[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 27



LIBYA:

here is a link to a film about 5 Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor
in Libya under a death sentence

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5182317638126553942&q=
injection+libya&hl=en)






INDONESIA:

Charges that the bodies of three Catholics executed in Indonesia show
signs of violence


The trio's relatives point to wounds to the bodies that cannot be
attributed to the execution by firing squad. They demand a second autopsy.
Relatives lawyers are setting off for Europe and the United States to
present their case before international law agencies.

The 3 Catholics executed Friday of last week in Palu (Central Sulawesi)
for their involvement in the 2000 Poso sectarian clashes are not yet at
rest. The trio's relatives and attorneys have called for a second autopsy
to determine whether Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva and Marinus Riwu
were victims of 'violence' right before or after their execution. Police
and judicial authorities have denied any kind of abuse.

The group of lawyers who defended the 3 Catholics has filed a complaint
saying that the bodies show signs that cannot have been cause by the
execution by firing squad. Tibo's body apparently has 3 broken ribs,
whilst da Silva seems to have been stabbed at the heart with a sharp
instrument. All 3 appear to have been shot 5 times at the chest rather
than once.

The families have asked the Prosecutor's Office and the police to have
another autopsy performed. This will require exhuming Tibo's and Riwus
bodies which were buried in Beteleme and Morowali (Central Sulawesi)
respectively. Da Silvas body will have to be exhumed for a second time
from its final resting place on Flores Island since the authorities had
buried him a first time on Sunday in Palu, but were finally persuaded to
hand his remains over to the family after the United Nations Commission of
Human Rights and the European Union intervened.

According to the findings of Christian doctors who examined the bodies,
all 3 men had 5 bullet entry marks on the left side of their chest. Tibo
also had 2 broken ribs and scratch marks on the face, whilst Riwus heart
had been pierced by a dagger-like sharp object.

The decision by the Prosecutor's Office in Palu to quickly bury the 3 dead
men without the benefits of religious funeral appears to give credence to
the theory that the execution failed to meet legal standards.

"We would never have expected such a thing," said Stephen Roy Rening, one
of the attorneys from the 3 men's legal team. "Now we must clear things
up. Not only national laws might have been violated, but so could have
international law. Having lost faith in Indonesias legal system, we are
left only with international institutions," he said. Some of the team's
members are in fact already leaving for Europe and the United States.

Indonesian authorities have either rejected the charges or refused to make
any comment. The Attorney General's Office directed all inquiries to the
Prosecutors Office in Palu, whilst Central Sulawesi police has dismissed
all claims that there was anything illegal about the execution.

(source: AsiaNews)

*************

No beheading for Bali bombers


Indonesia will not meet a request by 3 Islamic militants sentenced to
death over the 2002 Bali bombings to be executed by decapitation rather
than firing squad, a police spokesperson said Tuesday.

Lawyers of Amrozi, Ali Ghufron alias Mukhlas and Imam Samudra said last
week that if the executions are to proceed, the trio wish to be beheaded.

"We have to follow our law, and our law does not recognise decapitation,"
national police spokesperson Paulus Purwoko told reporters.

Executions in Indonesia are carried out by firing squad, typically at a
secret time and location.

Lawyer Mahendradatta said last Friday that he planned to file a demand to
the Constitutional Court asking that they review the procedure of
execution planned to be used for the men, if their sentences are to be
carried out.

Executed in the Muslim way

Mahendradatta said his clients believed execution by gunshot was "torture"
and they "asked to be executed the Muslim way, by being beheaded".

The 2002 Bali attacks left 202 people dead, mostly Western holiday-makers.

The 3 bombers were set to be executed on August 22 but their lawyers
announced they would file an appeal a day beforehand, effectively delaying
their deaths.

None of the convicts have expressed remorse over the attacks on
nightspots, which were blamed on the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah
regional extremist network.

(source: News24.com)






FRANCE:

Pierre Luton, a French journalist, publishes "A Mad Hope on Death Row" (
Un espoir fou dans le couloir de la mort , K&B) on october 2nd 2006, one
week before World Day against Death Penalty, on october 10th. This work
contains interviews with Richard Rossi, his pen pal for 5 years, an
American on death row who had been awaiting his execution for almost 23
years, in total isolation, and who militated against the death penalty and
the system that permits it. Richard Rossi died in his prison, probably of
natural causes, on April 22nd 2006.

--

PLUTON----Journaliste

Rdacteur en chef du bimestriel "A part entire"

(FNATH), 200 000 ex., et du trimestriel mutualiste "Rail & progrs" (MGC),
135 000 ex.

