Oct. 15
CHINA:
'China re-affirms death sentence for 2 Nepalese'
Rejecting a campaign by rights activists to spare the lives of 2 Nepalese
sentenced to death in May for drug trafficking, the Chinese government has
re-affirmed the sentence after a re-trial, a media report said Friday.
Ishwori Kumar Shrestha, 27, and Rabi Dahal, 38, 2 small-time Nepalese
businessmen who travelled regularly to China, were arrested in the Tibetan
border town of Khasa May 30 last year after Chinese police reportedly
found two sacks containing 29.85 kg of heroin in their possession.
It was described by Chinese media as the largest heroin haul.
In May this year, a court in the Tibet Autonomous Region sentenced the 2
men to death. A third Nepalese, Rewat Kumar Dahal, said to be involved in
the smuggling, was given a lengthy jail term.
On Friday, the Nepalese government-run daily Rising Nepal reported the
affirmation of the death sentence for Shrestha and Rabi Dahal.
Quoting a report by China News agency Thursday, it said Rewat Kumar Dahal
had been sentenced to jail for 15 years.
Rising Nepal said one of the 2 men sentenced to death had been given a
"suspended sentence for 2 years, an indication that he will have his
sentence reduced to life imprisonment".
However, it did not indicate which of the 2 on death row had received the
suspended sentence.
The case hit the headlines in July when Shrestha's wife Purnamaya came to
Kathmandu with her 2 minor sons, petitioning rights organisations and the
Chinese embassy to free her husband. She claimed he was innocent.
Her cause was taken up by international rights body Amnesty International,
which asked the Chinese government to put an end to all death sentences,
calling the country's judicial system flawed.
The spate of global publicity the case generated finally led to a
statement from the Chinese embassy, saying a retrial would be held.
However, Beijing warned that China would not tolerate using the retrial as
a pretext to attack the Chinese judicial system.
Officials of the Nepalese foreign ministry were not immediately available
for comments.
(source: Indo-Asian News Service)
*********************
Actor's kidnappers get death penalty
3 criminals who kidnapped famous Chinese actor Wu Ruofu and another
people, were sentenced to death Thursday by the Beijing No 2 Intermediate
People's Court.
The 3 - Wang Lihua, Wang Qingxiao and Dong Limin - were found guilty of
kidnapping and the illegal trading and possession of firearms and
ammunition, according to the presiding judge Xu Jing.
Wang Lihua, Wang Qingxiao and Dong Limin murdered hostage Wang Hui last
year after receiving the 3 million yuan (US$362,000) ransom, according to
the court.
The 3 were required by the court to pay 100,000 yuan (US$12,100) to
victim's family for living, funeral and transportation expenses.
Seven other criminals in the same gang received sentences of life
imprisonment and up to 15 years.
Wu Ruofu's kidnapping in February shocked the public.
Wang Lihua, Zhu Pingquan and Guo Lixin, in the guise of policemen,
kidnapped Wu at the gate of a bar in Beijing's Chaoyang District.
After being taken to Shunyi District, Wu was robbed of 9,000 yuan
(US$1,100) and a mobile phone.
After handing Wu to Wang Qingxiao, Wang Lihua, Zhu Pingquan and Guo Lixin
robbed Wu's home of a video camera and a bankbook containing 2.1 million
yuan (US$254,000).
Local police seized the 3 kidnappers on the same day and freed Wu and
another hostage.
The criminal gang kidnapped and killed Wang Hui in July 2003.
(source: China Daily)
IRAN:
Iran's 'vampire of the desert' faces death penalty after murdering 17
children in brickwork slums
An Iranian man known as the "vampire of the desert" was facing the death
sentence yesterday following the gruesome murders of 17 children and 3
adults in the slums of Pakdasht, near the capital, Tehran.
Relatives of the victims greeted the verdict by throwing chairs at the
defendants as the court heard that Mohammed Bijeh, 30, raped many of the
children before strangling or bludgeoning them to death.
The accused was handed 16 life sentences and his accomplice, Ali Baghi, a
24-year-old heroin addict, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Four families accepted blood money for the crimes instead of demanding the
death penalty but a further death sentence was added for rape.
The condemned pair had earlier explained how they slaughtered animals and
left their carcasses near the shallow graves to disguise the smell of
rotting flesh.
Many victims were the children of Afghans, whose families did not report
them missing for fear of repatriation. Other residents of the small
industrial community a few kilometres south east of Tehran are ethnic
Kurds, who recently migrated to the capital from the villages in eastern
Iran to where their ancestors were forcibly resettled 300 years ago.
Pakdasht inhabitants said they were not afforded the full protection of
the law because of their poverty and ethnicity. The brickworks and slums
are separated from working class southern Tehran by a low line of jagged
hills. The tall chimneys of the kilns spout plumes of dark smoke into the
air, which is so polluted that pine trees are turning brown.
The murders began more than two years ago, but local people said the
police failed to investigate strenuously enough. The government and
judiciary have now opened inquiries into the handling of the case. Bijeh
was at one point held for several months. After his release he killed 7
more times.
The case has also prompted a debate about the city slums and the
subculture of poverty, drug addiction and crime that has flourished there.
There have been newspaper reports of a new plan to organise better the
slums, but many local people have heard it all before.
"The police do not look after us," said an Afghan woman living a stone's
throw from where some bodies were found. "Only God will help us." The
killers grew up surrounded by the poverty of the area, where children
sometimes start working as soon as they can press mud into brick moulds.
Bijeh's family moved to the capital city from Khorasan province, near the
borders with Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, when he was 11. The oldest of 7
children, he soon stopped attending school to work in the brickworks.
