[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 2




SAUDI ARABIA----executions

Pakistani 'drug trafficker' among 6 beheaded in Saudi Arabia



The Saudi Arabia government on Monday executed 6 people, including a Pakistani 
citizen, convicted of drug trafficking and homicide, the highest number of 
executions in a single day this year.

The Pakistani man was beheaded for drug trafficking and 5 Saudi nationals for 
homicide, the interior ministry said.

Monday's executions bring to 44 the number of convicts put to death this year, 
according to an AFP tally of government statements.

The oil-rich kingdom has one of the world's highest rates of execution, with 
suspects convicted of terrorism, homicide, rape, armed robbery and drug 
trafficking facing the death penalty.

The country reported 153 people executed last year, a number confirmed by 
London-based rights group Amnesty International.

(source: Pakistan Today)








IRAN----executions

Three Executions On Murder Charges



2 prisoners were executed, 1 at Kerman prison and another at Tabriz Central 
Prison. The total number of the executions in Urmia on Tuesday has increased to 
2.

Execution of Prisoner in Kerman

According to a report by ISNA and the deputy of Public and Revolutionary 
Prosecutor's Office for Central Kerman Province, a prisoner who was charged 
with murder was hanged at Kerman prison. According to the same source, the 
prisoner, identified as Gh.N., murdered his brother-in-law with a knife in a 
quarrel on April 3, 2013.

"The victim, Ahadi, was a close relative of the murderer's and there was no 
intention of murder. But it all happened extremely fast," Amine Salari 
explained.

The official sources that reported the execution of this prisoner didn't 
mention the exact date of it, however, it appears that the execution was 
carried out on Thursday September 28.

Execution of Prisoner in Tabriz

According to a report by HRANA, a prisoner was executed at Tabriz Central 
Prison on murder charges. The prisoner, identified as Ahad Pourtaghi, was 
executed on Thursday September 21.

Mr. Pourtaghi had been in prison since 2012 on the charge of murdering his 
wife. He was tried in a court and his death sentence was issued.

Execution of Prisoner in Urmia

According to a close source, a prisoner, named Moslem Tamrkhani from ward 2 of 
mental ward, was executed at Urmia Central Prison on Tuesday 26. Moslem 
Tamrkhani was sentenced to death on murder charges.

Previously, Iran Human Rights (IHR) had reported about the execution of a 
prisoner named Javad Khayyeri at Urmia Central Prison on Tuesday. This brings 
the total number of the executions on Tuesday to 2. The 2 prisoners were 
transferred to solitary confinement in a group of 4 on Monday September 25. The 
other 2 prisoners returned to their cells after either winning the consent of 
the plaintiff or asking for time.

The executions in Tabriz and Urmia have not been announced by the state-run 
media so far.

According to Iran Human Rights annual report on the death penalty, 142 of the 
530 execution sentences in 2016 were implemented due to murder charges. There 
is a lack of a classification of murder by degree in Iran which results in 
issuing death sentence for any kind of murder regardless of intensity and 
intent.

(source: Iran Human Rights)








VIETNAM:

In Vietnam, corruption can mean death. But so what?



Unless the day-to-day corruption that affects the masses is rooted out, any 
anti-graft drive would be just cosmetic, analysts say.

Mac Thi Hao seems unperturbed by the news coverage of Vietnam's corruption 
crackdown blaring from screens all around her. A retired accountant in Hanoi, 
Hao has a much more pragmatic, no-nonsense stance on what corruption means to 
her.

"I just don't care about a bigwig being punished," Hao told VnExpress 
International. "I know there is an ongoing crackdown on corruption, but that 
really has nothing to do with me," she said.

"Whenever I think of corruption, I always recall the bribes I had to pay for my 
children's school admissions or for better hospital services. To me, that's the 
corruption that affects my life the most."

Hao's account offers a small glimpse into what most Vietnamese people make of 
corruption and what it means to them. It was revealed against the backdrop of 
Vietnam's sweeping corruption crackdown that has grabbed both international and 
local headlines.

Just last Friday in Hanoi, a former chairman of the state energy giant 
PetroVietnam was sentenced to death and a former CEO of a scandal-hit bank got 
a life sentence in what has been considered the biggest fraud trial in 
Vietnam's history. The OceanBank trial, as referred to by local media, also saw 
a slew of officials and bankers receive jail terms of up to 22 years.

Given that Vietnam's top echelons have repeatedly tried to assuage people's 
fears of rampant graft, the sentences apparently exhibit the political will to 
repair shattered public confidence. In late 2013, 2 former bosses of the 
state-run Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines) also received death 
sentences for embezzling $476,000 each in a high-profile corruption scam that 
riveted the nation.

