June 24
PHILIPPINES:
Execution by lethal injection of kidnapper set July 2
2 days after the President is formally swear in into office, a
kidnap-for-ransom convict would be executed July 2 in the New Bilibid
Prisons' (NBP) lethal injection chamber. The President's proclamation was
slated noon of June 30, 2004.
The July execution was confirmed Wednesday by nolessthan NBP Director
Dionisio Santiago who declined to give the name of the death row convict.
Santiago said the lethal chamber execution was originally set for March 25
but was deferred on orders of President Arroyo.
The prisons director said unless another postponement is ordered, the
execution will proceed on July 2.
He said a total of 13 death row convicts are up for execution next month
but only one would be spared after the President earlier ordered a stay in
execution. The name of the death row inmate was not also known.
The NBP has at least 40 death row inmates bound for the lethal injection
chamber from July up to October this year. Of the number, 22 have been
given pardoned or have their sentence reduced.
It was said that among those who have a great chance of escaping lethal
injection are convicts who were involved in rape cases.
The President has been indecisive in ordering executions of criminals
convicted for heinous crimes -- and whose death verdicts were upheld by
the Supreme Court -- for fear of backlash from the Church and from
anti-death penalty advocates who have been pressing Congress to abolish
the death penalty law.
(source: ABS-CBNNEWS.com)
**********************
CBCP seeks review of policy on death penalty
Leaders of the Roman Catholic Church are hoping that with President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo gaining a fresh mandate Thursday her new administration
would review its policy on the death penalty.
The President, a devout Catholic, issued a moratorium on executions of
death convicts last year, but a spate of kidnappings and pressure from the
Chinese-Filipino community persuaded the government to change its
position.
Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iiguez, public affairs chief of the Catholic
Bishops Conference of the Philippines, said that the CBCP's campaign
against the death penalty would be renewed.
"The stand of the CBCP is to reject the capital penalty as a way to punish
the guilty. We would go with other governments all over the world that
have considered abolishing the death penalty in order to give in to
restorative justice," Iiguez said.
He said bishops believed capital punishment should be scrapped because
this was against the will of God.
"Certainly, we will try (to convince her) because that is not only the
will of the bishops but that is what ... moral law tells us," Iiguez said.
(source: Inquirer News Service)
BRITAIN:
Goodbye to Death Row: Briton who gave hope to the hopeless goes home
Campaigning lawyer Clive Stafford Smith is leaving the US after 26 years
of defending some of America's worst criminals. He talks to Andrew
Buncombe
Clive Stafford Smith is leaving with one last victory. After a quarter of
a century working at the heart of America's criminal justice system -
mainly fighting for people sentenced to death - the celebrated 44-year-old
lawyer is returning to Britain.
His clients are losing a rare and valuable ally. Only last week, in what
was his final case, Mr Smith secured the release of an innocent man who
had spent almost a decade on death row. On Tuesday the prisoner, Daniel
Bright, informed Mr Smith that the authorities had sent him a cheque for
$10 by way of compensation. It worked out at $1.11 for each of the nine
years Mr Bright had spent behind bars. "It's crazy," said Mr Smith. "The
state, the federal government, the prosecutors - they're all immune from
us suing them. The legal system is designed to protect lawyers. But I
don't want to rant ..."
On Tuesday evening, sitting in a restaurant on New Orleans' Canal Street -
the bustling thoroughfare, crammed with trams and people, that edges the
city's French Quarter - Mr Smith recalled the 26 years he had spent in the
US and explained why he had felt moved to stand up for those without a
voice, to represent paedophiles and police killers and even - in an
intriguing addendum to his curriculum vitae - to become a champion of oral
sex.
New Orleans has been Mr Smith's home since 1993: he previously lived in
Georgia and North Carolina. He always believed that having adopted the
motto of "work hard, play hard", this steamy city on the bank of the
Mississippi with its jazz and voodoo and endless appetite for pleasure
would be more fun than somewhere like the comparatively austere Atlanta.
It is also the perfect setting for his work.
