[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

March 27



GREAT BRITAIN:

A brief history of capital punishment in Britain----Between the late 17th and 
early 19th century, Britain's 'Bloody Code' made more than 200 crimes - many of 
them trivial - punishable by death. Writing for History Extra, criminologist 
and historian Lizzie Seal considers the various ways in which capital 
punishment has been enforced throughout British history and investigates the 
timeline to its abolition in 1965



British forms of punishment

>From as early as the Anglo-Saxon era, right up to 1965 when the death penalty 
was abolished, the main form of capital punishment in Britain was hanging. 
Initially, this involved placing a noose around the neck of the condemned and 
suspending them from the branch of a tree. Ladders and carts were used to hang 
people from wooden gallows, which entailed death by asphyxiation.

In the late 13th century the act of hanging morphed into the highly ritualised 
practice of 'drawing, hanging and quartering' - the severest punishment 
reserved for those who had committed treason. In this process, 'drawing' 
referred to the dragging of the condemned to the place of execution. After they 
were hanged, their body was punished further by disembowelling, beheading, 
burning and 'quartering' - cutting off the limbs. The perpetrator's head and 
limbs were often publicly displayed following the execution.

Later, the 'New Drop' gallows - first used at London's Newgate Prison in 1783 - 
could accommodate two or three prisoners at a time and were constructed on 
platforms with trapdoors through which the condemned fell. The innovation of 
the 'long drop' [a method of hanging which considered the weight of the 
condemned, the length of the drop and the placement of the knot] in the later 
19th century caused death by breaking the condemned's neck, which was deemed 
quicker and less painful than strangling.

Burning at the stake was another form of capital punishment, used in England 
from the 11th century for heresy and the 13th century for treason. It was also 
used specifically for women convicted of petty treason (the charge given for 
the murder of her husband or employer). Though hanging replaced burning as the 
method of capital punishment for treason in 1790, the burning of those 
suspected of witchcraft was practiced in Scotland until the 18th century.

For other - perhaps luckier - souls and for those of noble birth who were 
condemned to die, execution by beheading (which was considered the least brutal 
method of execution) was used until the 18th century. Death by firing squad was 
also used as form of execution by the military.

The 'Bloody Code'

Britain's 'Bloody Code' was the name given to the legal system between the 
late-17th and early-19th century which made more than 200 offences - many of 
them petty - punishable by death. Statutes introduced between 1688 and 1815 
covered primarily property offences, such as pickpocketing, cutting down trees 
and shoplifting.

Nevertheless, despite the 'mushrooming' of capital crimes, fewer people were 
actually executed in the 18th century than during the preceding 2 centuries. 
This paradox can be explained by the specificity of the capital statutes, which 
meant it was often possible to convict people of lesser crimes. For example, 
theft of goods above a certain value carried the death penalty, so the jury 
could circumvent this by underestimating the value of said goods.

Certain regions with more autonomy, including Scotland, Wales and Cornwall, 
were particularly reluctant to implement the Bloody Code and, by the 1830s, 
executions for crimes other than murder had become extremely rare.

Vocal critics of the Bloody Code included early 19th-century MP Sir Samuel 
Romilly, who worked for its reform. A barrister by profession, he was appointed 
solicitor general [a senior law officer of the crown] and entered the House of 
Commons in 1806. He succeeded in repealing the death penalty for some minor 
crimes and in ending the use of disembowelling convicted criminals while alive. 
Later, liberal MP William Ewart brought bills which abolished hanging in chains 
(in 1834) and ended capital punishment for cattle stealing and other minor 
offences (in 1837).

