[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 29



LEBANON:

Lebanon's Military Tribunal Sentences Terrorist Ahmad Assir to Death



The Permanent Military Tribunal, chaired by Major General Hussein Abdullah, on 
Thursday sentenced in absentia death penalty against the terrorist Ahmad 
al-Assir in the Abra incidents' case.

The Military Tribunal also sentenced Assir's assistant Fadel Shaker to 15 years 
of hard labor and stripped him of his civil rights with an 800,000 lira fine.

In 2013, Ahmad Assir led a terrorist group to launch attacks on the civilians 
and the Lebanese army in the southern city of Sidon, causing the martyrdom of 
18 army soldiers.

(sources: Al-Manar Website and NNA)








NIGERIA:

Senate recommends death penalty for kidnappers



The Senate on Thursday passed a Bill for a law against abduction, wrongful 
restraint or wrongful confinement for a ransom.

This came after a clause-by-clause consideration of a Report on the issue by 
Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters at plenary.

The Bill was sponsored by Senator Isa Misau (APC-Bauchi) and Senator Chukwuka 
Utazi (PDP-Enugu), who presented the report on behalf of the Chairman of the 
committee, Senator David Umaru.

While presenting it, Utazi said the Bill sought to prescribe stiff punishment 
for the offence of abduction, wrongful restraint and wrongful confinement for 
ransom.

He said the bill sought to combat and prevent any form of kidnapping in Nigeria 
and gave wider powers to the Inspector-General of Police to ensure adequate 
combating of crime.

Clause 1 (3) of the Bill states: "Whoever is guilty of the offence and then 
results in the death of the victim shall be liable on conviction to be 
sentenced to death."

Clause 5 (2): "Anyone who fails to produce any book, account, receipts, 
vouchers or other documents which is in his possession or control shall be 
guilty of an offence.

"The person shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding N100, 000 or 
to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or to both fine and 
imprisonment."

Clause 3 provides a 30-year jail term to anyone who colludes with abductor to 
receive any ransom for the release of any person who has been wrongfully 
confined.

The report was unanimously accepted by the lawmakers after a voice vote put by 
the President of the Senate, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki.

The Senate also passed the Bill for the Prohibition and Protection of Persons 
from Lynching.

However, the report of the Committee on Trade and Investment on Counterfeit 
Goods Bill was stepped down due to technical irregularities.

Saraki, thereafter, referred the report to Legal Department of the National 
Assembly and urged chairmen of all committees to ensure that their reports 
passed through the legal department before consideration by the Senate.

(source: theeagleonline.ng)








KENYA:

3 face death penalty for Del Monte Kenya pineapple theft, report says



Kenya's Court of Appeal has reportedly upheld the death sentence handed to 
three men who allegedly stole 30 pineapples from a Del Monte farm, according to 
local publication Standard Media.

Julius Mugambi, Edward Mburu and Francis Maina lost their case after the court 
found they were positively identified as part of a gang of 7 intruders, the 
story said.

They are now reported to be on death row even though they never got away with 
the fruits worth Sh1,500 from a facility belonging to Del Monte Kenya, which is 
owned by Fresh Del Monte.

The 3 were charged with threatening security guards using machetes before 
stealing the pineapples and also with unlawfully injuring an animal, the story 
said.

They were reportedly first arraigned in the magistrate's court in Thika on 
November 1, 2008, where they were tried and sentenced to death.

They filed an appeal at the High Court, arguing there was a mistake in the 
identification of intruders at the farm on the day, according to Standard 
Media.

At the time of writing, Fresh Del Monte had not replied to Fresh Fruit Portal's 
request for comment on the matter.

(source: freshfruitportal.com)








EGYPT:

NCHR annual report recommends restriction of military trials, denies systematic 
torture



The Egyptian National Council of Human Rights [NCHR] released on Wednesday its 
annual report on the period from April 2016 to June 2017, which highlighted the 
conditions of human rights in Egypt and the state's efforts in combating 
terrorism.

The report asserted that there is no systematic torture performed against 
prisoners inside Egyptian prisons as rumored, noting that the monitored torture 
cases are 'individual' and all its perpetrators are tried on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, the report mentioned that NCHR's head Mohamed Fayek met with 
delegations from the US congress and stressed to them that all reports issued 
by the Congress on the presence of sectarian strife in Egypt between Copts and 
Muslims have no relation to reality.

