[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 25



LEBANON:

Military Tribunal issues death penalty over soldiers deaths



The Military Tribunal Wednesday issued the death penalty for 2 men found guilty 
of involvement in the beheading of 2 Lebanese soldiers.

Bilal Mikati was given the death penalty for the execution of soldier Sgt. Ali 
al-Sayyed on Aug. 28, 2014, and for involvement in executing soldier Pvt. Abbas 
Medlej on Sept. 6, 2014.

The Tribunal, headed by Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdullah, also sentenced Mikati's 
cousin, Omar Mikati, to death after finding him guilty of involvement in 
Medlej's beheading as well as mutilating Sayyed's body.

They 2 soldiers were killed by Daesh (ISIS) after being taken hostage when the 
militants and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham - previously known as the Nusra Front - 
briefly overran the northeastern town of Arsal.

Bilal al-Atar was also sentenced to death for belonging to Ahmad Mikati's 
militant group and planning to establish a so-called "wilayah" or province of 
Daesh's self-proclaimed caliphate.

Among the verdicts issued, the Military Tribunal sentenced Ahmad Kasha to 7 
years in prison for belonging to terrorist groups and attacking Army posts on 
Aug.2, 2014.

Abdullah al-Jghabeer was acquitted of the charges of kidnapping Army soldiers.

They are among the 23 suspect handed verdicts, the Military Tribunal sentenced 
some to life while others were acquitted.

Although the death penalty is still part of the Lebanese penal code, no death 
sentences have been carried out since 2003. Most often the sentence translates 
to life in prison.

(source: The Daily Star)








MALAYSIA:

Lorry driver to hang for trafficking over 45kg of drugs

A lorry driver was sent to the gallows by the High Court here today after being 
found guilty of counts of trafficking over 45 kg of drugs, 2 years ago.

Judicial Commissioner Datuk Mohamad Shariff Abu Samah meted out the sentence 
against S. Gopi Kumar, 33, after finding that the prosecution had succeeded in 
raising reasonable doubt at the end of the defence's case.

Mohamad Shariff said the court found that the accused had control, possession 
and knowledge of the drugs found in his Proton Perdana car and at his rented 
house, which he moved into in 2015.

"I do not believe the excuses given by the accused that he did not know about 
the drugs found in the car and at the house on grounds that they (car and 
house) were accessible to the public," he said.

Gopi Kumar committed the offence in his car at Jalan 10/18A, Taman Mastiara, 
Batu 5, Jalan Ipoh, Sentul here at 12.45am on June 22, 2016, and at his home on 
Jalan 15/18A in the same area at 1.45am on the same date.

For that, he was charged under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, 
which carries a mandatory death penalty upon conviction.

The court also sentenced the man to four years' jail and five strokes of the 
cane for another charge of being in possession of 16.2 gm of methamphetamine in 
the same house at the same time and date.

He was ordered to serve the jail sentence from the date of his arrest on June 
22, 2016.

A total of 11 prosecution witnesses and 1 defence witness - the accused 
himself, were called to testify in the trial which began on June 14, 2017.

DPP Ahmad Nazneed Zulkifli prosecuted, while Gopi Kumar was represented by 
counsel New Sin Yew.

(source: The Sun Daily)








SINGAPORE:

Singapore Announces Medical Cannabis Research, Despite Maintaining Death 
Penalty for Cannabis Trafficking



A Singaporean government body has announced its upcoming research into 
synthetic cannabinoids for medical purposes, a curious step in a country that 
continues to impose the death penalty for certain cannabis offences.

In early January, the National Research Foundation (NRF) - a government body - 
announced that it would be investing $25 million SGD (13.4m pounds) into a 
Synthetic Biology Research and Development Programme. One of the programme's 4 
projects is entitled Synthetic Cannabinoid Biology: Repurposing Nature for 
Tomorrow's Therapeutics. The NRF hopes that this project will allow the future 
delivery of "life-saving therapeutics derived from the cannabis plant in a 
sustainable manner".

