Nov. 20
SRI LANKA:
Sri Lanka reactivates death penalty
Sri Lanka said on Saturday it was reactivating its dormant death penalty
for murder, rape and drug trafficking after a near 30-year lull following
the murder of a top high court judge in the capital.
"The death penalty will be effective from today for rape, murder and
narcotics dealings," President Chandrika Kumaratunga's office said in a
statement.
There have been no hangings in Sri Lanka since 1976 and while many drug
smugglers and murderers are on death row, there sentences were effectively
commuted to life in prison.
(source: Independent Online)
AFGHANISTAN:
Afghan gets death sentence for killing journalists
A court in Kabul has sentenced an Afghan man to death for killing 4
journalists, including two from the Reuters news agency.
The journalists were killed 3 years ago reportedly on the orders of a
senior Taliban commander.
National Security Court judge Abdul Baset Bakhtari on Saturday found Reza
Khan, 29, guilty for killing Reuters photographer Azizullah Haidari, 33,
Reuters Television cameraman Harry Burton, 33, Spanish journalist Julio
Fuentes of El Mundo and Italian journalist Maria Grazia Il Cutuli of
Corriere della Sera.
Khan was also found guilty of raping Cutuli and sentenced to 15 years in
prison on that charge, which he denied.
During the court hearing, Khan was convicted on separate charges of
killing his wife and of holding up a bus and cutting off the ears and
noses of four male passengers found without beards.
Capital punishment in Afghanistan is carried out by hanging, but the judge
said Khan would be allowed to appeal.
(source: ANI)