Moreover, the report said that Fayek asserted in a meeting with the Philippines 
ambassador to Cairo that the Egyptian Armed Forces are controlling the 
situation in North Sinai, noting that the problem there is present in the 
smuggling of weapons from Gaza strip and Libya to North Sinai.

In the report, the NCHR called on the government to hold a national conference 
to develop a law in the Egyptian constitution for the sake of limiting the 
death penalty for certain crimes and to expand pardons issued for prisoners who 
suffer from health troubles.

Group calls for establishing ministry to defend Egypt's human rights situation

In addition to restricting military trials for those who committed assaults 
against any person or facility affiliated to the Egyptian Armed Forces, and to 
afford comprehensive data base for those who are detained and the future of 
their trials.

The NCHR also called for the pardoning of prisoners by the President Abdel 
Fattah Al-Sisi for young people, and recommended it especially for young people 
who are detained and have been proved to be not perpetrators of 'terrorist 
attacks'.

(source: Egypt Independent)




VIETNAM:

Former energy exec gets death sentence as Vietnam's massive graft trial 
delivers verdict



A court in Hanoi sentenced a former chairman of state fuel giant PetroVietnam 
to death and his counterpart at OceanBank to life imprisonment on Friday for 
their roles in a multi-million-dollar graft case that has riveted the nation.

Nguyen Xuan Son, who served as chairman of the board at the oil and gas group 
from 2014 until his arrest in 2015, received the death penalty for 
appropriating VND246 billion ($13.6 million) from the bank.

PetroVietnam had bought a 20 % stake in OceanBank, which meant Son had stolen 
VND49 billion in government money, prosecutors said. The 55-year-old was 
charged with embezzlement, abuse of power and deliberately violating state 
regulations on economic management.

Ha Van Tham, former chairman of the board at OceanBank, was sentenced to life 
in jail on charges of embezzlement, deliberately violating state regulations on 
economic management and breaking regulations on lending activities at credit 
institutions.

Tham is accused of offering deposit rates above those set by the central bank 
to various customers including PetroVietnam between 2010 and 2014, causing 
losses of nearly VND1.6 trillion ($70.4 million).

Although the defendants said that the excessive interest rates were just a 
business strategy aimed at saving the bank and actually resulted in a healthy 
profit, the indictment said the crime "seriously affected the monetary market."

Other bankers received up to 22 years in jail.

Tham, a U.S.-educated banker who was Vietnam's 8th richest man in 2013 based on 
stock holdings, had won several national awards for outstanding 
entrepreneurship before his arrest in October 2014.

He is also accused of approving a VND500 billion ($23.5 million) loan for Pham 
Cong Danh, former chairman of Vietnam Construction Bank, via a real estate firm 
without properly securing collateral in 2012. The Ho Chi Minh City-based 
company later defaulted on the loan.

Danh was sentenced to 14 years. He is already serving a 30-year jail term after 
being found guilty last year of illegally withdrawing more than VND9 trillion 
($404 million) from the bank.

On Monday, in his closing statement, Tham asked the judges to be lenient with 
his employees.

"You used to sit with me on a boat when I was captain. I fell and many of you 
had to fall with me," Tham said, addressing his former employees who account 
for a large number of the defendants.

"I am sorry for implicating you in this," he said.

Also on that day, Son called the death penalty proposed against him "an unjust 
verdict." Reuters on Friday quoted his lawyer, Le Minh Tam, as saying that he 
would appeal against the verdict.

OceanBank was founded in 1993 with a 20 % stake from the Ocean Group, which 
also invests in hospitality, securities, media and retail. It was taken over by 
the central bank in April 2015 after the scandal broke out.

The high-profile trial, with 51 bankers and businessmen in the dock, lasted a 
month, and the heaviest sentences followed the recommendations made by the 
country's top prosecutors 2 weeks earlier.

It could go down as the biggest fraud trial in Vietnam's history.

The Ministry of Public Security has launched a separate investigation into who 
else benefited from the illegal money.

According to the indictment, more than 50,000 individuals and nearly 400 
organizations and businesses received preferential deposit interest payments 
from the bank, including many state-owned units besides PetroVietnam. But only 
19 businesses have admitted to having received a combined VND3 billion, while 
124 denied taking any money and the rest remained silent.

