[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

February 25



CAMEROON:

Cameroon opposition leader faces death sentence



CAMEROON’S main opposition leader and more than 100 supporters face the death 
penalty following their arraignment for allegedly plotting to overthrow the 
government.

Maurice Kamto, leader of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, and the 130 
followers, were arbitrarily arrested last month and charged by a military 
court.

The arrest is part of a crackdown on critics of the October 2018 elections that 
the opposition believes President Paul Biya rigged.

A judge is to rule on the charges they face, including “rebellion, hostility 
against the homeland, incitement to insurrection, offence against the president 
of the republic and destruction of public buildings and goods.”

Human rights organisations said it was horrifying that the government 
considered sentencing Kamto and others to death for participating in a peaceful 
protest.

“As well as having their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly 
crushed, many of Cameroon’s opposition members are now facing unfair trials by 
military courts,” said rights advocate, Marie-Evelyne Petrus Barry.

“We are calling on authorities to end this ruthless assault on dissenting 
voices. Civilians should not be tried by military courts and should not face 
the death penalty for exercising their human rights.”

Some 12 opposition members also arrested in January appeared before an ordinary 
court earlier this week.

Prosecutors charged them with attempting to participate in a banned 
demonstration. The hearing was postponed until Monday.

Biya (86), Africa’s oldest sitting president, has been power since 1982. 
Critics accuse him of rigging polls to sustain his reign.

(source: cajnewafrica.com)








EGYPT:

Egypt Judges’ club condemns UN rights agency for criticising executions



Egypt’s Judges Club, an informal association whose current leadership is known 
for its support of Sisi’s regime, criticised the Office of the United Nations 
High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for its statements condemning the 
recent executions of nine death row inmates in Egypt.

The Judges Club’s spokesperson Reda Mahmoud Al-Sayed said that the association 
“followed with much sorry” the OHCHR statements on the sentences handed down 
after the 2015 killing of Egypt’s Prosecutor-General.

The statements constitute an “unacceptable intervention in the work of the 
esteemed and independent Egyptian judiciary,” Sayed said.

The Judges Club also described the OHCHR’s statements as an attack on the 
Egyptian state’s sovereignty and a breach of international measures and 
treaties that seek to preserve the judiciary’s independence.

“The Judges Club stresses on the independence of the Egyptian judiciary and its 
rejection, throughout its history, of any intervention from any internal of a 
foreign entity.”

It also noted that Egyptian laws include the death penalty and allow for it to 
be issued in cases that relate to the most serious crimes.

In its statement, the club defended the recent hangings, noting that the 
Egyptian legal system guarantees for defendants fair trial before a just an 
independent judiciary, in addition to the right to appeal sentences in higher 
courts up to the Court of Cassation.

Last Friday OHCHR spokesperson Rupert Colville criticised the death sentences 
handed down and carried out in Egypt against defendants in the prosecutor 
general’s assassination case.

“They are all killings for which the death penalty is permissible under 
international law although we urge, as you know, our common position at the UN 
is to advocate the abolition of the death penalty. But the issue here is a fair 
trial, use of torture, forced confessions and so on,” he said.

The execution of nine Egyptians on Wednesday over their alleged involvement in 
killing the country’s top prosecutor in 2015 has sparked a major outcry in 
Egypt and internationally. Videos of the trial went viral on social media 
featuring the defendants telling the judge that they were innocent and that 
they confessed to the crime under torture. The judge ignored the defendants’ 
plea and sentenced 9 of them to death.

(source: Middle East Monitor)

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

Egypt executions 'unacceptable' says Erdogan----Turkish president says Egyptian 
executions justify his bitter relationship with Egypt's Sisi



Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the UN have both criticised a surge 
in executions in Egypt marked by the deaths of 9 men last week.

Erdogan said on Saturday that the executions and arrests of political 
opponents, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, which was ousted in a 2013 coup 
by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, explain why the Turkish president refuses to 
speak to Sisi.

