death penalty news June 13, 2004
VIETNAM: HANOI: Death penalty for embezzlement A Vietnamese postal official has been sentenced to death for embezzling US$60,000 (RM228,000) from state coffers, state media said today. A provincial court found Tran Phuoc Toan, who worked at Vinh Loi district post office in the province of Bac Lieu, guilty of embezzlement yesterday, the Thanh Nien (Young People) daily reported. The court found that Toan pocketed the money in 2001 and 2002 when he was in charge of selling 114,100 pre-paid mobile phone cards worth US$2.74 million for the post office. He spent most of the money he embezzled on buying lottery tickets and betting on cock-fighting, the paper said. The court also jailed the director of the post office, Tran Van Quyen, for four years for "dereliction of duty". At least 49 people have been sentenced to death this year in the communist nation and 33 have been executed by firing squad, according to figures from state media and court officials. In a bid to restore its moral and ideological legitimacy, the communist regime has vowed to stamp out rampant corruption and other financial crimes. In April an appeal court upheld the death penalty issued against a director of a company under the agriculture ministry's control who was found guilty of misappropriating US$4.7 million and causing losses of US$2.2 million to state coffers. (source: AFP) ================================ JAMAICA: Echoes of Cargill on the death penalty THE EDITOR, Sir: WITH REFERENCE to Mr. Clive Mullings' call on the Government to enforce the death penalty or abolish the law, I wish to remind fellow Jamaicans of the words of the late Morris Cargill, published on February 11, 1999. These words are as true today as they were then: "The Government is both weak and vacillating. It is weak because it has neither the courage to abolish hanging, yet has neither the courage nor the will to carry it out. This folly is aided and abetted by a bunch of bleeding hearts and their legal lackeys. A lawyer is obviously entitled to fight as hard as he can for the acquittal of his client. But I have no admiration for a lawyer who knowing that his client has been justly convicted of murder, nevertheless, uses every ridiculous appeal to frustrate the legal sentence of death. I am not surprised that murder is the only growth industry we have in Jamaica at present. It is time that all the nonsense stopped and that our law should not be frustrated." How did we get to this sorry state? When Parliament debated the death penalty in 1979, on the basis of a conscience vote, the House of Representatives voted to retain the penalty and the Senate voted for a limited suspension. It is time to have another conscience vote in Parliament. This time it should be on the resumption of hanging. When we see how the individuals in Gordon House vote then we will see those who side with the majority of Jamaicans on this issue and those who do not. This would be instructive. I am, etc., WINNIE ANDERSON-BROWN (Letter to the Editor, Jamaica Gleaner)
