[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

April 20




SRI LANKA:

Sri Lanka interviews dozens of aspiring hangmen after restoring death 
penalty----Former recruits have failed to show up to work or quit after one 
look at the gallows, but Sri Lanka's President is determined to find two 
hangmen to send thousands of prisoners to their deaths.



Sri Lanka wants to start executing convicted drug traffickers as soon as 
possible, but it is having trouble hiring a hangman.

The job was traditionally handed down from father to son, but during a 42-year 
moratorium on the death penalty, it has been harder to keep someone in the job.

A recently employed executioner resigned in shock after seeing the gallows for 
the 1st time.

His replacement never showed up to work.

But the moratorium is due to end any day now, with President Maithripala 
Sirisena vowing to start hanging drug traffickers.

Nearly 50 men have been interviewed this month for 2 positions as hangmen.

President Sirisena said he has been inspired by Philippines' President Rodrigo 
Duterte's brutal war on drug crime.

On a visit to the Philippines in January, he hailed Mr Duterte's violent 
crackdown as "an example to the world".

"Drug menace is rampant in my country and I feel that we should follow your 
footsteps to control this hazard," Mr Sirisena said during a meeting with Mr 
Duterte.

Mr Duterte's policy has seen more than 5,000 people killed in police anti-drug 
raids since 2016 and prompted widespread condemnation over extrajudicial 
killings.

The illicit drug trade is a problem in the island nation of Sri Lanka, which is 
used as a South Asian transit point for traffickers.

Earlier this month, police publicly destroyed 770 kilograms of seized drugs as 
President Sirisena looked on.

More than 100 men apply to be Sri Lanka's hangmen

The Government began its recruitment drive for hangmen with an advertisement in 
the local papers in February.

More than 100 people applied for the job — including 1 American.

He was immediately excluded because foreigners are not eligible.

Only men between 18 and 45 are eligible for the position, which pays about $280 
a month.

The ad stated that applicants must have "excellent moral character" and "mental 
strength" to be considered for the job.

Prisons Commissioner TM Jayasiri Wijenath, who only took on the job last month, 
said applicants will undergo psychological testing.

He also noted that because it has been so long since the death penalty was 
used, Sri Lanka will have to import training for the hangmen.

"We have to take consultancy and professional training from a foreign country. 
We have no preferences, but we have identified many countries, like Pakistan," 
Mr Wijenath said.

The Government imported a hangman's rope from Pakistan several years ago, but 
it's never been used.

"Already we have a rope, but we have to check whether it's ok or not," Mr 
Wijenath said.

Sri Lanka's death row prisoners face an unclear future

Despite the decades-long moratorium, Sri Lankan judges have never stopped 
handing down the death penalty for serious crimes like murder.

Until now, the sentence has been commuted to life in prison.

But President Sirisena wants to resume executing criminals on death row as soon 
as possible, and his top priority is drug traffickers — murderers will have to 
wait their turn.

About 1,300 prisoners are on death row in Sri Lanka, and 17 convicted drug 
traffickers including one woman have been earmarked for the first round of 
executions.

Sri Lanka has quietly decided not to execute any of the foreign nationals, 
mostly Pakistani, on death row for drug trafficking.

Human rights advocates want to know why the identities of the condemned are 
being kept secret.

"All we have is a number; we don't know their names, we're not in touch with 
their families," said Amnesty International South Asia director Biraj Patnaik.

"We have no idea whether they had a fair trial, we have no idea whether these 
trials took place under circumstances where the evidence was obtained under 
torture," Mr Patnaik said.

"Sri Lanka has been criticised for its track record of using torture for 
extracting confessions."

Some Asian countries follow Duterte's lead

Mr Sirisena's decision to lift the moratorium on the death penalty is at odds 
with his own Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe's stance on the issue, and has 
drawn sharp condemnation from human rights groups.

A statement issued by the European Union and also signed by Australia and 
Canada called on Sri Lanka not to reinstate capital punishment.

"The death penalty is an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity," 
the statement said.

President Sirisena has promised that the first executions will be carried out 
soon.

"Because of the fact that there's so much secrecy surrounding these executions, 
we have absolutely no idea of the timeline," said Biraj Patnaik.

"Which is really extraordinary because it denies the people on death row and 
their families an opportunity to either appeal or even to connect."

Given that Sri Lanka is a Buddhist-majority country, Mr Patnaik said he was 
hoping that prominent voices in the Buddhist clergy, as well as Prime Minister 
Ranil Wickremesinghe, will try to change Mr Sirisena's mind.

A report released by Amnesty International this month showed that use of the 
death penalty declined worldwide last year.

