Jan. 20
AUSTRIA:
Death penalty foes in Austria blast execution in California
Activists in Arnold Schwarzeneggers country of birth demonstrated outside
the U.S. Embassy in Vienna on Wednesday to protest the California
governors decision to allow the states 1st execution in 3 years.
About a half-dozen protesters stood in the snow outside the embassy
holding signs that read, "Schwarzenegger Terminates in Real Life," "Death
Penalty State Murder" and "No to the Death Penalty."
"State-sponsored murder can never be the right answer to a capital crime,"
the Vienna chapter of Amnesty International said in a statement urging
Austrians to write letters of protest to Schwarzeneggers office.
"The death penalty is the most inhuman of all punishments," it said.
Early Wednesday, a man convicted of killing 2 women over a drug deal
almost a quarter-century ago was executed, becoming the 1st inmate put to
death by California in three years. Donald Beardslee, 61, was given a
lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison north of San Francisco.
The execution came hours after Schwarzenegger rejected a clemency petition
seeking to commute the death sentence to life without parole, and the
Supreme Court rejected 2 last-minute appeals.
The Austrian-born Schwarzenegger remains popular in his homeland, but
opponents of capital punishment have staged several protests in recent
months denouncing his support of the death penalty in California. The
latest execution was the top story on Austrian state television Wednesday
morning. Capital punishment is illegal in Austria.
Kurt Flecker, a top official in the southern province of Styria where
Schwarzenegger was born, issued a statement blasting "the moral and
ethical shortcomings of the bodybuilder and actor" for refusing to pardon
Beardslee. He said the governor showed "a contempt for human life."
In October, activists scaled the roof of a soccer stadium named for
Schwarzenegger in the southern city of Graz, near the governors
birthplace, and unfurled a banner covering his name with the word
"Mankiller."
(source: Associated Press)
CHINA----execution
China Executes Killer in School Attack
A 21-year-old man who broke into a high school dormitory and stabbed 9
Chinese boys to death has been executed, less than 2 months after the
attack, the government said Thursday.
Yan Yanming was put to death Tuesday in the central province of Henan,
where he was convicted of attacking the boys on Nov. 25 in the city of
Ruzhou, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
The trial and execution were unusually swift for Chinese courts, and might
have been expedited in an effort to reassure the public amid a series of
such knife attacks at Chinese schools.
Yan's mother turned him in to police after he attempted suicide on the day
following the attack, according to earlier reports. The agency said Yan
confessed and said he slashed the students out of hatred.
The ordeal was the 4th knife attack reported at a Chinese school or day
care center in as many months. The earlier assaults left one child dead
and 42 people injured.
The earlier violence prompted Chinese President Hu Jintao to issue a
nationwide order in September for schools to hire guards and tighten
security. It wasn't clear whether those new measures were in place at the
school in Ruzhou.
The reason for the surge in knife attacks isn't clear. They have taken
place in areas throughout China and involve attackers from different
backgrounds.
In the November attack, police said Yan broke into the school dormitory at
11:45 p.m. on a Thursday night. The government-run China News Service
cited a survivor who quoted Yan as saying, "Don't blame me."
Ruzhou, a city of 920,000 people, is located about 450 miles southwest of
Beijing in Henan province, southwest of the giant industrial city of
Zhengzhou.
Just before the attack there, a court executed a man who slashed 25
children with a kitchen knife in September at a grade school in eastern
China. Though no one was killed, a court ruled that the penalty was
justified because the violence was "especially cruel."
Police said that attacker had a grudge against the parent of a student at
the school.
In August, a man with a history of schizophrenia killed a student and
slashed 14 children and three teachers at a Beijing kindergarten.
In September, a man armed with a knife, gasoline and homemade explosives
broke into a day-care center in the eastern city of Suzhou and slashed 28
children before police stopped him. Police haven't disclosed a possible
motive.
(source: Associated Press)
INDIA:
SC commutes Mallah's death penalty to lifer
The Supreme Court today commuted into life imprisonment the death penalty
awarded by the tial court to Paltan Mallah, prime accused in the 1991
sensational murder case of trade union leader Shankar Guha Niyogi.
A bench of justices K G Balakrishnan and A R Lakshamanan however, upheld a
judgement of the Madhya Pradesh High Court acquitting the remaining 5
accused in the case.
The Court said that since there has been a long gap between the murder of
Niyogi and the final verdict in the case it would not be safe to sustain
the death penalty awarded to Paltan Mallah by the High Court.
The trial court had convicted all the accused and had awarded death
penalty to Paltan Mallah and life imprisonment to the remaining 5 accused
in te case.
In the later half of 1980's Niyogi had started a major agitation against
industrialists in Bhilai including Simplex Industries, demanding
regularisation of services of the workers and payment of minimum wages Due
to rivalry with the inudstrialists, the prosecution had alleged that a
conspiracy was hatched by them to eliminate the trade union leader. The
industrialists hired a killer who fired bullets at Niyogi on the night of
27-28 September, 1991 killing him on the spot.
As the murder evoked a serious controversy the Madhya Pradesh government
had referred the matter to the CBI for investigation.
The trial court on June 23, 1997 had convicted the hired killer and
sentenced him to death penalty. The owners of Simplex Industries were also
convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the case.
However, on appeal the Madhya Pradesh High Court allowed the appeal filed
by the accused and acquitted all of them observing that there was not
enough evidece to prove the charge of murder against them beyond
reasonable doubt.
Appeals by the CBI and Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha were filed in the apex
court against the High Court verdict.
While disposing off appeals filed by the CBI and the Chhattisgarh Mukti
Morcha the Supreme Court upheld the judgement of the High Court in case of
5 accused but set aside the High Court order acqutting Paltan Mallah in
the case.
The Court commuted his death penalty in the case into life imprisoment.
(source: UNI)