But unless the day-to-day corruption that exacts a heavy toll on the most 
average people is rooted out, any so-called anti-graft movement would amount to 
little more than window dressing, analysts say.

"Harsh prison sentences and even the death penalty will only have a marginal 
impact on curbing grand corruption," Carl Thayer, an Australia-based veteran 
Vietnam analyst, said. "Resorting to hard sentences is like a medical booster 
shot, it wears off over time," he told VnExpress International.

"The masses encounter everyday low-level corruption in their dealings with 
government officials, traffic police and so on," Thayer said. "They would like 
to see this ended as their 1st priority."

In Vietnam, the practice of passing money under the table is so common that 
many insiders do not even consider it bribery, but an inevitable part of 
getting things done.

In a survey in March, Transparency International ranked Vietnam as the second 
most corrupt country in Asia after India in terms of bribery. In its Corruption 
Perception Index 2016, the Berlin-based advocacy group also ranked Vietnam 
113th out of 176 countries and territories.

According to the most recent Governance and Public Administration Performance 
Index, which interviewed around 14,000 residents in all 63 Vietnamese provinces 
and cities, there were "noticeable spikes" in reports of extra money being paid 
for everything from civil service positions to good grades.

Many analysts blame the problem on Vietnam's failure to complete market reforms 
that began in the late 1980s. They say there is still too much state control 
over the economy, which allows connected insiders to profit.

According to the analysts, individuals who have access to centrally planned or 
government-controlled assets like land or capital are getting very rich, but 
individual entrepreneurs who have to compete without subsidized land, capital, 
fast-tracked approval or tax breaks are having a much harder time.

This has fueled an entrenched bribe-for-approval system.

"It is just too accepted as 'the Vietnamese way of doing business'," Dennis 
McCornac, a professor of economics at Loyola University in Baltimore 
(Maryland), said.

"Right now, the attitude about corruption is still 'this is Vietnam'. Until 
there is a change in the mentality of the population and all levels commit to 
reducing corruption, the problem will persist," he said.

But apparently, the status quo has already perpetuated widespread public 
distrust in the government's determination to fight corruption.

In its March survey, over half of the Transparency International's Vietnamese 
respondents reported their government was doing a poor job of fighting 
corruption. Questions about public faith in provincial leaders drew rock bottom 
responses in the Governance and Public Administration Performance Index, but 
only 3 percent of respondents said they would blow the whistle on corrupt 
officials.

But still, the death penalty handed down last week to Nguyen Xuan Son, the 
former PetroVietnam chairman, and the life sentence for Ha Van Tham, the former 
chairman of OceanBank, will send a powerful message to the general public that 
the current leadership is serious about its anti-corruption drive, Thayer said.

"To be effective the anti-corruption campaign must be never-ending. There are 
undoubtedly other corruption scandals waiting to be exposed," he said.

State oil and gas giant PetroVietnam and the banking sector have been at the 
center of the crackdown that has netted scores of officials. Chief among them 
is Dinh La Thang, who was ousted from the Politburo, the Communist Party's 
decision-making body, last May and fired as the top leader of Ho Chi Minh City 
soon after.

But the bottom line is going after high-profile individuals is not going to 
restore public trust in any significant way, analysts say. They say the fight 
against deep-rooted graft in Vietnam requires a political sledgehammer to fix a 
badly broken system, leaving no room for the ???kill the chicken to scare the 
monkeys" approach.

"Corruption is like Hydra, a 9-headed serpent-like snake in Greek Mythology in 
which it was said that if you cut off 1 hydra head, 2 more grew back," 
McCornac, the American analyst, said. "Perhaps the new heads are not as large 
or powerful as the one cut off, but they emerge nevertheless," he said.

"The only way is to address the issue at all levels."

Having lived abroad for years, a retired Vietnamese researcher still keeps 
close tabs on what is happening back home. Unsurprisingly, the corruption 
crackdown has been high on her radar.

"If the top officials are squeaky clean, no traffic policeman or doctor would 
dare to extract bribes from the public," she said, declining to be named, 
citing the sensitivity of the issue.

If, as Vietnam's leaders have repeatedly warned, corruption threatens the 
survival of the system, addressing it will require the overhaul of the system 
itself, she said.

"And that only happens when the powers that be have the political will to do 
so."

(source: vnexpress.net)








SINGAPORE:

8 Singaporeans arrested for suspected trafficking after heroin and Ice worth 
$275,000 seized----The drugs included about 2.15kg of heroin and 495g of Ice or 
methamphetamine.



Drugs worth about $275,000 were seized and 8 suspected drug offenders were 
arrested in an operation by the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) on Friday (Sept 
29).

