[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 3


NOTE----my regular postings to this list will resume June 10





IRAQ:

Prosecuting Islamic State Foreign Fighters: Issues And Implications



The collapse of the physical caliphate of ISIS (Daesh) in Iraq and Syria has 
not led to the demise of Salafi-jihadi terrorism, but given rise to a set of 
problems relating to the management of scores of detained ISIS foreign 
fighters. Essentially, how should the international community deal with these 
foreign citizens who had travelled to the Levant to join ISIS?

While countries are reluctant to allow their citizens, who became foreign 
fighters to return home, these countries have expressed concerns with the way 
that their citizens are being prosecuted in Iraq (or a third country).

There are no clear positions and no clear solutions about the management of 
detained ISIS foreign fighters. For example, France reportedly said that the 
prosecution of French ISIS fighters in Iraq is “a sovereign matter for Iraq” 
but “opposed in principle to the death penalty.” Human rights groups said that 
the court trials in Iraq depend on “circumstantial evidence or confessions 
obtained under torture”, but there appear to be very few alternatives.

Issues and Implications

The bottom-line, the paths to de-radicalisation, rehabilitation and 
reintegration are seemingly closed to these foreign fighters. The delivery of 
retributive justice, however, has several issues and implications, some the 
writer had stated in an interview with Pakistan’s Indus News in Episode 99 (31 
May 2019) of Scope:

1. Proportionality, legality and morality?—?Is the Iraqi court as well as the 
international community demonstrating that they are better than ISIS in terms 
of delivering justice and showing humanity? These points constitute an 
important consideration as counterterrorism is both a kinetic war and a war of 
ideas and ideals.

2. Is the international community being responsible by leaving their citizens 
to the justice system in conflict zones? In the first place, the world could 
not prevent ISIS from emerging and could not prevent their citizens from 
travelling to the conflict zones to join ISIS. The world had some time to 
prepare for the collapse of ISIS, but when ISIS collapsed, the world remains 
unprepared and divided about dealing with the foreign fighters and their 
families.

3. By stripping foreign fighters of their citizenship and leaving them in Iraq 
to face justice, are countries inadvertently recognising that these fighters 
were fighting for an enemy state and therefore recognising the caliphate as an 
actual albeit proto state?

4. By outsourcing the justice process to Iraq, is it politically expedient for 
countries in the short term but with long term ramifications to international 
security? The international community still needs to deal with the family 
members of foreign fighters who are left behind in Iraq and Syria. Will these 
family members usher in the next generation of jihadi terrorists, or could they 
be levers in counter-radicalisation and counter-propaganda efforts to weaken 
the ISIS brand?

5. The international community needs to pre-empt how ISIS could use the death 
penalties and trials in Iraq as part of their propaganda to re-invent 
themselves and sustain their ideology even as they move towards insurgency 
tactics now. For example, how would the death penalties complement the ISIS 
narrative of martyrdom? How would the lack of fairness in court processes 
complement the ISIS narrative that the caliphate must replace the existing 
international political order?

6. Dealing with citizens who had joined ISIS in conflict zones is a complex 
task. Unlike homegrown terrorists, citizens who joined ISIS had undergone more 
intensive psychological conditioning and indoctrination. However, not all of 
them travelled to the caliphate to die. Some went there to live; therefore, 
de-radicalisation efforts could turn some of them into credible voices for 
preventing violent extremism.

7. As ISIS is an international problem, the international community should not 
leave it to Iraq alone to solve the foreign fighter problem. Years of armed 
conflict may have left Iraq with insufficient capacity to deal with the 
enormous scale of the problem. The international community should seriously 
consider setting up an international war crimes tribunal to prosecute the 
leaders and members of ISIS in a way that is as fair as possible. The tribunal 
could be based in Iraq but with representatives from the various countries that 
participated in the fight against ISIS. This tribunal is a mission that 
international organisations such as INTERPOL could support in terms of 
operations and investigations.

Conclusion

The collapse of the physical caliphate of ISIS had caused many countries to be 
concerned about how returning foreign fighters could “threaten a new wave of 
terror”—as part of ISIS 2.0—in non-conflict zones. However, this is only one 
side of the coin.

