[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 6




SUDAN:

Prominent Sudan rights activist accused of 'espionage'----Khartoum accuses 
Mudawi Ibrahim Adam of 'spying' and 'tarnishing Sudan's reputation'


A prominent Sudanese human rights advocate could face the death penalty after 
being accused Monday by the Sudanese authorities of espionage.

Mudawi Ibrahim Adam was arrested last September amid accusations that he was 
involved in an Amnesty International report that alleged that Khartoum had used 
chemical weapons against civilians in Darfur.

Adam's continued detention has drawn international criticism, while activists 
have launched an online media campaign to show solidarity with the detained 
rights advocate.

On Monday, Prosecutor-General Babiker Abdul Latif said in court that Ibrahim 
stood accused of engaging in "espionage" against Sudan, tarnishing the 
country's image, threatening national security, and undermining the 
constitution, among other serious charges.

"He has also operated a terrorist and criminal organization, while preparing 
fabricated reports about chemical weapons usage [by the government] in Darfur," 
Abdul Latif asserted.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Nabil Adeeb, head of Ibrahim's defense team, 
described the government's case against his client as "weak" and "fabricated".

"We know these are trumped-up charges," he said. "They are merely intended to 
keep Mr. Mudawi ... in jail for a long time."

In a report released last September, U.K.-based Amnesty International accused 
Khartoum of using chemical arms against civilians in Sudan's western Darfur 
region.

(source: worldbulletin.net)






NIGERIA/INDONESIA:

Nigeria pleads for death row nationals as Indonesia's top diplomat visits


The Federal Government on Monday pleaded with the government of Indonesia to 
commute the death penalty passed on Nigerians in the country's prison, to life 
imprisonment.

Foreign Affairs Minister Geoffrey Onyeama, made the plea in a joint communique 
issued at the end of bilateral meeting between the minister and Retno Marsudi, 
his counterpart from Indonesia.

He said, "On consular issues, Nigeria recognises the drugs emergency situation 
in Indonesia and pleaded for commuting death penalty to life imprisonment."

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that there are about 50 Nigerians 
serving various jail terms for different offences in Indonesia with about 11 of 
them on death row.

Human Rights organisation, Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP), had 
called on the federal government to boost its efforts in fighting for Nigerians 
on death row in foreign countries.

The organisation stated that no fewer than 300 Nigerians were currently on 
death row in prisons across Asian countries since 2016.

LEPAD said 120 Nigerians faced the prospects of death in Chinese prisons, and 
over 170 in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and 5 in Qatar, United Arab 
Emirate and Saudi Arabia.

The organisation estimated that about 16,500 Nigerians were being held abroad, 
while most of those on death row were convicted of drug-related crimes.

Mr. Onyeama said the 2 countries agreed to deepen contacts between their 
respective national Chambers of Commerce and private sector operators with a 
view to further enhance bilateral trade and investments.

He added that they also agreed on the importance of enhancing the existing 
cooperation between the 2 countries.

He said the 2 countries agreed to simplify bilateral trade through the 
establishment of a Bonded Logistic Centre in one of Nigeria's ports that could 
be used for Indonesian products.

Mrs. Marsudi had earlier announced her government's growing interest in 
promoting mutually beneficial economic relations with Nigeria.

The visiting minister expressed concern that there had been decline in 
bilateral trade between both countries in the last 5 years.

She said her government was prepared to enhance its economic relations with 
African countries, especially with Nigeria, in the years ahead.

She said that Nigeria and Indonesia have the resources and energies to enhance 
their areas of cooperation.

((source: Premium Times)






GHANA:

Mahama's Killers must be killed, but lawfully


What do we want? Justice for Capt. ? To kill those who killed him? Oh yes ! 
That is very simple. We can kill them because our laws permit killing of people 
who have been tried and proven guilty of murder charges despite the fact that 
Amnesty International is impressing upon us to expunge it from our law books. I 
believe it should be there and apply them when necessary.

It can still be done with much ease. In fact, no hustle at all. The prisons 
services are there to ensure that they are killed but not through instant 
firing at the shooting range as a section of the public are calling for, and 
for that matter missing the days of the revolution. How many of the youths in 
this current generation saw the revolution anyway? We are only told by our 
parents and grandparents who are gradually fading away with the painful 
memories of the atrocities some innocent Ghanaians went through in the hands of 
soldiers during military rule.

