[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

April 14



MALAYSIA:

Morais' autopsy findings a 'certainty'


The pathologist that performed the autopsy on deputy public prosecutor Datuk 
Anthony Kevin Morais defended her findings, telling the High Court that it was 
beyond reasonable doubt.

Forensic expert Nurliza Abdullah, 51, said the findings that Morais' cause of 
death was due to asphyxiation was a reasonable medical certainty.

Defence lawyer Datuk N. Sivananthan questioned its conclusiveness, saying the 
coroner had used broad phrases and was non-definitive in her report.

"Does the use of the phrase 'most probably attributable' raise a question mark 
whether the cause of death was asphyxiation?" asked Sivananthan.

He also questioned why 2 forensic experts conducted the autopsy, when the 
procedure was usually handled by one.

"2 doctors put their heads together and the best they could come up with is 
'probable'?" he asked.

Nurliza rebutted that there was medical evidence that supported the findings 
that the cause of death was asphyxiation, though she used the broad phrasing as 
the moderate degree of decomposition of the corpse made it impossible to make 
an absolute call.

"When I say there there's a high probability, that means there is reasonable 
medical probability ... in my view reasonable medical certainty is beyond 
reasonable doubt," she said

Asked what she would need for absolute surety, she replied "a fresher body".

The veteran forensic expert delivered more zingers when questioned during cross 
examination by the defence team.

Asked what was the difference between "medical certainty" and "reasonable 
medical certainty", she replied "the word 'certainty'".

Nurliza also ruled out other causes of death, from sharp force injury, 
projectile injury, heat related injuries; adding there were no signs of 
skeleton fractures and internal bleeding.

She said asphyxiation was likely due to the deceased being smothered with a 
plastic bag.

She added that the contusion injuries to the deceased's chest and ribcage 
showed his body had been compressed, restricting the ribcage from expanding and 
drawing breath, which would also have contributed to the death.

One of the accused, Col Dr R. Kunaseegaran, a pathologist himself, was seen 
taking notes on the neon-green clipboard given to him.

On Jan 27, the 6 men - G. Gunasekaran, 48, R. Dinishwaran, 24, A.K. Thinesh 
Kumar, 23, M. Vishwanath, 26, Nimalan, 23, and Ravi Chandaran, 35, claimed 
trial to charges of murdering Morais.

They are accused of committing the offence between 7am and 8pm on Sept 4, 2015, 
between Jalan Dutamas Raya Sentul and No. 1 Jalan USJ1/6D, Subang Jaya.

Dr Kunaseegaran, 53, pleaded not guilty to abetting the 6 in the murder.

They face the mandatory death penalty if convicted under Section 302 of the 
Penal Code.

Counsel Sivananthan and Datuk Geethan Ram Vincent acted for Dr Kunaseegaran. 
Counsel V. Rajehgopal defended Gunasekaran, Vishwanath, Nimalan and Ravi 
Chandaran while lawyer M. Manoharan acted for Dinishwaran and Thinesh Kumar.

The trial before Justice Azman Abdullah continues today.

(source: The Star)






INDONESIA:

Rights activists demand Indonesia end use of death penalty ---- Calls made as 
country prepares next round of executions


Anti-death penalty activists are urging the Indonesian government to stop 
killing prisoners after reports emerged that the government is preparing its 
next round of executions.

The Indonesia Coalition on the Abolition of Death Penalty said in an April 13 
statement that Indonesia should move with other countries toward a world that 
bans "torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

The statement noted that Indonesia ratified the U.N. Convention against Torture 
and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1998.

The coalition, representing organizations and institutions including the 
Indonesian bishops' human rights advocacy, referred to Amnesty International's 
recently released report on capital punishment "Death Sentences and Executions 
2015" that said there was a 54.5 increase in executions globally.

Amnesty's report said at least 1,634 people were executed during 2015, 573 more 
than in 2014.

The coalition noted that 4 countries had abolished the death penalty for all 
crimes.

"Such tendency of the states to abolish the death penalty remains high as they 
believe that the death penalty is against human logic," the report said.

On April 8, Indonesian Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo told the Jakarta 
Globe that executions of drug traffickers would resume following the completion 
of his office's inventory of death-row inmates.

In 2015, 14 people were executed in Indonesia. All the executions were carried 
out for drug trafficking.

Marzuki Darusman of the Foundation for International Human Rights Reporting 
Standards said the government's assertion that the death penalty serves as a 
deterrent to drug abuse and other serious crimes cannot be proven.

"Based on the National Narcotics Board's data, the number of drug users in 
Indonesia increased after the death penalty resumed," he said.

