[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

March 16



IRAQ----execution

Iraq executes Saudi prisoner 'for terrorism'


Iraqi authorities executed Saudi prisoner Abdullah Mahmous Sydat last Sunday.

Sydat was being held in Al-Nasiryah Prison, south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

According to Al-Riyadh newspaper, the Iraqi Ministry of Justice pronounced the 
death sentence for Sydat after convicting him of terrorism.

According to the newspaper, the Iraqi ministry notified the Saudi Embassy in 
Bagdad of the conviction and actual execution of Sydat a few days ago. Sources 
confirmed, however, that the execution was carried out on Sunday, March 6 and 
that the embassy was only notified of the decision after the execution took 
place.

The sources added that the Saudi prisoner was executed along with a number of 
other Iraqi prisoners.

The family of the prisoner said they were notified about his execution on 
Thursday by the Iraqi Ministry of Justice, but were not given any further 
details.

Sydat left the Kingdom for Iraq in 2007 and was arrested on charges of 
terrorism during his time there. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, which 
was later upgraded to the death sentence.

The man, who has 2 children, had asked that he be buried in Madinah.

(source: Arab News)

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

20 convicts executed, 70 waiting in Iraq, Justice Minister


Iraqi Justice Minister Haidar al-Zamili disclosed that 20 death verdicts were 
executed for different charges, including Arab terrorists.

Minister Zamili added that some of the convicted terrorists are from Tunisia, 
Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi and Iraqis.

(source: Iraq Tradelink News Agency)






SAUDI ARABIA----execution

Saudi Arabia puts murderer to death in 72nd execution of 2016


Saudi Arabia executed one of its nationals convicted of murder on Sunday, 
bringing to 72 the number of people put to death in the conservative kingdom 
this year.

Hadian al-Qahtani was found guilty of shooting dead Abdullah al-Qaoud following 
a dispute, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by state news 
agency SPA.

Most people executed in Saudi Arabia are beheaded with a sword.

The executions so far this year include 47 for "terrorism" carried out in a 
single day on January 2.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia executed 153 people, most of them for drug trafficking or 
murder, according to an AFP count.

Rights group Amnesty International says the number of executions in Saudi 
Arabia last year was the highest for 2 decades. However the tally was far 
behind those of China and Iran.

The kingdom has a strict Islamic legal code under which murder, drug 
trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death.

(source: Express Tribune)

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

"Tyranny will fall": Son of executed Saudi dissident al-Nimr shares his 
incredible story ---- EXCLUSIVE: Interview with activist Mohammed al-Nimr, 
whose father was killed by Saudi Arabia for leading protest


"I don't like the name 'Saudi Arabia,'" Mohammed Nimr al-Nimr said with a 
smile. "It's actually called the Arabian Peninsula, not Saudi," he laughed, 
noting the country is named after its ruling dynasty.

The impeccably dressed and amiable 29-year-old Saudi activist and engineer was 
in Washington, D.C. for the 2016 Summit on Saudi Arabia, the first 
international conference to call into question the close U.S. relationship with 
the theocratic absolute monarchy in Saudi Arabia.

Mohammed's father, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, was a prominent leader in the Shia 
Muslim religious community, a minority group in the Saudi kingdom, which is 
governed by a fundamentalist form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism.

The Saudi regime imprisoned Sheikh al-Nimr in 2012 for leading protests against 
its authoritarianism and violent sectarianism, and sentenced him to death in 
2014. On Jan. 2 of this year, Saudi Arabia killed Mohammed's father, along with 
46 other people in a series of executions.

At the Summit on Saudi Arabia, Mohammed spoke of his father, and of the 
struggle for equality, justice and democracy in the Arabian Peninsula that he 
now carries on.

Salon, which reported on the summit, sat down with the young al-Nimr, who 
shared his remarkable story.

