death penalty news May 19, 2005
INDIA: 3RD LD DARA Faced with death penalty for the gruesome murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, Dara Singh got a reprieve today with Orissa High Court commuting his sentence to life imprisonment while acquitting 11 others convicted earlier. A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Sujit Barman Roy and Justice Laxmikanta Mohapatra set aside the verdict of the trial court to award Dara life sentence and acquit 11 others who had been sentenced to life terms in the case that caused worldwide outrage over six years ago. In their 106-page verdict, the judges held that there was absolutely no evidence on record that due to individual act of Dara Singh alone the three persons or any of them died. Pointing out that Dara had been convicted under section 302 of IPC, the court said no particular fatal injury to any of the deceased had been attributed to him. "Therefore, for the murder of the three deceased persons, Dara cannot be held individually liable though he can be held liabile vicariously along with others by invoking section 149 of IPC," the judgement said. The court, however, confirmed the life sentence handed to Mahendra Hembram who had confessed during the trial that he alone was responsible for the carnage. Australian missionary Staines, who ran a leprosy home at Baripada, and his two minor sons Philip and Timothy were charred to death when the station wagon in which they were asleep was set ablaze by a mob on the night of January 22, 1999 at Manoharpur in Keonjhar district. The court, in its judgement, said the eyewitnesses never attributed any particular fatal injury to Dara for which he could be individually held responsible for the deaths. "Evidence against all the participants including Dara being of identifical nature, they were all equally responsible for the three murders," it said adding "therefore, no justification is available from the evidence on record to single out Dara for convicting him under section 302 of IPC." The court upheld the conviction of Dara and Mahendra Hembram under sections 148, 435/149, 436/149 and 302/149 IPC and sentences passed against them in respect of such convictions. All the 13 persons convicted by the trial court had gone to the high court on appeal against the verdict of the trial court, the sessions court, Khurda, pronounced on September 22, 2003. "However, convictions and sentences of remaining appellants under sections 148, 435/149, 436/149 and 302/149 of IPC cannot be sustained as there is no reliable evidence on record as regards their identification," the judgement said. The 11 convicts who were acquitted by the court were Umakanta Bhoi, Dayanidhi Patra, Kartik Lohar, Rabi Soren, Mahadeb Mahanta, Thuram Ho, Renta Hembram, Ojen Hansda, Suratha Nayak, Harish Mahanta and Dipu alias Rajat Kumar Das. The prosecution case with regard to the charges against the 11 had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt in so far as their identification was concerned, it said adding their convictions and sentences on the aforesaid charges could not be sustained. (source: Outlook India) --------------- India court lifts death penalty in missionary murder An Indian court on Thursday cancelled the death sentence handed to a Hindu extremist for the killing of an Australian missionary and his two sons six years ago, and instead ordered life imprisonment, lawyers said. The high court of the eastern Indian state of Orissa also acquitted 11 people sentenced to a life term by a lower court for burning alive Graham Staines and his two children in a remote village in the state. Judges Sujit Burmon Roy and Laxmikant Mohapatra gave no reason for commuting the death sentence on Dara Singh and the acquittal of the others. The judges retained the life sentence on another man convicted of involvement in the killings in 1999. "The court only read out the conclusion of the verdict," S.K. Padhi, lawyer for the prosecution, told Reuters, adding copies of the court order would be available later. A mob attacked Staines and his sons Philip, 10, and Timothy, 6, as they slept in their jeep in a remote village in Orissa. They torched the vehicle and killed all three. Singh pleaded innocent and appealed against the lower court's decision to hang him and sentence 12 other men to life imprisonment. "It's a welcome judgement" said his lawyer Bramhananda Panda about Thursday's decision. The Staines' killings followed a wave of attacks on Christians blamed on Hindu radicals fighting conversions, and underscored tension between India's Hindu majority and religious minorities. Staines' widow Gladys and her daughter, Esther, stayed on in India after the deaths and opened the Graham Staines Memorial Hospital for lepers in India in 2004 but have since returned to Australia. The widow said she had forgiven the killers. The Indian government conferred one of its top civilian awards on Gladys Staines in March this year for her work in Orissa. Graham Staines' brother John Staines told Reuters in Brisbane on Thursday that he had opposed the death penalty for Singh. "I didn't want to see Dara Singh executed. As far as the others being acquitted, there is one true judge and that is God. No matter what we do in this life if we don't fulfill the things that God wants us to fulfill, or if we go against his word, then the punishment comes at the end." (source: Reuters)
