[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

April 11



PHILIPPINES:

Admin candidates seek to reimpose the death penalty to curb drug smuggling



With the recent seizure of nearly P800 million worth high grade cocaine off the 
coast of Siargao and Dinagat Islands, Hugpong ng Pagbabago candidates are 
convinced that the bill reimposing the death penalty should be ratified by the 
18th Congress.

Former presidential political adviser Francis Tolentino and Maguindanao Rep. 
Zajid “Dong” Mangudadatu have expressed support for death penalty measure that 
has been approved in the House of Representatives but remained pending in the 
Senate.

On the other hand, former Philippine National Police chief Ronald “Bato” De la 
Rosa noted that his disclosure in campaign sortie to pursue the enactment of a 
measure for the execution of drug traffickers is among his legislative plans 
that have been drawing huge public approval.

Asked to react on the recovery of large narcotics shipment in Siargao and 
Dinagat, Tolentino said the “high value entries of illegal drugs” should prompt 
the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Philippine Coast Guard to step 
up operations and be more vigilant.

Tolentino called for the execution not only of drug traffickers but also of the 
source of narcotics and those involved in facilitating drug smuggling into the 
country.

However, the former presidential adviser said the imposition of the death 
sentence should be dependent on the frequency of the commission of the offense.

Reacting to the large-scale drug smuggling operations, Mangudadatu said the 
non-imposition of the death sentence in the Philippines has given narcotics 
sources the boldness to operate here.

“No death penalty, no problem. That’s how drug traffickers see the situation 
here,” the Muslim lawmaker said.

Earlier, Surigao del Norte Rep. Ace Barbers aired fears that the world-famous 
tourist attraction has become a transshipment venue for illegal drugs of 
international cartels based in Latin America.

Barbers, chairman of the House Committee on Drugs, warned public officials and 
law enforcers against dipping their fingers in illegal drug trade even as he 
urged authorities to impose stricter measures that would put an end to drug 
smuggling and illicit narcotics trade in Siargao and other tourism areas in the 
country.

He said there is a strong possibility that narcotics smugglers have local 
contacts in Siargao who repackage the drugs.

“Maybe residents of Siargao, I believe are their contacts. These contacts may 
be engaged in repacking, or in the wholesale distribution of the dope,” he 
said.

The senior administration solon pointed out that smugglers have no local 
contacts who are knowledgeable of the island’s security.

Last week, 40 bricks of cocaine were discovered by local residents floating in 
the sea off Burgos town in Siargao island.

On February 14 and 15, a total of 70 abandoned cocaine bricks worth nearly half 
a billion pesos were seized by the police in Siargao and Dinagat.

All cocaine bricks bore “3B Bugatti” markings, indicating that they belonged to 
the same group of drug smugglers.

Barbers did not discount the possibility that the foreigners and even locals in 
Siargao provide a ready market for the recovered cocaine.

However, he noted that such large amount of drugs may also be seen as an 
indication that Siargao is being used as a transshipment venue for narcotics 
that are being distributed to other parts of Asia.

(source: Manila Bulletin)








INDONESIA:

15 foreigners among 48 handed death penalty in Indonesia last year: Amnesty



Indonesia sentenced to death 48 people last year, including 15 foreigners 
convicted of drug crimes, according to the latest global report on capital 
punishment by human rights organization Amnesty International.

In its annual report released on Wednesday, Amnesty explained that of the 48 
death sentences, 39 were in drug-related cases, 8 were for murder and 1 for 
terrorism.

In 2017, 10 foreigners were among 47 individuals sentenced to death.

At least 308 convicts were on death row by the end of last year, awaiting their 
execution without a clear date.

Despite its stance on capital punishment, Indonesia has positioned itself as a 
human rights pioneer in Southeast Asia. But in 2018, the country observed a 
moratorium on executions for the second year in a row after the government 
under President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo executed 18 inmates convicted of 
drug-related offenses, including foreigners, in 3 batches between 2015 and 
2016.