The other side of the coin is how the process of retributive justice that these 
fighters and their families face in conflict zones—such as Iraq—could change 
them for the better or worse. Beyond the jails, the detention camps in Syria 
and Iraq could inadvertently become grooming grounds for future jihadi 
terrorist leaders and fighters.

(source: Op-Ed; Muhammad Faizal B Abdul Rahman is a Research Fellow, Centre of 
Excellence for National Security (CENS), S. Rajaratnam School of International 
Studies (RSIS), NTU, Singapore----Eurasia Review)






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

Iraq sentences all 11 French IS suspects to death



A Baghdad court Monday sentenced to death 2 more French nationals for belonging 
to the Islamic State group, leaving all 11 Frenchmen transferred from Syria 
facing the gallows in Iraq.

Bilel Kabaoui, 32, and Mourad Delhomme, 41, join 9 other French citizens and a 
Tunisian national already on death row after trials over the past week. They 
have 30 days to appeal the sentences.

Iraq has sentenced more than 500 suspected foreign members of IS since the 
start of 2018.

Its courts have condemned many to life in prison and others to death, although 
no foreign IS members have yet been executed.

Iraqi law provides for the death penalty, which is carried out by hanging, for 
anyone joining a "terrorist group" -- even those who did not take up arms.

A group of prominent French lawyers said earlier Monday that the execution of 
French jihadists on death row would be a disgrace for France.

"We have taken a historic risk, which, if it is realised, will leave an 
indelible stain on the mandate of (President) Emmanuel Macron," said the 
lawyers, including some of the country's best known legal professionals such as 
William Bourdon, Henri Leclerc and Vincent Brengarth.

It would mean allowing a "legal assassination which is now proscribed by the 
majority of countries on the planet," said the open letter, published on the 
website of radio station Franceinfo.

Human Rights Watch, for its part, has accused Iraqi interrogators of "using a 
range of torture techniques... which would not leave lasting marks on the 
person's body".

It also condemned France's "outsourcing" of trials of IS suspects to "abusive 
justice systems" and criticised Iraq's "routine failure... to credibly 
investigate torture allegations".

France has long insisted its adult citizens captured in Iraq or Syria must face 
trial before local courts, while stressing its opposition to capital 
punishment.

French government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye reiterated Sunday that officials 
were intervening "at the highest level" in the cases.

"France's position has been constant... As soon as our citizens around the 
world face the possibility of a death sentence after a conviction, we intervene 
at the highest level of state," Ndiaye told Europe 1 television.

(source: digitaljournal.com)








IRAN----execution

Man Hanged at Zanjan Prison



A prisoner was hanged at Zanjan prison on murder charges last month. His 
execution has not yet been announced by authorities.

According to the IHR sources, on April 30, 2019, Seyyed Samad Enayati was 
hanged at Zanjan prison for murder charges. He was from the Iranian city of 
Bijar and executed at the age of 31.

Seyyed Samad Enayati was a plumber. According to one of his relatives, “5 years 
ago, he did all of the pipe-works of a building. However, he did not receive 
any money from the contractor. He fought with the contractor and the man was 
killed during the fighting. Seyyed Samad told the court that he did not want to 
kill the man.”

His execution was unannounced by authorities and can be classified under 
“unannounced and secret executions” in Iran.

There is a lack of a classification of murder by degree in Iran which results 
in issuing a death sentence for any kind of murder regardless of intensity and 
intent.

According to the Iran Human Rights statistic department, at least 273 people 
were executed in Iran in 2018. At least 188 of them executed for murder 
charges.

(source: Iran Human Rights)








EGYPT:

Human organ traffickers should get death penalty: MP



Member of Parliament, Mamdouh Husseiny, called for toughening the penalty for 
human organ traffickers to the death sentence. The current maximum penalty for 
human trafficking is life imprisonment for aggravated circumstances.

However, the possibility of a death sentence can be imposed when a donor or 
recipient dies in the midst of an illegal organ transplant operation. According 
to a law implemented in 2017, a person who performs an organ transplant by 
force or deception faces a life imprisonment and pays a fine between L.E. 1 
million ($56,000) and L.E. 2 million ($112,000). Hence, the operator could 
potentially be handed down a death sentence on the basis of manslaughter.

