[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 21




PAKISTAN:

Pakistan to revoke capital punshiment for accused, says foreign minister



Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi says Pakistan is going to revoke capital 
punishment for the accused, who will be extradited from other countries.

"We are amending the Pakistan Penal Code [PPC] to revoke the capital punishment 
for the accused, who will be brought back to Pakistan under extradition 
treaties with other countries,” Qureshi told reporters.

The development comes a day after British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt 
declared in London that the UK would not sign "politically-motivated” 
extradition treaties with any country.

Qureshi had assured Hunt that his country would not "misuse” any such 
agreement, if signed.

Islamabad is seeking extradition of several Pakistani nationals, including the 
founder of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and former finance minister Ishaq 
Dar on different charges, including murder and money laundering.

The foreign minister said according to his observations in Bishkek, India had 
not yet come out of its election mood.

Qureshi said he visited UK upon the invitation of the British foreign 
secretary.

"We had some very good meetings during the visit. We talked about the Financial 
Action Task Force and I assured him that Pakistan is doing everything it can to 
be removed from its grey list. I apprised Jeremy Hunt with the measures taken 
by the Pakistani government in this regard,” said Qureshi. "We are considering 
an amendment in the PPC according to which capital punishment will not be 
applicable on the suspects given under extradition.”

The foreign minister also met the Chinese leadership and held talks with them 
on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

"CPEC is a massive project. It was limited, but now it is being expanded. The 
nation is in agreement. Narratives come and go, but those who made comments 
against the CPEC have faced defeat,” the foreign minister said.

(source: gulftoday.ae)








IRAN----execution

Prisoner Hanged Charged with Spying for the United States



Prisoner Jamal Haji-Zavareh who was charged with “spying for the enemy”, was 
executed in an unknown place in Tehran, reported a close source.

According to IHR sources, Seyyed Jamal Haji-Zavareh was executed in Tehran last 
week. He was accused of spying for the U.S. and sentenced to death for the 
charge of “spying for an enemy state.”

Prior to his arrest on September 5, 2017, Seyed Jamal (Also known as Siavash) 
Haji-Zavareh was an employee of Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolutionary 
Guard Corps (IRGC). He was arrested along with his wife, Leila Tajik. A 
well-informed source told IHR, “Jamal was held in a place called the death 
cell. He was tortured severely.”

Jamal’s wife, Leila Tajik, was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment and is 
held at Kachouei prison of Tehran. The couple has 2 teenage kids.

“They could not have a lawyer of their own choice,” the source said, “Siavash 
(Seyed Jamal) was in solitary confinement at an unknown place owned by the 
Iranian Ministry of Intelligence.”

According to the source, the couple thought if they kept quiet and didn’t 
inform the media about their situation, they might be forgiven or their 
sentence might be reduced.

Leila Tajik suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and is denied access to proper 
medical treatment in prison.

(source: Iran Human Rightgs)

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

Can fiction help an anti-death penalty campaign in Iran?



A 456-page semi-autobiographical work by prominent Iranian rights activist 
Emadeddin Baghi aims to turn the public against the death penalty in the 
country.

"The prisoners were all ears while Janyar recounted them an anecdote from 
[Dostoevsky's] ‘The Idiot.’ One inmate … however, looked as though he had been 
asleep for centuries. His eyes were open, but he was no longer seeing anything. 
What they had been all talking about had quietly and surreptitiously called on 
their inmate. It calls on everyone in a different way. Their inmate had died of 
a heart attack; as simple as that."

The above passage is part of "Jan” (“The Soul”), a 456-page 
semi-autobiographical work by prominent Iranian rights activist Emadeddin 
Baghi. Baghi’s description of death in the prison cell reflects his advocacy 
against the death penalty for more than 3 decades.

According to a 2017 Amnesty International report, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq 
are the top 3 countries to implement the death penalty, accounting for 92% of 
executions in the region. But few in Iran dare raise their voices against it, 
as any explicit criticism of capital punishment pushes red lines and brings 
unpredictable risks to opponents.

Despite this backdrop, Baghi has written numerous articles and books over the 
last 35 years. His essays — some of which were banned — range from subjects 
such as the Islamic law of Qesas (retribution) to the stoning sentence and to 
jurisprudential reasons for the repeal of the execution of minors. So he 
produced a work of fiction to illustrate his fight against capital punishment, 
which was published in early 2019.

