June 16
IRAQ:
Death Penalty Cast Shadow over Saddam Fate
Iraq will restore the death penalty after the return of sovereignty later
this month.
This measure could affect ousted leader Saddam Hussein, according to Iraqi
justice minister Malik Dohan al-Hassan, who said that with the return of
sovereignty it could be re-instituted "for very specific cases."
The death penalty was suspended in Iraq by then US Central Command chief
General Tommy Franks in April 2003, as the US-led coalition invaded the
country and toppled Saddam's regime.
Under Saddam Hussein, there were some 120 crimes punishable by death.
Interim government ponders over narrowing to those who were responsible
for mass graves or plundering the country's oil wealth.
When asked specifically about the fate of the jailed Saddam, the justice
minister said: "Saddam Hussein was the head of the armed forces and he
deserted. According to his own laws, his crime is already punishable by
death."
(source: Novinite.com)
SOUTH AFRICA:
A South African court on Tuesday sentenced a child rapist to life
imprisonment plus another 10 years for kidnapping the six-year-old girl,
but if the death penalty were in operation in this country, prosecutor
Herman Broodryk would have called for capital punishment on the accused.
During closing argument on the Reuben Modiba case on Monday, Broodryk told
the Johannesburg High Court that he would have called for the death
penalty had it been in operation.
"The accused, Reuben Modiba, acted like an animal satisfying his lust on a
small defenseless child," he said when urging the court to impose a severe
sentence.
Modiba, 30, cruelly raped the girl and injured her so severely that her
intestines were hanging between her legs. Local newspapers at the time
unusually left a blank space in the front page because the photo of the
victim was too miserable to be carried.
"This is the worst case of rape I've ever dealt with," Judge Nico Coetzee
said, describing the crime as horrific.
However, Modiba had shown no remorse during his trial and is likely to be
released between 2024 and 2029 according to what the Correctional Services
Act has stipulated.
Broodryk was not the 1st South African to cry out for resumption of death
penalty, which was outlawed in 1995 in this crime-ridden country.
2 Pretoria High Court judges sitting in two separate farm murder trials
said early this month that they doubted whether the present prescribed
minimum sentences had any deterrent effect against the wave of crime in
the country.
Judge Johan Els sentenced Johannes Motau, 46, to life imprisonment and a
further 50 years' imprisonment for murdering 74-year-old Jacob van der
Westhuizen with a broken bottle and robbinghim and his wife of a few
meager belongings at their Cullinan small holding in May 2003.
Holding the view that life imprisonment is not a deterrent, he said this
type of crime occurs on a daily basis and he would have felt that the only
deterrent and fit sentence would have been the death penalty.
Motau has a long list of previous convictions and spent a total of 19
years in jail. He was on parole for theft when he attacked the elderly
couple.
In a separate trial, Acting Judge Piet van der Byl sentenced Kenny
Mokalapa, 23, to life imprisonment and 24 years' imprisonment for the
murder of a retired policeman and his wife during a gang robbery.
The couple were both shot in the head execution-style. The robbers made
off with their car and electrical goods and removed jewelry from the
victims' bodies.
"The extent of crime in our country has taken on shocking proportions,"
Van der Byl said. "I understand the present wave of crime in this country.
It is doubtful if the minimum sentences prescribed by the legislator
really have a suitable effect on crime."
The judge said the legislator should consider severer punishment such as
sentencing an accused to imprisonment for the remainder of his life.
However, South Africa Correctional Services Act has enabled the accused
seldom serve more than 25 years behind bars.
The act stated that life imprisonment meant spending the rest of one
natural life behind bars. But another section of the act stipulated that a
life could be considered for parole after serving 25 years of his
sentence, or if he turned 65 and had already served 15 years.
Judge Els called the act license to kill because it could result in even
multiple killers possibly being paroled after serving a mere 20 years.
In the Mokalapa case, Judge Van der Byl recommended that the accused must
serve at least 35 years of his sentence before he wasconsidered for
release.
The death penalty would be an apt sentence, said Judge Els, whoargued that
his statement was well-founded.
The ruling African National Congress abolished death penalty one year
after it won South Africa's 1st all-race elections in 1994 under the
leadership of anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela.
The black-led party had repeatedly refused either a referendum or
restoration of death penalty in the past years.
"In the history of South Africa, tens of thousands of black people were
hanged and it didn't do any good," South African President Thabo Mbeki
said previously.
That was the legacy of South Africa's brutal apartheid past, when there
was no distinction between freedom fighters and common criminals.
But for the raped girl and families of those murdered, the aftermath of
atrocities were catastrophic.
A social worker who counseled the raped girl told the court that the girl
was still unable to speak of the rape, and she had undergone a complete
personality change since the attack.
It is claimed that abolishing death penalty is to protect humanrights in
this country, but what is ironic is that some people arbitrarily deprive
others' basic human rights to live, while their human rights get
protected, said Zhao Jingkang, a local Chinese businessman, whose
brother-in-law was almost stabbed to death in a robbery.
(source: Xinhua News)
