[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

April 30




ASIA:

It's Time ASEAN Took a Good Look at Its Gallows----The bloc has rarely 
discussed the death penalty. It is time it did.



The blowback over Indonesia's latest decision to execute foreigners - including 
a 4 Nigerians, 2 Australians, and a Brazilian - will taint the presidency of 
Joko Widodo and cast a dim light over his factional rival Megawati 
Sukarnoputri, chair of the ruling PDI-P.

The pair are not on good terms, with speculation of a power struggle, and 
Megawati is prone to reminding Widodo that she is in charge. Hardly a healthy 
state of affairs for a government bent on handing out execution orders for drug 
offenses.

Nigeria proved itself diplomatically inept when it came to looking after its 
own. As for Brazil and Australia, they have every right to be angry.

Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte was shot for smuggling 6 kg of cocaine into Indonesia 
hidden inside surfboards - after he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, 
delusional and with psychotic tendencies.

Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukamara had spent 10 years behind bars and 
by Indonesia's own reckoning had been fully rehabilitated, the job of a prison 
system. That apparently counted for nothing.

The latest killings were not the first, and there are more to come. As 
international anger continues to mount spare a thought for the many foreigners 
who are facing a similar fate in Southeast Asian prisons, regardless of their 
crimes.

Australia is long on experience on this score. Van Nguyen was a sticking point 
for the Singaporeans who executed him in 2005 for trafficking heroin.

By all accounts Nguyen was a solid student bullied into becoming a drug mule by 
thugs in Australia, upset by debts accumulated by his twin brother. Nguyen was 
led to believe that leniency would be shown if he told all. And he did.

Singapore is rarely celebrated for having much heart. It has a clemency rate of 
about one percent. Still, the authorities let Nguyen's Mum give him a big hug 
in their final minutes together, while going cap in hand to Canberra with 
requests from the government-owned Singapore Airlines for access to Australia's 
highly lucrative air route to the U.S. West Coast.

Prime Minister John Howard politely declined.

Back in the 1980s, Mahathir Mohammad reveled in the political theatrics he 
engineered after courts in Malaysia sentenced Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers 
to death for drug running. Mahathir - a medical doctor by trade - allowed the 
executions to proceed and would become thoroughly miffed when Prime Minister 
Paul Keating later called him a recalcitrant.

This time around the Indonesians did grant a last minute reprieve for a 
Filipino, Mary Jane Velosa, who had been human trafficked into drug smuggling. 
That removed any lingering doubts about the power of the presidency but she 
should not have been there in the first place.

Too many nationalities have been represented in the gallows of Southeast Asia.

Only Cambodia and the Philippines do not have the death penalty, a topic that 
rarely rates a mention among the several hundred families that control the 10 
governments within ASEAN.

Their focus is on money and power, and the launch of the ASEAN Economic 
Community towards the end of this year, which will enhance both.

Laws are being harmonized to allow for a significant shift in the 600 million 
people who live here. Crime demographics, like human trafficking, will change, 
and the perpetrators will increasingly be from neighboring countries where 
culture and punishments do differ.

Being a witness to a state sanctioned murder or, tragically worse, a botched 
one, is awful. I can vouch for that. Illicit drugs have been an issue across 
the region for decades and the death penalty clearly has not worked, is 
barbaric, and is not a punishment befitting of the crime.

Australia's offer to pay for the upkeep of Chan and Sukamara while in prison 
was sensible and offered a diplomatic way out for Indonesian authorities bent 
on their executions and flexing their political muscle, as opposed to 
delivering a dignified justice.

Crime, punishment, and the gallows need to be tackled by ASEAN as a bloc while 
it attempts to forge a closer, regional community. Fail to do so and it risks 
alienating itself. It should be mindful that foreigners are not responsible for 
their illegal drug trade, which by Jakarta???s own reckoning, is flourishing.

