[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 31



SOUTH AFRICA:

Naledi Lethoba: Calls for death penalty intensify after brutal murder----The 
gruesome details of Naledi Lethoba's final moments have caused uproar across 
South Africa, as citizens and politicians demand the death penalty in SA.



The shocking murder of Naledi Lethoba this week has left South Africans 
incandescent. The 19-year-old from Bothaville was stabbed and burned before 
being discovered by a forensic team in Free State. A 21-year-old male student 
has since handed himself over to the authorities, but he’s now facing calls to 
be sentenced to the death penalty.

The fury has been somewhat exacerbated by a video which surfaced online in the 
past 24 hours. The harrowing footage shows a woman being mutilated before she’s 
murdered. It was initially believed that the victim in the clip was Naledi, but 
these claims have since been dismissed.

The crime fits a disturbing pattern in South Africa that infuriates the masses 
like nothing else. Another young woman has become the target of a gender-based 
murder – following in the tragic footsteps of Karabo Mokoena and Hannah 
Cornelius – who lost their lives because of violent men.

Social media has been very clear about their take on Obed Leshoro, who is 
currently the prime suspect in the case.

Political parties who support the death penalty

The severity of this crime has also piqued the interest of politicians. Only a 
handful of parties in the National Assembly advocate the death penalty, but one 
of them is the African Transformation Movement (ATM).

The Jimmy Manyi-backed organisation secured their first seats in Parliament 
during the 2019 Elections, and they are leading the capital punishment calls. 
The IFP and ACDP are also in favour of this measure.

Vuyo Zungula is the ATM president, and he took the opportunity on Friday to 
suggest that the death penalty must be implemented if there are “extenuating 
circumstances”:

“I wonder how many people have to be brutally murdered for us to have a 
conversation as a country on the introduction of a Justice based Capital 
Punishment system for extenuating circumstances like this? 
#JusticeForNaledi”----Vuyo Zungula

Details of Naledi Lethobo’s murder

Given the grisly details that have emerged from this case, the “eye-for-an-eye” 
sentiment remains strong. Naledi Lethobo’s body was found with a knife stuck in 
her neck and much of her torso and face was burned.

Investigators also made a gruesome discovery when they took a closer look at 
her charred chest — her breasts were cut off. Her family came forward a few 
days later and identified her as the missing teenage university student.

(source: The South African)





FRANCE:

Rights group condemns France’s ‘outsourcing’ of Daesh trials----Statement comes 
after seven French nationals sentenced to death in Iraq



Human Rights Watch on Friday condemned France’s “outsourcing” of trials of 
Daesh suspects to “abusive justice systems”, after seven of its nationals have 
this week been sentenced to death in Iraq.

2 of them have “alleged that they were tortured or coerced to confess”, the New 
York-based watchdog said in a statement.

“France and other countries should not be outsourcing management of their 
terrorism suspects to abusive justice systems,” said HRW’s acting Middle East 
director, Lama Fakih.

“These countries should not be sitting idly by while their citizens are 
transferred to a country where their right to a fair trial and protection from 
torture are undermined.”

A Baghdad court sentenced a Frenchman to death on Wednesday for joining Daesh, 
bringing to 7 the number of French militants on death row in Iraq.

Yassine Sakkam’s sentence came despite France reiterating its opposition to 
capital punishment this week.

In January, a group of 11 French citizens and one Tunisian was handed over to 
Iraqi authorities by a US-backed force which expelled the militant group from 
its last bastion in Syria.

Around 1,000 suspected foreign Daesh fighters are held in detention by this 
Kurdish force and Iraq has offered to put them on trial in exchange for 
millions of dollars, potentially solving a legal conundrum for Western 
governments but sparking rights concerns.

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.

Iraqi law provides for the death penalty for anyone joining a “terrorist group” 
- even those who did not take up arms.

HRW said it had documented cases of Iraqi interrogators “using a range of 
torture techniques, including beating suspects on the soles of their feet, 
internationally known as ‘falaka’, and waterboarding, which would not leave 
lasting marks on the person’s body”.

