[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

November 12



MALAYSIA:

Lawyers not convinced death penalty the answer for heinous crimes against 
children----Malaysia is moving towards abolishing the death penalty, but a 
lawyer says it could be retained to punish crimes against children.


Rights lawyers who oppose the death penalty have disagreed with a suggestion by 
Ramkarpal Singh that the capital punishment be retained for crimes involving 
children.

Eric Paulsen said there should be no exceptions to abolishing the death 
penalty, which he referred to as a “state-sanctioned murder”.

Ramkarpal, who is also DAP’s Bukit Gelugor MP, had earlier said that even 
though he had always advocated doing away with the death penalty, he was in 
favour of the sentence being meted out on those found guilty of committing 
horrific crimes against children.

His comments came in the wake of the death of 11-month-old Nur Muazara Ulfa 
Mohammad Zainal on Friday.

Police have arrested a couple, after a post-mortem showed the baby could have 
been raped, sodomised and abused.

But Paulsen said it still did not justify the death penalty.

“There is nothing to be gained by killing another person even though he or she 
may have committed a heinous crime,” he said.

“All it shows is that we are a society that is bent on retribution and 
punishment instead of reform and mercy.”

However, he said those convicted of serious crimes should be put away with long 
prison sentences.

Lawyer Latheefa Koya, meanwhile, said that judicial punishment should be more 
about deterrence rather than “cold-blooded vengeance”.

“It has been proven that the death penalty does not deter serious crimes,” said 
Latheefa, who heads Lawyers for Liberty.

She said life imprisonment was a more dreadful punishment.

“In fact some prisoners prefer to die, than spend their life in prison,” she 
added.

(source: freemalaysiatoday.com)



INDONESIA:

Bali 9’s Renae Lawrence is set to be released within days after spending 13 
years locked up in Indonesia for heroin trafficking - the 1st member of the 
syndicate to leave alive

     Bali 9 member Renae Lawrence is set to be released from prison in Indonesia
     It would make Lawrence the only member of the Bali Nine group to be 
released
     She has been behind bars in Bangli jail since 2005 for trafficking 2.6kg of 
heroin
     A provisional date for her release has been set for November 21, sources 
confirm


Bali 9 drug smuggler Renae Lawrence is set to be released from prison in 
Indonesia within days - after spending 13 years locked up for heroin 
trafficking.

The impending release of the 41-year-old would mean she is the only member of 
the notorious syndicate to leave prison in Bali alive.

Lawrence has been behind bars in Bali's Bangli jail since she was convicted of 
attempting to smuggle 2.6kg of heroin into Australia through Bali's Ngurah Rai 
International Airport on April 17, 2005.

The drugs were found strapped to her body - and the bodies of three other drug 
mules - after the Australian Federal Police tipped off Indonesian authorities.

2 separate sources have confirmed to 10 Daily News that the sole female member 
of the drug trafficking group will be released from jail by the end of the 
month, with a provisional date set for November 21.

Bali's head of Board Corrections, I Made Badra, told the publication that his 
team are working with the Australian consulate on Lawrence's release.

'On the day of her release, we'll take her to Denpasar Immigration for her 
passport and plane ticket,' he said.

Lawrence could have been freed from prison in May but couldn't make the 
$100,000 payment and opted to remain in jail for another 6 months.

Fellow Bali 9 members Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan were executed by firing 
squad in 2015, while Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen died from cancer earlier this year.

Lawrence hopes to work when she returns to Australia but believes it may not be 
easy to find an employer that will take on an ex-prisoner.

'In Australia, it's difficult because we already have the status of prisoner,' 
Lawrence told News Corp in August.

'If the owner of the company is a kind person and can accept us but that person 
rarely exists.'

She was the only Bali 9 member to not receive life imprisonment and has been 
making the most of the rehabilitation programs while in jail.

Where are the other members of Bali 9?

Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 34, - were executed by firing squad on 
the Indonesian prison island of Nusa Kambangan on April 29, 2015.

Tan Duc Thanh was initially given life but was then sentenced to death 
following an appeal. He died of cancer while in jail earlier this year.

5 others are serving life in jail:

Scott Rush, 32

Rush's parents were the ones to tip of the Australian Federal Police stating 
they hoped it would stop their son from becoming a drug mule.

Following his arrest he was sentenced to life in prison and upon appeal was 
slapped with the death penalty. A further appeal reverted the decision to life 
in jail.

