[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

November 5


IRAQ:

Iraq to hang man seen gunning down Babylon passport director in video


An Iraqi court on Sunday sentenced to death one of the assassins of the head of 
the Passport Directorate of Babylon (Babil) province, Commander Safa 
al-Dulaimi.

In late-June, a group of gunmen intercepted the director’s vehicle and killed 
him with machine gun fire.

Shortly after, Iraqi security authorities claimed to have arrested the 
commander’s assassins. However, the fate of the other detainees is yet unknown.

About 2 weeks ago, local police forces in Babil said a sticky bomb exploded 
under the car of an officer who was assigned to investigate Dulaimi’s case. The 
officer survived the attack.

The officer in charge played “a significant role in uncovering the 
circumstances of the assassination of” the commander, the police noted.

“The Criminal Court of Babil has issued a verdict after reviewing the case of 
the man accused of killing passport director in the province and sentenced him 
to death,” the Supreme Judicial Council said in a statement.

The statement added that “the court found that the evidence obtained, including 
surveillance cameras and confessions, during the investigations are sufficient 
to criminalize the accused and issued its decision to hang him until dead in 
accordance with the provisions of Article IV of the anti-terrorism law.”

Different human rights organizations, including the United Nations, have 
repeatedly expressed their concerns about the rising number of death sentences 
in Iraq.

Aside from their condemnation, the organizations warn Iraqi authorities’ 
efforts to escalate the implementation of death sentences could lead to the 
execution of innocent people.

(source: kurdistan24.net)




IRAN----execution

Man Hanged at Ardakan Prison


A prisoner was executed on a murder charge at Ardakan Prison on Saturday, 
November 3.

According to HRANA, Sami’ Mohtarami, 43, was convicted to qisas (retribution in 
kind) on a murder charge. He killed a person during a car robbery in 2015.

The victim’s family agreed to forgive Sami’ in the condition of receiving Diya. 
Diya in Islamic law (Sharia) is a financial compensation paid to heirs of a 
victim to thus avoid a retaliation punishment. However, Sami’ was a poor man 
and could not pay the amount. Therefore, his execution was carried out on the 
morning on Sunday, November 3, 2018.

The Penal Code of Iran does not specifically state that convicted murderers are 
subject to the death penalty, but rather to “qisas” which means “retribution in 
kind” or retaliation. In this way, the State effectively puts the 
responsibility for executions for murder on the shoulders of the victim’s 
family.

The Iranian media outlets have not published news related to the aforementioned 
execution so far.
According to Iran Human Rights annual report on the death penalty, 240 of the 
517 execution sentences in 2017 were implemented due to murder charges. There 
is a lack of a classification of murder by degree in Iran which results in 
issuing a death sentence for any kind of murder regardless of intensity and 
intent.

(source: Iran Human Rights)



PAKISTAN:

Asia Bibi stuck in Pakistani prison over death fears


A Pakistani Christian woman whose death sentence for blasphemy charges was 
commuted last week is trapped in a prison that has been converted into a safe 
house, a source with direct knowledge of the facility told CNN on Monday.

Asia Bibi, a mother of 5 from Punjab province, is unable to leave the facility 
over fears that her life is in jeopardy, the source added.
In newly released details, CNN has learned that the Pakistani army and 
intelligence services have jurisdiction over the jail and are in charge of her 
safety, the source said.

Extra surveillance cameras have been installed at the converted jail in recent 
days and any individuals entering or leaving the location are searched, 
including those who are charged with preparing Bibi's food, according to the 
police source.

On Sunday, Bibi's lawyer was reported to have fled the country in fear for his 
life, according to an associate.

His departure comes as Bibi's husband, Ashiq Masih, begged the United Kingdom, 
the United States or Canada to grant his family asylum, in a video message seen 
by the Guardian.

Bibi was convicted of blasphemy in 2010 and sentenced to hang after she was 
accused of defiling the name of the Prophet Mohammed during an argument a year 
earlier with Muslim colleagues.