Given that the majority of his John Grisham-style cases involve prisoners
on death row and that the southern states, along with Texas, are the ones
who most use the death penalty, New Orleans is the ideal location. The
Grisham connection, incidentally, is no casual reference: Mr Smith says
that the Mississippi writer based a large part of one of his novels, The
Chamber, on one of the cases he handled.
As with a Grisham novel, the matter of execution is never far from Mr
Smith's world. He estimates that he has handled more than 300 death-row
cases. He has witnessed six executions, all of clients he failed to save.
"I am there as their friend. I don't like it - I hate it. But it is not as
bad, not nearly as bad, as seeing a jury sentence someone to death. One
condemned prisoner whose execution he was about to witness told him:
"You're the only person who has stayed by me, who has proved that they're
my friend."
Mr Smith was born in Newmarket, Suffolk, where his parents ran a stud
farm. He first came to the US in 1978, having won a scholarship to study
journalism at the University of North Carolina. He might have followed
that career path had he not spent a summer working with the Atlanta Team
Defence Project, visiting death-row prisoners across Georgia. Very soon he
realised that journalism was not for him.
By the age of 20 he was set on a new path. He later graduated from the
Columbia Law School, worked as a staff lawyer for the Southern Centre for
Human Rights in Atlanta for nine years and then founded the Louisiana
Justice Centre, which operates from the premises of a former radio station
and has a staff of 23. It was a career choice that was never going to make
him rich: even now his salary is only $25,000.
Mr Smith's work has seen him represent many of what some would consider
society's worst cases: rapists, child-murderers and serial killers. He has
done so out of a belief not only that everyone deserves their day in court
with proper representation, but that someone should not be judged by their
worst acts alone.
"What is the worst thing you have ever done in your life? How would you
feel if we were to judge you on nothing other than that?" he asked. "What
if your brother murdered someone? Would you want to send him to jail or
would you want to and understand why he had done it?"
At this point Mr Smith admitted he was something of a fantasist when it
came to the notion of punishment and sentencing. He feels there is no
point in jails, that they do not act as a deterrent and than society
should not be looking to act out of revenge. He believes there should be
secure establishments were criminals are held in order to protect society,
but he believes that all killers and rapists - by the inherent nature of
what they have done - are in some way mentally ill.
"Bin Laden? I believe he is insane," he said. "After everything he has
done?"
He admits this belief is not something he shares often in public - aware
that the American legal and judicial system is very much about punishment
and has very little interest in rehabilitation of prisoners. In order for
his work to be taken seriously by the prosecutors and judges he deals
with, he chooses to use the system to fight the system. One example was
his involvement in a successful effort in the late 1980s to decriminalise
oral sex. Astonishingly, at this time consensual oral sex between adults
was considered a crime - oral sodomy - in 25 states. The case he took on
involved a Georgia man called James Moseley, who was fighting a custody
battle with his estranged wife.
In order to secure custody of the children, Moseley's wife accused him of
sexual assault - rape and two counts of "aggravated" oral sodomy. The jury
did not believe the wife, whose own sister testified against her, and
found Moseley not guilty.
But Clayton County Superior Court Judge William Ison decided - having
heard Mr Moseley claim that the oral sex with his wife had always been
consensual - decided the defendant had to go to jail. Having been advised
not to appeal by his 1st lawyer, Moseley was sentenced to five years. In
the prison exercise yard, Moseley would rub shoulders with killers and
armed robbers who laughed when he told them his crime. Soon he started
telling people he was a killer.
In a memorable appeal, Mr Smith used Georgia's own laws to overturn the
sentence - but not the conviction - and have Moseley freed. "Mr Moseley
was eligible for 20 years for his heinous crime," it read. "Had he
committed the same offence with his wife after she was dead, he could only
have received half the time. Had he had intercourse in the courtroom
during the trial, his punishment would still have been less. Indeed, had
he chosen not his wife, but a donkey, he could only have received
one-quarter of the sentence. Had he committed the crime with a deceased
donkey in the public square, he could not have been sentenced to as long
in prison as for having oral sex with his wife. The law is patently
unconstitutional as applied to Mr Moseley in this case."