It also condemned “the routine failure of the Iraqi justice system to credibly 
investigate torture allegations”.

Before that, in all but one case observed by HRW since 2016, trials had 
consisted of “a judge briefly interviewing the defendant, usually relying 
solely on a confession, often coerced, with no effective legal representation”.

A group representing the families of French militants has asked the government 
in Paris to “do everything possible to stop this fatal chain of death 
sentences” and to try them “on our soil”.

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said France was stepping up 
efforts to stop Iraq executing those convicted.

(source: gulfnews.com)








NORTH KOREA:

North Korea Executed and Purged Top Nuclear Negotiators, South Korean Report 
Says



North Korea has executed its special envoy to the United States on spying 
charges, as its leader, Kim Jong-un, has engineered a sweeping purge of the 
country’s top nuclear negotiators after the breakdown of his second summit 
meeting with President Trump, a major South Korean daily reported on Friday.

Kim Hyok-chol, the envoy, was executed by firing squad in March at the Mirim 
airfield in a suburb of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, Chosun Ilbo, South 
Korea’s largest daily, reported on Friday, citing an anonymous source. Mr. Kim 
faced the charge that he was “won over by the American imperialists to betray 
the supreme leader,” the newspaper said.

Four officials of the North Korean Foreign Ministry were also executed, the 
South Korean daily reported, without providing any hint of who its source might 
be or how it obtained the information.

South Korean officials could not confirm the Chosun Ilbo report. North Korea 
has not reported any execution or purge of top officials in recent months. The 
country remains the world’s most isolated, and outside intelligence agencies 
have sometimes failed to figure out or have misinterpreted what was going on in 
the closely guarded inner circles of the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un.

Asked at a news conference in Berlin on Friday about the Chosun Ilbo report, 
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said American officials were looking into it.

The rumors of North Korean negotiators being executed at the orders of Mr. Kim 
have been floating around Washington for weeks, and Mr. Pompeo has been asked 
about them before. Each time, he has said the United States is looking into the 
reports.

No American officials have spoken publicly of any intelligence they might have 
seen that would confirm or refute the rumors. Diplomats in Washington from 
other countries have also acknowledged hearing the rumors, but have said they 
have no confirmation.

But some signs in recent weeks have led analysts in South Korea to speculate 
that Mr. Kim may be engineering a reshuffle or a purge of his negotiating team 
in the wake of the summit meeting, held in February in Hanoi, Vietnam. The 
meeting was widely seen as a huge embarrassment for Mr. Kim, who is supposedly 
seen as infallible in his totalitarian state.

On Thursday, Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North’s ruling 
Workers’ Party, carried a commentary warning against “anti-party, 
anti-revolutionary acts” of officials who “pretend to work for the supreme 
leader in his presence but secretly harbor other dreams behind his back.”

“Such characters won’t escape the stern judgment from the revolution,” the 
North Korean newspaper said. North Korean state media has issued such warnings 
when it needed to engineer a political purge or warn against possible lagging 
loyalty among the elites, South Korean analysts said.

Chosun Ilbo, the South Korean newspaper, reported Friday that Kim Yong-chol, a 
senior Workers’ Party vice chairman who visited the White House as the main 
point man for diplomacy with the United States, had also been purged, sentenced 
to forced labor in a remote northern province.

Also sent to a prison camp was Kim Song-hye, a senior female nuclear negotiator 
who teamed up with Kim Hyok-chol in working-level negotiations ahead of the 
Kim-Trump summit, the South Korean newspaper said. North Korea even sent a 
summit translator to a prison camp for committing a translation mistake, it 
said.

During the Hanoi summit meeting, Mr. Kim demanded that Mr. Trump lift the most 
painful international sanctions against his country in return for partially 
dismantling his country’s nuclear weapons facilities. The meeting collapsed 
when Mr. Trump rejected the proposal, insisting on a quick and comprehensive 
rollback of the North’s entire weapons of mass destruction program before 
lifting sanctions.