Membre de l'Ajis, de l'AJE et du Press-Club

28, bd de la Bastille, 75012 Paris

Tel./Fax. : 01 43 07 28 86---------Mobile : 06 09 95 99 85


CHINA:

Gang leader receives death sentence


A gang leader has been sentenced to death for charges including heading an
underground organization and causing the death of a man in Jiujiang,
Central China's Jiangxi Province.

At the same time, Jiujiang Intermediate People's Court yesterday handed
down sentences to 15 other gang members, ranging from suspended death
sentences to 2 years in prison.

Xiong Xinxing, 38, the gang leader, was found to have run a gambling
business, loan frauds and carried out extortion since 1997, according to
the court.

Xiong's gang also bought guns and absorbed new members to expand the
underground organization, the court said.

Many local officials were involved in helping shield the gang's criminal
activities.

The court said Xiong's gang was responsible for the deaths of three people
and for seriously injuring 5 others.

It acquired loans totalling nearly 100 million yuan (US$12.5 million) from
banks, without any plan to repay the money.

Xiong was once a chief consultant for various local companies, president
of Jiayihua Investment Co Ltd in Guangdong Province and a member of a
district committee of the CPPCC in Jiangxi's Fuzhou.

His followers took high-ranking roles in these companies and undertook
illegal activities under a legal cover.

Xiong was arrested last year. A total of 21 gang members were detained
afterwards.

Police also seized 8 guns, 227 bullets, and a number of knives and swords.
Gang assets worth 140 million yuan (US$17.5 million) were frozen.

One of Xiong's tactics was to hook in officials using a luxurious mansion.

The building was located in Fuzhou, with a floor space of more than 13.3
hectares, and offered "special services" to local officials.

The three-storey building provided sauna and massage services on the first
floor, catering and dancing halls on the second and luxurious suites on
the 3rd.

Government officials that were involved in Xiong's illegal activities
included both city-level officials and public security bureau staff.

Some of these officials have been given sentences and some are still under
investigation.

(source: China Daily)






SINGAPORE:

Body parts murder: Leong's appeal against death sentence dismissed


Singapore's Highest Court, the Court of Appeal has dismissed the appeal by
Leong Siew Chor against the death sentence in the Kallang body parts
murder case.

The former factory supervisor was convicted of butchering his lover,
22-year-old Chinese national Liu Hong Mei, and sentenced to death by the
High Court.

Liu's dismembered body parts were found along the Kallang River in June
last year.

Leong now has one final avenue of appeal - and that is to seek a
Presidential Pardon.

(source: ChannelNewsAsia)






RWANDA:

Lifting Capital Punishment, and Misread Gacaca Courts


Rwandans often speak of a million deaths, and they are right. The dead in
Rwanda during the genocide can be put at nearly three times the rate of
Jewish dead during the Holocaust. As Philip Gourevitch says in his book,
"we wish to inform you..., it was the most efficient mass killing since
the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.' According to the Genocide
in Rwanda is unique.

It is this unspeakable crime against humanity that calls for justice and
the possibility of uniting a moral, economic and politically shattered
society of Rwanda. We therefore have to face reality as we discus issues
of Gacaca and capital punishment.

The pros and cons of capital punishment

The origin or history of capital punishment can be traced to many years
ago, to the famous system commonly known as lynching.

According to Wikipedia encyclopaedia, lynching is a term loosely applied
to various forms of violence, usually murder, conceived by its
perpetrators as extra-legal punishment of offenders by a summary
procedure, ignoring, or even contrary to, the strict forms of law, notably
execution, or used as a terrorist method of enforcing social domination.

Victims of lynching have generally been members of marginalised groups or
vilified by society. The practice is age-old. For instance, stoning is
believed to have started before lapidating was adopted as a judicial form
of execution.

Lynching is frequently prevalent in sparsely settled or frontier
districts, where government is weak and law enforcers are very few and
powerless to enforce law and preserve order. The practice has been common
in periods of anarchy. In early twentieth century, it was also
significantly found in Russia and south-eastern Europe, but essentially in
America.

The word "lynching" is recorded in English since 1835, as a verb derived
from the earlier expression "Lynch law" (known since 1811), which seems to
have named after the Lynch family, whose surname is derived either from
Old English "hlinc" (hill), or from Irish "Loingseach" (sailor), it still
remains in dispute.

The most likely eponym for the concept of Lynch law as summary justice is
William Lynch, the author of "Lynch's Law", an agreement with the Virginia
Legislature on September 22, 1782, which allowed Lynch to pursue and
punish criminals in Pittsylvania County, without due process of law,
because legal proceedings were, in practical terms, impossible in the area
due to the lack of adequate provision of courts.

