 
someone wrongly as he had not committed any such crime. Another homemaker said 
Sanap, his mother, younger brother and sister had lived in the SRA building 
from 2005 to 2014 when Sanap was sent to jail for an earlier crime. Judge Joshi 
observed: "This is the rarest of rare cases..."

"The case has again raised the question of working women's safety". "The 
incident created a dent in the belief that Mumbai is still a safe city for 
women". Special public prosecutor Raja Thakare, who examined 39 witnesses, then 
sought for death penalty for the convict. Esther's father S Jonhatan Prasad, 
however, while speaking to dna over phone, got emotional and said the loss 
caused to their family is irreversible. The woman had arrived from Vijayawada 
in Andhra Pradesh at the Lokmanya Tilak Railway Terminus after a Christmas 
break to rejoin work at the Tata Consultancy Services in Goregaon here. "He 
(Sanap) had called a tantrik to perform a pooja in repentance", the counsel had 
argued.

(source: nysepost.com)






ENGLAND:

50 years on, the debate over what replaces the death penalty continues


The consignment in 1965 of the hangman's noose to the penal history museum was, 
by any standards, a monumental event. It was engineered by the National 
Campaign for the Abolition of Capital Punishment. A clutch of ardent reformers 
influenced and persuaded parliamentarians to vote for the abolition of the 
death penalty for murder, during just one year's legislative programme and 
debates.

The campaign was formed a decade earlier by pressure groups such as the Howard 
League for Penal Reform. I was the most junior campaigner, an aspiring 
barrister whose advocacy for penal reform was just beginning.

Among the list of eminent speakers on the platform at the inaugural meeting in 
November 1955 - at the Central Methodist hall in Westminster - was the novelist 
JB Priestley, Lord Pakenham (later Lord Longford, a member of the incoming 
Labour government in 1964, and a lifelong penal reformer), Gerald Gardiner QC 
(Labour's lord chancellor from 1964-70) as Lord Gardiner, a passionate law 
reformer and ardent abolitionist, and CH Rolph (a prominent writer and a former 
inspector of police in the City of London).

The spur to the public debate on the death penalty stemmed from a trilogy of 
miscarriages of justice. In 1953, Derek Bentley was executed for the murder of 
a policeman on the rooftop of a warehouse in Croydon, south London. Bentley 
was, at most, an accomplice to Christopher Craig (who was under the legal age 
for execution), who fired the fatal shot in the course of a botched robbery. 
Bentley's conviction for murder was posthumously quashed in 1998. In 1950, 
Timothy Evans was unjustly hanged on the evidence of a neighbour, John 
Christie, who was subsequently convicted of murder, in a house they shared in 
west London. The 3rd case was more controversial. Ruth Ellis had shot an 
abusive and unfaithful lover in a fit of jealousy. Despite 50,000 people 
signing a petition seeking her reprieve, she was hanged at London's Holloway 
prison in 1955. After her death, prominent people, the trial judge and 
prosecuting counsel gave financial support to Ellis's son and daughter.

The campaign to rid the country of capital punishment did not end in November 
1965. The Act was made conditional on its renewal by December 1970. At heart of 
the media campaign were 2 fearsome antagonists - the publisher, Victor Gollancz 
and novelist Arthur Koestler. Koestler's Reflections on Hanging, which was 
serialised in 5 lengthy instalments in the Observer, demonstrated that the 
overwhelming majority of the crimes were murders resulting from domestic 
violence. The notion that the victims were primarily little old ladies in 
unprotected post offices murdered by young robbers was shown to be a myth which 
had dictated a distinctive punitive response.

Their prime target was the legislature. The presumption was that parliament 
should lead, not follow public opinion. In contrast to the politicians and 
religious organisations who were loud supporters, the judiciary was silent.

In the 1950s, the then lord chief justice, Lord Goddard, had claimed in a 
legislative capacity that the High Court judiciary was solidly behind him - 
predictably, for a confessed authoritarian - in supporting the penalty. But 
recent archival discovery has revealed that parliamentarians were privately 
assured of a post-1961 judiciary favourable to reform. On an occasion in 
February 1961, the new lord chief justice, Lord Parker, arranged through the 
Home Office to meet secretly with the lobby correspondents at Westminster. They 
were assured of a majority favouring "life after death" as the alternative 
sentence of the court.

