[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

February 16



ZIMBABWE:

Granny killer sentenced to death



A BEITBRIDGE man, who waylaid a 65-year-old flea market trader in the driveway 
of her house in the border town before fatally stabbing the woman and robbing 
her of 2 cellphones, was yesterday sentenced to death by hanging.

Maxwell Chadiwa (25) of Dulivhadzimu suburb pounced on Ms Muchaziva Gonorashe 
while she was about to leave her house in Dulivhadzimu suburb for Musina, South 
Africa, in the early hours and stabbed her with an okapi knife.

He was arrested after police tracked the victim’s stolen mobile phone to 
another person who subsequently led detectives to the accused person.

Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Maxwell Takuva convicted Chadiwa of murder 
with actual intent.

In his judgment, Justice Takuva ruled that the murder was committed in 
aggravating circumstances.

“It is clear that the accused person acted with an actual intent. Looking at 
the depth of the wound it is evident that excessive force was used. We are 
satisfied that the murder was committed in aggravating circumstances,” said the 
judge.

Justice Takuva said the courts have a duty to protect the sanctity of human 
life.

“Serious crimes call for the courts to be retributive in passing sentences as 
opposed to taking a rehabilitative approach. Lenience in such circumstances 
would not reflect the core principles of sentencing as the courts have a duty 
to uphold the sanctity of human life,” he said.

In passing a sentence, Justice Takuva said Chadiwa’s conduct was motivated by 
greed.

“What is aggravating is that you stabbed an innocent and helpless 65 year-old 
woman who intended to go to South Africa to buy wares for resale back home.

“If such an old woman can wake up in the early hours to work what would prevent 
you, a 24-year-old person, from doing that? Instead you chose to waylay the 
woman and rob her of her cellphones after refusing to disclose where she kept 
her money. It shows you are a cruel and wicked person who allowed greed to 
overpower you,” he said.

Justice Takuva said those who disregard other people’s lives deserve to be 
permanently removed from society.

“The court is in agreement with the State that death is the most appropriate 
sentence for you. We would have betrayed society if we are swayed into passing 
a sentence other than a death penalty. Those who don’t respect other people’s 
lives should also have their lives terminated and the sentence of this court is 
that you be returned to custody and that the sentence of death executed upon 
you according to the law,” ruled the judge.

On being asked why a death penalty should not be imposed on him, Chadiwa who 
appeared unfazed said: “There is nothing that I can say since I have already 
been convicted of a charge of murder, which I did not commit. However, I wish 
to tell this court that it is only God who knows that I am being sacrificed for 
the sins that I did not commit because my hands are not dripping with blood.”

Justice Takuva reminded Chadiwa of his automatic right of appeal against both 
conviction and sentence at the Supreme Court. Prosecuting, Mr Nqobizitha Ndlovu 
said on January 11 this year, the deceased woke up at around 3.30AM intending 
to travel to South Africa for shopping using her car, a Toyota Aphard.

She drove out of the yard, left the engine running and went back to close the 
gate.

“The deceased, who intended to go to Musina drove her car out of the yard and 
stopped at the driveway to close the gate behind her when the accused person, 
who was armed with a knife, pounced on her,” said Mr Ndlovu. Chadiwa pulled out 
an Okapi knife and stabbed Ms Gonorashe on the left collarbone and she 
collapsed and died. Chadiwa went to the car, searched it and took a handbag 
containing 2 cellphones, a Samsung Galaxy S4 and a Blackberry. He emptied the 
bag before he threw it away. The woman’s body was discovered by 2 other tenants 
who heard dogs barking in the yard.

They reported the matter to the police who recovered an empty handbag and a 
blood stained knife near the woman’s body. The body was later taken to 
Beitbridge District Hospital mortuary. Shortly after committing the murder, 
Chadiwa sold the woman’s cellphone to another resident.

The cellphone was tracked and it was recovered from a person who had bought it 
and he led detectives to Chadiwa’s place leading to his arrest.

Chadiwa, in his defence, through his lawyer, Mr Arnold Ncube of R Ndlovu and 
Company, said he bought the cellphones from a suspected border jumper who was 
desperately in need of money to pay people to assist him illegally cross the 
border to South Africa.

(source: chronicle.co.zw)








BOTSWANA:

4 CONVICTED MURDERERS TO HANG



The Court of Appeal on 8 February 2019 confirmed the death sentences of four 
men convicted of killing a cab driver in Gaborone and a Gantsi farm owner 
respectively.

The killers, Matshidiso Tshidi Boikanyo and Moabi Seabelo Mabiletsa were 
convicted in 2017 for the brutal murder of cab driver, Vincent Mopipi, stabbing 
him 44 times with a knife.

Tshiamo Kgalalelo and Mmika Mpe, the former Gantsi farm workers, were also 
convicted in 2017 for brutally killing and burning their employer, Reinette 
Vorster.

Kgalalelo, 33, and Mpe, 29, were convicted of attacking their employer stealing 
her Toyota Hilux valued at P300, 000, 2 cellphones and cash amounting to P11, 
000.