Mr. Kim took a long train ride to Hanoi to meet Mr. Trump, and North Korean 
state media reported high expectations for the summit meeting. But Mr. Kim had 
to return home empty-handed, without the sanctions relief that he badly needed 
to help ease his country’s deepening economic isolation.

Outside analysts have since wondered whether Mr. Kim’s negotiating team had 
failed to prepare him for such a breakdown in the talks or considered how Mr. 
Kim might react.

Kim Hyok-chol was appointed as North Korea’s special envoy only weeks before 
the Hanoi summit meeting and had led pre-summit working-level negotiations with 
Stephen Biegun, Mr. Trump’s special envoy on North Korea.

Their negotiations could not narrow wide differences between their governments 
over the terms under which North Korea would give up its nuclear arsenal. As a 
consequence, Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump met without a draft agreement, as the 
negotiators from both sides left it to their leaders to sort out the thorniest 
problems that have bedeviled negotiations for decades.

Kim Yong-chol, the Workers’ Party leader, has seemed to disappear from state 
news media in recent weeks. Although he retained some of his top posts during a 
parliamentary meeting in April, he was replaced as head of the United Front 
Department, a key party agency in charge of relations with South Korea and the 
North’s intelligence affairs.

Both Kim Hyok-chol and Kim Yong-chol were absent from the North Korean 
delegation when Kim Jong-un met last month with President Vladimir V. Putin of 
Russia. In their places were senior officials from North Korea’s Foreign 
Ministry, like Minister Lee Yong-ho and First Vice Minister Choe Son-hui, who 
have emerged as the new faces of North Korean diplomacy.

Mr. Kim has said he will give Washington until the end of the year to make a 
new denuclearization proposal he can accept, or he may abandon his diplomacy 
with Mr. Trump. As if to press the point, North Korea has recently resumed 
tests of short-range missiles.

Even Kim Jong-il’s sister and adviser, Kim Yo-jong, did not accompany Mr. Kim 
to the meeting with Mr. Putin, although she has been a fixture in high-profile 
summit meetings with American, Chinese and South Korean leaders.

Chosun Ilbo said the sister may have been reprimanded by Mr. Kim or may be sick 
with pneumonia.

Jung Chang-hyun, head of the Korean Peace and Economy Institute, a research 
group affiliated with South Korea’s Moneytoday news media group, said he had 
heard that four North Korean Foreign Ministry officials were executed by firing 
squad around March, not because of the breakdown of the Hanoi summit meeting, 
but rather for a separate corruption scandal.

It remained unclear whether the 4 officials included Kim Hyok-chol, said Mr. 
Jung, an expert on the North Korean regime and author of books on the North. 
But Mr. Jung said that officials under Kim Jong-un’s sister were also involved 
in the corruption scandal and that as a consequence, Ms. Kim was put on 
probation by her brother. Mr. Jung said he acquired the information from 
3rd-country sources who meet or communicate with North Korean officials through 
China.

Since taking power 7 years ago, Kim Jong-un has engineered a series of bloody 
political purges to remove or execute many of the top officials who had served 
under his late father, Kim Jong-il, and consolidate his own leadership. The 
most prominent victim has been Jang Song-thaek, Mr. Kim’s uncle, who was 
executed in the Mirim airfield in 2013 on charges of corruption and plotting a 
military coup against Mr. Kim.

(source: New York Times)



BAHRAIN:

Joint Letter to the King of Bahrain on the Death Penalty



Your Majesty,

We, the undersigned organizations, urge you to commute the death sentences of 
Ali Al-Arab and Ahmed Al-Malali, who have exhausted all legal remedies 
available to them after the Court of Cassation rejected their appeal on May 6, 
2019. Our organizations oppose the death penalty in all cases, regardless of 
who is accused, the crime, their guilt or innocence, or the method of 
execution. The cases of Mr. Ali Al-Arab and Mr. Ahmed Al-Malali raise 
additional concerns, however, given the allegations that their confessions were 
obtained under torture and their right to a fair trial was violated.