Using the experience of his own time behind bars, Baghi adopted a 1st-person 
narrative to recount the fates of death row inmates. The book aims to address 
general readers — not jurists, scholars or experts who are already familiar 
with the legal and political framework of capital punishment.

"I have written numerous books and articles from either sociological or 
religious points of view against the death penalty,” Baghi told Al-Monitor, 
explaining that religion constituted a strong barrier to the abolishment of 
capital punishment in Iran.

“I noticed, however, that all my research-based works appeal mainly to 
academics or [clerical elites]. But our major challenge in Iran is public 
opinion. A big percentage of common people, according to surveys, support the 
death penalty," he said.

Baghi explained that his strategy was to influence “the minds and hearts of 
ordinary people” and gain their support to oppose the death penalty. "So I 
decided to offer my views and ideas based on the cases of death row inmates 
whose lives I have been trying to save and my firsthand experience of living 
with them.”

Baghi says in his foreword in “Jan” that his first work of fiction was a mix of 
real and imagined anecdotes. He also sought help from professional novelists 
and polished and re-polished his narration time and again.

Fiction or nonfiction, any book that challenges the death penalty might have to 
wait for a long time before being approved — if at all — for publication by 
Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, and his book was no exception. 
According to Baghi, officials from the Ministry of Culture were concerned that 
the book could draw criticism "particularly since they knew that exactly 20 
years ago a daily had been shut down over an article I had written on the same 
topic.”

He also remembers that under former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 2 
of his books on Qesas had been denied publication permission.

It took “Jan” 1 1/2 years to be published, which Baghi considers a sign that 
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's administration is inclined to "open up the 
atmosphere" to books and papers on the subject.

"I had legal discussions with [officials from the Ministry of Culture] over the 
content of the book in order to reduce the number of deletions. My attitude, 
however, was not an 'all or none.’ I appreciate the situation in Iran and have 
no totalitarian attitude. Even if 90 or 80% of the content of my book had been 
officially approved for publication, [I would have been happy]. The very fact 
that a book on this topic gets published is by itself a success," Baghi said.

The former prisoner of conscience who founded the Society for the Defense of 
Prisoners' Rights in 2003 believes his new book will be more influential on the 
public than his previous writings and can even become a film. "I think stories 
and films are effective tools for disseminating the idea behind my campaign 
among the people. The effect of these types of cultural activities may appear 
rather slowly and gradually, but it lasts long and has long-term results," 
Baghi said.

Baghi sounded optimistic when Al-Monitor asked him about the feedback he had 
received, noting that social media users had mostly welcomed the book and the 
state-run news agencies did not shy away from discussing the "sensitive" theme 
of the book with him. "The hard layers of resistance will melt away, but there 
is still a way to go,” he said.

Novelist and literary editor Mehdi Yazdani Khorram said Baghi's novel was 
indeed an effective tool to make his case against the death penalty. "Baghi is 
by no means seeking to dictate a manifesto, especially under today's 
circumstances in Iran. As the narrator of the story, he is looking for a way to 
provoke the audience to react against execution and to feel responsible about 
[its occurrence] after reading his book," Yazdani Khorram told Al-Monitor.

He also said that Baghi’s “Jan” targeted the mentality of the Iranian majority 
that advocates for the death penalty. "Baghi's most important effort is to 
remind his audience of the historical but forgotten importance of human life 
for Iranian people. However, [the Iranians] have grown indifferent to 
execution; this indifference exists even among certain intellectual layers of 
our society," said Yazdani Khorram.

According to him, Baghi regards capital punishment as a double-edged phenomenon 
that involves both murder and execution. "The narrator, who is a critic of 
execution, is all the time fathoming this dichotomy [of executing someone who 
has killed someone else]. [Under the death penalty], those who are guilty of 
killing someone should now be murdered. This is a dialectic situation. The 
murderer and the murdered are one. Like Albert Camus and Arthur Koestler, Baghi 
believes execution cannot have a corrective effect on society," Yazdani Khorram 
said.

Meanwhile, Fatemeh Kamali — head of Saraee Publication, which published “Jan" — 
confirms that the situation for writers and publishers has improved since 
moderate President Rouhani took office in 2013. Speaking to Al-Monitor, Kamali 
said her publishing house had been banned from operation for eight years under 
Ahmadinejad and her work license revoked.