On 9 November 1965 the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act was given the 
royal assent.

But the subject is not closed, even though the campaign was dissolved in 1984 
when I was its last chairman. 50 years on, the debate over the penalty for 
murder [ what replaces the hangman's noose - rumbles on.

Although there is no prescribed sentence of "whole life", (English law has 
never, either before or after the 1965 abolition, related the life sentence to 
natural life) a handful of convicted murderers have been told officially that 
they will be kept in prison for the rest of their lives.

Is it not inhumane in a civilised society to say of anyone that he or she will 
never leave prison alive? It is literally an immuring within prison walls - on 
the grounds, not of credible public danger, but of imputed morality, or revenge 
("a just desert"). No matter that the offender may have the capacity for 
change, or may do so, no matter that the passage of years and physical 
degeneration may render the offender???s condition no different from that of 
any other elderly person who is in need of long-term personal and nursing care: 
for that offender the prison door is as surely shut as if it had been bricked 
up, leaving no more than an aperture through which a coffin might pass.

(source: The Guardian)


IRAN:

At Least 7 Prisoners Transferred to Solitary in Preparation for Execution


On Sunday November 1, at least 7 prisoners at Rajai Shahr Prison, who are 
allegedly sentenced to death for murder, were reportedly transferred to 
solitary confinement in preparation for their executions.

According to close sources, this is the 4th time that Hassan Javadi, one of the 
prisoners, has been transferred to solitary confinement in prepartion for his 
execution.

The names of 4 of the other prisoners are: Arash Azarmipour, Ghorban 
Golmohammadi, Ali Shahi, and Massoud Ostadkarim.

(source: Iran Human Rights)






SINGAPORE:

Death Row in Singapore


I was sitting in a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur when I received the message on 
Monday afternoon. It was from Jumai, a short but heart-breaking note, sent over 
WhatsApp: "My brother this Friday die."

Jumai's brother is a 31-year-old Malaysian man named Jabing. For the past week 
myself and and other anti-death penalty activists have been in constant contact 
with Jumai, booking her and her mother flights to Singapore, picking them up at 
the airport, meeting in the evenings for updates and thinking of ways to get 
her brother off death row. I was in the Malaysian capital in the hopes of 
lobbying local human rights groups and politicians to act for their fellow 
countryman; and endeavor that yielded limited success.

It had been a long and arduous seven years for Jumai and her mother. Her 
brother, Jabing, was arrested in 2008 when he was 24 years old for his 
involvement in a robbery that led to a man's death. Jumai's father died of a 
stroke a few months later, which she attributed to health problems triggered by 
anxiety and worry for his son. 2 years later, Jabing was convicted of murder 
and sentenced to death under Singapore's mandatory death penalty regime. Under 
the law, anyone convicted of murder must be sentenced to death, with no chance 
for mitigating factors to be taken into account.

But that wasn't the end of the family's emotional rollercoaster. The Singapore 
government amended the mandatory death penalty law in 2013, allowing judges the 
discretion to choose between death and life imprisonment with caning - a 
vicious punishment in which the inmate is strapped down and whipped with a long 
rattan cane - for all but the most serious category of murder, as well as 
certain cases of drug trafficking. Jabing was eligible for re-sentencing, and a 
High Court judge ruled that there was "no clear evidence" he had snuck up 
behind his victim and hit him over the head with a piece of wood. The death 
sentence was set aside, replaced with a life sentence and 24 strokes of the 
cane.

Kho Jabing has exhausted all his legal appeals.

Any relief was short-lived. The prosecution appealed the sentence, and in 
January 2015 the Court of Appeal - Singapore's highest court - returned Jabing 
to death row in a in a 3-2 ruling. Although the 2 dissenting judges felt that 
there was insufficient evidence to determine how many times Jabing had struck 
his victim with the piece of wood or caused the skull fractures that led to the 
man's death, the 3 judges in the majority believed that Jabing had showed a 
"blatant disregard for human life" in a way that "outraged the feelings of the 
community" and therefore deserved to die.