In the 1840s, prominent figures including writers Charles Dickens and William 
Makepeace Thackeray highlighted what they believed to be the brutalising 
effects of public hanging. Far from encouraging solemnity, hangings were 
entertaining spectacles that whipped up the crowd's passions, they argued - and 
the presence of the crowd was a potential source of unruliness. Dickens 
attended the executions of Maria and Frederick Manning at Horsemonger Lane 
Gaol, south London, in 1849. The pair had been convicted of the murder of a 
customs official named Patrick O'Connor, whom they had killed and buried under 
the kitchen floorboards at their London home. Their case was nicknamed by the 
press: "the Bermondsey Horror". Dickens later wrote to The Times expressing his 
distaste for the "levity of the immense crowd" and the "thieves, low 
prostitutes, ruffians, and vagabonds of every kind" who flocked there to watch 
the execution.

There was also an ongoing, more general campaign for the abolition of the death 
penalty on moral and humanitarian grounds. Many campaigners argued that the 
infliction of pain was interpreted as corrupting and uncivilised, and that the 
death penalty did not allow for the redemption of the criminal.

In 1861, the death penalty was abolished for all crimes except murder; high 
treason; piracy with violence; and arson in the royal dockyards. The ending of 
public execution in 1868 (by the Capital Punishment Act) further dampened 
abolitionism. But although anti-death penalty sentiment was not widespread, 
certain cases aroused public sympathy, especially those of women. Such cases 
included Florence Maybrick, who was reprieved from the gallows in 1889 amid 
doubts about the strength of evidence against her for poisoning her husband. 
Meanwhile, in 1899 a press campaign was launched on behalf of Mary Ann Ansell, 
who was accused of murdering her sister, which highlighted concerns about her 
mental soundness. Ansell was nevertheless hanged that year.

Capital punishment in the 20th century

>From the 1st half of the 20th century, legislation further limited the 
application of capital punishment. The Infanticide Act of 1922 made the murder 
of a newborn baby by its mother a separate offence from murder and one which 
was not a capital crime. The death sentence for pregnant women was abolished in 
1931. Both these changes brought the law into line with long-existing practice 
of not executing pregnant women or women convicted of infanticide, as did 
abolishing the death penalty for under-18s in 1933: no-one below this age had 
been executed in Britain since 1887.

Campaigns for the abolition of the death penalty once again gathered speed in 
the 1920s, in part galvanised by the execution of Edith Thompson in 1923. 
Thompson and her lover, Freddie Bywaters, were hanged for the murder of Edith's 
husband, Percy. The case was controversial because there was doubt surrounding 
the veracity of the evidence against Thompson (Bywaters had carried out the 
murder by stabbing Percy), and also because there were rumours that Edith's 
hanging had been botched.

Later that year (1923) the Howard League - a penal reform group that campaigned 
for humane prison conditions and for a reformatory approach to criminals - 
turned its attention to the abolition of the death penalty. The National 
Council for the Abolition of the Death Penalty joined the campaign in 1925. 
Then, in 1927 the Labour Party published its abolitionist 'Manifesto on Capital 
Punishment' under the leadership of Ramsay MacDonald.

A few years later, in the 1930s, a wealthy businesswoman named Violet van der 
Elst became a well-known campaigner for abolition. She argued that capital 
punishment was uncivilised and harmful to society and that it was applied 
disproportionately to poor people. Her campaigns included organising the flight 
of aeroplanes trailing banners over the respective prison on the morning of an 
execution while she addressed crowds outside the prison gates through a 
loudhailer and leading them in prayer and song.

The 1st full parliamentary debate on capital punishment in the 20th century 
took place in 1929 and resulted in the establishment of a Select Committee on 
the issue. The committee reported its findings in 1930 and advocated an 
experimental five-year suspension of the death penalty; however, the report was 
largely ignored, as the issue was deemed to be low on the political agenda as 
other social issues took priority.

Calls for post-war reform

After the end of the Second World War in 1945, capital punishment became an 
increasingly prominent political and social issue. The election of the Labour 
government in 1945 was highly significant, as a higher proportion of Labour MPs 
supported abolition than Conservatives. Sydney Silverman, Labour MP for Nelson 
and Colne, led the parliamentary campaign to end the death penalty and 
attempted (ultimately unsuccessfully) to get abolition included in the Criminal 
Justice Act of 1948. However, the Act did end penal servitude, hard labour and 
flogging, and established a reformist system for punishing and treating 
offenders.