"They killed n9 young people recently. This is not something we can accept," 
Erdogan said in an interview with Turkish TV channels CNN-Turk and Kanal D, 
referring to the men who were executed on Wednesday.

"Of course, we are going to be told that it is a decision of the judiciary, but 
there, justice, elections, all that, are codswallop. There is an authoritarian 
system, even totalitarian," he said, as quoted by AFP.

During the trial for the 9 men accused of killing Egypt's former prosecutor 
general Hisham Barakat, several of the defendants claimed they had signed 
confessions after being tortured.

"I was blindfolded, hung on the door upside down for seven consecutive hours 
and electrocuted in sensitive areas of my body," said 25-year-old Abulqasim 
Youssef.

Erdogan also called on Egypt to grant an amnesty to political prisoners 
arrested after the 2013 coup that overthrew former leader Mohammed Morsi, who 
had been a close ally of Erdogan's.

Erdogan slammed Western countries which, according to him, "roll out the red 
carpet" for Sisi and turn a blind eye to the latest executions in Egypt.

The UN on Friday said that 15 people had been executed in Egypt in February 
alone and that there were concerns about whether the defendants had been given 
fair trials.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a 
statement that Egypt should suspend the death penalty and review all cases in 
which the sentence had been handed down.

Reacting to news of the executions, Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, a UK-based 
anti-death penalty rights group, said in a statement that the executions showed 
that the use of the death penalty by Egypt's president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi "is 
now a full-blown human rights crisis".

"Executions have spiked - bringing the total number to 15 in just 2 weeks - 
amid widespread abuses including gross due process violations, torture, false 
confessions and the repeated use of mass trials", Foa said. "It is shocking 
that these abuses continue unabated while the international community remains 
silent."

On Tuesday, Amnesty International urged Egyptian authorities to halt the 
executions that were handed down based on forced confessions under torture.

“There is no doubt that those involved in deadly attacks must be prosecuted and 
held accountable for their actions but executing prisoners or convicting people 
based on confessions extracted through torture is not justice,” said Najia 
Bounaim, Amnesty International’s North Africa campaigns director.

Egypt responded on Sunday, saying it rejected both the allegations that torture 
was used on the prisoners and "any infringement upon the Egyptian judiciary", 
according to Reuters.

Egyptian civil and military courts have sentenced more than 1,400 people to 
death since General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who led the 2013 military coup, 
became president in 2014.

(source: middleeasteye.net)








SRI LANKA:

Police reiterate President’s plans to reinstate death penalty



With the detection of the country’s largest-ever heroin haul amounting to 294.4 
kilograms on Saturday from Colombo, the Police yesterday reiterated the 
Government’s plans to reinstate the death penalty for notorious drug smugglers 
in the country.

“The Government intends to activate the death penalty for the mass-scale drug 
smugglers who are being convicted by both courts - the High Court and the 
Appeal Court,” Police Media Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekara told reporters 
yesterday.

Valued at over Rs. 2.945 billion, the parcels which were stored in 10 suitcases 
were to be transported in 2 vans at the time of the detection. The two vans had 
five suitcases, each having 163.356 kilograms and 131.137 kilograms 
respectively.

“The PNB and STF officials, who carried out the detection on a tip off, had 
taken the massive haul of heroin on Saturday evening at a car park of a 
supermarket in Kollupitiya,” SP Gunasekera said.

The PNB and the STF had taken total of 317 kilograms of heroin in 2017 and the 
highest haul of 211 kilograms was detected from Chilaw in that year. The 
largest haul of heroin (287 kilograms) was detected in 2018, in which the total 
detection amounted to 732 kilograms.

“The PNB and STF had detected large hauls of heroin during the past few years 
mainly due to the support and commitment given by President Maithripala 
Sirisena to carry out islandwide raids to bust the well-organised drug 
smuggling network,” Gunasekara said.

Reiterating his strong commitment and support to control drug smuggling into 
the country, President Sirisena commended the efforts taken by the PNB and STF 
officials to detect the largest ever haul of heroin in Sri Lanka.