Much of his work has involved cases in which Mr Smith believed his clients
were utterly innocent. One of the most famous was that of 26-year-old
Edward Earl Johnson who was executed in 1987 for a murder which most legal
observers now believe he did not commit. The case became the topic of a
BBC documentary and a follow-up film in which Mr Smith tracked down the
man he believes committed the crime.
That Johnson could be convicted against a weight of evidence does not
surprise Mr Smith. Johnson was black - and in the US a defendant is four
times more likely to be sentenced to death if they are a black man
convicted of killing a white victim than vice versa. But Mr Smith also
points to a lunacy about the capital offence system in which once the
process has started, a defendant's possible innocence is barely important.
He cites a 1992 US Supreme Court case that found "someone's innocence is
not constitutionally relevant to whether or not they should be executed".
Mr Smith and his English wife, Emily Bolton, who runs the justice centre's
Innocence Project, are returning to Britain to be nearer their families.
Mr Smith will be working for prisoners held by the US at Guantanamo Bay.
He said their cases and that of Johnson, and the countless other black
prisoners he has represented, are closely linked.
"Every generation has its nigger," he said. "And the way we define that
horrible term is the people we look down on and blame for everything. The
current generation's nigger is the terrorist. The terrorists and the
criminals."
Mr Smith said he had spoken to the families of more than 40 prisoners at
Guantanamo Bay, where the inmates are denied access to lawyers. "I have
yet to find any one of them who I believe is guilty," he said.
Those who have worked with him and his wife over the years are quick to
heap praise on their achievements. "Both are tireless champions of the
notion that everyone is supposed to get a fair shot in court. But most
don't," said George Kendall, former head of the legal defence fund of the
National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP).
"They're going to be missed by many. Yet I think they've made sure that
the work that's important to them is going to continue."
For now Mr Smith is focusing on finding some office space in London for
his new project, appealing to anyone that can help with this to visit his
website. He says given that the US will not let lawyers visit the
Guantanamo Bay prisoners, he can just as effectively work from London.
On a personal level he is happy to be leaving - as a foreigner he still
feels alienated despite the years in America. Neither will he miss the
death threats and the complaints from prosecutors and police whom he has
exposed in court. But he also accepts that by leaving the American south,
by walking away from the corruption and racism that persists here, he is
leaving the place where he can perhaps do the most good.
He said: "In the sense that there is no-one here to help those who need
it, I feel like a traitor."
THE STAFFORD SMITH CASEBOOK
Krishna Maharaj
Once Britain's s2nd biggest racehorse owner, Maharaj was convicted of the
1986 murder of a rival businessman in Miami and sent to death row. At the
trial the defence lawyer failed to call witnesses who would have testified
that at the time of the killing, the defendant was 25 miles away. The
lawyer also failed to demand a retrial when the judge was charged with
corruption relating to a bribe he had taken about the case. With Mr
Smith's help, Maharaj had his sentence reduced to life in 2002. Mr Smith
is still fighting for his release, believing it to be the most "clear-cut
case of someone who is innocent".
Tracey Housel
Bermudan-born Tracey Housel, technically a British citizen, was executed
in Georgia in March 2002 having been convicted of a series of killings
across the US. Mr Smith tried to have his sentenced changed to life
imprisonment. The British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, wrote to Georgia
State officials to appeal for Housel. Mr Smith believes only the
intervention of Tony Blair could have saved his client. "I was saying to
them back in London that, with all respect, no one here has heard of Jack
Straw," he says.
Daniel Bright
Daniel Bright, Mr Smith's most recent victory, was convicted of killing
Murray Barnes outside a bar in 1995 on the night of the Super Bowl
American football final. He was freed last week after Mr Smith revealed
that the FBI had suppressed evidence that showed his client was innocent.
He said that Mr Bright was now at an "undisclosed location" within the US
because a number of people were after him. "We have had two people who
were exonerated who have been killed within hours of being released," Mr
Smith said.
Edward Earl Johnson
Edward Earl Johnson, who was executed in 1987 in Mississippi, was the
subject of the award-winning film 14 Days in May. Johnson pleaded his
innocence to the end and said that his confession had been forced out of
him by police who had threatened to kill him on the spot. Mr Smith, who
witnessed his client being gassed, took it upon himself to track down the
man who he believes carried out the crime. He was never charged. "It's a
sick world out there and everyone is calm and collected but I am telling
you something - I am not calm and collected," he said after the execution.