During this period of increased attention to capital punishment, certain 
contentious cases generated public disquiet. The executions of John Christie 
and Derek Bentley in 1953, to name but 2, were pivotal.

The 1st case concerns the murder of a woman and child: in 1950, Timothy Evans, 
a 25-year-old van driver originally from Merthyr Tydfil and living in London, 
was hanged for murdering his wife, Beryl, and their baby daughter, Geraldine. 
It remained a relatively low-profile case until 1953, when the remains of 7 
women were found at 10 Rillington Place, a multi-occupancy house in Notting 
Hill. The home, it transpired, had been shared concurrently by Evans and his 
family with a man named John Christie, whom Evans had insisted throughout his 
trial had been responsible for the murder of Beryl and Geraldine. Following 
Christie's conviction and execution in 1953, it seemed indisputable that Evans 
had been innocent.

The 2nd case concerns that of 19-year-old Derek Bentley, who was hanged in 
January 1953 for the murder of a police officer, Sidney Miles. In fact it was 
his friend Christopher Craig who had shot Miles during the pair's bungled 
break-in in Croydon, Surrey, while Bentley was detained by another officer. 
However, Craig was only 16 years old at the time of the crime and was therefore 
ineligible for the death penalty. Doubts about the justice of Bentley's 
execution were intensified by his reported low intelligence and his tender age 
of 19 years. Bentley was posthumously pardoned in 1998.

Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain, is rightly remembered as 
having had an important influence upon views on the death penalty. Ellis was 
hanged in 1955 for the murder of her boyfriend, David Blakely, whom she shot 
outside a pub in Hampstead, London. Blakely had been violent and abusive 
towards Ellis and there was much public sympathy for the emotional strain that 
she had been under at the time. The murder was widely seen as a 'crime of 
passion' and therefore understandable, if not necessarily excusable. Until then 
women had almost always been reprieved from the death penalty, so there was 
widespread shock when Ellis was not. Her case attracted a huge amount of press 
attention and remains a highly-significant case connected to the abolition of 
the death penalty today, due to the emotional debate her case generated and its 
impact on British sentiment in the 1950s.

Silverman's continued attempts to pass abolitionist legislation in 1956 
foundered, but the following year the Homicide Act of 1957 restricted the death 
penalty's application to certain types of murder, such as in the furtherance of 
theft or of a police officer. Up until this point, death had been the mandatory 
sentence for murder and could only be mitigated via reprieve - a political 
rather than legal decision. This change in legislation reduced hangings to 
three or 4 per year, but capital punishment still remained highly contested.

On 13 August 1964, Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans became the last people to be 
hanged in Britain. They had murdered a taxi driver and doing so "in the 
furtherance of theft" made it a capital crime.

In 1965, the Murder (Abolition of the Death Penalty) Act suspended the death 
penalty for an initial 5-year period and was made permanent in 1969. The act 
had originally started as a private members' bill introduced by Silverman and 
was sponsored by MPs from all 3 main parties, including Michael Foot and 
Shirley Williams from Labour; Conservative Chris Chataway and Liberal Jeremy 
Thorpe.

Capital punishment was in 1998 abolished for treason and piracy with violence, 
making Britain fully abolitionist, both in practice and in law, and enabling 
ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights.

(source: Lizzie Seal is a reader in criminology at the University of Sussex. 
Her books include Capital Punishment in 20th-Century Britain: Audience, 
Justice, Memory (Routledge, 2014)----historyextra.com)








EUROPEAN UNION:

EU adopts wait-and-see stance as European IS followers face execution

Dreams of living in an Islamic caliphate or dying as martyrs dashed, many 
former jihadi fighters from Europe now face the death penalty. Will the EU 
campaign to save citizens who reject its values?

