[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 31




PAKISTAN:

It's been 2 years since an Edinburgh businessman was sentenced to death in 
Pakistan ---- The family of Mohammad Asghar, who is mentally ill and becoming 
more frail in bad prison conditions, want him brought back to Scotland.


The family of a pensioner condemned to hang in Pakistan have told how they fear 
he's become a forgotten prisoner 2 years after being sent to death row.

Languishing in a secure Pakistan hospital, sentenced to death for blasphemy, 
Edinburgh businessman Mohammad Asghar can no longer read the newspapers that 
used to keep him occupied.

Cataracts have robbed the 71-year-old of his vision, removing one of the last 
remaining links to the outside world from which he was removed 6 years ago.

Mentally ill, frail and alone, the grandfather is confined to one windowless 
room except for the half an hour each day when he's allowed to walk in the 
corridor outside.

He has suffered with vitamin D deficiency through lack of exposure to sunlight 
and muscles in his legs have wasted through lack of exercise.

At home in Scotland, his heartbroken daughter Jasmine Rana is renewing her call 
to the governments of Britain and Pakistan to finally allow her father to come 
home.

The mum-of-4 said: "I honestly thought that the Government would take action 
and get him back.

"David Cameron said he would intervene. The Foreign Office send me emails on 
how he is, with messages from him. He always tells us not to worry, just to get 
on with our lives. But that???s him trying to protect us.

"We are still no further forward in getting dad back where he belongs.

"I'm terrified for him. I can't sleep, I wake up crying. My children forget 
what he looks like. 2 of his brothers have died since he's been in jail. 
Someone has to help him now."

Mohammad, who ran several grocery shops in Edinburgh, was diagnosed with 
paranoid schizophrenia.

The father-of-5 had suffered seizures and depression since having a stroke.

In 2010, he left Edinburgh for Pakistan - where he owned property - shortly 
after being discharged from hospital, where he had been sectioned under the 
Mental Health Act. Within weeks, he had been arrested in Punjab, accused of 
writing letters in which he claimed to be the prophet.

In January 2014, he was sentenced to hang, despite his legal team insisting he 
was too sick even to stand trial.

Blasphemy is such a highly charged crime in Pakistan that he is constantly at 
risk of vigilante attacks. He was only moved to hospital from jail after being 
shot in the back by a prison guard who was supposed to be protecting him.

Human rights group Reprieve lobbied the British government for Mohammad's 
release and a 70,000- signature petition was delivered to Downing Street in 
October 2014.

In 2014, Jasmine took a petition to Downing Street.

But despite assurances of top-level intervention, he has remained locked up far 
from home.

Jasmine said: "Now he's on his own, apart from the guards and the doctors who 
are allowed in to treat him.

"We had to argue for him to get a radio and, even then, he's only allowed 
certain stations.

"I send pictures of my children so he can see how they're growing. But I can't 
explain how terrible it feels. Whenever I'm ill, I find myself thinking it's 
nothing to how bad things must be for him."

In December 2014, Pakistan lifted a 7-year moratorium on the death penalty. 
Amnesty International say 300 people have been executed since then.

Jasmine added: "Every time I hear someone has been executed, I can't bear it. I 
would love to go out and see him but I'm told it's not safe for me.

"I would plead with anyone who will listen - please let him come home."

The family's lawyer, Aamer Anwar, said they had been told not to speak about 
the ordeal for fear of jeopardising their father's case.

But they've become deeply frustrated by the government's failure to act.

He said: "The Prime Minister said he was taking this case seriously but, 2 
years on, the Asghars are no longer willing to wait for the call telling them 
their father is dead because of illness, a hangman's noose or a fanatic's 
bullet."

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office insist Mohammad's case remains a high 
priority.

They said: "We continue to raise it at senior levels in Pakistan to ensure he 
is receiving the best possible support."

(source: dailyrecord.co.uk)






INDONESIA----female may face death penalty

Jessica Charged With Premeditated Murder, Could Face Death


Police in Jakarta have charged Jessica Kumala Wongso, a suspect in the 
high-profile murder of her friend, Wayan Mirna Salihin, with premeditated 
murder, which means she could face the death penalty, an official said on 
Saturday.

The 27-year-old was named a suspect at 11 p.m. on Friday, and investigators 
subsequently arrested her at 7.30 a.m. the next day at Hotel Neo, Mangga Dua 
Square, Central Jakarta.

"She has been charged with Article 340 of the Criminal Code on premeditated 
murder," said Sr. Comr. Krishna Murti, general crimes director of the Jakarta 
Police.