The drugs included about 2.15kg of heroin and 495g of Ice or methamphetamine, 
said the CNB in a statement on Saturday.

On Friday afternoon, CNB officers were deployed near a carpark at New Upper 
Changi Road to observe a group of suspected drug traffickers.

At around 4pm, a man was seen leaving a unit and waiting at the void deck of a 
building.

Soon after, 3 men arrived in a car. The man from the building approached the 
car and was seen talking to the t3 suspects, said the CNB.

After they parted ways, officers arrested the man at the void deck, together 
with another younger man who had met him.

Officers then raided the unit that the man had exited from earlier and 
recovered about 2,132g of heroin and 191g of Ice.

3 other suspects, a man and 2 women, were also arrested in the unit, said CNB.

The 3 men in the car were also arrested by another party of officers who had 
tailed the car to a petrol kiosk along Bedok South Avenue 1, where they had 
stopped to refuel.

About 304g of Ice and 18g of heroin were found in the car, said CNB.

All 8 suspects are Singaporeans, aged between 25 and 55 years old.

Investigations into the drug activities of the suspects are ongoing.

For trafficking more than 15g of diamorphine, or pure heroin, or more than 250g 
of methamphetamine, a convicted drug trafficker can face the death penalty.

(source: The Straits Times)








MALAYSIA:

Kim Jong-nam murder: Women plead not guilty in Malaysia trial



2 women have pleaded not guilty to murdering Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of 
North Korea's leader, as their trial in Malaysia got under way.

The brazen nature of his killing, using the highly toxic VX nerve agent as he 
waited for a flight at Kuala Lumpur airport in February, shocked the world.

Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong, 29, and Indonesian Siti Aisyah, 25, are accused of 
rubbing the chemical on his face.

The pair say it was a TV prank and they were tricked by North Korean agents.

Pyongyang has denied any involvement in the killing, but in court prosecutors 
said that 4 men - believed to be a reference to 4 North Koreans who fled 
Malaysia the same day - were also suspects in the killing.

The incident led to a bitter diplomatic row and strained the once cordial ties 
between North Korea and Malaysia, which expelled each other's ambassadors.

What happened at court?

The trial has been 8 months in the making and the 2 women are the only suspects 
actually charged so far with the murder of Kim Jong-nam.

With their heads bowed and wearing handcuffs and bullet-proof vests, the women 
walked past a horde of journalists gathered outside the court in Shah Alam, 
outside Kuala Lumpur.

After the charges were read to them in court in Indonesian and Vietnamese, the 
2 women entered their pleas through interpreters.

If found guilty, the women face the death penalty. Their defence lawyers are 
likely to argue that the real culprits are North Korean agents, who left 
Malaysia.

But in his opening remarks, the prosecutor said he aims to prove that the 
women, along with four people still at large, had the "common intention" to 
kill Mr Kim.

He said the women had carried out practice runs in Kuala Lumpur shopping malls 
before the attack, under the "supervision" of the 4 people, who were not named 
in court.

Dozens of witnesses, including airport staff who came into contact with Mr Kim, 
are expected to take the stand in the trial which will run for weeks.

\ Why was the murder so shocking?

The murder is notable for its sheer audacity, taking place as it did 
mid-morning in full view of security cameras at Kuala Lumpur's airport.

On 13 February the 2 women were seen threading through crowds of people and 
accosting Mr Kim, before rubbing their hands on his face.

The CCTV footage shows a woman in white lunging at a man

Then there was the speed with which Mr Kim died. Immediately after the attack 
he sought help from airport staff, who led him to a clinic, but he collapsed 
and died just minutes later.

After a post-mortem examination, Malaysian authorities announced he had been 
killed by VX, a toxin so lethal that it is classified as a weapon of mass 
destruction by the United Nations.

How is North Korea involved?

The 2 women, who were arrested days after the killing, have insisted that they 
were tricked by North Koreans into taking part in what they thought was a TV 
prank. Four North Korean men who fled Malaysia shortly after the incident are 
believed to suspects. Interpol issued "red notices" for their arrest in March.

Malaysia has named and questioned other North Koreans in relation to the case.

But authorities also allowed 3 of them to leave the country in late March, in 
return for North Korea releasing 9 Malaysian diplomats and their families.

What does the case tell us about North Korea?

Mr Kim, who was in his mid-40s, was the estranged older half-brother of North 
Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

At the time of his death, he was believed to have been living in self-imposed 
exile in Macau and was thought to have had some links to China.

Some believe he was killed because he was seen as a potential 
leader-in-waiting, and therefore a threat to his younger brother, but many 
analysts have dismissed this.

As with much concerning North Korea, the real motivations behind Mr Kim's 
murder are likely to remain unclear.

(source: BBC News)