According to the information available to our organizations, security forces 
arrested Al-Arab, 25, and Al-Malali, 24, separately, without a warrant, on 9 
February 2017. Al-Arab’s family told Human Rights Watch and the Bahrain 
Institute for Rights and Democracy that during his interrogation, members of 
the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) beat him, used electric shocks on 
him, and pulled out his toenails, after which they forced him to sign a 
“confession” while blindfolded.

During Al-Malali’s arrest, he was struck by at least 2 bullets, but UN human 
rights experts noted that the bullets were not removed until 23 days later. 
Al-Malali was held incommunicado for around two months at the CID and, 
according to the experts, was allegedly tortured into signing a “confession” 
without reading it beforehand.

Despite allegations that Al-Arab and Al-Malali were coerced into confessing, 
the court relied on these confessions to convict them. On January 31, 2018, 
both men were sentenced to death in a mass trial with 58 other defendants. To 
convict them, the court relied on the men’s “confessions,” which as noted above 
were obtained under torture, according to credible sources.

In a letter on 21 May 2019, five United Nations human rights experts appealed 
to the Government of Bahrain to “halt the imminent executions” of Mr. Al-Arab 
and Mr. Al-Malali, raising “serious concerns that they were coerced into making 
confessions through torture and did not receive a fair trial.”

The lives of these 2 young men are in your hands. We call on Your Majesty not 
to ratify the death sentences imposed on the two men and to ensure they are not 
executed. We urge you to order a retrial that fully complies with international 
fair trial standards and excludes evidence obtained under torture, and to carry 
out an independent and impartial investigation into the men’s claims of 
torture. We acknowledge the authorities’ duty to prevent crime and bring those 
responsible to justice, but emphasize that this should always be done in 
accordance with Bahrain’s national and international human rights obligations.

Bahrain should join the many countries already committed to the UN General 
Assembly’s December 18, 2007 resolution calling for a moratorium on executions, 
with the aim of abolishing the death penalty. Therefore, we further urge you 
to: immediately establish an official moratorium on executions with a view to 
abolishing capital punishment in Bahrain; commute all outstanding death 
sentences to terms of imprisonment, and conduct a comprehensive review of 
Bahrain’s death row, with a view to ensuring that victims of human rights 
abuses unlawfully sentenced to death receive redress.

Sincerely,

1.Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT) – France

2.Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT) – Germany

3.Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)

4.Amnesty International

5.Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)

6.European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR)

7.Fair Trials

8.Global Legal Action Network (GLAN)

9.Human Rights Watch

10.International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)

11.Redress

12.Reprieve

13.World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)

(source: Associated Press)








JAPAN:

Lawyer asks Osaka court to undo man's 'impulsive' retraction of death penalty 
appeal



A lawyer for a man sentenced to death for murdering two junior high school 
students in Osaka Prefecture in 2015 has asked that the convict's retraction of 
his appeal against the ruling be invalidated.

The convict, 49-year-old Koji Yamada, told a Mainichi Shimbun reporter who met 
him at a detention center that he withdrew his appeal against the death 
sentence to the Osaka High Court "on impulse." His lawyer is urging the court 
to open an appeal hearing.

It is rare, however, for a court to deem a convict's retraction of an appeal 
against a death sentence as being invalid.

According to those familiar with the case, Yamada's lawyer submitted a document 
to the Osaka High Court on May 30 asking that the court invalidate Yamada's 
retraction of his appeal against the death sentence handed down by the Osaka 
District Court.

In a lay judge trial, the lower court handed down the death sentence on Yamada 
in December 2018 as demanded by prosecutors. He and his defense lawyer appealed 
to the high court against the ruling, but Yamada submitted a document to the 
Osaka Detention Center on May 18 saying that he would retract his appeal, and 
as a result, his death sentence became final and irrevocable.

When he subsequently met a Mainichi reporter at the detention center, Yamada 
said he retracted his appeal on impulse after he was admonished by a detention 
center guard over the way he had returned a pen to the center, which made him 
angry.