The rich Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore has long been committed to 
capital punishment. The death penalty was brought into law while Singapore was 
still a British colony, and has remained even though the United Kingdom itself 
abolished executions in all circumstances in 1998. Capital crimes aren't 
limited to murder, but also include unlawful use of firearms and engaging in 
drug trafficking, with the latter making up the bulk of cases. 15 grams of 
heroin or 500 grams of cannabis can earn the offender a 1-way trip to the 
gallows - the method of execution that Singapore has always used.

It's a harsh position, deliberately adopted to signal Singapore's 
uncompromising stance on crime. The lack of evidence that the death penalty 
works as a deterrent is no barrier to the government claiming that it is the 
threat of the noose that maintains the city's safe, low-crime reputation.

Addressing a session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2014, 
Law Minister K Shanmugam vigorously defended the use of the death penalty for 
drugs. "Singapore is probably either the only country, or one of the few 
countries in the world, which has successfully fought this drug problem," he 
declared. "For those who ask for whom the death penalty can be a deterrent, I 
say to them, come and see for yourself in Singapore, and compare the region and 
the rest of the world."

The Supreme Court Building in Singapore, designed by Foster and Partners. The 
disc at the top of the building houses the courtroom of the Court of Appeal, 
Singapore's final appellate court.

Due to the relatively low number of murder cases, discussion about the death 
penalty for murder is less common than the debate surrounding Singapore's war 
on drugs. But the pro-death penalty rhetoric will be familiar to anyone who has 
ever encountered the issue: Since this person took someone else's life, why 
does he deserve to live? In other words, an eye for an eye.

This narrative of retribution and punishment can also be found in the 
courthouse. "Although a number of jurisdictions followed the 'rarest of the 
rare' principle in deciding whether or not to impose the death penalty, this 
was not appropriate for Singapore," wrote the Court of Appeal in the 2015 
judgement that sent Jabing back to death row. "A more appropriate principle to 
adopt would be whether the actions of the offender would outrage the feelings 
of the community."

All of this makes the struggle for abolition an uphill battle. Beyond a small 
circle of supporters there is little sympathy for people like Jabing or his 
family. Mercy is also in short supply; Jabing's appeal for a presidential 
pardon was rejected in mid-October. It was distressing for the family, but not 
a surprise. The last time an inmate was granted a reprieve was in 1998.

The rejection of Jabing's clemency appeal sparked off a flurry of activity. The 
most cruel of silent countdown clocks had begun to tick.

Matters have been made more complicated by the family's limited means. Jabing 
comes from a poor, rural part of Sarawak in east Malaysia. His family speaks no 
English; his sister speaks Malay, while his mother is most comfortable in her 
native Iban. They flew to Singapore in 2010 to see Jabing; it took them 2 years 
to save up enough to visit him. In May we flew them back to Singapore to submit 
their appeal to the president for mercy, giving them another chance to see him. 
We flew them here again once we'd heard that the pardon had been denied.

My brother says he wants his body to be flown back to Miri

Every day, from Monday to Saturday, Jumai and her mother Lenduk would make the 
journey from their hostel to the imposing Changi Prison Complex in eastern 
Singapore to spend precious time with Jabing. They had about an hour and a half 
each time - treasured minutes and seconds in which they could sit and talk to 
him. A glass pane separated them; it'd been a long time since they'd been able 
to touch one another.

The night after their 1st visit with Jabing we sat down to dinner together in a 
quiet hawker center. "My brother says he wants his body to be flown back to 
Miri," Jumai said. Jabing had been clear with his instructions. He'd converted 
from Christianity to Islam in prison, and wanted to be buried in the proper 
Muslim way. Fulfilling his last wish would involve the ordeal - not to mention 
expense - of getting a casket shipped from Singapore to Miri, then transported 
to the family's rural village. He told his sister to ensure that the whole 
process be taken care of by the Malaysian embassy; he was worried that we 
Singaporean activists had done too much for him already. It was a refrain we'd 
heard before from inmates and their families; despite their personal anguish, 
they would sometimes feel embarrassed or guilty about having put activists - 
seen as kind-hearted strangers - to too much trouble.