The firing squad is unlawful and unconstitutional way of killing people during 
the the military rule so we should allow it to belong to history as it is 
believed that many innocent Ghanaians were wasted in that manner without a fair 
hearing or trial before a court of competent jurisdiction. We can still kill 
them but it should be done constitutionally and in a democratic manner else we 
may be guilty of the same crimes that the alleged murderers committed by 
killing the Captain.

Section 46 of the Criminal Code (Act 29/60) states emphatically that he who is 
guilty of murder shall suffer death penalty. This is crystal clear and does not 
need any Constitutional interpretations from the Supreme Court. It's black and 
white in the Criminal Code and has not been repealed or ammended. Death penalty 
for those who are guilty of murder charges and not to waste about it. The law 
does not prescribe any punishment for murderers apart from death penalty so we 
should rather call for due processes of the law and not instant execution of 
them at the firing squad. The fact they were lawless doesn't mean the whole 
country should also follow emotions and be lawless because our country is 
govern by laws in a democratic dispensation.

Section 47 of the same Act defines murder as "Whoever intentionally causes the 
death of another person by any unlawful harm is guilty of murder, unless his 
crime is reduced to manslaughter by reason of such extreme provocation, or 
other matter of partial excuse ..." Here the law goes ahead to cites grounds on 
which murder charges can be reduced to manslaughter and that is through extreme 
provocation or other matter of partial excuses. Did Capt. Maxwell Adama Mahama 
provoke his assailants extremely to warrant his untimely death? If not, then we 
are likely to gain some convictions on the charges of murder if prosecution is 
able to make a strong case at the court.

We can still kill them if we really want to. It's a matter of the president 
signing the death warrants after trial and hand them over to the prisons. They 
will execute them without wasting our time. I am told there are some prison 
officers who take execution allowances. I don't know whether they are still 
taking it since they implemented the single spine salary structure. If they are 
still taking it, then it means that there are some prison officers who are paid 
by government to kill people who are proven guilty of murder charges and other 
felonious crimes like treason and high treason. We can still fulfil the 
biblical saying that "he who draws the sword dies by the sword" 
constitutionally and democratically. It's still not late so tell our colleagues 
in the military fraternity to hold their breaths. We are now in democratic 
country where the rule of law is supreme.

The problem however with the death sentences and its execution is our 
presidents who blatantly refuse to sign death warrants for people who are 
proven guilty by courts on murder charges to be killed. That is a shirk of 
legal responsibilities by our presidents and probably some of the reasons why 
mob attacks and lynching of people seem to be on the rise. One of the effects 
of death sentence is to deter others from committing such crimes after justice 
is served. People have forgotten that if you kill, you will also be killed so 
people commit heinous crime with impunity as we saw in the case Capt. Maxwell 
Adama Mahama. We must remind them that death sentences still exist

My checks indicates that the last time a death sentence was executed in Ghana 
was 1993 under the watch of H.E Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings. Since Paapa J left 
the office as the president of the Republic, all the succeeding presidents have 
failed to sign the death warrants which is a legal breach. It is a clear case 
of abuse of human rights for the courts to condemn people to death and yet the 
nation fails to take up its responsibilities to kill them. We are only 
torturing them psychologically which is against their human rights. Isn't it a 
contempt of court to have failed to carry out the orders of a court and a slap 
in the face of our justice system? I believe it is.

We can put H.E Nana Akuffo Addo to test with the death of Capt. Maxwell Adama 
Mahama if we really want justice to be served and not being emotional with the 
whole thing. In no time, our emotions will heal particularly those of us who 
are not directly connected to the family of Capt. Maxwell Adama Mahama. The 
media will turn their eyes somewhere and discuss unreasonable political shows. 
When no one is watching, that is when people can escape justice after several 
adjournments in the court. We only talk in times of crisis and forget when our 
emotions are healed. That is our nature as country and people.

