[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 17




SOMALILAND----executions

State carries out Executions for the 2nd time in a month


Somaliland government has for the 2nd time in a month carried out executions 
among them Ms. Muna Mohamed, 37yrs and her son and her son Mohamed Ahmed Abdi, 
22yrs jointly convicted for the cold and brutal murder of the late Ruqiya Said 
Ayaanle.

The family of the late Ruqiya Said Ayaanle was present at the spot to witness 
the executions of Ms. Muna Mohamed and her son took place in Mandhera district 
in Sahil region as confirmed by Mr. Abdirizaq Ayaanle Said the secretary 
general of Somaliland House of Representatives and brother of the deceased 
woman.

The late Ms. Ruqiya Said Ayaale was killed after she went to the claim 
repayment debt she had lent to her assailants who murdered her after the 
quarrel went sower, her remains were later found buried in a pit inside the 
compound of the residence of. Ms. Muna Mohamed situated in the new hargeisa 
suburb.The murder of the late Ruqiya Said Ayaanle shocked the nation.

On the other hand , a former solider convicted for the murder of a senior 
officer was also executed today.

4 convicts were executed on the 11th of January after Somaliland authorities 
renewed use of the death penalty.

(source: Somaliland Press)






VIETNAM:

Death penalty ends in some cases


How do you respond to a change to the 2015 Penal Code that says the death 
penalty will not apply for officials who pay back at least 75 per cent of 
illicitly obtained profits?

This is regulated in Point C, Clause 3 in Article 40 of the 2015 Penal Code. 
Some people think this is too lenient, but in my opinion, it is not.

The most severe penalty for the crimes of embezzlement and bribery was capital 
punishment under the previous Penal Code. During discussions regarding 
revisions to this law, legislators agreed to keep capital punishment as 
deterrent for the two crimes, but reduce it to life imprisonment if the 
criminal is able to pay back at least 75 per cent of the profits they illicitly 
obtained.

Can current prisoners be given amnesty if they repent and adhere to the new 
law?

These cases will be treated carefully. The criteria for considering whether 
they should be granted amnesty would be much stricter and tougher than for 
other prisoners serving life sentences. For example, lifers could have their 
sentence reduced to 20 years for good behaviour.

If a death sentence is reduced to life imprisonment, they must serve at least 
30 years.

As I have mentioned above, officials convicted of corruption could be spared if 
they pay back at least 75 % of the profits they illicitly obtained. In 
addition, there are other requirements that these prisoners would have to meet, 
including helping authorities to conduct investigations into other corruption 
cases.

If an official stole VND100 billion (US$4.45 million) and received the death 
sentence, they could pay back 75 % and have their sentence reduced. What would 
happen to the other VND25 billon ($1.11 million)?

Under the 2015 Penal Code, any public official who illegally obtains VND1 
billion upwards could receive capital punishment. Point C, Clause 3 of Article 
40 of the 2015 Penal Code applies to all prisoners who receive death sentences 
relating to corruption, regard less of the amount of money. However, during 
their prison terms, they may enjoy clemency for good behaviour.

(source: vietnamnet.vn)






PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY:

Aide to Palestinian negotiator arrested over 'spying for Israel'


Palestinian intelligence officers have arrested an employee of top negotiator 
and PLO secretary-general Saeb Erekat on accusations of "spying for Israel", a 
security source said on Sunday.

The high-ranking official said on condition of anonymity that the man employed 
in the negotiations department of the Palestine Liberation Organisation was 
arrested around two weeks ago.

According to the official, the man, whose identity was not revealed, was an 
"administrative employee without access to political files."

He was arrested "for spying on behalf of Israel," he said.

The suspect is said to have confessed after being arrested in the occupied West 
Bank town of Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority is based.

He had been under surveillance for a long period of time, according to the 
source.

Palestinian security forces were in the process of evaluating any potential 
damage caused by the suspect's activities.

Erekat, a close ally of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, has been the top 
negotiator in peace efforts with Israel. Talks have been at a standstill for 
nearly 2 years.

