[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

September 22




BARBADOS:

Barbados death penalty chucked



Barbadian legislators are reluctantly pushing aside a law directing the death 
penalty for murder, only because the island’s lawmakers know that they are 
compelled to obey a Caribbean Court of Justice ruling making executions 
illegal.

In one of his last judgements retiring CCJ President, Sir Dennis Byron, 
delivered in June, the court ruled out the mandatory death sentences on persons 
convicted of murder in Barbados because such a practice is unconstitutional.

This ruling forced the new government of Prime Minister Mia Mottley to dust off 
and bring to parliament a 2014 bill amending the Offences Against the Person 
Act that shelves the aspect that the CCJ deemed unconstitutional but does not 
erase the death penalty from the statute books.

It was passed through the lower chamber of that law-making body, House of 
Assembly, this week. After consideration in the Senate it is expected to be 
proclaimed into law.

"Today Barbados has a death penalty and when this bill is passed in the House 
and passed in the Senate of Barbados and proclaimed to be the law of Barbados, 
the country of Barbados will still have a death penalty," said Attorney General 
Dale Marshall as he indicated that government is not abolishing the death 
penalty but shoving the stipulation aside where it remains an option.

In fact, the bill to amend the act reads in part, "a person who is convicted of 
murder shall be sentenced to death; or imprisonment for life."

This grudging shelving of the death penalty by these legislators, many who 
profess to support capital punishment, is being done only because the CCJ is 
the island's court of last resort and its ruling is law of the land.

"If we choose to disobey the ruling of the CCJ on this point, what else will we 
choose to disobey the ruling of the CCJ on?" asked Marshall, whose government 
had reaffirmed in no uncertain manner its commitment to the CCJ immediately 
after it came to power, following former prime minister Freundel Stuart's vow 
to take the island out of this Caribbean court if his party had won the 
elections.

Barbados was not bound by the June CCJ ruling alone, but had years earlier 
given a commitment to that Caribbean court and the Inter-American Court of 
Human Rights that it would rectify the mandatory death sentence.

This is the reason that the amendment bill to the Offences to the Person Act 
dates back to 2014, as the previous government had drafted it but possessed no 
will to go against popular sentiment on the island and legally curtail hanging.

The shelving of the mandatory death sentences in Barbados has an impact of many 
persons ranging from those already convicted of murders and sentenced to death, 
to individuals awaiting sentencing, and individuals awaiting trial for causing 
death of another.

"As at today, there are 62 Barbadian men and women who are awaiting trial for 
murder. There are 6 awaiting trial for manslaughter. There are 11 people on 
death row," said Marshall in parliament Tuesday. "So as we speak today we have 
79 people whom this statute could possibly affect."

He explained that the 11 death row inmates will have to be resentenced 
in-keeping with the soon to be proclaimed amended law.

The attorney general echoed sentiments of a pro-hanging conservative Caribbean 
when he regrettably mused on the island's future court guidelines on sentencing 
murderers.

"It must be a frightening prospect for us sir, that we have 62 people who are 
charged with murder but on the law as it stands, we would likely not be able to 
inflict capital punishment on them," he said.

(source: caribbeanlifenews.com)








SINGAPORE----female sentenced to death

Singaporean woman sentenced to death for drug trafficking



A 40-year-old Singaporean woman who claimed she was stocking up on heroin for 
her own use during the fasting month has failed in her bid to escape the death 
penalty.

Saridewi Djamani, who was charged with trafficking a total of 1kg of drugs 
containing 30.72g of pure heroin, also claimed she was suffering from 
persistent depressive disorder and severe substance use disorder.

In his grounds of decision released on Thursday (20 September), for his 
sentence delivered last Friday (14 September), High Court judge See Kee Oon 
noted that Saridewi did not deny selling heroin, methamphetamine, cannabis and 
Erimin from her HDB flat but sought to downplay the scale of her trafficking 
business.

The High Court had heard how on 17 June 2016, at about 3.35pm, Saridewi's 
accomplice Muhammad Haikal Abdullah, 41, met her at the block of her flat. He 
passed her a plastic bag containing drugs in exchange for 2 envelopes 
containing $15,550 in total.

Unbeknownst to the duo, officers from the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) were 
monitoring them. Haikal, a Malaysian, was intercepted at a traffic junction on 
his motorcycle shortly after he left the block.

Meanwhile, officers went to Saridewi's flat to arrest her. Upon hearing 
movements outside the door, she threw plastic bags containing drugs out of her 
kitchen window on the 16th floor. Saridewi then let the CNB officers into her 
home before they could cut through the metal grille gate.

She was charged with trafficking 30.72g of heroin, while Haikal was charged 
with trafficking 28.22g of the drug. Under the law, those in possession of more 
than 2g of heroin are presumed to have the drug for trafficking, unless proven 
otherwise.

During the trial, Saridewi said she had wanted to keep 19.01g of heroin for her 
own use and sell the remaining 11.71g, claiming that it was due to the fasting 
month and that she predicted her heroin consumption would rise to as much as 
12g a day. The death penalty applies to those who traffick more than 15g of 
heroin.