I don't know about Ghana but in some jurisdictions, members of the deceased 
family are invited to watch the execution of people who are proven guilty of 
murder charges. Psychologists believe that watching someone who killed a 
relative of yours dying painfully gives you some kind psychological reliefs and 
increase your confidence in the law because justice is served. You become 
satisfied emotionally and psychologically whereas others schools of thoughts 
call for total forgiveness.

We can equally do same by inviting the general public to watch how those who 
are likely to be proven guilty of murder charges in the case of Capt. Maxwell 
Adama Mahama will be executed by hanging since we want to see them dead. If 
their deaths is what will give us psychological relieve of our traumas due to 
how the Captain was gruesomely killed instead of calling on powers that be to 
put stringent measures to ensure that mob attacks and lynching are totally 
elminated from our society. Just imagine that after the judgment and the 
following day, it is in the news that the killers of Capt. Maxwell Adama Mahama 
have also been killed after proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction? 
That one sound more democratic than handing them over to the soldiers to 
execute them by firing squad at the shooting range.

We are in a democratic country and our ability to enforce the law will make the 
rule of rule of law effective. Tell the presidents to sign death warrants 
pilling on their desks. They should clear backlog of all death sentences on 
their desks to serve as deterrent to others. I do not want to sign death 
warrants that is I am not a president.

In Ghana, we kill murderers by hanging them because that is what the law says 
and not through firing squad because rule of law has come to stay.

(source: Opinion; Ahanta Apemenyimheneba Kwofie III----News Ghana)






SAUDI ARABIA:

14 Protesters Facing Execution After Unfair Trials


Saudi Arabia should immediately quash the death sentences of 14 members of the 
Shia community for protest-related crimes, Amnesty International and Human 
Rights Watch said today. The Court of Appeal of the notorious Specialized 
Criminal Court upheld the sentences in May 2017, after they were handed down a 
year ago on June 1, 2016, following a grossly unfair trial of 24 Saudi Shia 
citizens. The Specialized Criminal Court is Saudi Arabia's counterterrorism 
tribunal.

"The rise in death sentences against Saudi Arabian Shia is alarming and 
suggests that the authorities are using the death penalty to settle scores and 
crush dissent under the guise of combating 'terrorism' and maintaining national 
security," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

Saudi authorities have executed more than 100 people since January 1, 2016

On May 25, 2017, the families of 3 of the defendants learned in a phone call 
that the Court of Appeal of the Specialized Criminal Court had upheld the death 
sentences against their relatives. The family members of another 2 defendants 
subsequently called the court, on May 28, and were informed that the sentences 
for their relatives and for the whole group of 14 had been upheld on appeal. 
The exact date of the appeal court's decision is unknown.

Court documents show that all defendants, including the 14 sentenced to death, 
were held in pretrial detention for more than 2 years before their trial began. 
During that time, most were in solitary confinement, and Saudi Arabian 
authorities denied them access to their families and lawyers while they 
interrogated them.

Since 2013, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have recorded a 
worrying increase in death sentences against political dissidents in Saudi 
Arabia, including the Shia Muslim minority. The organizations are aware of at 
least 38 members of Saudi Arabia's Shia community - who make up 10 to 15 % of 
the population - currently sentenced to death. Saudi Arabian authorities 
accused these individuals of activities deemed a risk to national security and 
sentenced them to death after deeply flawed legal proceedings at the 
Specialized Criminal Court.

"The sham court proceedings that led to death sentences for 38 Shia men and 
boys brazenly flout international fair trial standards," said Lynn Maalouf, 
director of research at Amnesty International in the Middle East. "The 
sentences should immediately be quashed."

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch obtained the text of and analyzed 
10 court judgments - involving 38 individuals - handed down by the Specialized 
Criminal Court between 2013 and 2016. Most were against men and children 
accused of protest-related crimes following mass demonstrations in 2011 and 
2012, in Eastern Province towns where Shia Muslims form the majority.

In nearly all the trial judgments analyzed, defendants retracted their 
"confessions," saying they were coerced in circumstances that in some cases 
amounted to torture, including beatings and prolonged solitary confinement. The 
court rejected all torture allegations without investigating the claims. Some 
defendants asked the judges to request video footage from the prison that they 
said would show them being tortured. Others asked the court to summon 
interrogators as witnesses to describe how the "confessions" were obtained. In 
all cases judges ignored these requests.

