July 4
IRAQ:
Kurd poison gas victims demand death for Saddam
Kamil Qadir, lungs wrecked by a poison gas attack on Halabja 16 years ago,
sat glued to his television to watch Iraq's Saddam Hussein in the dock for
that and other atrocities committed during 35 years of Baathist rule.
Qadir was 15 when chemical bombs landed on this Kurdish town near the
Iranian border in 1988, wiping out his entire family and leaving him with
severe burns and respiratory problems.
On daily medication, he still suffers flashbacks from the attack which
killed more than 5,000 people.
He smiled wryly when an Arab news channel showed people in Saddam's
hometown of Tikrit challenging the legitimacy of the tribunal that
outlined charges against the ousted president on Thursday.
"They don't know what real problems are," he said between coughing fits.
"I have no pleasure in life because of my lungs.
Seeing Saddam in front of an Iraqi judge provides only limited
satisfaction, he said. Like many in Halabja, he is not convinced any trial
will bring real justice.
"Those defending Saddam do not know him, but neither do those who are
judging him," Qadir said.
"Saddam killed 5,000 people here without a trial and now people talk about
justice for him. And where is the justice for the foreign companies who
supplied him with materials for his chemical weapons, or the Western
politicians who supported him?"
Saddam appeared to shrug off responsibility when the Halabja attack was
listed at Thursday's hearing among charges that could lead to a formal
indictment for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
"Yes, I heard about that in the media," he said.
Halabja residents worry that Saddam might escape the death sentence, a
penalty which many view as insufficient. Iraq's interim government is
considering restoring the death penalty, suspended during the U.S.-British
occupation.
I don't think Saddam will be executed, but people from Halabja want him
chopped up into pieces," said Ibrahim Hawramani, manager of the Halabja
monument centre established in 2003 to commemorate victims of the gas
attack.
The centre contains an exhibition of harrowing photographs taken in the
immediate aftermath, showing streets littered with twisted corpses, mostly
women and children.
"WEST SHARES RESPONSIBILITY"
According to Hawramani, more than 200 foreign companies have been
identified as suppliers of materials for Saddam's chemical weapons. They
and everyone else who facilitated the crimes of the regime should be
prosecuted, he said.
"America brought Saddam -- they provided him with money, supported him
against Iran (in the 1980-88 war) and then used his Baath party as a
weapon...they have no excuse," he said.
Survivors of the Halabja attack have provided testimony from over 7,000
witnesses which they hope will help convict Saddam.
The testimonies were collected by the Anti-Chemical Weapons Society which
supports victims' families and documents evidence.
"We are worried that Saddam won't be given the death penalty," said Aras
Akram, a member of the society who lost his parents and 10 other close
relatives in the attack.
Akram said many survivors still suffered from blindness and breathing
problems and that there were high rates of colon cancer and infertility
among Halabja's male population.
"We're trying to draw attention to these problems but until now no
specialised doctors are working in the area," he said.
On the streets of Halabja, Saddam's court appearance brought jubilation at
his humiliation, but concern that he would not receive the punishment
residents believe he deserves.
"We are very afraid that he won't face the right justice," said Qadir
Ahmed, who also works at the monument centre. "But when we see him broken
it gives us great satisfaction. He should be executed as a common
criminal."
Ahmed helped bury 1,500 people in a communal grave after the attack, which
killed his father, three sisters and 2 nephews. 10 years later his mother
died of gas-induced nerve disease.
Despite losing a brother last year to illness caused by the chemical
bombing, 40-year-old carpenter Batyal Hazar expressed rare support for the
trial process.
"To see Saddam in front of a judge is the wish of all Kurdish people," he
said.
"Of course Kurds are unhappy Saddam should get a trial. But the United
States is democratic and looks at guilty people and then gives them a
chance. We should be like that."
(source: Reuters)
AFGHANISTAN:
Karzai Seeks Death for Afghan Organ Traffickers
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has issued a decree ordering death penalty
for criminals who remove body parts from kidnapped children, the attorney
general said on Sunday.
The decree comes amid heightened worries over kidnapping of children after
Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said that several hundred had been
abducted in recent years and body parts of some of them removed for sale
abroad.
Attorney General Mahmoud Daqiq told Reuters the maximum punishment for
trafficking or kidnapping children used to be 15 years in prison.
"Now the decree proposes the death sentence for someone who removes an
organ of a kidnapped child or kills a child after kidnapping."
He said the maximum term for kidnapping a child had been increased to 20
years in prison.
Authorities say kidnappers are the first link in an international chain of
organized crime that sees Afghan children sold as servants, for sexual
abuse, or for their organs that are sold for huge profits abroad.
Daqiq said authorities were investigating 47 cases of child kidnapping and
trafficking in Kabul alone.
In some cases, residents say authorities have taken bribes to free
kidnappers after arresting them.
A child rescued from kidnappers told Reuters last month in the southern
city of Kandahar that he had seen the bodies of 4 boys of about his age
that had been cut open and had their organs removed.
Officials said the kidnappers took the organs for sale in neighboring
Pakistan where people are prepared to pay large amounts of money for
healthy organs for transplants.
(source: Reuters)
IRAN:
Iranian Aghajari Back on Trial, Death Penalty Charges Dropped
The retrial of Iranian dissident Hashem Aghajari opened in Tehran
yesterday, with the judiciary allowing a public hearing and all charges
that could lead to the death penalty dropped.