The workers had refused to drink from a bucket of water Bibi had touched 
because she was not Muslim. At the time, Bibi said the case was a matter of 
women who didn't like her "taking revenge."

On Wednesday, she won her appeal against the conviction and death sentence.

Bibi's acquittal prompted violent demonstrations by the Islamist movement 
Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).

In an effort to end the protests, the government on Friday struck a deal
with the TLP that included a pledge not to oppose a review petition filed 
against the Supreme Court's judgment. The petition is not yet legally binding.

The government also agreed not to oppose a TLP application to add Bibi to a 
list preventing her from leaving the country. And the government agreed to 
release everyone detained in connection with the protests.

The TLP had previously vowed to take to the streets if Bibi were released, and 
large protests broke out in Islamabad and Lahore soon after the ruling was 
announced.

Under Pakistan's penal code, the offense of blasphemy is punishable by death or 
life imprisonment. Widely criticized by international human rights groups, the 
law has been used disproportionately against minority religious groups in the 
country and journalists who are critical of the Pakistani religious 
establishment.

Bibi's case has attracted widespread outrage and support from Christians 
worldwide. Conservative Islamist groups in Pakistan have demanded the death 
penalty be carried out.

(source: CNN)




BANGLADESH:

Chapainawabganj court sentences man to death, jails f5 for 2010 murder


A Chapainawabganj court has sentenced a man to death and 5 others to life in 
prison over the 2010 murder of Rafiqul Islam in the district’s Gomostapur 
Upazila.

Chapainawabganj Additional District and Sessions Judge Md Shawkat Ali announced 
the verdict on Monday.

The convict who received death penalty is Niranjan Orao, a resident of 
upazila’s Kashrail village.

The judge also fined  him Tk 10,000 and sentenced Samar Orao, 40, Ganesh Orao, 
22, Dasrath Orao, 22, Sabanu Orao, 26, and Budhua Orao, 24, to life in prison.

The convicts who received life terms were also fined Tk 10,000 each and will 
have to spend another year in jail if they fail to pay the fine.

Budhua and Samar are at large, while the rest of the suspects were present in 
court to hear the verdict, said Public Prosecutor Anjuman Ara Begum.

Rafiqul was drinking tea at a makeshift shop in Kashrail village one evening 
when the suspects attacked him and severed his head over a feud from 2010, 
according to the case dossier.

Abdul Jabbar, the elder brother of the victim, filed the case as plaintiff at 
Gomostapur Police Station. The trial began after Sub Inspector Bani Israil 
pressed charges against the suspects in 2011.

(source: bdnews24.com)


***********

Bangladesh tribunal sentences 2 to death for 1971 war crimes


A special Bangladesh tribunal on Monday handed down death sentences to 2 
persons, including a former leader of the ruling Awami League, for crimes 
against humanity during the 1971 liberation war and for aiding Pakistani 
troops.

"They will be hanged by neck until they are dead," pronounced the chair of the 
three-judge International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh (ICT-BD) Mohammad 
Shahinur Islam after the trial of both convicts who are on the run.

Both convicts, in their early 60s, are absconding.

Islam said all charges brought against the convicts were proved beyond doubt 
that warranted the death penalty.

Prosecution lawyers had accused them of murdering some 100 people, mostly 
minority Hindus, in their neighbourhood while siding with Pakistani enemy 
troops.

They were defended by state-appointed counsels during their trial in absentia 
and of the two Liakat Ali was president of the Awami League's Lakhai 
sub-district in northeastern Kishorganj.

Ali is the 2nd war crimes convict who managed to become a member of the Awami 
League, the party which led the 1971 Liberation War, by hiding his past role.

He was eventually identified as a war criminal as the government initiated the 
process to try the Bangladeshi collaborators who aided Pakistani troops in 
committing genocide during the war.