The maximum penalty was established back in a 2010 anti-trafficking law which 
criminalized labor trafficking and implemented the recommended penalties of 3 
to 15 years of prison and fines. However, there is no law which explicitly 
addresses human organ trafficking.

The MP added that human organ trafficking is a crime against humanity, is 
unconstitutional and against Islamic values.

Many doctors and nurses are involved with gangs and participate in the illegal 
human organ trafficking market, the Ministry of Interior stated on April 14, 
2019.

"These Mafias and their subsequent crimes must be dealt with harshly by the 
government. The government needs to take an action, close down all unlicensed 
medical centers and carry out a more strict inspection protocol on all medical 
centers," said Husseiny.

Additionally, Husseiny stated that security needs to be ramped up by deploying 
more police officers in the streets in order to patrol and arrest all criminals 
and fugitives. Subsequently, the MP believes that more security will also crack 
down on crimes related to human organ trafficking such as kidnapping and 
stealing.

There have been more active efforts by the government to eliminate organ 
trafficking. The government established the National Committee on Preventing 
and Combating Illegal Migration (NCCPIM & TIP) in 2018. The committee is 
responsible for spearheading inter-ministerial anti-trafficking initiatives.

The number of investigations related to human trafficking has substantially 
increased since the establishment of the NCCPIM. According to a report on human 
trafficking in Egypt conducted by the United States Embassy in Cairo, there 
were only 23 investigations conducted related to human trafficking in 2016 and 
21 in 2015.

The anti-trafficking probes have witnessed a 600-percent increase since the 
birth of the committee. The NCCPIM conducted 144 investigations in 2018 and 41 
men involved with organ trafficking were prosecuted by a Cairo court on June 
12, 2018. 5 men were sentenced to fifteen years in prison and fined L.E 500,000 
($29,930), other 20 defendants were given a 3-year-imprisonment term each; 
twelve others were handed down a 7-year prison sentence.

In 2018, the government began to deploy special response squads into the 
streets in order to protect and support vulnerable street children from 
traffickers. The Ministry of Social Solidarity disclosed that it provided 4,004 
street children with medical and psychological aid in the same year as a way to 
protect them from traffickers. The ministry was also successfully able to 
reunite 397 children back with their families.

Despite all the efforts exerted by the government to tackle the human organ 
trafficking issue, Husseiny is dissatisfied and is certain that the death 
penalty is an appropriate penalty for human organ traffickers and hopes that 
the law will change accordingly.

(source: Egypt Today)








INDIA:

The Hindu Explains: What is Section 376E and how does it affect the Shakti 
Mills gang rape case?



On June 3, the Bombay High Court upheld the constitutional validity of Section 
376E of the Indian Penal Code, thereby upholding the death sentence handed to 
the convicts of the Shakti Mills gang rape case. What is Section 376E?

The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, was introduced following the 2012 Delhi 
gang rape case. In this, the definition of rape was widened to include oral and 
digital penetration, and Section 376E was added to award the death penalty to a 
convict who is a repeat offender under Section 376, 376A and 376D. Section 376A 
includes causing death of the victim, and 376D is to charge the convict with 
gang rape — an offence that carries a sentence of 20 years to life.

These broader definitions were based on the Justice Verma Committee, which was 
constituted to enable quicker trials and harsher punishment for those accused 
of sexual assault.

What is the Shakti Mills gang rape case?

A 22-year-old photojournalist was gang-raped by 5 adult men and 2 juveniles. 3 
of the men were found to have raped a 19-year-old telephone operator at the 
Shakti Mills compound, as well. After the conviction of the accused, the 
prosecution in the case moved to add Section 376E to 3 repeat offenders — Vijay 
Jadhav, Mohammad Qasim Shaikh and Mohammad Salim Ansari. The court awarded the 
death penalty to these 3.

Why did they appeal?

