[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 11



BANGLADESH:

Death-row war crimes convict Mir Quasem Ali to seek review of top court verdict


Convicted war criminal and Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali will file a 
petition for reviewing the Supreme Court's verdict upholding his death 
sentence.

Mir Quasem's lawyers met him at Gazipur's Kashimpur prison on Saturday.

"He has told us to initiate the process of a plea seeking a review of the 
verdict," counsel Matiur Rahman Akan told the media at the jail.

He said that they filed an application to the Supreme Court's registrar for a 
certified copy of the verdict.

Jail authorities said 5 lawyers, including Mir Quasem's son entered the prison 
around 11:45am.

They left after 40 minutes, said Prison Superintendent Prashant Kumar Banik.

On Jun 6, the top court released the full verdict and sent it to the 
International Crimes Tribunal, which then issued the death warrant before 
forwarding it to the jail authorities.

Mir Quasem now has 15 days, starting from the day of the verdict's publication, 
to file a review petition.

Once it's resolved and if the death sentence is upheld, the war crimes convict 
will have the opportunity to seek a presidential clemency.

If the Jamaat leader is denied pardon, the government then will order the jail 
authorities to hang him.

Mir Quasem was the Al-Badr's 3rd most important functionary after 
Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami and Secretary General Ali Ahsan 
Mohammad Mujahid.

Bangladesh has executed both Nizami and Mujahid for 1971 war crimes.

Mir Quasem, a terror during 1971 in Chittagong, has proved to be a shrewd 
businessman and politician.

The 63-year old media tycoon pumped billions into the Jamaat since the 
mid-1980s to put it on a firm financial footing in Bangladesh.

Police arrested him on Jun 17, 2012 from the office of 'Naya Diganta' newspaper 
less than 2 hours after the tribunal had issued a warrant for his arrest.

In 2014, the International Crimes Tribunal found him guilty and awarded the 
death penalty.

He challenged the verdict and in March this year, the Supreme Court upheld his 
death sentence.

The 244-page full verdict was released on June 6, when the tribunal issued the 
warrant and sent it to the Dhaka Central Jail authorities, which was read out 
to Mir Quasem the next day.

(source: bdnews24.com)






SINGAPORE:

Singapore's heartless death penalty for drug traffickers


On the 1st of June, I watched the conclusion of a capital punishment heroin 
trafficking case in Singapore's Supreme Court. I was left profoundly disturbed.

As Judge Choo Han Teck announced the sentences in court, the family members of 
the defendants erupted in pain. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, cousins, 
sons, daughters - their bodies shuddered in agony and tears streaked down their 
pained faces. Their heartbreaking cries reverberated softly through the crowded 
courtroom. 2 of the 3 co-defendants, Kalwant Singh and Norasharee Bin Gous, 
were sentenced to death by hanging. The 3rd defendant's life was spared for his 
"substantive assistance" to the authorities. He will be imprisoned for life 
instead.

Yet even in the presence of such acute intense human suffering, the courtroom 
proved to be the most unsympathetic of places. The judge, while allowing the 
families of the defendants to spend some time with their loved ones before they 
were taken to prison, declared that they could only meet for 10 minutes because 
he had "another matter to attend to". The public prosecutor instructed the 
guards to stop some family members from talking to the defendants, presumably 
because they were not part of the "immediate" family. Could the Singaporean 
justice system treat these defendants and their families with any more cruelty 
and indifference?

Even as controversy over capital punishment rages worldwide, support for the 
death penalty in Singapore remains remarkably strong. Though a legislative 
change in 2012 made the death penalty no longer mandatory for drug traffickers, 
prosecutors and judges continue to impose capital punishment for non-violent 
drug offenses. The dominant Singaporean narrative is that the death penalty has 
been an effective deterrent against drug crime, despite a complete absence of 
academic evidence backing up such a viewpoint. As Oxford University professors 
Roger Hood and Carolyn Hoyle explain, "It has been argued that the death 
penalty is an indisputable deterrent to drug trafficking, but no evidence of a 
statistical kind has been forthcoming to support this contention." In fact, the 
death penalty is so accepted that it is often left out of mainstream public 
discourse. Not a single Singaporean media outlet covered this case or the 
resulting announcement of death sentences - a situation that would be 
unthinkable in other developed nations.

There is also a perception that Singapore has robust legal safeguards that 
prevent it from wrongfully convicting drug traffickers. Admittedly, Singapore 
enjoys strong rule of law. However, many might be surprised by the flimsiness 
of evidence that is accepted with such deadly punishments at stake. In this 
case, there is a serious question as to whether, Kalwant Singh, who acted as a 
drug courier, was actually aware that he was trafficking heroin. Singh has 
consistently claimed that he believed he was transporting "panparak" - a 
preparation of Indian betel leaf, areca nut and tobacco that is regularly 
consumed in Southeast Asia.

The only major piece of evidence that contradicts Singh's account is testimony 
from a co-defendant, Mohamed Yazid. Very conveniently, Yazid was spared the 
death penalty for his testimony against Singh. Singaporean law allows drug 
trafficking defendants who provide "substantive assistance" to the authorities 
to escape the death penalty, providing a strong incentive to testify against 
others, even dishonestly.

