[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 9



SOUTH AFRICA:

Ex-SA colonel returns home after escaping South Sudan death penalty


William Endley, the former South African defence colonel, is back home from 
South Sudan after being pardoned by President Salva Kiir last week after he was 
sentenced to death by hanging by a court in the capital Juba in February 
following his conviction on charges of espionage and conspiring to overthrow 
the government.

Speaking to the media on Thursday, Endley said he was enjoying drinking a cold 
beer and the freedom of being able to move around after being held in solitary 
confinement for long periods of time.

And despite his traumatic imprisonment, in what his family told the African 
News Agency (ANA) were appalling conditions, Endley said on Thursday he would 
have no problem returning to South Sudan if asked, adding that Dr Riek Machar, 
the leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-In Opposition (SPLM-IO) 
had already requested him to return to help integrate rebels with the national 
army - the reason he said he went to the country in the first place.

He was arrested in August 2016 when renewed fighting between government troops 
and the SPLM-IO broke out after Machar had first returned from exile to take 
part in a transitional unity government.

His defence argued against the charges stating that Endley was only performing 
his duties as a security contractor to help Machar's forces integrate into the 
South Sudanese Army.

South Sudan won independence from Sudan in 2011 but plunged into a civil war in 
2013 after Kiir accused Machar - then vice president - of plotting a coup 
against him.

The 5-year civil war has killed an estimated 380 000 people and left nearly 2 
1/2 million others displaced.

(source: African News Agency)





LIBERIA:

UN Human Rights Committee Wants Liberia Repeal Death Penalty


The United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC) has reiterated its
call to the Liberian Government to abolish the death penalty which was 
reintroduced in 2008.

Addressing a 1-day national human rights consultation held in Monrovia on 
Wednesday, November 7, a member of the HRC, Margo Waterval said it was 
unfortunate for Liberia, as a State party to the Second Optional Protocol to 
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to reintroduce the 
death penalty in its Penal Code.

The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and 
Political Rights, which aims at the abolition of the death penalty, is a side 
agreement to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Ms. Margo noted that although no execution has taken place since 2008, the 
judiciary continues to sentence people to death.

Her statement is in line with a set of recommendations that the HRC submitted 
to the Government of Liberia at the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 
(CCPR) meeting, which took place in Geneva in July 2018.

The 48-count recommendations, among other things, centered on the abolition of 
the death penalty, impunity and past human rights violations and the 
administration of justice and fair trial.

The committee recalled that adherence to the Second Optional Protocol requires 
that Liberia, as a state party takes all necessary measures to abolish the 
death penalty within its jurisdiction and become an abolitionist country in 
practices as well as in law.

In addition, it petitioned the government to remove any provisions in its 
legislation that provide for the death penalty and to commute all existing 
death sentences as well as refrain from carrying out any execution.

On impunity and past human rights violation, the Committee called on Liberia to 
establish a process of accountability for past gross human rights violations 
and war crimes that conform to international standards, including concerning 
independence and expertise of the judiciary, victims’ access to justice, due 
process and fair trial guarantees, and witness protection.

The committee: “Ensure that all alleged perpetrators of gross human rights 
violations and war crimes are impartially prosecuted and, if found guilty, 
convicted and punished in accordance with the gravity of the acts committed, 
regardless of their status or any domestic legislation on immunities, and 
remove any persons who have been proven to be involved in gross human rights 
violations and war crimes.”

For administration of justice and fair trial, the committee recommends that 
Liberia should pursue it effort to reform the justice system and ensure that 
all court proceedings are conducted in full observance of due process 
guarantees set forth in article 14 of the covenant.

Meanwhile, during the consultation, the civil society organizations resolved to 
engage government stakeholders to ensure the implementation of the HCR 
recommendations.

Some of the recommendations highlighted during the consultation included the 
promotion of gender equality, criminalizing all forms of harmful practices 
including female genital mutilation (FGM), guarantee the voluntary termination 
of pregnancy, implementing the act banning trafficking in person, improve 
prison condition, freedom of expression and now implementing Land Rights act 
which aims notably to regulate the status of customary land.

