[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 23




MALAYSIA:

Pregnant woman, husband, charged with drug trafficking, face gallows


A married couple was charged in the Ampang Magistrate's Court here today with 2 
counts of drug trafficking.

However, no plea was recorded from clerk Lai Sook Kwan, 25, and her trader 
husband, Tan Kean Yap, 30, after the charges were read out before Magistrate 
Haslinda A. Raof.

Tan and Lai, who is pregnant with her 2nd child, face the death penalty if 
found guilty of the charges made under Section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs 
Act.

They were jointly-charged with trafficking in 52.8gm of Nimetazepam and 181.8gm 
of Methamphetamine at a house in Jalan Perdanan 2/24, Taman Pandan Perdana here 
at 8.30am on Jan 11.

In the same court, Lai was also charged with 3 counts of drug possession, 
involving Nimetazepam (27.5gm), Methamphetamine (3.40gm) and Ketamine (0.90gm) 
at Puteri Park Plaza, Jalan 28, Taman Putra here at 7.30pm on the same day. She 
pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The 3 charges were made under Section 12(2) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, 
punishable under Section 12(3) of the same law, which provides for imprisonment 
of up to 5 years, or a fine not exceeding RM100,000, or both, if found guilty.

The couple was represented by lawyer Amirul Ridzuan Hanif.

Deputy public prosecutor Raihanah Abdul Razak, who prosecuted, did not offer 
bail.

The court set March 23 for mention of all cases.

(source: New Straits Times)

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

Young lawyers shying away from doing crimiminal law----Senior lawyer says young 
lawyers under constant pressure over the consequences of losing their cases, 
especially those that involve the death penalty.


Most junior lawyers are not keen to take up criminal law practice as they 
cannot take the pressure that comes with the job, a senior lawyer said.

N Sivananthan said advocacy in this area of law was crucial and lawyers must 
"think on their feet".

"Criminal law is trial by ambush and there are elements of surprise where a 
lawyer must be able to digest issues on the spot before conducting cross 
examination," he said.

Sivananthan said lawyers were also under constant pressure over the 
consequences of losing their cases, especially those that involve the death 
penalty.

"As such, many young lawyers shy away from criminal practice and prefer to 
venture into other areas of law," he added.

Sivananthan said criminal law was different compared with civil law as the 
latter was about confining the case to the "4 corners of pleadings".

He said this in response to Chief Justice Arifin Zakaria, who had expressed 
concern over the acute shortage of lawyers taking up criminal cases, including 
drug trafficking and murder, both of which carried the death sentence.

Speaking to reporters after the ceremonial opening of the 2017 judicial legal 
year recently, Arifin said this could be due to unattractive monetary returns 
compared with civil law practice.

The top judge made the remark in reaction to a question on what the judiciary 
was doing to expedite trials against those charged with murder and drug 
trafficking but languished in jail for a long time since no bail could be 
offered.

Arifin said proceedings were also held up as accused persons also wanted to 
obtain the services of lawyers of their own choice.

Sivananthan said clients and their families wanted to pick reputable counsel as 
it involved the possible loss of life in the event that the court found the 
accused guilty.

He said the current pool of senior lawyers were stagnant and would become 
smaller with junior lawyers not inclined to replace their seniors.

Arifin had also mentioned a shortage of chemists that is hampering the quick 
disposal of cases.

Sivananthan said a trial could not begin sooner than expected because chemists 
took about 6 months to prepare their report as evidence in court.

(source: freemalaysiatoday.com)






INDIA:

Protests In South Kashmir Against West Bengal Death Penalty to Youth


Clashes and protests broke out in a south Kashmir village on Sunday against the 
handing down of death penalty to a local youth by a fast-track court in West 
Bengal last week along with two Pakistani nationals.

The family members of Muzafar Ahmad, 1 of the 3 accused who were held guilty 
under sections 121 (waging war against the state) and 121A (conspiracy to wage 
war against the Government of India) of the IPC, claimed that their son is 
being "framed".

Abdul Majid Rather, father of Muzafar, told The Citizen that his son had gone 
missing in 2002 when he was a minor, "We had filed a police complaint then but 
there was no trace of him. In 2007, we got to know that he has been arrested by 
police in Bengal," he said.

According to reports, Muzaffar was arrested while crossing into India along 
Bangladesh border. Security agencies accuse him of receiving arms training in 
Pakistan and also blamed the trio for planning to carry out "subversive 
activities" in the country.

"We went to meet him in Kolkata after the arrest in 2007 but the police only 
showed me his face from a distance. He waved at me and I broke down. I couldn't 
recognise him. He had been gone for a long time," Rather, who works as a 
labourer to feed his family, said.