Martin Stephens, 42

Stephens was also sentenced to life after being caught attempting to smuggle 
drugs into Bali.

He attempted to have his sentence lessened to 10 years in 2011 but it was 
rejected.

He also met his wife Christine Winarni Puspayanti in 2011 who was visiting the 
prison as part of a church group.

The pair married in a traditional Indonesian ceremony.

Si Yi Chen, 33

Chen was sentenced to life in prison but was given the death sentence following 
an appeal.

He appealed again after a full confession which then reinstated his life 
sentence.

Chen is currently running a silversmith workshop while in jail.

Michael Czugaj, 32

Czugaj is one of the youngest members of the group and is serving life in 
Madiun, East Java.

The former surfing-made apprentice tradesman hopes to be transferred back to a 
Bali jail.

Matthew Norman, 31

The youngest member of the Bali 9, Norman was sentenced to life but was then 
sentenced to death.

Following an appeal and full confession, his sentence was reinstated back to 
life.

(source: dailymail.co.uk)



BAHRAIN:

Bahrain sentences 4 to death for police killing


Bahrain's top criminal court on Monday sentenced 4 Shiite Muslims to death for 
a 2017 bombing that killed a policeman, a judicial official and the public 
prosecutor said.

A statement by the prosecutor's office said the four were found guilty on 
charges of premeditated murder and possession of unlicensed arms "with 
terrorist aims" over a June 18, 2017 bombing.

A police officer was killed in the blast in Diraz, a flashpoint village outside 
the capital Manama.

Bahrain, a tiny Sunni-ruled kingdom located between regional rivals Saudi 
Arabia and Iran, has been hit by waves of unrest since 2011, when security forc 
es crushed protests led by majority Shiites demanding an elected prime 
minister.

Authorities have since jailed hundreds of dissidents and stripped many of 
citizenship, banning all opposition groups under court orders. Diraz in 
particular has been rocked by protests, police raids, riots and sporadic 
bombings. The village is home to Sheikh Isa Qassim, Bahrain's highest Shiite 
dignitary, who was stripped of citizenship in 2016 and is under house arrest. 
Bahraini authorities accuse Shiite Iran of provoking unrest in the kingdom, 
which Iran denies.

Rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have 
labelled many of the trials as politically motivated and said they fail to meet 
basic standards of due process.

Monday's verdict comes ahead of controversial parliamentary elections that 
Bahrain's King Hamad has called for November 24.

Dissolved opposition parties, including the Shiite Al-Wefaq and secular 
Al-Waad, do not have the right to put forward their own candidates in the vote.

Bahrain, a key ally of the United States, is home to the US Fifth Fleet and a 
permanent British military base.

(source: al-monitor.com)






IRAN:

2 sentenced to death for financial corruption


Judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni Eje;i announced on Sunday that 2 
more individuals charged with financial corruption have been sentenced to 
death.

Dariush Ebrahimian and Younes Bahaoddini are facing death penalty, while the 
latter’s verdict is not final yet, Mohseni Eje'i said, ILNA reported.

He further said a few others have also been found guilty of financial 
corruption, and 2 of them were handed their final sentences.

The Judiciary spokesman added in line with the crackdown on financial 
corruption, 100 individuals have been arrested, with 80 cases being 
investigated by the courts.

(source: Tehran Times)

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

Increasing Concern About the Reports on Possible Mass Execution in Ahwaz


IHR has received unverified information about the execution of several Ahvazi 
Arab activists. The executions have allegedly taken place on Thursday, November 
8. According to some sources, as many as 22 prisoners might have been executed.

2 different sources have reported to Iran Human Rights (IHR) that several 
Ahwazi Arab activists were executed on Thursday, November 8, at one of the 
prisons in the Iranian city of Ahvaz (Ahwaz).

One of the sources said: “In the aftermath of the September attack to a 
military parade in Ahvaz, Iranian Ministry of intelligence announced that 22 
people were arrested for alleged connection to the incident. It seems that 
authorities executed all of them on Thursday. Today [Sunday, November 11] they 
told the prisoners’ families that the executions were carried out. They 
(authorities) warned the families against public mourning.”

Of note, a military parade was attacked by armed gunmen in the southwestern 
Iranian city of Ahvaz on 22 September 2018. Iranian security forces arrested 22 
people for alleged connection with the attackers.

IHR sources believe that the executions were carried out at Sheyban Prison in 
Ahwaz.

