[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 22



SAUDI ARABIA:

72% of Saudi death sentences handed down for non-violent crimes - report


The vast majority of people facing execution in Saudi Arabia were convicted for 
non-violent crimes including political protest and drugs offences, according to 
new research from the human rights organization Reprieve.

The report includes data gathered by Reprieve on 171 of the prisoners currently 
on death row in Saudi Arabia. It finds that 72 % of those prisoners whose 
alleged offences Reprieve has been able to determine were sentenced to death 
for non-violent crimes - including attendance at political protests and drug 
offences. Reprieve has also been able to establish that of 62 of the 224 
prisoners estimated to have been executed in Saudi Arabia since January 2014, 
some 69 % had also been sentenced to death for non-violent offences.

Among those facing execution are prisoners who were sentenced to death as 
children, such as Ali Mohammed al-Nimr and Dawoud Hussain al-Marhoon. The 2 
juveniles were arrested at 2012 protests, and were tortured into 'confessions' 
that were later used to convict them in the country's secretive Specialized 
Criminal Court (SCC). Reprieve's report also establishes that the use of 
torture to extract 'confessions' is widespread, with specific cases identified 
where prisoners have been beaten to the point of suffering broken bones and 
teeth.

The death sentences handed down to the 2 juveniles have provoked strong public 
concern from countries allied to Saudi Arabia such as the UK, the US and 
France. Yesterday, speaking to MPs both about Ali's case and that of British 
citizen Karl Andree, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said: "I do not 
expect Mr Andree to receive the lashings that he has been sentenced to, and I 
do not expect Mr al-Nimr to be executed." However, Mr Hammond provided no 
details of any assurances received from the Saudi government.

Speaking to human rights organization Reprieve earlier today, Ali's father 
Mohammed al-Nimr, said while he was glad politicians may have received some 
assurances from the Saudis, "the facts on the ground leave much fear and 
doubt". He revealed that Ali was now being held "in the solitary cells reserved 
for those facing execution", adding: "I tried to visit him yesterday but they 
prevented me."

Commenting, Kate Higham, caseworker at Reprieve, said: "This report shows how 
Ali and Dawoud's death sentences are just the tip of the iceberg. The Saudi 
government appears to be routinely sentencing people, including juveniles, to 
death for non-violent crimes such as attending protests. All too often, these 
sentences are handed down on the basis of 'confessions' extracted through 
torture, as in Ali and Dawoud's cases. Ali and Dawoud are now being held in 
solitary confinement and could face imminent execution at any time. The UK and 
other close allies of Saudi Arabia must redouble their efforts to see the 
juveniles released to their families - they must also send a strong message to 
the Saudis that these widespread abuses are utterly unacceptable."

(source: reprieve.com)

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

Saudi seeks death penalty for 16 after Shia unrest


Prosecutors in Saudi Arabia are seeking the death penalty for 16 people for 
alleged "terrorist" offences in a Shia community in the kingdom's east, reports 
said on Thursday.

A total of 2 dozen people are accused in the case, including 3 who were on a 
list of 23 suspects wanted after pro-reform protests that began in early 2011 
in eastern Saudi Arabia.

Saudi media said the "terrorist cell" was based in the Shia community of 
Awamiya.

Most of the Sunni-dominated kingdom's Shia live in the east, and have 
complained of marginalisation.

The interior ministry has reported periodic gun battles and arrests in Awamiya, 
near Dammam on the Gulf coast, since it issued the list of suspects in January 
2012.

Charges against the 16 accused include murder and wounding of security 
personnel, rebellion, robbery and using grenades, newspapers reported.

The prominent Makkah and Okaz dailies said prosecutors want the bodies of 2 of 
the accused publicly displayed on poles after death.

The Berlin-based European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights says 7 people 
have been sentenced to death in connection with Shia unrest since 2011.

It says 3 of them were under the age of 18 at the time of their detention, and 
they have exhausted all legal appeals after being sentenced to death.

Their fate rests with King Salman who, activists say, must give final approval 
before death sentences are carried out.

