[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 15



NIGERIA:

Freed from hangman's noose after 13 years, 2 ex-prisoners start afresh



As a teenager, his dream was to play professional football. Williams Owodo, 
then 16, knew he had the skills and therefore needed to maintain his training 
routine daily to acutalise his passion. Little did he know that fate had a 
different plan for him.

On February 1, 1995, in one of his usual evening trainings in Ajegunle area of 
Lagos, a fight broke out around the neighbourhood where the football field he 
trains is located. And someone died in the fracas and the Police apprehended 
him on his way home from football training.

That was the beginning of his travails that culminated in a death sentence. He 
waited 18 years of harrowing experience for the hangman before he was freed 
through the providential intervention of the Legal Defence Assistance Project 
(LEDAP).

Accused of murder, Owodo was tortured, tried, convicted and sentenced to death 
by hanging. But LEDAP launched an appeal against his conviction, which 
exonerated the condemned 'criminal' and validated his innocence.

He reminisced: "I spent 9 years in Ikoyi Prison and was later transferred to 
Kirikiri Maximum-Security Prison, where I spent another n9 years. In total, I 
spent 18 years in prison for an offence I didn't commit.

"Before the incident happened, my daily routine was to play football every 
evening in the field with my friends. While playing, a fight occurred and 
someone got killed. The Police arrested me and asked me to come and make 
statement at their station.

"I got there and made a statement, but the Police tore it and forced me to sign 
an already written confessional statement that I conspired to murder the man. 
"When the torture became unbearable, without even reading the content of the 
statement, I signed it."

It was on account of that statement that the Judge convicted him. Following the 
nullification of his conviction, Owodo was finally discharged from prison on 
November 13, 2013 after wasting 18 years of his youthful and productive life in 
wrongful incarceration.

Owodo is not alone. Ganiyu Wahab, 53, then a businessman, was 40 when he had 
similar experience. He told The Guardian that he spent 13 years in condemned 
prisoners cell for an offence of murder he did not commit.

He said: "I sell drinks, like beer and others, in cartons. Every year, I 
organised a party as a carnival for the people that patronised my business in 
that area. I had done that for about 5 or 6 years before then.

"In that particular year, a musician came to perform. Area boys and girls, as 
well as my customers also came to enjoy themselves, because it held every 
December.

"There was this girl in my area that had an issue with her boyfriends. 
Suddenly, 2 guys began to fight over her and I was inside my shop when someone 
informed me that people were fighting outside.

"Before I got outside, 1 of the girl's boyfriends had stabbed the another one 
with a small knife. I wasn't even at the scene. "When the injured guy was 
shouting for help, I decided to take him to the hospital for treatment. I just 
helped him. I don't know him because he was not from my neighbourhood.

"After I took him to the hospital, some hours, they treated him and the next 
day, the guy died. So, the doctor said I was the one who brought the boy to the 
hospital and took me to the Police station."

Wahab said he was offered bail, but because he could not afford the amount of 
money demanded from him, he was later tortured and made to sign a confessional 
statement upon which the court convicted and condemned him to death.

He said regarding the day he was condemned to death: "I ran mad! For about 2 to 
3 months, I wasn't myself. My children will come to the prison to plead and 
preach to me, so I could get myself back.

"We didn't have influential people. Assuming I came from a wealthy family, it 
would not have been like that. The law of this country deals with poor people."

The issue of the poor being victims of Nigeria's death penalty laws formed the 
fulcrum of the statement issued by the National Coordinator of LEDAP, Mr. 
Chinonye Obiagwu, as the world marked the World Day Against the use of the 
Death Penalty, with the theme, 'Poverty and the death penalty.'

LEDAP used the opportunity to reaffirm its position that the abolition of death 
penalty in law and practice should be the firm desire of the Nigerian 
government, describing death penalty as cruel and inhumane treatment, which has 
no place in modern society.

