August 19
SAUDI ARABIA----executions
3 convicts executed in Saudi
Saudi authorities Thursday beheaded three men convicted of sodomizing a
child and drinking alcohol during the holy month of Ramadan.
An interior ministry statement said the 3 were executed in the southern
city of Assir.
"The 3 were convicted of kidnapping a young boy and taking him to the
desert where they got drunk and sodomized their kidnap-victim," the
statement said.
Thursday's triple executions raised to 12 the number of convicts put to
death in Saudi Arabia this year.
Executions are held in public for those who are convicted of murder, rape,
armed robbery and drug trafficking.
(source: United Press International)
INDIA:
Bhopal gas victims demand death penalty for defaulters
Victims of Bhopal gas tragedy here have demanded that the owners of the
U.S. multinational Union Carbide be brought to book.
Dozens of victims, carrying placards and shouting slogans, protested on
Thursday against the government's failure to punish the guilty even after
nearly 2 decades.
Protesters also burnt an effigy of former Union Carbide chairman Warren
Anderson. "We want him to be extradited and produced in Bhopal court. We
will continue our fight until Anderson is brought to Bhopal," said
Rampyari Bai, a victim.
In December 1984, tonnes of a toxic gas leaked from a pesticide plant
owned by Union Carbide killing 3800 people and thousands grossly affected.
Union Carbide, now owned by Dow Chemical Co., paid 470 million dollars in
compensation to residents in 1989, but only some of that amount has been
distributed.
The Supreme Court had last month ordered the government to pay the
remaining 15.03 billion rupees due to victims of the tragedy.
(source: WebIndia123.com)
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Death penalty debate shrills after new judgment
Debate on the death penalty in India has thickened after the country's
Supreme Court repealed the death sentence on a rapist-murderer, days after
another man was hanged to death for the same crime.
Less than a week after Dhananjoy Chatterjee was executed for the rape and
murder of 14-year-old Hetal Parekh, the court modified the sentence of
Rahul, accused of violating and then slitting the throat of a 4-year-old
girl in Pune, from death to life imprisonment.
"One expects consistency from the highest court in the land," said Anand
Chakravarti, professor of sociology at Delhi University. "The confusion of
judgment in apparently identical cases affects the credibility of the
courts."
Chatterjee was executed in Kolkata after more than a decade-long legal
battle in several courts and after he was refused the presidential pardon
twice.
Even after the pardon appeal was refused for the 2nd time, his lawyers
went to the Supreme Court pleading that the accused had already spent 13
years on death row. A life sentence in India is for 14 years. The Supreme
Court refused to modify the judgment.
"The judiciary would probably have been lynched if they modified
Dhananjoy's sentence," said Supreme Court lawyer Meenakshi Rani.
"There was a huge public pressure and mass hysteria against Dhananjoy
Chatterjee. Also the fact that his appeals for presidential pardon had
been rejected meant that his case for repeal of judgment was weak."
Rahul's lawyers argued that his case was not "the rarest of rare cases"
where the death penalty is given, that he was drunk during the crime and
was only 24 years old at the time (1999) and had no previous criminal
record.
Many say these issues ring true about Chatterjee too. "The definition of
rarest of rare seems to be a little vague," said Mrinmoyee Ghosh, a former
telecommunications executive.
"Why is Dhananjoy's crime rarest of rare and Rahul's not? Rahul actually
killed a much younger girl. And as far as I know, even he (Dhananjoy)
didn't have any previous criminal record."
Activists against the death sentence argue that irrespective of the crime,
no one should be executed.
"In the modern world, the death sentence is a grisly reminder of the
barbarian within us," said Priyanka Sinha, one of those who held candle
vigils outside Chatterjee's jail in Kolkata.
"It in no way is a deterrent for crime. We've had it for so long - has
crime stopped? No. It has just surged."
(source: Kerala News)