The case of 1 Shia youth, Ali al-Nimr, has raised particular international 
concern.

During a visit to Riyadh this month, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told 
reporters he "called for clemency" for Ali al-Nimr.

(source: The Express Tribune)






SWITZERLAND:

Killing off the death penalty in Switzerland


Exactly 75 years after the last peacetime execution in Switzerland, 
swissinfo.ch looks back at the abolition, reintroduction and re-abolition of 
capital punishment in a country that today is pushing for an international ban.

Hans Vollenweider could consider himself unlucky. Not as unlucky as the 3 
people he killed, admittedly, but as he was led blindfolded from his cell in 
Sarnen, canton Obwalden, to the guillotine at around 2am on October 18, 1940, 
he might have cursed Swiss bureaucracy.

2 years earlier, 54% of Swiss voters had decided to abolish the death penalty. 
Unfortunately for 32-year-old Vollenweider, this took 4 years to enter into 
law, on January 1, 1942.

"There are generally 2 reactions: some find it shocking and terrible, others 
make comments, even in a group, like 'go on, put your head in there'," 
Christoph Lichtin, director of the Lucerne History Museum, tells swissinfo.ch.

Lichtin is standing in front of the very guillotine and cotton basket that 
removed and caught Vollenweider's head. It is one of the museum's biggest 
attractions, despite not being operational (with objects like melons, 
obviously).

Built in Zurich and sold to canton Schaffhausen in 1863, the 4-metre high oak 
contraption is in good condition and the blade still looks shiny and, more 
relevantly, sharp.

"Originally tests were made with animals to see whether guillotines worked. 
They discovered that the blade should be at an angle to ensure the head really 
came off. They started with a horizontal blade but that didn't always result in 
a clean cut ..."

Needing a seat, swissinfo.ch wondered whether it was just an urban myth that a 
survivor of a botched guillotining would be pardoned.

"Honestly I can't see that happening - even half a guillotining would result in 
serious injury!" Lichtin said.

"Previously swords were used for executions and the guillotine replaced this 
method because chopping off someone's head with a sword requires great skill. 
There are many stories of the executioner not getting a clean cut first time, 
resulting in a lot of suffering on the part of the condemned person. So the 
guillotine was seen as a more humane means of execution, because ultimately the 
punishment is death and not torture leading to death."

Public executions

As Lichtin said, in the Middle Ages and following centuries, the most common 
method for execution, at least for males, was decapitation by sword. 
Switzerland was still busily executing "witches" until 1782.

The historian Gerold Meyer von Knonau (1843-1931) compiled some gruesome 
statistics for canton Zurich from the 15th century up to and including the 18th 
century.

He noted that 1,445 people were condemned to death (1,198 men, 247 women). Of 
these, 915 were to be beheaded, 270 hanged, 130 burnt alive, 99 drowned, 26 
broken on the wheel (all 4 limbs are smashed with an iron bar and threaded 
through the spokes of a large wheel which is then placed on top of a pole), 1 
quartered alive, 2 buried alive, one immured (locked in a room without food or 
water until death) and one impaled. The last 3 methods were in use in the 15th 
century; drowning was discontinued in 1613.

Last execution in peacetime

Italy 1947

Germany 1949 (East Germany 1981)

Austria 1950

Britain 1964

France 1977

United States October 14, 2015

What's more, those were the days when executions were public.

"Originally outside Lucerne there was a medieval place of execution, a 
so-called Wasenplatz, where dead animals were kept. Here, executions were not 
only public but the corpses were left hanging on gallows for months, 
decomposing. The whole thing was meant to have a deterrent effect," Lichtin 
said.

"Later, in Lucerne, near the prison there was a place for public executions, a 
stage around which people would gather and watch. It had an almost theatrical 
character, like a performance. Saying it had a folk festival atmosphere is 
probably overdoing it, but there was definitely a lot of public interest. Just 
look at the amount of interest in public executions today in countries that 
still carry them out."

Pirmin Meier, a historian and expert on the death penalty, added: "In 1790, an 
arsonist was executed in Baden [canton Aargau] in front of 3,000 to 4,000 
people and everyone got a free bit of bread, children too! So in those days 
executions were a sort of social event and really spectacular."