Meanwhile, Azas Tigor Nainggolan, coordinator of the bishops' forum, said the 
government's reliance on the death penalty has placed Indonesia in a poor light 
internationally.

"It's only in Indonesia that a president feels proud of executing people," he 
said.

(source: ucanews.com)






CHINA:

Nurse who murdered fiance to be executed


A 28-year-old nurse was sentenced to death yesterday for murdering her fiance 
by injecting him with insulin when he was unconscious, the Shanghai No. 1 
Intermediate People's Court said.

According to the court, the condemned woman, surnamed Tao, a nurse at Shanghai 
No.6 Hospital's branch in the Pudong New Area, got into a row with the victim, 
surnamed Luo, when they were preparing for their wedding.

Already suspecting him of dishonesty, she became angry when he asked to delay 
the ceremony, which was to be held in January last year.

Between December 2014 and March 2015, Tao obtained a large amount of sleeping 
tablets at the hospital and bought poisonous chemicals such as potassium 
cyanide and pesticide online.

She also took some insulin - a substance used to control diabetes - from the 
hospital. Excessive insulin can cause a sharp decrease in a person's blood 
sugar and affect their central nervous system.

On April 1, Tao gave Luo a drink of water laced with sleeping tablets at her 
residence in Xuhui District.

After he fell asleep, Tao injected him with a fatal dose of insulin.

Tao's mother and aunt reported Luo's death to local police the next day, and 
officers soon identified Tao as the suspect.

Tao claimed that Luo had caused his own death by taking sleeping tablets, but 
later confessed to the murder during questioning.

The court ruled that because Tao is a nurse who used her professional knowledge 
to commit the murder, she deserved the death penalty.

Tao decided not to appeal against the sentence.

(source: Shanghai Daily)






IRAN:

Iranian VP Summoned to Judiciary for Commenting on High Execution Rate of Drug 
Traffickers


Shahindokht Mowlaverdi, Iran's vice president for Women and Family Affairs, has 
been summoned to the Judiciary to explain a comment she made in February about 
all the men in a village being executed for drug offenses.

"Officials in Sistan and Baluchistan province have transferred this case to 
Tehran and Ms. Mowlaverdi has been summoned to the prosecutor's office to give 
explanations and respond to the complaint," said Judiciary Spokesman 
Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, during a press conference on April 10, 2016.

Mowlaverdi criticized the lack of social support for the families of executed 
drug traffickers during an interview with the semi-official Mehr News Agency 
published on February 23, 2016, and said: "We have a village in Sistan and 
Baluchistan province where all the men have been executed."

"Their survivors are potential drug traffickers as they would want to seek 
revenge and provide money for their families," she added. "There is no support 
for these people."

Mowlaverdi did not say when the executions took place nor did she mention the 
village by name.

The vice president's comment was widely shared and debated on social media in 
Iran and abroad. Officials in Sistan and Baluchistan - a province in 
southeastern Iran bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan - denied any such village 
existed and filed a complaint with the government.

The province's deputy prosecutor, Mohammad Ali Hamidian, said Mowlaverdi's 
"thoughtless and completely false statements" had caused "a media wave against 
Iran by our enemies," according to an article published in the hardline daily, 
Vatan Emrooz, on April 4, 2016.

"This village does not exist at all, but even if it did, it's wrong for the 
vice president to mention it because it causes public anxiety," he added.

Mowlaverdi's reaction to Hamidian's comments came in the form of a brief 
statement issued on April 6, 2016 announcing that President Hassan Rouhani's 
legal adviser would be following up on the matter.

Sistan and Baluchistan is one of Iran's poorest provinces and has one of the 
highest numbers of executions per capita in the country.

High unemployment has drawn many of its inhabitants towards illegally 
trafficking the drugs that are pouring into Iran from bordering Afghanistan and 
Pakistan.

UN officials have repeatedly voiced concern over Iran's use of the death 
penalty in drug-related convictions. Under international law, the use of the 
death penalty is restricted to only the "most serious" crimes, and the UN 
special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions has 
explicitly stated that drug-related crimes do not meet this criterion. 
Nevertheless, drug offenders are routinely sentenced to death and executed in 
Iran.

"The Sistan and Baluchistan province experiences a high rate of executions for 
drug-related offenses or crimes deemed to constitute 'enmity against god' in 
the absence of fair trials," said the UN's special rapporteur for human rights 
in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, in a March 2013 report.

In 2015, Iran executed a total of 1,052 people - the highest per capita 
execution rate in the world. The vast majority of these executions are for 
drug-related crimes - more than 70 %, according to Mohammad Javad Larijani, 
Head of the Iranian Judiciary's Human Rights Council.

