[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 9




BANGLADESH:

Supreme Court starts hearing Mir Quasem Ali's appeal against war crimes verdict


The Supreme Court has started hearing the appeal by Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir 
Quasem Ali against the war crimes tribunal's verdict.

The 5-member Appellate Division bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha 
started the proceedings on Tuesday.

The hearing began with defence counsel SM Sajahan reading out the charges 
against his client. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam represented the State during 
the hearing.

The Jamaat leader has been given the death penalty by the International Crimes 
Tribunal for crimes against humanity on Nov 2, 2014.

A top financier of the party, he filed an appeal seeking acquittal on Nov 30 
that year.

Mir Quasem is said to have been the 3rd man in vigilante militia Al-Badr's 
command structure during the 1971 Liberation War.

Under his command local collaborators of Pakistan Army let loose a reign of 
terror to suppress the Bengali freedom struggle in Chittagong.

An executive council member of Jamaat, he was arrested on June 17, 2012 from 
the office of newspaper Naya Diganta less than 2 hours after the tribunal 
issued a warrant for his arrest.

(source: benews24.com)






GAZA:

Palestinian human rights defenders condemn execution by Hamas


Palestinian human rights defenders are condemning the killing by Hamas of one 
of the resistance organization's own members in Gaza.

On Sunday, the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced it had 
executed Mahmoud Rushdi Ishteiwi.

In a brief statement on its website, Qassam said that the slaying of Ishteiwi 
implemented a death sentence issued by "the military and Sharia judiciaries of 
Qassam Brigades for behavioral and moral excesses that he confessed."

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), which gave Ishteiwi's age as 
35, condemned the slaying and called on the "attorney general to investigate it 
and take all necessary legal measures to ensure justice."

"Killing Ishteiwi in such a way constitutes an assault on the rule of law and 
might institutionalize a serious case of extrajudicial execution," PCHR added.

According to its investigation and information given to PCHR by Ishteiwi's 
sister Buthaina last July, her brother was arrested in January 2015 on 
suspicion of "collaboration with the Israeli forces, misappropriation of funds 
and behavioral excesses."

"Prosecuting collaborators with the Israeli forces is necessary, and the 
Palestinian armed groups play an important role in such prosecution," PCHR 
stated. "However, only official authorities should open investigations and hold 
the perpetrators to account."

Following news of Mahmoud Ishteiwi's execution, Buthaina Ishteiwi told the 
Wattan news outlet that she believed her brother had been killed due to a 
dispute with his superiors.

While PCHR's statement on Ishteiwi suggests that collaboration may have been 
one of the accusations against him, the Qassam Brigades statement announcing 
the execution does not make that claim.

Typically, when Hamas has announced killings of alleged collaborators, it has 
not published their names, supposedly to spare their families the public 
ostracism that comes with such a grave accusation.

Split authority

Under the laws of the Palestinian Authority, death sentences issued by courts 
can only be carried out after ratification by the PA president.

The West Bank-based PA leader Mahmoud Abbas has not ratified any death 
sentences in a decade.

Hamas has however continued the use of the death penalty in Gaza.

The surprise victor in legislative elections in 2006, Hamas took control of the 
internal governance of Gaza in 2007 after fierce battles with Abbas' rival 
Fatah party, which refused to hand over power.

This has meant in practice that most areas of governance, including the 
judicial system, have been split.

According to PCHR, a total of 172 death sentences have been issued since the PA 
was established in 1994, of which 30 were in the West Bank and 142 in Gaza.

84 death sentences were issued since Hamas took over in Gaza in 2007.

Up to 2010, according to PCHR, about 1/2 the death sentences were for homicides 
and about half for collaboration with Israel.

Earlier this month, a military court in Gaza, ostensibly operating under the 
Palestine Liberation Organization's Revolutionary Penal Code of 1979, sentenced 
four individuals to death by hanging on accusations of collaboration with 
Israel, according to the Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights.

And last week, Hamas reportedly arrested a woman on suspicion of spying. The 
woman allegedly used a condolence visit to the families of Hamas fighters 
recently killed in tunnel collapses to try to glean sensitive information.

Rule of law

Collaboration is seen by Palestinians, as it has historically been seen among 
all occupied populations, as a serious threat to life and safety as well as to 
the operational security of resistance organizations.

Israel makes intensive efforts to recruit informants, preying on the misery 
that its nearly 9-year siege of Gaza and repeated devastating assaults have 
generated.

"Everything starts and ends with money," an agent from Israel's domestic 
intelligence agency, Shin Bet, which recruits Palestinian informants, told the 
Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz in 2014.

But Israel also tries to coerce collaboration in other ways, including 
blackmailing patients who require difficult to obtain permits to travel to 
Israel for life-saving medical treatment.

Israel has also periodically dropped leaflets over Gaza with telephone numbers 
for would-be Palestinian informants to contact its agents.