One of the last public executions was in canton Uri in 1861. Kaspar Zurfluh, 
who had killed his pregnant bride, was executed by sword on a bridge.

In this in-depth interview, Meier discusses the connection between the death 
penalty and sovereignty, Swiss efforts to ban the death penalty internationally 
and whether it will ever return to Switzerland.

'In the 20th century we had a humanitarian offensive'

In 1835, a new criminal code entered into force in Zurich, with the guillotine 
being the only permissible method of execution (other cantons allowed the 
person being executed to choose between the guillotine and the sword).

Because at the time there was only 1 guillotine in Switzerland - in Geneva - 
the Zurich authorities sent a mechanic, Johann B???cheler, to Geneva. 6 weeks 
later he had built a guillotine, which between 1839 and 1865 separated 11 heads 
from their bodies. Zurich's constitutional court eventually abolished the use 
of the guillotine in 1868.

Over in Lucerne, in 1841 a group of citizens in Lucerne demanded the cantonal 
government abolish and destroy its guillotine (also built by B???cheler), 
calling it a "revolutionary instrument of death with which thousands of 
innocent victims had been executed and which doesn???t correspond to a 
religious and sincerely freedom-loving government".

Lucerne destroyed its guillotine the following year and went back to using the 
sword, whose last victim in Lucerne was executed in 1867.

But change was in the air. In 1848, the death penalty was abolished in cantons 
Fribourg, Neuchatel, Zurich, Geneva, Basel Country, Basel City and Ticino. It 
was then abolished at a federal level in 1874, thanks to a Liberal and 
Democratic majority in parliament.

Re-introduction

Swiss efforts

On October 2, 2015, the United Nations Human Rights Council approved a 
resolution on the abolition of the death penalty worldwide.

The resolution, which was tabled by eight countries including Switzerland, won 
approval from 26 member states. 13 states rejected the proposal and 8 
abstained.

The promotion of human rights, notably the abolition of capital punishment 
across the world by 2025, is a priority of Switzerland's foreign policy.

Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter launched a joint declaration with 
counterparts from 11 other countries a year ago.

And for 5 years Switzerland did not have capital punishment. But following a 
spate of crimes, possibly connected to an economic depression, that previously 
would have merited the death penalty, in May 1879, 52.5% of voters decided to 
let cantons reintroduce it, although not for political crimes.

A report in the Neue Zurcher Zeitung from October 22, 1950, noted that it 
could, however, be used for crimes including "murder, manslaughter of 
relatives, arson, flooding and derailing a train when death was premeditated or 
could be foreseen, and poisoning that is a danger to the public". Minors and 
pregnant women were also spared in all cantons.

Cantons that did reintroduce the death penalty over the following years were 
Schwyz, Zug, Fribourg (1 of the first to abolish it in 1848), Schaffhausen, 
Appenzell Inner Rhoden, St Gallen and Valais.

Lucerne did so in 1883 and regretted destroying its only guillotine. "But 
people remembered that a few guillotines still existed around the country, so 
for executions in Lucerne they borrowed this guillotine from canton 
Schaffhausen," Lichtin said.

It stayed in Lucerne and was "sub-let" to other cantons. Did Lucerne charge for 
the service? "There was probably some sort of agreement," Lichtin said. "You've 
also got to bear in mind that the guillotine would be taken apart and put back 
together again - you couldn't transport it whole. There was a model, which we 
also have here [it's about 50cm high], which would show the authorities what it 
should look like when they were reassembling it."

Lucerne eventually bought the guillotine off Schaffhausen for CHF1,000 in 1904, 
using it several times before the death penalty was finally abolished in 1942. 
It remained in military criminal law until 1992 for wartime crimes such as 
treason, but the last execution during wartime took place in 1944.

The situation today

As of July 2015, 101 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes.

In 2014, at least 22 countries around the world carried out executions.

In 2014, at least 2,466 people were sentenced to death worldwide - up 28% on 
2013.

[source. Amnesty International]

(source: swissinfo.ch)






ENGLAND:

Hangman Harry's tale is a matter of life and death


At that time, he was also a regular in the bar of his local bowling club, 
across the road from his home on Pharos Street.

However - in the years before he and his family settled happily in the port - 
Harry Allen had found considerable fame as Britain's official hangman.

With the 50th anniversary of the abolition of capital punishment fast 
approaching, Allen is suddenly very much back in the limelight - the central 
character in Martin McDonagh's new play at London's Royal Court Theatre, 
Hangmen, starring David Morrissey and Reece Shearsmith.

Further local links are provided by another of the protagonists, James 
Hennessy, alias murderer James Hanratty. Hanged by Allen in 1962, he had 
earlier been arrested at Blackpool's Stevonia Cafe, on Central Drive.

Though born in Denaby Main, near Conisborough, Yorkshire, on November 5, 1911, 
Harry Bernard Allen spent his formative years across the Pennines in 
Ashton-under-Lyne.

After leaving St Anne's Roman Catholic School, he initially worked as an 
apprentice engineer before becoming a bus driver, and then a long distance 
lorry driver.

With work proving increasingly scarce throughout the 1930s, he decided to apply 
to join the Prison Service.

Initially turned down, instead he was offered the post of executioner.

After a week of intensive training, Allen was placed on the list of approved 
executioners - subject to his attendance at an execution to test his nerve. His 
1st execution saw him assist the legendary Thomas Pierrepoint, for which he was 
paid the princely sum of 3 guineas. In 1956, he succeeded Pierrepoint's famous 
nephew, Albert, as the country's chief hangman.

Albert Pierrepoint went on to become a pub landlord, latterly of the The Rose 
And Crown, in Much Hoole, near Preston.

Allen's career, which spanned more than 3 decades, encompassed almost 100 
executions.

In 1945, 5 German prisoners of war, held in a Scottish Camp, were hanged for 
murdering a fellow German soldier, Sgt Major Wolfgang Rosterg, whom they 
suspected of having betrayed their escape plan.

8 years later, Allen assisted at the controversial execution of 19-year-old 
Derek Bentley, found guilty of murdering a policeman, shot by his 16-year-old 
accomplice, Christopher Craig, who was too young to be executed. After a long 
campaign, Bentley's conviction was eventually quashed.

Allen was also present in 1955, when Ruth Ellis became the last woman to be 
hanged in Britain. He once described the 3 women he hanged as, "hard as men, 
perhaps even harder."

Equally cold-blooded was Fritz Podola, who shot a policeman through the side of 
a telephone box, after he wrongly believed the officer was on his way to arrest 
him for other offences. This German-born petty thief was the last man to be 
hanged in the UK for killing a police officer.

No less notorious, was the execution of James Hanratty at Bedford Prison on 
April 4, 1962.

In a crime which shocked the nation, Hanratty, a petty criminal from London 
had, in August 1961, murdered scientist Michael Gregston, before raping and 
wounding his mistress, Valerie Storie in a lay-by just off the A6 in 
Bedfordshire.

Eventually arrested in Blackpool, Hanratty's subsequent trial, lasting 21 days, 
was then the longest in English legal history. However, it took almost 1/2 a 
century before a DNA test proved beyond doubt he was the killer.

Throughout the course of Allen's career, he occasionally inhabited a much more 
international landscape.

On a number of occasions, in 1956 and 1957, he travelled to Cyprus to execute 
members of EOKA, the Greek Cypriot terrorist movement which challenged British 
rule on the island. Further assignments would also see him travel to Northern 
Ireland, the Channel Islands, the West Indies and Spain.

A lifelong supporter of the death penalty, Allen always retained a professional 
detachment about his job, believing responsibility for who should die was not 
his.

Rather his role was to make the execution as quick and as painless as possible.

As a mark of respect for the condemned man, he was always smartly-suited - 
complete with a black hand-knotted bow tie and bowler hat.

Allen also made history in August, 1964, when he dispatched convicted murderer, 
Gwynne Evans at Strangeways Jail, Manchester, while his accomplice, Peter 
Allen, was executed simultaneously at Walton Jail, Liverpool, by his assistant, 
Bob Stewart.

Barely meriting a mention in the newspapers, these would be the last executions 
ever carried out by the Government on British soil. Within a few months, a new 
Labour Government was elected with a mandate to abolish the death penalty. This 
they duly did, initially with a Private Members Bill, in November, 1965.

Allen married first, in 1933, Marjorie Clayton. The couple had 2 children, a 
son, Brian and daughter, Christina. His wife left him on the very day, 11 July, 
1958, that he was at Barlinnie Jail in Scotland, hanging the American born 
Scottish serial killer, Peter Manuel.

5 years later, he wed former hairdresser, Doris Dyke. On returning from their 
honeymoon in the December of that year, he immediately travelled to HMP 
Horfield, Bristol, to carry out the execution of Russell Pascoe.

In common with the many of his predecessors, Allen spent many years in the 
licensing trade. Such was Allen's fame, he even had his own statue in Madame 
Tussauds, in London.

However, tiring of the notoriety, the couple retired quietly to Fleetwood, in 
1977. There, working alongside her husband, Doris became treasurer and 
president of the Marine Gardens Bowling Club.

Retiring in 1988, Harry Allen died, following a short illness, in Blackpool 
Victoria Hospital on August 14, 1992. His widow later put up for auction the 
detailed log he kept, together with various tools of his trade-stop watch, tape 
measure and a pair of pliers used for adding and removing lead weights to test 
sandbags prior to execution. Initially, attracting little interest, they 
eventually sold for 17,200 pounds.

In 2008, Stewart McLaughlin published a detailed biography entitled, Britain's 
Last Hangman.

Currently finding fame in a totally different field is Allen's grand-daughter, 
Fiona.

Born in Bury, this actress and comedienne is famously married to Michael 
Parkinson's son. Michael.

She is perhaps best-known for being on the award winning Channel 4 comedy 
series, Smack the Pony, and later as playing sales rep, Julia Stone, in 
Coronation Street.

(source: lep.co.uk)






ZIMBABWE:

Death row, life imprisonment challenge postponed----The constitutional 
application filed by three convicted criminals, 2 of whom are on death row and 
one serving life imprisonment, challenging the constitutionality of their 
sentences, failed to kick off yesterday after the Attorney-General (AG)'s 
Office requested for a postponement in order to go through the convicts' 
supplementary heads of argument.


The matter is now set to be heard during the 1st week of next year's 1st term.

On the first application, the 2 convicts, Farai Lawrence Ndlovu and Wisdom 
Gochera, both represented by Tendai Biti, were sentenced to the gallows in 2002 
and 2012 respectively after being convicted of murder with actual intent and 
have since then been awaiting execution.

Another convict, Obadiah Makoni, who is also represented by Biti, was convicted 
of murder and spared from the hangman's noose, but sentenced to life 
imprisonment.

In his submissions over the death sentence, Biti said the position regarding 
the imposition of the death penalty had changed dramatically since the new 
Constitution entered into force.

Biti said like anyone else in Zimbabwe, Ndlovu and Gochera were now entitled to 
the protection afforded by section 48 of the Constitution.

"The effect of section 48(2) is that no person can be sentenced to death unless 
they are sentenced under a law that permits the imposition of death only for 
murder committed in aggravating circumstances," he argued.

The lawyer said if the death penalty is imposed under a law that does not meet 
the requirements of the Constitution, that penalty would be unconstitutional 
for violation of the qualified right to life.

"The death penalty cannot lawfully be carried out if it was imposed in 
violation of section 48(2) . . . (No law may limit the following rights 
enshrined in this chapter section 86 (3)(a) of the Constitution and no person 
may violate them) except to the extent specified in section 48," he said.

"The applicants are entitled to the protection of section 48(2) even though 
they were sentenced before the new Constitution came into force, because they 
are challenging their current and ongoing sentences, not a historical event. 
So, this case has nothing to do with 'retroactivity or retrospectivity' of the 
new Constitution."

Turning to Makoni's life imprisonment sentence, Biti said his client was not 
suggesting that requiring a prisoner to spend his whole life in prison could 
never be appropriate or compatible with the Constitution.

Biti said what Makoni was submitting was that the decision on whether to 
release a life prisoner should be taken by a parole board, independent from the 
Executive, so as to protect the separation of powers that inheres in the 
Constitution.

AG's Office representative, Olivia Zvedi is yet to file a response.

(source: NewsDay)

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

Death row inmates fight capital punishment


More than 10 Zimbabwean prisoners on death-row and others serving life 
imprisonment terms are banking on the Constitutional Court for relief after 
they petitioned the country's apex court seeking an order to set aside their 
death sentences.

The Constitutional Court will on Wednesday and early next week preside over and 
make a determination on applications filed by 18 prisoners challenging the 
harsh prison sentences.

On Wednesday, the Constitutional Court will first hear 2 cases, 1 on the 
constitutionality of the death penalty and the other 1 on the constitutionality 
of "whole life" imprisonment.

On Wednesday next week, the apex court will hear another case on the death 
penalty.

In the 1st case, the 2 applicants whose challenge was initiated by Veritas, a 
local rights monitoring group, were convicted in separate cases of murder and 
sentenced to death in July 2002 and May 2012 respectively, before the new 
Constitution came into operation.

The applicants argue that although they were lawfully sentenced to death, the 
penalty cannot now be carried out because the provisions of the Criminal 
Procedure and Evidence Act (CPEA) which authorize the imposition and carrying 
out of the death penalty, are completely inconsistent with Section 48 of the 
new Constitution and hence they are therefore invalid by virtue of Section 2 of 
the Constitution.

The applicants also argue that the provisions of the CPEA under which they were 
tried and sentenced, are now invalid and therefore their sentences must 
therefore be commuted to life imprisonment.

In the 2nd case, which will be heard on Wednesday, the applicant who was 
convicted of murdering his girlfriend in 1995 and was sentenced to life 
imprisonment and who has currently served just over 20 years in prison, argues 
that the sentence imposed on him is unconstitutional.

In his court challenge, the applicant argued that under the CPEA and the 
Prisons Act, prisoners serving sentences of life imprisonment are not entitled 
to be considered for parole or early release and must serve "whole life" 
sentences and they are released from prison only by death.

This, the applicant argued, violates Section 51 of the new Constitution, which 
guarantees human dignity, and Section 53, which protects against cruel, inhuman 
or degrading punishment.

Giving prisoners no hope of release, however good their behaviour in prison and 
however much they may have reformed, robs them of hope and crushes their 
dignity, argues the prisoner who claims that he should be considered for 
parole.

Next Wednesday, the Constitutional Court will have a busy day when it hears a 
case brought by 15 prisoners who have been on death-row for varying periods of 
up to 20 years.

The prisoners who have been in detention awaiting execution want the court to 
issue an order to the effect that their death sentences be commuted to life 
imprisonment because Section 53 of the Constitution protects everyone, 
including convicted prisoners, against torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading 
punishment.

The 15 applicants argue that the long periods they have spent in prison 
awaiting execution, never knowing from one day to the next when they would be 
hanged [because death-row prisoners are not told in advance of the date and 
time of their execution] amounts to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading 
punishment.

The prisoners argue that they cannot now be executed. The court challenges are 
certain to bring the spotlight on Vice-President and Justice, Legal and 
Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who in recent years has 
thrown his weight behind the anti-death penalty campaign and pledged to push 
for the abolition of the capital punishment.

Mnangagwa, who is a death penalty survivor, has undertaken to "speak against 
the death penalty" even though Zimbabwe's new constitution, adopted 2 years 
ago, upholds the death penalty.

According to Amnesty International Zimbabwe, the troubled southern African 
country has 95 prisoners on death row. A total of 10 prisoners were sentenced 
to death in 2014 pushing the number of inmates on death sentence to 95 as 
authorities resorted to capital punishment to combat crime.

(source: Zimbabwe Daily)