The NRF accepts that cannabinoids, the chemical compounds found in the cannabis 
plant, can be used to treat a variety of ailments. However, as the cannabis 
plant is illegal in Singapore for any purpose, the NRF has commissioned this 
project with the intention of harnessing the medical potential that 
cannabinoids offer without the government having to change its drug 
legislation. By studying the molecular structure of cannabinoids, the project 
aims to "discover cannabinoid genes for the sustainable production of 
[synthetic] medicinal cannabinoids and their derivatives".

Cannabinoids can be used to alleviate chronic pain, spasticity, and several 
other ailments or symptoms. Medical cannabis is legally prescribed and consumed 
in several countries, including Canada, the Netherlands, and the Czech 
Republic.

This development may come as a surprise to some, as Singapore currently has 
some of the most repressive drug laws in the world, standing in stark contrast 
with its apparent new-found appreciation for the benefits of medical 
cannabinoids. Under Section 17 of the Misuse of Drugs Act (1973), anyone found 
in possession of over 15 grams of cannabis will be presumed to be trafficking - 
which is punishable by a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years in prison and 5 
strokes of the cane. Someone found possessing over 500 grams of cannabis will 
face a mandatory death penalty by hanging in the country's notorious Changi 
Prison.

As TalkingDrugs has reported, the most recent execution for a cannabis offence 
in Singapore took place in November 2016, when 31 year-old chemistry graduate 
and aspiring football player Chijioke Stephen Obioha was hanged for possessing 
a quantity of the drug that surpassed the threshold, triggering the automatic 
death penalty. The state also executes people for the possession of relatively 
small quantities of other drugs. In July 2017, Prabagaran Srivijayan was 
executed in Changi Prison after 22 grams of heroin was found in the armrest of 
a car that he had borrowed. These executions are illegal under international 
law, according to the UN, as the offences do not meet the criteria of being the 
"most serious crimes".

As NRF researchers embark upon their studies into the production of synthetic 
cannabinoids, it appears that the Singaporean government is attempting to 
harness the medical benefits of cannabis while maintaining harsh punishments 
against anyone who attempts to use the drug in its natural form. In a bizarrely 
contradictory stance, Singapore claims that properties of cannabis can be 
"life-saving", yet the state can still take someone's life for carrying 
cannabis.

(source: talking drugs.org)








PHILIPPINES/INDONESIA:

Injustice in Court of Appeals: Failing Mary Jane Veloso----Philippine legal 
procedure is horribly ill-equipped for 21st century transnational issues like 
human trafficking and modern slavery, the drug trade, terrorism, regional 
environmental degradation, money laundering, and the legal needs of the 
Filipino diaspora, all of which cross state borders



The new year greeted the Philippine legal community with 2 controversial Court 
of Appeals decisions, in the cases of the Indonesian drug arrest and pending 
execution Mary Jane Veloso, and the murder of Doc Gerry Ortega.

Both these decisions ironically revolve around the important concept of due 
process, the legal virtue all but happily ignored when it came to the 
casualties of the present drug war. Yet the controversy we tackle now showcases 
the other unjust extreme: a myopic view that, just as happily, favors 
technicality over the substantive ends of the judicial process, lip service 
convenience over the obligations of professional thoroughness.

In both the drug war deaths and these decisions lie the same inequity: truth 
shackled in silence. In this article, we tackle the CA's permanent injunction 
of Veloso's deposition, having overturned the trial court's own decision to 
proceed with it.

An important note: none of this is meant to prejudge the pending case against 
the accused, or the merits of Veloso's accusations being the core of her 
defense in her Indonesian trial. Our obligations under law are always with the 
rights of all parties concerned, with attention to the vulnerable and needy - 
but our emphasis is that those rights are best served by the thoroughness of 
due process afforded to all parties, to arrive at the truth. A process stymied 
by the transnational nature of Veloso's case, and the CA's decision.

There is an undeniably cruel aspect to the Appellate's injunction - we do not 
say this with malice towards the division involved, but such is the necessary 
consequence of their decision. Veloso (there is no delicate way to put this) 
has been dangling on the end of death row since Indonesian President Joko 
Widodo stayed her execution for drug running in April 2015.

