[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 4



GHANA:

Amnesty International quotes 137 inmates on death row----Mr Lawrence Amesu, the 
Director of Amnesty International Ghana, said a lot had been achieved towards 
ensuring that Ghana gained the status as abolitionist in practice.

He said Ghana had not executed anyone over the past 23 years even though the 
courts continued to sentence people to death, and "we have about 137 death row 
inmates, including 3 women, in our prisons currently".

Speaking at the launch of Advocacy Toolkit for Abolition of Death Penalty in 
West Africa, Mr Amesu said he believed that Amnesty International's submission 
with support from other civil society organisations and the opinion of the 
public had contributed to the recommendation that death penalty should be 
abolished in Ghana.

He said though West Africa was leading that progressive forward march, however, 
the Anglophone countries within the continent are dragging their feet while the 
Francophone countries including Senegal, Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, and Burkina 
Faso had either abolished the death penalty or were doubling their steps 
towards achieving that.

Mr Amesu said the toolkit was very useful for the media, civil society 
organisations and para institutions which were advocating for the abolition of 
the death penalty in Ghana as well as all government institutions which had a 
stake in the process.

"The document will also be very useful for the youth not only as an advocacy 
tool but also as a knowledge acquisition document because it highlights and 
explains such terminologies as abolitionist, retentionist, clemency, 
exoneration, and pardon, among others," he added.

The document, he said, traced the history and achievements of Amnesty 
International's journey towards total abolition of the death penalty in the 
world while focusing a little more on the situation in Africa and West Africa.

The toolkit also highlights the international instruments and bodies that 
support the need for the abolition of the death penalty.

Dr Isaac Annan, a Director at CHRAJ, who chaired the function, said Ghana was 
Human Rights compliant as it ratified most of the United Nations Conventions 
and Resolutions, and reiterated the need for the country to abolish the death 
penalty as a sign of commitment.

Ms Sabrina Tucci, of Amnesty International Secretariat, London, noted that West 
Africa is a beacon of hope for the whole of Africa and urged civil society 
organisations to continue the campaign.

She called on governments to engage the public in debates on the issue.

(source: newsghana.com.gh)






UNITED KINGDOM:

Hanging 'em high?----The death penalty is dying out, but in 1946 it was thought 
fitting


World-wide, ever more people are against the death penalty - in America, state 
after state is removing execution from the statute books. But 70 years ago this 
autumn, the judges at Nuremberg - where 'crimes against humanity' and 
'genocide' were first properly defined - unanimously decided that a dozen of 
the top Nazis should be sentenced to hang. Twenty four were tried, but 12, most 
famously the mad Rudolf Hess and Hitler's architect, Albert Speer, got 
custodial sentences.

The civilised world was in agreement that the heinous crimes committed by the 
Nazis should merit the death penalty. And yet it was melancholy. "Though it 
might be right to hang these men, it was not easy," wrote the journalist 
Rebecca West. Several hangings were botched: Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler's 
foreign minister, gasped and struggled at the end of a rope for 20 minutes, as 
did Field-Marshall Wilhelm Keitel. The American hangman, John Woods, had 
miscalculated the drop, and the hanged men suffered head injuries from the trap 
door - which was too small - as they fell.

The British executioner, Albert Pierrepoint, was appalled at the lack of 
professionalism. Pierrepoint took pride in his ability to hang a man, or a 
woman, with the swiftest despatch and the minimum of suffering. He hanged 
William Joyce ('Lord Haw-Haw') in 8 seconds.

At Nuremberg - where the main war trial ended on October 1, 1946 - the prime 
prisoner, Hermann Goering, the Luftwaffe chief, cheated the hangman by biting 
into a capsule of cyanide the night before he was to be executed. One of the 
key lawyers at Nuremberg, Telford Taylor, wrote in his memoir that he was 
certain Goering's American guard, Jack "Tex" Wheelis, had helped Goering to 
obtain the suicide pill. Tex, a large, handsome Texan GI, had struck up a 
sympathetic relationship with Goering and the Nazi chief had given him some 
valuable gifts, including a gold cigarette case, a solid gold fountain pen and 
a fancy Swiss watch. The authorities were furious to find that Goering had died 
by his own hand, but he certainly avoided the extra torment, and humiliation, 
of gradually choking to death: not that the Nazis, after their unspeakable 
cruelties, didn't deserve the ultimate punishment.