Growing pains

Like so many activists from the Middle East, Mohammed was born in exile - in 
Damascus in 1987. He lived in the Syrian capital until 1993, when his family 
moved back to Saudi Arabia. Throughout his youth, Mohammed and his family moved 
back and forth between Saudi Arabia and Syria.

That Mohammed spent part of his youth in Syria is fascinating to consider in 
contrast to his time in Saudi Arabia. In many ways, the 2 countries are on the 
polar ends of Arab politics. His experiences in the 2, as a Shia Muslim, 
differed greatly.

Syria is known for its strict secularism and respect for religious minority 
rights; the Saudi monarchy, on the other hand, greatly discriminates against 
religious minority groups, and enforces an extreme interpretation of Sharia 
(Islamic law). In Syria's larger cities - before the catastrophic war that has 
since reduced much of the country to rubble broke out in 2011, at least - it 
was not strange to see bikini-clad women at the beach; in Saudi Arabia, women 
lack basic political rights, and cannot travel without being accompanied by a 
male guardian.

Muslims of different sects, along with Christians, Jews and even atheists lived 
together in Syria, Mohammed recalled, and people of any religion could pray 
practically anywhere. As a Shia Muslim in Saudi Arabia, however, Mohammed said 
he was afraid to pray in many mosques, and had to be careful not to anger 
authorities or extremist citizens.

At a very young age in Saudi Arabia, before he even entered school, Mohammed 
was made painfully aware of the fact that he faced discrimination for being 
raised in a different religious sect. When he later began studying in Saudi 
schools, he had to learn Wahhabi doctrine, which he described as "extremist 
ideas" that are nothing like the Islam he loves.

The 2 countries in which the young al-Nimr spent his youth exposed him to 
drastically different worlds. Yet there were some similarities. In both, 
Mohammed witnessed first-hand how authoritarianism manifests itself, even when 
it appears in different ways.

Saudi Arabia is a theocratic absolute monarchy which has been ruled by a royal 
family for more than 80 years. Syria is a secular dictatorship which has been 
ruled by the Assad family for over five decades. In Syria, Mohammed explained, 
people were not discriminated against based on their religion, but they faced 
repression based on their politics. If you belonged to the ruling Ba'ath Party, 
you were treated better. If you criticized the government, you would risk 
facing backlash, even imprisonment.

In Saudi Arabia, religious minorities lived in fear. "They would humiliate 
people intentionally; they would treat them with disrespect," he recollected. 
In Syria, you had religious freedoms that were unimaginable in the Wahhabi 
Saudi regime, but you still lacked political freedoms.

Growing up in these environments helped shaped Mohammed's view of justice. "The 
tyrant is the same everywhere," Mohammed said. Dictators may differ in their 
rule, but they are still dictators.

And tyranny is not just limited to dictatorships, Mohammed added. He condemned 
the apartheid-like conditions Palestinians live under in Israel. "Whether the 
tyrant is in Saudi or Israel, it is still a tyrant," he explained. "They are 
thinking the same way; they are creating an ideology that serves them."

The young activist's sense of justice is rooted in an internationalism that 
seeks liberation for all peoples.

"There is no more value for 1 person than any other," Mohammed stressed. "Your 
life is not worth more than other lives."

Repression and imprisonment

Given the autocratic milieux in which he came of age, Mohammed remained 
apolitical throughout his early life. It was not until much later, in the past 
few years, that he began speaking out about politics. But first, a few 
uprisings would take place.

In 2006, the Saudi regime, incensed at Sheikh al-Nimr's activism, forced 
Mohammed's father to sign a pledge not to speak in public. He agreed to stop 
speaking, and instead started writing.

"If they don't want us to speak, we're gonna write" was his father's 
philosophy, Mohammed said.

2 years passed, and Sheikh al-Nimr held his tongue about the multitudinous 
injustices in the Wahhabi kingdom. In 2008, however, a series of violent 
incidents took place at al-Baqi, a cemetery in the important city of Medina, 
and a site of religious significance.

