[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 19



KENYA:

Students aim to use Innocence Project to help young Kenyan----Ben-Hadad Kimani 
was convicted of murder, but many believe he is innocent


When Griffith College dean of law and founding director of the Irish Innocence 
Project David Langwallner was teaching Liz Harpur intellectual property law and 
jurisprudence, he had no idea he would one day be pleading in a death penalty 
case in Kenya on behalf of her nephew Ben-Hadad Kimani.

Kimani was 17 when he was arrested on August 29th, 2001 for a double murder in 
Kenya. He was convicted and sentenced to death row but has always maintained 
his innocence.

Some time early next year, at the behest of Kimani's aunt in Dublin and the 
invitation of the Kenyan government - and dependent on funding - the Irish 
Innocence Project at Griffith College hopes to send a delegation to appear 
before the power of mercy advisory committee to plea on Kimani's behalf.

The committee, a government body founded in 2011 and chaired by the attorney 
general, advises Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta on matters pertaining to 
miscarriages of justice, pardons and commutations. According to a 2014 report 
prepared by the committee, there were nearly 24,000 petitions received between 
June 2013 and July 2014 seeking presidential review, including 3,376 serving 
life sentences and 1,107 on death row.

Openness

"We are enormously grateful for this opportunity to appear before the power of 
mercy advisory committee in Kenya on behalf of Ben Kimani, who has been 
sentenced to death as a result of a murder conviction. We thank the committee 
for their openness and welcomeness," says Langwallner. "We respect the 
authority of this government advisory committee and welcome the chance to meet 
with its members."

Kimani's case was first referred to the Irish Innocence Project in 2013 by 
Harpur, a Dublin resident and barrister. She sought the project's assistance 
after she learned from her sister during a trip to Kenya for her mother's 
funeral that her nephew had been sentenced to death and was imprisoned at 
Naivasha prison.

"On July 24th, 2013, I met Ben briefly at the Kenya high court where his appeal 
was being heard. He was in the custody of a prison officer and was holding his 
own brief. There was no sign of his lawyer. He handed me the brief and said to 
me, 'Please, Auntie, help me !'" says Harpur. "When I returned to Ireland I got 
in touch with Ben's lawyer who provided me with more details of the case. We 
worked on some points to put forward in the appeal which had been put forward 
to November. Unfortunately the appeal was dismissed."

Reviewing the case

Harpur had contacted Langwallner about enlisting the help of the Irish 
Innocence Project while preparing for the appeal. Langwallner and a number of 
student caseworkers have been reviewing the case and consulting with Kimani's 
lawyers.

On the night of August 29th, 2001, Kimani claims he bought a bus ticket from 
Buscar Company and boarded a bus at 7.30pm to travel from Nairobi to Mombasa. 
About that same time, 232km away in the Mtito Andei township, a small town of 
fewer than 5,000 people, shopkeeper Irene Ng'endo and her young son Stephen 
Mwaura were shot to death.

Kimani claims the bus finally pulled away from the bus-stop in Nairobi at about 
8.30pm and on the way to Mombasa stopped at a canteen called the Wayside in 
Mtito Andei for a tea break at about 11.45pm. It was there that the canteen 
supervisor reportedly told police that Kimani and a 2nd man were acting 
suspiciously and Kimani was arrested.

The Irish Innocence Project was launched in September 2009 by Langwallner to 
investigate and overturn suspected wrongful conviction cases in Ireland. It is 
one of 68 projects recognised globally by the Innocence Network and 1 of 2 such 
projects with both law and journalism students working together on cases. It 
currently has 22 law and journalism students from Griffith College and Trinity 
College Dublin working on about 30 cases under the supervision of 12 pro-bono 
lawyers.

The services of the project are provided free and the project was recognised as 
a tax-exempt charity in Ireland by the Revenue Commissioners in December 2014. 
While Griffith College provides an institutional home, it is otherwise 
self-funded. It is the only Innocence Project in Ireland.

In order to fund the delegation, which will include Langwallner, along with at 
least one student caseworker, the Irish Innocence Project journalism interns 
launched a month-long crowd-funding campaign at Indiegogo with a target of 
raising 5,000 euros. The campaign concludes on December 7th, and the proceeds 
from the crowd funding campaign will be used to support the project and 
underwrite the expenses of the trip.