The President, who had inspected the seized heroin stocks at the PNB yesterday 
morning, has said in his Twitter account: “My congratulations to the PNB and 
STF who have successfully seized the largest consignment of illicit drugs in 
our history.”

Extending his gratitude to all the officials involved, he has assured his 
fullest support for apprehending illicit drug smuggling in the country.

The STF Commandant Senior DIG M. R. Latiff and the PNB Director T.C.A. 
Dhanapala also joined President Sirisena’s inspection tour at the PNB.

A top STF official speaking on condition of anonymity told the Daily FT that 
the PNB had commenced questioning the two suspects Wasim Mohammed (43) and 
Mohammed Ahamed (32) from Keselwatte, Panadura to find whether they have any 
links to the notorious underworld criminal and drug smuggler Makandure Madush, 
who is now in Dubai Police custody with 31 others.

He said that the suspects were to transport the stocks in the 2 vans to a safer 
location and the stocks had been smuggled into the country by fishing trawlers.

“We have commenced a full probe into this case and are now questioning the two 
suspects on how they received the drugs, the transport routes, their other 
links and distribution network in Sri Lanka,” the Police media spokesman 
confirmed.

The Acting Magistrate Lochana Abeywickrama had issued a detention order till 1 
March when the two suspects were produced before Courts yesterday.

(source: ft.lk)

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

Sri Lanka to recruit a foreign executioner



The Department of Prisons is considering recruiting a foreign national for the 
post of executioner. A high ranking officer at the department noted that they 
have not received the desired number of applications for the position.

Accordingly, the department noted that steps are underway to recruit a foreign 
national to the post as a result of the prevailing situation.

Meanwhile, Prisons media spokesperson, Thushara Unpuldeniya said the deadline 
for the submission of applications for the post of executioner will conclude at 
12 noon today.

The list of names of the inmates who are sentenced to death over drug-related 
charges was handed over to President Maithripala Sirisena on January 25th. The 
Ministry of Law and Order and Prison Reforms said the list was submitted 
following the approval of the Attorney General. According to the list, 17 
inmates have been sentenced to death.

The capital punishment was last imposed in Sri Lanka in 1976 at the Welikada 
prison, on an individual by the name “Chandradasa”.

(source: newsfirst.lk)








MALAYSIA:

Death penalty a great deterrent to crime, argues panel speaker



The federal government ought to retain the death penalty as its ‘last line of 
defence’ in terms of being a deterrent to crime.

Moreover, Malaysia has yet to reach the level of maturity – be it in social, 
educational or economic aspects – when it comes to considering the abolishment 
of the death penalty.

This was pointed out by chartered accountant Tay Chze Cheng during a talk on 
‘Controversy on Abolishing the Death Penalty’ at a restaurant here yesterday, 
organised by the Federation of Chinese Associations of Kuching, Samarahan and 
Serian Divisions.

The session was moderated by Teo Kwang Hock, while the other speaker was former 
Repok assemblyman Datuk David Teng, who is a lawyer by profession.

In his argument, Tay concurred with Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) 
president and former federal minister Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong, who recently 
said that the government should not make its move to abolish the death penalty 
without enlightening Malaysians on the need to do so.

“It appears that Wee Ka Siong plays a more effective role as the opposition. He 
has queried that if the death penalty could not serve as a deterrent to crime, 
how Malaysia is going to reduce crimes if the death penalty were to be 
abolished,” he said.

Citing recent news reports, Tay said the estimated cost in managing those 
placed on death row was RM40 per inmate per day. It is stated that there are 
1,281 individuals on death row in Malaysia. Of the total, 300 are convicted for 
murder.

He said the Malaysian government would have to spend around RM430,000 per death 
row inmate per year.

“This is calculated based on a period of 30 years, which brings the total 
expenditure to over RM500 million (for 1,281 death row inmates). Such cost is 
much higher than the execution, which costs about RM2,800 per inmate.

