August 28
JAPAN:
Death penalty sought in murder for insurance case
Prosecutors demanded the death penalty Friday for a former company
president accused of killing his stepfather and wife for life insurance
money.
In their closing argument at the Hiroshima District Court, prosecutors
said Kiyotaka Oyama, 43, "planned how to spend insurance money even before
the death of his stepfather, which is disgustingly inhumane. He is
completely beyond being reformed."
(source: Kyodo News)
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High court refuses retrial for ex-boxer on death row
The Tokyo High Court on Friday rejected a plea for retrial by a former
boxer who has been on death row since 1980 for killing 4 members of a
family.
The court said there was not enough "fresh and clear" evidence to retry
the 1966 murder case.
Iwao Hakamada, 68, was convicted of killing an executive of a soybean
paste company in Shimizu, Shizuoka Prefecture, and 3 family members.
Hakamada's sentence was finalized in 1980 by the Supreme Court and he has
lived on death row ever since.
The victims' bodies were badly charred and bore multiple stab wounds when
they were found inside the torched home.
Although Hakamada initially confessed to involvement in the crime, he
consistently pleaded innocent during trial hearings at the Shizuoka
District Court and subsequent appeals to the Tokyo High Court and the
Supreme Court.
In 1981, Hakamada applied to the Shizuoka District Court for a retrial.
The plea was rejected in August 1994.
In upholding the original Shizuoka District Court decision, Presiding
Judge Fumio Yasuhiro commented Friday: "There is no rationale to doubt the
guilty ruling."
Hakamada's defense team now plans to take the case to the Supreme Court.
The so-called Hakamada Incident occurred June 30, 1966.
Hakamada, a former professional boxer, then an employee at the bean paste
factory, was arrested in August.
5 items of clothing, including blood-soaked pants and a shirt, were
discovered in a tank at the bean paste factory a year after he was
indicted on murder charges.
As similar scraps of cloth had been found in Hakamada's home, the Shizuoka
District Court ruled there was sufficient evidence to convict him. Higher
courts supported the decision.
Previously, only 4 death-row inmates have won retrials. In each case, they
were acquitted of all charges and freed.
No new retrials have been allowed since 1986.
In filing for a retrial, Hakamada's defense lawyers claimed the items of
clothing had been planted to fabricate evidence.
The Tokyo High Court rejected the defense claim, calling it "nothing more
than abstract hypothesis."
Defense lawyers submitted various specialist opinions. One expert said the
"the blood stains were unnatural" and that the "pants were too small for
Hakamada" to have worn.
The court, however, found no reason to admit new evidence.
Defense lawyers also said Hakamada's confession was made under police
duress.
But the court concluded his confession "merely verified" the decision that
he was indeed guilty of the crime.
Blood stains that offered hope of "new evidence" proved too old for DNA
testing.
Hakamada has sat on death row for 24 years. He now refuses to meet with
family members nor does he bother to meet with his defense lawyers,
causing much anguish among his supporters about his state of mind.
Winning court approval for a retrial had only been granted in exceptional
cases until 1975, when, in a historic ruling, the Supreme Court indicated
that lower courts must give the defendant the benefit of doubt before
agreeing to a retrial.
(source: Asahi Shimbun)
MALAYSIA:
Nurul Huda's murderer gets death sentence
The High Court (in Johor Bahru) Friday sentenced former security guard
Mohd Abbas Danus Baksan, 47, to death by hanging after finding him guilty
of murdering 10-year-old Nurul Huda Abdul Ghani on Jan 17 this year.
Mohd Abbas, who on Jan 26 was convicted by the Sessions Court here of
raping Nurul Huda and sentenced to the maximum 20 years jail and 24
strokes of the rotan, did not show any emotion when the death sentenced
was passed and translated to him into Tamil by a court interpreter.
Mohd Abbas from Bidor, Perak, was charged under Section 302 of the Penal
Code, which carries a mandatory death sentence, for murdering the Year
Four student at a Tenaga Nasional guardhouse at Kampung Pekajang in
Tanjung Kupang, near here between 9.20 am and 1 pm.
Judicial Commissioner K.P Gengadharan in finding the accussed guilty said
Mohd Abbas who chose to make his defence statement from the witness stand
on Friday had tried to tailor his defence.
"But the end result of the statement was a mere denial not supported by
any evidence," he said of the accused's denial that he did not strangle
the deceased but blamed it on 2 other men.
In his statement, Mohd Abbas said the 2 men were Suyaimi Mohd Zain or
"Ngengel" and another, "Jojo".
In passing sentence, Gengadharan said, "I am satisfied that the accused
had failed to raise a reasonable doubt against the prosecution's case.
"I hereby find him guilty and convict him as charged ... the only sentence
that I am allowed to pass is the death sentence. I direct the accused to
be hanged by the neck till his death."
A group of Nurul Huda's relatives who had been waiting since 2 pm inside
the packed courtroom seemed happy with the verdict but avoided meeting the
press.
However, Lawyer Mohamed Zaini Mazlan who did a watching brief for the
family told reporters that the family thanked the court and the police for
giving urgency to the case.
Defence counsel, Haniff Hassan who was appointed by the court, said that
with the death sentence Mohd Abbas would automatically be entitled to
appeal but without involving him as defence counsel.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Abdul Rasid Sudin submitted earlier that the
death sentence was the only appropriate sentence for the accused who had
nine previous convictions, including raping Nurul Huda, house-breaking and
armed robberies.
During the 21-day trial, 26 witnesses were called to testify and 29
exhibits were tendered in court.
(source: Utusan)
INDIA:
Hang the death sentence ----With malice towards one and all
I endorsed a petition addressed to the president asking that Dhananjoy
Chatterjees sentence of death be commuted to life imprisonment. I believe
taking lives of criminals is medieval and barbaric. We should have
abolished the death penalty when we became independent and found
alternative ways of punishing criminals, however heinous their offences.
None of our governments had the courage to amend our criminal laws and
prescribe penalties that would fit the crime. It is no longer an eye for
an eye and a murder for a murder. Hanging murderers amounts to murder by
the State.
In the case of Dhananjoy, his appeals were dismissed by the Calcutta High
Court, the Supreme Court and a plea for mercy was rejected by the
president. So after 14 years of imprisonment he was led to the gallows. I
am inclined to agree with him when he said that if he had been rich or
influential, his fate might have been different.
So what changes should we make in our code of penalties so that they prove
to be deterrents? The death penalty doesnt deter people from committing
murder. I suggest proven murderers should have all their personal property
confiscated and given to the family of their victims. They should be
sentenced to hard labour for the rest of their lives. For rape, neither
death nor imprisonment will prove a deterrent. I have said before and will
repeat ad nauseam: the perpetrator of rape should be first flogged in
public and then castrated.
(source: Opinion, Khushwant Singh, Hindustan Times)
