[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 15




GREAT BRITAIN/THAILAND:

Revealed: Britain's National Crime Agency Helped Thai Police Put 2 Men On Death 
Row----Critical evidence used to sentence 2 Burmese bar workers to death last 
year for the brutal murder of 2 British backpackers in the Thai resort of Koh 
Tao was secretly supplied by Britain's elite crime-fighting agency.

The National Crime Agency secretly assisted the Royal Thai Police with a 
controversial murder investigation that put 2 Burmese migrants on death row 
despite government rules designed to stop British law enforcement contributing 
to capital punishment convictions overseas.

BuzzFeed News can reveal that mobile phone evidence handed over by officers 
from Britain's elite crime-fighting force played a central part in the 
prosecution of Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo, who were sentenced to death on Christmas 
Eve for the murders of British backpackers David Miller and Hannah Witheridge 
in Koh Tao.

The Foreign Office has previously expressed grave concerns about allegations 
that the two Burmese men were forced to confess under torture and a spokesman 
said after the verdict that it "opposes the use of the death penalty in all 
circumstances and we have made this position clear to the Thai government".

British police are prohibited from supplying evidence to foreign authorities 
who still use capital punishment without written assurances that suspects will 
not be sentenced to death - unless they have ministerial permission.

But sources close to the case and documents seen by BuzzFeed News have revealed 
that the National Crime Agency (NCA) passed on the information linking the 
Burmese suspects to the crime "verbally" without seeking any written assurances 
that it would not be used to sentence them to death, and the evidence became a 
crucial part of the prosecution. The 2 men, both 22, are appealing their death 
sentences and claim they were framed by the Thai police and coerced into 
confessing during severe beatings.

The revelation that the NCA helped the investigation without any human rights 
assurances will plunge the agency into further controversy weeks after BuzzFeed 
News revealed its systemic use of illegal search and seizure warrants in the UK 
and serious flaws in its system for detecting money laundering.

Both the Foreign Office and the Home Office refused to say whether ministers 
had given the NCA the green light to assist the Thai police without a death 
penalty assurance.

The murder of the 2 young British backpackers on the idyllic Koh Tao shoreline 
made international headlines in September 2014. Witheridge, 23, from Norfolk, 
had been raped before being beaten to death while Miller, 24, from Jersey, had 
been violently attacked and abandoned to drown in the shallow waters of the 
island's shores. The murder weapon, a bloodstained hoe, was found nearby.

The shambolic handling of the investigation by the Thai police quickly sparked 
widespread consternation. Officers initially questioned British brothers James 
and Christopher Ware, who had spent time with the 2 victims in Koh Tao, but the 
pair were released after being cleared by DNA testing. Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo 
were arrested soon after and forced to conduct a bizarre re-enactment of the 
killings on the beach in front of the world's media after the country's premier 
declared he was certain they were guilty. Claims soon emerged that the 2 men 
had been severely mistreated in custody.

David Cameron was so troubled by the Thai investigation that he intervened in a 
face-to-face meeting with the country's military ruler, General Prayuth 
Chan-ocha, and it was arranged that a team from the Metropolitan police would 
be sent in as observers.

The human rights risks in Koh Tao were deemed so high that the Met banned its 
officers from becoming actively involved in any aspect of the case because no 
death penalty assurance had been given.

However, the secret role that Britain's elite crime-fighters, the NCA, played 
separately in the Thai investigation can now be revealed.

BuzzFeed News has established that the agency received an urgent request from 
the Thai police for the serial number of Miller???s missing iPhone days after 
the young backpackers were found dead. The request put the NCA in a quandary. 
The government's "Death Penalty Assistance Policy" for British law enforcement 
agencies dealing with foreign investigations states clearly that "written 
assurances should be sought before agreeing to the provision of assistance that 
anyone found guilty would not face the death penalty".

Capital punishment is still used regularly in Thailand and human rights groups 
have repeatedly raised concerns that migrant workers in the country are 
persecuted by police. But officers at the NCA were concerned that other British 
holiday-makers were at risk with the killers still loose, and they feared that 
the quality of the crime-scene evidence would deteriorate quickly.

Government guidelines say that only in "exceptional circumstances where it is 
imperative that we act quickly to safeguard the integrity of evidence or 
protect British lives" can officers "deploy immediately without seeking 
assurances about the death penalty" - but only after consulting with ministers 
and the Home Office and Foreign Office.