At least 3 PetroVietnam units were put under investigation earlier this month 
for colluding with OceanBank execs to appropriate $5.2 million.

PetroVietnam and the banking sector are at the center of Vietnam's sweeping 
corruption crackdown that has ensnared scores of high-ranking officials, 
including Dinh La Thang, a former member of the Communist Party's 
decision-making Politburo who headed PetroVietnam from 2005 to 2011.

The country's Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong, who is spearheading the country's 
anti-corruption campaign, said in July that the fight against corruption is no 
longer being handled slowly or on a case-by case basis.

"It has become a movement," he said.

(source: vnexpress.net)








SINGAPORE:

Drug trafficker granted certificate of substantive assistance but still 
sentenced to death



During a 16-day joint trial held for 3 men convicted of trafficking 26.29g of 
heroin into Singapore, 2 have been sentenced to death, and 1 to the life 
sentence.

According to The Straits Times, Hamzah Ibrahim, 54, was certified by the Public 
Prosecutor (PP) to have "substantively assisted the Central Narcotics Bureau 
(CNB) in disrupting drug trafficking activities within or outside Singapore".

Nonetheless, he still given the death penalty.

Under the Misuse of Drugs Act, the court has the discretion not to impose the 
death penalty if the convicted offender is a courier and has been issued a 
certificate by the PP stating that he had cooperated with authorities.

Defended by lawyers Luke Lee and Sukdave Singh, Hamzah had asserted that he was 
merely a courier.

However, Judicial Commissioner Hoo Sheau Peng ruled that Hamzah's role "went 
beyond that of a courier".

"It was evident that Hamzah's purpose after taking delivery of the drugs was to 
sell the drugs," she said, referring to him bringing along smaller empty 
plastic packets to repack the drugs for sale.

"Hence, although the PP issued a certificate of substantive assistance, the 
alternative sentencing regime was not available," she stated.

Another man in the joint trial, Muhammad Farid Sudi, was also certified by the 
PP.

The Straits Times reported that Farid, who delivered the drugs to Hamzah and 
acted as no more than a courier, left the trial with a life sentence and 15 
strokes of the cane.

The last accomplice, Tika Pesik, was not certified as a courier and hence 
sentenced to death.

Farid and Tika had arranged for the former to deliver 2 packets of heroin to 
Hamzah on Dec 20, 2013.

The judge found that Tika could "not in any way be described as a courier", as 
she had coordinated the supply of drugs and gotten Farid to deliver the drugs 
to Hamzah.

"Moreover, the PP did not issue Tika with a certificate of substantive 
assistance," the judge added.

Court ruling contradicts issuance of certificate by PP

On Hamzah's situation, international human rights lawyer M Ravi noted that the 
pre-requisites for the issuance of the Certificate of Cooperation includes 
establishing the role of the trafficker as a courier, as well as gaining 
substantial assistance from the trafficker for CNB to disrupt drug trafficking 
activities within or outside Singapore.

This means that the PP already had to determine the fact that Hamzah was only a 
courier before issuing him the certificate. Despite this, the court later 
contradicted this pre-requisite and ruled that he was more than just a courier.

Mr Ravi told The Independent:

"This situation is so contradictory that it defeats the whole point of the 
Certificate of Cooperation. This sort of situation opens itself for a potential 
miscarriage of justice, and a bystander looking at this will come to a 
conclusion that there is a serious flaw in the administration of justice."

"It's basically a very superfluous exercise, given the fact that the 
Attorney-General (AG) already had to consider this requirement," he said, 
adding that it would be more appropriate for the decision of the trafficker's 
role to rest solely on the AG's shoulders.

(source: The Independent)








IRAN----execution

1 Prisoner Executed in Western Iran



A prisoner was executed at Yasuj Central Prison on murder charges.

According to IRIB News Agency, on the morning of Tuesday September 26, the 
execution of a prisoner who was charged with murder was carried out at Yasuj 
Central Prison.

The prisoner was identified as M., 27 years old, who had run over a person with 
his car over a tribal dispute.

The chief of police of Choram County said, "After the execution was implemented 
by the judicial authorities of the province, some members of the murderer's 
clan tried to cause chaos which was averted by the police and the security 
forces".

Rahimi added, "Currently the tension in the city has calmed down and law 
enforcement forces are sent to the main areas of the city".

According to the annual report on the death penalty report by Iran Human 
Rights, 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)