That stay is dependent on the outcome of the human trafficking case filed 
against the alleged perpetrators of her fate: Ma. Kristina Sergio and Julius 
Calanilao. In that case, Veloso is the primary witness, wherein her intent is 
to explain how she ended up in Indonesia without knowledge of the drugs 
discovered in her luggage.

And there lies the rub.

To briefly recap, what the CA denied is the motion to depose her in Indonesia. 
In every trial, witnesses are bound to testify in open court. Yet there are 
instances where a witness is unable to testify when he or she is called to do 
so, by reasons of death, distance, sickness, cannot be subpoenaed, or under 
similar exceptional circumstances.

This is where depositions come in, a mode of discovery by which the testimony 
of a witness may be taken "upon oral examination or written interrogatories" 
(Rule 23 Sec. 1, Rules of Court), written down, and presented to the court in 
substitution. The deposition, in effect, "becomes the witness", to quote a 
writing on the subject. Veloso's camp pushed for deposition as, by reason of 
her arrest and conviction in Indonesia, she obviously cannot stand in or be 
subpoenaed into local jurisdiction for her complaint against Sergio and 
Calanilao. The trial Judge Anarica Castillo-Reyes granted the motion, and even 
volunteered to fly to Indonesia to observe Veloso's deposition. And it was this 
which the CA blocked.

Cruel the CA's decision may be, its legal foundation however is a sacrosanct 
due process right of every person charged of a crime: the right to confront his 
accusers and witnesses, and cross-examine them. Moreover, Philippine case law 
emphasizes the importance of live testimony by a testifying witness, so that 
the trial judge can observe their deportment and conduct during direct and 
cross-examination in order to establish his credibility (in fact, this is the 
motive behind Judge Castillo-Reyes' proposal to travel to Indonesia).

In the injunction, emphasis was made on the Supreme Court's ruling in Manguerra 
v. Risos which ruled out using depositions in criminal trials. What was 
allowable was Rule 119, conditional examination, requiring that the examination 
be done "before the court where the case is pending." Yet Indonesia not being 
Philippine jurisdiction (especifically Regional Trial Court Branch 88), any 
examination done in Indonesia will likely not satisfy Rule 119, either. Ipso 
facto: there was no way under the rules for Veloso's testimony to be admitted. 
And since her testimony as the offended private party is the evidence-in-chief 
of the prosecution...Nothing stops a case faster than a complainant unable to 
raise a complaint (again, sadly familiar in Philippine history).

We obviously carry no opposition to protecting the confrontation right: it is a 
pillar of the accused's Constitutional due process rights. This is carried over 
from the American legal tradition, which has held that a person shall not be 
convicted by reason of ex parte testimony: statements made by his accusers to 
which he had no opportunity to respond, rebut, or refute directly.

One of the virtues of the adversarial process is that, when done properly, one 
will most likely weed out the cow manure in either parties' case, in order to 
arrive as close as possible to the truth. Which is why Rule 119 makes sense, as 
emphasized by Manguerra: "this requirement ensures that the judge would be able 
to observe the witness deportment to enable him to properly assess his 
credibility."

Yet Veloso's case reveals a glaring inadequacy in Manguerra, showing how it - 
and Philippine legal procedure - is horribly ill-equipped for 21st century 
transnational issues like human trafficking and modern slavery, the drug trade, 
terrorism, regional environmental degradation, money laundering, and the legal 
needs of the Filipino diaspora, all of which cross state borders.

Upon her testimony lies the potential to discover the truth behind the drugs 
found in her luggage, and thus the merits of her Indonesian conviction. It is a 
merit that Indonesian courts obviously cannot pass completely upon, depending 
on action in the Philippines to resolve the questions she raised. Yet that same 
border is also the reason why Philippine courts cannot answer those questions 
either, if her testimony cannot be heard per our Rules.

How terribly inconvenient. So many of our fellow Filipinos find themselves in 
similar straits. Filipino law students should be familiar with Saudia v. Court 
of Appeals, where a Filipina flight attendant working for Saudia Airlines 
accused fellow cabin crew members of attempted rape in Jakarta. She instead was 
charged with adultery before Saudi courts (later dismissed as a wrongful suit 
by royal intervention) and fired as a consequence.