According to a source, Mohammad Momeni Timas, Nesar Momeni, Ahmad Heydari, and 
Hatam Savari are among those executed. IHR is currently investigating the 
execution reports through several independent sources.

The Islamic Republic authorities have previously carried out executions as a 
retaliation as a response to terrorist attacks. In October 2013, 16 Baluchi 
prisoners were hanged in Zahedan Prison in retaliation for the deaths of at 
least 14 border guards in an ambush.

(source: Iran Human Rights)


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



Iran rejects execution of suspects linked to Ahvaz terror attack


The governor of Khuzestan Province on Monday rejected as false a recent report 
which claimed 22 individuals who were arrested over the September 22 terrorist 
attack in Ahvaz have been executed.

“This is an utterly false report,” Gholamreza Shariati was quoted by the IRNA 
news agency as saying.

Shariati said the charges pressed against the Ahvaz terrorist attack suspects 
have been explained to them, adding that the justice department have detailed 
information about the cases.

(source: Tehran Times)



EGYPT:

Egyptian court upholds death penalty for 7 convicted of killing policeman

An Egyptian top court upheld on Sunday a previous death sentence against 7 
defendants convicted of killing a policeman in 2013, official MENA news agency 
reported.

The Court of Cassation upheld a previous execution order issued by Ismailia 
Criminal Court, northeast of the capital Cairo, for murdering policeman Ahmed 
Radwan Abu-Doma and seizing his gun during an armed attack against a security 
patrol in late 2013.

The verdict is final and unappealable as the top court rejected the defendant's 
appeals.

The investigation back then showed that the gunmen rode a motorbike and a 
private car when they attacked the security men and exchanged fire with them.

2 other defendants in the same case were sentenced to 2 and 3 years in jail for 
covering involved fugitives.

Egypt has been suffering terrorist activities that killed hundreds of 
policemen, soldiers and civilians following the popular-backed military ouster 
of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in early July 2013.

Most of the terror attacks in Egypt were claimed by a Sinai-based group loyal 
to the Islamic State (IS) regional terrorist group.

Last week, an Egyptian military court sentenced eight fugitive IS suspect 
terrorists to death over involvement in deadly attacks against the Egyptian 
armed forces.

On the other hand, the Egyptian security forces have killed hundreds of 
terrorists and arrested thousands of suspects during the country's anti-terror 
war declared by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, the army chief then, 
following Morsi's ouster.

(source: Xinhua)




UNITED KINGDOM:

Ruth Ellis: The model who smiled at her executioner----New exhibition explores 
the life of the last woman to be put to death in Britain


There’s much that marks out Ruth Ellis’ execution as a source of fascination, 
63 years since it took place in Holloway Prison, London. History books will 
tell us that it’s because she was the last woman hanged in the UK; perhaps 
expedited because of the profile of this case, the death penalty was abolished 
10 years later.

True crime enthusiasts will say it was the unremorseful nature of the murder, 
and buried evidence about a co-conspirer that could never be confirmed after 
her execution. The media certainly helped Ruth Ellis make her mark: she was an 
ex-nude model who’d dabbled in acting, and her act of passion was against the 
lover who scorned her, David Blakely, a wealthy socialite and race-car driver.

They met through mutual friends at the Little Club in Mayfair, a notorious 
anything-goes place where The Krays visited, and where Ellis was a hostess and 
manager. Together, they shared an alcohol-fuelled passionate and violent 
relationship until Blakely wanted out, prompting Ellis to seek out his hiding 
place in Hampstead on Easter Sunday of 1955. Finding him in the Magdala pub, 
she waited for him to leave, then shot him twice in the back at point blank 
range. As he lay bleeding on the ground, she continued shooting, then calmly 
gave up her gun to an off-duty policeman.

“Will you call the police?” she asked him.

“I am the police,” he replied.

“Will you please arrest me?”

Refusing any option to reduce her sentence – like pleading insanity or 
highlighting the role of her new lover Desmond Cussen, whom had given her the 
gun and driven her to the pub – her hearing lasted two days, and it took the 
jury 25 minutes to decide she was guilty. She was hanged on 13 July 1955, aged 
28.

She left behind 2 children, then aged 3 and 10, and a myriad of questions about 
her final days, especially surrounding the rushed judicial process, their 
abusive relationship (which she believed caused her to miscarry), and the role 
of Cussen in influencing her decision. It left enough doubt that in 2002, her 
sister appealed her case, albeit unsuccessfully.