In Shaheed's March 2016 report, he criticized the high number of executions in 
Iran for non-violent drug-related offenses, noting that changes in Iran's drug 
laws in 2010 increased to 17 the number of drug offenses that could be punished 
by death.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of the Judiciary's Human Rights Council, 
described Shaheed's latest report as "false" and said the country's high number 
of executions were legal according to Iranian laws.

However in a sign that the ground is shifting in Iran regarding its use of the 
death penalty, in December 2015, more than 70 members of Iran's Parliament 
presented a bill that, if ratified by the full legislature and approved by the 
Guardian Council, would reduce the punishment for drug trafficking from death 
to life imprisonment. The bill is still pending.

Human rights activists as well as legal experts have noted that Iran's tough 
anti-drug laws have not resulted in any reduction in drug-related crimes.

(source: iranhumanrights.org)

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

Brave Iranian mother cries out against Italian PM's silence on executions


The mother of Reyhaneh Jabbari, a young Iranian woman whose execution in 
October 2014 triggered international condemnation of the mullahs??? regime, has 
written an open letter to the Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi criticizing 
his trip this week to Tehran and his silence on the appalling human rights 
abuses taking place in Iran.

Reyhaneh Jabbari was executed for killing an intelligence agent of the Iranian 
regime in self-defense.

The following is the text of the impassioned open letter by her mother Mrs. 
Shole Pakravan to the Prime Minister of Italy on the eve of his trip to Tehran:

"The Prime Minister of Italy will travel to Iran tomorrow. He might aim to 
convey the messages of those who are shocked and disappointed about Iran's 
executions. He might intend to communicate the Pope's message - which addresses 
the global abolition of the death penalty - or to say: "Stop Public 
Executions!" He might request a halt to the execution of juvenile offenders.

Or perhaps he might not say much about executions, but surely he would mention 
the brutal sentences of amputation of limbs. No? They might not even discuss 
such issues because their meeting would then be afflicted by such bitter and 
creepy facts. But I am quite sure that he would mention the expulsion of 
religious and ethnic minorities from universities or administrations. He would 
talk about releasing those imprisoned people, such as Hossein Kazemeyni 
Boroujerdi and Mohammad Ali Taheri, whose opinions differ from the current 
administration. Then again, he might not talk about these things at all. Well 
then, what is his aim of coming to Iran? Instead of visiting the historical 
monuments of Shiraz and Isfahan, he might intend to visit prisons to ask about 
the condition of Narges Mohammadi in order to see how she feels about being far 
from her 2 small children. Perhaps he wants to visit Hossein Ronaghi in order 
to see how he went on hunger strike although he suffers from kidney failure. He 
might want to see the exotic painting talents of Atena Farghadani who has 
unjustly been sentenced to serve 12 years in prison. Also, he might state that 
torture is not a decent act. No matter what title or name each human holds, 
beatings or hangings or any other acts of torture are prohibited against all 
human beings. But I doubt he will visit prisoners. He might cruise through 
Tehran's streets and witness the young and homeless children who beg for money 
with bare feet. No, then again his car's windshield has tinted glass and he 
cannot witness such scenes or he cannot talk about them in his meetings.

Honestly I have no idea why he is traveling to Iran. He might be seeking money, 
trade, oil, sanctions and things like that.

In other words, can anything else be important to him except the mentioned 
cases? I have no clue. Maybe this Prime Minister is a good person and he might 
address all of the above issues. In this case, what he will be remembered for 
in the future is his well-earned reputation and his good deeds. But if he only 
pursues his own commercial interests in Iran, then he must note that in Iran 
there are still a high number of executions per capita and it is still common 
for people to be tortured to extract 'confessions,' let alone all the other 
issues.

It does no harm for him to note that Italian artists and the Pope shared their 
dismay for Reyhaneh's execution and they called for abolition of such 
sentences. Despite all of the global and domestic demands, my loving daughter 
was executed. I am now inspired by the Italian artist, Gianni Rodari, who 
wished for the existence of a kiosk to sell prospect to people. Although I 
buried my whole hope and desire, I still go to that kiosk to buy a little bit 
of hope. No, I will buy all of that because I want to be hopeful that the Prime 
Minister's visit to Iran becomes fruitful and beneficent for us, as the 
helpless nation. I want to be hopeful that the Prime Minister of Italy does not 
seek to plunder the God-given wealth of a people at the cost of remaining 
silent against an infectious phenomenon called execution.