The article carries a minimum jail sentence of 20 years and a maximum penalty 
of life in prison or death.

"[As this is a case] with a sentence [prospect] of more than 5 years, we could 
detain her," Krishna said. "We have 24 hours to question her before deciding 
[whether to extend] the detention."

Jessica was brought in to the Jakarta Police headquarters at 10. p.m. for 
questioning, but as of 4 p.m., investigators were still waiting for the arrival 
of her legal defense team.

"If her lawyers don't show up, the state will provide her with legal 
assistance," Krishna said.

Contacted separately, one of Jessica's lawyers, Andi Yoesoef, said that his 
team would accompany her, but he also called Saturday's arrest deplorable, 
claiming his team was not informed of it beforehand.

"It is the right of police, but at the very least, they should have provided 
prior notice," he said.

"Yudi will attend today's questioning," Andi said, referring to another lawyer 
for Jessica, Yudi Wibowo Sukinto.

Jessica has been at the center of police investigations into Mirna's case in 
recent weeks.

Mirna, also 27, suffered convulsions on Jan. 6 at Olivier cafe in Grand 
Indonesia shopping mall shortly after taking a sip of her Vietnamese iced 
coffee. She was then taken to a nearby hospital, where she died.

Lab tests confirmed there were traces of highly toxic cyanide inside her 
stomach, as well as in the drink she consumed.

Police said the drink was ordered by Jessica, who arrived at the cafe almost an 
hour earlier.

Investigators have questioned Jessica as a witness at least five times and 
searched her home, while at the request of police, the immigration office had 
also imposed a travel ban.

(source: Jakarta Globe)






IRAQ----executions

ISIS Executes 18 Civilians in Mosul, Iraq


The ISIS has recently executed a number of civilians across its territories in 
Northern Iraq, including a young Kurdish man in Mosul for allegedly cooperating 
with Kurdish Peshmerga forces against the terrorist group.

ISIS militants executed a 17-years-old Kurdish man in a military base in their 
Northern Iraqi stronghold of Mosul.

Sources revealed that the victim was from the predominantly Shabak village of 
Bajrbog near Bashiq district, and he was abducted by ISIS some 20 days ago.

Since the northern province of Nineveh has fallen into the hands of ISIS in 
June 2014, the extremist group is conducting mass killings and arbitrary 
punishments against locals to spread fear in the area and, as a result, leave 
the civilians with no choice but obedience.

Elsewhere in Salahaddin province, nearly 17 youths received the death penalty 
by ISIS as they had killed an ISIS member, raised an Iraqi flag on a 
telecommunication tower in Shirqat district and cooperated with the Iraqi 
government against ISIS.

Local sources told to the Iraqi media that the insurgents hung the corpses from 
lamp posts after the executions.

(source: AhlulBayt News Agency)






CHINA:

China Sentences 2 Men to Death in Slaying of Tibetan Monk


A Chinese court sentenced two men to death in the 2013 killing of Akong 
Rinpoche, a well-known religious figure who founded the 1st Tibetan Buddhist 
monastery in the West and built an international network of spiritual retreats.

Thubten Kunsal, a Tibetan man who had worked at Akong's monastery in the United 
Kingdom as an artist for 9 years, fatally stabbed Akong, his nephew and his 
driver after confronting him at his home in the city of Chengdu over $415,000 
in wages he believed he was owed, according to a statement Sunday by the 
Chengdu People's Intermediate Court.

Thubten and another man, Ciren Banyue, were given the death penalty while a 3rd 
man was sentenced to 3 years' prison for hiding daggers used in the killings. 
Thubten and Ciren said they planned to appeal, according to the court 
statement.

Akong's monastery Kagyu Samye Ling, which is based in southwest Scotland with 
branches in Europe and Africa, has denied it owed Thubten pay. It did not 
immediately have comment on the sentences.

Born in 1939, Akong was recognized at age 2 by a search party as a lama 
incarnate and entered the Dolma Lhakhang monastery before fleeing to India as 
Chinese forces moved in to stamp out the 1959 Tibetan uprising. He moved to 
Britain several years later, studied at Oxford University and founded his 
Buddhist center in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, in 1967.

The monk, who became a British citizen, maintained friendly relations with the 
Chinese government and frequently visited the country to look after charity 
projects. Akong was on a fundraising trip when he was stabbed.

(source: Associated Press)






INDIA:

Court holds 2 guilty of Yug Chandak's brutal killing


A year after trial commenced in the sensational kidnap and murder case of 
8-year-old Yug Chandak, the sessions court here found both accused - Rajesh 
Dhanalal Daware (19) and his friend Arvind Abhilash Singh (23) - guilty of 
diabolic killing on Saturday.