Yamada said the retraction "had nothing to do with" the case. "I lost my temper 
and had a feeling of abandonment," he stated. He appeared to regret having 
withdrawn his appeal. According to Yamada, he sent a postcard to his lawyer, 
writing "goodbye," without prior consultation.

Yamada was convicted of strangling Ryoto Hoshino, then 12, and Natsumi Hirata, 
then 13, in the city of Neyagawa, in western Japan, in August 2015. The 
district court trial, however, failed to clarify the motives behind the 
murders, and questions have been raised by those concerned over the way the 
death sentence on Yamada became irrevocable without the court getting to the 
bottom of the incident.

There have been some cases in the past where the validity of the retraction of 
death sentences by convicts has been contested.

Kaoru Kobayashi, who was sentenced to death by the Nara District Court in 
September 2006 for abducting and murdering an elementary school girl in the 
western Japan city of Nara in 2004, retracted his appeal the following month. 
His defense counsel argued that his retraction of the ruling was invalid. 
However, the Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that his retraction was valid. He was 
executed in 2013.

In an exceptional case, the retraction of an appeal against a death sentence by 
the convict was deemed void. The convict in this case was Seiha Fujima, who had 
been given a death sentence for murdering five people, including a high school 
girl in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo. Fujima withdrew his 
appeal in 1991, at his own discretion.

His defense lawyer filed a petition asking that Fujima's withdrawal of the 
appeal be invalidated. The Supreme Court upheld the petition in 1995 after 
deeming that Fujima "lacked an ability to protect his own rights because he was 
shocked at the ruling." The high court opened an appeal trial and upheld the 
death sentence. He was executed in 2007 after the top court dismissed his 
appeal against the high court's decision.

(source: mainichi.jp)








PAKISTAN:

Prime Minister Imran Khan Proposes Capital Punishment for Child Abusers----He 
also identified the cause of increasing child abuse cases as child pornography



In the wake of recent horrific rape of 10-year old Farishta Prime Minister 
Imran Khan has called out for the death penalty of convicts in child abuse 
cases.

As reported by, special advisor to PM on information Firdous Ashiq Awan, Imran 
Khan addressed the issue in a recent meeting held amongst the members of 
Federal cabinet. The Premier, while talking showed extreme concern over the 
growing menace and seemed eager to curb it.

Imran Khan emphasized on the growing trend of child pornography in the country 
which he stated as the main cause of growing rape and violence cases against 
children.

The Prime Minister then asked the Ministry of Human Rights, Law, and Interior, 
in particular, to look into this matter, and draft plausible solutions to 
eliminate this threat to the children of our society. He in particular proposed 
a capital punishment be implemented in all cases of child abuse.

“All 3 ministries have been instructed to get together on this, prepare an 
implementation plan and bring it before the cabinet so that this growing menace 
can be curbed with an effective law and a mechanism of deterrence, as well as 
awareness, can be created,” said the Firdous Ashiq Awan.

In the last few years, child abuse (online and otherwise) has escalated to a 
great extent in the country. As reported by an online media outlet, in the 1st 
half of 2018 alone as many as 2,322 cases of child abuse were reported to 
authorities, however terrifyingly, many cases went unreported too.

(source: oyeyeah.com)

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

The ultimate injustice----Most convicts on death row in Pakistan should not be 
there;The Supreme Court overturned 97% of death sentences it reviewed last year 
The day Ghulam Qadir and Ghulam Sarwar were acquitted of murder after a 
miscarriage of justice should have been a moment to celebrate. The brothers had 
been awaiting execution for over a decade, only for the Supreme Court belatedly 
to quash their case. Eyewitness testimony against them was shaky and the 
prosecution case flimsy, the justices declared. Yet when officials sought to 
bring the pair the good news, they had a shock. They had been hanged a year 
earlier. No one had told the court or their lawyer.