The term "Lynch mob" as for a group of private persons who collectively
practice lynching is attested from 1838. Since the Reconstruction Period,
after the Secession in the United States, it came to mean, generally, the
summary infliction of capital punishment. The further narrowing of the
meaning to extra-legal execution specifically by hanging is from the 20th
Century.

After the horrific crimes against humanity, the idea of punishment came
into limelight in the Rwandan society. The challenge, however, has been to
understand what punishment is or entails so that it is handled with
efficiency and effectiveness. What is punishment in the first instance?
There are different ways of defining punishment that tend to vary,
depending on the individual or individuals defining it.

Punishment involves the deliberate infliction of suffering on a supposed
or actual offender for an offence such as a moral or legal transgression.
Since punishment involves inflicting pain or deprivation similar to that
which the perpetuator of a crime inflicts on his victim, it has generally
been agreed that punishment requires moral as well as legal and political
justification.

While almost all philosophers agree that punishment is at least sometimes
justifiable, they offer various accounts of how it is to be justified and
what the infliction of punishment is designed to protect - rights,
personal autonomy and private property, a political constitution, or the
democratic process, for instance. Utilitarians attempt to justify
punishment in terms of the balance of good over evil produced, and thus
focus our attention on extrinsic or consequentialist considerations.

Retributivists attempt a justification that links punishment to moral
wrongdoing, generally justifying the practice on the grounds that it gives
to wrongdoers what they deserve; their focus is thus on the intrinsic
wrongness of crime that thereby merits punishment. "Compromise" theorists
attempt to combine these 2 types of theories in a way that retains their
perceived strengths while overcoming their perceived weaknesses.

After discussing the various attempts at justification, utilitarian and
retributive approaches to determining the amount of punishment will be
examined.

On concerns of capital punishment, the strongest argument in favour of
capital punishment was made by Professor Immanuel Kant when he proclaimed
that punishment inflicted on the guilty should be equal to the wrong done:
for instance, capital punishment be mandatory for murder. His retributive
theory of punishment leaves execution of the murderer the only option for
the crime of killing another person. That is, an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth, for the pointer of the scales of Justice to stand in
balance.

Kant's views are in defence of capital punishment and are based on
punishing the guilty in equal proportion to the crime. To most people who
hold similar views, capital punishment serves an additional purpose of
being a future deterrent to similar crimes. However, it is debatable if
this view is completely valid.

"Death penalty advocates punishment under the principle of lex talionis,
or 'an eye for an eye' - the belief that punishment should fit the crime.
In particular, people who favour capital punishment argue that murderers
should be executed in retribution for their crimes and that such
retribution serves justice for murder victims and their survivors".

Edward Koch once said: "How can murder be taken seriously if the penalty
isn't equally as serious? A crime, after all, is only as severe as the
punishment that follows it. It is by exacting the highest penalty for the
taking of human life that we affirm the highest value of human life"

International standards of human rights call for either the abolition of
the death penalty or, at a minimum, its use in extremely limited cases. In
April 1999, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights passed a
resolution calling on all States "to establish a moratorium on executions,
with a view to completely abolishing the death penalty".

The Commission on Human Rights has also urged States "not to impose the
death penalty for any but the most serious crimes" and "progressively to
restrict the number of offences for which the death penalty may be
imposed".

It was understandable thus that after the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, the
immediate answer chosen by the obvious angry people was capital
punishment. They were there partly guided by emotions, and since they are
cooling down they can now be guided by a lot of wisdom. This wisdom should
tell the futility of capital punishment. The summary execution of a
terrible criminal, a monster, is actually a favour. He or she needs more
than that. Capital punishment in Rwanda, therefore, is a euphemism for
legally murdering a person. Criminals can be, and are, executed because
capital punishment is a legal institution in Rwanda. But the debatable
issue is whether it is serving the purpose it is supposed to be serving.

Controversial issue

Capital punishment remains to be a controversial issue worldwide. It is
true that all forms of punishment are subject to human fallibility, but
capital punishment really exacerbates the controversy. Many survivors of
the Genocide and retributivists have continued to advocate for capital
punishment - especially in answering strong crimes like mass massacres and
genocide. This is under the belief that an equal response to the crime
committed must be meted out. In other words, according to them there must
be justice consonant with the atrocious acts.

During the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, very many victims were tortured to
death.