The perpetrators, both BCom first year students of from PWS College, Kamptee 
Road, were convicted under Sections 302 (murder), 364A (kidnapping for ransom), 
201 (destruction of evidence), and 120-B (criminal conspiracy). Principal judge 
KK Sonawane will pronounce the full verdict on February 3 after hearing 
arguments from both sides on quantum of punishment. Daware's 17-year-old 
younger brother, who assisted accused in conspiracy, was already referred to 
Juvenile Remand Home. About 26 injuries, including those on the neck, were 
found on the Yug's body.

None of the 50 witness examined by the prosecution turned hostile, which is 
perhaps rare in such high-profile murder cases, as per additional public 
prosecutor Jyoti Vajani, Chandak family's counsel Rajendra Daga and 
investigation officer (IO) from Lakadganj Police Station Satyanarayan Jaiswal. 
According to them, they brought to fore as many as 20 circumstances to prove 
complicity of the accused in the crime.

With a view to extract revenge from Dr Mukesh Chandak for what Daware claimed 
as humiliation meted out to him by the doctor and extract ransom, Daware 
hatched the conspiracy to kidnap and kill Yug, a second standard student of 
Centre Point School, Wardhaman Nagar branch. The duo executed their plan and 
brutally killed the child by strangulating him on September 1, 2014.

They later buried his body in sand under pipes near a culvert on the desolate 
Gumthi-Gumthala Road near Patansawangi village, 27 kms from Nagpur.

The duo had planned their escape after receiving money, but were arrested on 
the next day after Chandak family raised suspicion on Daware. During intense 
interrogation, both the accused confessed to killing the boy and led the 
investigators to the spot where they had buried the child's body.

The incident shook the conscience of Nagpurians and most joined hands to 
condole Yug's death. Candle marches were taken out in support of the Chandak 
family and demanded death for the perpetrators of innocent child's killing.

The court relied on a number of factors apart from strong testimony of 50 
witnesses to nail the culprits. It included CCTV footage at a petrol pump where 
the accused filled up their bike's tank after kidnapping the child, last seen 
theory of many witnesses, recovery of child's clothes from the spot shown by 
accused and Yug's earring which was traced to Arvind Singh's home. Even the 
call details records and more importantly, the testimony of Daware's 
girlfriend, went against them.

2 school students from Patansawangi village, who saw the duo taking Yug on 
their bikes, were also made witnesses by the prosecution after requesting their 
parents.

According to police, Daware was familiar with the place where body was buried 
as he often used to take his girlfriend to Adasa and take a break at the spot 
while returning.

The prosecution lawyers had already cited three landmark Supreme Court verdicts 
including that of Bacchan Singh of 1983, to press for death penalty to the 
accused while terming the case as "rarest of rare" with no signs of reformation 
of the 2 accused.

It was the second such diabolic killing in the city in three years after 
another 8-year-old boy Kush Katariya was similarly killed by Ayush Pugalia on 
October 11, 2011, to extracting Rs2 crore ransom from his parents. Fittingly, 
he was awarded a rare double lifer by the court, which was enhanced to triple 
lifer by the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court.

(source: The Times of India)

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

Rapist father awarded death penalty


A local court today awarded death penalty to 1 person on the charge of raping 
and strangulating his minor daughter.

According to prosecution, Mehatlal Sanodiya (42) sexually assaulted and 
strangled his 13-year-old daughter when she was alone on the night of January 
25, 2013. His wife had gone to her maternal home with her younger daughter. On 
the next day, the accused closed the door and went to farm. Police were 
informed about the crime by neighbours.

Deputy Director (Prosecution) Narendra Singh Uike said as there were no 
eyewitnesses in the case, Sessions Judge Devendra Singh delivered the verdict 
on the basis of DNA test and other evidence.

(source: webindia123.com)

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

No illusions about keeping hangman busy but anything else will hurt community


A city sessions court today handed death to 3 men found guilty of gang-raping 
and murdering a college girl in Kamduni in 2013, rejecting the argument of 
their lawyers that the crime didn't fall in the category of "rarest of rare".

Judge Sanchita Sarkar, who sentenced three others to imprisonment till death, 
said if the rising trend of such crimes wasn't "nipped" in the bud, the 
"poison" could spread like wildfire.

The sentences were handed down 2 days after the court had convicted Ansar Ali, 
Amin Ali and Saiful Ali - the trio sentenced to death - along with Emanul 
Islam, Bhola Naskar and Aminur Islam, jailed for life for gang-rape as their 
role in the murder couldn't be proved.

