[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 15




INDIA:

Awarded death penalty earlier, retrial finds 11 guilty again


11 people, sentenced to death last year for killing a woman in 2014, were again 
found guilty today of the murder by a Nadia district court during their 
retrial, held on the Calcutta High Court orders.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Madhumita Roy found all the 11 guilty 
again.

The quantum of punishment would be pronounced tomorrow, the court said after 
convicting the accused.

Krishnagar AD&SJ Partha Sarathi Mukhopadhyay had awarded capital punishment to 
all the 11 for shooting dead a woman, Aparna Bag, on November 23, 2014 in their 
bid to grab a piece of government land.

The case then went to Calcutta High Court which sent it back to the lower court 
on May 19, 2016 for retrial. After it was completed, the judge found the 11 
accused guilty again.

The 11 had been charged under sections 9B of Explosive Act, 27/35 of Arms Act, 
IPC 307 (attempt to murder) and 302 (murder).

Among those who had been sentenced to death earlier in the case is a former 
Trinamool Congress leader Lankeswar Ghosh, but the ruling party has said that 
he was not its member.

According to the prosecution, the woman was killed when Ghosh along with his 
gang tried to seize "21 bigha and 15 cottah" of land at Ghungragachhi under 
Krishnaganj block, which belongs to Refugee and Refugee Rehabilitation 
Department of West Bengal Government.

The land was being tilled by 55 families for long and they claimed to have its 
possession. Some had even sold portions they claimed were theirs.

On November 23, 2014, Ghosh and his men reached the field on a tractor and 
tried to take over the land by force but faced resistance from the tillers.

In the clash that ensued, there was firing and 3 women received bullet 
injuries. Aparna Bag was hit on her chest and died. The other injured recovered 
later.

(source: intoday.in)






SINGAPORE:

UN Condemns Execution of 29-Year-Old Malaysian While Some Singaporeans 
Celebrate a Job "Well Done"


The UN Human Rights Office for South-East Asia has condemned Singapore for the 
execution of 29-year-old Malaysian Prabagaran Srivijayan who was hanged this 
morning after being convicted for importing 22.24 grams of diamorphine - a raw 
form of heroin - into Singapore in 2014.

Prabagaran was executed after the Court of Appeals rejected an 1th hour motion 
to delay the execution, under the basis that an appeal Prabagaran's lawyer had 
submitted to halt the execution was still pending at the Court of Appeal in 
Kuala Lumpur.

In dismissing the motion yesterday, Judges of Appeal Chao Hick Tin, Andrew 
Phang and Tay Yong Kwang called the attempt "an abuse of process" before 
stating:

"The judiciary of each country is entitled to act in accordance with its 
Constitution and its laws. No judiciary of one country interferes in the 
judicial process of another country."

The UN office said on its Facebook page:

"We deeply regret that so far in 2017, there have been at least 4 executions in 
Singapore for drugs related offences. This is an increase on previous full-year 
statistics. According to Singapore Prison authorities, there were 2 executions 
for drugs related offences in 2014, three in 2015 and 2 in 2016.

"We are concerned that death row inmates and their families are given very 
short notice of the date of the scheduled execution. In most cases they have 
been notified only a few days in advance. We are also concerned that executions 
continue to be carried out in a secretive manner, with no public information on 
the number of people on death row in Singapore and little public information on 
the executions that have taken place.

"We reiterate our position that drugs related offences are not considered as a 
'most serious crime' under international law and should not carry the death 
penalty. We also reiterate previous calls to the Singaporean government to 
immediately instate a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, which we 
believe has no place in the 21st century."

Prabagaran's mother has maintained that her son was innocent.

A widow, she has repeatedly stated that the car that her son was driving did 
not belong to him and that he did not even know there were drugs in the car 
until he was stopped at Woodland Checkpoint in 2012:

"They could not find his fingerprints on the drugs, or that he had consumed any 
but the judge ruled him guilty by stating that the car belonged to him."

Meanwhile, despite the doubts that have been cast upon the legitimacy of 
Prabagaran's conviction, some netizens have lauded the Singapore justice system 
for not budging from their position of sentencing Prabagaran to an irreversible 
fate, as a job "well done".

(source: theindependent.sg)

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

activists slam pre-execution photoshoot


They say the practice is inhumane and morbid, while being insensitive to the 
grief and anguish one has to endure when on death row.