Kamali said, "We were left with a warehouse full of books and had no choice but 
to pay all the storage cost for 8 years. Despite all the losses we suffered, we 
were determined to weather the crisis because writers had trusted us with their 
books. In order to revive our activity, we managed to put up with the crisis 
until — under President Rouhani — we succeeded in getting a license again. And 
although censorship is still in place, the situation has improved. Several 
books that could not have been formerly published have been granted publication 
permission. ‘Jan’ is one of them."

She added, however, that because of the "crisis in Iran's foreign diplomacy and 
economic pressures [on the country], the publishers are now suffering extreme 
stringency.”

But Kamali's concluding remark was positive - that Jan has outsold the 
publisher's other books this year.

(source: Parto Shariatmadari is an Iranian freelance journalist and literary 
translator living in the UK----al-monitor.com)








INDONESIA:

Food trader spared death penalty after acquittal from drug charge



A 25-year-old food trader was discharged and acquitted from a drug trafficking 
charge which carries the death penalty upon conviction today.

High Court Judge Ravinthran N Paramaguru ruled that reasonable doubt had been 
cast on the prosecution’s evidence, particularly on exclusive possession of the 
drug methamphetamine found inside a plastic bag placed inside the car of the 
accused, Liew Shan Ho.

Even though Liew himself brought the raiding policemen to the car, prosecution 
witnesses’ own evidence also showed that three other persons were inside the 
car one to two hours before the police raided it and found the plastic bag 
containing the drugs.

A total of 6 prosecution witnesses testified against Liew during the trial at 
the High Court.

Liew has been charged with trafficking 385.76 grammes of methamphetamine in 
front of a house at RPR Matang here around 3.30pm on May 2 last year.

The offence was framed under Section 38B (1) a of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 
and punishable under Section 39B (2) of the same Act.

DPP Haydar Farizal prosecuted while Counsels Roger Chin and Osman Ibrahim 
represented Liew.

(source: The Borneo Post)








MALAYSIA:

Woman charged with murdering maid freed due to failing health, judge says



A High Court judge in Penang says a woman accused of murdering her maid was set 
free mid-trial as the government lawyer did not offer valid grounds for a 
discharge not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA).

Akhtar Tahir said even after repeated questioning by the court about the reason 
for such an application, all the deputy public prosecutor could say was that 
she was told to apply for a DNAA. He said the defence lawyer, referring to 
Section 254 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code, had urged the court to grant an 
acquittal citing the accused’s age and failing health.

“Reading Section 254 (3), it is clear that the court has in certain 
circumstances the discretion to order an acquittal instead of a DNAA,” he said 
in his judgment made available to FMT.

On April 19, Akhtar acquitted Ambika MA Shan, 61, of murdering her domestic 
worker Adelina Lisao. Adelina, 26, succumbed to multiple organ failure 
following alleged abuse at a house in Bukit Mertajam last year.

Neighbours had reportedly spotted Adelina sleeping next to a dog in the 
compound of Ambika’s home, and burn marks and bruises were said to have been 
found on her body.

Akhtar said in this case, the trial had begun and the deputy public 
prosecutor’s inability to explain the application for a DNAA was reason enough 
to acquit Ambika.

“Further, the accused is over 60 years old and has health issues,” he said, 
adding that the court had given priority to the case.

He said it would be unfair to the court to reschedule the case again in the 
event that Ambika is recharged.

However, he said Ambika had only been acquitted of murder, and that the 
prosecution can still charge her with other offences if it wants.

The prosecution had called three witnesses before its unsuccessful bid for the 
DNAA.

Ambika had been a remand prisoner as bail is not usually provided for those 
charged with offences that carry the death penalty.

Following her acquittal, the government filed an appeal in the Court of the 
Appeal. Case management will be held on July 12.

(source: Free Malaysia Today)








BANGLADESH:

9 to die for murder



A Chapainawabganj court awarded death sentence to 9 and life term imprisonment 
to 2 people yesterday over the murder of a leader of Sonamasjid Land Port 
Clearing and Forwarding Agents Association.

After examining records and hearing 23 witnesses, Additional District and 
Sessions Judge Shawkat Ali announced the verdict in the case filed in 2014.

Akhirul Islam, president of Sonamasjid Land Port Clearing and Forwarding Agents 
Association, and 8 others -- Sirajul Islam, Tohurul Islam, Abdul Malek, Sirajul 
Islam Sentu, Sirajul Islam, Shariful Islam, Md Masud, and Abdus Salam -- were 
given death penalty.