Their killers were so cruel that in most cases they had to slowly batter
the victim's heads and other parts of the body before finishing them off.
"This kind of cruelty has thus to be answered with an equal punishment,"
remarked a survivor. But the question remains: can we be able to
administer similar torture in capital punishment?

The answer is definitely no, and hence the capital punishment we advocate
for does not serve the purpose. We are deterred by our moral restraints to
commit similar atrocities in giving capital punishment. If, for example,
we are punishing a "monster" who killed by chopping parts off human
bodies, are we supposed to chop him or her up in capital punishment?

Take an example of where the first people charged with genocide were
killed by firing squad. They may have fired a hundred bullets in their
heads, but it takes only one bullet in the head to kill. In this case we
do not see any equality in terms of offence and punishment as advocated by
retributivists who are the best advocates of capital punishment. The
Hamurabi's "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" does not come in,
hence rendering capital punishment futile.

This is why we recommend in essence and logic that the Government of
Rwanda should comfortably agree to lift the death penalty in Rwanda and
retain life sentence which is far better. Supporters of capital punishment
will argue though that imprisonment is simply not a sufficient safeguard
against the future actions of criminals because it offers the possibility
of escape and release on parole. They truly observe that some criminals
must be made to pay for their crimes with their lives. Fear of death
deters people from committing crimes, proponents say. They also believe
that if attached to certain crimes, the penalty of death exerts a positive
moral influence by placing a stigma on certain crimes like manslaughter,
resulting in attitudes of disgust and horror to such acts.

Furthermore, retentionists insist that the deterrent influence of the
death penalty reaches across state lines into jurisdictions that have
abolished it, and so all benefit by its continued use. Let's imagine for a
moment there was no death penalty for a moment. The only reasonable
sentence would a life sentence. This would be costly to the taxpayers -
not only in the cost of housing and feeding the prisoner but because of
the numerous appeals which waste man-hours and money. By treating
criminals in this manner, we are encouraging behaviour that will result in
a prison sentence. If there is no threat of death to one who commits a
murder, than that person is guaranteed to be provided with a decent living
environment until their next parole hearing. They are definitely not
getting the punishment they deserve.

Life imprisonment, however, serves the most important psychological
torture of leaving the perpetrator to see the people he or she wanted to
kill move around alive. It leaves him or her humiliated in a state of
hopelessness and shame forever. And in economic terms, the prisoners will
live to provide free labour, to directly or indirectly serve the people he
or she wanted dead. This kind of torture may not equal the offence
committed but will truly give the nearest alternative.

Rwanda government in general and the Ministry of Justice in particular
should not find it hard lifting capital punishment as a pre-condition
given by ICTR to have the prisoners in question tried in Rwanda. Life
imprisonment is just alright for the purpose.

The issue of Gacaca

If you still doubted the Gacaca courts in Rwanda, then you better think
otherwise. Gacaca cuts across the whole range of issues that we are
looking at: punishment, teaching the public a lesson, reconciliation, etc.
There are a lot of things which are addressed by traditional justice. It
addresses issues of unity, issues of reconciliation, transition itself,
getting out of the ugly past and walking to a better future in a society
that was divided but is becoming reconciled.

Critics, however, have continued to have their arguments. Helena Cobbana,
for example, argues: "The Gacaca courts have very strong 're-educative'
role ... to attempt to almost coercively 're-educate' the Hutus. The
approach is a sort of melding of Maoist views on this score with the heavy
Christian emphasis on the virtues of confession and the need for
confession before there is 'absolution'." This kind of negative attitude
from international scholars only gives us their degree of naivety in the
system of justice's efficiency.

And according to Craig Timberg: "Gacaca officials, who began tracking the
suicides in March after an initial round of cases in January and February
last year, have documented the horrors: An elderly man drowned himself in
Lake Kivu, on Rwanda's western border, on the day he was accused of
killing several of his grandchildren. A 28-year-old man, the last
surviving member of his family, killed himself after being accused of
raping his Tutsi mother, according to Gacaca officials. 'Sometimes we
discover a situation we cannot understand ourselves,' said the court's
Executive Secretary, Domitilla Mukantaganzwa. 'We are praying for our
nation.'"

What does this indicate? They are trying to show us a resigned society.
But we are not, and the fact that people hang themselves because of the
atrocities they committed only strengthens the system. You would know how
strong the system is if you woke up one day to find one who used to be
your great friend charged with numerous offences by Gacaca courts. So when
the head of Gacaca courts calls for God's help, it should not be mistaken
as a resignation. This is only a sentimental utterance.

