[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 9



PHILIPPINES:

Pacquiao to resume death penalty hearing this month



The Senate will resume this month its hearings on the revival of the death 
penalty through a subcommittee to be headed by Sen. Manny Pacquiao, Senate 
President Aquilino Pimentel III said on Monday.

Pimentel made it clear that he made the decision not because House Speaker 
Pantaleon Alvarez had criticized the upper chamber for not acting on the death 
penalty proposal.

He said he had asked Pacquiao, an advocate of the death penalty, to resume the 
hearings as early as October last year.

Pimentel explained that the death penalty hearings were being handled by the 
Senate justice committee, headed by Sen. Richard Gordon, who in turn designated 
Pacquiao to lead the subcommittee.

But Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said the revival of the death 
penalty measure was not part of the common legislative agenda.

"I am not aware of any change in the priority list that we have agreed with the 
House," Drilon said.

(source: newsinfo.inquirer.net)








INDIA:

32% of ex-SC judges believe police torture is a necessary evil, reveal NLU 
Delhi talks to 60 ex-judges on the death penalty----The death penalty stands 
practically abolished, believe SC judgesThe death penalty stands practically 
abolished, believe SC judges



The death penalty would stay on Indian statute books for at least another 50 
years, predicted a former Chief Justice of India (CJI) in a wide-ranging study 
of opinions of former apex court judges conducted by NLU Delhi on the death 
penalty in India.

NLU Delhi's Centre on Death Penalty interviewed 60 former Supreme Court judges 
last year to publish an opinion study titled "Matters of Judgment", and a 
former Chief Justice of India (CJI) among the interviewees opined that the 
Indian climate and sentiment was not ready for abolition of the death penalty 
for another 50 years.

The study explored the reasons former judges saw both in favor of abolition and 
retention of the death penalty, what they understood to be the "rarest of rare" 
cases and how fair they perceived the Indian criminal justice system to be in 
terms of the presence of police torture, the integrity of the evidence 
collection process, access to legal representation and wrongful convictions."38 
out of 39 former Supreme Court judges believed that (police/investigation 
agency) torture is prevalent"

92 death sentences had been confirmed out of 208 death penalty cases heard by 
47 Supreme Court judges between 1975-2017, the report states.

Among other statistics the study threw up: there had been 4 executions in the 
last 14 years and 397 prisoners had been affected by the death penalty. 38 out 
of 39 former Supreme Court judges believed that (police/investigation agency) 
torture is prevalent in the Indian criminal justice system while 1 former CJI 
believed it doesn't happen.

However, 12 out of those 38 judges surveyed on this point provided 
justification for torture, saying it was a "necessary evil", according to the 
report, while the remainder said they believed that torture was "inherently 
wrong and therefore had no place within the law".

5 out of those 12 judges justified torture based on poor working conditions of 
the investigating agencies, according to the report:

5 out of 12 former judges justifying torture said that the police resorted to 
torture because investigating agencies work under strenuous conditions, without 
adequate time and independence to investigate cases. A judge who decided 6 
death penalty cases, and confirmed four death sentences in the Supreme Court, 
shared an anecdote about his relative who was in the Indian Police Service.

The relative objected to the use of torture by deeming it to be legally 
impermissible and inhumane, and was subsequently told that he "better leave the 
job" as he was "not fit to be a policeman". The judge also mentioned that the 
police's mindset is affected by how poorly they are treated by VIPs during law 
and order duties. This in turn affects them, as "when it comes to crime, they 
will pick up small men and adopt 3rd degree methods, to make them accused and 
elicit their confessions, whether they have committed crime or not." The 
existence of torture was also rationalised by stating that investigating 
agencies are "either lazy, or don't have enough manpower, or do not know 
methods of scientific investigation."

A judge, who adjudicated 115 murder cases in the Supreme Court, was in dismay 
over a particular experience at the National Judicial Academy, Bhopal, where he 
found the majority of participating judges held the view that the truth would 
not come out unless the police had the power to torture.

17 judges believed that torture undermines the system and 38 out of 58 judges 
believe that investigation agencies abuse the Code of Criminal Procedure's 
(CrPC) provisions for "confession".