The dialogue was also attended by representatives from the government’s 
institutions including the Ministry of Justice and Independent National 
Commission on Human Rights (INCHR) and international partners including the 
European Union Delegation to Liberia.

The Director of Human Rights Protection Division at the Ministry of Justice, 
Kutaka Devine Togbah, pledged the government’s commitments towards working with 
its partners including the civil society and international organizations 
towards implementing the HCR’s recommendations.

(source: frontpageafricaonline.com)




IRAN----execution

Iran hangs inmate in Ardekan Prison of Yazd


A prisoner was hanged on Saturday, November 3, at Ardakan Prison of Yazd, 
central Iran.

Samei Mohtarami, 45, was taken to solitary confinement on November 1. He was 
found guilty of murder.

He was granted a chance to obtain the required diyeh (financial compensation) 
for the victim’s family. Being poor, the Mohtarami family could not raise the 
money.

In Iran a convicted murderer has no right to seek pardon or commutation from 
the state, though this right is protected by Article 6(4) of the ICCPR. The 
family of a murder victim has the right either to insist on execution or to 
pardon the killer and receive diyeh.

The Iranian authorities contend that qesas – the sentence for convicted 
murderers – is not execution, despite the face that people sentenced to qesas 
are put to death by the state. This contention is not accepted in international 
law.



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

Man arrested as a teenager sentenced to death

Shayan Saeedpour, a juvenile offender was sentenced to death on October 23, by 
the first branch of Provincial Criminal Court of Kurdistan, headed by judge 
Vafaian.

Born in 1997, Shayan Saeedpour is convicted of killing a man during a fight on 
August 16, 2015, while under the age of 18. He has been in jail since.

Evidences suggest that Saeedpur suffered was under the supervision of a 
psychiatrist before committing the crime.

A source close to Saeedpour family said that Shayan was under the age of 18 and 
was affected by alcohol drinks at the time of committing the crime. Since then, 
he has been detained in the Central Prison of Sanandaj. The source emphasized 
that Shayan Saeedpour has been under psychiatric care and attempted suicide on 
numerous occasions.

Iran is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political 
Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child both of which 
expressly prohibit the use of the death penalty against anyone convicted of a 
crime committed when they were under 18.

Yet the authorities have shown no sign of stopping horrific practice of 
sentencing juvenile offenders to death.

Amnesty International says it has details of 49 people on Iran’s death row who 
were under 18 at the time of the crime they are alleged to have committed. The 
UN says there are at least 160 such people facing execution in the country. In 
fact, there are likely to be many more young offenders on Iranian death rows, 
as use of capital punishment in Iran is often shrouded in secrecy.

(source for both: Iran Human Rights)




SAUDI ARABIA:

‘She will be a resident of heaven’: Saudi ambassador says migrant worker Tuty 
Tursilawati’s sins absolved after execution


The Oct. 29 execution of Indonesian migrant worker Tuty Tursilawati by Saudi 
Arabian authorities, which was carried out without any prior notice to the 
Indonesian government and her family, added another red mark to the Middle 
Eastern kingdom’s long list of human rights violations as well as causing 
outrage in Indonesia.

As reported by Kumparan, Saudi’s ambassador to Indonesia, Osama bin Mohammed 
Abdullah Al Shuaibi, spoke publicly for the first time about Tuty’s execution 
today and used religious reasoning to justify her killing.

“She has been purified, alhamdulillah (praise God). She served her punishment 
on earth. [After receiving her death sentence] she had a lot of time to turn to 
Allah. Inshallah (God willing) she will be a resident of heaven,” Osama said at 
the Saudi embassy in Jakarta.

Tuty was one of 16 Indonesian nationals on death row in Saudi Arabia. She was 
arrested in 2010 and then sentenced to death in 2011 for the murder of her 
employer, but she claimed she was acting in self-defense to protect herself 
from sexual abuse.