He said the family has been in touch with Muzafar since his arrest in 2007, 
visiting him in a West Bengal jail once or twice in a year, since their 
stressful financial condition didn't permit frequent travel from Kashmir.

"The news (of death penalty) has shocked us. We went to meet him recently and 
he was hopeful of getting bail in next hearing (on January 21). It seems like a 
ploy to frame him. My son is innocent," Rather said.

The news of death penalty by the Bongaon fast track court of North-24 Parganas 
on Saturday evoked widespread anguish in the native Mohammadpur village of 
Muzafar where locals took to streets to demand his immediate release.

Police and paramilitary forced deployed in the village used force, including 
teargas, to disperse the demonstrators, causing minor injuries to some. Stone 
pelting was also reported from the village.

The other 2 convicted in the case are Mohammed Yunus and Mohammed Abdullah, 
both resident of Pakistan.

The probe, carried by police, has allegedly found that the trio are 
well-trained in using AK-47 rifle, hand grenades and manufacturing bombs. 1 of 
them has also been accused of involvement in an incident of bomb blast in 
Mumbai.

(source: thecitizen.in)






TURKEY:

Turkish parliament approves presidential system


The Turkish parliament has backed a plan to strengthen the powers of the 
presidency, paving the way for a referendum on the issue in spring which, if 
passed, could allow President Tayyip Erdogan to stay in office until 2029. 
Erdogan says the reform will provide stability in the European Union candidate 
country at a time of turmoil and prevent a return to the fragile coalitions of 
the past. His opponents fear it will herald increasingly authoritarian rule.

The constitutional reform bill was approved overnight with 339 votes in the 
550-member assembly, parliament said on its official Twitter account on 
Saturday. The legislation needed at least 330 deputies to support it in order 
to go to a public vote. Erdogan, speaking for the first time since parliament's 
vote, called on his supporters to work "day in and day out" throughout the 
referendum campaign. "My people will give the final decision... I believe this 
referendum period will conclude with the will of our people," Erdogan said at 
an opening ceremony in Istanbul. Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag, along with 
other ruling party politicians, took to Twitter after parliament's decision, 
and voiced support for the changes.

"A new door in Turkish history and in the lives of the Turkish people has been 
cracked open today. With our people's 'yes' vote, this door will be completely 
opened," Bozdag wrote on Twitter. The leader of the main opposition CHP, Kemal 
Kilicdaroglu, said after the voting that his party would fight the changes in 
their referendum campaign.

"This is a betrayal by the parliament of its own history. Our people will 
certainly thwart the game that was played in parliament... We will go from door 
to door and explain this to our people," Kilicdaroglu said. The reform would 
enable the president to issue decrees, declare emergency rule, appoint 
ministers and top state officials and dissolve parliament - powers that the 2 
main opposition parties say strip away balances to Erdogan's power.

Erdogan assumed the presidency, a largely ceremonial position, in 2014 after 
over a decade as prime minister with the ruling AK Party, which he co-founded. 
Since then, pushing his powers to the limit, he has continued to dominate 
politics by dint of his personal popularity.

With the reforms, the president will be allowed to retain ties to a political 
party, potentially allowing Erdogan to resume his leadership of the AK Party, 
in a move that opposition parties say will abolish any chance of impartiality. 
The plans envisage presidential and general elections to be held together in 
2019 with a president eligible to serve a maximum 2 5-year terms. Critics 
accuse Erdogan of increasing authoritarianism with the arrests and dismissal of 
tens of thousands of judges, police, military officers, journalists and 
academics since a failed military coup in July.

Erdogan and the government say the extent of the crackdown is justified by the 
nature of the threat to the state from July 15, when rogue soldiers 
commandeered tanks and fighter jets in a violent bid to seize power. Erdogan on 
Saturday also revived the question of reintroducing the death penalty, which 
some of his supporters had called for in the wake of July's coup attempt.

"I believe this issue (death penalty) will be debated in parliament again after 
the referendum period. Once it passes parliament, let me say again that I will 
approve it," Erdogan said. The restoration of the death penalty, which Turkey 
formally abandoned in 2002 as part of its European Union accession talks, would 
likely spell the end of Turkey's talks to join the bloc. Turkey has also been 
hit by a spate of deadly bombings and gun attacks by Islamic State and Kurdish 
militants over the past year and a half.

(source: Business Recorder)






BANGLADESH:

5 to hang for murdering fisherman Basu in Dhaka


The verdict was announced Sunday.

The death row convicts are Fishermen Association President of Shah Ali area 
Asgar Ali, 'Selim', 'Alkas', 'Raju' and 'Khalil'.

