[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 16



SOMALIA:

Puntland court sentences to death 4 suspected members of al-Shabaab



A military court in Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Puntland has sentenced 
4 suspects having linked to the Somali Islamist group al-Shabab to death 
penalty on Monday.

The 4 men, were found of having links with the extremist group who is 
affiliated to also al-Qaeda. Their trial took place in the port town of Bosaso 
and lasted only for few hours.

2 other members were sentenced to serve life imprisonment.

Prosecutor Abdifatah Haji Adan said that the men were preparing to participate 
in a terrorist operation in the stable region of Puntland.

In recent years, Puntland authorities have launched a massive crackdown on the 
network and its military has sentenced members and other individuals linked to 
the terror group tough punishments such as death penalty.

In 2013, Puntland executed 13 suspected al-Shabab members including a woman, 
after the military court found them guilty of orchestrating an assassination of 
a famous scholar Dr Ahmed Haji Abdirahman. But al-Shabab denied that none of 
them was part of the group.

(source: Horseed Media)








EGYPT:

Egypt's Morsi on trial accused of leaking secrets to Qatar -- Former president 
charged with endangering national security, facing death sentence if convicted



An Egyptian court put the ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi on trial on 
Sunday on charges of endangering national security by leaking state secrets and 
sensitive documents to Qatar.

Morsi, who was toppled by the army in 2013 after mass protests against his 
rule, remained defiant, insisting he was Egypt's legitimate president despite 
facing several court cases.

"This court does not represent anything to me," said Morsi, who was on trial 
with 10 other people. The maximum penalty if he is convicted is death.

Relations between Qatar and Egypt have been icy since July 2013 when Egypt's 
then-army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, overthrew Morsi and launched a security 
crackdown against Islamists.

Qatar had supported Morsi, who is already in jail along with thousands of 
Muslim Brotherhood members, many of whom have been sentenced to death on 
separate charges.

The public prosecutor had said Morsi's aides were involved in leaking to Qatari 
intelligence documents that exposed the location of weapons held by the 
Egyptian armed forces and detailed the country's foreign and domestic policies.

Human rights groups accuse Sisi, who went on to become Egypt's elected 
president last year, of suppressing dissent, an allegation the government 
denies.

Islamist militants based in the Sinai peninsula have killed hundreds of 
soldiers and policemen since Morsi was deposed. Sisi says the Brotherhood still 
poses a serious threat.

(source: The Guardian)








BANGLADESH:

Kazi Aref Murder Verdict ---- Family wants quick execution



Family members and party colleagues of slain Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) 
president Kazi Aref Ahmed and 4 other party leaders have demanded execution of 
death penalty of 9 people in the murder case.

Family members of Kazi Aref spoke to The Daily Star ahead of his 16th death 
anniversary today.

On the occasion, Kazi Aref Parishad and Lokman Hossain Foundation organised 
discussions in Kushtia.

An armed gang killed Kazi Aref, Kushtia district JSD president Lokman Hossain, 
general secretary Yakub Ali, local JSD leaders Shamsher Ali and Israil Hossain 
at a rally in Kalidaspur village of Daulatpur upazila in Kushtia on February 
16, 1999.

On August 30, 2004, the then additional district and sessions judge Fazlur 
Rahman sentenced 10 people to death and 12 others to life-term imprisonment for 
the murders.

On August 5 in 2008, a High Court bench acquitted 1 of the convicted who was 
sentenced to death and upheld punishment of others.

Afterwards, 2 convicted -- Rashedul Islam alias Jhantu and Anwar Hossain alias 
Anwar -- challenged the HC verdict that sentenced them to death.

Finally, the Supreme Court on November 19 last year upheld the HC verdict.

Advocate Al Mujahid Hossain, son of Lokman Hossain, yesterday said their 
families are eagerly waiting for execution of death penalty of the convicted.

(source: The Daily Star)








SINGAPORE:

Cook charged with UiTM undergrad murder



A cook was charged at the magistrate's court here this morning with the murder 
of a Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) undergraduate earlier this month.

No plea was recorded from Syarafi Abu, 25.

He is alleged to have murdered Nur Syuhada Johari, 20, at Km 228.2 of the North 
South Expressway near here at 11.55am on Feb 2.

He was charged under Section 302 of the Penal Code which carries the mandatory 
death penalty upon conviction.

Magistrate Eyu Ghim Siang fixed Apr 21 for mention pending chemist and 
post-mortem report.

Syarafi was unrepresented while Deputy Public Prosecutor Mohd Amril Zuhari 
prosecuted.