53 people, mostly leaders of fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami which
opposed Bangladesh's independence, have been sentenced to death for their acts 
during the war while some of the convicts were from the main opposition 
Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

7 war criminals have been hanged so far after the Supreme Court upheld the 
tribunal's judgments while the rest of the cases are pending with the apex 
court even as 5 of the convicts have died of natural causes by now.

(source: theweek.in)






MALAYSIA:

Malaysia sets example by abandoning the noose----Now it has a moral right to 
pressure other nations to follow suit in ending capital punishment


Malaysia's decision to abandon the death penalty is winning praise and adds 
further momentum to a growing global trend that human rights advocates hope 
will spell an end to state-sanctioned killing.

But there's still a long way to go, particularly across Asia.

>From Pakistan and India to Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam, executions for a range 
of crimes — murder and treason to drug trafficking and blasphemy — remain on 
the statute books.

Of the 53 counties that maintain the death penalty, about a quarter are in 
Asia, with China topping the world in the number of state-sanctioned killings. 
Figures remain a state secret, but rights groups say at least 2,000 people were 
executed by lethal injection or firing squad in 2017.

That's more than the rest of the world combined, but Beijing's methods pale 
when compared to North Korea where torture often precedes public executions.

The number of executions is also a state secret in the despotic communist state 
that is estimated to carry out 50-100 executions a year — by firing squad, 
hanging or decapitation — for crimes that include attempts to access unapproved 
media.

Pushing the Chinese and North Koreans into abandoning the death penalty might 
seem like a lost cause. But Malaysia has announced that by the end of this year 
it will become the 107th country to end capital punishment, a significant 
increase on 64 nations just 2 decades ago.

Some other Asian countries have also jettisoned the death penalty while several 
others have curbed its use or imposed moratoriums.

It was abolished in Cambodia in 1989 amid peace negotiations aimed at ending 3 
decades of conflict amid fears that state-sanctioned executions could be used 
for retribution.

East Timor abandoned the death penalty, which it inherited from Indonesia, 
following a 1999 United Nations-sponsored vote on self-determination. The 
Philippines suspended the death penalty in 2006, Mongolia abolished it in 2017 
and there is a moratorium on executions in South Korea.

Vietnam executed 1,134 people between mid-2011 and mid-2016, but the number of 
people currently on death row is not known. Thailand carried out its last 
execution in June, the first in nearly a decade.

Brunei retains the death penalty, but it has not been carried out since 1957, 
likewise in Laos, where the last known execution was in 1989, and in Papua New 
Guinea where there has not been a hanging since 1954.

Singapore ignores pleas

Malaysia announced its decision to end judicial killing on Oct. 10, the World 
Day Against the Death Penalty, saying the practice was inconsistent with 
national sentiment.

That begs the question as to why Singapore has not followed suit, as its 
population is at least as civilized as those across the causeway border.

The case of Singapore, like Japan and Taiwan, is disturbing because it ranks 
"very high" on the Human Development Index and lays claim to be part of the 
first world where capital punishment has mostly long been spurned. The United 
States is a notable exception.

But the island state, famed for its squeaky-clean streets, had no hesitation in 
hanging Malaysian drug trafficker Prabu Pathmanathan in late October, ignoring 
pleas for clemency in what was branded "an unlawful and brutal act."

In some countries, such as Pakistan, zealots claim religious justifications for 
the death penalty. In the Muslim-majority nation there were 65 hangings in 2017 
and a total of 499 since it ended a moratorium in 2014.

Yet neighboring India has executed only five people since 1995, the last being 
in 2015 in relation to 1993 terrorist bombings.

President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, where there have been up to 
20,000 extrajudicial "drug war" killings since he come to power in mid-2016, 
has indicated that the nation's suspension of official executions could be 
lifted.

In Myanmar — where all death sentences were commuted in 2014 — 66 people have 
been sentenced to death since Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi won historic 
elections less than 3 years ago.

Religious excuses

While it is impossible to conduct a global survey, evidence suggests that most 
people in a majority of countries believe that the death penalty is wrong, with 
this view particularly strong among Christians.