The judge had acquitted 2 men, Rafikul Islam Gazi and Noor Ali. A ninth 
accused, Gopal Naskar, died in custody last year.

The lawyers for Ansar, Amin and Saiful, the death-row trio, said they had 
decided to move the high court. Should the 3 - they have the option of taking 
the matter right up to the President if the high court and the Supreme Court 
uphold the judgment - fail to get clemency, they would be the 1st to be hanged 
in Calcutta since the August 14, 2004, execution of Dhananjoy Chatterjee.

Chatterjee had raped and murdered a schoolgirl, a crime that was deemed rarest 
of rare.

In her judgment today, additional district and sessions judge Sanchita Sarkar 
said a "strong message" needed to be sent.

"It is true that it cannot be predicated that a crime-free society will dawn if 
the hangman is kept feverishly busy, but it is equally true that barbaric rapes 
and murders have become the order of the day and inadequate punishment may lead 
to the sufferings of the community at large," she said in her 113-page 
judgment.

"I conclude by stating the obvious that a strong message needs to be sent to 
the perpetrators of such a ghastly crime against women that such crimes shall 
not be countenanced. I also feel that if the rising trend towards such crime is 
not nipped in the bud and arrested at its inception the poison is likely to 
spread like wildfire through the social order, rendering it hapless and 
defunct," the judge added.

"To put the record straight, these persons have not been convicted only on 
account of conspiracy but also for their overt acts. The offence of gang rape 
in the instant case at hand compounded with murder has shocked the collective 
conscience of the society at large."

On June 7, 2013, the 21-year-old second-year BA student was walking back to her 
home in Kamduni, a North 24-Parganas village 50km from the city, after a 
college exam when she was dragged into the caretaker's room of a compound with 
a boundary wall and gang-raped repeatedly. She died during the assault. Her 
body was found the next morning.

"The acts of the convicts were committed with a deliberate pre-planned design 
to gain control over the victim. The antisocial or socially abhorrent nature of 
the crime is reflected from the fact that the said crime was committed not for 
personal reasons but to terrorise the people of the locality and to frighten 
them," the judge noted.

There have been instances when a death sentence handed down by a lower court 
has been changed by an upper court. Aftab Ansari and Jamiluddin Nasir - both 
sentenced to death for their role in the 2002 attack on Calcutta's American 
Centre - escaped the gallows after the Supreme Court commuted their sentences.

The top court ruled that Ansari would remain in jail throughout his life while 
Nasirwould have to serve a minimum of 30 years.

Last year alone, Calcutta High Court sources said, 21 verdicts of capital 
punishment were converted to life imprisonment.

This morning, the judge first heard the arguments of the defence counsel and 
the prosecution before she gave the convicts a chance to appeal individually. 
Senior lawyers said the practice of a judge hearing out the convicts one last 
time before handing down the verdict, when they face death penalty or life 
imprisonment, was common.

Ansar's counsel Firoz Edulji argued that the crime didn't fall in the category 
of "rarest of the rare" and underscored the importance of the court to assess 
how harmful the convicts could be to society if they are released.

Then public prosecutor Dipak Ranjan Ghosh said the crime was "heinous" and 
"brutal", before going on to describe how the victim's body had been subjected 
to "grievous, fatal injury".

"Consider this. Saiful Ali, while giving his statement under Section 164, 
aggressively and enthusiastically re-enacted how the rape and murder was 
committed. I have not seen anything like this in my 33 years (in the 
profession). If that does not make it rarest of the rare, I do not know what 
does," Ghosh submitted.

In an apparent endorsement of Ghosh's argument, the judge noted: "Exemplary 
punishment is, therefore, the need of the hour, for if this is not (among) the 
rarest of rare crimes, there is likely to be none."

None of the 6 convicts betrayed any emotion as the judge pronounced the 
verdict. Ansar, who beckoned 1 of his lawyers, asked him to "get a copy of the 
judgment quickly".

The ruling establishment claimed the judgment was a "victory". Urban 
development minister Firhad Hakim, who had joined his party's chorus in the 
past to ridicule a section of Kamduni residents for their campaign for justice, 
said: "We are happy with the judgment. The administration performed its duty by 
arresting the culprits and bringing them to justice."

The family of the victim, according to her elder brother, said they would move 
the high court against the acquittal of Rafikul and Noor. "We will figure out 
our course of action after meeting chief minister Mamata Banerjee," he said 
while leaving the court premises.

(source: The Calcutta Telegraph)