After nearly two years locked away from public view, the Tehran University
history professor appeared weak and complained of being held for months in
solitary confinement with the shadow of execution hanging over him.
But Judge Mohammad Eslami confirmed during the hearing that the disabled
war veteran no longer faced death for having called for a reformation in
Irans state Shiite Muslim religion.
Instead of upholding original charges equivalent to apostasy and
blasphemy, Aghajari was yesterday accused of insulting religious
sanctities, propagating against the regime and spreading false
information.
His charge sheet, read out by prosecutor general Reza Jafari, numbered 21
pages and also covered six years of Aghajaris writing prior to his arrest.
If convicted on all the counts - to which he has pleaded not guilty - he
could face a total sentence of between 5 and 10 years in jail. The
prosecutor requested a heavy sentence due to Aghajaris "continued crimes."
Aghajari had been sentenced to death in his 1st trial, behind closed
doors, in the western city of Hamedan in November 2002. After the verdict
sparked widespread student protests, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
intervened and ordered a retrial.
The same court defiantly upheld its original ruling, forcing the Supreme
Court to refer the case to a more sympathetic court in the capital.
Aghajaris lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, confirmed last week that the dissident
was no longer facing the hangmans rope.
But Aghajari, looking tired and with his hair grown longer, nevertheless
used the hearing to complain about his treatment in detention. How can you
put a history professor in solitary for more than 10 months, he asked the
small group in the courtroom.
Speaking briefly to reporters when the hearing was adjourned until Monday,
Aghajari refused to say if he was optimistic now that the 25-year-old
regime had softened the charges.
"We have to see what the result is,- he said. His wife, Zahra Behnoudi,
who was able to attend the hearing, said: "I hope that with the
suppression of the apostasy charges, the judge will release him. But the
charges upheld against him are still very heavy."
Aghajari, who lost a leg in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, sparked the wrath
of Irans powerful hard-liners when he said in a speech to students in
Hamedan that Muslims were not "monkeys" and "should not blindly follow"
religious leaders.
The speech was taken by the court as an attack on the very core of Irans
25-year-old Islamic regime - the position of the supreme leader who cannot
be questioned and the Shiite concept of emulation.
Aghajari had also been sentenced to 8 years in jail. The term was later
commuted to 4 years before being scrapped on April 14, but he is still
being held in Tehrans Evin prison.
(source: Agence France Presse)
INDIA:
Efforts on to prove death row convict mad
A group of lawyers is preparing to move the Supreme Court against the
execution of rapist-murderer Dhananjoy Chatterjee on the ground that he is
mentally unsound.
The lawyers would argue that the death row convict should be spared the
noose because his execution had already been delayed for long, local media
reports said.
Chatterjee was to hang June 25 for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old
girl in 1990, but the execution was stayed after President A.P.J. Abdul
Kalam decided to hear a 2nd clemency plea hours before the hanging.
His defence lawyers are now waiting for Kalam's verdict, which is unlikely
to remit the death sentence.
The defence lawyers, led by Mumbai-based Colin Gonzalves, are seeking to
get Chatterjee's death verdict commuted to life sentence. Amnesty
International, which campaigns for abolition of capital punishment, is
aiding Chatterjee's defence lawyers, reports said.
A city-based rights organisation campaigning for clemency for Chatterjee
has said he is in no mental condition to be hanged.
"The authorities aren't allowing Chatterjee's family members to meet him.
We suspect they are trying to cover up his mental illness," said Sujato
Bhadra of the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR).
"Let there be a special team to assess his health condition first," a news
report quoted lawyer Joymalla Bagchi as saying.
The lawyers argued that the dillydallying over Chatterjee's mercy petition
had caused immense mental agony to the convict and it would not be
unnatural if he had lost his mental balance under this pressure.
Chatterjee had first been handed the death sentence Feb 25, 1994.
Lawyers opposed to the death ban claimed they would argue about who was
responsible for the delay in carrying out Chatterjee's execution.
"For 13 long years the man has suffered a lot, specially after he was
condemned to death in 1994. The death was stayed and then upheld, stayed
again and again upheld. This will no doubt cause trauma," Bagchi said.
Chatterjee's lawyers would cite a 1983 judgement in the Sher Singh vs
Punjab government case in which the convict's death sentence was commuted
to a life term because his hanging had been delayed by 2 years.
(source: India News)
***********************
Hetal's classmates demand death penalty
At the Welland Gouldsmith school where Hetal Parekh studied, her old
friends joined students to pray for her soul.
Among them was Shala Hasan, who used to walk home with Hetal everyday.
"Whenever I think of her, I feel a shiver down my spine," says Hasan.
Shala is among 20 of Hetal's classmates who have signed a letter addressed
to the President asking him not to pardon Dhananjoy Chatterjee, who
murdered and raped Hetal.
"Dhananjoy has to die not only for his own crime but for everyone who
feels they can get away with crimes like this," says Shweta Pachhesa,
Hetal's batchmate.
While in the rest of the country, the debate over capital punishment
continues, here in the Welland Gouldsmith school, the issue has been
decided.
There can be no mercy for the Dhananjoys of the world, who show their
victims no mercy.
(source: NDTV News)