Hamas, for its part, has used a number of means to try to combat the 
phenomenon, from public information campaigns to executions, occasionally 
carried out gruesomely in public, as happened during Israel's summer 2014 
assault.

It has not been rare for revolutionary and resistance groups in different 
countries to resort to such brutality against alleged collaborators.

But however serious the threat from informants, Palestinian human rights 
defenders have been adamant that even wartime collaboration must be dealt with 
according to the rule of law.

Both PCHR and Al Mezan have moreover long advocated the total abolition of the 
death penalty in all cases.

In the short film at the top of this article, titled "Against the Death 
Penalty" and released in December, PCHR highlights its campaign to end the 
practice once and for all.

(source: theelectronicintifada.net)






PAKISTAN:

92% of Pakistanis support hanging terrorists: survey


According to a Gilani Research Foundation Survey carried out by Gallup 
Pakistan, sweeping majority of Pakistanis (92%) support the rule of hanging 
terrorists.

A nationally representative sample of men and women from across the four 
provinces was asked, "Some people support the rule of hanging terrorists while 
others are against this. Please tell, to what extent do you support or oppose 
this rule?"

In response, 64% said that they support it a lot, 28% said that they support it 
to some extent and 6% said that they oppose it to some extent. 2% said that 
they oppose it a lot.

The study was released by Gilani Research Foundation and carried out by Gallup 
Pakistan, the Pakistani affiliate of Gallup International.

The recent survey was carried out among a sample of 1826 men and women in rural 
and urban areas of all 4 provinces of the country, during December 21 - 
December 28, 2015.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a 6-year moratorium on executions on 
December 17, 2014, a day after Tehreek-e-Taliban militants massacred more than 
150 people -- mostly children -- at Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar.

Since that time Pakistan has executed more than 300 death row convicts.

Amnesty International estimates that Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on 
death row, most of whom have exhausted the appeals process.

Supporters argue that the death penalty is the only effective way to deal with 
the scourge of militancy in the country. But critics say the legal system is 
unjust, with rampant police torture, poor representation for victims and unfair 
trials.

(source: Dunya News)






ENGLAND:

Andy Warhol artwork made of 14 ELECTRIC CHAIRS expected to fetch 6m pounds at 
auction


A giant Andy Warhol canvas made up of 14 small electric chairs is expected to 
sell for 6 million pounds at auction.

The American pop artist worked on a Death and Disaster Series which included 
images of electric chairs used to deliver the death penalty in the 1960s.

And in 1980 he revisited the theme as part of his Reversals series, which was a 
postmodern reworking of his best-known compositions.

The monumental piece is 2-metres high and features 14 electric chairs, which 
Warhol viewed alongside the dollar bill, Coca-Cola sign and Marilyn Monroe's 
face as all-American emblems.

It is regarded as Warhol's most hard-hitting "visual shorthand" for American 
national identity and also one of the most internationally renowned.

His electric chair paintings are in collections at the Guggenheim in New York 
and the Menil Collection in Houston.

This piece, which has been in private ownership for 20 years, is the star lot 
at Bonhams' Contemporary Art sale which takes place in London on February 11.

It has been given a guide price of 4 to 6 million pounds.

Ralph Taylor, Bonhams senior director of Post-War and Contemporary Art, said: 
"It is incredible to stand in front of this piece.

"Warhol's transformation of the electric chair motif into a striking abstract 
pattern encrypts the implications of the original image.

"The longer you look at it, the more its significance slowly dawns, gaining 
force from its very discretion.

"For me, this ironic twist is closely tied to an intense impression of Warhol's 
personal self-reflection as an artist. It is so rare to come across such a 
historic icon of post-war and contemporary art outside museums."

(source: The Mirror)






THAILAND:

Cambodia arrests man wanted for Spaniard killing in Bangkok


The prime suspect in the grisly murder and dismemberment of a Spanish national 
in Bangkok was returned to Thailand yesterday after his arrest in Cambodia, 
police said.

Multiple body parts belonging to businessman David Bernat were found floating 
in Bangkok's Chao Praya river last month.

Police believe he was kidnapped and murdered for financial reasons, with 
investigators saying they have traced more than $1mn moved from the victim's 
bank account after his death.

Last week they named their chief suspect as Artur Segarra, 36, also a Spanish 
national, saying they were confident he remained inside Thailand because he had 
recently withdrawn money from a cash machine inside the country.

But Cambodian police said Segarra was apprehended in a restaurant on Sunday in 
the town of Sihanoukville.

"We arrested him yesterday late afternoon," Chuon Narin, police chief of 
Kampong Som province, said yesterday.

He was later handed over to Thai police in the eastern province of Trat. 
General Panya Maman, the officer leading the murder investigation, said Segurra 
would be sent to Bangkok for interrogation.

"A criminal court has issued an arrest warrant against Artur for premeditated 
murder and illegal disposal of a body," he told reporters.