The Saudi monarchy's fundamentalist form of Sunni Islam opposes the 
preservation of many ancient religious sites, which it considers to be a form 
of idolatry. Like ISIS, Saudi Arabia has destroyed millennium-old heritage 
sites and artifacts; unlike ISIS, the close U.S. ally has replaced these sites 
with lavish Hilton hotels and gender-segregated shopping malls.

Shia graves at al-Baqi have been demolished by the Saudi regime, setting off 
further state-sanctioned sectarian tensions. In 2008, Mohammed recalled, Sunni 
extremists attacked Shia worshipers at the religious site, stabbing several.

After the attack, virtually no one was punished. Some Shia Saudis subsequently 
began protesting the impunity the regime effectively guarantees for sectarian 
violence. Sheikh al-Nimr broke his silence, and gave a public speech in 2008 
harshly criticizing the monarchy.

In his speech, the senior al-Nimr raised the possibility that, if the Saudi 
regime did not treat its Shia citizens - many of whom live in the eastern part 
of the country - justly, there could be a possibility of secession. Saudi 
authorities took the statements of the sheikh, who always always preached 
nonviolence, out of context, and claimed he was calling for violent secession.

The regime clamped down harshly on Sheikh al-Nimr - and not just on him, but 
also on his family. In 2009, four months after his father's speech, 14 police 
cars showed up at Mohammed's house, armed to the teeth with Kalashnikovs. The 
young al-Nimr, who was not involved in politics in any way, and was guilty only 
of being the son of a political activist, was arrested.

Saudi Arabia's feared secret police, the Mabahith - a brutal force notorious 
for, in the words of Human Rights Watch, "a wide range of human rights abuses, 
including arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention and torture" - interrogated 
the 22-year-old, and threw him in prison.

After several months locked up, Mohammed was eventually released. He said the 
fear he felt during this time still haunts him.

Mohammed then decided to move to the U.S. to study mechanical engineering. In 
2010, he began studies at Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis, 
where he remains today. Less than a year after he arrived, however, one of the 
biggest uprisings in Saudi history would take place.

(source: salon.com)






INDONESIA:

National scene: Govt uncertain on use of death penalty in 2016


The Indonesian government is yet to decide on whether it will execute drug 
traffickers this year, but has said it will focus more on improving the economy 
for the next 7 to 8 months.

"We'll see what happens. We are still studying this very carefully. Maybe we 
could [continue with executions] this year, or maybe next year," Coordinating 
Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said in Jakarta 
on Friday.Luhut said Indonesia had been disturbed by noisy, annoying comments 
from the public about the death penalty's implementation. "So we have to 
calculate very carefully when using the death penalty," he said.

According to 2015 data from the National Narcotics Agency, there are 14 drug 
convicts currently waiting to face the firing squad. Last year Indonesia put to 
death 14 drug convicts, including 2 Australians that were part of the Bali 9 
group, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.

(source: Jakarta Post)






BANGLADESH:

Bangladesh set to execute top Jamaat leader for war crimes


Bangladesh is set to hang fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman 
Nizami for war crimes during the 1971 independence struggle against Pakistan.

Authorities today served the death warrant to 72-year-old Mr Nizami, two months 
after the apex court upheld his death penalty.

"We received the death warrant earlier this morning and served it to the 
convict (in the death row)," an official of the suburban high security 
Kashimpur Jail briefly told reporters.

Attorney general Mahbubey Alam, meanwhile, said the top leader of the country's 
biggest Islamist party would now get 15 days' time to seek review of the 
judgement by the Supreme Court itself in his final bid to evade the gallows. 
He, however, said that the scope of reviewing the judgement in a war crimes 
case is very slim.

"If he prefers not to get the judgement reviewed within the time-frame or if 
his petition is rejected, the government may execute the verdict anytime in the 
subsequent days," Mr Alam told newsmen.

He said Mr Nizami, however, could seek presidential mercy immediately if the 
review petition was rejected but he would not get any extra time to decide for 
seeking the clemency.

Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD) originally sentenced Mr 
Nizami to death in October 29, 2014. The apex court upheld the verdict on 
January 6 this year.

According to TV reports Mr Nizami's lawyers sought to meet their client in jail 
as the death warrant was issued to know his mind if he wants to exhaust the 
opportunity of filing a review petition.

Leader of infamous Al-Badr force in 1971, Mr Nizami is the last remaining top 
perpetrators of crimes against humanity whose fate now hangs on the balance.

He was found guilty of systematic killings of more than 450 people alone in his 
own village home in northwestern Pabna siding with the Pakistani troops during 
the liberation war.

Mr Nizami at that time was the chief of the student front of Jamaat, which was 
opposed to Bangladesh's 1971 independence.

4 opposition politicians, including 3 leaders of the Islamist party, the 
Jamaat-e-Islami, have been convicted by a war crimes tribunal and executed 
since late 2013.

2 others, former Jamaat chief Ghulam Azam and ex-Bangladesh Nationalist Party 
minister Abdul Alim, earlier were handed down "imprisonment until death" 
penalty instead of capital punishment due to their old age as they exceeded 80.

They subsequently died in the prison cells of a specialised state-run hospital 
due to old age ailments.

(source: Deccan Chronicle)

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

Bangladesh Islamist party chief intends to seek review of death penalty


Bangladesh's largest Islamist party chief Motiur Rahman Nizami Wednesday said 
he will file a review petition with the Supreme Court against its verdict that 
upheld his death sentence for war crimes in 1971.

Nizami, president of the Bangladeshi Jamaat-e-Islami party, expressed his 
interest to file a review petition in consultation with his lawyers as his 
death warrant was read out to him on Wednesday morning in a prison in Kashimpur 
on the outskirts of capital Dhaka where he is being kept condemned, the 
prison's Superintendent Prashant Kumar Banik told journalists.

Also on Wednesday Nizami was allowed to meet his lawyers and a son, he said.

Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal-1 issued Nizami's death warrant 
Tuesday night hours after the country's apex court released its full verdict in 
this connection.

Bangladesh's Supreme Court on Jan. 6 upheld a death penalty for the 73-year-old 
Motiur Rahman Nizami over war crimes during the country's war of independence 
44 years ago.

Nizami served as agriculture and industries minister in Khaleda Zia's 2001-2006 
cabinet.

The apex court upheld capital penalty for the Islamist party chief on 3 charges 
and life imprisonment on 2 charges.

On Oct. 29, 2014, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-1) handed down capital 
punishment to Nizami for war crimes which include mass killings of 
intellectuals.

According to the rules, Nizami has an opportunity to file a review petition 
against the verdict within 15 days.

If his review petition is rejected, the last option for him will be to seek 
presidential mercy.

Nizami was indicted in 2012 with 16 charges of crimes during the 1971 war.

(source: Xinhua News)

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

Death warrant issued for Nizami


The International Crimes Tribunal has issued the death warrant for convicted 
war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami on Tuesday, hours after the Supreme Court 
released its full verdict upholding his death penalty.

Confirming the news, Tribunal Registrar Shahidul Alam Jhinuk said: "3 judges of 
the ICT signed the death warrant around 9:05pm. The death warrant will reach 
the jail authorities by an hour. The copies of the death warrant have been sent 
to Dhaka Central Jail authorities, Dhaka District magistrate, Home Ministry and 
Law Ministry."

Earlier in the day, the apex court released the 153-page judgment after its 
four judges concerned signed the verdict that upheld the Jamaat chief's death 
penalty.

A copy of it was uploaded on the Supreme Court's website on Tuesday afternoon 
while its official said that they would send a copy to the International Crimes 
Tribunal. From there, copies will be sent to jail and district magistrate. The 
Home Ministry will also be notified.

Nizami can move a review petition with the apex court in a last ditch attempt 
to escape the noose. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said the countdown would 
start from the day of receiving a copy of the full verdict.