"We've received incredible support from the public with previous crowd-funding 
campaigns," said Therese Ekevid, an Irish Innocence Project journalism 
caseworker. "They've helped us raise awareness on wrongful convictions as a 
human rights issue, enabled us to provide the people whose cases we're on with 
support and professional help, as well as getting influential contributors to 
discuss wrongful convictions at public programmes. This time, the funds and 
public awareness we raise will not only do that, but we actually have a chance 
of saving Ben from death row."

Wrongful convictions

According to the Innocence Project in New York, which was founded in 1992 to 
investigate cases in which DNA evidence could be used to prove a wrongful 
conviction, research suggests that somewhere between 2.3 and 5 % of all 
convictions in the US are actually of innocent people.

Langwallner says this is a concern in every country since wrongful convictions 
know no boundaries. "I would say that the Innocence movement has become a 
Medecins Sans Frontie

PAkres of lawyers. There are mistakes made in every jurisdiction and we hope to 
help correct them or, even better, prevent them from happening."

Anne Driscoll is the journalist project manager of the Irish Innocence Project 
at Griffith College and a 2013-2014 US Fulbright scholar. Simon Walsh is an 
Irish Innocence Project journalist student intern

The Indiegogo campaign can be found at http://bit.ly/1MxoQQQ

(source: Irish Times)






PAKISTAN:

No mercy for APS convicts ---- Sharif advises president to reject appeals | 
Says killers of our kids don't deserve any leniency


Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif yesterday advised President Mamnoon Hussain to 
reject mercy pleas of all the 4 convicted terrorists involved in last year's 
bloody attack on Army Public School in Peshawar.

The military courts had sentenced the 4 terrorists - Sabeel alias Yahya, Abdu 
Salam, Hazrat Ali and Mujeebur Rehman alias Najibullah - to death in August 
after finding them guilty of committing the massacre that left more than 150 
dead - 135 of them children.

On December 16, 2014, 7 Taliban gunmen launched the terrorist attack on the 
APS.

The militants, all of whom were foreign nationals, included 1 Chechen, 3 Arabs 
and 2 Afghans.

They entered the school and opened fire on school staff and children.

A rescue operation was launched by the Pakistan Army's Special Services Group 
(SSG), who killed all the 7 terrorists and rescued 960 people.

This was the deadliest terrorist attack ever to occur in Pakistan since the 
2007 Karachi bombing on former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's homecoming.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack, describing 
it as revenge for operation Zarb-e-Azb, the military offensive in North 
Waziristan that started in summer 2014.

TTP spokesman Mohammed Omar Khorasani said, "We targeted the school because the 
Army targets our families.We want them to feel our pain."

Later though the Taliban claimed contrary by putting out a statement saying, 
"More than 50 sons of important army officers were killed after being 
identified. The attacks were mainly coordinated by TTP leaders operating in 
Afghanistan."

Investigations were launched to determine the nationalities of the terrorists, 
who were all found to be foreign fighters.

Chechen fighter Abu Shamil, Afghan militant Nouman Shah Helmand with a $ 
500,000 bounty, Afghan national Wazir Alam Herat, Egyptian Khatib al-Zubaidi, 
Morrocon Mohammed Zahedi and Jibran al-Saeedi - an Arab of unknown nationality 
were identified by the authorities.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Sharif said, "The perpetrators involved in brutal 
and merciless killing of our children do not deserve any mercy."

He said the Peshawar tragedy had shaken the country and 'changed Pakistan'.

The premier added, "By rejecting the mercy petition of these terrorists, I am 
also reflecting the will of the people and honouring the promise made to the 
families of my children who lost their lives in the Army Public School 
tragedy."

The December school attack is seen as having hardened the country's resolve to 
fight militants along its lawless border with Afghanistan. Authorities lifted a 
6-year moratorium on executions last December and since that time more than 200 
convicts have been executed.

Amnesty International estimates that Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on 
death row, most of whom have exhausted the appeals process.

Supporters argue that the death penalty was the only effective way to deal with 
the scourge of militancy in the country.

(source: The Nation)