"The application of death penalty is discriminatory in Nigeria, as it has 
become a punishment exclusive to the poor in society," Obiagwu stated, adding 
that LEDAP was continually in legal battles with the federal and state 
governments in its quest to ensure that fundamental rights of citizens are 
safe-guarded and death penalty is abolished.

He stated further: "Currently, LEDAP has at least 3 actions in court 
challenging the imposition of death sentences and the proposal of the federal 
and state governments to execute death row inmates.

"LEDAP urges state governors not to sign any death warrant, as it constitutes 
state murder. With high number of criminal convictions overturned on appeal, 
continued execution is risky, as innocent people may be wrongfully killed.

"LEDAP strongly believes that in its practical application, death penalty is 
discriminatory, as there is hardly any rich or influential person in society 
who is sentenced to death, because the rich have the resources to settle the 
Police or afford the best lawyers to ensure they are not convicted."

(source: guardian.ng)








INDONESIA:

Why Indonesia Delays Execution of Death Row Convicts



A total of 153 convicted death row inmates are yet to be executed in Indonesia, 
facing undetermined execution timeline. Even Attorney General M Prasetyo could 
not tell when these convicts people will go to the gallows.

Is an execution delay good or bad? Regardless, some in the public had 
repetitively questioned such long execution delay faced by these prisoners. On 
the other hand, human rights groups had ceaselessly sought support from the 
international community for the abolishment of capital punishment in Indonesia 
while the government had adamantly defended its use of the death penalty.

Prasetyo said on Wednesday, "On the delay of their execution, I also cannot 
explain about it now. I can only say that there are still so many problems 
currently faced by this nation, which should be given a priority. So many 
things," Prasetyo said in a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday (11/10) as 
reported by Detik.com.

The attorney general said the solution of existing economic, social and 
political problems as well as social gap issues should be given top priority.

Prasetyo said the current law on clemency for death row prisoners had also 
caused a delay in their execution. Such group of prisoners included former drug 
dealers.

Indonesia reportedly executed 39 death row convicts, including foreign 
nationals, in the past 10 years. Out of this total number, 18 went to the 
gallows under the government of President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo who took up his 
post in October 2014.

(source: globalindonesianvoices.com)

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

A Total of 11 Indonesian Citizens Threatened with Death Penalty in Sabah



A total of 11 Indonesian citizens working in the State of Sabah, Malaysia are 
threatened with death penalty related to criminal cases they have committed.

Indonesian Consul General of Kota Kinabalu Akhmad DH Irfan in Kota Kinabalu via 
a written message, Friday (10/13/2017), confirmed that dozens of Indonesian 
citizens who committed criminal acts in his territory in the State of Sabah are 
threatened with the death penalty.

However, the Indonesian Consulate General of Kota Kinabalu has defended by 
hiring lawyers in the neighboring country to set them free from the death 
penalty demand.

This step is not inseparable from the protection efforts by the Indonesian 
government through the representative office in the country against citizens 
who are caught by criminal cases.

Of the 11 Indonesian citizens who are threatened with death penalty, three of 
them have been legally binding and are awaiting the pardon from the Sabah Head 
of State.

Later, 4 other Indonesians were undergoing trials at the High Court of Appeal 
of Sabah State and 4 others still under investigation process.

Akhmad DH Irfan asserted the consulate continues to save Indonesian citizens 
from the threat of capital punishment. "We are committed to provide defense 
against citizens who are threaten with the death penalty to be reduced," he 
said.

(source: netralnews.com)








PAKISTAN:

Pakistan's angel of death



Malak al-Maut (the angel of death) was once, it is said by Islamic theologists, 
one of God's favoured angels; a loyal servant who was entrusted with separating 
people's souls from their bodies, when their time came.

To the righteous, it is said, the angel of death appears in a friendly form, a 
companion come to ease one's passage to the other side.

For those who have sinned, however, the angel appears as a terrifying beast, a 
demon come to wreak divine judgment and wrench their souls away to eternal 
damnation.