One former chief justice of 2 high courts recounted the suicide of a sessions 
judge whose reason for killing himself, according to his suicide note, was his 
belief that he had made a mistake while handing down the death penalty to an 
accused who had eventually been executed.

The 148-page report is divided into three sections carrying statistics, 
anecdotes and analysis on investigation, trial, sentencing and judicial 
attitudes on abolition, retention and "rarest of rare".

According to the report, 14 former Supreme Court judges believed that 
reformation had no role to play as a consideration in deciding punishment. One 
judge who decided 9 death penalty cases in 6 years at the Supreme Court 
dismissed the notion of reformation as "astrology". Another judge who decided 
13 death penalty cases in 5 years at the SC also dismissed reformation in 
serious crimes stating that offenders guilty of petty offences can be reformed 
but not those who are determined to kill innocent persons.

The NLU Delhi Centre contacted 86 former SC judges through their physical and 
online mail addresses available on the Supreme Court's website, and for the 60 
judges who consented to participate, 2 interviewers conducted 90-120 minute 
interviews in person with the judges based on identical structured 
questionnaires prepared in advance.

In February 2017 the Centre, led by its director Anup Surendranath, had also 
released a report according to which Indian sessions courts had doubled their 
rate of handing down death penalty in 2016, since 2015.

(source: legallyindia.com)








IRAQ:

CONDEMNED TO DIE Brit ISIS fanatics face execution in Iraq as 6,000 captured 
jihadis get the death penalty in terror trials lasting under 20 minutes----raqi 
courts are sentencing Islamic State fighters - including Europeans - to 
execution by hanging



BRIT Jihadists captured after the fall of ISIS in Iraq are facing the death 
penalty in terror trials lasting less than 20 minutes.

Iraqi courts are sentencing Islamic State fighters - including Europeans - to 
execution by hanging.

The war-torn country's Justice Ministry has disclosed 194 terrorism-related 
executions since 2016, including at least 27 foreigners from other Arab 
countries, according to a review of ministry news releases.

Last month the ministry said it had executed an additional 38 prisoners on 
terrorism-related charges, but it did not specify their nationalities, 
prompting a rebuke by the United Nations human rights office.

At least 1 of those executed was from Sweden, according to researchers on human 
rights and terrorism.

Up to 6,000 more are on death row, and their nationalities have not been 
disclosed, according to the United Nations.

Many more suspected militants are in custody, including at least 4 Europeans.

More than 800 UK citizens are thought to have gone to fight for Isis in Iraq 
and Syria, including teenagers, women and young families.

3 weeks ago, 2 Turkish men who claimed they had travelled to Iraq to work as 
plumbers were found guilty of being ISIS fighters and sent to the gallows after 
a hearing that lasted just 18 minutes, reported the Washington Post.

In December 2016, judge Abu Iman, who rules at the Qayyarah terrorist 
investigations court, warned that at least 100 Brit Jihadists captured in the 
beseiged city of Mosul would face the death penalty.

He said: "They have committed crimes against Iraqis so they should face local 
law."

And last month UK defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, said Britons who have 
fought for Islamic State abroad should be "hunted down and killed".

He suggested there was deliberate targeting of British Jihadists by the armed 
forces fighting ISIS as the group retreats in Syria and Iraq.

He said: "A dead terrorist can't cause any harm to Britain."

"I do not believe that any terrorist, whether they come from this country or 
any other, should ever be allowed back into this country. We should do 
everything we can do to destroy and eliminate that threat."

Williamson said Jihadist groups in Libya, Iraq and Syria were breeding grounds 
for plotting attacks in the UK.

He added: "Our job in terms of eliminating will not stop this year, will not 
stop next year - it is something we have got to continue to pursue."

(source: thesun.co.uk)








IRAN----executions

2 Prisoners Executed in Northern Iran



2 prisoners were executed at Sari Prison (Northern Iran) on murder charges.

A report by the state-run news agency, Javan, states that according to the 
Public Relation of Mazandaran Judiciary, on the morning of Monday January 8, 2 
prisoners were executed at Sari Prison. The prisoners were sentenced to death 
on murder charges.