The NCA deemed the situation time-critical and rapidly made the "exceptional" 
decision to retrieve the serial number for Miller's phone and pass it on to 
Thai police verbally. Because of concerns about the use of capital punishment, 
they did so on the basis that it was for intelligence purposes only and not to 
be used to prosecute the 2 suspects. However, no written assurance was secured 
that it would not be used in court.

The serial number immediately became a critical piece of evidence. It proved 
that a smashed iPhone found on a property linked to the 2 Burmese migrants had 
belonged to Miller - thus linking the victim to the suspects.

The Thai police then made an official request to use the information in court, 
which the NCA refused in the absence of a death penalty assurance. But it was 
too late. The Thai police knew the iPhone belonged to Miller and they went 
ahead and used the information to secure the conviction of the Burmese pair.

The judgment handed down at the Koh Samui Provincial Court sentencing both 
defendants to death on Christmas Eve 2015 shows that Miller's iPhone was a 
central plank of the prosecution case.

Translations of the trial documents show the court was told that Miller???s 
smashed phone had been found at a property belonging to a friend of the Burmese 
bar workers. Wai Phyo said he had found the phone near the murder scene and 
taken it to his friend's house, leaving it there to be charged as he did not 
know the password. When he learned of the murders, the friend had tried to 
destroy the phone but police later found the smashed handset in his backyard.

Andy Hall, a British human rights campaigner who worked on the defence in 
Thailand, said that there were questions over how the phone evidence was 
gathered. He said that "when the phone was discovered by the police behind the 
accused friend's house, suspiciously no photos were taken of the collection 
process" and that "the description of the phone found and the one presented in 
court could be interpreted as not matching".

But prosecutors told the court that the phone belonged to Miller and the 
location of the bodies meant it was impossible that the phone had been found 
where the defendants claimed. This helped, along with DNA evidence collected 
from cigarette butts, a condom, and the bodies of the victims, to convict the 
migrant workers beyond "reasonable doubt", according to the judgment.

Lawyers representing the pair said DNA samples from the alleged murder weapon - 
a garden hoe - did not match that of the two men, and Thailand's leading 
forensic scientist told the court that the evidence had been so badly 
mishandled that it was worthless.

The prosecution case had also rested heavily on sperm samples collected from 
the crime scene, but when the defence asked to have the DNA independently 
tested Thai police officers failed to hand it over.

The defendants' lawyers claimed that their initial confessions were a result of 
torture. They said the 2 Burmese workers were framed and severely mistreated in 
custody as part of the "systematic abuse" of migrants on Koh Tao. A 
re-enactment of the murders in which the defendants were paraded in front of 
the media was "staged under threat of violence", the lawyers said.

Wai Phyo told the court that Thai police officers had severely beaten him and 
taken photos of him naked. "They also kicked me in the back, punched me, and 
slapped me, threatened to chop off my arms and legs, and throw my body into the 
sea to feed the fish," he testified. "They also said they would take me into 
another room and electrocute me."

Human rights groups reacted furiously to the judgment, with Amnesty 
International calling for a retrial and an independent investigation into the 
torture allegations, while Human Rights Watch described the verdict as 
"profoundly disturbing" and Reprieve said it was "deeply alarming" that the 2 
men had been sentenced to death "as without a fair trial serious doubts over 
their guilt will remain".

But the families of the victims welcomed the verdicts and defended the handling 
of the case by the Thai police. Miller's family said in a statement outside the 
court that the police investigation "was not the so-called shambles it was made 
out to be" and "the evidence against Wai Phyo and Zaw Lin is absolutely 
overwhelming".

The NCA refused to comment on the Thai murder investigation. But it said in a 
statement that: "In fast-moving investigations, potentially involving threats 
to life, it is not uncommon for intelligence to be shared verbally, with a 
record of the information shared being retained by the NCA."

The statement continued: "The NCA monitors human rights concerns closely, 
having regard to the FCO's Overseas Security and Justice Assistance Guidance 
when sharing intelligence. We expect investigations and trials to be conducted 
in a fair and transparent way, in line with international standards.

"Neither the NCA nor the British Government can interfere in another state's 
criminal or judicial processes, just as other governments are unable to 
interfere in our own processes."

The Home Office, which oversees requests for assistance from foreign police 
forces, refused to comment on whether the NCA had asked for permission to hand 
over evidence about Miller's phone. The Foreign Office also declined to confirm 
whether it had been told about the specific evidence request, but said: 
"Ministers have been regularly updated on the Koh Tao murder cases since Hannah 
and David's deaths in September 2014, including on key liaison between UK law 
enforcement and the Thai authorities."

Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo are applying to Thailand's court of appeal to overturn 
their death sentences.

(source: BuzzFeedNews)

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

Most of those sentenced to death were spared


The shocking statistic that 306 British soldiers were executed for military 
offences in the Great War masks a much greater number of incidences of the 
imposition of the death penalty.

Only 10 % of those sentenced to death were ultimately put before a firing squad 
- formed, in most cases, by troops from the condemned man's own battalion.

Although the military system of justice was operating in the midst of the most 
savage war of attrition experienced by soldiers up to that time, the putting 
into effect of a sentence of death was subject to a considerable degree of 
scrutiny before a man would learn in the final 48 hours of his life that he was 
to be executed.

The military system of field general court martial was a simpler version of the 
stricter procedures that operated in peacetime at home.

The procedure in the field of battle allowed for a panel of 4 officers, one 
normally to be of the rank of major or above.

In the case of Henry Palmer, of Wallsend, uncovered recently by researchers at 
the Northumbria World War One Commemoration Project, the highest ranking 
officer was only a captain and 2 were second lieutenants, frequently men of 
only 19 years of age and barely months out of school.

The court martial process was held simply to determine if an offence had been 
made out to the satisfaction of the panel.

A man was sometimes allowed the assistance of a defending officer, someone who 
would have little in common with the accused and was thrust into the role with 
no legal experience.

In many cases, the accused would be unrepresented and left to make whatever 
cross-examination he was allowed as the case proceeded.

In the event that the panel found the case proved, the death sentence was 
automatic for a wide range of offences and took any discretion away from the 
panel that had actually had the man standing before it.

There was no appeal against the sentence, and the papers in the case would then 
begin a relentless progression up the chain of command as the man's battalion, 
brigade, divisional and corps superiors added written comments or a simple 
agreement to the carrying out of the sentence.

It would often be the case that the degree of discipline in the man's unit 
would feature as a mitigating or militating factor in the final decision of the 
commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Douglas Haig.

In the case of Palmer, the battalion had acted successfully in pressing an 
attack when Palmer had dropped out of the action.

Nonetheless, his sentence was confirmed, even though the panel had recommended 
mercy on the grounds of his low intellect.

In the case of William Hunter, of North Shields, the subject of the Peter 
Mortimer play, Death at Dawn, soon to be staged again at Wallsend Memorial Hall 
and in Newcastle, the officers in his battalion and superior units all found 
him to be of little quality as a fighting man and that discipline in his 
battalion had been poor of late, so Hunter was executed perhaps as a warning to 
others in his battalion rather than as a punishment for him.

More about his case can be found in the 1983 book For the Sake of Example, by 
Anthony Babington, published by Secker and Warburg.

Tickets are now available for the new performances of Death at Dawn. The play 
will be staged at the Frank Street hall from Friday, February 19, to Tuesday, 
February 23, and at the Discovery Museum, in Blandford Square, Newcastle, from 
Friday, February 26, to Wednesday, March 2, at 7.30pm nightly, but with no 
Sunday performances.

(source: newsguardian.co.uk)






INDIA:

Madani demands death penalty for those who hurt religious


Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind General Secretary Maulana Mehmood Madani has sought death 
penalty for those who hurt a person's religious values or disrespect a 
religious leader.

"Death penalty or life sentences should be given to those who hurt a person's 
religious values or disrespect a religious leader," he said.

Madani made the remarks while addressing the 'Huloos-e- Insaaf' conference 
convened by his outfit at the Faiz-e-Aam college here yesterday.

"We are Indians by choice and not by chance. It was love for the country that 
made us stay back in India even after the partition," he said.

He demanded that the UP government should fulfill the promise of 18 per cent 
reservation to Muslims made during the 2012 assembly polls.

Madani said that the minority status of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and 
Jamia Milia Islamia be kept intact and innocent Muslims lodged in prisons 
should be released.

Hindu and Christian leaders who were present at the event asked the people to 
rise above caste and religion to live in harmony.

"Fire cannot be put out by fire, water is needed to do so. People of all 
religions should live with harmony and save the country from those who are 
taking it towards destruction," Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind's President Maulana Sayeed 
Arshad Madan said.

"Neither the killing of Akhlaq signifies Hinduism nor the ones shedding the 
blood of innocent people with an Ak-47 can be called Muslims," Acharya Pramod 
Kirshnam said.

"Raise the voice against those who indulge in injustice," Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind 
leader Maulana Usman said.

Father Manish Johnson said, "We all should live with harmony and end all the 
hate."