The advocate appearing for all three convicts told the Bombay High Court that 
the death penalty awarded to them was “a disproportionate punishment” and 
violated their fundamental rights. Yug Chaudhry argued death penalty was 
violative of fundamental rights under Article 21 (no person shall be deprived 
of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by 
law) and Article 14 (equality before law) of the Constitution. He relied upon 
earlier Supreme Court judgments and American and Canadian laws.

“Section 302 (punishment for murder) under the IPC entails a minimum punishment 
of life and a maximum of death for an offence of murder. Section 376E, however, 
entails a minimum punishment of imprisonment for one’s full life without any 
possibility of remission. Therefore, our legislation saying that the offence of 
repeat rape that doesn’t cause homicide is harsher than the offence of murder,” 
he said.

What was the response?

The section that prescribes death penalty for repeat rape offenders was rightly 
introduced to impose a deterrent against such crimes, the amicus curiae in the 
Shakti Mills gang rape case advocate Abad Ponda told the Bombay High Court. 
However, the application of this Section 376E in the present case could be 
questionable, the amicus told a Bench of Justices B.P. Dharamadhikari and 
Revati Mohite-Dere.

What has the court said?

“We are of the opinion that Section 376E of the IPC is not ultra vires to the 
Constitution and hence need not be quashed in the present case,” said the same 
Bench.

(source: The Hindu)








NIGERIA:

New Zamfara governor wants death penalty for informants of bandits



Armed bandits killed 2,385 persons in Zamfara in seven years – Gov. Yari

Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State has declared that the state 
government may soon start implementing death penalty on bandits’ informants in 
the state.

Zamfara already has a law mandating death penalty for bandits.

Hundreds of people have been killed and kidnapped by bandits in Zamfara and 
neighbouring states in the past year.

The governor announced his stance on Sunday when he visited Lilo village of 
Wonaka district in Gusau local government area of the state.

He was at the village to sympathise with the people over Saturday night bandits 
attack on the community which resulted in the death of 8 persons and left 18 
others with bullet and knife wounds.

He said the government would not tolerate some citizens supporting bandits to 
carry out their criminal activities while pretending to be good fellows.

“We are going to send an executive bill to the state house of assembly 
immediately after the inauguration of the lawmakers and l want to assure the 
good citizens that if the bill is passed, it will be implemented to the 
letter,” he said.

The governor cautioned the Civilian Joint Task Force members to avoid taking 
the laws into their hands, saying that his administration would not tolerate 
extra judicial killings

“As JTF members, you have no right to kill anybody; enough is enough, as from 
today, government will not allow extra judicial killing.

“It is very sad, so regrettable the way our people are being killed every day, 
it is very unfortunate that we took over this government in the midst of 
serious security challenges not only in Zamfara but also all over the country.

“If you arrest any bandit, you should hand them over to the appropriate 
authorities; this administration has made adequate arrangements to tackle 
insecurity, all what we need is support and prayers.”

He said his government had provided more equipment for the security agencies to 
carry out their duties effectively.

“Security agencies are now monitoring phone calls in this state, I am therefore 
appealing to the bandits to repent or face the consequences of the law.

Earlier, the Emir of Gusau, Ibrahim Bello, thanked the governor for the visit 
and called for more support to government and security agencies in tackling the 
problem.

Mr Bello appealed to communities to continue to support government with prayers 
to succeed in fighting banditry.

The governor, who was inaugurated on May 29, donated N5 million to the families 
of the deceased and directed the office of the Secretary to the State 
Government to take care of the medical bills of all the injured persons.

(source: premiumtimesng.com)

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

Niger justice ministry pardoned 200 convicts in 3 years



The Niger State Ministry of Justice granted pardon to over 200 convicts serving 
various jail terms in prisons across the state in the last 3 years.

It also secured 85 convictions out of 555 cases filed in courts across the 
state within the same period.

The immediate past Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in the state, 
Danmallam Nasara, disclosed this to Northern City News in Minna on Sunday.

He explained that the pardon was made possible through the state prerogative of 
mercy scheme designed to give repentant and reformed offenders a 2nd chance.

According to him, out of the 85 convictions, 60 persons were given the death 
penalty, while 25 others were condemned to spend the rest of their lives in 
jail for various criminal offences.

