August 29
TAIWAN/CANADA:
B.C. teacher may be facing death penalty----Man, 28, arrested on
trafficking, smuggling counts
A teacher from B.C. is facing the death penalty in Taiwan after being
arrested for allegedly smuggling and trafficking cocaine.
Mathieu Forand, 28, was arrested Friday night and jailed. He was allegedly
found with cocaine, ecstacy and marijuana.
Friends in Taiwan said the lanky, laid-back Canadian teacher was throwing
a party in his home in the Neihu district of Taipei at the time of the
raid, and guests were arrested as well.
Forand may have signed a confession to drug crimes so his visitors won't
be caught up in the prosecution.
"From what I've heard, he's signing things without knowing what they are,
without having them translated," said Forand's father Peter of Port Moody,
who learned of his son's arrest yesterday. "What I've heard is he's done
some of this without legal assistance. That's a problem."
Forand's friends in Taiwan said authorities kept him up for nearly 2 days
while trying to get him to sign documents in Chinese.
Taiwan is 1 of 58 countries worldwide that impose capital punishment, and
drug crimes are subject to the death penalty.
In January, Taiwan's parliament ratified a criminal code overhaul that
will phase out capital punishment.
Taiwan executed 3 people last year, down from 32 in 1998 and 24 in 1999,
according to Hands Off Cain, a group opposed to the death penalty.
Friends of Forand told The Province that the prosecution is pushing for
the death penalty or 25 years in prison, and that Forand's lawyer is
arguing for a sentence of 10 to 15 years.
The Taipei Times said Taiwan Coast Guard agents spotted a
Taiwanese-American man leaving a building, allegedly after buying drugs,
then used the man as bait to snare Forand.
Friends said Forand was reportedly caught with one to five kilograms of
cocaine.
Authorities allege he was the kingpin of a ring that smuggled drugs into
Taiwan inside textbooks and sold them in pubs, nightclubs and over the
Internet to foreign and Taiwanese students, the Taipei Times said.
His friends said they thought it unlikely Forand would have been involved
in smuggling.
Cocaine commands a much higher price in Taiwan than in B.C., a friend of
Forand's said.
Forand has been teaching English in Taiwan for several years. His arrest
shocked his parents.
"It's out of character," his father said. "I don't know what he was
thinking, or why he wasn't thinking."
A friend who also taught English in Taiwan said the case has already
gained a high profile in the media.
It will likely become a flashpoint for racial tensions, with outraged
Taiwanese calling for severe punishment.
A Canada Foreign Affairs spokesman said his department was aware of
Forand's arrest. Forand's father contacted Foreign Affairs yesterday but
was denied information. "Because of privacy legislation they can't tell me
anything until they get clearance from [Forand]," he said.
(source: Vancouver Sun)
INDIA:
CBI moves SC seeking death penalty for Dara
The CBI, which investigated the Graham Staines murder case in Orissa, on
Monday filed an appeal in the Supreme Court challenging the High Court
order reducing the punishment of convict Dara Singh from death penalty to
life imprisonment.
The special leave petition (SLP) of the CBI said that the manner in which
Dara Singh and his accomplices killed missionary Staines and his 2 minor
children required the case to be classified under the rarest of rare
category and imposition of capital punishment on the convict.
(source: Sify)
PAKISTAN:
Kashmiri rebels urge for swap of death row convicts
An alliance of Kashmir militants urged Pakistan on Monday to demand
clemency for a Kashmiri sentenced to death for an attack on India's
parliament in exchange for pardoning an Indian on death row in Pakistan.
Pakistan's Supreme Court recently upheld the death sentence on Manjit
Singh for spying for India's intelligence agency, the Research and
Analysis Wing, and being involved in 5 bombings in Pakistan.
"Pakistan should seek clemency for innocent Mohammad Afzal from India
before pardoning Sarabjit Singh, " United Jihad Council (UJC) said in a
statement.
The statement of the Pakistan-based UJC, the main alliance of militant
groups fighting New Delhi's rule in Kashmir, was released through a local
news agency after a meeting of militant groups on Sunday chaired by UJC
chairman Syed Salahudin.
Singh's family said Pakistan had got the wrong man, insisting the
condemned man was actually Sarabjit Singh, a farmer who lived in a border
village in the northern Indian state of Punjab who strayed into Pakistan
in 1990 while drunk.
Earlier this month, India's Supreme Court upheld a lower court's death
sentence on Mohammed Afzal, a Kashmiri who was found guilty of involvement
in the December 2001 raid by five gunmen on the parliament building in New
Delhi.
Families of Singh and Afzal insist both are innocent.
Kashmir has been at the heart of half a century of tension between
nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. More than 45,000 people have been killed
since a revolt, which New Delhi says is backed by Pakistan, broke out in
1989 in the region.
(source: Reuters)
IRAQ:
Talabani Vows not to Sign Death Sentence for Saddam
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said if the overthrown Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein was sentenced to death, he would not sign the decision, but
resign.
"I am a man of principles ... If there is a clash between the post and the
principles; I will give up the post and keep the principles," Talabani
told to the Al-Arabiya television station.
Earlier this month, Talabani delegated his deputy to sign death sentences
for 3 men convicted of murder.
As for Saddam's fate, the president said he expected the former leader to
be convicted.
"I think a sentence will be passed on Saddam Hussein before my term ends,"
he told the channel in an interview.
Saddam, who was toppled in April 2003, is expected to be tried within 2
months on charges of crimes against humanity during his more than 2
decades of iron-fisted rule. If found guilty, he faces the death penalty.