However, the report does not include China, which is regarded to be the world's 
largest executioner and considers its tally a state secret.

Thailand recently carried out its first execution in a decade, while Malaysia 
placed a moratorium on the death penalty and promised to ban it.

The Prime Minister of Bangladesh started emulating President Duterte's drug 
crackdown last year; it is estimated 200 Bangladeshis suspected of drug crimes 
have been the victims of extrajudicial killings.

(source: nzcity.co.nz)








KENYA:

Court: Death row convict to be retried



The High Court has quashed a death penalty against a man convicted for robbery 
with violence.

Judge William Musyoka ruled that the trial court erred in relying on evidence 
that had been trashed to convict Evans Ayiega, alias Kubare.

Justice Musyoka termed the case a mistrial and ordered that Ayiega be tried 
afresh before a different magistrate.

Ayiega was found guilty of violently robbing Beatrice Munyori of Sh30,000 and a 
mobile phone worth Sh2,000 in Gawani village, Vihiga County on October 22, 
2014.

The trial commenced before then Hamisi Senior Principal Magistrate Julius 
Ng’ang’ar who heard four witnesses before he was transferred. The case was 
handed to Senior Resident Magistrate Evans Muleka, who later handed him the 
mandatory death penalty.

(source: standardmedia.co.ke)








VIETNAM:

2 Taiwanese arrested for drug trafficking in Vietnam



Vietnamese police have arrested 2 Taiwanese nationals in connection with a 
1,100-kilogram haul of narcotics seized recently in Ho Chi Minh City, the 
online newspaper Vnexpress reported on Saturday.

According to the report, the 2 Taiwanese, Yeh Ching-Wei and Chiang Wei-chih, 
were arrested when police checked three vehicles unloading goods with their 
engines still running on April 12.

2 of the vehicles fled the scene, but were later caught, the report said.

About 606 kilograms of narcotics, in 600 packages disguised as tea bags stuffed 
inside 60 large loudspeakers, were discovered in the vehicles, according to the 
report.

After the police expanded their investigation, they arrested a Vietnamese man 
and seized another 50 kilograms of narcotics inside five loudspeakers and yet 
another batch of illegal drugs, weighing nearly 452 kilograms, in 38 
loudspeakers in Ho Chi Minh City, the report said.

These three batches of narcotics were shipped from Thailand, according to the 
report.

It quoted the police as saying that this was Yeh's first entry into Vietnam. 
Chiang, on the other hand, had been to Vietnam three times since 2018 via Tan 
Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City, the busiest airport in the country, 
according to the police.

It said the 2 Taiwanese were abetted by a Chinese national.

In another case that happened on April 15, Vietnamese authorities arrested four 
suspects and seized more than 700kg of drugs packed into 600 packets and hidden 
inside 50 loudspeakers in central Vietnam's Nghe An province, according to 
local English language daily news outlet VietNam News.

The four suspects were led by a Taiwanese man, the report said, adding that the 
drugs were transported from Laos into Vietnam on a truck.

The police are now expanding their investigation to determine if the two cases 
are related and to track the illicit drug flow, Vnexpress reported.

According to VietNam News, the Southeast Asian country has become a key 
trafficking hub for narcotics around the Golden Triangle, the world's 
second-largest drug producing region where China, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar 
meet. However, the news website pointed out, Vietnam also has some of the 
world's toughest drug laws.

Those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or 
more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine face the death penalty, it said.

(source: focustaiwan.tw)








PAKISTAN:

78% death penalty cases overturned by SC: report



Supreme-CourtCriminal law barrister at Doughty Street Chambers Timothy Moloney 
QC and UK-based non-governmental organisation ‘Reprieve’ Director Maya Foa met 
Federal Minister for Law and Justice Barrister Dr Muhammad Farogh Naseem on 
Friday and presented a report on death penalty cases overturned by the Supreme 
Court of Pakistan.

The report revealed that 78 % of death penalty cases out of 310 reported 
capital punishment judgements between 2010 and 2018 had been overturned by the 
Supreme Court, acquitting the accused, commuting the sentence, or ordering a 
review.

The study also revealed that the Supreme Court frequently cited unreliable 
witness testimonies, involuntary or retracted confessions, insufficient or 
manipulated evidence and lack of motive of the accused as the primary reasons 
for overturning death sentences.

Additionally, the Supreme Court, in exercising its capital jurisdiction, raised 
serious doubts over the reliability of police investigation, particularly where 
there was an unexplained delay in registration of the first information report 
(FIR) and where the evidence appeared to be planted, manipulated or otherwise 
doubtful, it argued.