N Surendran has slammed the practice in Singapore which has death-row inmates 
take part in a photoshoot "a day or 2" before they are sent to the gallows, 
labelling it "inhumane".

The lawyer who represented the family of S Prabagaran, the Malaysian who was 
hanged in Singapore for drug trafficking, also said the act was morbid.

"It shows the harshness of Singaporean authorities to treat a person like that. 
They (death-row inmates) are not dolls," he told FMT.

He was asked to comment on a tweet by We Believe in Second Chances co-founder 
Kirsten Han who uploaded a picture of a smiling Prabagaran.

"This was taken of Prabagaran this week as part of the pre-execution prison 
photoshoot. Photos are then given to the family," she wrote.

In a subsequent tweet, Han said that while the practice seemed morbid, she had 
heard that some relatives find it comforting to have photos of loved ones "out 
of prison garb".

Human rights activist Michelle Yesudas said although a smiling photo might be 
some comfort to a grieving family, staging a pre-execution photoshoot is 
insensitive to the grief and anguish one has to endure when on death row.

"The death penalty and a pre-execution photo shoot are archaic, morbid and 
inhumane practices that have no place in the modern world," she said.

Lawyers for Liberty executive director Eric Paulsen said it is unusual and 
"weird" for a country to have such a practice.

"It's a bit unusual for me, but every country has its own jurisdiction," said 
Paulsen.

Channel NewsAsia reported that Prabagaran was executed at Changi Prison on 
Friday morning after he was convicted in 2012 for being in possession of 22.24g 
of diamorphine, a pure form of heroin.

Authorities discovered the drug in his car at the Singaporean immigration 
checkpoint as he tried to enter the country.

Prabagaran said he was innocent, claiming that he did not own the car and was 
not aware of the drugs being in it.

Earlier this year, he turned to the Malaysian courts to compel the government 
to start legal proceedings against Singapore before an international tribunal 
for denying him a fair trial.

On March 24, Prabagaran failed to obtain leave at the Kuala Lumpur High Court 
to compel the Malaysian government to start proceedings against Singapore.

Earlier, Surendran said Singapore's Court of Appeal had dismissed Prabagaran's 
application to stay his execution pending his case in the Malaysian courts.

He told FMT the appeals court had ruled that Singapore is a sovereign nation 
and that it would not wait for the outcome of proceedings in Malaysia.

(source: freemalaysiatoday.com)






IRAN:

Iran Regime's Official "Proud" of Role in 1988 Massacre


In an interview with a state news agency affiliated with the Islamic 
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the official - Judge Ali Razini, the head of 
Branch 41 of the Supreme Court - said that the execution of prisoners in 1988 
in what has been named the 1988 massacre was "fair" and "lawful".

Judge Razini is the head of Branch 41 of the Supreme Court.

During the 1988 massacre, the so called "Death Committee" ordered the execution 
of political prisoners, many of whom were members or supporters of the PMOI, 
the banned opposition group. The prisoners' fate was decided based on their 
loyalty to the Islamic Republic.

The judge said he was "proud" to have had an important role during the 80s. He 
also framed many political dissidents so that they could not be released from 
prison.

He spoke about what he did: "Specifically I interviewed 1,000 prisoners [in 
1986] to make them confess to committing offenses inside prison so that we 
would have a logical reason to put them on trial and convict them again. They 
were sentenced to additional prison terms between 3 and 5 years."

He added: "Rulings by the top 20 judges and I ensured the country's security at 
that time and ever since. As a consequence, the MEK can never establish itself 
here. We nipped them in the bud. In Bojnourd, 80 to 90 % of the high school and 
university students had ties with opposition groups. We began to prosecute and 
sentenced 5 of them to death. 3 months later, the situation changed and their 
families took us seriously and chastised their children [to dissuade them from 
joining the groups]."

The issue of the 1988 massacre came up again during the recent presidential 
elections. One of the main candidates, Ebrahim Raisi, was a member of the 
famous "Death Committee". This re-opened wounds for the Iranian people and 
triggered a new wave of dissent across the country. They called on justice for 
those who died and urged the regime to denounce his actions.

The people were victorious in that he didn???t become president, despite being 
the favoured one for the Supreme Leader. The resistance in Iran is growing in 
numbers and in strength and it will be the downfall of the regime.

(source: ncr-iran.org)