Nonetheless, Amnesty’s records show that Indonesia has not taken any steps 
toward abolishing the death penalty, much to the frustration of activists who 
point out that Indonesia is an initiator of the ASEAN Intergovernmental 
Commission on Human Rights (AICHR). The country is currently also seeking a 
fifth term on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

“As a pioneer of human rights in Southeast Asia, Indonesia actually has a wider 
chance to progress from the moratorium [to abolition],” said Amnesty 
International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid. “It is ironic that 
Indonesia has yet to take any formal steps to abolish the death penalty when 
the global trends show positive progress. Neighboring Malaysia has even 
announced an initiative to reform the punishment.”

Amnesty’s report shows a global decrease in executions from 2017 to 2018, down 
by 31 percent, from 993 to 690 executions – the lowest number in the past 
decade. The number of death sentences globally also slightly dropped from 2,591 
in 2017 to 2,531 in 2018.

Known proponents of capital punishment have even started to abandon it last 
year. For instance, Gambia declared a moratorium on executions, while Burkina 
Faso abolished capital punishment for general crimes and Malaysia announced a 
death penalty reform after previously decided to halt executions.

Usman said that eliminating the death penalty could level up Indonesia's 
diplomatic efforts to save roughly 188 Indonesian citizens on death row abroad.

“Well, how can Indonesia convince other countries to save its citizens from 
capital punishment if Indonesia maintains a legal basis to practice inhumane 
punishments at home?"

Usman urged the House of Representatives to push the government into scrapping 
the death sentence in the Criminal Code (KUHP).

Lawmaker Charles Honoris of the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle 
(PDI-P), who attended the report's launch, said that capital punishment was 
ineffective in curbing crimes, particularly drug offenses, given that the 
number of drug-related cases continued to increase in the past few years.

However, he shifted the responsibility to the government and the President, 
saying that the House was divided over the issue, with few lawmakers daring to 
openly voice their support for abolishing capital punishment. Therefore, the 
political will of the President was “key to starting the process of repealing 
the death penalty”.

The government softened its stance in the past few years by recategorizing the 
death penalty in the Criminal Code revision bill as an "alternative punishment" 
that could be commuted to life imprisonment if the convict showed good 
behavior. However, the draft’s deliberation has progressed at a snail's pace.

(source: The Jakarta Post)








IRAQ:

Iraq arrests ISIS member accused in infamous Speicher massacre



Iraqi security forces on Wednesday announced they had arrested an Islamic State 
member who they allege had participated in a grizzly 2014 mass killing known as 
the Speicher massacre.

After occupying much of northern and western of Iraq, the terrorist 
organization shocked the nation on June 12, 2014, by killing over 1,500 cadets 
and other personnel at a military academy known as Camp Speicher located in the 
province of Salahuddin.

In video footage released online by the group, gunmen were seen executing 
captives with a single, close-range shot to the head before dumping their 
bodies into the Tigris River or into shallow graves.

2 years later, the government of Iraq announced they had discovered the bodies 
of more than 1,000 victims after uncovering mass graves in Tikrit.

At least 50 suspects have been convicted of participating in the mass murder 
and Iraqi courts have handed them death sentences. Iraqi authorities carried 
out the execution of 36 in a single day in August 2016.

2 additional suspects were arrested in Finland in late 2015, identified from 
videos released by the Islamic State.

An Iraqi security team “was able to arrest one of the perpetrators of the 
terrorist act at the Speicher military camp by Da’esh [ISIS] gunmen,“ a 
statement from the Iraqi Defense Ministry read. According to the statement, 
forces had captured the suspect in an ambush in the city of Fallujah near a 
local traffic directorate.

(source: kurdistan24.net)








BRUNEI:

Brunei’s Royal Barbarity and Hypocrisy----The oil-rich sultanate imposes harsh 
Shariah law on its subjects, while members of the royal family enjoy lives of 
conspicuous luxury.