This combination of injustice and incompetence is common in capital cases in 
Pakistan, a new report argues. Two NGOs, the Foundation for Fundamental Rights, 
which is based in Pakistan, and Reprieve, based in Britain, have studied the 
310 known cases in which the Supreme Court reviewed death sentences between 
2010 and 2018. They found that the justices revoked 78% of them. About half of 
those overturned ended in outright acquittal. The rest saw sentences commuted 
or a review initiated. If these proportions hold for Pakistan’s 4,700 death-row 
prisoners, some 1,800 should be set free. As many should have their sentences 
commuted or their cases retried or reviewed. But such reprieves do not come 
quickly. The average death-row prisoner spends 10 years under threat of 
execution before the case reaches the Supreme Court.

The country’s highest judges often complain that lower-court convictions rely 
on dubious “eyewitness” testimony. Sometimes it is directly at odds with the 
physical evidence. Particularly suspect are “chance” witnesses—people unrelated 
to killer or victim who, prosecutors claim, happened to observe a murder or 
other crime by coincidence. These witnesses often give evidence deemed 
clinching even if there is no proof they were present when the crime was 
committed. Such witnesses are sometimes people known to bear a grudge against 
the accused.

The Supreme Court also often questions the reliability of the police. Corrupt 
cops have been found not only to tamper with (or concoct) witness statements, 
but also to plant evidence and collude with victims or their families. 
Confessions are often extracted by beating.

Blundering and inconsistency are also rife. Bungled identity parades, in which 
the police do not stick to required procedures, undermine even cases in which 
credible witnesses identify culprits. The lower courts can be arbitrary, too. 
Evidence strong enough to send one suspect to the gallows, for instance, is 
deemed too weak to convict his co-accused.

Then there is the question of which offences merit execution. A total of 27 
crimes can lead to a death sentence, ranging from murder, treason, kidnap and 
drug smuggling to blasphemy. But many Pakistanis are put on death row for 
crimes the highest court does not believe warrant execution. Over the nine 
years the NGOs looked at, the court did not uphold a single death sentence for 
a non-lethal offence. Even for murders, it appeared to favour life sentences 
for all but the most heinous. Yet lower courts often impose death sentences for 
drug crimes, for example.

Supreme mercy

More than 500 people have been executed since 2014 (pictured is the central 
jail in the north-western city of Peshawar, where some of the hangings took 
place). And yet the Supreme Court seems ever more sceptical about capital 
cases. In 2018 it upheld the death penalty in just 3% of those it reviewed. 
Among the death sentences it overturned was, most famously, that imposed on an 
alleged blasphemer, Asia Bibi, which it said was based on “concoction 
incarnate”. Amnesty International, a London-based watchdog, has recorded a drop 
in recent executions, from at least 87 in 2016 to 60 in 2017 and 14 in 2018. 
Yet Amnesty recorded at least 360 death sentences handed down in 2016, over 200 
in 2017 and upwards of 250 last year.

Concerns about the use of the death penalty are long-standing. The Pakistan 
Peoples Party (PPP), in power from 2008 to 2013, introduced a moratorium on 
executions in 2008. But the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz, which defeated the 
PPP in the election of 2013, pledged to lift the moratorium to tackle a tide of 
crime and militancy. Indeed, it did so just days after an attack in 2014 on the 
Army Public School in Peshawar, where the Taliban killed more than 140 people, 
including 132 children.

In their new report the NGOs argue that Pakistan’s capital-punishment regime is 
so broken that the government elected last year, led by Imran Khan, the prime 
minister, should impose another moratorium immediately. He seems unlikely to 
listen. That leaves it to the Supreme Court to temper some of the injustices of 
the judicial system over which it presides.

(source: The Economist)

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

Pakistan's military sentences officer to death for espionage----Army chief 
approves death sentences for 2 men and 14 years in jail for another for leaking 
'sensitive information'.



Pakistan's military sentenced 1 army officer to death and another to 14 years 
"rigorous imprisonment" for espionage and leaking sensitive information to 
foreign spy agencies.

A civilian doctor was also given the death penalty on Thursday.

Pakistan's army chief, Qamar Javed Bajwa, confirmed the death sentences for 
retired Brigadier Raja Rizwan and Wasim Akram, a physician employed at a 
"sensitive organisation", the military's media wing said in a statement.

