[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 5

INDONESIA:

Indonesian prosecutor seeks death for Taiwanese drug smugglers



An Indonesian prosecutor is to seek the death penalty for 4 Taiwanese nationals 
involved in a crystal methamphetamine smuggling case that took place in 
Indonesian waters in February, the Jakarta Post reported Tuesday.

The Taiwanese nationals, identified as Chen Chung-nan, Chen Chin-tun, Huang 
Ching-an and Hsie Lai-fu were officially handed over to prosecutors Monday, 
according to the report.

The chief prosecutor of the narcotics department, Dedi Siswadi, said the 4 are 
facing the death sentence, the report said.

The case unfolded as Indonesia's National Narcotics Agency and Navy captured 
the Taiwanese fishing boat Shun De Man No. 66 and its crew, including the 4 
Taiwanese nationals, Feb. 7 in waters near Batam Island.

The vessel was carrying over 1 ton of crystal meth while flying a Singapore 
flag and sailing under the name of Sunrise Glory when it was captured.

Upon boarding the vessel, Indonesian authorities found the narcotics hidden 41 
rice sacks.

In a similar case last year, Indonesia also handed down the death sentence to 
eight Taiwanese nationals who were found guilty of attempting to smuggle 1 ton 
of amphetamine into Indonesia in July 2017.

(source: focustaiwan.tw)








BANGLADESH:

Youth to die, 2 get life for killing BCL leader----The murder in 2015 followed 
row over committee



A court here yesterday sentenced a young man to death and 2 others to life 
imprisonment for killing Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) leader Shahrukh Khan 
Piyas in Kushtia town in 2015.

The death penalty awardee is Tutul Hossain, 25, son of late Kashem Ali, while 
the lifers are Ashraful Islam, 30, son of Abdul Hamid, and Mosharraf Hossain, 
30, son of Muntaz Pramanik, of different areas in the town.

After examining records and witnesses, Kushtia District and Sessions Judge Arup 
Kumar Goswami also fined convicts--Tutul Tk 20,000 and Ashraful and Mosharraf 
Tk 10,000 each.

According to the prosecution, the convicts waylaid Piyas, an honours student 
and former vice-president of the then defunct committee of BCL Kushtia 
Government College unit, in Harishankarpur area and locked in an altercation 
over formation of BCL committee in July 10, 2015.

At one stage, Tutul shot Piyas at point blank range, leaving him critically 
injured.

Injured Piyas was rushed to Kushtia General Hospital first and later shifted to 
Dhaka Medical College Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries on July 23.

Following a murder case filed by Piyas's father Abul Kalam Azad with Kushtia 
Model Police Station, police detained the trio from different areas at 
different times.

(source: The Daily Star)








SRI LANKA:

Woman given death penalty for a murder committed in 1995



A woman, who had been found guilty of a murder committed in 1995 and been 
avoiding arrest, was sentenced to death by the order of the Colombo High Court 
Judge A.A.R. Heiyanthuduwa, today (05).

The convicted woman is a resident of Kirulapone named Muththusami Saraswathie.

The Attorney General had filed charges against her for stabbing a person named 
Amarasinghe to death on 16th May 1995.

After a lengthy trial, the Colombo High Court decided, in the year 2013, to 
convict the accused.

The accused woman, who came to Sri Lanka after hiding abroad, was arrested by 
the police and produced before the Magistrate.

Accordingly, the Colombo High Court ruled that the death penalty will be 
imposed on the accused, in accordance with the ruling in 2013.

(source: adaderana.lk)








INDIA:

DAK seeks death penalty for spurious drug traffickers



Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Monday has sought death penalty for those 
involved in manufacture, sale and distribution of spurious drugs.

"To curb the menace of fake drugs, we need to get touch on the drug 
traffickers. And the toughness include the death penalty," said DAK President 
Dr Nisar ul Hassan in a communique.

"They kill hundreds and hundreds of people and most of them don't even go to 
jail. They need to be punished for the carnage they cause," he said.

The amended Drug and cosmetic act of 2008 contains maximum punishment of life 
imprisonment.

Dr Nisar said capital punishment has proved effective in other countries like 
china. In 2007 former head of China's state food and drug administration was 
executed for his involvement in substandard drugs which proved to be a strong 
deterrent.