For most prisoners on Pakistan's death row, he appears as Sabir Masih.

Since 2006, Masih has been 1 of 3 executioners in Pakistan's eastern city of 
Lahore, the capital of Punjab, the country's most populous province. Although 
he says that he does not keep track, he claims to have hanged more than 250 
people since he started work.

Masih comes from a family of executioners. His father, Sadiq, hanged prisoners 
for 40 years before retiring in 2000. Masih's grandfather and his brothers all 
did the same work, too. Indeed his granduncle, Tara Masih, hanged Zulfiqar Ali 
Bhutto, Pakistan's 1st elected prime minister, in 1979.

Tara had to be flown from Bahawalpur to Lahore because the executioner at 
Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail - Sabir's father Sadiq - refused to hang the popular 
leader.

As a child, Sabir Masih always knew he would end up in the family business.

"I knew that this was a family profession," the 33-year-old explains, sitting 
cross-legged in his maternal uncle's simple home, about 25km outside of Lahore.

He was 22 the first time that he killed a man, a convicted murderer whose name 
he cannot recall.

"I didn't know anything at that time. I had just seen a man hanged once in 
front of me," he says. "I saw [my teacher] tie a noose once, the 2nd time I did 
it myself.

"When I pull the lever, I don't really think about it. You pull the lever, the 
man falls," he says. "My focus is on the sign, from the jail superintendent."

It was his 1st day on the job.

I am killing people based on the law. The murderer has killed by their choice, 
but I am not killing by my own choice... I have not picked the convict to kill.

Sabir Masih, executioner

Within 8 months, he says proudly, he had already executed 100 men, "completing 
his century", as he puts it.

In 2008, however, Masih's work came to an abrupt halt, as the newly elected 
Pakistan People's Party government placed an unofficial moratorium on 
executions. That measure remained in place until December 2014, when armed men 
stormed a Peshawar school, killing more than 150 people, most of them children.

The attack shocked the nation, and the government quickly lifted the 
moratorium, as a warning to members of armed groups such as the Pakistan 
Taliban, known by the acronym TTP, and others who had attacked both state and 
civilian targets in a war that has lasted since 2007.

Within a matter of hours, Masih was en route to Faisalabad from his native 
Lahore, to keep an appointment with two men convicted of "terrorism".

"There were news reporters everywhere," he says, recalling the crowd outside 
his home when the moratorium was lifted. "I sent a friend twice to go out and 
check ??? then I slipped out and went to Faisalabad."

'It's nothing'

Since then, Pakistan has executed at least 471 people, according to the 
independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).

Last year, it ranked 5th on Amnesty International's list of worldwide 
executioners, putting at least 87 people to death. Almost all of those cases 
were in Punjab province, with Masih carrying out many of them.

"Why should I keep track? The jail keeps records. They have books to keep track 
of the black warrants," he says.

Masih takes an uncomplicated approach to the question of whether the death 
penalty is justified.

"This is the law of our country, what am I meant to feel about it?" he asks. 
"It is nothing, it is just a job."

Further probing on the subject seems to elicit annoyance, a mild irritation at 
questions he thinks miss the point of what he does for a living.

"It's nothing. Only that minute or half a minute is urgent, when they are 
bringing the convict to be hanged. Other than that, it's simple," he says, 
detailing how he measures out the length of rope and ties the knot based on the 
height and weight of the convict.

Sometimes, he concedes, he gets it wrong.

"You'll see a person's body torn apart. I've done it many times."

Masih speaks at an odd rhythm, as if just slightly out of time with the world 
around him. As he picks at his yellowing teeth with a matchstick, he complains 
that people seem to make more of his job than is warranted.

"For the person who is observing it being done, it seems a huge thing to do ... 
but it's easy, it's not a big deal for me."

"It's nothing," he repeats throughout our conversation.