(source: New Straits Times)



MALAYSIA:

Accused in Dutch schoolboy's kidnap case ordered to enter defence



3 men accused of kidnapping a Dutch schoolboy have been ordered by the High 
Court to enter their defence.

Self-employed Chong Tat Siong, 25, together with mobile phone seller Foong Khar 
Fai, 21, and unemployed Lee Phak Seng, 25, will take the stand over the 
kidnapping of the then 12-year-old boy, with the intent to get RM300,000 
ransom.

Justice Kamardin Hashim ruled that the prosecution had proven a prima facie 
case based on the victim's testimony and supporting evidence.

The boy's testimony had identified Chong, Foong and Lee as the people who had 
kidnapped him from his school, held him in a house in Chemor, Perak and later 
released him at a rest stop in Rawang.

The court fixed May 6 to 8 to hear the defence's case.

Under Section 3 of the Kidnapping Act 1961, Chong, Foong and Lee face the death 
penalty, or life imprisonment and possible whipping if spared the death 
penalty, upon conviction.

(source: The Star)








VIETNAM:

Wanted drug trafficker changes her look with plastic surgery, still gets 
arrested



Vietnamese police have arrested 3 people for smuggling cannabis from Laos to 
Hanoi, including a woman who underwent facial cosmetic surgery to avoid an 
arrest warrant on drug trafficking charges.

The woman, 40-year-old Phan Thi Chin, was arrested on February 14 while 
receiving 32 kilograms of cannabis from Nguyen Van Hung, 46.

Police in the central province of Nghe An also seized a car and an electronic 
scale meant for weighing the drug.

Subsequent investigation led to the arrest of Nguyen Van Minh, 26.

Cannabis is still considered an illegal drug in Vietnam, as in many other 
countries.

Investigators said the trio intended to smuggle the drug from Laos to Nghe An 
before transporting it to Hanoi.

Preliminary investigation found Chin faced an arrest warrant issued by Nghe An 
police for drug smuggling charges several years ago, Tuoi Tre newspaper 
reported.

She had changed her face and used a fake ID to avoid police detection, 
investigators said.

Police are expanding investigation into the case.

In Vietnam, drug-related crimes are among the most aggressively prosecuted 
cases.

Those convicted of trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 
kilograms of methamphetamine are punishable by death.

Producing or selling 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal 
narcotics is also a death penalty crime.

(source: Thanh Nien News)








IRAN----executions

6 prisoners hanged in Kerman and Shiraz



The Iranian regime's henchmen hanged 6 prisoners on Sunday in two prisons in 
the southern cities of Shiraz and Kerman.

A group of 4 prisoners were hanged in Adelabad Prison in the city of Shiraz, 
according to reports received from Iran.

Another group of 2 men were executed in Shahab Prison in the city of Kerman. 
Asghar Shabani and Mehrdad Abshirin were members of a group of 3 prisoners who 
had been transferred to isolation on Saturday to face execution.

The 3rd member of the group was Shabani's wife whose fate is unknown.

These executions have been carried out in secret and no information has been 
published in the news media in the country.

These executions followed the hanging of 2 Baloch prisoners in the main prison 
in the southeastern city on Saturday.

The 3 Balochi men, identified as Hamed Kahrazhi, 28 and Mobasher 
Mir-Balochzehi, had spent 4 years in prison.

They had been sentenced to death for 'Moharebe' or enmity with God.

(source: NCRI)

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

Iranian Kurdistan: Human Rights Group Calls for Release of Death Row Teen



Amnesty International has implored the Iranian Government to release an Iranian 
Kurd, sentenced as a teenager, who is to be executed next week. The man, who is 
now 22 years old, was only 17 at the time of the sentencing. The death sentence 
was originally overturned by the Supreme Court because of his age when he 
committed the offence, but was later re-imposed.

Below is an article published by Vatican Radio:

An Iranian Kurdish man who was arrested when he was 17 years old and alleges he 
was tortured into confessing has been informed he will be hanged next week, 
rights group Amnesty International said on Friday. The London-based group is 
urging Iranian authorities to immediately halt the execution of the man, Saman 
Naseem, who is now 22, and thoroughly review his case. "Imposing the death 
penalty on someone who was a child when the alleged crime took place goes 
against international human rights laws that Iran has committed to respect," 
the group's deputy director for the Middle East, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, said in 
a statement.

Naseem was arrested in July 2011 after a firefight between Revolutionary Guard 
forces and members of the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, a Kurdish rebel 
group known as PEJAK, in the northwestern city of Sardasht. He was held without 
access to a lawyer in an intelligence service detention center, according to 
Amnesty. In a letter seen by the rights group, Naseem alleged that he was held 
in a cell measuring 2 meters (yards) by half a meter. He says he was repeatedly 
beaten and suspended by his hands and feet before being forced while 
blindfolded to put his fingerprints on documents to confirm his alleged 
confession.