"Kill lists" didn't eradicate them on the battlefield and local judicial 
systems won't resolve the dilemma created for the European Union by citizens 
who joined Islamic State and now are detained by the Iraqi government or Syrian 
militia groups. Most EU governments, some of which openly admit targeting their 
nationals with airstrikes, have no intention of bringing home almost anyone 
over the age of 10.

Having helped the Iraqi government push IS out of its territory, many EU 
leaders are relieved to hand over responsibility for holding and prosecuting 
the jihadis and their followers to the Iraqi judicial system. But Iraq says the 
death penalty is a likely sentence for those found to have been active fighters 
or even in key support roles. Vocal against capital punishment everywhere else 
in the world - even when former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein was sentenced to 
die - the EU has been virtually silent on its own citizens' fates.

EU 'outsourcing' jihadi executions?

Pieter van Ostaeyen, a Belgian expert on jihad movements, elaborated on the 
EU's dilemma regarding the detainees. "Are we outsourcing their executions to 
Iraq? That's a moral issue," he told DW. "But then of course we have to face 
the fact that these guys who have been captured and would return do have to fit 
in again in our society and what are we going to do with them?"

Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders told DW his government will react if 
and when its citizens begin receiving death sentences.

"We are very active in trying to have abolition of the death penalty everywhere 
in the world," Reynders emphasized. "Of course we will let justice in Iraq - 
and maybe later if it's possible to have justice in Syria - do their job."

He insisted, however, that "in the end we will ask" authorities not to execute 
any of the convicted.

1 German woman has in fact already been sentenced to hang by an Iraqi court for 
"offering logistic support and helping the terrorist group to carry out 
criminal acts," and "taking part in attacks against security forces." She 
admitted traveling to IS territory and marrying off her two daughters to IS 
fighters. While her case can be appealed, there's no obvious protest movement 
on her behalf.

Syrian Kurds pressing EU to repatriate

In Syria the situation is much more complicated. Different factions in northern 
Syria are running detention camps and while some Kurdish groups have held basic 
trials, they don't have the long-term means to effectively secure the hardcore 
fighters nor to sustain the families and other followers who have also been 
rounded up.

Refugees in Syria's a-Hol camp

2 Belgian IS brides were found in al-Hol refugee camp after being sentenced in 
Belgium for supporting terrorism

Some of the Kurdish actors - along with their US backers - are pressing EU 
governments to take back their citizens.

"It's a very uncomfortable situation for European governments," explained 
terrorism researcher Thomas Renard of the Egmont Institute. "There is this fear 
that at some point the Kurds will increase the pressure" and use the prisoners 
as leverage for a political goal, will simply liberate them or will send them 
somewhere else, potentially home.

No double jeopardy

But Renard also mentioned a dilemma the EU causes itself by subcontracting the 
justice process: sentences that are too light. He explained that a French woman 
was convicted in Iraq for terrorism offenses, but sentenced to only a few 
months of prison and will then be free to return to Europe.

Renard notes she cannot be prosecuted again because she has already paid for 
her crime. "It's a challenge for the European authorities," he said. "If we 
decide to let the Iraqi authorities in the lead then ... we should also 
recognize and accept the sentences that will be decided which in some cases may 
not please us." He added that there are only "least worst options" to be 
considered here, not "good" ones.

German diplomats reportedly have intervened with Baghdad in the case of German 
teenager Linda W., who has been sentenced to prison in Iraq for being an 
"Islamic State bride" but at age 17, is too young for Iraq's death penalty. She 
says she wants to come home. Most governments are putting in place policies to 
bring back children - but primarily those under 10 who have less indoctrination 
and a better chance of reintegration.