Kadar Ali and Ruhul Amin Ledu have received the life terms. They have 
additionally been slapped with a fine of Tk 25,000 each, failing the payment of 
which the sentence will be increased by a year, the court has ruled.

Only Asgar was present at court during the verdict. The others are absconding.

In 2012, Basu was pushed off from a terrace and then shot and killed.

The verdict identifies Asgar as the chief culprit. Boundary dispute led to the 
incident, the court has said.

Prosecutor Saiful Islam Helal said the issue of selling of fish was another 
bone of contention between the two sides. But this did not come up during the 
course of the trial

(source: bdnews24.com)






BAHRAIN:

2 Face Execution Despite Torture Allegations-----3 Executed in a Similar Case 
on January 15


2 Bahrainis appear to be at imminent risk of execution despite the authorities' 
failure to properly investigate their allegations of torture, Human Rights 
Watch said today. Both Mohamed Ramadan and Husain Ali Moosa have disavowed 
confessions that they allege were the result of torture and that were used as 
evidence in a trial that violated international due process standards.

The January 15, 2017 executions of three other Bahrainis in a similar case have 
raised concerns that King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa will approve the executions 
of Ramadan and Moosa, who face the death penalty for a February 2014 bombing 
that resulted in the death of a policeman. Human Rights Watch analysis of their 
trial and appeal judgments found that their convictions were based almost 
exclusively on their confessions, which both men retracted.

"Bahrain should not under any circumstances execute 2 more young men, 
especially where there is credible evidence of confessions obtained through 
torture and unsound convictions," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director 
at Human Rights Watch.

On December 29, 2014, Bahrain's 4th superior criminal court convicted Ramadan 
and Moosa of the premeditated murder of 'Abd al-Wahid Sayyid Muhammad Faqir, a 
policeman who died from injuries caused by an improvised explosive device in 
Muharraq on February 14, 2014. The court convicted 10 other Bahrainis of 
involvement in the bombing and sentenced them to between 6 years and life in 
prison.

Ramadan and Moosa's lawyer, Mohamed al-Tajer, told Human Rights Watch that he 
was unable to speak with his clients during pretrial detention. The 1st time he 
was able to speak with them was on the 1st day of their trial on July 24, 2014, 
he said.

An examination of the trial record indicates that the key evidence used to 
convict Ramadan and Moosa was their confessions, which their lawyer argued in 
court should have been inadmissible because the court did not thoroughly 
investigate the men's torture allegations. The trial court dismissed this 
argument, stating that "the defendant's [Moosa's] confession is overall 
consistent, which confirms and proves that his confession is consistent with 
the truth and facts of the case." On May 27, 2015, Bahrain's First Supreme 
Criminal High Appellate Court upheld the death sentences, saying that it was 
"persuaded that these confessions and statements were free of any taint of 
coercion of any kind, using in this its discretionary authority."

Human Rights Watch reviewed copies of the reports from Dr. Mohamed Nour Fowda, 
the forensic doctor employed by Bahrain's public prosecutor's office, who 
examined Ramadan and Moosa on March 2, 2014. The reports do not refer to the 
men's allegations of torture, stating only that their purpose is to assess the 
nature and cause of any injuries. The report on Ramadan concludes that the 
bruising on his legs was the result of "collision ... with an object," and the 
report on Moosa concludes that marks on his wrists were "the result of 
handcuffs." The trial court judgment makes no reference to either forensic 
report. Al-Tajer, who has defended many prominent opposition figures and rights 
activists, told Human Rights Watch that their absence probably relates to the 
considerable evidentiary weight that judges in Bahrain place on confessions.

United Kingdom-based human rights organization Reprieve provided copies of 
these reports to Dr. Brock Chisholm, an honorary lecturer at St Georges Medical 
Hospital Medical School, University of London, and an expert in the diagnosis 
and treatment of torture victims. Chisholm wrote that the report on Ramadan 
"fails in almost all aspects of what is required in a forensic investigation of 
possible torture. ... is in complete violation of the internationally 
recognised Istanbul Protocol and should therefore be completely disregarded."