Nasara also said that the ministry had duplicated 30 cases received from the 
legal department of the State Criminal Investigation and Criminal Intelligence 
Department in the last 3 years.

The former commissioner said the ministry under his watch succeeded in 
introducing some innovations, which brought its operations up to date with 
current trends in the administration of justice.

He noted that the ministry was able to set up a state-of-the-art library to 
ease the work of legal practitioners within the ministry.

“I urge the legal department and others to shoulder their responsibilities 
without fear of contradiction, bearing in mind that the judiciary is the last 
hope of the common man,” Nasara said.

He noted that the last 3 years serving under the leadership of Governor Sani 
Bello was fulfilling, because the governor proved himself as a respecter of the 
rule of law and ensured that the interest of the people of the state was of 
topmost priority

(source: punchng.com)








AUSTRALIA:

The relativity of the death penalty----Where is the outrage over the capital 
punishment sentence for ISIS fighter and Australian citizen Ahmed Merhi?



Opposition to the death penalty has a long and quite public history in 
Australia. Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan of the so-called “Bali 9” drug 
smugglers received support from artists, singers, actors, media personalities 
and sports stars, while a crowd of about a thousand people gathered in Sydney’s 
Martin Place calling on the Indonesian government to halt the executions. The 
then human rights commissioner and now federal MP Tim Wilson even went so far 
as to say:

Capital punishment is never the answer, and the Indonesian government should be 
showing mercy to these two people, who shouldn’t be facing death at the hands 
of the state. In 2005, the Australian Nguyen Tuong Van was hanged for drug 
trafficking in Singapore. Vigils and protests were held for him, hundreds 
turned out in support at Martin Place and a group of Melbourne lawyers held a 
minute’s silence and announced the establishment of a trust to help defend 
Australians who face execution in other countries.

Even earlier, in 1986, the death sentences of Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers 
meted out by Malaysian authorities saw pleas for mercy from no less than the 
Australian prime and foreign ministers – to no avail. A movie of the event 
entitled Dadah is Death (starring Hugo Weaving and Sarah Jessica Parker) was 
later released.

Australian policy seeks to abolish the death penalty around the world, and the 
Abbott government briefly recalled its ambassador to Indonesia after the 
execution of Chan and Sukumaran in protest.

The death penalty imposed upon ISIS foreign fighters by the Iraqi government, 
including Australian citizen Ahmed Merhi, therefore raises questions for the 
Australian and other Western governments, as well as for activists.

To start with, there are doubts about the fairness of the trials in Iraq, given 
the enormous number of cases that need to be prosecuted and resolved. Yet this 
doesn’t appear to have led France, another country long opposed to the death 
penalty, to have done much to protest death sentences imposed on its citizens. 
The French Foreign Ministry has released a statement saying that “France 
respects the Iraqi authorities’ sovereignty,” but that “France is opposed, on 
principle, to the death penalty, anytime and anywhere.” Hardly a strident call 
on the Iraqi government to apply clemency.

When Marise Payne, then Australia’s Defence minister, announced the capture and 
detention of Merhi, she said simply that “we are very clear that we expect 
those who have joined the conflict, and those who are in breach of Australian 
laws – and, indeed, international law – to be dealt with according to justice”. 
Little has been said of him since, and it may well be that whatever steps the 
government takes to oppose the death penalty are best done in a private, 
diplomatic way.

I can’t, however, find any record of any civil society activists protesting 
against the sentence handed down on Merhi. No concerts or vigils, no statements 
from the Human Rights Commissioner or any rallying of the arts community 
against the barbarity of the Iraqi government against an Australian citizen.

There is no question that, by his actions, Merhi essentially allied himself 
with a terrorist group that committed countless atrocities and called for, 
inspired, and at times supported attacks against Australia and its citizens. He 
is in an entirely different category to drug smugglers in Asian prisons.

But abolitionists argue for an absolute ban, so their calls for clemency for 
Merhi should be as strident as those for other death-row Australians whose 
circumstances engender far more sympathy. And with the possibility of even more 
Australians finding their way into the Iraqi legal system charged with 
membership of ISIS, it will be interesting to see how long the advocates’ 
silence endures.

(source: lowyinstitute.org)