Under Palestinian law, those accused of spying for Israel risk the death 
penalty.

(source: Yahoo.com)






IRAQ:

Iraq: Executing Terrorists-----Has Iraq's extensive use of the death penalty 
done anything to deter terrorism?


Iraq carried out the 4th-most executions (behind China, Iran and Saudi Arabia) 
in 2014.

In 2003, the United States temporarily suspended Iraq's use of executions.

The vast majority of executions in Iraq have been carried out for 
terrorism-related offences.

1. Iraq carried out the fourth-most executions (behind China, Iran and Saudi 
Arabia) in 2014, with at least 61 executions, according to Amnesty 
International. Escalation of armed conflict in some parts of the country during 
the year - including the rise of ISIS - makes the actual number difficult to 
confirm.

2. Shortly after invading Iraq in 2003, the United States temporarily suspended 
Iraq's use of executions.

3. The deposed Ba'ath Party had used the punishment as a means of religious and 
political oppression. Existing death row inmates had to be sorted out.

Death Penalty: A "Just The Facts" Series

4. Iraq's death penalty was reinstated a year later and was used, most notably, 
in the December 2006 hanging of Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity.

5. Over the past decade, the vast majority of executions in Iraq have been 
carried out for terrorism-related offences.

6. A 2005 Iraqi law made death the mandatory sentence for conviction for acts 
of terrorism or even support for terrorism. Many less serious offenses also 
carry the death penalty, contrary to global standards.

7. The 61 confirmed Iraqi executions in 2014, however, are a dramatic reduction 
from the 169 in 2013.

8. The frequent number of large-scale prison breaks in Iraq, particularly by 
terrorist groups freeing their fighters, may be a factor in the reliance on the 
death penalty to give more finality to the capture of major threats.

9. Iraqi officials, however, tend to claim more simply that frequent executions 
are legitimately grounded in local tradition.

(sources: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and The Globalist Research 
Center)


JAPAN:

Travesty of justice: legal reform unlikely despite erroneous convictions


2 elderly men fighting for decades to clear their names are poised to receive 
high-profile retrials in 2016 and yet their ordeals are unlikely to trigger 
wide-ranging reform to the country's justice system, experts say.

Even after being sent to prison for murder, Iwao Hakamada at first trained like 
the prizefighter he was. Fellow death-row inmate Kazuo Ishikawa used to watch 
him shadowbox and punch the walls of his cell till his knuckles turned bloody.

The pain seemed to mean little to him, Ishikawa recalls. "He was very strong."

Today, Hakamada, now a stooped, fleshy 79-year-old, strolls daily through the 
streets of his native Shizuoka Prefecture communing with ghosts. After 48 years 
in jail, the large majority of it in solitary confinement waiting for his 
execution, he is temporarily free but appears to have retreated deep inside his 
own head. He answers questions about his ordeal in the third person, if at all.

"The guy called Hakamada could not have committed a crime because he wasn't in 
Japan," he says during an interview at an apartment he shares with his sister. 
"He was born in Buckingham Palace, in Hawaii."

On his daily walks, he explains, he hears the souls of the dead from the 
surrounding buildings, pleading for help.

Hakamada was arrested in August 1966 on suspicion of murdering a family of 4. 
After years of appeals, Shizuoka District Court said in 2014 that police 
evidence against him was probably fabricated and revoked his death sentence. 
The prosecution disagrees and, as a result, Hakamada awaits retrial and the 
possibility that the police will return him to a 5-square-meter cell.

Flanked by his sister, Hideko, Hamakada still believes he is 22. He gives no 
clue that he entered the history books in 2011 as the world's longest-serving 
death-row prisoner.

"He has built a high wall around his heart to stay strong," says Nobuhiro 
Terazawa, a friend of the Hamakadas. "That's how he survived."

Where Hakamada is withdrawn and inarticulate, Ishikawa is angry and outspoken, 
demanding the state overturn his conviction for murdering a Saitama schoolgirl 
in 1963. His death sentence was later commuted to life. Since Ishikawa's parole 
2 decades ago, he has relentlessly fought for a retrial. Justice, he believes, 
is finally near.