The Supreme Court found her subsequent suit for compensation against Saudia in 
Philippine courts proper, given the circumstances. Not every Filipino who finds 
himself or herself in dire straits abroad finds the same happy ending, however, 
especially when the death penalty becomes involved, or the poverty that drove 
him or her to greener pastures is exploited here and abroad to enslave - and 
keep from rescue and redress from home.

And on Philippine courts lie the hopes of these Filipinos to reveal the truth 
behind their fate - except for that terrible inconvenience of borders. Indeed, 
the confrontation right must be upheld (the past couple of years should bear 
out its wisdom!). But the effect is to deny the due process right of the 
aggrieved party to seek legal redress, through no fault or malice of said 
party, only because of that terrible convenience.

Due process cuts both ways, says Dimatulac v. Villon: "Indeed, for justice to 
prevail, the scales must balance; justice is not to be dispensed for the 
accused alone. The interests of society and the offended parties which have 
been wronged must be equally considered." One's due process cannot be advanced 
at the expense of another, except in the case of genuine doubt as to 
application of law or finding of fact (and certainly not due to technicalities 
alone). And as with the drug war deaths, and so many other cases, ignoring 
anyone's due process is injustice, period. Even if the CA technically had legal 
basis to do so. Even if it was not the intent of Manguerra to do so.

Yet in looking at this inadequacy, we can point to ways by which the Supreme 
Court can allow Veloso to testify while respecting the confrontation right. 
Such requires the High Court's intervention, either to overturn/provide an 
exception to Manguerra, or to provide new legal procedure to address the gap.

It pays to look back at the evolution of American legal process to the present 
day, to see parallels which can inform our own dilemmas. The present 
controlling doctrine there is Crawford v. Washington, penned by the late 
Justice Antonin Scalia, noted (even notorious) for hewing quite closely to the 
historical foundations of the US Constitution and legal concepts.

Prior to Crawford, out of court testimony could still be used in trial, despite 
the lack of cross-examination, under one of the exceptions to the hearsay 
doctrine, or if it bears an adequate "indicia of reliability", under the Ohio 
v. Roberts case. With Crawford, accusatory testimony now required 
cross-examination, otherwise it ought to be excluded as hearsay and/or for 
violating the accused's confrontation right.

Yet even Crawford admits a long-standing exception to the confrontation right: 
"forfeiture by wrongdoing." Per the US Federal Rules of Evidence 804(b)(6) 
which codified it, "[a] statement offered against a party that has engaged or 
acquiesced in wrongdoing that was intended to, and did, procure the 
unavailability of the declarant as a witness" can be admitted as an exception 
to the hearsay rule.

The later case of Giles v. California, Scalia once again divined case history 
to opine that an accused strictly should more or less have had the deliberate 
design of preventing the testimony against him for the exception to apply. 
Justice Stephen Breyer strongly dissented with such an approach, noting that 
the Scalian ratio decidendi of strictness was "built on what is at most 
common-law silence on the subject."

Obviously here is not America; their cases do not bind Philippine cases, but 
they are traditionally held to be very persuasive given our legal antecedents. 
And neither is it our purpose here to hash through the debates surrounding 
Giles. But looking at Crawford and Giles is useful because forfeiture by 
wrongdoing is not a recognized hearsay exception under our Rules of Court, 
whose strict adherence Manguerra mandated.

Neither does Manguerra allow for forfeiture, either - though it was not really 
at issue in that case (to paraphrase Breyer, it is silent on the subject). Yet 
even Veloso's case would have confounded the Giles court. Veloso's accusation 
is the very reason why she is prevented from appearing in a Philippine court. 
But the question required by the Giles ruling is, did Sergio and Calanilao act 
with a specific design to prevent Veloso from testifying against them by 
deploying her to Indonesia and thus to her arrest? (As this cuts into the heart 
of the case against the accused, resolving it might have the effect of 
prejudging the case just to resolve the admissability of Veloso's testimony!)

On the less Scalia-strict approach implied by Breyer, if evidence would show 
even just Sergio's and Calanilao's principal involvement in Veloso's deployment 
to Indonesia (regardless of whether it would constitute human trafficking, so 
as not to prejudge the case), but knowing it would put her beyond Philippine 
jurisdiction, would it count as forfeiture of the confrontation right by 
wrongdoing?

