Nov. 14
ASIA:
Call for end to death penalty
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer should use a regional economic meeting
in South Korea this week to call for the abolition of the death penalty
across the region, Amnesty International says.
Mr Downer is in Busan, South Korea, for the 17th Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) Joint Ministerial Meeting to discuss trade, bird flu
and North Korea.
He has promised to raise the issue of an Australian man on death row in
Singapore with his Singaporean counterpart in a last-ditch attempt to save
his life.
Singapore has rejected the Federal Government's calls for clemency for
Tuong Van Nguyen, 25, who has been convicted of trafficking almost 400g of
heroin and sentenced to death.
Amnesty wants Mr Downer to appeal for clemency on Nguyen's behalf as well
as for a region-wide abolition of the death penalty.
"It's simply not enough to argue that Australian citizens should not be
executed in Asia," Amnesty's anti-death penalty coordinator Tim Goodwin
said in a statement.
"We encourage the Australian government to go one important step further
and lead the call for the abolition of the death penalty across the
region." Amnesty also said Prime Minister John Howard, who says he has
done all he can to plead for Nguyen's life, should take a public stand
opposing the death penalty for the Melbourne man.
Mr Downer is in Busan for the meeting until November 16.
(source: AAP)
TONGA:
Death penalty waived in rare case of murder conviction in Tonga
Tonga's chief justice has decided not to impose the death penalty on the
1st convicted murderer on the main island of Tongatapu in more than 20
years.
Tevita Siale Vola, who's 27, was found guilty of the murdering Salesi
Taufalele during a drunken fight earlier this year.
Sitting at the Supreme Court in Nuku'alofa, Chief Justice Robin Webster
has ruled life imprisonment, and not the death penalty, is an appropriate
punishment.
Chief Justice Webster said the Supreme Court's view was, that for those
convicted of murder Tonga, life imprisonment was the rule and the death
sentence an exception.
The judge said he did not find the offence was of an exceptionally
depraved and heinous character, nor, on account of its design and the
manner of its execution, a source of grave danger to society at large.
In passing sentence, Chief Justice Webster said that he would recommend
that while in prison Vola should undergo courses in alcohol awareness and
anger management.
He said if Vola's conduct in prison remained good he should be considered
for parole, or release on license, after serving about 15 years.
(source: Radio New Zealand)
