[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Rick Halperin
rhalperi at smu.edu
Thu Dec 4 15:07:59 CST 2014
Dec. 4
INDONESIA:
136 in death row including 64 drug convicts: Attorney general
The attorney general office said there are 136 convicts in death row in the
country including 64 drug convicts and 2 terrorists.
They are still in the waiting list for execution as they are still in the
process of seeking clemency, chief spokesman of the attorney general office
Tony T Spontana said here on Thursday.
6 other convicts with death penalty are still at large, and 5 are to be
executed this year, Tony added.
Tony said the attorney general office has executed 27 convicts with death
penalty in the past 15 years since 2000.
He cited Suryadi from Palembang, convicted for the murder of the whole members
a family in South Sumatra in 1991 was already executed in 201S.
Among the foreign convicts with death penalty already executed included drug
dealers Mohammad Abdul Hafeez of Pakistan and Adami Wilson alias Adam alias Abu
from Malawi.
Tony said the 5 convicts to be this year had gone through all available ways to
seek clemency but failed.
Earlier the Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs, Security and Law Tedjo
Edhy Purdijatno said execution of the five convicts is awaiting a letter from
the Attorney General.
Appeal for clemency by the five convicts has been rejected by the president,
therefore, their verdict has been final, Tedjo said after a meeting with
President Joko Widodo Thursday morning.
"The execution is not ordered by the president, but the president has passed
order that the legal process must be properly carried out. That is in line with
the government commitment in law enforcement," he said.
(source: Antara News)
VIETNAM:
Vietnam court halts execution of murder convict amid allegation of miscarriage
of justice
In a last-minute decision, a court in the Mekong Delta province of Long An on
Thursday halted the lethal injection of a 29-year-old man for a grisly murder
of 2 local women after his dogged mother has relentlessly appealed to high
places.
Ho Duy Hai is set for lethal injection Friday. In an appeal sent to the Long
An's People's Court on Thursday morning, his family called for the delay in the
execution, saying more time was needed to prove his innocence.
Le Quang Hung, the provincial deputy chief justice, told Thanh Nien News the
court agreed to shelve the lethal injection after getting the approval from the
Supreme People's Court. Central authorities said late Thursday that President
Truong Tan Sang ordered the delay.
Hai's mother, Nguyen Thi Loan, said she has sent stacks of documents to appeal
to a raft of agencies concerned in Hanoi over the past 6 years.
In April 2009, a court of appeals in Ho Chi Minh City upheld the death sentence
against Hai, who was convicted of robbing and murdering 2 female post office
staffs a year earlier.
According to the verdict, Hai, from Long An Province's Thu Thua District,
killed Nguyen Thi Thu Van, 21, and Nguyen Thi Anh Hong, 23, at the Cau Voi Post
Office in the district where the duo were on duty on the night of January 13,
2008.
Hai, an acquaintance of the victims, had asked Van to go out and buy some
fruits at around 7 pm on that day, the verdict said.
It said after Van left, Hai wanted to have sex with Hong but she refused. He
then hit her head with a chopping-board to make her unconscious before slitting
her throat. When Van returned, Hai used an inox chair to hit her head, leaving
her unconscious. He also slit her throat.
According to the verdict, Hai had also stolen VND1.4 million (US$66), around 50
SIM cards, one mobile phone and jewelry from the victims.
But after the verdict was delivered, Hai's lawyer Tran Hong Phong and his
counterparts said they found a slew of "unusual details" in the case.
"The most unusual thing is that fingerprints collected at the crime scene did
not match Ho Duy Hai's [based on official forensic tests]," Tran Van Tao, a
HCMC-based seasoned lawyer and former deputy director of the city's police
department, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.
Nguyen Minh Tam, deputy secretary general of the Vietnam Bar Association, said
his agency would propose the Supreme People's Court reconsider this case.
"A case with such dubious details needs to be reconsidered to prevent a
wrongful conviction," Tuoi Tre quoted Tam as saying on Thursday.
It remains to be seen how this case unfolds.
Only the chief justice of the Supreme People's Court or the head of the
Supreme's People Procuracy -- Vietnam's highest prosecutors' agency -- have the
mandate to order the setting up of a panel to review the case. This panel will
determine whether fresh investigations are needed.
In 2013, Hai sent an appeal to President Truong Tan Sang asking for clemency.
Sang rejected the appeal.
Miscarriages of justice in Vietnam have been found on the rise in recent years.
The most recent high-profile case happened to Nguyen Thanh Chan, 54, of the
northern province of Bac Giang.
Chan was found guilty of murdering a local woman and was sentenced to life in
prison in March 2004. 4 months later, the Supreme People's Court dismissed his
appeal and upheld the sentence.