It was a surreal conversation to have around a plastic table on a hazy evening 
- a discussion of tentative funeral plans for a young man who was not only 
still alive, but physically in his prime. Part of me wanted to shut down such 
talk; it felt too much like giving up, like accepting the execution as 
inevitable. Yet this was what was on Jabing???s mind, and what he had asked his 
sister to do.

Jumai Kho and her mother Lenduk anak Baling with the family's personal letter 
of appeal to the President of Singapore asking him to grant clemency to their 
brother and son.

A week passed before 3 police officers asked to speak to Jumai and her mother 
after they were done with their visitation in Singapore. The dreaded day had 
come. It was Monday; the officers told the family that Jabing would hang on 
Friday Nov. 6.

Executions in Singapore usually take place at 6 a.m. every Friday morning. Just 
as early-risers stir from their beds and children get ready for school, the 
inmate is taken from his or her cell to the execution chamber. A noose - 
measured out according to the individual's weight - is placed over the 
prisoner's head, the knot behind the right ear to ensure the spinal cord is 
snapped upon the impact of the long drop through the trapdoor. No one, apart 
from prison officers and doctors, is allowed to be present. From what we can 
gather, the process is quick, methodical, and by the book. The family is 
expected to claim the body by a certain stipulated time, or the state will 
cremate the remains.

Before the execution there is a bizarre and somewhat disturbing charade. About 
a day or so before execution the inmate is allowed to change out of his prison 
uniform into regular clothes, and is made to pose for a photo shoot. The photos 
are then provided to the family as mementoes of their lost loved one.

It was for this shoot that Jumai and Lenduk found themselves, late on Monday 
night, in a sprawling 24-hour mall in Little India, looking for clothes Jabing 
would be able to wear. While Jumai tried to make sure that her brother would 
get everything he needed, Lenduk looked listlesssly at all the choices. How was 
she to choose, knowing that it would likely be the last set of clothes her only 
son would ever wear?

Both women were still reeling from the news. "If you could see my breath, you'd 
see it slowly disappearing," said Jumai through a Malay translator. "I still 
cannot accept the fact."

No one is willing to give up while Jabing is still alive. Yet the knowledge 
that time is running out and chances of a last-minute reprieve are slim is 
constantly at the back of all our minds, family and activists alike.

"If there is an opportunity for us to keep him alive, then at least we will 
have the chance to come and visit him," Jumai said. "But sometimes I feel like 
all hope is lost."

(source: Kirsten Han, roadsandkingdoms.com)

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

Mercy for Kho Jabing: An open letter to the Cabinet


We are writing this letter of appeal for Kho Jabing, whose petition for 
clemency was rejected on 19 October 2015. We urge the Cabinet to reconsider his 
clemency in light of the fact that there was no unanimous decision even at the 
highest court of the land, and our learned judges were split in their opinion 
of whether the death penalty was appropriate in his case.

We also seek the compassion of the Cabinet for the family of Jabing, who have 
gone through much suffering since his original sentencing. His father passed 
away while Jabing's case was ongoing, and Jabing's sister Jumai believes that 
her father's illness prior to his death was due to Jabing's incarceration, 
which came as a great blow for him. His mother, who has been unable to work due 
to health reasons, has lost both her sources of financial support and has been 
living on the goodwill of her neighbours and minimal state welfare ever since 
then.

On top of her ill-health, the thought of losing Jabing, her only son, is too 
much for his mother to bear. We cannot imagine the effect his death will have 
on her wellbeing.

We understand the grievousness of his offence but hope that he will be given a 
second chance and a more meaningful way to atone for his crime.

We hope that our Ministers will be compassionate and consider all factors 
related, especially the impact of capital punishment on Jabing's family, and 
exercise mercy by commuting his death sentence to that of life imprisonment.

Yours sincerely,

Singapore Working Group on the Death Penalty

(source: wordpress.com)






VIETNAM:

Malaysian woman nabbed in Vietnam for smuggling cocaine


Vietnam has arrested a Malaysian woman for smuggling cocaine, state media said 
today, a crime punishable by death in the communist country.

