[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 20




IRAN----executions

Northern Iran: 2 Prisoners Hanged on Drug Charges


On Sunday August 14 2 prisoners were reportedly hanged in northern Iran, one at 
Gorgan Central Prison (Golestan province) and the other at Salmas Prison (West 
Azerbaijan province).

According to a report by the unnoficial human rights news agency, HRANA, the 
prisoner at Gorgan was sentenced to death for "Trafficking and possession of 
narcotics". The report identifies the prisoner as Hamidreza Roustasefat, 43 
years old. Mr. Roustasefat was reportedly detained in prison for 5 years before 
he was transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for his execution.

According to a report by the unofficial human rights news agency, the Kurdistan 
Human Rights Network, the prisoner hanged at Solmas was Aydin Teimourzadeh, 
sentenced to death on drug related charges. The report says Mr. Teimourzadeh 
was detained in prison for 7 years before his execution.

(source: Iran Human Rights)






INDIA:

Jigisha Murder Case: Delhi Police Seeks Death Sentence For Convicts


A court in Delhi will pronounce sentence to three men convicted for murdering 
and robbing IT executive Jigisha Ghosh in Delhi in 2009 on Monday, with the 
Delhi Police today seeking death penalty for them saying they killed her for 
"pleasure" and showed no remorse. Additional Sessions Judge Sandeep Yadav 
reserved the order on sentence after the arguments concluded today and a 
pre-sentencing report (PSR) was submitted by probationary officer.

"Pre-sentencing report received...Copy has been supplied to counsel for the 
convicts. Arguments heard. Order on sentence to be pronounced on Monday," the 
judge said after hearing the arguments of prosecution, convicts and perusing 
the pre-sentencing report which gave details about the background of the guilty 
persons.

However, the judge ordered for maintaining confidentiality of the report.

Jigisha, 28, working as an operations manager in a management consultancy firm, 
was abducted and killed on March 18, 2009 after she was dropped by her office 
cab around 0400 hours near her home in Vasant Vihar area of South Delhi.

Her body was recovered 3 days later from a place near Surajkund in Haryana, 
police had said.

Seeking death sentence for the convicts - Ravi Kapoor, Baljeet and Amit Shukla, 
Special Public Prosecutor Rajiv Mohan argued that they had abducted Jigisha, 
robbed her, killed her and used her debit card for shopping, and a CCTV footage 
of their shopping showed they had no remorse for their act.

"There was no provocation. There is no mitigating factor in the matter. It was 
murder for pleasure. The footage shows they had no remorse at all, which is an 
aggravating factor," he said.

Rebutting the arguments of prosecution, defence counsel sought minimum sentence 
of life for the convicts contending that they did not have any previous 
criminal involvement and were young at the time of the incident.

Advocate Amit Kumar, appearing for convicts Baljeet and Amit Shukla, argued 
that his clients have already spent over 7 years in jail and maintained good 
conduct.

The counsel for convict Ravi Kapoor sought leniency for his client saying he 
suffered from a life threatening disease and belonged to a poor background.

The defence counsel also termed the PSR contradictory and biased contending 
that it did not mention the incident when convict Amit Shukla was brutally 
beaten inside the jail.

During arguments when the SPP referred to the alleged involvement of the 3 
convicts in the Soumya Vishwanathan murder case, the defence counsel objected 
to it saying it was a separate case which was still pending and referring to it 
would cause them prejudice during the proceedings.

The court had, a month ago, held the 3 men guilty of murder, abduction, 
robbery, forgery and common intention under IPC, saying it was "abundantly 
clear" that they had committed the crime. Kapoor was also convicted for the 
offence of using firearms under the Arms Act.

While convicting them on July 14, the judge had said "they committed her murder 
and disposed of her body in bushes and circumstantial evidence makes it clear 
that it was these men who committed the crime."

The police had filed the charge sheet in the case in June 2009 and trial began 
on April 15, 2010.

Recovery of the weapon allegedly used in Jigisha's murder had led to the 
cracking of the murder case of Soumya Vishwanathan, who was a journalist with a 
news channel.

Soumya was shot dead on September 30, 2008 while she was returning home in her 
car from office in the wee hours.

Police had claimed robbery as the motive behind the killing of both Jigisha and 
Soumya.

The accused had used Jigisha's ATM card to buy expensive goggles, wrist watches 
and shoes from Sarojini Nagar market in South Delhi, police had said.

(source: ndtv.com)