"I am not supposed to utter a word about my innocence but the police are 
withholding a mountain of evidence," he says, following a protest with his wife 
and supporters - his 120th - outside Tokyo District Court. "Once they disclose 
it, I will be proven innocent, no question."

Ishikawa reels off a handful of other cases where death-row inmates have had 
their convictions overturned: Sakae Menda, Masao Akabori, Yukio Saito and now 
Hakamada. The only reason these 4 lived and others didn't, he says, is because 
they fought until the state caved in.

"The police disclosed the evidence (they were concealing). They were all 
granted retrials," he says. "A prison guard once told me that I would be 
executed in a couple of years even if I were innocent. 'There is only 1 way you 
can be saved,' he told me. 'You need to study so that you can appeal your 
innocence to the people of Japan in a letter. There is no other way you can 
survive.' He (then) taught me how to read and write."

Hakamada and Ishikawa represent the country's highest-profile modern legal 
miscarriages. Hakamada's release made global headlines and briefly shook public 
confidence in the nation's justice system. Sometime in 2016, their cases are 
finally expected to get another legal airing. Reformers, however, are 
pessimistic that the system will change.

Judicial officials are fighting to protect the status quo, says Yoshihiro 
Yasuda, arguably the country's most famous death-penalty opponent.

"The prosecution and judges have not accepted they did anything wrong (in the 
Hakamada case)," he says. "They should be shocked that such a thing could 
happen and try to do better. Instead, they always try to prove that they were 
right."

Hakamada's freedom was soon followed by the release of Keiko Aoki, who had 
spent 20 years in prison for lighting a fire that killed her 11-year-old 
daughter in September 1995. Many now believe leaking gasoline in the family 
garage started the blaze.

The murky legal process that put all 3 in prison, largely on the basis of 
confessions extracted through intimidation and torture, has been under scrutiny 
for decades. Ishikawa endured 30 days of interrogation and signed a confession 
under psychological duress, although he was illiterate at the time.

Hakamada was interrogated for 20 days with no lawyer present, says Amnesty 
International. He later retracted his confession, claiming the police had 
beaten and threatened him. Still, Shizuoka District Court sentenced him to 
death in September 1968.

Aoki lasted a single day in a police station, where she had gone voluntarily, 
before putting her name to a statement admitting arson and murder. Detectives 
played on her grief by repeatedly screaming that she was responsible for the 
death of her child. She retracted the confession the next day.

Even critics of the country's justice system accept that it gets a lot right. 
Rates of recidivism are comparatively low and the emphasis is on 
rehabilitation. A lot of effort is made to keep young offenders out of the 
prison system.

Citizens are incarcerated at a far lower rate than in most developed countries: 
55 per 100,000 people compared with 149 in Britain and 716 the United States.

Nevertheless, the entire system would collapse without confessions, David 
Johnson, a judicial expert on Japan at the University of Hawaii recently told 
The Economist. Confessions underpinned 89 % of domestic criminal cases in 2014.

With up to 23 days to interrogate a suspect, police have the legal means to 
extract confessions. Suspects are almost always convicted once indicted. And, 
like anywhere, bias can affect police procedure: Aoki's partner, who was 
convicted of the same crime, was ethnically Korean; Ishikawa came from the 
"burakumin" underclass; and Hakamada was poor and, to the eyes of the police, 
his supporters say, thuggish.

"I think there are many, many more wrongful convictions in Japan," says Kana 
Sasakura, an associate professor of law at Konan University.

Sasakura leads a movement in Japan, modeled on the U.S. Innocence Project, to 
right miscarriages of justice. Although nobody knows how many innocent people 
are in Japanese prisons, some experts believe 1,500 convictions a year may be 
flawed. More than 1/2 of the 131 people on the country's death row are 
challenging their convictions.