(source: The Diplomat)

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

Executed away from home: Africans on drugs crimes find little mercy from Asia, 
its new trade partner



4 African men were among 8 drug offenders executed by firing squad in Indonesia 
on Wednesday in a case that attracted huge international attention.

Nigerians Raheem Agbaje Salami (also known as Jamiu Owolabi Abashin), Silvester 
Obiekwe Nwolise, Martin Anderson and Okwuduli Oyatanze were killed at 12:30am, 
local time, on the Indonesian prison island of Nusa Kambangan. "The executions 
have been successfully implemented, perfectly," Attorney General Muhammad 
Prasetyo said of the controversial deaths. "All worked, no misses."

Nigeria only responded late Wednesday, expressing "deep disappointment" at the 
execution by firing squad of 4 of its citizens.

Abuja said President Goodluck Jonathan and Foreign Minister Aminu Wali had made 
"spirited appeals for clemency", most recently at an Asian-African summit in 
the Indonesian capital Jakarta last week.,

Brazil and Australia both recalled their ambassadors to Jakarta for 
"consultation" - diplomatic speak for expressing great displeasure. Australia 
had made more than 50 appeals for clemency.

Indonesian president Joko Widodo who has announced his intention to clear the 
country's death row of drug traffickers, insisted that narcotics are "a 
national emergency" that require an unforgiving response. Analysts say he is 
looking to convey the image of a decisive leader to Indonesians.

The country, which has some of the toughest drug laws in the world, in December 
said it would put to death 64 convicts, including foreigners. It is also 
reportedly working hard to save over 200 Indonesians on death row in foreign 
countries, largely on drug and murder charges.

The deaths of the 4 Nigerians would add to a trend where Africans have been 
jailed or killed for drug related offences in foreign countries, many in Asian 
countries which have the death sentence.

When president Widodo reactivated the death penalty for drug crimes after a 
5-year pause, the 1st victim was Adami Wilson, a 48-year-old Malawian sentenced 
to death in 2005. He was executed also by firing squad in 2013.

2 other Nigerians were executed in January in the same country.

In the same month, 28-year-old South African Deon Cornelius was sentenced to 
death in Malaysia for smuggling an illegal drug, having been arrested in 2013.

1,500 South Africans in prisons abroad

According to data from Locked Up, a South African organisation that assists 
nationals arrested abroad, some 1,300 South African citizens are serving prison 
sentences in foreign countries, mostly on drug related charges. The majority 
are held in Brazil and Asia.

China, Africa's biggest trading partner, regularly executes drug smugglers, 
though it does not make available statistics, adding to the problem of 
undocumented travel that makes it difficult to accurately map the magnitude of 
the problem for Africa.

Last year 2 Ugandans were executed in China for drug trafficking, despite the 
appeals of the Ugandan embassy. In a statement, the East African country said 
that 23 other Ugandans were on death row in China, 24 on life sentences and 28 
on trial.

China had refused to compromise on the matter, Uganda's foreign ministry added, 
Beijing insisting it could not overturn a court verdict. Kampala said its 
investigations showed most of those arrested were job seekers recruited as 
mules (carriers), a common defence in many drug arrests.

In one 5-week period between April and May 2010, China executed a Nigerian and 
sentenced a Zambian and 5 Kenyans to death for drug trafficking. It is unclear 
if they were carried out or commuted to life terms.

Hong Kong, which does not have the capital punishment sentence for drug-related 
crimes, has increasingly reported drug-related arrests involving Africans.

Tougher line on drugs

China's fight against drugs has received strong support from the top, with 
president Xi Jinping last year calling for "forceful measures to wipe drugs 
out." Drug-related arrests have since gone up by up to 1/3 on the year before, 
many leading to death sentences.

In June, while the vast cases involved locals, Chinese officials said they had 
handled 1,491 drug-related crimes involving foreigners, a 15% increase on 2013, 
with 1,963 foreign drug suspects arrested. Most were Africans, Liu Yuejin, 
director of the ministry's narcotics control bureau said.