He said India is the capital of spurious drugs and according to WHO, India 
accounts for nearly 35% of world spurious drug market. In an estimate, 40% of 
the Indian market is under the grip of spurious drugs.

"From cancer to heart medicines and from antibiotics to vaccines, drugs in all 
therapeutic categories have been reported to be either substandard or 
counterfeit," he said.

"There are clandestine factories that have been making these sham drugs," he 
added.

Dr Nisar said Kashmir is a safe haven for spurious drugs as the market is 
unchecked and unregulated and there is no fear of accountability.

"In 2013, we unearthed a big spurious drug scandal in which many people were 
involved. Lakhs of tablets of fake drug maximizin, a life-saving antibiotic 
were supplied to government hospitals. Following expose of this fake drug, 
hundreds of drugs which were consumed by patients were declared substandard," 
he said.

(source: Kashmir Patriot)




BAHRAIN:

Police killer loses death penalty plea



A Bahraini who yesterday lost his final appeal against the death penalty was 
the trigger man who personally detonated a bomb that killed a policeman. Salman 
Isa Salman was also described as the founder of a terrorist cell that carried 
out a spate of bombings targeting security personnel.

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

Philippines to seek clemency for death row convict



The Philippines government will seek clemency for one of its nationals on death 
row in Bahrain, it has emerged. The 39-year-old Filipino was found guilty of 
premeditated murder and handed the death penalty by the High Criminal Court in 
March last year - a sentence upheld by the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court in 
December.

(source for both: gdnonline.com)








UNITED ARAB EMIRATES:

Killer lover loses plea against execution



A man who smashed and burnt a friend to death to pave way for a lasting 
relationship with his wife lost an appeal against a death penalty on Sunday.

The Arab man - an employee, 32- was in an illicit relationship with his 
friend's wife, 22. He tied him, punched his face, struck his head with a brick 
and a car's sliding door and mowed him down until he died.

He poured petrol on the body and torched it. He pulled off gloves, tossed them 
on the burning body and sped off on Oct.14.2016. He hurled the jerrycan on the 
way. He was under the influence of alcohol.

On Feb.28.2017 the woman denied all charges. The man contended it was the 
deceased's wife who instigated him. "Yes I committed all these crimes. I did 
all this under her directives and instigation." The Dubai Criminal Court on 
Mar.6 this year sentenced the man to death and the woman to 15 years in jail. 
It referred the illicit affair and alcohol abuse charges to the Dubai 
Misdemenours Court.

They sought leniency. The Dubai Appeals Court's jury on Sunday upheld the man's 
death sentence. It sentenced the woman to 25 years in jail. Prosecutors had 
demanded a stringent punishment.

An Indian security guard stumbled on a naked body gutted in flames near the 
transformer of a warehouse in Al Qusais Industrial. A nearby warehouse's 
Bangladeshi guard contacted police.

2 Emirati majors, a lieutenant and a captain found the charred "mysterious" 
body lying face up. Investigations revealed the deceased had gone missing. They 
summoned his relatives and friends.

The wife revealed she had an illicit affair with the man for 2 years. Wrangles 
erupted between her and her husband over the issue. She told the man about it. 
Both agreed to get rid of the husband. At around 3am she contacted the man that 
she had sparked a wrangle with her husband, as planned. The man arrived and 
lured the husband inside his car to discuss a solution to the wrangle.

He persuaded the husband to allow him tie his hands and feet and take him to 
his wife to evoke sympathy from her, so he could win back her heart. The 
husband agreed. He tied him then punched his face.

He drove him to a dark area in Al Tay, dragged him out of the car, pushed him 
onto his stomach and hurled a brick onto his head. The victim bled. He pulled 
him back inside the car and contacted the wife.

Both agreed to do away with him. He purchased a jerrycan of petrol at around 
8am. He drove the victim to Al Qusais and committed the grisly murder. Both 
confessed before police and prosecutors.

(source: The Gulf Today)








SUDAN:

EU Calls On Sudan to Commute Death Sentence of Noura Hussein



Members of the European Parliament are working on a resolution on the case of 
Noura Hussein, a 19-year-old Sudanese women, who was recently sentenced to 
death for killing her husband after he raped her.