Gurcharan Kaur, 44, was caught with 5kg of cocaine at Ho Chi Minh City's 
international airport on Tuesday night, according to Tuoi Tre newspaper. She 
had travelled to Columbia, Panama, Brazil and Dubai before landing in Vietnam 
where authorities detected the powdered drug in her baggage, it reported.

Under some of the world's toughest drug laws, anyone found guilty of possessing 
more than 600g of heroin or cocaine can face the death penalty in Vietnam.

Dozens of foreigners have been sentenced to death for drug offences but it has 
been decades since a foreign national was executed in the country and 
drug-smuggling and use is commonplace.

In September, an Australian woman of Vietnamese origin was imprisoned for 20 
years for trying to smuggle heroin in her underwear. Last year, a Filipino man 
and woman were sentenced to death for smuggling in 5kg of cocaine.

(source: themalaysianinsider.com)






BANGLADESH:

Narayanganj court sentences 2 to death for murdering schoolgirl in 1999


A Narayanganj court has sentenced 2 men to death and 3 others to life 
imprisonment in a case over raping and murdering a schoolgirl nearly 15 years 
ago.

'Tania', who was an 8th grader at Siddhirganj's Rebtimohon Pilot High School 
and College, was raped and strangulated to death by the 5 accused on Dec 13 in 
1999.

Women and Children Repression Prevention Special Tribunal's judge Rashidul 
Haque Raja delivered the verdict in the case on Tuesday, said State counsel 
Rakib Uddin Rakib.

All the accused were present in court during pronouncement of verdict.

Of them, Mohor Chan and Amir Hossain Khokan were given the death penalty, while 
Safar Ali, Nure Alam and 'Monir' were awarded life imprisonment.

After murdering the girl, they had dumped the body on the bank of Shitalakkhya 
River.

Tania's uncle had later filed the case with Siddhirganj police accusing the 5.

19 witnesses had deposed in court in the case.

(source: bdnews24.com)

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

Nizami's appeal hearing not resumed


The Supreme Court yesterday could not resume the hearing on the appeal filed by 
condemned war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami, challenging a verdict that 
sentenced him to death for his war crimes during the 1971 Liberation War.

A four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra 
Kumar Sinha was scheduled to hear Nizami's appeal but they could not do so as 
one of the judges was not present, two deputy attorneys general requesting 
anonymity told The Daily Star.

They, however, could not say why the judge was absent in the bench.

SC Registrar General Syed Aminul Islam also said he did not know anything about 
the absence.

On September 9, the four-member bench started hearing the appeal and adjourned 
the proceedings till yesterday.

On November 23 last year, Jamaat-e-Islami chief Nizami challenged the death 
penalty.

International Crimes Tribunal-1 on October 29 last year gave him the death 
penalty on 4 charges, including murdering intellectuals.

(source: The Daily Star)






PAKISTAN:

Pakistan moves toward death penalty for child sex abuse


Pakistan has taken a step towards punishing the sexual abuse of girls with life 
imprisonment or even death after an influential parliamentary committee voted 
to amend current laws.

The National Assembly's standing committee approved the proposal by lawmaker 
Shaista Perveiz Malik on Tuesday, according to a statement on parliament's 
website on Wednesday.

"After detailed discussions, the committee unanimously passed the bill," it 
said.

The amendment only appears to address the sexual abuse of girls aged under 14, 
not boys.

Under the existing penal code, the punishment for rape ranges from a minimum of 
10 years' incarceration to the death penalty, but it does not specify the 
victim's age or gender.

The bill will now come before lawmakers in both parliamentary chambers, who are 
set to pass it into law.

Shaista Malik told the committee the state should protect vulnerable women and 
children.

In a report, independent child rights watchdog Sahil said that last year almost 
10 children were sexually abused in Pakistan every day on average.

Parliamentary records show that some 14,583 rape cases were registered in 
Pakistan between 2009-2014, while only 1,041 offenders were convicted.

Pakistan ended a 6-year moratorium on the death penalty last year, at first 
just for terror-related charges but later for offences including murder, drug 
smuggling, blasphemy and treason.

(source: The Gulf Today)