Goering, like all his fellow prisoners, was offered the services of a chaplain 
in his death cell. A Lutheran pastor, Henry Gerecke, and an Irish-American 
Catholic priest, Sixtus O'Connor, were made available to the condemned men - 
both spoke German. 6 of the accused were Catholics, the rest Lutheran.

Pastor Gerecke, a popular army padre, asked Goering if he believed in Jesus 
Christ as his redeemer: Goering barked back that "this Jesus you always speak 
of - to me, he's just another smart Jew". Later, as death approached, Goering 
did leave messages for his family that he died a Christian. Maybe the "smart 
Jew" eventually had a redeeming effect.

The ghastly Julius Streicher - who had published such horrible anti-Semitic 
propaganda in his newspaper Der Stuermer - and the egregious Alfred Rosenberg, 
the Estonian-born 'philosopher' of Nazi ideology, rebuffed the chaplain's 
offers of spiritual comfort. Others welcomed it.

Keitel took his Bible studies seriously, and Albert Speer quite eagerly. 
Ribbentrop, who had the grace to weep uncontrollably when the dreadful 
documentary films of Auschwitz and Belsen were shown in court, was rueful and 
reflective. He was far away, now, from his glittering days at the Court of St 
James, when he had boldly greeted King Edward VIII (later the Duke of Windsor) 
with the Hitler salute.

These were men who had done unspeakably wicked things and they knew it. That 
was the purpose of the trial. Churchill had been in favour of shooting the Nazi 
elite summarily, but the American insistence on justice "being seen to be done" 
prevailed. Even if some commentators thought Nuremberg was "victors' justice" 
(the Soviet judges represented Stalin, rather than impartial law), it set a 
standard in the conduct of war, established the crime of genocide and showed 
that consequences would follow war crimes.

Hanging reinforced the gravity of the crimes - although today, Europeans would 
not enforce that penalty.

In death, as in life, there are always inequalities. Speer, who held a very 
senior position in the Nazi hierarchy, got off relatively lightly with a 
20-year sentence (and afterwards, TV appearances and best-selling memoirs). 
Fritz Sauckel, who was his junior, was hanged. Speer was educated, 
good-looking, upper middle-class, pleasing in manner and impressed the judges 
with his apparent sincerity in admitting guilt. Sauckel, short, squat, with a 
strong working-class accent, a father of 10 children, was despatched in tears 
to the gallows. He had organised slave labour, so he deserved condemnation, but 
it was evident that being less attractive was part of that condemnation.

I met Sir Hartley (later Lord) Shawcross, Nuremberg prosecutor, in old age and 
he told me he was "never happy with the death penalty". But it was the law - 
and the values of the time - and you had to abide by what the law directed.

A rehearsed reading of Mary Kenny's play about the execution of William Joyce, 
'Conversation Before A Hanging' - produced by Bryn Coldrick and directed by 
Richard Ball - will take place at the Solstice Arts Centre in Navan on 
September 17 and the Birr Theatre on September 18. To book, email 
contact at bryncoldrick.com.

(source: Mary Kenny, The Independent)






BANGLADESH----execution

Bangladesh Official Says Islamist Party Leader Executed


Bangladesh authorities on Saturday executed a top Islamist party leader 
convicted of war crimes involving the nation's 1971 independence war against 
Pakistan, officials said.

Proshanto Kumar Bonik, a senior jail superintendent, said Mir Quasem Ali, a 
leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was hanged at 10:30 p.m. (local time), 
hours after several dozen family members and relatives met him for the last 
time inside Kashimpur Central Jail near the capital, Dhaka.

"We are doing our necessary formalities now. We will send the body soon to the 
ancestral home in Manikganj district for burial," Bonik said after the 
execution.

Immediately after the execution, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said security 
measures would be put in place to prevent unrest by Ali's supporters.

Authorities deployed para-military border guards and additional police in Dhaka 
and other cities late Saturday.