“I’d absolutely entertain the conspiracy theory, but there’s just some blatant 
facts,” says Christina Reihill, a Dublin-based creative who is interpreting 
Ruth Ellis’s last days as the basis of a new exhibition, Glad I Did It.

“The truth is, Ruth was found with a gun in her hand. She said she shot him. 
>From the minute she was arrested and right through to the day she was being 
hanged, she was satisfied she had done what she intended to do. At every point, 
she was encouraged to seek mercy but no, she told her solicitor that she knew 
what she did and shed die for it.

“People cannot stand the fact that a person, particularly a woman, stands up 
and says ‘I shot him’. People are scared to admit that that’s in our psyche, 
that the satisfaction in those acts of revenge, are human. She declared what we 
all do in subtle levels.”

A central theme to the installation is the universal elements of Ellis’s motive 
and actions, as extreme as they were.

Dublin-based Reihill, who studied psychology and English at Harvard University, 
is well-versed in exploring the darker parts of the female psyche. Last year 
she produced Wit’s End at Smock Alley Theatre Dublin, which focused on poet 
Dorothy Parker’s final days before her death.

“Almost on the night of Wit’s End’s opening when I was ready to collapse, Ruth 
Ellis came into my head,” says Reihill. “I felt she put a gun to my head and 
said ‘me next’. I’d not had that before, where it was so clear and loud in my 
head.

“Ruth had a physically violent history whereas Dorothy Parker had an 
intellectually violent history. With both these installations, I know it’s dark 
material I’m dealing with, and I need to mind myself with it.”

Reihill’s research on Ellis began in the 1980s, when working in London as a 
journalist with Vogue and the Evening Standard among others, she began 
researching a book on the infamous Little Club. While the book didn’t come to 
fruition, Ruth Ellis stayed with her.
Ruth Ellis

“Who would want to stand up and willingly be condemned to death. It’s extremely 
difficult for us to comprehend,” remarks Reilhill. “And it’s deeper than that. 
She’s a woman who’s dared to express that level of darkness to the end. She 
stood in front of Albert [Pierrepoint, her executioner] and grinned at him. He 
wrote about this until he died; he was haunted by her smile. He said he hanged 
430 people, 15 of which were women, and she matched the bravest that stood in 
front of him.

“I believe she felt a lot of fear. There were moments where she cried in the 
cell, like when she saw David’s autopsy photographs and when [an MP] was trying 
to make her stay alive for her children. But she could have only sustained that 
false pride of not letting anyone see her scared of dying’ for so long, and she 
was three weeks in cell.”

Describing herself as “a poet, but one that takes words and languages into 
three dimensional spaces”, Reihill uses Ruth Ellis’s story to hold a mirror to 
us all. The Bermondsey Project Space, in a warehouse-filled, artsy part of 
London, is divided into three floors.

“The ground floor has a window on to the street, and that’s where you’ll find 
Ruth Ellis’s hanging space and a trap door,” Reihill explains. “But everything 
is symbolic for me. So that’s our own hanging space. How do we hang each 
ourselves in the choices we make? How do we hang each other? And to passers-by, 
that’s the window to our soul.

The basement, decorated with fiery red felt walls, has a video interview, in 
which the artist replies to questions “in a way that I hope invites people to 
pause and reflect on the answers”.

The focus of the installation is the recreated cell, made up of letters, notes 
and furniture that evoke the cell in which she lived, knowing exactly when her 
time would come.

“There’s a seanchaí chair – a chair for storytellers – from the 1800s, because 
Ruth wanted to be famous, and this is her moment. We all want a seanchai chair 
and to tell our story. There are pillars in the gallery and I’m using them to 
evoke the institutional. David wrote her a note of ‘Darling I love you’, and 
that’s there by her desk; it’s a photograph of the original. And on the desk, 
there’s copy of her diary. Every day she was in the cell, the doctors and 
officers kept a note of how she was doing, things like if she was reading, 
sleeping well or chatting. The diary will be there for people to read and 
decide for themselves how she was during their time.

“To me, the condemned cell is her mind – it’s our mind. It’s a confined space, 
but her perception was that it was not. I’m not saying she liked it, but she 
appreciated her time there, because her she had her dignity. She was called Mrs 
Ellis. Her opinion was sought and listened to. She never had that in her life.”

It’s no coincidence that there are parallels to be made with a confined cell 
that turns out to be a reprieve, and Reihill’s own sobriety. After living the 
high life of a London media type, she moved back to Dublin, sought the help she 
needed, and has been off drugs and alcohol for 24 years now.

