July 28
POLAND:
Death sentence for 'meat scandal' annulled 40 years after man hanged
Yesterday the Supreme Court decided that the executed death penalty and 4
life sentences passed 40 years ago in so called 'meat scandal' were a
heavy violation of law.
"This is a rehabilitation of the Polish administration of justice," said
judge Stanislaw Zablock, justifying the verdict. In 1965 10 people were
charged with taking bribes from butchers shop managers. Stanislaw
Wawrzecki, the then head of the Warsaw Miejski Handel Miesem, was hanged
for taking 3.5 million old zloty. After 40 years the appeal was made by
the Public Interest Ombudsman to annul the verdict at the request of the
families of the accused. After the trial Stanislaw Wawrzecki's son Pawel
Wawrzecki said: "It was a judicial crime, which should be dealt with in
the Institute of National Remembrance."
(source: Warsaw Business Journal)
SOUTH KOREA:
Anti-Death Penalty Activist Volunteers to Defend Serial Killer
A lawyer that is engaged in the movement to abolish capital punishment has
volunteered to defend suspected serial killer Yoo Young-chul for free.
The Seoul Central Prosecution said Wednesday that, "Lawyer Cha Hyung-keun,
secretary general of the Korean Capital Punishment Abolishment Movement,
visited and talked with Yoo for an hour and a half, but Yoo has not yet
expressed his clear intention to designate Cha as his lawyer, so Cha is
not his official lawyer yet."
Cha said, "Yoo has not opened his mind yet, so I could not have a serious
conversation with him. He is suspicious that I may have volunteered to
defend him to become famous, but I will keep trying to persuade him to
designate me as his lawyer."
(source: Chosun Ilbo)
JAPAN:
Failed appeal keeps cult's subway gas killers on Death Row
2 AUM Shinrikyo doomsday cult members who let loose lethal sarin gas on
the Tokyo subway system in 1995, killing 12 and sickening thousands, will
remain on death row after the Tokyo High Court rejected their appeals on
Wednesday.
Presiding Judge Shingo Takahashi threw out appeals against the death
sentences the Tokyo District Court had handed to AUM cultists Kenichi
Hirose and Toru Toyoda, condemning them to the gallows for letting loose
the deadly sarin gas.
Sugimoto also upheld a life sentence handed out to Shigeo Sugimoto, who
drove the getaway car for the cultists who gassed the subway system.
"Your crimes were among the vilest and extremist in history. You blindly
obeyed the orders of your guru and acted with only the interests of the
cult and guru in mind," Takahashi told all three defendants as he read out
the ruling. "Even giving great consideration to the deep remorse you have
expressed, the penalty handed out by the district court cannot be
considered harsh."
So far, 8 AUM members have received the death sentence for their part in
the series of crimes perpetrated by the cult.
Lawyers for the 36-year-old Toyoda and 40-year-old Hirose had argued
during their district court trial that the pair had been brainwashed by
cult guru, Shoko Asahara, who is also on death row for masterminding the
attack. The court, however, ruled that the pair had acted of their own
will and condemned them to death. They appealed against the sentence.
Sugimoto, meanwhile, had argued that he was little more than an accessory
to the gas attacks and that a life sentence was too harsh. But the court
ruled that he had been an active and vital cog in the AUM killing machine,
a view on which the high court concurred.
(source: Mainichi Shimbun)