He then appeared in a televised confession and in January 2012 was sentenced to 
death following a conviction for "enmity against God" and "corruption on earth" 
over his supposed involvement with the Kurdish armed group. He later retracted 
his confession at trial, noting his torture claims, and his lawyers have not 
been allowed to pursue his defense, according to Amnesty. The group says his 
death sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court because he was under 18 when 
arrested, but another court later re-imposed the punishment.

The United Nations General Assembly human rights committee in November approved 
a resolution expressing deep concern over Iran's "alarmingly high frequency" of 
the use of the death penalty. The country has the 2nd-highest number of 
executions worldwide, after China.

(source: unpo.org)








TURKEY:

EU Minister: State should refrain from death penalty



Turkey's EU Minister Volkan Bozkir stated on Monday that he is deeply sorry 
about the tragic death of Ozgecan Aslan and stated that the death penalty 
should not be evaluated with emotions and that the state should sentence 
criminals with the harshest punishment under the scope of the law. Bozkir also 
expressed his sorrow over the incident and said he would kill the perpetrators 
himself if the same thing happened to his own daughter.

Speaking after a meeting organized for academics in Ankara, Bozkir stated that 
the ruthless murder of the 20-year-old psychology student was devastating, but 
he said that the issue of the death penalty must be evaluated without personal 
feelings.

"I think it would be more appropriate if we could evaluate the situation and 
the possibility of death penalty in a less emotionally charged atmosphere with 
rationality" said the minister, noting that the death sentence was abolished in 
Turkey in 2000 after long and heated debates. He pointed out that the death 
sentence has not been used in Turkey since 1986 and it is crucial to 
differentiate between one's personal feelings and the state's reaction to 
incidents.

Bozkir stated that he would personally punish the murderer himself by shooting 
him if his own daughter was killed in a similar situation and would bear the 
punishment, but that the state's reaction should not be the same.

"It is not befitting of a state to kill humans" Bozkir said, adding that the 
duty of the state is to arrest criminals and sentence them with the harshest 
punishment possible under the scope of the rule of law and justice, while he 
cursed the killer and his accomplices for what they did to Ozgecan Aslan.

The EU minister said that the criminals should spend their days in utter pain, 
shame and regret and stated that it would be more appropriate to give the 
culprits a life sentence rather than death sentence.

Contrary to Volkan Bozkir, Aysenur Islam who is Turkey's Family and Social 
Policies Minister said on Sunday that the death sentence could be an option for 
the murderers of Ozgecan Aslan.

"What Songul and Mehmet Aslan (the father and mother of Ozgecan) experienced is 
the worst disaster that a family can experience," she told press members after 
she visited the grieving family of the victim. She added that speaking as a 
mother; the death sentence should be on the government's agenda for these kinds 
of heinous crimes.

Turkey's Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci has also supported the possibility of 
introducing the death penalty: "We must discuss the possibility of introducing 
the death penalty for brutal murders such as Ozgecan Aslan's case" he said on 
his Twitter account.

Ozgecan Aslan, who was a psychology student at Cag University in the southern 
province of Mersin, was burnt after she was allegedly raped and heinously 
murdered by the driver of a bus she had boarded to go home. Aslan's murder has 
caused uproar across the country, with politicians and various organizations 
protesting the incident and raising awareness about the issue of femicide in 
Turkey.

(source: Daily Sabah)



SAUDI ARABIA:

Blood Money Paid for Filipino on Death Row



A member of the Saudi royal family ordered the government to pay 'diya' (blood 
money) on behalf of a Filipino who is serving jail for killing a compatriot 
after he converted to Islam and persuaded 14 other Pinoys to embrace the 
religion, according to a media report.

Prince Saud bin Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, prince of the eastern province, 
instructed a government committee in charge of prisoners welfare to 
'immediately' pay Dh66,000 diya to the victim's family and release the 
prisoner, Emirates 24/7 reported.

"We visited the prisoner and informed him about the positive development. We 
also gave him a present and some money in recognition of his efforts to 
persuade 14 other Filipinos to embrace Islam," the committee's director Sheikh 
Ahmed Al Shahri reportedly said.

"Upon hearing the news, he cried and prayed for the prince. He promised that he 
would pursue his campaign for Islam whether he stays in Saudi Arabia or 
leaves," he added.

The inmate was on death row after he was awarded death sentence by a court in 
the eastern port of Dammam for killing another Filipino during a fight several 
years ago.