The postwar Allied Occupation modernized the country's courts by introducing 
legal protections for the criminally accused - most notably, the right to 
silence and the presumption of innocence. The reforms attempted to steer courts 
away from reliance on confessions and stop prosecutors appealing verdicts of 
not guilty.

As with so many of the Allied reforms, some were tolerated and took root, 
others tossed out or ignored. In practice, silence is deemed to be indicative 
of guilt and confessions are still treated "almost like a religion," Sasakura 
says. "The police believe that expression of remorse is a key part of the 
system."

If, as expected, Hakamada and Ishikawa are exonerated, the legal authorities 
will likely argue that the system has changed in the half century since their 
convictions. Physical abuse is rarer and lawyers more likely to be present.

The Justice Ministry says bills to revise criminal procedure are making their 
way through the Diet. "These include mandatory monitoring (voice recording and 
videotaping) of interrogations," says a ministry spokesman, who declined to be 
named in accordance with departmental policy.

Yasuda, however, is skeptical that much will change. The proposal to record 
interrogations may actually make things worse by forcing these abuses off 
camera, he says.

Police will still be in almost complete control. And in any case, the proposal 
- agreed after a string of miscarriages and years of discussion - will affect 
less than 3 % of all interviews conducted by the police.

Suspects still have very little protection from the police, says Fumito 
Morikawa, a defense lawyer who represented people arrested outside the Diet 
during summer protests against security legislation in 2015. Morikawa says 
abuses of suspects in the form of verbal insults, sleep deprivation and 
threatening behavior are "too numerous to mention."

"The key violence," he says, "lies in the length of detention."

Morikawa says miscarriages will continue until the extended use of detention 
cells in police holding areas is scrapped. The system, known as daiyo kangoku 
(substitute prison), is key to extracting statements from suspects because it 
gives police so much control over the interview process. He says he recently 
won just his 4th court victory in a legal career spanning 25 years.

"The fact is," he says, "my client would have lost had he confessed."

Critics campaigning for reform put their hopes in the country's lay judge 
system, which injected some civilian input into the cloistered professional 
world of prosecutors, lawyers and judges. Since 2009, more than 50,000 people 
have served in trials for serious crimes. Yet, the system has done nothing to 
lower the conviction rate or reliance on confessions. If anything, lay judges 
appear to hand down harsher sentences in serious crimes. In October 2013, for 
example, the Tokyo High Court overturned a death penalty handed down by a lay 
judge panel, calling the sentence an "error." It was the 2nd time a high court 
abrogated a death sentence rendered by a lay judge panel that year.

A possible reason why the introduction of lay judges has not changed the system 
is that decisions cannot be reached without the agreement of professional 
judges. "My view of the lay judge system is it exists to allow judges to 
continue generating similar results with less criticism of them," says Colin 
P.A. Jones, a professor at Doshisha Law School in Kyoto.

Public prosecutors drive the entire system and their careers sometimes take 
precedence over justice. Nearly 1/3 of prosecutors believe that a verdict of 
not guilty hurts their promotion prospects, according to an official survey in 
2010 - 1 reason why many weaker cases are dropped. 1/4 of respondents said they 
had been instructed to write confession statements bearing no relation to what 
suspects actually said.

Misconduct often goes unchecked; prosecutors can block inquiries. They put 
pressure on the police to extract confessions. And, despite occasional 
high-profile releases from prison such as Hakamada, the media and the public 
largely back them because they appear to produce low rates of crime and 
recidivism. As a result, prosecutors are left secure in their self-appointed 
role of maintaining social order.

Reforming this system is a mammoth task, Yasuda says. At a minimum, he says, 
prosecutors should be forced to disclose all evidence to the defense - evidence 
that would help exonerate suspects such as Hakamada and Ishikawa. The length of 
detention should also be brought into line with international norms and Japan 
should introduce a third-party body to oversee miscarriages and free the 
unjustly convicted, he says.

The political motivation to push these reforms, however, has weakened. For one 
thing, Supreme Court justices are appointed by the Cabinet. For another, 
Sasakura says, the government is currently focused on the economy and larger 
political issues. "The justice system is the least of their priorities," 
Sasakura says.