“As an accountant, I’d tell you that going for execution is more beneficial,” 
he said.

Nevertheless, Tay also said the federal government should let Malaysians decide 
whether to retain the death penalty or have it abolished.

“It is more imperative for the government to work on practising discretionary 
death penalty, and give full independence to the judiciary system.”

Later, the organiser carried out a voting session during the talk, involving 
146 members of the floor. The outcome of the voting showed that 130 voted 
against the abolishment of the death penalty, while 14 supported the move. 2 
were considered spoilt votes.

(source: The Borneo Post)








INDIA:

In the cause of peace, Kulbhushan Jadhav must not die----His hanging will not 
serve any end of justice. But such an act will definitely mutilate the ends of 
peace



This is, of course, an anti-death sentence position.

But it is also more. It is a pro-normal life and pro-safe life proposition.

Let it be noted, for a start, that the charges against Kulbhushan Jadhav do not 
include murder. His alleged crime is espionage. Like reportage in journalism, 
espionage in international relations is not carried out only by persons 
appointed to do so. Ordinary people, regular folk who speak to media, are also 
in a sense reporters. The same goes for borderers, travellers, visitors. They 
speak about what they experience, not as spies, but as observers. And can very 
conveniently get picked up for doing what any traveller does, that is, to see , 
hear and share what has been seen, heard.

Jadhav was not even travelling in the wrong place. He was abducted from a third 
place, which makes the prototype many times more vulnerable. And if he does 
hang, tragically and unfairly, a most dangerous precedent, easy to replicate, 
would have been established.

What the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is examining is not just one 
man’s innocence or culpability but the vulnerability of completely ingenuous, 
unworldly, wide-eyed, naïve, trustful people to the brutality of suspicion — a 
phenomenon that haunts the Indian subcontinent. If Jadhav hangs, not only will 
someone whose crime is unproved have been hanged but uncountable Indians and 
Pakistanis, Kashmiris among them, and Bangladeshis, whose sole, so-called crime 
is being in the wrong place at a tragically unfortunate moment, will be at risk 
— the risk of being prosecuted for something of which they are totally 
innocent: espionage . This is not just about border people but Indians and 
Pakistanis travelling with valid visas or with visas that have got expired.

The enraged will advocate rope-for-rope. No responsible government may be 
expected to turn lawless but the atmospherics will be incendiary. And just as 
fireworks blaze at night, fiery demands sizzle across terror-traumatised skies.

On the other hand, if Jadhav does not hang, not only will someone whose crime 
was not proven be saved from death but a highly dangerous precedent will have 
been averted. And the prospect for safe justice to a huge number of 
undertrials, brightened.

We have 2 examples, contradictory and contrastive.

First, Sarabjit Singh’s heart-wrenching example of having been given the death 
sentence on charges of espionage and , despite demarches and appeals, kept in 
suspense for over 20 years only to be killed in what was called an attack by 
other inmates of the Lahore jail in 2013.

Second, Mumbai software engineer Hamid Ansari’s example of being released last 
December from the same Lahore jail, following interventions and appeals from 
India and elsewhere, and minister of external affairs, Sushma Swaraj’s 
unremitting perseverance.

If Jadhav were to hang, Hamid Ansari’s return will be completely lost in the 
outrage that India will feel, express and demand retribution for.

Post Pulwama, the urge for retribution animates our political imagination. 
Faith in peace talks, or any talks, has evaporated from the political discourse 
at least for the moment. And suspicion, hatred and vengeance have taken its 
place. And, yes, it is about politics, medieval politics. Not alleged 
espionage, not illegal strayings, not consular technicalities but the hard 
brutality of the subcontinent’s mutual suspicion is what is now playing out. 
The climate between the 2 countries is at such a low that Jadhav’s hanging will 
hang not just a person and tighten the noose around others who are in the wrong 
place at the wrong time. It will fling oil of the most inflammatory kind on the 
smouldering fires of antagonism between India and Pakistan. And not just 
between India and Pakistan but , infinitely worse, but between the majority and 
minority communities in both countries.