The leaders also took a pledge to rise above caste and religion and work for 
humanity.

(source: Press Trust of India)






BOTSWANA:

Death row convict buys time ---- Lobatse man, Patrick Gabaakanye currently on 
death row is seeking an independent assessment on his mental status as a last 
attempt to avoid the hangman's noose


Through a letter dated February 5, 2016 addressed to the Attorney General (AG), 
Athalia Molokomme, Gabaakanye has requested the AG to conduct or facilitate an 
independent assessment on his mental health and intellectual functioning. He 
contends that the assessment should be done in order to determine whether he 
suffers from a mental illness, intellectual or psychosocial disability as a 
matter of urgency.

The notorious 59-year-old Gabaakanye commonly known as 'RraSelepe' having had 
his sentence of death upheld by the Court of Appeal (CoA) mid last year, is 
also currently awaiting the resolution by the High Court and CoA of outstanding 
issues relating to his clemency petition.

His lawyer, Martin Dingake, has argued that Gabaakanye has never had a mental 
health assessment and as such, it cannot be ruled out that he suffers from such 
a degree of mental illness and or intellectual or psychosocial disability as 
will preclude his execution under applicable norms of international law, as 
well as under domestic law.

"My client has never been afforded a competent psychiatric assessment. The 
sentencing judge was not able to take any mental health condition or 
intellectual/psycho-social disability into consideration when reaching a 
decision on sentence.

He said if Gabaakanye was to be executed without consideration of any mental 
health condition or intellectual/psycho-social disability, his execution will 
be rendered arbitrary and will violate the right to life under Article 4 of the 
African Charter by the African Commission," he said.

Dingake contends that international customary law prohibits the execution of 
those suffering from a mental disorder which includes not only individuals who 
suffered from such a disorder at the time of the offence but also of those who 
have become mentally ill after their death sentence is imposed. He explained 
that the term 'mental disorder' covered both psychosocial disabilities and 
mental illness many of which may not be immediately obvious.

He said such included among others functional psychosis, schizophrenia, 
personality disorder, depression, epilepsy, and disorders arising from alcohol 
and drug dependence, noting that as such the African Commission has recognised 
the need to prohibit the execution of persons with psycho-social and 
intellectual disabilities.

According to the letter, the 3rd of the UN Safeguards also provides that the 
death penalty shall not be carried on "persons who have become insane.

In subsequent resolutions urging full compliance with the UN Safeguards, the 
United Nations Human Rights Commission repeatedly called upon states not to 
impose the death penalty on a person suffering from any form of mental disorder 
or to execute any such person."

Dingake maintained that with all the provisions his client was entitled to such 
an assessment at sentencing in order that his personal and individual 
circumstances could be properly considered when determining sentence.

He also pointed out that Gabaakanye needed the assessment report, as it has to 
be placed before the Advisory Committee on Clemency for consideration when they 
do finally meet.

(source: mmegi.bw)






UNITED ARAB EMIRATES:

Court sentences 4 Emiratis to death for joining IS


A top court in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday sentenced four Emiratis to 
death after convicting them of joining the Islamic State jihadist group in 
Syria, local media reported.

The 4, who were tried in absentia, are part of a group of 11 defendants accused 
of "joining the terrorist Daesh group in an Arab country", the official WAM 
news agency said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Local newspapers said that the group had travelled to Syria.

They were also charged with "promoting" IS online, helping to finance the group 
and insulting UAE leaders, WAM said.

3 other Emiratis, a Bahraini, a Mauritanian and a Syrian were handed jail 
sentences of between three and 10 years, the local Gulf News daily reported. 
Another Emirati was acquitted.

Abu Dhabi's Federal Supreme Court does not allow international media access to 
such trials.

The UAE is a member of the US-led coalition that has been bombing IS jihadists 
in Iraq and Syria since September 2014.

UAE authorities have enacted tougher anti-terror legislation, including harsher 
jail terms and even introducing the death penalty for crimes linked to 
religious hatred and extremist groups.

In July, the UAE executed an Emirati woman for the jihadist-inspired 2014 
murder of an American school teacher in an Abu Dhabi shopping mall.

Her husband is accused of seeking to carry out attacks on targets including Abu 
Dhabi's Formula 1 circuit and has reportedly claimed to be the local leader of 
IS. He is currently on trial.

In another case, the same court jailed three Arabs for 10 years each after 
convicting them of ties to the Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen, WAM said on 
Sunday.

It acquitted 3 others for lack of evidence against them, it added.