The judges admitted the "confessions" as evidence, and then convicted the 
detainees almost solely based on these "confessions."

"Death sentences based on coerced 'confessions' violate international human 
rights law and are a repugnant yet all-too-common outcome in security-related 
cases in Saudi Arabia," Maalouf said. "These death penalty trials fail to meet 
even the most basic requirements for due process."

On January 2, 2016, Saudi Arabia carried out a mass execution of 47 men for 
"terrorism offenses." Among those executed were Ali Sa'eed al-Ribh, whose trial 
judgment indicates that he was under 18 at the time of some of the crimes for 
which he was sentenced to death. As a state party to the Convention on the 
Rights of the Child, Saudi Arabia is legally obliged to ensure that no one 
under 18 at the time of a crime is sentenced to death or to life in prison 
without the possibility of release.

Those currently on death row include four Saudi Arabian nationals who were 
found guilty of offenses committed when they were teenagers - Ali al-Nimr, 
Dawoud al-Marhoun, Abdullah al-Zaher, and Abdulkareem Al-Hawaj.

The January 2, 2016 executions also included a prominent Shia Muslim cleric, 
Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, the uncle of Ali al-Nimr. Sheikh al-Nimr was a vocal 
critic of the government, and was convicted following a grossly unfair trial.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch oppose the death penalty in all 
cases without exception. The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and 
degrading punishment and unique in its finality. It is inevitably and 
universally plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error.

Pending full abolition of the death penalty, the Saudi Arabian authorities 
should immediately establish an official moratorium on executions, and remove 
any death penalty provisions that are in breach of international human rights 
law, such as provisions for its use against juvenile offenders and those 
suffering from mental disabilities, Amnesty International and Human Rights 
Watch said.

Saudi Arabia is one of the world's most prolific executioners and has put to 
death more than 400 people since the beginning of 2014, most for murder, 
drug-related crimes, and terrorism.

In addition to conducting unfair trials, Saudi Arabia has executed alleged 
child offenders and nonviolent offenders, including for drug-related crimes and 
"crimes" such as sorcery, in violation of international law which restricts the 
use of the death penalty to the "most serious crimes" - generally defined to 
include only intentional killing. Since the beginning of 2014, Saudi Arabia has 
executed at least 147 people for nonviolent drug crimes.

(source: Human RightsWatch)






IRAQ:

Dozens Found Handcuffed, Executed in, around Mosul----Evidence Points to 
Killings by Government Forces


At least 26 bodies of blindfolded and handcuffed men have been found in 
government held areas in and around Mosul since the operation to retake the 
city began in October 2016, Human Rights Watch said today.

In 15 of the cases, local armed forces told a foreign journalist that the men 
were extrajudicially killed by government security forces who had them in 
custody under suspicion of Islamic State (also known as ISIS) affiliation. In 
the remaining cases, reported by local and international sources, the sites of 
the apparent executions - all in government held territory - raise concerns 
about government responsibility for the killings. A foreign journalist also 
said that a government official told them that a Sunni Popular Mobilization 
Forces (known as the PMF or Hashd al-Sha'abi) unit, which is part of the 
government forces working to retake Mosul, was responsible for the 
extrajudicial killing of 25 men in their custody and dumping the bodies in the 
Tigris River.

"The bodies of bound and blindfolded men are being found one after the other in 
and around Mosul and in the Tigris River, raising serious concerns about 
extrajudicial killings by government forces," said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle 
East director at Human Rights Watch. "The lack of any apparent government 
action to investigate these deaths undermines the government's statements on 
protecting detainee rights."

Extrajudicial executions during an armed conflict are war crimes and if 
widespread or systematic, carried out as part of policy, would constitute 
crimes against humanity.

Iraqi forces, including the Popular Mobilization Forces, are screening and 
detaining men fleeing Mosul, in some cases in unidentified and informal 
detention centers where they are cut off from contact with the outside world. 
The authorities have not released any information on the number of people 
detained, or being investigated or charged. Given past abuse of people detained 
by the PMF and other government military and security forces, Human Rights 
Watch has flagged concerns about detainees' treatment, including possible 
executions.