But Osama denied the claim, saying Tuty wasn’t raped, because apparently, old 
men can’t rape.

“I want to set the record straight about the murder. She didn’t do it to 
protect herself. The victim was 80 years old, logically it wouldn’t be possible 
for him to rape,” Osama said.

Osama added that the execution, carried out on Oct. 29, was done in accordance 
to Islamic-based Saudi law, therefore it was the best possible outcome for Tuty 
in spiritual terms.

“We have lost two people, the 80-year-old victim and the woman (Tuty). She 
already served her punishment on earth. Inshallah, she will get to heaven.”

Previously, the Indonesian Foreign Ministry’s Migrant Workers’ Protection 
Director Lalu Muhammad Iqbal stated that Tuti was sentenced with had ghilah 
(planned assassination) so the death sentence couldn’t be retracted even if the 
victim’s family had pardoned her.

Despite Indonesia’s pleas, Lalu said that Saudi Arabia and Indonesia do not 
have a mandatory consular notification agreement obligating either country to 
warn the other about legal trouble their citizens are facing abroad.

In March of this year, another Indonesian migrant worker, Zaini Misrin, was 
also executed in Saudi Arabia without prior notice to Indonesian officials.

Zaini’s execution temporarily strengthened Indonesia’s conviction to resume its 
moratorium on migrant workers being sent to the Middle East, particularly Saudi 
Arabia. However, on Oct. 11, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia entered into an 
agreement on a pilot project to send a limited number of Indonesian migrant 
workers to the kingdom under the promise of better protection, thereby 
bypassing the moratorium, which was introduced in 2015.

Migrant workers advocacy group Migrant Care has urged the Indonesian government 
to scrap the agreement to send Indonesian migrant workers to the kingdom in 
limited numbers, following Tuty’s execution.

(source: coconuts.co)




MALAYSIA:

Death penalty has no place in human rights reform


The death penalty remains a controversial debate around the world because of 
the moral complexities and emotions surrounding it.

We, too, received brickbats and cheers when Malaysia’s cabinet agreed to 
abolish capital punishment and halt all pending executions.

The country’s death sentence mandates hanging as punishment. There are some 
1,200 people on death row for murder, drug trafficking, kidnapping and other 
offences.

But the death penalty goes against our most basic human right, which is the 
right to life.

The legal system also isn’t without flaws. Mistakes are sometimes made and what 
if someone innocent is killed?

According to the Penang Institute, on average 27.7 % of High Court and 50 % of 
Court of Appeal death penalty case judgements were overturned by the immediate 
higher courts.

Variables such as offence type, ethnicity or nationality, the gender of the 
accused and the locality of the High Courts were shown to be contributing 
factors in creating judicial errors.

The capital punishment is a legacy of the common law system that Malaysia 
inherited from the British under which 359 people were executed between 1979 
and 2001.

In 2016, Malaysia carried out 9 executions and imposed 36 death sentences.

Despite these executions, statistics revealed at a recent conference by the 
National Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) show that the death penalty is not a 
deterrent.

For example, the number of drug-related murders and attempted murders had 
increased especially in recent years. Armed gang robberies reported each year 
also went up between 40 and 100 cases.

And drug cases have not decreased even though the death penalty remains under 
the Dangerous Drug Act of 1952.

Let’s think about this - a guy who occupies the lowest position in the chain of 
command is arrested and faces the music. But a banker caught laundering 
billions of dollars for some of the most murderous people on the planet gets 
off with a slap on the wrist in the form of some puny fine and a deferred 
prosecution deal.

It’s common knowledge that triads and drug cartels wash billions of dollars of 
blood money through some of the world’s biggest banks.

Is capital punishment, therefore, a tool that dispenses justice?

On the other hand, it is the ultimate form of state control. China, Iran and 
Saudi Arabia are the countries that executed the highest number of people in 
2016. Political dissidents and rights activists were branded criminals and 
subsequently executed.

If we are to convince the public that human rights are a key part of Pakatan 
Harapan’s policy, then the death penalty will have to go.