The UN office for the co-ordination of human rights, in 2006 said: "The
Gacaca process is revolutionary in that it is a formally drafted, yet at
the same time, traditional procedure. Reaction to it has been mixed.
Certain observers believe that the Gacaca courts do not provide the
defendants with any of the protections normally afforded them, and that as
a result, rough justice is being handed out."

Benjamin Gumpert, who acts as counsel for the defence of Joseph Mugenzi, a
man being tried before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
(ICTR), has said: "I think the idea of people's justice is in theory
delightful.

However, I think that the Rwandan people are no more likely than any other
ordinary people (by that I mean non-lawyers) of being able to conduct
complicated trials of genocide. There is little chance of justice in these
circumstances.

I think either you can hold a fair trial or you cannot. But I do not think
that you can dilute the principles of justice. There seems to be an
element of double standards at play here. You are effectively saying that
the manner of trial that we consider appropriate in courts in North
America, Europe or other international proceedings does not need to be
observed in Africa."

The reason too, as to why such comments appear is not far from the ones
just mentioned. The system is called a variety of names - ranging from
gambling to diluting justice. This is, however, nonsense - because the
courts have actually a superior long arm to touch all corners as it
punishes and at the same time reconciles the society. Gacaca courts are
based on the principles of restorative justice which is embedded in its
structures, too complex to be understood by non-Rwandans.

The only thing that actually hinders that smooth progress of Gacaca trials
is lack of witnesses. Most of the would-be witnesses are no more; some
survivors are cowards or not committed, corrupt and in some cases do not
have enough support from government's trusted organs.

We cannot leave out the incompetent Inyangamugayo in terms of having the
will because of different reasons well known to us. It is however
understood that one may find it difficult to prosecute a close relative
faced with such crimes. This creates a big loophole, and so many suspects
escape as a result. It actually demands a person with morals that cannot
be easily traced in a society that has just slaughtered each other. This
is where the Gacaca paradox lies!

We cannot have a poisoned mind de-poisoned overnight. The Rwandan psyche
was seriously beleaguered by all kinds of ills inflicted from within and
without.

The Rwandan psyche actually captivated and integrated exotic values rather
randomly and haphazardly, to forge a culture that will take long to uproot
so that we foster a culture of human rights and, above all, effect
justice. This is our undoing and that is why Gacaca courts are still
facing an uphill task.

Nonetheless, the courts, as already mentioned, are doing a great job and
they will do much better if we change our negative attitude towards them.
And capital punishment should not be viewed as the only panacea to social
justice in Rwanda.

(source: The New Times)






INDIA:

Kashmir city erupts in protest over death penalty


Police fired teargas shells in Indian Kashmir on Wednesday to quell
violent protests over the planned execution of a Kashmiri man for his role
in a 2001 militant attack on India's parliament.

Hundreds of Kashmiri men took to the streets of Srinagar, the region's
main city, hurling stones at police and vehicles, burning tires and
blocking roads, a day after a New Delhi court set October 20 as the date
to hang Mohammed Afzal.

"Afzal is innocent ... we want freedom," the protesters shouted.

Afzal had been sentenced to death for his role in the conspiracy to attack
the parliament complex and the Supreme Court upheld the conviction last
year.

However, he can appeal to the Indian president for clemency, and lawyers
fighting for prisoners' rights said they would decide on filing a plea
after consulting Afzal.

Five gunmen stormed the heavily guarded parliament complex on December 13,
2001 but were killed by security forces before they could enter the
building housing the chambers.

The attack, blamed by India on Pakistan but denied by Islamabad, brought
the nuclear-armed rivals dangerously close to their 4th war.

In fresh violence on Wednesday, suspected separatist militants shot dead
one policeman and wounded another in Srinagar. Later, rebels threw a
grenade at a security bunker in the city, wounding 5 policemen and 2
civilians.

Earlier, police detained Mohammad Yasin Malik, a senior separatist leader
who led the protests in Srinagar, along with a dozen supporters.

"By hanging innocent Kashmiris India can't suppress our freedom struggle,"
Malik, head of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), said before
launching Wednesday's protests.

Protesters held placards that read "Don't repeat Maqbool Bhat, don't hang
Afzal."

Mohammad Maqbool Bhat, the founder of JKLF, was hanged in 1984 for killing
an Indian intelligence officer. Bhat is buried at New Delhi's Tihar jail
where Afzal is due to be executed.

Afzal's execution would be the 1st in 17 years at Tihar.

More than 45,000 people have been killed in the 17-year-old separatist
revolt in Jammu and Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state in mainly
Hindu India.

(source: Reuters)