Each convict was also fined Tk 200,000 by the court.

Those facing life term are Masud alias Lal Chan and Parul Begum, who, for 
default of fine, will have to spend 1 more year in jail.

Md Masud, Abdus Salam, and Parul Begum are absconding.

The court acquitted 4 people -- Selim Reza, Benaul Islam, Khairul Islam, and 
Obaidur Rahman. According to the case statement, Monirul Islam, a treasurer of 
Sonamasjid land port in Shibganj upazila was picked up from his home in 
Shialmara village on October 24, 2014. Akhirul and his men shot Monirul dead 
near Shibganj Stadium.

Monirul’s wife Rahima Begum filed the case with Shibganj police the next day. 
Quoting her, police earlier told this paper that Monirul was killed by his 
rivals over misappropriation of the association’s fund.

Motiur Rahman Siddiqui, assistant superintendent of police of Chapainawabganj 
Sadar circle, pressed charges against 15 people on June 15, 2015.

(source: The Daily Star)








VIETNAM:

Vietnamese-Australian drug kingpin nabbed near Saigon



A Vietnamese-Australian man and 2 members of his drug ring were arrested 
Thursday at a transaction point near Saigon.

Ho Chi Minh City police say 60-year-old Vuong Quoc Thai is the leader of a drug 
dealing gang that purchases drugs in Cambodia and distributes them in Vietnam.

On Thursday, Thai and 2 members of his syndicate were meeting at a spot in Tay 
Ninh Province, 2 hours drive from HCMC, for him to hand over the drugs he had 
smuggled from Cambodia. All 3 were detained by police who were lying in wait.

Thai's henchmen, 2 men in their 40s, had planned to sell the drugs in HCMC and 
other provinces and cities.

The police seized 4 kilograms of meth and 1,000 ecstasy pills when they made 
the arrests. They also conducted a house search of the three men and seized an 
additional five kilograms of meth, 2,000 ecstasy pills and tens of thousands of 
dollars.

Thai came to Vietnam and lived in Tay Ninh after divorcing his wife in 
Australia. He owned several villas and had lived an opulent life with a younger 
girlfriend whom he took with him on frequent trips to Cambodian casinos, where 
he got to know drug dealers and struck a deal to smuggle them into Vietnam.

Vietnam has some of the world’s toughest drug laws. Those convicted of 
possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or cocaine or more than 
2.5 kg of methamphetamine face the death penalty.

The production or sale of 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal 
narcotics is also punishable by death.

The country is also a key trafficking hub for narcotics from the Golden 
Triangle, an intersection of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, the world's 2nd 
largest drug producing area after the Golden Crescent in South Asia.

(source: vnexpress.net)








SRI LANKA:

Father of 3 sentenced to death over possession of heroin



A father of 3 has been sentenced to death over the possession of heroin, as per 
the order of the Colombo High Court.

The 43-year-old father from Colombo 13 was brought before the Colombo High 
Court judge Gihan Kulatunga.

On the 1st of January 2013, the Police Narcotics Bureau (PNB) arrested the 
suspect at the Kosgas Junction area over the possession of 4.40 grams of 
heroin.

The Attorney General filed a case against the suspect at the Colombo High Court 
and following an extensive trial, the court declared that charges against the 
defendant – possession, and trafficking of drugs – have been proven beyond a 
reasonable doubt.

Accordingly, the judge sentenced the sentence with the death penalty.

Meanwhile, a person has been arrested by the officials of the PNB at Uragaha 
Junction in Kosgoda with 300 g 600 mg of heroin.

The 44-year-old suspect will be presented before the Balapitiya Magistrate’s 
Court today, stated the Office of Police Media Spokesperson.

A person arrested in Embilipitiya by the Police STF for transporting 68 kg of 
Kerala Cannabis on a cab has been handed over to the Thanamalwila Police for 
further interrogation.

(source: adaderana.lk)

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

3 sentenced to death for 28 year old murder



Colombo High Court Judge Sampath Wijeratne issued the death penalty for 3 
defendants who were accused of several cases including the murder of an 
individual with the use of sharp objects.

The case was filed against 4 suspects by the Attorney General over the murder 
of a woman named John Susiswathi in Skeleeton Garden, Bambalapitiya on October 
15, 1991. One of the suspects had passed away while the case was going on.

(source: newsfirst.lk)