It said the diya nullified the death sentence and he would soon be freed, the 
Dubai-based news portal reported.

(source: Filipino Times)



MALAWI:

Courts Begin Re-sentencing of Death-row Prisoners ---- Re-sentencing for some 
170 death row inmates begins this Wednesday as part of adherence to a landmark 
court ruling in 2007 which nullified mandatory death penalty.



The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions says the 1st of 16 cases in 
the 1st phase starts in the country's old capital Zomba with the murder 
convicts standing a chance for acquittal or lesser sentences.

"All is set for the for the re-hearing, we have various stakeholders involved 
including Malawi law society that have provided 30 lawyers to handle the 
cases," said Dzikondianthu Malunda Senior Assistant Chief State advocate in the 
ministry of Justice.

He however said 88 of the 170 case files for resentencing are missing in what 
he attributed to poor record keeping system.

The 170 prisoners include 23 on death row as well as 164 men and 3 women whose 
mandatory death sentences were commuted to life in prison by the president.

"On the missing files what we are doing is to re-construct the files by talking 
to relations of the deceased, the convicts and other respected people in 
society such as chiefs," added Malunda.

Re-sentencing of the death row inmates followed a 2007 high court ruling 
nullifying mandatory death sentenced for any murder convict marking a turning 
point in the country's criminal justice system.

In the case, 1 Kafantayeni (Now deceased) and 4 other murder convicts 
challenged imposition of a mandatory death penalty and true to their wish the 
court held that mandatory death penalty was a violation of the right to fair 
trial.

The Malawi Human Rights Commission says this implies that death penalty remains 
applicable but not mandatory and that it remains at the discretion of the judge 
to determine whether a murder convict be sentenced to life or a lesser 
sentence.

In another ruling on a murder case in 2010, the high court ruled that in light 
of the Kafantayeni case, all inmates on death row be subjected to re-hearing. 
There are 170 inmates to undergo re-sentencing.

Briefing journalists in Lilongwe, Malawi Human rights Commission executive 
secretary Grace Malera said "the re-sentencing does not mean the death penalty 
has been scrapped off from the law".

The sentence rehearing project has been funded by Tilitonse Fund (a pool of 
various donors) to the tune of about 150 million kwacha under a 3 year project 
which end this year.

But Malera said there is enough funding to complete re-hearing all the 170 
cases.

(source: Zodiak Malawi)








PAKISTAN:

Lahore High Court releases 2 prisoners facing death penalty due to lack of 
evidence



Lahore High Court's 2-member bench began hearing a case in which criminals 
Ashraf and Asif were produced before the court.

The accused were charged with the murder of Nasreen Bibi and Sadiq. The court 
was told that a death penalty had been passed out in the case by a Session 
Court whereas on the time of the offense, the people in question were out of 
the city.

During the proceedings, the court was told by the prosecution that upon proving 
of the charge, the trial court had passed the verdict of death sentence.

The incumbent bench nullified the death sentence after hearing all the evidence 
on the basis of irregularities between the accounts of eyewitnesses.

(source: Dunya News)








COLOMBIA:

Colombia's police director proposes resumption of death penalty



Colombia's police director proposed Sunday restarting the debate on death 
penalty, citing the recent killing of 4 children in the southwestern city of 
Florencia.

Colombia repealed the death penalty in 1910.

It is worth resuming the debate on whether death penalty should be imposed on 
those who commit heinous crimes, especially when the victims are underage, 
Rodolfo Palomino said while announcing the capture of 2 of the 5 suspects 
involved in the killing, Colombia's Caracol Radio network reported.

Someone like Christopher Chavez who was captured on Saturday and had been 
convicted of murdering and raping a woman in Ibague city, should not be in the 
streets because of the danger he clearly poses, Palomino said.

Chavez, aliased "El Desalmado" or the "The Soulless," who had been sentenced to 
40 years in prison, was released on bail by a judge of Neiva city for good 
performance.

He is now facing charges of aggravated murder, conspiracy and illegal 
possession of weapons after allegedly killing the 4 children.

(source: Global Post)








FRANCE/FIJI:

France welcomes removal of death penalty in RFMF Act



France has welcomed the vote by the Government in Parliament to permanently 
abolish the death penalty in the Republic of Fiji Military Forces Act.

After abolishing the death penalty for common crimes in 1979, Fiji becomes the 
101st country to abolish it completely.

France reiterated its resolute and steadfast opposition to the death penalty 
worldwide and in all circumstances.

The bill to amend the RFMF Act was passed in Parliament last Wednesday.

(source: fijivillage.com)