An intriguing aspect of Brunei’s barbarous Shariah laws is that if they were to 
be really enforced, a few of the sultan’s ridiculously wealthy, jet-setting kin 
would be leading candidates for death by stoning. Adultery is one of the crimes 
for which the archaic penalty is prescribed under the stern laws that went into 
effect on April 3 — along with sex between men, abortion and rape — and 
tabloids around the world have accumulated plenty of evidence against some 
Bruneian royals.

Such royal hypocrisy may seem to be the norm among autocratic rulers sitting 
atop oceans of oil who place no limits on their own dissolute lifestyles and 
yet impose cruel Islamic law on their subjects. And tiny Brunei, a country 
roughly the size of Delaware that shares the island of Borneo with Malaysia and 
Indonesia, might not seem worth getting worked up about.

Yet it is, for several reasons. First is that “this is the way we do it” is no 
longer a viable excuse for cruelty and barbarism anywhere. The world has gone 
way past times when witches were burned, homosexuals castrated or adulterers 
branded, and Brunei has signed (but not yet ratified) the United Nations 
Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or 
Punishment.

Brunei’s cruel, inhuman and degrading penalties are not a relic of history, 
like the sodomy laws that stayed on the books of American states well into the 
20th century, but the whim of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, 72, who has ruled the 
Lilliputian nation since 1967 and ranks among the most ludicrously wealthy 
people on earth. He has long pushed his predominantly Muslim nation toward a 
conservative and restrictive form of Islam, and he first announced the new 
penalties — which, in addition to death by stoning for gay male sex, include 
amputation for theft and 40 lashes for lesbian sex — 6 years ago.

An international outcry at that time prompted him to delay the laws. A similar 
outcry has accompanied their latest introduction: The United States, the 
European Union, Australia and others, as well as the United Nations human 
rights chief Michelle Bachelet, have all denounced the penalties, and 
celebrities including George Clooney, Elton John, Billie Jean King and Ellen 
DeGeneres called for a boycott of luxury hotels owned by Brunei, which include 
the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles, the Dorchester in 
London and the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris.

Besides the barbarity of the penalties, there is the danger that the law could 
nudge neighboring Islamic giants Malaysia and Indonesia toward tightening their 
own national or regional versions of Shariah laws targeting homosexuals. 
Conservative Muslim politicians in both countries were quick to voice their 
support for Brunei’s law. Beyond that, there is the fact that Sultan Hassanal 
enjoys his absolute dominion and his obscene treasure, including a gold-plated 
Rolls-Royce and a 1,788-room palace, because the world outside buys his oil. 
That gives his clients — including Britain, Brunei’s former colonial master — a 
measure of responsibility and leverage.

That celebrities are taking action is good, but governments and multinationals 
that do business with the wealthy sultanate have an obligation to look for ways 
to persuade Sultan Hassanal and other beneficiaries of Brunei’s oil riches that 
they best quickly bring their laws into compliance with their human rights 
obligations and abandon vicious punishments for blameless behavior.

(source: Editorial Board, New York Times)








AFRICA:

5 African countries applied death penalty in 2018 – Amnesty report



5 African countries applied the death penalty in 2018, a report by 
international rights group Amnesty International revealed on Wednesday. Of the 
quintet, 4 were in sub-Saharan Africa and 1 in north Africa region.

Egypt was the only country up the Sahara to apply the measure. They are classed 
in the Middle East and North Africa, MENA, region; according to the report.

In Sub-Saharan Africa: Botswana, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan used the 
measure. Somalia being the main user due to the incidence of terrorism related 
crimes by military courts against Al-Shabaab insurgents.

As numbers dropped in Somalia, they were on their way up in South Sudan, the 
report said. Most of these sentences were related to violent crimes amid a 
country embroiled in a security crisis.

Most African countries still have the death sentence on the law books and 
judges continue to pass such judgments. They are however not enforced with 
convicts usually having their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

Sub-Saharan Africa

4 countries – Botswana, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan – carried out executions 
in 2018.