Chisholm listed a range of failures, including the absence of details of the 
report's author's qualifications or independence, the presence of a police 
officer during the investigation, the absence of a lawyer during the 
investigation, the failure to document full details of Ramadan's injuries, and 
the fact that "no causation is explored or rationale given for the injuries 
within the report and no attempt was made to obtain any elaboration from the 
individual concerned." Chisholm said of the Bahraini authorities' forensic 
report on Husain Moosa that, "there are clear violations of the Istanbul 
Protocol and compelling reasons to suspect that sufficient independence was 
lacking." The Istanbul Protocol is the United Nations manual detailing best 
practices on the effective investigation and documentation of torture and other 
cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

Ramadan's wife, Zainab, told Human Rights Watch that her husband looked "pale, 
skinny, weak, and shaken" when she met with him at what she described as a 
strictly monitored visit approximately 10 days after his arrest on February 18, 
2014. She said that after his transfer to Jau prison month after his arrest, he 
told his family that officers at the Criminal Investigations Directorate and 
Riffa police station tortured him to make him confess to his involvement in the 
bombing.

The trial court judgment says the case against the defendants "was also proven" 
in reports from the Crime Scene Division and Criminal Investigations Lab, but 
it cites no physical or other evidence linking any of the defendants to the 
bomb or to the 2 devices - a Nokia mobile phone and a remote control - that the 
judgments says "could have been used" to detonate the bomb.

On January 17, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said it 
was "appalled" by the January 15 execution of Sami Mushaima, Ali al-Singace, 
and Abbas al-Sameea, charged with the murder of 3 police officers, citing their 
alleged torture and the fact that "their lawyers were not given access to all 
the hearings against them nor allowed to cross-examine prosecution witnesses 
during court hearings." France condemned the executions, while the UK and the 
European Union issued statements reiterating their opposition to the death 
penalty.

The UN Human Rights Committee, which interprets the International Covenant on 
Civil and Political Rights, which Bahrain has ratified, has said that "in cases 
of trials leading to the imposition of the death penalty scrupulous respect of 
the guarantees of fair trial is particularly important" and that any death 
penalty imposed after an unfair trial would be a violation of the right to 
life. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because 
of its inherent cruelty.

On April 11, 2016, Tobias Ellwood, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office minister 
for the Middle East and Africa, wrote in response to a question by UK Member of 
Parliament Tom Brake about Ramadan's alleged torture that UK embassy officials 
had been in contact with Bahrain's Interior Ministry ombudsman over the case, 
adding that the ombudsman's office had said that, "whilst there have been a 
number of complaints raised with his office in the case of Mr. Ramadan, there 
have been no allegations of mistreatment or torture."

On July 14, 2016, Ellwood acknowledged in a letter to Reprieve that this was 
incorrect and that there had been "some confusion over the nature of the 
complaints made to the Ombudsman." He attached to his letter a June 15, 2016 
memo from Bahraini Ombudsman Nawaf al-Ma'awda which states: "Given ongoing 
concerns, I plan to initiate a full, independent investigation into the 
treatment both Mohamed Ramadan and Hussain al-Moosa from the point of their 
arrest to throughout their detention." On December 7, 2016, Ellwood informed 
Reprieve that the complaint had been passed to Bahrain's Special Investigations 
Unit, which is responsible for investigating and prosecuting the criminal 
liability of security or other government officials allegedly involved in the 
torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of detainees. It is unclear 
what stage the investigation is at. Based on information in the ombudsman's 
three annual reports, it has referred 138 cases to the SIU since July 2013. Of 
these, the Special Investigations Unit has successfully prosecuted only 1
torture case.

"Investigations into torture should be conducted before trials not after them," 
Stork said. "Similarly, the UK, France, Germany, and the EU should publicly 
condemn this unfair trial and oppose these sentences before Bahrain assembles 
its firing squad."

(source: Human Rights Watch)





RUSSIA:

Son Of A Stalinist Executioner: One Man's Lifelong Struggle To Understand Why


Valery Rodos has spent most of his 74 years coming to grips with a father he 
barely knew.

"I would give my arm, my leg, my life if only my father had become a tailor 
like his father," Rodos told RFE/RL's Russian Service.

Instead, Boris Rodos built an extraordinary career as a torturer and 
executioner in Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's dreaded secret police, the NKVD.

Recruited as a junior lieutenant in December 1936, within 2 years the elder 
Rodos was the assistant to the head of the notorious political division in 
Moscow. He personally tortured the great Russian writer Isaac Babel and the 
legendary theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold, as well as members of Stalin's 
Politburo and other senior Soviet officials.

"They put me facedown on the floor and beat my feet and back with a rubber 
strap," the 65-year-old Meyerhold wrote in a letter before he was executed in 
February 1940. "Over the next days, when those parts of my legs were covered 
with bruises, they would beat me over and over with the strap so that it felt 
like boiling water was being poured on the wounds.... When I fell asleep after 
18 hours of interrogation, I woke myself up with my own groans, jerking about 
like a patient in the last stages of a typhoid delirium."

