Oct. 22
ETHIOPIA:
Ethiopia Sentences 3 to Die in Killings
A court has sentenced 3 former rebels to death for killing dozens of
people while rebel factions jockeyed for power more than a decade ago, a
government spokesman said Thursday.
The men were convicted for killings that occurred in 1992, a year after
the ouster of dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, said Zemedkun Teckle. A 4th
man was sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing a woman.
Death sentences in Ethiopia usually are carried out by hanging. Iman Kelil
Oumar, Beyan Ahmed Ousman and Asli Ahmed, however, must stay in jail until
Ethiopia's president agrees to their executions.
Iman was found guilty Tuesday of participating in the killings of 207
people. Beyan was convicted of involvement in the murder of 205 people
while Asli was found guilty of killing 89 people, Zemedkun said.
The men were members of the now-banned Oromo Liberation Front. The group
was part of a rebel coalition that ousted Mengistu in May 1991, but later
fell out of favor with other rebel groups. The victims were killed because
the Oromo rebels suspected them of being spies.
The Oromo is the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, accounting for some 40
% of the country's estimated 67 million people.
Ethiopia's notoriously inefficient courts have convicted more than 1,000
people since 1994 for participating in abuses during and immediately after
the rule of Mengistu.
At least 6,300 await trial. More than 3,000 of them, like Mengistu, live
in exile.
(source: Associated Press)
POLAND:
Polish Lawmakers Reject Death Penalty
Polish lawmakers narrowly voted against reintroducing the death penalty
Friday, 7 years after abolishing it to meet European human rights
standards.
Parliament's lower house voted 198-194 with 14 abstentions to reject the
proposal by the center-right opposition Law and Justice party. President
Aleksander Kwasniewski has said he would veto any law restoring the death
penalty, calling it a "mistaken concept that goes against European
standards" and the teachings of Polish-born Pope John Paul II.
Friday's vote followed a series of headline-grabbing murders in Poland,
including the case of a young woman who was tortured and killed on a
train, then dumped out of the window.
The killings prompted conservative legislators in June to propose bringing
back the death penalty for murders committed with "extreme cruelty" and
with motives "deserving special condemnation."
Poland, which joined the European Union on May 1, eliminated the death
penalty in 1997 while moving to adopt EU standards. In 2000, Poland
ratified a protocol to the European Charter on Human Rights that pledges
it not to use capital punishment.
(source: Associated Press)