On May 10, the Central Omdurman Court in the twin city of Khartoum sentenced 
Hussein to death by hanging. Hussein who was forced by her parents to marry her 
cousin, refused to consummate the marriage, and fled to relatives in eastern 
Sudan. She was then lured to her husband's house in Omdurman, where her 
husband's relatives held her down while he raped her. When he approached her 
again the following day, she stabbed him to death with a knife.

The EU ambassadors in Sudan reacted five days later by issuing a statement in 
which they expressed their "firm opposition" to the death penalty: "whatever 
the place and circumstances". They also recalled the principle of the 1948 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights stating that "marriage shall be entered 
into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses".

Motion for an EU Resolution

On Wednesday, a number of members of the European Parliament tabled a joint 
motion on the case. They point to the global campaign for which almost one 
million people have signed a petition entitled 'Justice for Noura', and to the 
intimidation of her defence lawyers by the Sudanese authorities which 
"represents an attack on the fair trial process".

The motion mentions the Human Development Index and the UN's Gender Inequality 
Index in which both Sudan ranks 165th out of 188 countries - while the Sudanese 
Constitution provides that the "state shall protect women from injustice and 
promote gender equality".

The EU MPs refer to the remarks of Pramila Patten, the UN Special 
Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, who noted, following her visit 
to Sudan from 18 to 25 February this year, that "there is a deep-seated culture 
of denial of sexual violence in Sudan", where "forced marriage, marital rape 
and gender-based violence are considered normal", and "all these forms of 
violence are justified by citing grounds of tradition, culture and religion. To 
date "the Special Prosecutor's Office has not investigated a single case of 
conflict-related sexual violence".

In the motion, the MPs call on the Sudanese authorities to comply with national 
law and international human rights standards, including the Protocol to the 
African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, 
as well as the Protocol of the Court of Justice of the African Union.

'Continuing worry'

On Thursday, EU Commissioner Christos Stylianides held a speech at the European 
Parliament urgency debate on the situation of Noura Hussein.

He told the MPs that the human rights situation in Sudan constitutes a 
continuing worry for the European Union.

"The shrinking space for civil society organisations and restrictions on 
freedom of expression and assembly remain among the main areas of our concern. 
I personally also raised these issues during my visit to Sudan last October," 
the commissioner said.

"The criminal justice systems ought to prevent and protect women and girls from 
all forms of violence. This is sadly not the case in Sudan. Rape, including by 
habitual or cohabiting partners, should never be tolerated under any 
circumstances. Moreover, Sudan's Personal Status Law allowing for child 
marriage without the consent of the intending spouses needs urgent revision.

"I would like to assure you that the EU will continue to closely follow the 
case of Noura and raise it with the respective authorities. We will also 
continue to team up with women's human rights defenders and women's 
organisations to tackle the underlying causes leading to cases such as that of 
Noura.

"The EU is also concerned about the recent news on the attempts by the state 
security apparatus to intimidate Noura's defence team and calls on Sudan to 
allow the lawyers to work without the fear of reprisals. [..]

"The EU also calls upon the government to take the necessary steps to 
accelerate the ratification and the full, effective and non-discriminatory 
implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of 
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) to advance the equal recognition, 
enjoyment and exercise of all human rights of women. In this regard, the EU 
welcomes the Sudanese Government's intention to ratify this Convention, as 
announced by the Minister of Justice this week," Stylianides stated.

(source: allafrica.com)








KENYA:

Convict's appeals for freedom fail despite witness' new tale



A man was handed the death sentence on account of false testimony by a star 
witness in a robbery with violence case, it has emerged.

Dominic Kihuri, a taxi driver, has confessed that his testimony that Peter 
Manthi was 1 of the 2 people who robbed him on April 9, 2004, as he ferried 
them was nothing but a lie.

However, Kihuri says he did not do it willingly. In court documents exclusively 
obtained by The Standard, he says a police officer compelled him to implicate 
Manthi, who has been at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison for the last 14 years. 
He claimed an officer, in the rank of Chief Inspector of Police, and who he 
identified only as Mutua, threatened to charge him if he did not implicate the 
suspect.

Yet his admission has come too late as it cannot reverse the sentence 
apparently because the case has already gone through the judicial process and a 
decision made.

Manthi has appealed his sentence twice, before the High Court and the Court of 
Appeal, and lost.

Manthi was arrested in 2004, tried and sentenced to hang by the magistrate's 
court, a conviction upheld twice by superior courts. It was last year that 
Kihuri claimed he was forced to implicate Manthi.