By the Court's own admission, "a person facing a capital drug offence may 
falsely implicate his co-accused so as to save himself from the gallows". 
Despite this recognition, in his written opinion, the judge comes to the 
conclusion that "Yazid ... had spoken the truth", thereby convicting Singh and 
sentencing him to death.

We should never be comfortable executing people on the basis of such 
questionable evidence.

Moreover, the fact that the majority of people caught up in the drug trade 
worldwide come from impoverished backgrounds is too often overlooked. It 
emerged that one of the defendants in the case was earning a measly one hundred 
Malaysian Ringgit (about 25 US Dollars) for each "bundle" of drugs that he 
delivered. That means he was making a pitiful few hundred dollars every time he 
took the risk of losing his life. The word "drug trafficker" often evokes 
images of a wealthy drug kingpin profiting royally off the suffering of 
addicts. In reality, those executed are very rarely the kingpins who command 
the drug trade. Instead, like the defendants in this case, they are mostly 
poor, low-level drug couriers who may have little knowledge of what they are 
getting themselves into.

There should be little doubt that Singapore's attitude towards the death 
penalty for drug traffickers is fraught with misperceptions and half-truths. 
With a better appreciation of the academic evidence on deterrence, uncertainty 
in the legal process and the impoverished background of most convicted drug 
traffickers, one would hope that Singaporeans might reconsider their position. 
Given the facts, it is hard to fathom how imposing the death penalty for 
non-violent drug crimes is consistent with basic ideals of fairness and 
proportionality.

After the verdict was delivered, the agonizing scene I encountered is one I 
will never forget. The distraught defendants and their families, separated 
almost entirely by glass, tried desperately to touch each other through a 
paper-thin slit in the wall. They barely managed to grasp each other's fingers 
or meet their lips for a fleeting last kiss. Perhaps, it is only by witnessing 
the utter state of despair in the courtroom, that people can truly comprehend 
the gravity of the death penalty. Maybe, after watching a drug trafficking case 
unfold for themselves, they will leave just as disturbed as I was.

(source: Arjun Malik, theonlinecitizen.com)






INDIA:

On death row, Godhra convict seeks aid for family


Prime accused in the Godhra Sabarmati Express carnage case of 2002, Haji Bilal 
Sujela, who has been awarded death penalty, has appealed to the Godhra 
municipality seeking assistance for a house. Bilal has stated in his 
application that his family was living in a state of poverty and needed the 
assistance.

Bilal has moved an application through the Vadodara Central Jail officials 
stating that his family was living in a state of poverty as he was in the 
prison since several years. He has stated that his wife Tahera Sujela had a 
plot for residential purposes in her name and that aid should be given to 
construct a house. He has attached his wife's BPL ration card with the 
application, sources said.

Bilal's son Ashraf Sujela said that his father had been in the prison for 14 
years now and the family was facing difficult times ever since his father was 
sent to jail. "We are 2 brothers and 2 sisters. There is a family home, but my 
2 uncles stay there. We have to stay in a rented house in the Hayatni Wadi 
area," said Ashraf.

Ashraf added that the family was involved in the scrap business, but the 
business was not doing well because of the slowdown. "My mother (referring to 
Tahera), we 2 brothers, our wives and 2 children share the same house," he 
said. .

The Godhra municipality, however, has limitations in providing aid for 
constructions of a house. "While there are provisions under the Mukhymantri 
Gruh Yojana to provide constructed houses to the poor and other sections of the 
society, there is no scheme for aiding construction," said Godhra municipality 
chief officer Nitin Bodat. He added that if the family applied for a house 
under the scheme, it could be considered.

When told about this catch, Ashraf said that the family would then take 
whatever was offered to it. Bilal, like others, has challenged his conviction 
in the Gujarat high court.

(source: The Times of India)

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

Madras High Court commutes death penalty for convict


The Madras high court has commuted the death sentence awarded to a convict in a 
double murder case to life imprisonment, after holding that this case does not 
fall within the category of rarest of rare cases.

Disposing of the referred trial preferred by the state government to confirm 
the death sentence and partly allowing an appeal from the accused Rajiv Gandhi 
alias Marimuthu, a division bench comprising Justices S. Nagamuthu and V. 
Bharathidasan made it clear that the case of Rajiv Gandhi should not be 
considered for any remission for 20 years.

On February 11, 2012, Rajiv Gandhi murdered a woman and her daughter and also 
assaulted another daughter over a land dispute in Sungam village at Pollachi 
taluk in Coimbatore district.

A case was registered and he was arrested on February 14, 2012. After trial, 
the IV additional district and sessions judge, Coimbatore, had on March 3, 2016 
convicted him and awarded death sentence to him.

Upholding the conviction, the bench said from the medical evidence, it has been 
clearly established by the prosecution that the death of the 2 persons was due 
to injuries caused by this convict. On the quantum of punishment, the bench 
citing various judgments of the Supreme Court and said that this case does not 
fall within the rarest of rare doctrine.

But the killing of 2 women is "brutal and gruesome", the bench said. There were 
also some mitigating circumstances in favour of the accused - his age, the fact 
that the motive was land dispute and the occurrence was preceded by a quarrel.

"We are of the view that so far as the murder of 2 women is concerned, 
imprisonment for life would be the adequate punishment. Thus, we find it 
difficult to confirm the death penalty imposed by the trial court upon the 
accused," the bench said.

(source: Deccan Chronicle)