According to the media, he was often beaten by his mother and said the
sight of blood made him "euphoric".
The three squalid rooms where his family lived are now deserted. The panes
of glass in the doors have been broken by angry neighbours, revealing
bare-plaster walls, brightened by plastic flowers and exuding a smell of
damp. When the police caught him, Bijeh was said to be watching children
swimming in a canal.
Bijeh used to sit in front of his house and look out over the brickworks,
said a neighbour. Nearby, beyond the pink, football pitch-sized
depression, were the slums where most of the murdered children lived. On
the ground was a plastic doll's head. Mohammed confessed that he planned
his crimes while looking out over this view.
"Mohammed Bijeh used to walk by here and drink water from our tap," said a
woman from one of the Afghan families living in a small brick shack close
to where some bodies were discovered. Small children were playing in the
mud close by. "Sometimes we saw him carrying sacks but we never imagined
there was anything bad happening."
Between his observation post and a lime pit, where some of the bodies were
found, was a small brick bird coop to where Bijeh allegedly lured children
with stories of performing doves. Iranian newspapers said that other
youngsters were attracted by the promise of digging rabbits and foxes from
their desert burrows.
The brickworks were shut down and the owner was sent to prison on vague
charges connected to the case. Men, women and children worked all day here
filling brick moulds with mud and drying them out before firing them in
the kilns.
A family would earn only a few pounds a week, roughly 2 for every thousand
bricks they made in exhausting and unhealthy conditions.
In the distance is the Ghiamshahr slum where Bijeh's accomplice, Baghi,
lived. Newspapers said the younger man was sexually abused by his father
and other men when he was a child.
He had been one of Iran's 1.2 million heroin addicts for several years and
claimed that his feelings of guilt were buried beneath the constant pangs
of addiction. Bijeh said in court that Baghi was reluctant to join him at
first and only helped after being threatened.
Asked if he was sorry for the crimes, Bijeh reportedly shook his head with
indifference.
In Iran, most death sentences are carried out shortly after they are
passed. Typically, the condemned are hanged early in the morning.
Particularly notorious criminals are sometimes executed in public and at
the site of their crime.
(source: The (UK) Independent)
INDONESIA:
Bashir formally charged with terror
Indonesian prosecutors today formally charged militant cleric Abu Bakar
Bashir with terrorism, accusing him of ordering his followers to launch
the suicide attack on the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta last year.
The trial of the 68-year-old cleric could start within weeks. He is
charged under the country's anti-terror law which allows for the death
sentence.
Prosecutors earlier said Bashir would be charged with heading Jemaah
Islamiah, the al-Qaeda linked group blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings,
which killed 202 people including 88 Australians.
It was unclear whether this had been included in a dossier on the case
that was filed in a Jakarta court.
As well as the Bali attack, JI has been blamed for the Marriott attack,
which killed 12, and last month's bomb at the Australian Embassy in
Jakarta in which 9 people died.
Bashir, who was in jail at the time of the Marriott attack, denies any
wrongdoing, and says he is being targeted for his campaign to introduce
Islamic law in Indonesia.
"Bashir is charged with motivating or ordering people to take part in
terrorism, in this case related to the JW Marriott bombing," prosecutor
Andi Herman said after filing a 65-page charge sheet against Bashir with
South Jakarta District Court.
Herman also said Bashir would be charged with storing explosives in
connection with a massive seizure of bomb-making materials last year in
Central Java province.
Washington and other foreign governments accuse Bashir of heading JI, and
efforts to convict him are being monitored closely outside Indonesia, the
world's most populous Muslim nation.
A previous attempt to convict Bashir failed.
In 2002, an Indonesian court cleared Bashir of terror charges, but
sentenced him to 18 months in jail for minor immigration violations. He
was re-arrested in April immediately after serving his sentence.
Bashir's lawyer, Wirawan Adnan, insisted that prosecutors "really don't
have a case," but nevertheless feared his client would be found guilty.
"He has a good alibi. He was in jail when this happened," he said. "But I
don't think we'll win this case. He'll be in jail forever."
Authorities dropped plans to charge Bashir in connection with the Bali
attacks, after the country's top court ruled earlier this year that the
retroactive application of the anti-terror law was unconstitutional.
Bashir has little active support in Indonesia.
But some fellow clerics and ordinary Indonesians are sympathetic to his
plight amid allegations that he is a victim of American pressure on
Indonesia to crack down on terror.
(source: Associated Press)
INDIA:
After death row, Dec 13 accused penalised
Mohammad Afzal and Shukat Hussain Guru, sentenced to death in connection
with the Parliament attack case, have been asked to pay penalties
amounting to Rs 5.4 crore.
Directorate of Enforcement, Delhi, penalised them after finding them
guilty of dealing in hawala money and violating the Foreign Exchange
Management Act 1999 (Fema).
After a court in January 2002 granted permission for Afzal and his cousin
Guru's interrogation under provisions of Fema, a complaint was filed by
the assistant director, Directorate of Enforcement before the deputy
director.
Following this, the deputy director issued a show cause notice for
contravention of Fema's section 3.
While Guru requested the case be heard on the basis of arguments and
material provided during the trial at Patiala House court, Afzal did not
want to state anything on the show cause notice.
>From evidence, it was found that Afzal admitted to have collected Rs 70
lakh of hawala money. Out of this, he had delivered Rs 60 lakh to
militants.
Guru also received Rs 30 lakh. This amount was sent to militant outfits
from Dubai.
(source: Hindustan Times)