The Jamaat-e-Islami party in a statement late Saturday protested Ali's 
execution and called for an 8-hour general strike beginning Monday morning.

The execution took place a day after Ali refused to seek presidential clemency. 
It was his last chance to see mercy. The president had previously rejected 
appeals for clemency by other Islamist party leaders facing execution.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court rejected a final appeal for reviewing Ali's death 
sentence handed out by a special tribunal 2 years ago.

After the Supreme Court ruling, the Jamaat-e-Islami party called for a daylong 
general strike across the country last Wednesday, but got little response.

A special tribunal dealing with war crimes sentenced Ali to death in November 
2014 for abduction, torture and murder.

The 63-year-old Ali was a member of Jamaat-e-Islami's highest policy-making 
body. He was found guilty on 8 charges, 2 of which carried the death sentence, 
including the abduction and murder of a young man in a torture chamber. Ali was 
sentenced to 72 years in prison on the other charges.

Ali built his fortune by establishing businesses from real estate to shipping 
to banking, and he was considered one of the party's top financiers.

Ali is the 5th Jamaat-e-Islami party leader to be executed since 2010 when 
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina formed the special tribunal to try suspected war 
criminals. Also executed was a close aide of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia 
from the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Jamaat-e-Islami is a key 
partner of Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the opposition against Hasina.

Hasina's government says Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, 
killed 3 million people and raped 200,000 women in the 1971 independence war.

Jamaat-e-Islami, which had openly campaigned against independence, has denied 
committing atrocities.

Hasina has called the special tribunal trials a long overdue effort to obtain 
justice for the victims of war crimes, 4 decades after Bangladesh split from 
Pakistan. Her government has rejected criticism from abroad that the trial 
process did not meet international standards.

The international human rights group Amnesty International noted that the 
United Nations had raised questions about the fairness of the trials of Ali and 
other Islamist party leaders.

"There is no question that the people of Bangladesh deserve justice for crimes 
committed during the War of Independence, but the death penalty is a human 
rights violation and will not achieve this. It is a cruel and irreversible 
punishment that most of the world's countries have now rid themselves of," said 
Champa Patel, Amnesty International's South Asia Director, in a statement 
released Saturday.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Gazipur court orders death sentence for 5 persons in 2008 murder


A Gazipur court has found 6 people guilty in the 2008 murder of a man at the 
district's Joydebpur.

In its verdict, delivered on Sunday, the court of District and Sessions Judge 
awarded the death penalty to 5 persons and life sentence for another.

The convicts have been also fined by Tk 10,000 each.

Public Prosecutor Md Harichh Uddin Ahmed said 42-year-old Abu Sayeed, who was a 
contractor, was strangled to death on the night of Jun 17, 2008 at Joydebpur's 
Dhirasram neighbourhood.

(source: bdnews24.com)






AFGHANISTAN:

Taliban confirm Anas Haqqani sentenced to death by Kabul primary court


The Taliban militants group in Afghanistan confirmed Anas Haqqani has been 
sentenced to death by primary court of Kabul on Monday.

Insisting on Anas's innocence and lack of accountability, the group claimed the 
"American government and the Afghan government both do not have any proof or 
material etc to keep him in detention."

The group further added that the death penalty of Anas Haqqani is politically 
imposed. "There are no legal grounds on which the death sentence could ever be 
awarded to Anas Haqqani."

The remarks by Taliban came as there have been growing pleas by the Afghan 
people as well as several former Afghan officials to hang Anas.

The Haqqani terrorist network is accused of staging numerous deadly attacks in 
Afghanistan including a coordinated attack on VIP protection unity in Kabul 
wich left at least 74 people dead and over 300 others wounded.

The majority of the victims of the incident were ordinary civilians, according 
to the Afghan officials.

In the meantime, the group released the latest video of the American and
Canadian hostages in a bid to force the Afghan government prevent imposing 
death sentence on Anas.

Haqqani network was formed in the late 1970s by Jalaluddin Haqqani. The group 
is allied with al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban and cooperates with other 
terrorist organizations in the region.

The US Department of State designated the HQN as a Foreign Terrorist 
Organization on September 7, 2012.

(sources: Khaama Press (KP) / Afghan News Agency)