A drop in recorded executions in Somalia drove an overall decrease in the 
region, from 28 in 2017 to 24 in 2018, despite an alarming increase in 
executions in South Sudan.

Recorded death sentences reduced from at least 878 in 2017 to at least 212 in 
2018. The number of countries that imposed death sentences increased to 17 from 
15 recorded in 2017.

Burkina Faso abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes only, and Gambia 
established a moratorium on executions and ratified an international treaty 
committing it to abolishing the death penalty.

Middle East and North Africa

The number of executions recorded by Amnesty International in the Middle East 
and North Africa region dropped by 41%, from 847 in 2017 to 501 in 2018, the 
lowest number of executions recorded in the region.

5 countries – Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Yemen – were known to have 
carried out executions, a 50% drop in executing countries.

Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq remained the top executing countries in the region, 
carrying out at least 454 recorded executions between them, 91% of the total 
number in the whole of the region.

There were 1,170 recorded death sentences in 2018, marking an 89% increase 
compared to 2017, when 619 death sentences were recorded. Egypt imposed the 
highest number of confirmed death sentences in the region with at least 717 
people sentenced to death compared to at least 402 in 2017.

(source: africanews.com)








KENYA:

Couple jailed for killing their baby



A man and his wife were on Tuesday sentenced to serve 15 years imprisonment 
each by a Narok High Court for killing their 1 1/2-year- old baby.

Emmanuel Kiprotich Sigei, 25 and Irene Nalomuta Sigei, 23 had bought a chemical 
used to spray livestock from an agrovet shop and given it to the baby 
apparently because she was sickly, unlike their 1st child.

They had appeared before Narok Resident Judge, Justice Justus Bwonwong`a 
charged with the murder of baby Brenda Chepkorir at Nasitori area in Narok 
South Sub County on February 6, 2014.

The court had heard that on the fateful day, Kiprotich went to an agrovet shop 
nearby and bought the said poison.

After they administered the poison to the baby, his wife Irene took the minor 
to her parents in law who were living nearby pretending that she was going to 
fetch water but it was part of the larger scheme to escape. The baby died 
minutes later in her grandfather's hands.

The judge said the prosecution had proved their case beyond reasonable doubts. 
“The evidence produced in this court clearly shows the accused actually gave 
their baby poison and left her to die in the hands of their parents as they 
escaped,” Justice Bwonwong`a said.

He said the prosecution had even produced the trader of the agrovet who 
testified how Kiprotich bought the poison from him and the container which had 
the poison he bought was found in their house.

Postmortem examination on the body of the baby also confirmed that she had died 
from the poison she had consumed.

According to the law, the accused persons were supposed to be sentenced to a 
mandatory death sentence for the offense of murder but in meting out a 15-year 
sentence, the judge said he considered various issues such as the mitigation 
where the convicts pleaded for leniency, saying they were the sole breadwinner 
for the remaining child.

The Supreme Court had in December 2017 also ruled that death sentence was 
against the Constitution which guarantees the right to life.

The highest court in the land then directed that any court dealing with capital 
offenses should be allowed to use judicial discretion when delivering 
judgments.

This followed an appeal by Francis Karioko Murwatetu and another who had 
appealed and questioned the constitutionality of death sentence. The Supreme 
Court in its ruling on this matter then said the mandatory death sentence is 
unconstitutional.

The apex court judges further directed the Attorney General, the Director of 
Public Prosecution and other agencies to prepare a detailed professional review 
of cases regarding sentencing. They also ordered that the law be placed before 
the National Assembly speaker for necessary amendments to the law.

In Kenyan laws, there are only 3 offenses that carry the death penalty and are 
referred to as capital offenses. They include; robbery with violence, murder 
and treason or sedition.

There is currently a clamour to abolish death sentence in the country. Some 
civil societies have been lobbying to have this penalty abolished, saying it is 
inhuman and violated right to life.

(source: kenyanews.go.ke)