The 2nd officer, Lieutenant-General Javed Iqbal, was jailed for 14 years.

The 3 men were tried under the Pakistan Army Act and Official Secret Act, the 
statement added.

Pakistan's military rarely discloses such convictions, though it says the 
process of accountability within the army is severe.

Information about the two officers' arrest and legal proceedings was revealed 
by the military earlier this year.

"Both are individual cases that have no link between them," spokesperson Major 
General Asif Ghafoor said at a press briefing at the military's headquarters in 
the northern city of Rawalpindi in February.

"There is no network as such," he added. "Please keep in mind that if we have 
been able to get them and identify the issue, it is a success."

Pakistan's powerful military has ruled the country for roughly half of its 
71-year-old history.

In a high-profile espionage case in 2017, the army sentenced Indian naval 
officer Kulbhushan Jadhav to death for spying and orchestrating gun and bomb 
attacks targeting civilians and security forces.

Pakistan is ranked among the world's top executing countries in the world, 
according to rights group Amnesty International.

At least 14 prisoners were executed and more than 250 sentenced to death in the 
country last year, the UK-based group said in its annual report released in 
April.

(source: aljazeera.com)

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

COAS confirms death sentences for army, civilian officers for spying



Chief of Army Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa confirmed punishment to 2 Pakistan Army 
officers and one civilian officer on charges of spying.

Lt General (retd) Javed Iqbal has been sentenced to 14 years in rigorous prison 
and Brigadier (retd) Raja Rizwan has been sentenced to death.

Dr Wasim Akram, who was employed at a sensitive organisation, has also been 
awarded the death penalty.

According to a brief statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations, 
the officers were tried under the Pakistan Army Act (PAA) and Official Secret 
Act by separate Field General Court Martial (FGCM) for separate cases.

Some 400 officers of every rank have been given various punishments, including 
dismissal from service, during the last 2 years.

(source: samaa.tv)

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

Shahid Afridi says he is proud of Pakistan Army for punishment to 2 Army 
officers over spying



Former Pakistani all-rounder Shahid Khan Afridi has said that he was proud of 
Pakistan Army for placing itself first and foremost on the line for 
accountability.

Shahid Afridi took to Twitter saying “Death penalty and imprisonment to its 
senior officers on charges of spying is a difficult but bold decision. That’s 
why our Army is strong.”

Chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Thursday endorsed punishment 
to two Army and one civil officer on the charges of espionage/leakage of 
sensitive information to foreign agencies prejudice to the national security.

Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the military, in a 
statement said “The officers were tried under Pakistan Army Act (PAA) and 
Official Secret Act by separate Field General Court Marshal (FGCM) for separate 
cases.”

Lieutenant General Javed Iqbal (retired) was awarded 14 years rigorous 
imprisonment, while Brigadier Raja Rizwan (retired) awarded death sentence, the 
statement said.

While, doctor Wasim Akram (Employed at Sensitive Organization) was awarded 
death sentence.

(source: thenews.com.pk)

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

ATC convicts murderers of minor girls to death on 2 counts



Anti-Terrorist Court (ATC) Abbottabad Friday here awarded death sentence to 2 
convicts against the accusation of kidnapping for ransom and murder of 3 years 
old girl Marwa Faizan.

Accused Tuseef and Hassan were awarded death penalty twice and heavy fine. The 
ATC Abbottabad heard the case for 4 years after the assassination of the 3 
years old minor Marwa Faizan on 30 December 2016.

Marwa Faizan was kidnapped in Abbottabad for Rs 5 million ransom and was killed 
after brutal torture when her parents failed to the ransom.

The police recovered Marwa's body from a shopping bag which was found from 
kidnappers' house at Jhangi area of Mirpur Police Station.

Muhammad Aslam grandfather of Marwa had registered FIR in Mirpur police 
station. The police traced the kidnappers when they called for ransom and 
arrested 2 suspects Hassan and Tauseef.

(source: urdupoint.com)