Perhaps the prime minister accepts our invitation and stands by our side in the 
petition for abolition of the death penalty. Perhaps he also wishes for an Iran 
without any execution. Maybe in his meetings, he would say: No to Execution, No 
to Torture!"

--

When she was just 19 years old, Ms. Reyhaneh Jabbari was working as a decorator 
when she was forced to defend herself against an intelligence agent who tried 
to rape her. She was jailed for 7 years and was executed on October 25, 2014 
despite an international campaign to save her.

Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi said at the time that Ms. Jabbari's 
execution had political motives and that it was unlawful even in the framework 
of the mullahs' medieval laws. Mrs. Rajavi called for an independent 
international probe into the execution of Reyhaneh Jabbari as an example of 
arbitrary, extrajudicial and criminal death sentences in Iran that have taken 
on added dimensions since Hassan Rouhani's tenure as the regime's President.

********

14 executions carried out as Italian PM and EU High Representative visit Tehran


On the morning of Wednesday, April 13, concurrent with a visit by Italy's Prime 
Minister and on the eve of a visit by the EU High Representative to Tehran, the 
antihuman clerical regime collectively hanged 8 prisoners in Gohardasht (Rajai 
Shahr) Prison in Karaj. Counting 1 execution in Tabriz central prison on April 
11 and 5 other executions on April 9, the number of executions in just the last 
5 days reached 14. Moreover, in an Isfahan prison, 5 prisoners were transferred 
to solitary confinement on April 11 in preparation for their execution.

The increasing trend of executions aimed at intensifying the climate of terror 
to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society, especially at a 
time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates that the claim 
of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval regime. In their 
final statement, the foreign ministers of the G7 countries meeting in Hiroshima 
called on the Iranian regime to comply with its international human rights 
obligations and to end arbitrary executions carried out in violation of its 
international obligations.

While welcoming the G7 position, the Iranian Resistance emphasizes that solely 
issuing statements is inadequate. Trade and relations with the religious 
fascism ruling Iran at the price of ignoring the tragic state of human rights 
in Iran under the rule of the mullahs will only intensify suppression and in 
particular executions. Relations with this regime should be preconditioned to a 
halt in executions.

(source for both: NCR-Iran)

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

UN Calls For Moratorium In Iran On Executions For Drug Offenses


UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein has called on Iran 
to temporarily halt executions for drug offenses until parliament debates a new 
law to end the mandatory death penalty for such crimes.

"Given the broadening recognition in Iran that the death penalty does not deter 
drug crime and that antinarcotics laws need to be reformed, I call on Iran to 
take the important first step of instituting a moratorium on the use of the 
death penalty," he said in a press statement issued on April 14.

Last weekend, 5 men were hanged in Iran, 3 of them on charges of narcotics 
trafficking.

So far this year, 60 executions have reportedly been carried out in Iran. Zeid 
noted that this represents a drop compared to the same period last year.

According to the latest UN report on human rights in Iran, Tehran carried out 
nearly 1,000 executions in 2015, the highest rate in over 2 decades, and many 
of them juveniles.

(source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty)



RUSSIA:

Will Russia Bring Back Death Penalty To Execute Terrorists?


The last state execution carried out in Russia was on Aug. 2, 1996, as the 
young democracy led by then President Boris Yeltsin was imposing a moratorium 
on capital punishment.

But a recent bill submitted at the Duma national parliament proposes to bring 
the death penalty back in force, specifically for crimes of terrorism. Backers 
of the bill, leaders of the A Just Russia political party cite the ISIS' 
bombing in October of a Russian passenger jet over the Sinai that killed 224, 
as well as the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels.

Just Russia leader Sergey Mironov says that convicted terrorists "deserve the 
most severe punishment," dismissing any notion of rehabilitation for such 
criminals. "The punishment must certainly be adequate," Mironov said, "taking 
into account the degree of threat to society and serving as a warning to 
committing crimes of this category in the future."

The new bill would amend two existing articles in Russia's Criminal Code, 
article 205 (an act of terrorism) and article 205.1 (facilitating terrorist 
activity), to allow for capital punishment both for those carrying out attacks 
and others involved.

Just Russia Duma member Oleg Nilov tells Kommersant that the threat of 
terrorism in the world is a growing problem, and the death penalty could be a 
deterent. "Potential accomplices and organizers will be forced to think it 
through," he says.

Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, noted that there is a 
longstanding moratorium in Russia on capital punishment. "The question of the 
death penalty is incredibly complex, and multiple discussions are currently 
taking place. At the end of the day, there is a moratorium, which we will 
continue to follow."