Meanwhile in November last year a Kenyan court ordered police to extradite 4 
suspected drug traffickers - 2 Kenyans, an Indian and a Pakistani, to the 
United States, highlighting differing treatments.

Pakistan earlier this year ended a freeze on executions, and drug crimes are 
expected to be among those punished, according to human rights groups.

This came months after British and Australian navies seized the largest ever 
haul of heroin at sea, weighing 1,032 kilogrammes and valued at $235 million, 
off its coast.

The continued arrest and execution of Africans in foreign countries cast a 
spotlight on their governments' inability, or unwillingness, to extract 
prisoners' concessions from Asian countries, when those countries often 
successfully save their own in Africa.

More than 20 of the 32 countries that prescribe capital punishment for drug 
trafficking are in Asia, with just 3 in sub-Saharan Africa.

Earlier this month African governments attended the Asia-Africa conference in 
Bandung, Indonesia which commemorates the 1955 conference that laid the 
foundations for the Cold War-era Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

It was meant to strengthen South-South cooperation, organisers said, but 
analysts argue the conference is more about big countries seeking to 
unilaterally extend their influence with other participants, often at the 
expense of African countries.

Lack of African clout

The lack of African countries in rescuing their citizens from foreign 
jurisdictions by legal means essentially is a result of their failure to use 
such leverage along with burgeoning trade links to their advantage.

Another major hurdle for African countries is the lack of interest in prisoner 
exchange agreements. International law has generally pushed for foreign 
sentenced offenders to serve out their terms in their home countries, largely 
for rehabilitation and humanitarian reasons, but also for law enforcement 
purposes.

For long, the objection towards this centred on the infringing of sovereignty 
and exclusive territoriality, but this has since been weakened in the face of 
the benefit to international relations between the involved countries that such 
deals give.

Few African countries have even simple bilateral deals, which are perceived as 
time and resource consuming, or are members of the multilateral agreements that 
would govern offender exchanges, despite giving the nod to the UN???s Model 
Agreement on transfers.

The European Convention is one of the more prominent ones, but Mauritius is the 
only African country that is a member, despite 18 of the 64 member states being 
non-European.

Of the 53 member states in the Commonwealth, just 15 have enacted the club's 
rules for transferring prisoners, including Malawi and Nigeria, but not 
countries such as South Africa, which prides itself on its human rights laws.

No African country has signed on to the Inter-American Convention on Serving 
Criminal Sentences Abroad either.

Unless the continent takes up the issue and uses its links with Asia, Africans 
will continue to be pawns and makeweights in regional geopolitical battles.

(source: mgafrica.com)








LATIN AMERICA:

Death penalty all but abolished in LatAm as citizens face execution elsewhere



Despite the abolition of the death penalty in Latin America, citizens from the 
region continue to be executed or face execution in other parts of the world, 
often unleashing diplomatic tensions.

Most recently, 2 Brazilians were executed in Indonesia despite intervention by 
the Brazilian government.

The 2 Brazilians were executed by firing squad despite more than a decade of 
diplomatic efforts to save their lives, led by both former President Luiz 
Inacio Lula da Silva and current President Dilma Rousseff.

Rodrigo Gularte was arrested in 2004 and executed early Wednesday on 
Nusakambangan island in Indonesia, together with seven other foreigners 
convicted of drug trafficking.

Another Brazilian, Marcos Archer Cardoso Moreira, 53, was executed in January 
in Jakarta, after being convicted in August 2003 of bringing drugs into the 
country, prompting a diplomatic crisis that led Brazil to recall its ambassador 
from Jakarta.

On April 23 the Federal Court of Malaysia ratified the sentence of capital 
punishment for 3 Mexican brothers Luis Alfonso, Simon and Jose Regino 
Villarreal Gonzalez, arrested in 2008 for drug trafficking.