If charged and convicted, Segurra could face the death penalty.

The gruesome case has dominated Thai media coverage in recent days with 
television networks airing grim footage of officers hauling Bernat's remains 
out of the river. Police questioned a Thai woman over the weekend who was 
allegedly seen with Segarra in recent days.

Investigators initially struggled to identify the victim. Last week police said 
they believed the man was of Asian origin and suggested that Chinese triads 
might have been involved because of the method chosen to dispose of the body.

The wide Chao Praya winds its way through Bangkok, which boasts a large network 
of canals, and it is not unusual for bodies to be dumped in the city's 
waterways. But it is rare for a foreigner to meet such a grisly fate.

Cambodian police have returned a number of high profile criminal suspects to 
Thailand in recent months, including 1 of the alleged perpetrators of last 
summer's Bangkok bombing and an Australian wanted for his alleged involvement 
in the murder of a fellow national and former Hells Angels member in Pattaya.

(source: Gulf Times)


TURKEY/EGYPT:

Erdogan rules out meeting Egypt's Sisi over death sentences for Brotherhood


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he will not meet with Egyptian 
President Abdul Fatah Sisi until Egypt lifts the death sentences of Mohammed 
Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

"My stance on that issue is clear; in the first place, I will not meet Sisi 
until the decisions of death penalty for Morsi and his friends are reviewed and 
lifted. Our ministers may meet with their counterparts," Erdogan said according 
to a Feb. 7 report by the Turkish Hurriyet newspaper.

Erdogan, a strong supporter of the Brotherhood, blasted Morsi's ouster in 2013 
and later referred to Sisi as a "tyrant." Cairo responded by expelling the 
Turkish ambassador and Ankara did the same.

Following Moris's ouster, the Muslim Brotherhood was officially branded a 
terrorist group and outlawed in Egypt. Sisi's government continues to crack 
down on the Brotherhood and its supporters in the country.

Erdogan added that a meeting between Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his 
Egyptian counterpart would be acceptable as "Turkey and Egypt are 2 peoples, 2 
countries which are from the same culture and believe in the same standards of 
judgments. Of course, we shouldn't break away."

(source: WorldTribune.com)






SAUDI ARABIA:

Ali Mohammed al-Nimr: Saudi Arabia on verge of beheading protester 'tortured as 
a child into confessing'


A young protester who was reportedly forced to admit to crimes after being 
tortured when he was a teenager could be beheaded in the coming days.

Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested in Saudi Arabia in 2012, along with 2 others 
who were also minors at the time, following anti-government protests in 2011.

In 2013, aged just 17, he was sentenced to death by beheading and crucifixion.

He is the nephew of the outspoken Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who was 
executed on 2 January without warning, along with 46 other prisoners.

His mother, Umm Bakr, told The Times she fears her son was used "as a card 
against his uncle", and says after he was arrested he was tortured into signing 
confessions for a number of false charges including carrying a weapon.

Mohammed al-Nimr, his father and the brother of Sheikh Nimr, believes his son 
was "just like any other youth," he said: "When the movement started, he 
joined, believing he would take on the burden for the people."

However, he claims police knocked Mr al-Nimr off his motorcycle and arrested 
him, informing his family he would only be released if "his uncle stops 
talking".

The mass execution sparked widespread protests around the world and lead to a 
sharp decline in relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Following the mass killing of 46 prisoners earlier this year, the largest mass 
execution in Saudi Arabia since 1980, the British government maintains it 
doesn't expect the Mr al-Nimr's sentence to go ahead.

But his father doubts he will be released: "Perhaps before 2 January, I might 
have believed that. Now unless I see him back home again, none of these 
assurances can give me any comfort."

(source: The Independent)






AFGHANISTAN:

Taliban Reportedly Execute Afghan Woman For Adultery----The Afghanistan 
Independent Human Rights Commission says Ghor is among the provinces with the 
highest number of so-called Taliban "desert courts."


Afghan officials say a woman has been executed after being accused of adultery 
in a remote Taliban-controlled village in the western province of Ghor.

Abdul Hai Khatibi, a provincial government spokesman, said on February 8 that 
the execution was carried out in the remote Taliban-controlled village of Zanu 
on February 5.

The woman was identified by her 1st name, Zahra, but her age was unknown.

Khatibi said Zahra was detained by the Taliban along with a man, identified as 
Ayub. Ayub was shot while trying to flee and is currently in Taliban captivity, 
the spokesman said.

However, district Governor Muhammad Hussein Daneshyar told RFE/RL's Radio Free 
Afghanistan that the woman was shot dead by her husband, who accused her of 
having an extramarital affair.

Afghan official say the area has been under militant control for more than a 
year.

There was no comment from the Taliban.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission says Ghor is among the 
provinces with the highest number of so-called Taliban "desert courts."

(source: rawa.org)