August 20
JAPAN:
Court OKs mental checkup for Aum leader over death row appeal
Aum Shinrikyo founder Chizuo Matsumoto is fit to stand trial at his appeal
but will get a psychiatric evaluation anyway, the Tokyo High Court decided
Friday.
Matsumoto, 50, also known as Shoko Asahara, was sentenced to death by the
Tokyo District Court in February 2004 for masterminding the 1995 sarin gas
attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 12 and sickened hundreds, as
well as the slaying of a high-profile anti-Aum lawyer, his wife and infant
son, and other crimes.
The high court on Friday also turned down Matsumoto's request to halt the
ongoing court proceedings.
Tokyo High Court Presiding Judge Masaru Suda said the court's "judgment
that the defendant is fully capable of standing trial has not changed."
But the court relented on having Matsumoto evaluated, taking into
consideration a psychiatrist's opinion presented to the court by
Matsumoto's lawyers in July.
The document said, "Matsumoto is in a state of mental confusion stemming
from having been held in confinement for a long period of time."
(source: The Asahi Shimbun)
PAKISTAN:
Pak SC upholds death sentence for Indian spy -- Manjeet Singh loses last
appeal
Pakistan's Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence awarded to Manjeet
Singh, who is alleged to be an agent of Indias Research and Analysis Wing
and involved in five bomb blasts in Pakistan.
A 2-member bench comprising Justice Hamid Ali Mirza and Justice Muhammad
Nawaz Abbasi dismissed the appeals filed by Singh, state-run APP news
agency reported.
A Punjab anti-terrorism court had awarded Singh the death sentence on five
counts, upheld by the Lahore High Court. Singh then filed an appeal in the
Supreme Court.
According to the prosecution, Singh had admitted to involvement in bomb
blasts in Anarkali and Bhati Gate in Lahore, Bhawana Bazar in Faisalabad,
in Multan, and on a bus - from Lahore to Ghazi - in 1990. The defence
informed the Court that Singhs original name was Surjeet Singh and that he
was, at most, a smuggler of Indian liquor into Pakistan.
Singh was arrested at the Kasur border on August 30, 1990 when he was
reportedly leaving Pakistan, having allegedly carried out the blasts.
During interrogation, Singh said he was born in Uttar Pradesh and lived
near Agra till he left in 1972, and settled in Amritsar, the report said.
According to his "confession," he joined the Indian military intelligence
in 1987, and was assigned tasks in Pakistan. Soon, he became a permanent
RAW agent, in which capacity he went to Pakistan 14 times.
(source: The Indian Times)
IRAQ:
Envoy urges Iraq to reconsider death penalty
The United Nations' special envoy urged Iraq on Saturday to reconsider
carrying out the first executions since the 2003 overthrow of former
dictator Saddam Hussein.
Ashraf Qazi, special representative of UN secretary general Kofi Annan,
said he "deeply regrets" the decision of an Iraqi government "in the
process of transition" to reinstate the death penalty.
"One should look at consolidating the right to life instead of imposing
the death penalty which has a very poor recognised effect in deterring
crimes," Qazi said in statement.
The United Nations said that Vice President Adel Abdel Mehdi had signed a
decree on Wednesday authorising the execution of three men sentenced to
death for kidnapping policemen and raping Iraqi women.
The men, suspected members of al-Qaeda-linked group Ansar al-Sunna, were
sentenced to death in May - a verdict later approved by the Supreme
Council for Justice, the highest judicial authority in Iraq.
Qazi pointed out in his statement, released by the New York office of the
UN Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), that the Human Rights Commission in Geneva
had "condemned the application of the death penalty" in April 2005.
The executions would be Iraq's first since capital punishment was
suspended by the US-led occupation authority following the 2003 invasion.
Bayan Ahmad al-Jaf, a 30-year-old Kurdish taxi driver, and two Sunni Arabs
- Uday Dawud al-Dulaimi, a 25-year-old builder, and Taher Jassem Abbas, a
44-year-old butcher - are due for execution in the next few days in the
central city of Kut.
How they will be killed is not known, although during Saddam's regime
common criminals used to be hanged, while deserting soldiers faced the
firing squad.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a longstanding opponent of the death
penalty, refused to sign the death warrants instead delegating the task to
Mehdi.
Talabani said in May that he would not sign a death sentence against
Saddam, whose trial on charges of crimes against humanity during his
iron-fisted rule over Iraq, is expected to come up within the next 2
months.
But the executions could set a precedent for sentencing during the
high-profile trials of former regime figures, including Saddam, who is in
US custody awaiting trial.
The Iraqi Special Tribunal filed the first charges against Saddam in late
July over the 1982 killing of 143 residents of the village of Dujail,
northeast of Baghdad, where he had been the target of a failed
assassination bid.
Human rights group Amnesty International also condemned the execution
order, saying it was concerned that dozens of death sentences had been
handed out in recent weeks.
(source: IOL)
