March 22
SAUDI ARABIA----execution
Saudis execute man for murder, rape:
A Saudi national was beheaded in Saudi Arabia Monday for killing a
compatriot and raping several women.
An Interior Ministry statement said the execution, approved by an Islamic
court in line with Sharia (Islamic) law, took place in the early morning
in the main square of the western city of Taif.
6 Filipino men were beheaded earlier this month for killing a person
during a robbery.
Monday's execution brought to 29 the number of people put to death so far
this year in the kingdom.
Last year, Saudi Arabia executed 35 people, while 52 were beheaded by the
state during 2003.
(source: Kerala News)
BULGARIA/LIBYA:
Court Postpones Bulgarians' Torture Case Against Libyan Officers
5 Bulgarian nurses, whom Libya has sentenced to death on charges of
causing an AIDS outbreak, are suing it for 5 million dinars because of
torture they have been submitted to during the preliminary investigation,
an official said Tuesday.
The court in Tripoli postponed the case for Apr. 26 to let defense lawyers
study the evidence in it, Bulgaria's Deputy Foreign Minister Gergana
Grancharova said.
Seven of a total of 10 Libyan security officers, accused of torturing the
medics reported to the court on Tuesday, she said.
Diplomats from Bulgaria, the United States, Canada, Britain, Switzerland,
the Czech Republic and Greece were present at the courtroom, Grancharova
said.
A court in the city of Benghazi sentenced the nurses and a Palestinian
doctor to a firing squad last May 6 after convicting them of deliberately
injecting more than 400 Libyan children at a local hospital with blood
contaminated with the HIV virus that causes AIDS.
The medics are now appealing their verdict at Libya's Supreme Court in
Tripoli, which is expected to look into their case on March 29.
The Benghazi court ignored testimony by international AIDS experts, who
said the HIV contagion started because of bad hygiene at the hospital some
four years before it hired the medics in 1998.
2 of the nurses have told the court Libyan security officers beat, raped
and jolted them during preliminary interrogations to extort confessions of
guilt on which the court based its verdict.
Bulgaria has won wide international support for its efforts to persuade
Libya reverse the convictions and to free the medics.
(source: Bulgarian News Network)
INDIA----new death sentence
Man given death penalty for murdering wife, kids
A Mumbai court today awarded the death sentence to man 2 years after he
killed his sleeping wife and 3 children.
Calling it the rarest of rare cases, the sessions court handed down the
death penalty to Amarjeet Singh Gujral.
"They were innocent people who were sleeping at night and were murdered in
a gruesome and brutal manner. So we pleaded that it was the rarest of rare
cases, which deserved the death penalty," said Dilip Shah, prosecutor.
In 2003, Gujral burnt to death his wife and 3 children and escaped with
around Rs eight lakh.
Investigations revealed that Gujral was in financial trouble and that he
was jealous of his wife's prospering catering business. It was this
jealousy that drove him to commit the murders.
The defence now plans to move the Bombay High Court against the sentence.
(source: NDTV.com)