Fair trial concerns, however, have dogged Pakistan's justice system, and 
specifically its use of the death penalty, for years.

Last year, the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted 1 brothers, Ghulam Qadir and 
Ghulam Sarwar, of murder, after they had spent more than 10 years on death row. 
The only problem? Qadir and Sarwar had both been executed at Bahawalpur's 
central jail in October 2015.

Masih had pulled the lever.

"I didn't feel anything," he says, of when he heard the news of the acquittals. 
"If anyone is going to feel tension about it, it would be the jail 
superintendent, or the deputy, or the chief minister. I didn't issue the black 
warrants, did I?

"It's nothing."

'They're finished from the inside'

In a sense, Masih concedes, he sees prisoners at their most intimate, in a 
moment where there are no longer any pretences.

"Yes, I see a face of theirs [that others do not]," he says. "At that time, 
they are crying. Either from the inside or the outside."

Some, he says, ask for forgiveness - from him, from the jail superintendent, 
from anyone who will listen.

"They're finished, from the inside. The convict who has done it, they know that 
they have to accept their fate."

Others, however, exult in their deeds.

1 execution that Masih says will always stay with him was that of 2 men 
convicted for facilitating a suicide attack on then Pakistani President General 
Pervez Musharraf in 2004. They were hanged in December 2014.

"They came to me 12 minutes before their hanging. They were raising slogans, 
and greeting each other happily as if they were at Eid prayers. They said that 
they were bound for heaven," he says.

"They accepted that they had done everything that they had been accused of. 
They were happy about it."

What, then, does Masih see as the difference between himself and those men? Or, 
rather, between himself and all of the murderers that he has executed over the 
years? Is there one?

"What I do, it is different," he says, emphatically. "I am killing people based 
on the law. The murderer has killed by their choice, but I am not killing by my 
own choice. On my side, I have the whole state, all the way to the president. I 
have not picked the convict to kill.

"It's nothing."

(source: Al Jazeera News)








PHILIPPINES:

On the death-penalty revival, priest asks: 'What message are we sending the 
youth?'



The revival of the death penalty would risk sending the wrong message to 
society, especially the young people, a Catholic priest said.

Jesuit priest Fr. Silvino Borres Jr., president of the Coalition Against the 
Death Penalty (CADP), said that to have a civil society, the country must 
respect life, not demand death.

"What kind of message are we telling our young people?" Borres said in his 
homily during a Mass to mark the World Day Against the Death Penalty at the 
Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Chapel in Manila on 
Tuesday.

He said the government should not be in the business of killing its people, 
adding that the poor and minorities are more likely to receive a death 
sentence.

The priest said the poor would always be at greater risk for execution because 
most of them are deprived of adequate and competent legal counsel during their 
trial.

"Capital punishment is reprehensive precisely because the government uses all 
its resources to kill a person. That's what makes this scandalous and 
atrocious," Borres said. No doubt, according to him, about the necessity for 
punishment of crimes and the demands for justice. However, he added, "we are 
questioning whether it [extreme penalty of death] leads to any good."

"We urge our lawmakers to take an enlightened action. Let us show the world 
that pursuit of justice is not incompatible with mercy and compassion," he 
said.

The bishops' prison ministry also affirmed its "option for life and justice" 
that moves beyond punishment.

"We consider the move to restore capital punishment as unenlightened, 
counterproductive and counterprogressive," said Rodolfo Diamante, executive 
secretary of the CBCP Commission on Prison Pastoral Care.

"The stance against the death penalty is in no way a posture to let criminal 
offenders go scot-free. We believe in justice and it is ranked high in its 
hierarchy of values," he said.

Bills to reinstate the capital punishment are pending before the Senate. 
Despite the Philippines being a signatory to a global treaty against the death 
penalty, the House of Representatives have adopted measures contrary to this.

The House of Representatives and the Senate must agree on the provisions of the 
proposed law before it is sent to President Duterte for approval.

(source: businessmirror.com.ph)