There is little stomach for the Old Testament concept of an eye for an eye, 
even in Israel where capital punishment is law, yet only two executions have 
been carried out since it was founded in 1948; the last in 1962.

In countries where a strict form of Shariah is imposed, Islam is used to 
justify executions — which can include beheadings and stoning — primarily for 
intentional murder and Fasad fil-ardh, which means the spreading of mischief in 
the land.

Such attempted justifications are problematic in the 21st century with cultures 
clashing as much as the old with the new. Intentional murder convictions grant 
victims' families the right to judge the severity of sentences, undermining the 
power of the courts and their independence.

Meanwhile, the stated offense of trying to destabilise the state is open to 
interpretation and the whims of those in power. Saudi Arabia's treatment of 
journalist Jamal Khashoggi is an example.

There is no shortage of people who believe criminals should forfeit their lives 
for heinous crimes.

But sovereign states have too often condemned the wrong people and ignored 
their own laws when sanctioning the deaths of people who were mentally 
incapable of understanding what they had done.

Brazilian drug trafficker Rodrigo Gularte was a diagnosed paranoid 
schizophrenic with psychotic tendencies. Yet he was executed by firing squad in 
Indonesia for drug trafficking three years ago despite his illness and lack of 
comprehension.

Father Charlie Burrows, an Irish Catholic priest who ministers to condemned 
prisoners, for three days tried in vain to explain to Gularte that he was soon 
to die. Father Burrows described Gularte as a quiet and sensitive man who 
finally understood.

Why should state-sanctioned killing be a state right?

Police and judicial systems are far from infallible as found in the United 
States where at least 20 people sentenced to death have been exonerated since 
the introduction of DNA testing.

And the steadfastness of the law is only highlighted publicly when death row 
inmates become politicized and cause diplomatic friction, such as with 
condemned foreigners like Prabu Pathmanathan.

There are 81 Nigerians on death row in Malaysia, but they are now to be spared. 
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, whose government is abolishing the death 
penalty, was accused at the time of politically exploiting the 1986 hangings of 
British and Australian drug traffickers Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers.

The hanging in Singapore in 2005 of Van Nguyen, an Australian Vietnamese who 
was allegedly blackmailed into a narcotics ring to protect his troubled 
brother, was revolting. He turned state evidence amid promises this would go in 
his favor. It did not.

Such treatment is barbaric, particularly when meted out in narcotics cases 
where drug mules and other bit-players of syndicates are condemned while those 
in charge carry on with relative impunity from their home countries.

Great inroads have been made towards ridding the world of the death penalty 
and, in the meantime, curbing its use.

Malaysia, by announcing the scrapping of capital punishment, will be able to 
join other nations conforming to international norms in order to pressure those 
that don't, even China and North Korea.

In his last moments, as executioners strapped him to a post to be shot, Gularte 
turned to Father Burrows as the prospect of what was about to happen sank in.

"This is not right. I made one small mistake, and I shouldn't have to die for 
it," Gularte said.

(source: ucanews.com)




GERMANY:

The inhabitants of the land Hesse, the latter abolished the death penalty in 
all of Germany


For the abolition of capital punishment voted by the residents of Hesse, which 
is the last of all the Federal States of Germany, in the legislation which 
contained this type of punishment.

The referendum ended in victory for opponents of capital punishment — more than 
83% voted for the abolition of the penalty.

German media have also noted that the referendum was a mere formality, as the 
death penalty for 70 years is prohibited by the German Constitution, which 
takes precedence over the laws of the Federal States.

Also, recall that according to the latest report of the Amnesty International 
report published in April this year, in 2017, significantly decreased the 
number of executed death sentences.

The report States that in 2017 were recorded 993 such cases in 23 countries 
(figures do not include the thousands of executions carried out in China, where 
these data remain a state secret).