(source: Hands off Cain is an international league of citizens and 
parliamentarians for the abolition of the death penalty in the world. It is a 
non-profit, non-violent, transnational and trans-national Partito Radicale 
founded in Brussels in 1993 and recognized in 2005 by the Italian Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs as a development co-operation NGO)



PAKISTAN:

PHC sets aside death sentence to woman, uncle in murder case



The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has set aside death sentence awarded to a woman 
and her uncle in a murder case of her husband about 4 years ago.

A division bench comprising Justice Ghazanfar Khan and Justice Arshad Ali 
allowed the appeals of the convicts Palwasha and her uncle Ghazi Akbar. The 
bench observed that it was not a valid ground for the trial court to award 
capital punishment mere on the assumption that the accused Ghazi Akbar remained 
till last time with the deceased Gulab Sher.

Sahibzada Asadullah, counsel for the convicts, submitted before the bench that 
on October 10, 2014, Izzat Sher had charged his sister-in-law Palwasha and her 
uncle Ghazi Akbar at Khwazakhela Police Station in Swat district with the 
murder of his brother Gulab Sher.

In the first information report, the lawyer argued, the complainant claimed 
that his sister-in-law and her uncle had axed his brother to death for some 
gains and the trial court then awarded them the death sentence.

He submitted that the relationship between the convicts was so close, which 
cannot be blamed for killing the man for having some relations as mentioned by 
the complainant in the report. The lawyer told the bench that the police did 
not properly investigate the case. However, counsel for the complainant and 
state lawyer failed to clarify the questions and legal points raised by the 
lawyer of the convicts during arguments.

(source: thenews.com.pk)








SRI LANKA:

Sri Lanka Seeks Executioner With ‘Excellent Moral Character’



Sri Lanka, intent on reviving the death penalty after a 42-year moratorium, 
first has to find a hangman.

To that end, the government has placed advertisements in local newspapers, 
seeking male candidates between 18 and 45 years old with “excellent moral 
character” and “a very good mind and mental strength.”

The recently intensified search comes as President Maithripala Sirisena has 
vowed to re-establish hangings for drug traffickers as part of a broader 
antidrug push. Mr. Sirisena, who is seeking re-election this year, told 
Parliament recently that the hangings would resume within months.

The president’s antidrug overtures have proved popular, but critics have 
expressed concern about what could come next. During a state visit to the 
Philippines in January, Mr. Sirisena hailed President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal 
war on drugs there, which has left thousands dead at the hands of the police 
and vigilantes, calling it an “example to the world.”

Historically in Sri Lanka, the job of executioner has been difficult to fill.

Since 1976, when the government placed its moratorium on executions, the 
government has regularly advertised the hangman job, hoping to have a candidate 
trained and ready in case executions resumed. Before then, the post of hangman 
passed from father to son.

But since the moratorium, just 3 men have held the post, and all of them 
abandoned it before carrying out a single execution.

The last one, P.S.U. Premasinghe, 45, landed the job 5 years ago but resigned 
in shock at the first sight of the gallows at the main prison in the capital, 
Colombo, days after he began training. The prison authorities gave him a month 
to reconsider; he did not. The position has remained open since.

After Mr. Sirisena’s announcement this month that hangings would resume, prison 
officials began compiling lists of drug offenders on death row. And the 
Ministry of Justice and Prison Reforms decided this week to import a new noose; 
the one at the gallows now was brought in from Pakistan 12 years ago and has 
never been used in an execution.

Despite the 1976 moratorium, judges in this majority-Buddhist country have 
continued to hand down death sentences, none of which have been carried out. 
About 1,300 people are on death row, 48 of whom were convicted of drug crimes.

Under Sri Lankan law, murder and drug trafficking carry possible death 
sentences. Possession of more than 2 grams of pure heroin, known as 
diacetylmorphine, is punishable by death.

A few days after Mr. Sirisena’s visit, the Philippine government pledged to 
send a team of “specialists” to provide technical expertise for Sri Lanka’s 
battle against drugs.

Death penalty opponents saw the recent advertisements for an executioner as a 
distressing development.

“This is one job advert that should never have been put out,” Biraj Patnaik, 
Amnesty International’s regional director for South Asia, who lives in Colombo, 
said in a Twitter post. “There is no place for the death penalty in a civilized 
society.”

C.T. Jansz, a commissioner general of prisons in the 1950s, oversaw some 
executions during his tenure. He said even prison officials found them gory and 
gut-wrenching, and the environment inside the prison would become oppressive 
afterward.

“The whole prison mourns,” he said.

(source: New York Times)

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

Catholic Bishop's Conference in Sri Lanka condemns implementation of the death 
penalty

The members of the Catholic Bishop's Conference in Sri Lanka have issued a 
statement has condemned the implementation of the death penalty.

The statement said that "consequent to the churches teachings in light of the 
teachings in the light of the Gospel, that the death penalty is inadmissable 
because it is an attack on the inviolability and the diginity of the person and 
she works with determination for its abolition worldwide."

Further, the Catholic Bishop's Conference called on civiol society groups, the 
judicary, legislative and the executive to take preventive measures and design 
effective rehabilitation of victims with a supportive social system.

(source: sundaytimes.lk)