"My clearest memories [of my father] are connected with soccer," Valery Rodos 
told RFE/RL. "He really loved football and, it seemed to me, he personally knew 
the entire Dynamo Moscow team. We would go to the matches with some enormous 
old guy; only later did I find out it was Interior Minister [Vsevolod] 
Merkulov."

Momentous Year

2017 is a momentous year for Russia, one in which the country will mark the 
centenary of the 1917 Bolshevik coup and the 80th anniversary of 1937, the 
darkest and most horrific year of Stalin's Great Terror. Historian Richard 
Pipes has calculated that more than 1,000 people each day were executed over 
the course of 1937 and 1938.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has presided over a significant 
rehabilitation of Stalin's image in recent years, remarked on the anniversaries 
in his December state-of-the-nation address to parliament.

Putin said that "it is impermissible to drag the divisions, enmities, insults, 
and cruelty of the past into our present life" and that "these tragedies 
touched practically every family in Russia, no matter which side of the 
barricades our ancestors were on."

In November 2016, the Memorial human-rights organization published a database 
of biographical information about some 40,000 agents of Stalin's secret police. 
Within days, descendants of the people listed issued an open appeal to Putin 
seeking to close the project down on the grounds that "the children, 
grandchildren, and great-grandchildren [of the agents] might be the targets of 
revenge for the sake of repressed ancestors."

'Devilish Legion'

Valery Rodos has spent his life thinking about the way those tragedies 
"touched" Soviet families. In 2008, he wrote a unique memoir called I Am An 
Executioner's Son.

"I am not a writer and I never wanted to be one," he said. "But my father's 
life pained me my entire life. I got used to it; I tried to put myself in his 
shoes; I justified him, condemned him, sentenced him; and carried out the 
sentence. I wrote that book -- and I became healthy. I tried my best, but it 
doesn't really matter to me if the book turned out well. I freed myself. I 
won't write again."

Rodos's book is less about his father than about himself and the shadow of his 
father that hangs over his entire life. At one point, he asks readers to put 
themselves in his place.

"Have you done it?" he wrote. "Now look in the mirror. That is how I have been 
my entire life, looking with loathing into the mirror of my own soul. Searching 
for parallels, similarities."

A philosophy professor who taught at Tomsk State University in Siberia, Rodos 
sees his father as an energetic go-getter who was sincere in his belief in what 
he did. He rose up through the Komsomol communist youth movement and answered 
the perceived call of his country at the time.

"He shouldn't have answered that call, joined that devilish legion," Rodos 
said. "But all my life I have agonized over the question of whether I would 
have had enough -- I don't even know what word to use -- but enough something 
to withstand and not join myself. I don't know. But I am quite certain that 95 
percent of Russia's current citizens would happily and voluntarily join up.

"There was a song that said, 'When your motherland calls on you to be a hero, 
everyone becomes a hero.' The motherland called on us to be informers and 
millions of informers appeared.... The motherland called on us to be 
executioners. And volunteers appeared -- as many as were necessary and maybe 
more.... If there hadn't been the demand, my father -- being a smart guy with 
the practical talents of a Jew, could have become something good, useful."

'Blind Weapon'

Boris Rodos, a member of the inner circle of the notorious secret-police head 
Lavrenty Beria, was arrested in October 1953, a few months after Stalin's 
death. He was sentenced to death on February 26, 1956, just one day after 
Nikita Khrushchev's secret de-Stalinization speech, in which Rodos was 
mentioned by name.

On February 28, the elder Rodos wrote a clemency appeal in which he claimed he 
was a "blind weapon" in Beria's hands and asked for mercy "for the sake of my 
innocent children, elderly mother, and wife." He was executed on April 20, 
1956, as an "enemy of the people." He was buried in Moscow's Donskoi Cemetery, 
near the mass graves of many of his victims.

Valery Rodos's life took a different turn. He first learned the truth about his 
father when he got hold of a copy of Khrushchev's speech. In the late 1960s, 
under the influence of the liberalizing Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, he 
joined an After he got out, he was able to secure new documents and enroll at 
Moscow State University to study philosophy.

"It was a totalitarian system," he said, "but it had many holes in it. 
Thousands of people destroyed their documents."

He became a professor and then immigrated with his wife and 2 sons to the 
United States shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, all the while 
secretly wrestling with his father's ghost. And he said he believes all of 
Russia, in a sense, is doing the same.

"Where there is no job for an executioner, there are no executioners," Rodos 
told RFE/RL. "But if you announce a vacancy, they will come running. No, 
repentance won't help at all. If now, for instance, Putin decided to completely 
restore the old regime, he'd find as many executioners as he needed. We don't 
need to destroy the Bastille. We need to stop building it."

(source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty)