[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 11



UNITED NATIONS:

UN rights experts applaud steps by China and India to reduce, abolish death 
penalty


2 independent United Nations human rights experts welcomed today the 
recommendation to abolish the death penalty by India, as well as the decision 
to reduce the number of crimes subject to the death penalty by the Chinese 
authorities.

In August, the Indian Law Commission issued a report concluding that the death 
penalty does not act as an effective deterrent, and recommended its abolition 
for all crimes except terrorism-related offences, and waging war.

"The conclusions and recommendations of the Indian Law Commission represent an 
important voice in favour of the abolition of the death penalty in India," said 
the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, 
Christof Heyns. "I encourage the Indian authorities to implement these 
recommendations and to move towards the complete abolition of the death penalty 
for all offences."

Juan Mendez, the Special Rapporteur on torture, noted that the Commission 
"recognized the immense suffering caused by the death row phenomenon as a 
seemingly inevitable consequence of the imposition of the death penalty; this 
recognition supports the emergence of a customary norm that considers the death 
penalty as, per se, running afoul of the prohibition of torture and cruel, 
inhuman or degrading treatment."

The Indian authorities should review the findings very carefully and ratify the 
Convention against Torture, he added.

China amended several provisions of its Criminal Law after the session of the 
National People's Congress Standing Committee, replacing the death penalty by 
life imprisonment for several offences, including the smuggling of weapons, 
ammunition, nuclear materials and counterfeit currency; arranging for a person 
or forcing a person to carry out prostitution; the obstruction of duty of a 
police officer; and creating rumours during wartime to mislead people.

"By adopting these amendments to its criminal code, China has made progress in 
the right direction; this needs to be encouraged," the UN experts noted.

"These new developments in India and China are in line with the general trend 
towards the abolition of the death penalty at a global level, even if there are 
isolated moves in the opposite direction," said Mr. Heyns.

Special rapporteurs are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council 
to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights 
theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are 
they paid for their work.

(source: UN News Centre)






INDONESIA:

Suspect in Murder of Japanese Woman Faces Possible Death Penalty


The Indonesian security guard arrested for the alleged murder of a Japanese 
woman at her Jakarta apartment could face the death penalty if found guilty.

"For such case, it could be [the] death [penalty]," Insp. Gen. Tito Karnavian, 
the Jakarta Police chief, said on Friday following the police???s arrest of 
Mursalim, 25, for the alleged murder of Yoshimi Nishimura, 28.

"He can be charged under the Criminal Code article [on murder] because it 
appears to have been planned," Tito added.

Nishimura's body was found by her driver, a friend and a building security 
guard at the Casa Grande apartment block in Tebet, South Jakarta, on Monday 
morning. Police suspect she was killed 2 days earlier.

Investigators later arrested Mursalim, a security guard at the building, after 
studying security footage from the apartment that indicated he entered her 
apartment.

Mursalim, who was arrested in his hometown of Lampung in Sumatra, reportedly 
confessed to the murder, saying he intended only to rob Nishimura, the general 
affairs manager at Yamaha Motors Indonesia, but ended up strangling her when 
she started screaming.

Police said there were no indications of sexual violence on Nishimura's body.

(source: Jakarta Globe)






THAILAND:

DNA of Myanmar men charged with killing British tourists in Thailand does not 
match weapon, expert says


The DNA of 2 Myanmar men accused of killing a pair of British tourists on a 
Thai island does not match that found on the suspected murder weapon, a 
forensics expert witness says.

The testimony cast fresh doubt on the controversial trial of migrant workers 
Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun, who are accused of the murder of 24-year-old David 
Miller and the rape and murder of Hannah Witheridge, 23, on southern Koh Tao 
island in September 2014.

Both men have pleaded not guilty and face the death penalty if convicted over a 
case which has tarnished Thailand's reputation as a tourist paradise and seen 
the police accused of bungling the investigation.

The defence pressed to retest crucial forensic evidence from the crime scene 
with a handful of items re-examined by Thailand's Central Institute of Forensic 
Science (CIFS) including a garden hoe, the suspected murder weapon.

"The DNA on the weapon did not match with the 2 suspects," Porntip Rojanasunan, 
director-general of the CIFS, said after testifying at Koh Samui Provincial 
Court on Friday.

The battered bodies of Miller and Witheridge were found on the sleepy diving 
island of Koh Tao on September 15 last year.

Police say Miller had been struck by a single blow and left to drown in shallow 
surf while Witheridge had been raped and then beaten to death with a garden 
hoe.

Prosecutors have previously argued that DNA evidence implicates the 2 Myanmar 
migrants but the defence has said an under-pressure police force coerced 
confessions, later retracted, from the pair.

Nakhon Chomphuchat, the lead lawyer for the migrants, said Friday's testimony 
showed the 2 men "were not involved with the case as police have accused".

Porntip also told the court that there was no DNA found on other items tested 
by the forensics institute including a shoe and some plastic bags.

In July a witness at the trial had testified to removing and washing down the 
garden hoe after coming across it shortly after the tourists' bodies were found 
on the island.

The trial is still underway and a verdict is expected in October.

(source: ABC News)



UNITED KINGDOM:

UK Aid Cash Being Spent On Lobbying To Stop Death Penalty


British aid money is simultaneously being spent on lobbying countries to 
overturn their death penalty laws, and to assist Pakistani forces in capturing 
drug smugglers, who face capital punishment if caught.

Tanzania, Belarus, Nigeria, Kazakhstan and South Sudan and China are all among 
countries being targeted by 740,000 pounds' worth of spending on campaigns to 
end capital punishment.

Meanwhile, 5m pounds a year is currently being handed to Pakistan's 
antinarcotics forces to help train and equip their officers.

It's a situation that sends "really contradictory messages," Maya Foa of the 
charity Reprieve, said, adding: "It is a scandal that British public money is 
being used to help Pakistan send non-violent offenders to the gallows."

Labour peer Lord Lipsey told The Times: "This is not what we in parliament vote 
an aid budget for. It is not what the British taxpayers think their aid taxes 
are going on. Campaigning on political issues is not what the aid budget is 
for."

Among the aid projects are 50,000 pounds spent to achieve a "step by step" 
abolition of the death penalty in Morocco, 30,000 pounds to harangue Malaysian 
MPs into overturning the death penalty for drugs offences and 25,000 pounds 
towards an initiative run by a Swiss socialist local councillor, targeting 
Indonesia, Malawi and Sierra Leone.

One of the most expensive projects was 70,000 pounds spent on holding a 
"dialogue with judges" to encourage them to understanding of international 
standards and obligations about the death penalty. Department papers do not 
stipulate which countries were involved in the dialogue.

At the same time, 100 drug criminals languish on Pakistan's death row. 5 of 
them are British, 1 of whom is a woman.

According to a diplomatic source: "The UK has raised at the highest level of 
the government of Pakistan its concerns about the principle of the use of the 
death penalty and the lifting of the moratorium on executions, and continues to 
urge Pakistan to ensure due process and adherence to international 
obligations."

Despite widespread opposition to the spending, the Prime Minister David Cameron 
has stuck to his guns over a pledge to spend 0.7 % of GDP as overseas aid. 
Consequently department officials are under constant pressure to find ways to 
spend the 12 billion pounds a year target, which has now been enshrined in law.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said last night: "It remains our 
longstanding policy to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances as a 
matter of principle. This is a strong example of the promotion of British 
values to the world.

"Only 22 states carried out an execution in 2014. UK work has contributed to 
this success. For example, following FCO-sponsored dialogue with British 
judges, China has just reduced the range of offences which attract death 
sentences.

"There have been no executions in Pakistan as a result of UK counternarcotics 
co-operation. We continue to review the situation as we have always done. The 
UK and Pakistan have a shared interest in working together to tackle organised 
crime including the trafficking of drugs, which is a threat to both our 
societies."

(source: breitbart.com)






NIGERIA:

Nigerian Governors Reject Capital Punishment For Looters


Some Nigerian governors have rejected the calls by the trade unions that 
capital punishment be meted out to pubic official found guilty of corruption.

Labour said it was only by killing looters that the anti-corruption crusade 
being championed by President Muhammadu Buhari could succeed.

While the Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, agitated that looters be 
sentenced to life imprisonment, rather than the death sentence prescribed by 
the organised labour, his Nasarawa state counterpart, Umaru Al-Makura, said he 
supported that capital punishment be meted out to corrupt public office 
holders.

"I really agree with the NLC over call for capital punishment for any public 
office holder who is found guilty of looting public funds," Umaru Al-Makura 
told Punch.

However, governors of Ekiti, Plateau and Rivers states, Ayodele Fayose, Simon 
Lalong and Nyesom Wike rejected death penalty for looters.

"In all his discussions, Lalong has never mentioned death sentence. He has 
always preferred life imprisonment to taking human life because to him life is 
sacred," Lalong's Director of Press Affairs, Mr. Emmanuel Nanle said.

Speaking through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Idowu Adelusi, Fayose said jail 
sentence was better and capable of reforming thieves.

"In countries where death penalty was introduced, it has not stopped looting. 
In advanced countries like US, jail sentence is the penalty. What we need is 
proper moral education to change orientation of the people. Jail sentence is 
better; it can reform."

On his part, Wike who equally spoke through his special adviser on media, 
Opunabo Inko-Tariah said; "Nigerians have a role to play by deriding looters 
and not to praise them for their fiscal irresponsibility. There should be a 
strong punitive measure to discourage looting because of its domino effects. 
When a treasury is looted, there won't be money for the provision of 
necessities such as hospitals, roads, etc.

"Maybe because it happened in Ghana and the economy improved, the labour 
organisations want it in Nigeria. But that was a military regime and Jerry 
Rawlings was a military man. However, the extant laws on looting need serious 
and urgent review, even if the death penalty is discouraged."

Meanwhile, the president's advisory committee on corruption has said that no 
corrupt Nigerian will be spared in its anti-corruption crusade.

(source: naij.com)






INDIA:

Suspected Islamic militants could face death after conviction for 2006 India 
train bombings that killed 188


12 suspected Islamic militants were convicted Friday for the bombings 9 years 
ago of 7 Mumbai commuter trains that killed 188 people and wounded more than 
800.

The trial in India's notoriously slow justice system lasted more than 7 years. 
It concluded in August last year, but Judge Yatin D. Shinde took 1 year to 
write the verdict.

He found 12 defendants guilty of murder and criminal conspiracy charges and 
acquitted one person for lack of evidence. Shinde said he would announce the 
sentence on Monday after hearing arguments from the prosecutors and defence 
attorneys. They face the death penalty or life in prison.

7 bombs exploded within a span of 10 minutes in the evening rush hour on trains 
in Mumbai, the financial and entertainment capital of India, on July 11, 2006.

Prosecutors said the conspiracy was hatched by Pakistan's Directorate of 
Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and carried out by Lashkar-e-Tayyaba 
operatives with help from the Students' Islamic Movement of India, a banned 
militant organization.

The 12 convicted in the case were believed to belong to the Indian militant 
group.

The Lashkar-e-Tayyaba is a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group. Pakistan has 
denied the Indian claims.

The neighbouring countries have fought 3 wars since their independence from 
Britain in 1947 and have been engaged in a fitful peace process in recent 
years.

(source: National Post)