Haikal had testified he thought he was delivering medical drugs for pain relief 
or for enhancing sexual performance.

In his grounds of decision, Justice See pointed out inconsistencies in 
Saridewi's claims about her rate of heroin consumption. In one statement to 
investigators, she said she stopped smoking heroin since her release from 
prison in 2014. But in court, she claimed to have relapsed and was a severe 
heroin addict. Her urine test after her arrest in June 2016, however, did not 
indicate any heroin use.

"Based on her account that she was consuming 1 to 2 straws every 3 days, (1 of 
the drug exhibits) would have lasted Saridewi about 682 days... The need to 
stock up almost 2 years' worth of supply of (heroin) was unbelievable," said 
the judge.

On Saridewi's mental state, a psychiatrist from the Institute of Mental Health 
found that while she had a longstanding history of drug abuse, she did not 
suffer from any other mental illness or intellectual disability.

Saridewi, who was handed the mandatory death penalty, is appealing against her 
sentence.

Haikal was given life imprisonment with the mandatory minimum 15 strokes of the 
cane. He had met the 2 conditions giving the court the discretion not to impose 
the death sentence - his role was confined to that of being a courier, and he 
had given significant assistance to the CNB in its investigations.

(source: Yahoo News)








CHINA----female execution

Chinese nanny Mo Huanjing executed for arson killings



A Chinese nanny has been executed after deliberately starting a fire that 
killed a mother and her 3 children in the eastern city of Hangzhou.

Mo Huanjing, 35, was sentenced to death for arson in February.

She had allegedly racked up significant gambling debts, and had hoped "saving" 
the family from the blaze would persuade them to lend her more money.

Instead, the fire in their 18th-floor apartment killed Zhu Xiaozhen and her 
children, aged 6, 9 and 11.

Lin Shengbin, her husband and the children's father, was away on business at 
the time of the crime in June 2017.

Mo, who used a lighter to start the blaze in the living room, escaped.

News of the execution provoked a huge reaction on Weibo, China's equivalent of 
Twitter, where Mr Lin told his 2.6 million followers: "The devil Mo Huanjing is 
finally executed."

"Hearing the news, my tears would not stop flowing," he wrote. "I called my 
parents. My mother listened and cried and said that everyone has waited too 
long for this day."

Mr Lin said that while he feels justice has been served, "the road ahead will 
be even harder", and shared a picture of his wife and children's graves.

Over 108,000 Weibo users commented on his post, many saying they had cried too 
or wishing him peace and good health.

The case has made national headlines in China since it first emerged, partly 
due to claims that firefighters had been slow to respond.

The fire brigade denied that, blaming low water pressure and the building's 
poor fire safety features.

The tragic nature of the crime has made the "Hangzhou Nanny Arson Case" a 
popular reference for pro-death penalty advocates in China.

When neighbouring Mongolia abolished capital punishment in July 2017, it was 
repeatedly cited by those who felt China should keep the death penalty.

China is believed to execute more people annually than any other country, but 
is highly secretive about the number. Human rights group Amnesty International 
puts the figure in the thousands - more than the rest of the world's nations 
put together.

(source: BBC News)








IRAN:

Iran has executed 44 Kurds in past 6 months: Report



In the past 6 months, Iran has hanged over 40 Iranian Kurds and sentenced just 
under a dozen other activists to death, according to a group reporting on human 
rights violations in the country listed as responsible for "more than 1/2 of 
all recorded executions in 2017."

"The death sentences of 44 Kurdish citizens have been implemented in 9 prisons" 
in the country, most of which were in "Urmia, Kermanshah [Kermanshan], and 
Karaj," read a statement by the human rights organization Hengaw.

The rights group also added that 11 other political activists had been put on 
death row.

Recent cases that garnered international attention were that of Ramin Hussein 
Panahi and 2 cousins Loghman and Zaniar Moradi who were executed on Sep. 08.

On the same day that all 3 were put to death, Iran carried out a cross-border 
missile attack on the headquarters of 2 Iranian Kurdish (Rojhilati) parties 
opposing the Islamic Regime in the Kurdistan Region's town of Koya, reportedly 
killing 15 people and injuring 42 others.

The two incidents inspired an organized general strike of shopkeepers and 
business-owners in the four Rojhilati provinces of Iran. On Sep. 12, the 
streets of Kurdish cities were deserted as locals attempted to show their 
solidarity with the families of the victims and their opposition to the 
regime's actions.

"People in Kurdistan will stage a peaceful general strike to show the brutal 
Islamist regime in Iran that we will not accept more military attacks against 
our political parties and executions of our political activists," said Loghman 
H. Ahmedi, a senior member of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) 
leadership, to Kurdistan 24 during the strike.

According to Amnesty International, among the 23 countries that carried out 
death sentences in 2017, "Iran executed at least 507 people." At least 31 of 
those executions were public and at least five of those executed were under 18 
years old.

(source: kurdistan24.net)