To be fair, neither of us are suggesting adopting the whole forfeiture hog into 
the Philippine Rules of Court, the danger of conviction by way of denying due 
process rights to the accused being all too real in this country's past. That 
much is and should be entitled to Sergio and Calanilao. Yet as we had earlier 
noted, jurisdictional borders have a way of wrecking the legal process in 
crimes of a transnational nature. And the Philippines sits in the perfect storm 
for it, given the Filipino diaspora, illegal recruitment, weaknesses of local 
institutions, and the never-ending search for labor to abuse.

We make no light statement saying "abuse". We recently read that, as a result 
of Filipinos and Indonesians in Hong Kong increasingly pushing for their labor 
rights, some unscrupulous employers there have begun mining alternative labor 
pools.

Our OFWs deserve more success stories of faithful employers for faithful 
service, of bonds professional and personal forged between Filipino labor and 
foreign employment, between their countries and ours. They certainly do not 
deserve the borders they cross, and the technicalities surrounding them, 
getting in the way of legal redress and the search for truth, whether in their 
adopted residence or their own homeland.

And that is the essential end of due process, a theme we will revisit in the 
succeeding article on the Ortega case, another controversial CA decision: 
truth-telling. This is why Dimatulac says the scales must balance. For in the 
quasi-adversarial proceeding among accuser, accused, and judge that forms the 
sacrosanct trinity of Philippine criminal procedure, lies the hope for truth 
(or as damn close as we can get).

The final and just resolution of the questions Veloso raised, in her defense 
against the death penalty in Indonesia and in accusation against Sergio and 
Calanilao, depends on the process in "due process" pushing through. And the 
American doctrine of forfeiture by wrongdoing, even if we do not call for its 
wholesale adoption, should nonetheless open the door for the Philippine Supreme 
Court to consider flexible application of the Rules of Court to address the 
Manguerra gap, the insufficiency of Scalian strictness, and ultimately the 
inadequacy of the Rules in a transnational legal world and a global 
Philippines, and somehow allow Veloso's testimony to be admitted into 
consideration. After all, it is enshrined in Philippine case law that rules of 
procedure are meant to serve the ends of substantive justice, such that a 
liberal interpretation may be allowed in order to do so.

Here, we may humbly offer a few alternatives, as all the ingredients are 
already present. Given the exceptional nature of Veloso's predicament, a 
finding by preponderant evidence (the standard required under American case 
law) that the accused had a principal hand in her deployment to Indonesia ought 
to give consideration to applying Rule 23 instead of Rule 119, in light of a 
modified (and Breyer-centric) application of the forfeiture doctrine, except 
with the added security of Judge Castillo-Reyes attending the deposition to 
provide the personal observation of deportment required by Manguerra, as she 
originally intended.

Alternatively, given that the Filipino diaspora regularly communicates with 
loved ones back home through Skype, with the assistance of responsible 
Indonesian authorities and the Philippine consulate, what is to say that the 
hearings where Veloso is to testify and be cross-examined be conducted through 
internet communications technology?

Certainly, this could be intended by Rule 10(1) of the Rules on Electronic 
Evidence, permitting testimony presented by electronic means, as observed by a 
2006 American Bar Association assessment of Philippine evidence rules - it went 
as far as to note that it was "more expansive than practice in the United 
States." To a Manguerra-based objection requiring live, in-court testimony or 
conditional examination, again the forfeiture doctrine can be raised for 
flexibility or a reconsideration.

Both options will require the cooperation of Indonesian jurisdiction, but this 
is well within the province of the Supreme Court to request of a fellow foreign 
High Court, as are the foreign ministries involved. After all, our countries 
are fellow ASEAN members, and there is interjudiciary cooperation through the 
ASEAN Chief Justices' Meeting, and legal cooperation through the ASEAN Law 
Association. And again, given the need for interstate cooperation not just in 
Veloso's case, but in transnational concerns, the Supreme Court could not do 
worse now, given how it is beset with internal distractions, than to go out and 
see the world, and work with it, for justice here and abroad.