In a testimony that exposed the soft underbelly of Kenya's justice system, 
Kihuri says Mutua forced him to tell court that Manthi was a criminal. "

I feel guilty for occasioning the conviction and sentencing of the applicant. 
The guilt shall only go upon seeing the applicant walk to his freedom," Kihuri 
stated in an affidavit dated June 20, last year.

Kihuri recalled that days after 2 men who had hired him robbed him of Sh700 and 
the car, his employer, a Mr Joseph Kimashia, told him the vehicle had been 
recovered. Identify vehicle Kimashia later asked him to report at Gigiri Police 
Station to identify the vehicle.

"Upon arrival at the police station, Manthi was brought and I was told to 
identify him as one of my assailants. When I stated I could not recall, the 
police arrested me and put me in custody. I would then be transferred to 
Muthaiga Police Station," the affidavit reads. Kihuri said he was in custody 
for 29 days.

He was freed after accepting to testify against Manthi.

"If the CIP Mutua had not threatened me with prosecution, I could not have 
claimed I could identify him as one of those who robbed me. Save for the Sh700, 
the mobile phone and the shirt they tore, I did not suffer any other loss. The 
vehicle was also returned to its owner," Kihuri said.

However, the development was not of much help to the prisoner. This was after 
his fresh attempt for a review of his sentence last month, before High Court 
judge John Mativo, also flopped.

Manthi had also sued the Attorney General and the Director of Public 
Prosecutions over the matter.

The DPP opposed the bid for a retrial. However, the AG submitted that the 
evidence contained in the affidavit met the threshold for new evidence and 
urged the court to exercise its discretion and order a retrial. But Justice 
Mativo dismissed the fresh suit, saying he did not have the chance to have 
Kihuri examined to ascertain truthfulness of his affidavit.

"Only 2 scenarios can be true if at all the affidavit sworn by the said Dominic 
Kihuri is genuine. Either, he lied in the lower court or he was compelled to 
lie; or he is lying to this court. Years later, he wants the court to believe 
statements he recorded at the police station and the detailed evidence he gave 
in court was not voluntary?" Mativo asked.

Manthi's trouble started on April 14, 2004, when he was arrested at Kisii 
General Hospital.

The police are said to have arrested him over a car he had allegedly parked in 
the hospital's compound. Court records show Manthi was in custody for 21 days. 
The police could not explain why they took long to charge him.

But the confession came in too late as Manthi had appealed the decision made 
before Hellen Wasilwa (now a Labour Court judge) twice before the High Court, 
and the Appeal Court and lost.

Ordered retrial

After the conviction, Manthi appeared before High Court judge Jessie Lesiit, 
who ordered a retrial before a resident magistrate only named Maundu.

When he was put to his defence, Manthi said that he was a hawker in Kisii Town. 
He said he only went to the hospital, on April 14, 2004, because he was unwell.

At the time of the robbery, Kihuri was employed by Elit Car Hire Company. He 
said at 4pm he was at Upper Hill Springs restaurant when two men approached him 
and requested that he ferries them to Ngong. At Ngong, the men refused to 
alight, attacked him and snatched the car. But his testimony in 2006 does not 
add up.

He said one of the men had a pistol, and in the same testimony indicated that 
he did not see any weapon.

(source: standardmedia.co.ke)








ZIMBABWE:

VP Chiwenga Wants Death Sentence In Zimbabwe, Clashing With ED Mnangagwa



Vice President, General (retired) Constantino Chiwenga has said that he 
supports the death sentence and revealed that he often argues with President 
Emmerson Mnangagwa on that point.

Mnangagwa has repeatedly publicly stated that he is against the death penalty. 
Introducing the president at a water resources investment conference, Chiwenga 
said,

Most people will ask why he (Mnangagwa) doesn't want the death sentence, that's 
why I have taken this opportunity to tell you about your President. He was 
sentenced to death [by the colonial regime in 1965], but then he survived 
because he was underage. But his cell was right at the end where everybody 
would pass through when they are going to be hanged... From 1965, when he 
(Mnangagwa) was arrested up until he was released, he would see his colleagues 
going one by one to be hanged, so you have to understand why he doesn't support 
the death sentence and of cause, I argue with him, but I also support him.

(source: pazimbabwe.com)