Ryan Matthews
In April, Ryan Matthews, 23, was ordered to receive a retrial after his
conviction for the killing of a grocer was set aside. Mr Smith says DNA
evidence proves that his client was not responsible for the killing. Last
week he secured his client's release on bail while he awaits the new
trial. "There's no evidence he's guilty' he said. Matthews was on death
row at Angola State Penitentiary for the 1997 killing of the grocer, Tommy
Vanhoose. The Louisiana Supreme Court ordered the retrial after learning
of the DNA evidence, which points to someone already in jail as the
killer.
(source: The Independent)
PAKISTAN:
Killer magician given death sentence
An anti-terrorism court (ATC) judge, Mohammad Gulzar Butt, sentenced black
magician Imdad Hussain to death on Wednesday on charges of killing a
6-year-old-boy Tehseen on April 13 in Daoke village Muridke district
Sheikhupura.
The court sentenced the accused to a fine of Rs 200,000 to be paid to the
childs family in settlement. The ATC also charged Imdad Hussain and his
disciple Hafiz Arshad for the murders of 2 7-year-old children, Muhammad
Ramzan and Samina Riaz, from Muridke.
Imdad Hussain admitted before the judge and special public prosecutor Rana
Bakhtiar that he had killed Tehseen but denied killing Ramzan and Samina.
"He was convicted under Section (a) of S.7 of ATA 1997 and has been
sentenced to death," The ATC judge said. He said that the accused had
confessed his guilt voluntarily and had admitted that Tehseen died from a
stabbing.
"I have already admitted my crime before the magistrate," said Imdad
Hussain. "I am confessing my guilt without fear, coercion, inducement,
pressure or greed." Imdad Hussain also said that the killing was a
terrorist activity carried out to create a sense of fear and insecurity in
society.
According to the complainant, who is the uncle of the deceased boy, he
found the body of his nephew near an old tube well in Daoke. The boy's
neck, right side of belly and right leg had knife wounds. According to
sources, Samina Riaz was killed while on her way to tuition classes and
Muhammad Ramzan when he was going to offer his Jumma prayer on April 13.
Both Imdad Hussain and his disciple have been accused for these two
murders and were arrested last month. Imdad Hussain, alias Baba Imdad
Hussain, was a resident of a Faisalabad village and had settled in Daokay
for the last five years. The accused claimed to be an expert black
magician and popular in Daokay. Hafiz Arshad Ali joined the magician as
his disciple. Allegedly, his first task as a magician was to bring the
blood of three children. In compliance with Imdad Hussains orders, Mr Ali
murdered the three children and seriously injured Zainul Abadeen of his
village in different incidents. He also wrote a warning letter to the area
police, which read: "If the police tries to arrest me, there will be more
killing in the area."
(source: Daily Times)
INDIA:
Kolkata hangman prepares for execution
In just over 24 hours from now, Dhananjoy Chatterjee will be hanged to
death for the rape and murder of a 15 year old schoolgirl in Kolkata back
in 1990.
Executing the death sentence will be a professional hangman, who's getting
himself psychologically ready for the task.
For the last couple of days, Nata Malik has been going to Alipore Jail to
practise at the gallows.
His tools are a rope, treated with ghee and bananas for smoothness, and a
sandbag. Nata has never met Chatterjee and doesn't want to either till the
very last moment.
"I don't want to meet the condemned man. His image may disturb me. Once
they bring him to the gallows, the job will be over in a minute. That's
how I want it to be," said Malik,
Nata, Chatterjee's crime of raping and murdering a 15 year old schoolgirl
justifies the punishment. All the same, the hangman will send up a prayer
for the condemned man before he pulls the lever.
"I will pray to God that he dies painlessly. That his soul rests in peace
and that he is reborn into a good home. I will also pray for myself. I am
only doing what God wills. He decides matters of life and death," said the
executioner. Nata will get Rs 10,000 for his task.