Thus, the number of convictions for the year of death sentences has decreased 
by 17% and amounted to 2591.

(source: sivpost.com)



ISRAEL:

Netanyahu green-lights death penalty for terrorists


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the go-ahead Sunday for lawmakers to 
advance a controversial bill calling for the death penalty for convicted 
Palestinian killers of Israeli civilians and soldiers, reportedly rejecting the 
advice of the security establishment.

Meeting coalition party heads to set the legislative agenda for the week, the 
prime minister said there was nothing preventing the proposal, which has been 
stalled since January, from being put to Knesset votes and becoming law.

Netanyahu told coalition heads that opposition from both the Shin Bet security 
service and the Israel Defense Forces should not prevent lawmakers from 
advancing the bill, Israel Radio reported Monday morning.

Although the death penalty formally exists in Israeli law, it has only ever 
been used once — in 1962 in the case of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann, one of the 
architects of the Holocaust. It is technically allowed in cases of high 
treason, as well as in certain circumstances under the martial law that applies 
within the IDF and in the West Bank, but currently requires a unanimous 
decision from a panel of three judges, and has never been implemented.

The bill, proposed by Yisrael Beytenu and championed by the party’s chairman, 
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, would allow a simple majority of two to one 
judges to impose the  death penalty.

Liberman said at the opening the of Knesset’s winter session last month that 
the passage of the bill was a condition for his party to remain in the 
coalition.

The prime minister’s authorization, first reported by Israel Radio, came after 
Education Minister Naftali Bennett, the chairman of the Jewish Home party, 
requested that the bill be advanced, the minister’s spokesman confirmed to The 
Times of Israel, following accusations by Liberman that the party was holding 
up the legislation.

On Sunday, Bennett, whose religious-nationalist Jewish Home will battle with 
Liberman’s secular right-wing Yisrael Beytenu over the votes of many hawkish 
Israelis in the upcoming Knesset elections, accused the defense minister of 
“ruining Israel’s deterrence” against Palestinian terror attacks.

Bennett was referring to a separate bill pushed by his party, proposing to 
transfer families of terror convicts away from their home communities and 
resettle then elsewhere in the West Bank as a punitive measure.

“What Liberman isn’t willing to do via the Defense Ministry, we will do today 
via legislation,” Bennett tweeted. “Over the last two years, Liberman ruined 
Israel’s deterrence. Terrorists aren’t afraid. They know their homes won’t be 
demolished, that their families will receive NIS 12,000 ($3,250) per month 
[from the Palestinian Authority] and they will be glorified as martyrs.”

He added that his party would present the bill for a vote in the Knesset plenum 
on Sunday, so that terrorists “will be afraid again.”

In response, Liberman’s party said it would “support any bill that aids the 
fight against terror.” But, he said, “that doesn’t change the fact that the 
Jewish Home has for about a year been thwarting the passage” of the death 
penalty bill.

That legislation won initial backing in a January preliminary reading in the 
Knesset, despite some coalition lawmakers expressing reservations over the 
legislation. Its progress since then has been repeatedly delayed due to 
opposition from the security establishment.

Following Sunday’s decision, it will now face deliberations in the Knesset’s 
Constitution and Law Committee before being brought to a vote in the plenary.

(source: The Times of Israel)



PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY:

PA condemns Israel's Palestinians death penalty bill


The Palestinian Authority (PA) strongly condemned the Israeli legislation for 
Palestinians linked to attacks against Israelis to be slapped with death 
penalties.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu support for the bill is "an open 
call for incitement to kill, execute and to massacre Palestinians," as stated 
Palestinian government spokesperson Yousef Al-Mahmoud.

"Netanyahu and his followers shall be held responsible for the consequences of 
this horrible decision and for how it flagrantly breaches international and 
humanitarian laws and norms," the spokesperson noted.

The international community also received an appeal from Al-Mahmoud to claim 
responsibility for defending Palestinians and help create an independent 
Palestinian state.

(source: menafn.com)