Let's bend forward, not backward, to help Mary Jane Veloso. We can do that 
without violating due process and the rights of the accused.

To reiterate, the Filipino diaspora deserves no less.

(source: Christian Laluna is a graduate of the Ateneo School of 
Law----rappler.com)




BANGLADESH:

Zubair's family to appeal against the verdict

The family Jahangirnagar University student Zubair Ahmed, who was killed in 
2012, will file an appeal against the High Court that confirmed the death 
penalty for 5 activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League.

Zubair's elder brother Abdullah Al Mamun confirmed the matter to the Dhaka 
Tribune on Wednesday.

Earlier on Wednesday, the High Court confirmed the death penalty for five 
Chhatra League activists.

The court also upheld the life sentence for two accused and acquitted four 
others, who were initially sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court some 
3 years ago.

While talking to the Dhaka Tribune after the verdict, He said: "We are not 
happy with the verdict.

"4 people have been acquitted. We will appeal against it."

The death-row convicts are Khandaker Ashiqul Islam alias Ashik, Jahid Hasan and 
Khan Mohammad Rois alias Sohan of zoology at the same university, Rashidul 
Islam Raju of philosophy, and Mahbub Akram of government and politics. All of 
them except for Raju are on the run.

On January 8, 2012, Zubair, an honours final year student of English at JU, was 
stabbed to death by members of an opposing faction of the ruling Awami League's 
student front over their previous animosity and political rage.

On February 23, 2014, Ashik, Sohan, Akram and Ishtiaq Mehbub Arup, who was, 
too, sentenced to life imprisonment by the lower court, escaped from the 
courtroom soon after it had rejected their bail pleas and sent them to jail.

Sources said most of the fugitive convicts had fled to Malaysia and are active 
on different social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram.

(source: Dhaka Tribune)








INDIA:

Convict hurls bricks, grabs police rifle after getting death penalty



A man, who was sentenced to death for raping and murdering a minor girl, threw 
bricks at journalists and lawyers and snatched a rifle from a policeman as he 
came out of the District and Sessions court premises on Wednesday morning.

Salim (35) picked up some bricks lying on the ground while walking out of the 
court premises and hurled them at journalists and lawyers.

He then grabbed a rifle from a policeman's hand. The police then wrested the 
firearm back from him and took him away in an autorickshaw.

Salim was convicted and sentenced to death for raping and murdering a 
nine-year-old girl. The police said Salim raped the girl on August 15, 2012, at 
Janata Colony, Tavarekere, on the outskirts of Bengaluru.

Salim, a resident of Goriplaya in Bengaluru, had visited his sister in 
Tavarekere on that day. He had raped the girl at his sister's house when no one 
was at home and later killed her there. The Tavarekere police had registered 
the case and arrested him.

The judge sentenced him to 10 years in jail and Rs 50,000 fine for the rape and 
death sentence for the murder.

(source: deccanherald.com)

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

Centre on the Death Penalty, NLU Delhi report: 371 prisoners on death row as of 
2017



There are 371 death row convicts in India as on December 31, 2017. The 
statistics were released by the Centre on the Death Penalty, National Law 
University Delhi.

The total number of persons sentenced to death by Sessions Courts came down 
from 149 in 2016 to 109 in 2017.

As far as High Courts are concerned, death penalty cases of 99 persons were 
decided in 2017. Out of the 99, High Courts commuted the death sentences of 53 
persons and acquitted the accused in 35 cases. The death sentences of 11 
convicts were confirmed.

Interestingly, the Supreme Court heard death penalty cases of 7 convicts and 
confirmed all of them. Out of the 7 confirmations, one was a criminal appeal 
with 4 prisoners and 2 were review petitions with 3 prisoners. The apex court 
did not commute or acquit any prisoners in 2017.

This marks a departure from the trend witnessed in 2016, when the Supreme Court 
did not confirm a single criminal appeal in death penalty cases that came 
before it. In 2015, the Supreme Court had considered the death sentences of 
nine prisoners and confirmed 8.

A state-wise analysis of persons sentenced to death in 2017 reveals that 
Maharashtra leads the pack with 23. Close behind is Uttar Pradesh with 19, 
followed by Tamil Nadu with 13.