The report said that the Supreme Court had upheld death sentences for lethal 
offences only – every judgement of a non-lethal offence ended with the Supreme 
Court overturning the conviction or commuting the death sentence.

It regretted that despite this, the lower courts continued to regularly award 
death sentences for non-lethal offences. “The Supreme Court now recognises a 
growing number of mitigating factors, which counsel against a death sentence,” 
it stated. These include: type and gravity of the offence, lesser participation 
by the accused, lack of premeditation, provocation, social and familial 
circumstances, partial compromise with the victim’s family, age of the accused, 
whether the accused was acting under the influence of an elder, mental state of 
the accused, capacity for reform and time spent on death row.

The report stated that the court had recognised that even a “single mitigating 
instance, available in a particular case, would be sufficient to put on guard 
the judge not to award the penalty of death but life imprisonment”.

The delegation also presented recommendations to the law minister based on the 
study to limit death penalty in Pakistan. The minister thanked the delegates 
for presenting him the report on their findings and for their recommendations.

(source: dailytimes.com.pk)








GREAT BRITAIN:

The Bloody Code: The worst ways to be executed in Britain in the 18th Century



Beginning in the 17th Century the Bloody Code consisted of more than 200 
offences; a list of crimes that were punishable by death.

If you were a criminal in the times of the Bloody Code, it’s highly likely 
you’d be executed, whether you committed a murder, stole a rabbit or managed to 
wreck a fishpond.

Beginning in the late 17th Century the Bloody Code consisted of more than 200 
offences; a list of all the crimes that were punishable by death.

In 1688, the number of crimes carrying the death penalty was 50. By 1815 there 
were 215 crimes on the list.

Why was the English legal system so brutal? It was mostly due to the wealthy 
men who created the laws; they looked down on everybody else as being lazy, 
sinful and greedy.

Judges rarely showed any mercy and, because the rich made the laws, they were 
created to protect them — any crime against their property was made punishable 
by death.

The Bloody Code was thought to be a perfect deterrent and those times saw an 
increase in the number of public hangings. It was also thought that the more 
people witnessed public executions, the more likely they’ll be obeying the law.

Thankfully there were a handful of reformers, led by Sir Samuel Romilly, who 
were horrified that people could be executed for petty crimes.

It was 216 years ago this month that the dreaded ‘Bloody Code’ was revised by 
Sir Romilly and ensured people weren’t executed for cutting down trees, wearing 
blackface at night or impersonating a Chelsea pensioner.

Crimes on the Bloody Code

If you committed a crime that was listed on the Bloody Code — that’s 214 crimes 
on the list — chances are you’d be given a date to meet the hangman. Here are 
just some of the crimes you’d be hanged for:

• Stealing from a shipwreck

• An unmarried mother concealing a stillborn baby

• Forgery

• Impersonating a Chelsea pensioner

• Begging without a licence if you’re a soldier or sailor

• Stealing horses or sheep

• Arson

• Being out at night with a blackened face

• Strong evidence of malice in children aged 7-14

• Cutting down trees

• Destroying turnpike roads

• Wrecking a fishpond.

• Stealing from a rabbit warren

• Writing a threatening letter

According to historian Lizzie Steel, the main aim of the Bloody Code was 
deterrence. The other issue that made the Bloody Code so cruel was that those 
in court faced with this brutal system had to defend themselves. Once you were 
convicted, there was very little hope.

Let’s take a look at the most popular ways to be executed.

Hanging

In the early years, hanging simply involved placing a noose around the 
criminal’s neck and suspending them from a tree. Other methods included using 
ladders or carts to hang people from wooden gallows. But by the late 13th 
Century the horrific practice of “drawing, hanging and quartering” was 
introduced. This was a death mostly reserved for those accused of treason.

First, the criminal was dragged by horses to the place of execution (drawing) 
then they were hanged, and then came the worst of all; the”‘quartering”.

The poor victim was disembowelled and beheaded and then their limbs were 
chopped off. Later, the head and limbs were kept on display for everyone to see 
— as a grisly reminder of what happens when one is foolish enough to break the 
law. Death was by asphyxiation, which was often excruciatingly, painfully slow.

According to historian Lizzie Steel, in 1783, the “New Drop” gallows were 
introduced, so that up to three criminals could be hanged at the same time. 
This involved a wooden platform with trapdoors through which the people fell. 
The system of hanging was “upgraded” yet again in the later 19th Century when a 
“long drop” was used. This form of hanging took into account the prisoner’s 
weight and the length of the drop through the trap door. Placing the knot of 
the noose in a particular way meant that the criminal’s neck was broken, which 
was much quicker than being strangled.