Bangladesh's 1st war crimes tribunal handed Nizami death on October 29, 2014 on 
4 charges and life imprisonment on 4 other charges. He challenged the verdict 
at the apex court.

On January 6, a four-member Appellate Division bench upheld the tribunal's 
sentence for the Al-Badr chief for masterminding the killing of intellectuals 
and involvement in two incidents of mass killing of over 500 people in Pabna in 
1971.

His death sentences were upheld on 3 charges and life imprisonment on 2 
charges. He was cleared of 3 charges.

Nizami is the 3rd former minister after Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad 
Mojaheed and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury to get death penalty for his 
notorious role during the war.

Nizami led Jamaat's erstwhile student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha from 1966 to 
September 1971 and was the chief of Al-Badr, known as Pakistan army's death 
squad in 1971. Al-Badr members were exclusively drawn from Chhatra Sangha.

Throughout the war, he visited different areas of the country and delivered 
provocative speeches at rallies organised by Jamaat, Chhatra Sangha, Al-Badr 
and Razakars. He also wrote columns in newspapers justifying the formation of 
Al-Badr.

The militia, which called itself the "angel of death", unleashed a reign of 
terror on pro-liberation Bangalees, killed unarmed civilians, raped women and 
destroyed properties during the war.

The auxiliary force of the Pakistan army made its worst example by 
systematically rounding up, torturing and killing the intellectuals to cripple 
the country at the fag end of the war.

Jamaat chief Nizami has never repented of the cold-blooded savagery. He was 
rehabilitated in Bangladesh politics after the assassination of Bangabandhu 
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975 and was made a minister during the BNP-led 
government 2001-06 tenure.

What is next

The government may start the procedure of executing the verdict after getting 
verdict copies and issuing of death reference. The convict will have to file 
the review petition within 15 days. If his review petition is rejected, he will 
get a chance to seek presidential mercy. The execution processes will be halted 
till then.

If Nizami decides not to seek clemency or if the president denies it, he will 
be the second Al-Badr top leader after Mojaheed to walk the gallows finally.

(source: dhakatribune.com)

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

Woman, lover get death penalty for husband's murder


A Jessore court yesterday sentenced a woman and her lover to death for killing 
her husband in 2014.

The convicts are Sabana Khatun, wife of victim Abdur Razzak of Ajmatpur village 
in Chowgachha upazila of Jessore, and her lover Abdul Ali.

Judge Sharif Hossain of Jessore Additional Sessions Judge's Court also fined 
them Tk 50,000 each.

According to the prosecution, Sabana along with Ali killed Razzak on March 9 in 
2004 as the victim protested his wife's extramarital relation.

The brother of the deceased Mintu Miah filed a case with Chowgachha Police 
Station in this connection the same day.

On June 9 the same year, police submitted charge sheet against Sabana and her 
boyfriend Ali.

After examining witnesses and evidence, the judge found them guilty and 
pronounced the verdict.

(source: The Daily Star)

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

Man sentenced to death for murdering wife 15 years ago


A man has been sentenced to death for murdering his wife for dowry 15 years ago 
in Chandina, Comilla.

Nur Nahar Begum, Comilla's additional district and session's judge, gave the 
verdict on Wednesday.

Md. Sadek, the man slapped the death penalty, has been in hiding ever since the 
case was started.

Case details show Sadek had killed his wife, Rokeya Begum, on the night of Jun 
28, 2000 for failing to pay the dowry he demanded.

He had slit his wife's throat after assaulting her and dumped the body the 
Chanshar stream.

A few days later a body in a bag was found floating.

The sack revealed Rokeya's decomposed body when opened.

Mustafizur Rahman Liton, the state prosecutor, said Rokeya's uncle Shadatullah 
had lodged a complaint with the police, accusing 7 people.

A charge sheet had been filed against Sadek after investigation.

(source: bdnews24.com)