The UAE is also playing a key role in a Saudi-led coalition that has been 
battling the Huthis and their allies in Yemen since March last year.

(source: Agence France-Presse)

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

Businessmen held in UAE were tortured into confessions, says UN report ---- 
Labour says UK should review relationship with United Arab Emirates in light of 
finding in case of four men who could face death penalty


4 businessmen who were arrested in the United Arab Emirates have been tortured 
into making confessions and could face the death penalty, according to a United 
Nations report and a legal opinion obtained by their British lawyer.

The plight of the 4 men, who variously hold Libyan, American and Canadian 
citizenship, has been taken up by Labour's justice spokesman, Andy Slaughter, 
who is concerned about UK links to the Gulf state and previous complaints by 
Britons about being tortured in Dubai.

The legal opinion by Geoffrey Robertson QC, a former UN judge, says the 4 
businessmen - Salim Alaradi, who has Libyan and Canadian nationalities, Kamal 
and Mohamed Eldarrat, who have Libyan and US nationalities, and Issa al-Manna, 
a Libyan - have been wrongly accused of funding a terrorist organisation. They 
are due to go on trial in the secretive state security chamber court in Abu 
Dhabi on Monday.

Alaradi was holidaying with his family at a beach hotel in Dubai when he was 
arrested last summer by the State Security Agency (SSA), according to 
Robertson's report. He was not permitted to notify his family or any lawyer of 
his arrest.

"[Alaradi] was in secret detention - at an air force base, it is believed - 
[where] he claims he was tortured, a claim corroborated by serious bruising 
observed on his body, by similar claims by several of the men who were detained 
at the same time and have now been released, and by evidence of torture and 
ill-treatment in the UAE gathered by Amnesty International and Human Rights 
Watch," the report states.

Alaradi said he was subjected to sleep deprivation, chained in a stress 
position, hung upside down and beaten on the soles of his feet. "He was made to 
carry heavy weights while being beaten, subjected to waterboarding techniques 
and blasted for lengthy periods by ice-cold air," Robertson said. "His brother 
was in an adjacent cell, and heard him screaming."

The organisations that they are alleged to have funded, the February 17 Brigade 
and Libya Dawn, are paramilitary forces that have been allied to the west and 
are not on the Libyan government's list of banned groups, according to 
Robertson.

The UN working group on arbitrary detention (UNWGAD) will publish a report on 
the four men on Monday calling for their immediate release from custody. It 
says: "All of them were deprived of the right to challenge their arrest and 
detention before the judicial authorities and subjected to enforced 
disappearance, secret and incommunicado detention. [We] received reliable 
information on the acts of torture [inflicted on] the 4 victims..."

The report documents claims that the men were subjected to electric shocks, 
whipped, had guns held to their heads, were drugged and "hung with a rope 
around the neck". Some said they had been placed in a freezer for up to 45 
minutes.

In its response to the UN panel, the UAE said: "[The 4 men] are completely free 
to choose, appoint and meet with a lawyer according to the rules of procedures 
governing correctional institutions."

The UN working group is the same body that produced a critical report this 
month declaring that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is resisting 
extradition to Sweden for questioning about an alleged rape, was being held 
under arbitrary detention in the UK.

Prof Mads Andenaes, a former chair of the working group, told the Guardian: 
"Some states try to block rulings against the UAE, based on the usual 'your 
friend's friend is your friend, and your friend's enemy is your enemy' ... The 
UAE has had much more moderate responses to previous UNWGAD rulings against 
them than the UK. I hope that this not now going to change after the 
inappropriate UK responses in the Assange case."

Labour's Slaughter said: "The UK has a special relationship with the UAE which 
should be reviewed in the light of the UN working group report. This case rings 
a warning bell to the UK government, which is sending international development 
funds to UAE to support the development of legitimate institutions, and selling 
them large quantities of arms."

British human rights groups such as Reprieve have documented similar complaints 
from UK citizens held in the UAE, who have said they were tortured into making 
confessions.

Sue Willman, a partner at the law firm Deighton Pierce Glynn and a member of 
the UK Law Society's human rights committee, said: "British citizens have also 
reported torture in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, where other Brits enjoy relaxing 
holidays. In the past year, I have been contacted by a growing number of 
ex-detainees and their families all complaining of torture and arbitrary 
detention there.

"As my client faces the death penalty in a kangaroo court, it is time for the 
UK government to make it clear to its partners in the Gulf that it can no 
longer tolerate such flagrant breaches of basic human rights".

(source: The Guardian)