Another interesting piece of information is with respect to the number of 
persons sentenced to death for murder involving sexual violence. It has gone up 
from 24 in 2016 to 43 in 2017.

The President of India disposed of 9 mercy petitions in 2017. 5 out of the 9 
disposed petitions were rejected and the other 4 were commuted. In comparison, 
in 2016, only 2 prisoner's sentence was commuted by the President, whereas 
mercy petitions of 5 prisoners were rejected.

(source: barandbench.com)








PAKISTAN----executions

2 condemned prisoners executed in Haripur jail



2 condemned prisoners were executed at Haripur Central Jail amid tight security 
in the wee hours on Tuesday, prison officials said.

One of the prisoners, Amanullah, was convicted of killing a woman lawyer and 
social activist, Naseema Bibi, on the premises of Dera Ismail Khan district 
courts. The other condemned prisoner, Jan Bahadur, had killed a person in Oct 
1993 in Mardan district.

After exhausting all the forums of appeals the 2 convicts were allowed final 
meetings with their families on Sunday and Monday.

The bodies were later handed over to their families after completion of the due 
process.

On April 23, 2008, an additional district and sessions judge had convicted 
Amanullah in Peshawar. The Peshawar High Court and the Supreme Court had 
rejected his appeals against death penalty on May 4, 2010 and Nov 10, 2010, 
respectively.

Subsequently, his mercy petition was also rejected by the president of 
Pakistan.

Amanullah was taken into custody shortly after the murder. He later confessed 
to the crime in front of the trial court.

The convict had insisted the deceased was his wife but she was reluctant to 
declare that publicly and therefore, he killed her.

However, the claim was refuted by the deceased during her lifetime.

She had alleged that Amanullah was a blackmailer, who had been trying to grab 
her property.

The deceased had also filed cases of forgery and fraud against him in local 
courts besides challenging her 'fake' nikahnama which, she claimed, was 
prepared by Amanullah.

The Dera bar association had decided that none of its members would represent 
the suspect in the courts.

For the reason, the trial of the case was shifted to Peshawar on the high 
court's orders.

The 2nd convict Jan Bahadur was arrested in connection with a murder case 
registered at Takhtbhai police station, Mardan, on Oct 22, 1993.

He was sentenced to death by an additional district and sessions judge on April 
7, 2000, at Takhtbhai. The judgment was upheld by the high court On March 12, 
2002, and subsequently, the Supreme Court also upheld the verdict. His review 
and clemency petitions were also rejected.

He had also filed a writ petition in the Peshawar High Court recently 
requesting that his death penalty may be carried out through a less painful 
mode and not by hanging. A few days ago, the court had rejected his petition 
observing that the petitioner should have moved the Federal Shariat Court and 
not the high court.

(source: dawn.com)








IRAQ:

Facing death in Iraq, European jihadists won't get help from home----The 
Islamic State group has claimed a number of attacks on European soil, leading 
to little sympathy for foreign fighters facing the death penalty in Iraq and 
Syria



European nations rarely miss a chance to slam the use of the death penalty by 
others, but they have largely turned a deaf ear to pleas from citizens facing 
execution in Iraq for fighting with the Islamic State group.

Several hundred foreigners, both men and women, are thought to have been 
detained in Iraq since the counter-offensive that dislodged IS fighters from 
the country's urban centres last year.

Diplomatic efforts to secure their return to Europe for trial have been 
half-hearted at best, with few politicians eage r to be seen defending people 
who joined the terror group behind the deaths of dozens on home soil in recent 
years.

More often they reiterate that Iraq has the sovereign right to try and punish 
people found guilty of killing its own citizens in an effort to create a modern 
"caliphate".

The fate of European captives in Syria is even more complicated, since they 
have often been seized by Kurds who do not have a formally recognised state of 
their own.

Lawyers for French fighters in Syria, for example, have claimed they are being 
held "arbitrarily" by non-state authorities -- an argument that has failed to 
sway official stances so far.

Faced with overwhelmingly hostile public opinion, humanitarian appeals have 
also made little traction, even when captives are being held with young 
children born after they left for Iraq and Syria.