But his wife's persistent investigation forced the real murderer, another local
man, to give himself up in October 2013. Chan was released a month later and
the Supreme People's Court officially cleared his name in January this year.
In what was Vietnam's 1st public review of police torture in September, Truong
Trong Nghia, an outspoken lawmaker who is also vice chairman of the Vietnam Bar
Association, condemned the practice as a threat to the integrity and stability
of the regime.
"Wrongful verdicts, threats and torture are critical threats to the system
itself. The [victims'] descendants will hold us accountable," he said at the
meeting, called by the National Assembly -- Vietnam's legislature.
Vietnam switched to lethal injection from the firing squad in November 2011.
However, an European Union refusal to sell Vietnam the deadly injection led to
a delay in executions until August 2013, when Vietnam began manufacturing its
own lethal serum.
At that time, the number of death-row prisoners was reported to hover 600.
The EU banned the exportation of lethal injection drugs because it regards
capital punishment to be a violation of human rights.
Although there are no official statistics, the death penalty is most frequently
handed down in Vietnam to those convicted of drug offences and murder.
(source: Tranh Nien News)
BAHAMAS:
Ag Confident Death Penalty Will Be Upheld By Appeal Courts
Attorney General Allyson Maynard Gibson is confident appellate courts will
uphold the death penalty in accordance with the law despite recent suggestions
from the Court of Appeal that capital punishment is over.
Mrs Maynard-Gibson stressed that the death penalty "is still on the books". Her
statement came a week after Constitutional Commission Chairman Sean McWeeny,
QC, said that because of the Privy Council's "philosophical opposition" to
capital punishment, hangings are unlikely to ever be upheld unless substantial
changes are made to this country's legal and judicial system through
constitutional amendments.
He was speaking after Court of Appeal justices said "hanging is over" during
back and forth discourse with prosecutors at a hearing last week where they
squashed the death sentence of Anthony Clarke Sr, who was convicted last year
of a contract killing.
"Offering her view on the matter yesterday, Mrs Maynard-Gibson said: "When you
review the text, the Court of Appeal did not say that hanging is over. The
comments were made as back and forth between the bench and bar and not as part
of an official announcement or position on the matter. Therefore it is wrong to
say the court has made that determination. The death penalty is on the books.
We are aware that we live in a changing world but so long as we feel the matter
is one that warrants the death penalty, should the jury and judge agree, we
will pursue it."
When asked for his perspective on the matter yesterday, prominent attorney
Wayne Munroe lamented that criticism is levied at the Privy Council on the
matter, saying that Bahamian politicians knowingly let the "voiceless"
London-based institution take blame for an issue they "can, but do not want" to
address.
"The Privy Council tells us that we can do it," Mr Munroe said, adding: "When I
talk about us being the singularly dumbest people, what I mean is we are not
reinventing the wheel. Other people are imposing and carrying out the death
penalty and the Privy Council is a part of their system."
Mr Munroe disagreed with Mr McWeeney's position that constitutional changes
should be made to tie the hands of appellate courts by defining what crimes
constitute the "worst of the worst" and should therefore be punishable by
death.
"The solution, he said, is to not allow judges to rely on their judgement about
whether the death penalty is merited. Such issues, he said, should be decided
upon by a jury.
"When someone is convicted of murder, for instance, you should have a
sentencing trial where a judge would direct a jury on whether the offense may
be considered the worst of the worst or the convict is beyond redemption," he
said. "When a jury is empanelled, they hear evidence from the prosecution and
the convict and come to determination on the death penalty. If they don't
recommend the death penalty or conclude that the crime constitutes the worst of
the worst, the person cannot be sentenced to death. But the point is you have a
jury say how they arrived at their conclusions and in some jurisdictions, the
judge must then sentence the convict to death if the jury reaches that
conclusion. No appellant court would set aside a finding in such an instance."
"He added: "The Privy Council has said over and over again, you can execute
people. We like every other jurisdiction can carry it out. If parliament has
failed to do what is necessary then don't sit back and blame the Privy Council.
But maybe (parliamentarians) don't want to do what is necessary because they
don't want to meet the children whose parent they executed and have to live
with that."
"In 2011, after a ruling from the Privy Council, the Ingraham administration
amended the Penal Code to specify the "worst of the worst" murders which would
warrant execution.
"Mr Munroe blasted the amendment, however, saying: "When the (government) did
act, it did so in an inadequate manner. The FNM passed nonsense that they
didn't talk to anybody about. These guys who never saw the insides of a court
or consulted the private bar did something that was ineffective.
"No politician who talks about hanging people is serious about it, especially
if they accuse the courts about standing in the way," Mr Munroe contended. "And
you don't have to mess with the Constitution to fix this issue either. Most of
what needs to be done can be done by ordinary legislation."
(source: Tribune242)
More information about the DeathPenalty
mailing list