Jadhav is, today, a human being who all those who believe the death penalty to 
be barbaric, misguided and futile in terms of penology, should not. He is also 
much more. He has become, unbeknownst to him, a tragic hostage to the 
subcontinent’s legacy of mutual antipathy, contention and discord. If hanged, 
he will turn those into an even greater swirl of enmity and will, to put it 
plainly, imperil peace. Not just between the countries concerned but between 
communities.

The ICJ will, doubtless, excavate the legal quotient of the case. But being 
born of the Charter of the United Nations , the ICJ must not forget the peace 
quotient of this case. I do not believe his hanging will serve any end of 
justice. But it will mutilate the ends of peace.

I will not appeal to the Prime Minister of Pakistan to show a cricketer’s 
gentlemanliness. But I will say to him: In the name of humanity, Jadhav must 
not die. In the cause of peace, yours and ours, he must live.

(source: Gopalkrishna Gandhi is distinguished professor of history and 
politics, Ashoka University----Hindustan Times)






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

Supreme Court commutes man's death penalty to life term in murder case----In 
its verdict, the apex court said that Madhya Pradesh government has given no 
explanation for the delay of over 4 years in forwarding the mercy petition to 
the home ministry.



The Supreme Court has commuted to life term the death sentence awarded to a man 
for killing his wife and five children on the ground of "unexplained delay" of 
four years by the Madhya Pradesh government in forwarding the mercy petition of 
the convict to the Union Home Ministry.

The apex court said there was a delay of almost 5 years in deciding the mercy 
petition as the state authorities kept sitting on it and did not forwarded it 
to the home ministry for 4 years.

Observing that a mercy petition is the "last hope" of a person on death row, a 
bench headed by Justice N V Ramana said that convict Jagdish had filed a mercy 
petition before the jail authorities on October 13, 2009, but his plea was 
forwarded to the Ministry of Home Affairs on October 15, 2013.

"The mercy petition is the last hope of a person on death row. Every dawn will 
give rise to a new hope that his mercy petition may be accepted. By night fall 
this hope also dies," the bench, also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and 
Indira Banerjee said.

"Keeping in view all the circumstances of the case, including the un-explained 
delay of four years in forwarding the mercy petition by the state of Madhya 
Pradesh leading to delay of almost five years in deciding the mercy petition 
and the fact that the petitioner has been incarcerated for almost 14 years, we 
are of view that regardless of the brutal nature of crime this is not a fit 
case where death sentence should be executed and we, accordingly commute the 
death sentence to that of life," the court said.

However, the bench directed that life imprisonment in the case would mean that 
convict will not be released from jail till his natural death.

Jagdish had killed his wife and five children in August 2005 and the trial 
court had awarded him death penalty in April 2006.

In June 2006, the Madhya Pradesh High Court had confirmed the death sentence 
awarded to him and later in September 2009 the apex court had dismissed his 
appeal.

Thereafter, he had filed a mercy petition addressed to the President of India 
and the governor of Madhya Pradesh through the jail authorities on October 13, 
2009.

His mercy petition was rejected by the President on July 16, 2014. Jagdish had 
then moved the apex court challenging the rejection of his mercy petition on 
the ground that there was a delay of almost 5 years in deciding the mercy 
petition and his death sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment.

In its verdict, the apex court said that Madhya Pradesh government has given no 
explanation for the delay of over 4 years in forwarding the mercy petition to 
the home ministry.

"As far as the Government of India or the Secretariat of the President of India 
is concerned, there is no delay in dealing with the mercy petition and the same 
has been dealt with expeditiously," the bench said.

"The delay in forwarding the (mercy) petition is totally unexplained and this 
court cannot countenance an unexplained delay of more than four years. We are 
dealing here with the case of a person who has been sentenced to death," it 
said.

(source: indiatoday.com)