Their lawyers' argument that their convictions were legally improper, following 
allegations that evidence had been manipulated, was dismissed by the court, and 
the only resort remaining to save the convicts from the gallows is royal 
pardon.

Most Latin Americans facing death sentences are in the United States, and they 
are mostly Mexicans, with some Cubans, Salvadoreans, Colombians, Guatemalans, 
Hondurans, a Dominican, a Nicaraguan, a Costa Rican, and an Argentine amongst 
their number.

The last 3 executions in Latin America, where the death penalty is either 
banned or inapplicable in most countries, occurred in Cuba in 2003.

In the majority of Latin American countries that have not yet abolished capital 
punishment, the sentence is meted out only for crimes against the state, such 
as treason, and has not been applied for many years.

Venezuela was the 1st country in the world to abolish the death penalty, in 
1863, and Costa Rica, in 1882, the 3rd.

The last execution in Brazil was in 1876, in Colombia 1907, Puerto Rico 1927, 
and Chile in 1985.

Mexico, Argentina and Bolivia have completely abolished the death penalty.

(source: La Prensa)








PHILIPPINES/INDONESIA:

PH To Appeal to Indonesia To Commute Death Penalty of Filipina Convict



The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) of the Philippines said it will 
continue to appeal to Indonesia to commute the death penalty it imposed on 
Filipina drug convict Mary Jane Veloso.

The DFA said it will not leave the case of Veloso behind just because the 
Indonesian government has postponed her execution, which would have been 
carried out on April 29.

DFA spokesman Charles Jose said authorities will even up its efforts to 
coordinate with their counterparts in Indonesia for the development of the 
case.

"We've employed diplomatic track since Veloso???s conviction in 2011. In fact, 
we've been able to stay her execution for years," Jose said.

Jose said the DFA is working hand in hand with the Department of Justice (DoJ) 
and other government agencies in the Philippines to completely save Veloso from 
the death penalty.

At this point, however, the Philippines is obliged to prove the claims it made 
that resulted to the postponement of the Filipina drug convict's execution.

Philippine authorities claimed that Veloso was a victim of human trafficking.

As this developed, the DOJ has issued a subpoena for Veloso's recruiter, Maria 
Kristina Sergio, who surrendered to authorities.

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said the purpose of the subpoena is to get the 
testimony of Sergio, who allegedly was responsible why Veloso came to 
Indonesia, caught with drugs, and then sentenced to firing squad.

Sergio has not been considered as a suspect and no charges have been filed 
against her but the DOJ said it will be important for her to issue an affidavit 
to defend herself.

Veloso was arrested in Indonesia in April 2010 for allegedly smuggling 2.6 
kilograms of heroin in a suitcase.

Throughout her trial, she maintained her innocence, claiming that she was duped 
into carrying the suitcase by her godsister, who convinced her to go to 
Indonesia after losing a job in Malaysia.

(source: Business News Asia)






SAUDI ARABIA----executions

Saudi beheaded for killing father, another for drugs



A Saudi national who murdered his father and a drug trafficker were beheaded 
Thursday, bringing to 71 the number of executions carried out this year in the 
kingdom, the government said.

The number compares with 87 in the whole of 2014, according to an AFP tally.

Abdullah al-Balawi was beheaded after being convicted of stabbing his father to 
death, the interior ministry said, cited by the official Saudi Press Agency.

SPA said he had planned the murder, but it did not say what his motives may 
have been.

The other person executed was Abdullah al-Ruwaili, a Saudi convicted of 
"smuggling a large amount of banned amphetamine pills," said the ministry.

Both men were executed in the northwestern city of Tabuk.

Amnesty International has criticised a "macabre spike" in the use of the death 
penalty this year in Saudi Arabia, which the London-based watchdog ranked among 
the top 3 executioners in the world in 2014.

Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy and armed robbery are all punishable 
by death under the kingdom's strict version of Islamic sharia law.

(source: Agence France-Presse)