On Sunday, an Iraqi court condemned a German woman to death by hanging after 
finding her guilty of belonging to IS, the first such sentence in a case 
involving a European woman.

So far, the German government has said only that it is providing "consular 
support" for four of its citizens held in Iraq, declining to provide details.

'No leniency'

In December, an Iraqi-Swedish man was hanged along with 37 others accused of 
being IS or Al-Qaeda members, despite efforts by Sweden to have the prisoner 
serve a life sentence instead.

"These jihadists have never had any qualms about what they're doing, and I 
don't see why we should have any for them," French defence minister Florence 
Parly said Monday.

Three French women captured after Iraqi forces retook the city of Mosul last 
July are awaiting trial in Baghdad, sources close to their cases say, and risk 
the death penalty as well.

2 of the women are being held along with their young children.

"When they are caught by local authorities, as far as possible they should be 
tried by these local authorities," Parly added in a separate interview on 
Sunday.

Britain has also ta ken a firm stance against repatriation, as has Belgium, 
which denied a request by Tarik Jadaoun, a Belgium detained in Iraq, to be sent 
home in exchange for cooperating with the authorities.

"I don't see how it's possible to negotiate with war criminals," Prime Minister 
Charles Michel said in December, adding that "there can be no leniency."

Security experts generally discount the value of any intelligence offered by 
former extremists, while warning that bringing back their children exposes 
other risks.

Youths exposed to decapitations and other atrocities "could be time bombs, 
given what they have seen," said Paris prosecutor Francois Molins, who has 
overseen investigations into terror attacks on French soil.

Rule of law?

Iraq is among the countries which execute the most prisoners, along with China, 
Iran and Saudi Arabia, according to Amnesty International.

Rights groups and lawyers have urged European governments to live up to their 
ideals.

Lawyers for one of the French women held in Iraq point to France's intense 
diplomatic campaign for Serge Atlaoui, who faces the death penalty in Indonesia 
on drug trafficking charges.

"No matter how grave and horrific the acts, if a European citizen risks the 
death penalty, we must demand that the state holding him guarantee it won't be 
carried out, or transfer him to his country of origin for trial," said Patrick 
Baudoin of the International Federation of Human Rights. "If we start allowing 
exceptions to this principle, we're no longer applying the rule of law," he 
said.

But a European diplomatic source said the principle was to let Iraqi courts 
rule as they see fit.

"If there's a risk of capital punishment, we will intervene" via consular 
services as is the case anywhere else, the source said.

(source: al-monitor.com)








DR CONGO:

Scores convicted in Congo's Beni massacre trial



A military tribunal investigating a wave of massacres in eastern Congo blamed 
on Ugandan rebels has convicted 134 people, a senior army prosecutor and a 
human rights group said on Wednesday.

More than 800 people were killed -- often hacked to death with machetes during 
the night -- around the town of Beni, near Democratic Republic of Congo's 
border with Uganda, between 2014 and 2016.

Congolese authorities say the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan 
Islamist group active in the area, were behind the killings, but Congolese army 
officers have also been accused of involvement.

Rebel and militia attacks are on the rise again in central and eastern Congo 
and the latest violence coincides with a political crisis brought on by 
President Joseph Kabila's decision to overstay his mandate, which expired in 
December 2016.

Congolese troops are currently battling the ADF in the eastern border zones in 
coordination with the Ugandan military.

General Timothee Mukutu, the Congolese army's First Advocate-General, said a 
portion of the earlier massacres were committed by ADF fighters during supply 
raids or in reprisal attacks.

"Others were carried out by proxy on the orders of certain local figures," he 
said in an interview broadcast by U.N.-supported Radio Okapi. "We came to 
understand that there were poorly managed land conflicts that could be an 
explanation."

CEPADHO, a human rights group that observed the trials, said that of those 
convicted - a mix of ADF rebels, militia fighters, civilians and local chiefs - 
42 were sentenced to death, several of them in absentia.

Congo does not apply the death penalty and, in practice, those who receive it 
serve prison sentences instead. Other defendants received lighter sentences and 
45 were acquitted.

(source: Reuters)