“London threw me out for bad behaviour and I’m coming back with the exhibition 
as a present, for it to forgive me,” she says. “I tried but I failed to get 
sober in London. As a city it’s so exciting but it’s fast and it’s hard. Even 
now if I stay more than three days I’m looking for a bottle of vodka and a lot 
of cocaine.”

These days, Reihill enjoys a creative life in Monkstown, Dublin, where she 
lives with her two cats. Her output varies from feature writing to poetry to 
interactive installations, which are touched by the experiences that have 
shaped her perception.

“With all of my work, it’s daunting to step in, but I’ve done my job if you 
want to stay,” she says. “Because that’s what I experienced.”

Christina Reihill’s installation, Glad I Did It, will run from November 14th to 
December 1st at Bermondsey Project Space, London

(source: Irish Times)




INDIA:

‘You won, I lost’: 26/11 attacker Kasab’s confession, day before hanging
Senior police inspector Ramesh Mahale recounts how Kasab never gave straight 
answers to their questions
'

The last words Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Ajmal Amir Kasab said to senior police 
inspector Ramesh Mahale were, “Aap jeet gaye, main har gaya [you won, I lost].” 
The admission came in November 2012, a day before Kasab would be hanged to 
death for being guilty of 80 offences, including waging war against India. It 
marked the end of an association that began at Mumbai’s Nair Hospital, where 
Mahale had first questioned Kasab after the latter was captured by the Mumbai 
Police on November 26, 2008.

Mahale, now retired, was the chief investigator of the 26/11 attacks and headed 
Mumbai’s crime branch Unit 1 in 2008. Kasab was in the crime branch’s custody 
for about 81 days before being shifted to a specially-made, bulletproof, high 
security cell in Arthur Road Jail. “Till the time he was handed a death warrant 
by the court, Kasab believed he would get a leeway from Indian laws,” said 
Mahale, who retired in 2013.

Kasab fascinated Mahale, who quickly realised that the 21-year-old’s defences 
couldn’t be cracked using tough interrogation methods. “We made Kasab feel 
comfortable and easy and waited for him to break on his own,” he said. Mahale’s 
small acts of kindness included giving Kasab two new outfits.

One day, after having spent about a month and half in custody, Mahale got an 
unexpected insight into Kasab’s thought process. “I was having a conversation 
with Kasab when he said though he could be hanged for his crime, it wouldn’t 
happen because the Indian justice system abhorred the death penalty,” recalled 
Mahale. Kasab gave him the example of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and 
said, “He hasn’t been hanged even eight years after the Indian courts 
pronounced his death sentence.” Mahale kept quiet that day.

Kasab would surprise the investigators on numerous occasions, like when he was 
asked to record his statement in court, near the end of the trial. “Kasab told 
the court that he was a Pakistani national who came to Mumbai on a valid visa 
to catch a glimpse of Amitabh Bachchan. He said he was standing outside the 
star’s Juhu bungalow when sleuths from Research and Analysis Wing picked him up 
and handed him over to the Mumbai police. The cops … shot him in the arm before 
putting him in lock up. Four days later, they [police] fixed him in the 26/11 
case,” recounted Mahale. By this time, Mahale, having interrogated Kasab, was 
used to the terrorist spinning stories. “He never gave straight answers to our 
questions,” said Mahale.

On November 11, 2012, a special court issued Kasab’s death warrant. The then 
police commissioner Dr. Satyapal Singh handpicked Mahale as one of the special 
team that would shift Kasab to Yerwada Jail in Pune where he would be hanged to 
death on November 21. At midnight on November 19, Mahale went to fetch Kasab 
from his cell. He chose that moment to remind Kasab how the Pakistani had been 
certain he’d evade the death penalty. “Yaad hai? Char saal bhi nahin hua. Ab 
aur saat din baki hai [Remember what you said? It hasn’t even been 4 years. 
There’s still a week left],”
Mahale told Kasab.

Kasab replied with, “Aap jit gaye, main har gaya [you won, I lost].” He didn’t 
speak a word during the 3 1/2 hour journey to Pune. “The exuberance and 
confidence in him had been replaced by the fear of death,” said Mahale. 
Recalling the morning of November 21, when Kasab was hanged, Mahale said, “It 
was one of happiest moments in my life when I learnt his death. Justice had 
been done, the evil was dead.”

(source: hindustantimes.com)