According to Amnesty International, 142 countries had abolished the death 
penalty in law or practice by 2017.

Let’s add Malaysia to the list.

(source: Letter to the Editor; The writer, Charles Santiago,  is member of 
Parliament for Klang----malaysiakini.com)





PAKISTAN:

ATC awards death penalty for kidnapping, murder


An antiterrorism court on Thursday handed down death sentence to a
convict and life imprisonment to 2 others for killing a man over non-payment of 
‘protection’ money of just Rs2,000.

The convicts — Abdul Raheem, Ahmed Hassan and Anwar alias Baloch — were found 
guilty of kidnapping Saleem-ud-Din, demanding extortion money and killing him 
over non-payment.

On Thursday, the ATC-II judge pronounced her verdict, which was earlier 
reserved after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge found the accused Abdul Raheem guilty of kidnapping the victim, a 
factory owner, killing him over non-payment of protection money and causing 
terror in society. He was handed down capital punishment.

The court also found 2 co-accused Ahmed Hassan and Anwar alias Baloch guilty of 
sharing common intention in the kidnapping and subsequent murder of the victim.

According to the prosecution, the accused persons had abducted Saleem-ud-Din, 
who was working as manager in a local factory located in the remit of the Gabol 
Town police station in 2014.

They demanded extortion from him, the prosecution further mentioned. However, 
Raheem shot dead the victim over his failure to pay a petty amount of Rs2,000 
as extortion.

Later, they were detained and booked in a case registered under Sections 302 
(premeditated murder), 365 (abduction) and 386 (extortion by putting a person 
in fear of death or grievous hurt) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan 
Penal Code and Section 7 (punishment of acts of terrorism) of the 
Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

The investigating officer of the case had submitted an investigation report 
against the 4 detained accused persons while it declared their 4th accomplice 
as an absconder.

The judge indicted them. However, they pleaded not guilty and opted to contest. 
The court had directed the prosecution to produce its witnesses in the case.

During the trial, the detained men recorded their statements under Section 342 
of the Criminal Procedure Code, denying the allegations put up by the 
prosecution.

The defence counsel contended that their clients were innocent, but the 
prosecution had falsely framed them in the present case. They pleaded to acquit 
the detained men.

On the other hand, the assistant prosecutor general Ali Raza Abbasi contended 
that the prosecution had evidence to establish the role of the accused in the 
kidnapping of the victim, demands by the accused persons to pay extortion 
(protection) money. However, the accused persons along with their absconding 
accomplice kidnapped the victim and shot him upon his failure to fulfil their 
demand for a petty amount of Rs2,000 as protection money.

The prosecutor argued that the video footage captured by a closed-circuit 
television camera had captured the accused persons and the captive, wherein the 
latter were visible and identified.

Earlier, the court had deferred the pronouncement of the judgment in the case 
last month, as the defence counsel moved an application pleading to allow the 
defence to produce more witnesses in the case and record their evidence before 
passing the verdict.

Naqeebullah trial proceedings transferred

Meanwhile, the ATC-II transferred the record of the trial proceedings 
pertaining to the killing of an aspiring model Naseebullah, better known as 
Naqeebullah Mehsud, and three others in an alleged encounter after kidnapping 
them for ransom by the former SSP Malir Rao Anwar Khan and his detained and 
absconding accomplices.

Prosecution sources told Dawn that the cases pertaining to the extrajudicial 
killings of the four men after their kidnapping for ransom, foisting fake 
recoveries of arms and explosives and lodging false criminal cases against them 
had been transferred to the ATC-III in compliance with the order passed by the 
Sindh High Court last week.

The high court had ordered the transfer of the cases after Naqeeb’s father had 
expressed no confidence in the judge of the ATC-II after it granted post-arrest 
bail to suspended SSP Rao Anwar in the main murder case and subsequently in the 
second case of foisting fake recoveries and lodging false criminal cases 
against the victims by dubbing them as “terrorists”.

(source: dawn.com)