On May 13 and 15, 2017, 2 groups of aid workers and a foreign journalist said 
that they saw groups of corpses, 15 bodies in all, by the side of a road 
between the village of Athba and town of Hammam al-Alil, about 15 kilometers 
south of west Mosul. The area is entirely under the control of Iraqi government 
forces. One group said they had driven past the area a day earlier and the 
bodies had not been there, suggesting they were killed on May 12 or 13.

Local armed forces at the nearest checkpoint told the journalist that they saw 
Iraqi "security forces" bring the men to the area and shoot them. The 
journalist observed many bullet casings in the area on May 15. The journalist 
found an identity card on one of the bodies and confirmed with a contact within 
the National Security Service, a security body under the ultimate control of 
the prime minister, that the name was on their government database of about 
90,000 people wanted for ISIS-affiliation.

Human Rights Watch obtained 7 photos of the bodies at the site, which show the 
corpses in various lying and kneeling positions, all blindfolded with their 
hands bound with plastic handcuffs or fabric.

Human Rights Watch shared these photos with Stefan Schmitt of the International 
Forensic Program at Physicians for Human Rights, who said that there were no 
indications that the bodies were dragged or placed in the locations, such as 
drag marks or shifting of clothing. The positioning of at least 2 of the bodies 
was consistent with kneeling prior to execution and then falling forward, he 
said, and he concluded that it was likely the victims were executed in the 
place they were found.

On April 20, 2017, Reuters reported that over the course of the last several 
months, residents of Qayyarah, a town 60 kilometers south of Mosul and firmly 
under Iraqi government control since August 2016, had seen at least 6 bodies 
floating down the Tigris River blindfolded with their hands bound. On May 21, a 
local fighter told Human Rights Watch he saw another bound body floating in the 
river by the bridge near Qayyarah. The Tigris River flows south, which suggests 
that the bodies were placed in the river north of Qayyarah, but could not have 
come from ISIS-controlled territory because of several dams in the river south 
of Mosul.

An officer of the PMF 90th Brigade told Human Rights Watch over the phone that 
his forces were holding detainees in bathrooms of abandoned homes in Safina, a 
village 20 kilometers north of Qayyarah, along the Tigris River, and said they 
had "business with the men" they were holding. He said no visitors were allowed 
at the detention sites. On May 21, a foreign journalist told Human Rights Watch 
that a government official informed them that the 90th Brigade was holding 
alleged ISIS affiliates in the same village. According to the journalist, the 
official said the 90th Brigade had been holding detainees there for at least 
four months, and he personally knew of at least 25 detainees held there whom 
the 90th Brigade had executed and dumped into the river.

In several other cases, bound and blindfolded corpses of men whose bodies bore 
signs of being executed were found in government held parts in and around 
Mosul, aid workers and journalists told Human Rights Watch.

At the end of April 2017, an aid worker visited the morgue at Qayyarah hospital 
that had reopened about two months earlier. Human Rights Watch reviewed a photo 
the aid worker took inside the morgue of a large pile of bodies. On the top of 
the pile was a man who had been shot. He was lying chest down, with a blindfold 
and with his hands bound with plastic handcuffs. Human Rights Watch visited the 
hospital in mid-May and 2 head doctors told researchers that they had received 
orders from the health and defense ministers that they were not to respond to 
any information requests on the morgue, or allow any visitors. They did not 
provide a reason, but said it was a "red line."

In late January, another foreign journalist showed Human Rights Watch pictures 
of the bodies of two bound men in a residential neighborhood of east Mosul 
fully under the control of Iraqi forces that he had taken two days earlier. 
Residents said they knew nothing about the identities of the men or 
circumstances of their death. Also in late January, Human Rights Watch 
interviewed a resident of the outskirts of Gogjali, a suburb of east Mosul, who 
pointed out a spot where he had found the body of a blindfolded man in the mud 
next to a trench. He and neighbors had buried the body. He said he knew nothing 
about the man's death or identity.

Media reports also have captured chilling incidents of executions during the 
operation.

"If Iraqi authorities want civilians who spent over 2 years living under ISIS 
to feel safe and protected, they need to ensure that anyone responsible for 
murdering prisoners is brought to justice," Fakih said.

(source: Human Rights Watch)