(source: NDTV.com)
***********************
Indian literati call for end to executions as hangman is brought out of
retirement
Indian intellectuals and literati are leading protests against capital
punishment after a hangman came out of retirement to prepare for the first
execution in Calcutta for more than a decade
Dhananjoy Chatterjee is due to be executed for raping a 14-year-old girl
and then smothering her to death in 1990.
Seven members of the condemned man's family will commit suicide if the
sentence is carried out, his elderly father threatened yesterday.
A host of leading Indians have spoken out against the impending execution,
including the writers Mahasveta Devi and Narayan Sanyal, the dramatist
Bibhas Chakraborty and the historian Gautam Bhadra. None has expressed any
doubt about Chatterjee's guilt, but they have spoken out against the
principle of the death penalty.
Mrinal Sen, a film director, said: "The fact remains that the crime was
very serious and I've nothing but contempt for such a crime. However,
punishment by death is no answer."
Sunil Ganguly, a popular Bengali writer, said: "My view is that capital
punishment should be abolished because it's barbaric. The law should find
out some other strong punishment for this kind of crime."
"The man should be given the severest punishment, other than death," said
Aparna Sen, a film director and former actress. "I'm against capital
punishment because violence cannot be met with violence."
The man putting Chatterjee to death will be Nata Malik, who last tightened
the noose in 1991, when he executed 2 men for murdering 4 members of a
family. Hangings are rare in India and official executioners hard to come
by.
The government had originally contacted a hangman in Delhi, who, besides
asking for an astronomical sum to carry out the execution, demanded an air
ticket and luxurious accommodation. So Mr Malik was persuaded to return to
the gallows. He agreed to do so only on condition that the government find
a job for his grandson Prabhat Malik, 19.
The government obliged and the younger Malik will now work as the
government's hangman whenever required.
The jail and social welfare department has made it clear that Prabhat
Malik will now have to travel throughout West Bengal to carry out a
hangman's duties. He will be paid the same as his grandfather for each
execution - 10,000 rupees (120).
Nata Malik said: "Had the government refused my grandson a job, I would
never have agreed to come out of retirement and carry out the execution."
But Prabhat's career might be a short one. Even the state secretary of the
ruling communist party in West Bengal, Anil Biswas, has come out against
the death sentence. "I don't know much about law," he said, "but in
several countries, capital punishment has been prohibited. Why not here in
India?"
The family of Hetal Parekh, the girl Chatterjee was convicted of raping
and murdering, said the death sentence was justified and called for it to
be implemented. "I have suffered a lot," said her father, Nagardas. "I
have lost everything in my life. The man who carried out the crime should
be hanged."
Although India's Supreme Court ruled in 1983 that capital punishment
should only be used in "the rarest of rare cases", a number of executions
continue to be carried out.
The most notorious execution in India was that of Nathuram Godse, the man
convicted of assassinating Mahatma Gandhi, who was left suspended from the
rope for 15 minutes before he died in a bungled hanging.
Godse was executed despite the fact that Gandhi had spoken out against
capital punishment, saying: "I cannot in all conscience agree to anyone
being sent to the gallows. God alone can take life because he alone gives
it."
The men convicted of assassinating Indira Gandhi in 1984 were also
executed.
This weekend's execution will supposedly be the first in West Bengal since
1991. But precise figures on how many people are sentenced to death in
India each year, and how many sentences are carried out, are hard to
obtain, according to the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre in
Delhi. The centre saysthe Indian authorities "don't collect the
information on purpose".
>From its own research, the centre says about 12 death sentences are handed
down every year in India, although it is not clear how many are carried
out.
Local sessions courts can impose death sentences in India for the most
serious crimes, including murder.
There is an appeals process. After he was convicted in 1994, Chatterjee,
who worked as a security guard in the apartment building where his
victim's family lived, took his appeal to the Supreme Court in Delhi,
where he lost.
He asked the Indian President, A P J Abdul Kalam, for clemency, but his
plea was rejected.
The Association for Protection of Democratic Rights, a human rights group
based in Calcutta, had also appealed to the president to commute
Chatterjee's punishment.
(source: The Independent)