In any case, reform has come too late for Ishikawa. "If I hadn't signed a 
statement, I'd never have been convicted of a crime," he says. "I was 24 at the 
time; I'm 76 now. I would have never said I'd done it even if I went through 
harsh interrogation because I didn't do it. However, I confessed to a crime I 
never committed. For that, I must apologize to the people of Japan. For that, I 
still blame myself to this day."

Death-row inmates in daily wait for execution notice

Kazuo Ishikawa was sentenced to death for the kidnap, rape and murder of 
16-year-old Yoshie Nakata, whose body was found on a farm in Saitama Prefecture 
in May 1963. The crime shocked Japan and put enormous pressure on police and 
prosecutors.

Ishikawa confessed to the crime on June 20, 1963. He says the police told him 
if he signed a statement they wrote he would get a maximum of 10 years in 
prison and save his family from disgrace. Instead, he was sentenced to death 
and his family members were harassed out of school and work. Each morning in 
prison, he would wait for the executioner.

"In Japan, if you are not executed between 8 a.m. and noon, you are safe till 
the next day," Ishikawa says. "The inmates wait, seated with their legs folded 
and facing the wall. Every morning, I also waited as I sat properly with my 
legs folded."

He befriended other inmates, including Iwao Hakamada. "The rules are stricter 
today, but then, if you survived the morning, you were allowed to visit others 
in their cells freely," he says. "Now they can't even meet family members 4 
times removed. I hear their cells are also locked."

That change in policy was designed to avoid disturbing the prisoners' "peace of 
mind," Justice Ministry officials say.

In fact, says Yoshihiro Yasuda, officials were worried inmates might attempt to 
cheat the executioner.

"There are no handles or bars (in their cells), nothing to allow them to hang 
themselves," he says.

Hakamada was monitored day and night in a 5-square-meter cell not knowing which 
day might be his last. Friends say he gradually become uncommunicative, at one 
point refusing all visits from his closest relatives, including his sister, for 
well over a decade.

Japan is 1 of 22 nations and the only developed country apart from the U.S. 
that retains capital punishment. It is one of the oddities of the system that a 
stricken conscience can bring it grinding to a halt.

Several justice ministers have refused to sign execution orders; Seiken 
Sugiura, a devout Buddhist, oversaw a 15-month gallows strike in 2005-06.

In 2009, Keiko Chiba, a lifelong opponent of capital punishment, became justice 
minister. She was expected to begin a new moratorium. Instead, she sat ashen 
faced through the hangings of Kazuo Shinozawa and Hidenori Ogata after being 
"persuaded to do her duty" by Justice Ministry bureaucrats, it was later 
reported. Chiba has never commented publicly about her about-face.

Moratoriums are always temporary. Despite falling crime rates, death sentences 
are increasingly common: the number of inmates on death row has nearly tripled 
over the past 2 decades. The government's coalition partner, the 
Buddhist-backed Komeito, reportedly opposes the death penalty but does little 
to stop it.

According to a rare book by Toshio Sakamoto, a former executioner, prison 
guards are rotated every 3 years to prevent them developing empathy with their 
charges. Like the prisoners, guards are also told on the day of an order when 
an execution is to be carried out. 3 guards wait with hands on buttons to 
release the bound and hooded prisoner, unaware of which one has been rigged to 
open the trapdoor beneath his or her feet.

Prisoners sometimes defecate themselves in death. Faces can be contorted or 
disfigured. Many bodies are not collected and are buried in the prison 
graveyard or donated to hospitals for medical research.

The mental wear and tear on prison employees is one reason why some officials 
reportedly want to replace hanging with lethal injection, a claim denied by the 
Justice Ministry.

"There is no concrete discussion on changing the method of execution," a 
Justice Ministry spokesman says.

However, Yasuda says switching methods would invite unwanted scrutiny of the 
details of execution.

The Justice Ministry bureaucrats who zealously protect the system, Yasuda says, 
"are absolutely opposed to starting a debate on the death penalty."

(source: Japan Times)