2 Belgian women also are begging for repatriation. Convicted of IS 
collaboration in absentia in an Antwerp court earlier this month, a Belgian 
journalist found them in a Syrian detention camp where they pleaded to serve 
those sentences in Belgium, so that their children can go to school. Belgian 
Justice Minister Koen Geens' office did not respond to repeated requests for 
comment on how this case will be handled.

Morality MIA?

Human Rights Watch's Nadim Houry is challenging the EU to seize this 
opportunity to promote its decades-long campaign to abolish the death penalty. 
"This is a key moment for the European Union," he told DW. "Avoiding this topic 
now with Iraq would send a dangerous message about their goals and would set 
back the effort to abolish the death penalty in different parts of the world."

Houry said the people who are really being forgotten in this debate are the 
victims of IS' terrorist attacks. Ensuring a fair judicial process and 
punishment without execution is essential, Houry said, "not just for suspects' 
rights but also for justice for the victims and reconciliation in parts of 
Iraq." He urged Europe to ensure that the justice component is not completely 
neglected, "which right now," Houry underscored, "it is".

(source: Deutsche Welle)








INDIA:

Punishment for murder must be life imprisonment or death, judges cannot award 
lower sentences: SC----The top court was hearing an appeal challenging a 
Gujarat High Court order sentencing a convict to life imprisonment.

The Supreme Court on Monday said the only punishment for a murder convict can 
be life imprisonment or the death penalty, and that judges have no "discretion" 
to award any sentence less than this, Bar & Bench reported.

"Any punishment less than the life imprisonment, as prescribed under Section 
302 of the Indian Penal Code, if awarded by any court is per se illegal and 
without authority of law," the bench of Justice RK Agrawal and Justice Abhay 
Manohar Sapre said.

The court was hearing an appeal filed by a murder convict against a Gujarat 
High Court judgement that enhanced his punishment from the 10 years the trial 
court had awarded to life imprisonment.

"We are surprised to find as to how the sessions judge could award 10 years' 
jail sentence to the appellant for commission of the offence of murder..." the 
bench said.

The court upheld Gujarat High Court's order sending Bharatkumar Rameshchandra 
Barot to life imprisonment for murder. Barot, who was convicted in 2012, had 
argued that he was not given an adequate opportunity to defend himself when the 
state had appealed the sessions court's sentence.

(source: scroll.in)








NEPAL:

Province 3 SA members demand death sentence in rape case



Speaking during the special hour of today's State Assembly meeting of Province 
3 in Hetauda, the SA members demanded death sentence to the guilty in a girl 
rape case.

Issues of earthquake survivors and matters relating to the announcement of 
permanent capital of the province and its naming were also raised in the 
meeting. Nine SA members put their views in the special session.

Lawmaker Jeevan Dangol was of the view that guilty in the rape of girl deserved 
death penalty. Nepali Congress lawmaker Dangol, took the time to urge the 
province government to finalise the issue of its capital soon.

Another SA member Rita Majhi demanded a probe into alleged statement given by 
their deputy speaker Radhika Tamang about cow slaughter. "Verification of the 
statement is necessary as it can provoke ethnic conflict."

Another SA member from the Nepali Congress Balaram Poudel also sought that the 
issues should be made clear. SA speaker Sanu Kumar Shrestha chaired the 
meeting.

(source: thehimalayantimes.com)



INDONESIA:

Malaysian found smuggling drugs in Bali faces death sentence



A Malaysian man who was found with 3 packets of crystal methamphetamine 
totalling 126.91g hidden in his body is at risk of being charged with smuggling 
drugs into Bali, Indonesia, which carries a mandatory death penalty.

The illegal drugs stash were discovered hidden in the 23-year-old man's rectum 
and his bag upon arrival at the Ngurah Rai International Airport from Bangkok, 
Thailand, Indonesian daily The Jakarta Post reported.

The Malaysian's name was not disclosed. Instead, he was identified as "AA".

2 other Indonesians, both aged 24, who shared the same Bangkok flight were 
reported to be AA's accomplices and detained after police also found drugs 
hidden inside their bodies. They were identified as "S", a man, and "AP", a 
woman.