Note: In 1752 a new law was created that meant the body of an executed person 
must be handed over to doctors for them to dissect, for the purpose of 
research. These days, that seems perfectly feasible but, back then, the idea of 
having their body cut up and used for research was truly horrifying. For most 
people, this new law was seen as an additional punishment to the execution 
itself.

Burnt at the stake

>From the 11th Century, burning at the stake was used in England mostly for 
heresy and later (the 13th Century) for treason. The majority of those burnt at 
the stake were women who had been convicted of murdering their husband or 
employer and the practice continued in Britain well into the 18th Century.

The concept of burning at the stake was relatively simple. All that was needed 
was a pile of wood and a stake in the middle to tie the criminal to — then the 
fire is lit and life is over.

But death didn’t come quickly. It rarely took less than half an hour before the 
victim died and it often took up to 2 hours for the victim to die.

If it was windy and the fire blew away from the person at the stake, it could 
take hours to be slowly burned to death.

Hanging widely replaced burning for treason from 1790. However, women suspected 
of witchcraft in Scotland were still burnt at the stake until the 18th century.

Interestingly, if you were found guilty of a crime on the Bloody Code and were 
able to prove that you had basic literacy, you could claim “benefit of clergy”, 
which was available until laws were changed in the 1820s.

Drowning

Drowning wasn’t used as an execution but was used as torture to extract 
information which usually led to their execution. Of course, if people were 
accidentally held under water for too long, they’d inevitably drown on what was 
known as the “ducking stool”. This stool was just a seat on a long wooden arm. 
What did you need to do to be forced upon the ducking stool? If you’d been 
accused of spreading rumours, otherwise known as gossiping, you’d be ducked in 
the local pond or river until you confessed. 1809 was the last year the ducking 
stool was officially used as punishment in Britain.

Beheading

You might think beheading might be less horrendous than a hanging but, due to 
the execution being carried out with an axe or a sword, it was often the worse 
of the worst ways to die. That’s because you might be unlucky enough to have an 
executioner who wasn’t entirely skilled in the art of swinging an axe against 
the nape of a neck and he might have needed several blows before your head was 
severed.

Beheading was usually reserved for the upper class because it was seen as being 
more dignified than a public hanging. Back in the 16th Century, during the 
execution of Mary Queen of Scots, it took 3 blows of the axe before her head 
was removed; it was said to be hanging by a “few strings” and witnesses said 
her lips were still quivering for a few minutes after her death.

Sir Samuel Romilly

One of the most vocal critics of the Bloody Code was the campaigner and 
reformer Sir Samuel Romilly, who protested against what many considered “a 
lottery of justice”.

There was such complexity around sentencing and punishment that, even when 
somebody was sentenced to death, there were often questions over whether that 
person was going to be executed immediately, sometime in the future, or not at 
all.

Sir Romilly, who was a barrister by profession, believed judges held too much 
power and would often sentence people according to their own beliefs.

After much campaigning, Sir Romilly succeeded in repealing the death penalty 
for some minor crimes, as well as ending the sickening practice of 
disembowelling convicted criminals while alive. By 1834, the practice of 
hanging in chains was abolished and there was an end of capital punishment for 
cattle stealing and other minor offences.

By the 18th Century, the more brutal punishments of the Tudor period were 
almost entirely abolished, although the public whipping of women didn’t end 
until 1817.

Macabre punishments, such as ear slicing and nose slitting also ended. The use 
of the pillory, a medieval torture device, stopped too — mostly because some 
people lost an eye or died while strapped into the wooden device.

(source: news.com.au)








EGYPT:

Egypt court sentences Egyptian man to death for killing Italian citizen in 
Milan



An Egyptian criminal court sentenced a defendant to death for killing an 
Italian citizen in the city of Milano in 2013.

The case dates back to November 2014, when Interpol requested the arrest of an 
Egyptian citizen over the robbery and murder of a carpet shop owner of Iranian 
descent in Milan.

The defendant fled Italy after committing the crime in 2013 and was arrested 
months later at his residence in the Nile Delta governorate of Sharqiya.

The defendant told authorities that he worked as a cleaner in the shop owned by 
the victim, and claimed that he was sexually assaulted by the shop owner.

The defendant can appeal the verdict before the Court of Cassation.

According to Egyptian law, an Egyptian citizen who commits a crime abroad can 
be arrested and tried within Egypt as long as the act is considered a crime in 
both Egypt and the country where the crime was committed.

(source: ahram.org.eg)