In effect since 1996, the moratorium is a provisional suspension of capital 
punishment, that has effectively halted any executions. The penal code, 
however, stipulates that it can be lifted in 5 defined exceptional 
circumstances for men, aged 18 to 65: murder under specific aggravating 
circumstances, encroachment on the life of an officer of a law enforcement 
agency, encroachment on the life of a statesman or public figure, encroachment 
on the life of a person administering justice or engaged in preliminary 
investigation, and genocide.

Article 20 of the Russian Constitution states: "Everyone has the right to life 
... until its abolition, death penalty may only be passed for the most serious 
crimes against human life."

Under the Soviet regime, there was an on-and-off relationship with official 
state executions. Capital punishment was alternately permitted and prohibited, 
and was last restored on May 12, 1950, expanding the list of capital crimes 
along with it. GARF archives show that in the following decades state 
executions became less frequent, and the majority of the sentences were 
successfully appealed to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR.

A serial killer

One notable execution was that of Antonina Makarova. During World War II, the 
woman dubbed "Tony-Machinegun" conspired with the Nazis, and was held solely 
responsible for the executions of more than 1,500 Soviet partisans and their 
family members. Makarova was eventually caught by the KGB and sentenced to 
death in 1976, and executed 2 years later by firing squad.

In the early 1990s Russia's bid to gain entry into the Council of Europe, which 
advocates for intergovernamental human rights and requires all of its members 
to outright abolish the death penalty. In Moscow's case, a moratorium was 
accepted in 1996, though a final state execution took place shortly afterward 
of serial killer Sergey Golovkin, also known as "The Boa", who'd tortured and 
murdered 11 boys between 1986 and 1992.

The new push for a resumption of the death penalty in Russia comes as a recent 
report from Amnesty International found the number of state executions across 
the world reached a 25-years high In 2015. Some 86% of the officially 
registered executions were carried out in just three countries: Iran, Pakistan, 
and Saudi Arabia. The report also mentions of China, dubbing the country as 
"chief executioner" due to the presumably high number of executions, though the 
information remains classified.

Today, Russia stands as 1 of the 3 post-Soviet nations with an active 
moratorium, along with Kazakhstan and Tadjikistan. Armenia, Azerbaijan, 
Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan 
and Kyrgyzstan have all abolished the death penalty outright, leaving Belarus 
as the only remaining post-Soviet country to actively practice capital 
punishment.

Aleksander Bastyrkin of the Investigative Committee of Russia, is a longtime 
advocate of enforcing capital punishment. "I personally speak in favor of the 
death penalty, first and foremost as a human," Bastyrkin tells Kommersant. "I 
am not afraid of criticism. Don???t be a hypocrite - evil must be punished. You 
take the life of another, especially the life of a child, pay with your own."

(source: worldcrunch.com)

BELARUS:

EU Urges Belarus To Introduce Moratorium On Death Penalty


The European Union has once again called on Belarus to introduce a moratorium 
on the death penalty.

The statement by the Press Secretary of the European External Action Service 
was posted on the official website of the service several days after the 
Supreme Court of Belarus upheld the sentence of the 48-year-old Henadz 
Yakavitski. Minsk regional court found him guilty of brutally murdering his 
roommate and sentenced him to death by shooting.

The EU condemns the use of the death penalty in any situation. The statement 
says that "it does not act as a deterrent and is a cruel punishment and 
unacceptable denial of human dignity." Brussels urges the authorities of our 
country "to respect the right to life of every citizen and to introduce a 
moratorium on executions as a 1st step towards its complete abolition".

As we know, Belarus is the only country in Europe where the death penalty is 
applied. Over the past 25 years, more than 400 people were shot. During his 
presidency, Aliaksandr Lukashenka pardoned only 1 person.

(source: charter97.org)






DOMINICAN REPUBLIC:

Crime victim against death penalty, even for her attackers


Even for her assailants who in 2012 left her blind by gunshots during a robbery 
would civil engineer Francina Hungria support the death penalty.

The now deputy mayor candidate for the National District for the ruling party 
(PLD) said the Dominican justice system must implement other measures because 
in her view, violence cannot be attacked violently.

She said the death penalty cannot justified by alleging that it would solve the 
spate of violent crimes.

Interviewed on Teleradio America Channel 45 from 8 to 9 am, Hungria said the 
best way to fight crime in Dominican Republic is by providing study and work 
opportunities for young people and build a culture of peace.

When asked about those who've voiced opposition to her candidacy, Hungria said 
she assumed the commitment to work for a more gender-inclusive city and 
citizens who like her, suffer from a disability, "those people who somehow feel 
vulnerable by having an environment that isn't intended for their condition."

(source: dominicantoday.com)