According to this report, the prisoners were identified as S. R., son of Hassan 
and A. b.

According to Iran Human Rights annual report on the death penalty, 142 of the 
530 execution sentences in 2016 were implemented due to murder charges. There 
is a lack of a classification of murder by degree in Iran which results in 
issuing death sentence for any kind of murder regardless of intensity and 
intent.

(source: Iran Human Rights)








EGYPT:

Death penalty for child abduction in Egypt



Egypt's parliament approved, Monday, a legislative amendment to toughen 
penalties against child abduction to death by hanging.

The House of Representatives of Egypt said in a statement it had agreed to 
"amend a penal code that would impose the death penalty or life imprisonment of 
25 years for abducting a child if the abduction was linked with an assault or 
rape."

The amendment stipulates that "any child kidnapper who abducts without 
circumvention or coercion shall be punished by a term of not less than 10 
years. If the abduction is accompanied by a ransom request, the penalty shall 
be imprisonment for a term of no less than 15 years and no more than 20 years."

The amendment also specifies that "the perpetrator of the abduction crime shall 
be sentenced to death or life imprisonment, if linked with the crime of 
assaulting the kidnapped or raping him/her."

The statement quoted the head of the Legislative Committee of the Egyptian 
House of Representatives, Counselor Bahaa Abu Shoka, as saying that "kidnapping 
people is a dangerous crime for both humans and society, and affects humanity 
physically and psychologically as well as it deprives them of liberty."

He added that "the link of this crime with other crimes is very serious, 
including murder, theft, and sexual assault. This stimulates the perpetrators' 
criminal behaviour through kidnapping to achieve financial and personal gains."

According to the current law, "Anyone who abducts a child under the age of 16, 
without circumvention or compulsion, by himself or by others, shall be 
sentenced to 3 to 10 years' imprisonment and a crime perpetrator who abducts a 
female shall be sentenced to life imprisonment if linked with the crime of 
sexually assaulting the kidnapped."

According to local media reports, over the past years, Egypt has witnessed a 
remarkable increase in the spread of the crime of abduction and mainly that of 
children.

(source: Middle East Monitor)








ISRAEL:

Does Israel need another death penalty law?----Israeli law already provides for 
death penalty, PMW legal strategist notes, and proposed 'death penalty for 
terrorists' law is superfluous.



On the latest edition of Israel Uncensored, Josh Hasten speaks with Maurice 
Hirsch - Head of Legal Strategy at Palestinian Media Watch and a Senior 
Military Consultant at NGO Monitor.

Hirsch explains how recent Knesset legislation in regard to the death penalty 
for terrorists in Israel is superfluous, as the death penalty is already 
provided for by existing laws.

He argues that it's in the hands of the political echelon to make real 
decisions if the State wants to implement the death penalty.

Hirsch goes on to detail the most recent cases of incitement spewed by the 
Palestinian Authority against Israel and the Jews in its official outlets. He 
also details how foreign entities continue to fund Israeli NGO's whose true 
goal is to harm the State of Israel.

(source: Israel National News)

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

Palestinians accuse Israel of undermining international law by implying death 
sentences



Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said Monday the Israel 
undermines international law by implying its use of death penalty against 
Palestinians who have been "indicted of carrying out, or trying to carry out 
operations."

The ministry said in an emailed press statement that this means that the death 
penalty is already used in Israel even before the law is passed, accusing 
Israel of undermining international law.

The statement went on saying that this new revelation "proofs that the Israeli 
government and various arms are involved in crimes against Palestinians that 
may be described as war crimes and crimes against humanity, necessitating a 
moral awakening and international protection of the unarmed Palestinian 
citizens from the oppressions of the occupation."

Last Wednesday, the Israeli Knesset passed by preliminary 1st reading a bill 
that allows death sentences to Palestinians. Spearheaded by the Israel Beiteinu 
leader Avigdor Libermann, the reading passed with a narrow win of 52 members of 
the Knesset versus 49 votes against.

If passed in 2nd and 3rd readings, military courts would have the authority to 
change a current law to issue death sentences by a simple majority among the 
judges panel, instead of requiring a unanimous vote.

(source: xinhuanet.com)