"X-ray scanning showed that there were suspicious things in their bodies and 
among their belongings," the head of the Ngurah Rai Customs and Excise office 
Himawan Indarjono was quoted telling a news conference in Bali yesterday.

He said that after the X-ray, the Malaysian was taken to the Customs and Excise 
room and body-searched.

"Customs officers found 36.2 grammes methamphetamine in AA's bag. A body search 
yielded 3 small packets of methamphetamine weighing 36.25 grammes, 33.73 
grammes and 20.73 grammes.

"All those 3 packets were hidden in his rectum," Himawan was quoted saying.

A body search on S also yielded 4 packets of meth weighing 42.32 g, 44.81g, 
39.66g and 38.78g while AP had 2 packets in her rectum and 2 more in her 
vagina, weighing 140 grammes in total.

All 3 suspects now risk facing drug charges, which carries a mandatory death 
penalty in Indonesia.

Malaysia amended its drug law last year to allow judges the discretion to 
commute the death sentence to life imprisonment.

(source: themalaymailonline.com)








KUWAIT:

Lebanese man charged with murder of Filipina maid in Kuwait----Nader Essam 
Assaf, 40, and his wife detained for Demafelis killing



A Lebanese man was charged with murdering a Filipina maid whose body was found 
stuffed in a freezer in Kuwait.

Nader Essam Assaf, 40, was charged by a south Lebanon prosecutor on Tuesday, 
according to the state-run National News Agency (NNA).

The report said that Assaf confessed to the killing of Joanna Daniela 
Demafelis, whose remains were found in an empty Kuwait City flat on February 6. 
The body was reportedly left for more than a year.

He may face a death penalty and is expected to go on trial "soon", said the 
NNA.

Assaf and his Syrian wife, Mona, who is in custody in Damascus, were 
Demafelis's employers in Kuwait and are both suspects in the murder case.

Earlier this month, Kuwait and the Philippines signed a deal to regulate 
working conditions for domestic staff in the Gulf country after the murder 
sparked outrage.

(source: The National)








UNITED ARAB EMIRATES:

Death penalty for maid who murdered employer's baby daughter ----She was 
convicted of premeditated murder after medical reports and in-depth 
investigations proved the 9-month-old girl had been beaten



A maid who was found guilty of torturing a 9-month-old baby girl to death has 
been sentenced to death by Sharjah Criminal Court.

The Indonesian woman, 30, was convicted of premeditated murder after medical 
reports and in-depth investigations proved that the Emirati girl had been 
brutally beaten by the maid, leading to the girl's death, according to court 
documents.

In July 2016, the girl, Salama Al Mazmi, was admitted to Al Qasimi Hospital for 
2 weeks due to severe bruises and injuries, including fractures to her skull. 
Salama sucummbed to her injuries and was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Essa Al Mazmi, Salama's father, previously told The National that he was 
seeking the toughest punishment against his daughter's killer.

"I will never forget what she did to my baby girl," he said.

The child's mother said that on day of the incident she left her baby with the 
maid and left the house.

"When I came back from my outing after 30 minutes, I found Salama in a very bad 
shape. Suddenly she fell unconscious and I rushed her to hospital," said the 
Emirati, adding the maid was the only person in the house.

"We have other maids in the family, however, none of them are allowed to enter 
our home. The defendant is the only one allowed to be around my child," she 
said.

Dr Satish Krishnan, a senior consultant and neurological surgeon at Al Qassimi 
Hospital, said the girl was unconscious and not breathing when she arrived at 
hospital.

"Emergency teams resuscitated her and once she started to breathe and was 
stabilised, a CT scan was carried out and found a blood clot in her brain from 
an old injury. The scan revealed a skull fracture and broken rib from a 
previous injury."

The pleaded not guilty to a murder charge last year.

(source: The National)