[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 18



KENYA:

2 judges to hear death row appeals

2 judges have been posted to Malindi to hear appeal cases for 87 death row
inmates who went on hunger strike last week over delayed hearing.

3 inmates at the Malindi GK prison, one of them said to be suffering from
HIV and Aids-related complications, were admitted to Malindi District
Hospital in serious condition on Tuesday last week.

However, two said to have been suffering from high blood pressure, have
since been discharged after treatment, hospital administrator Bernard
Kiviha said on Monday.

"The strike is over as all the 87 inmates resumed eating some days ago.
One of them is admitted to hospital suffering from some ailments," said Mr
B.M. Mutunga, the officer in charge of Malindi prison.

Starvation

Their colleagues at Shimo la Tewa Prison in Mombasa ended their hunger
strike last Friday, according to the officer in charge of the facility, Ms
Wanini Kireri.

"Prisoners who were on hunger strike at the prison ended their protest
last Friday to avert starvation.

"The ones who were taken to hospital for treatment were suffering from
various ailments," said Ms Kireri, an assistant commissioner of prisons.

According to Mr Mutunga, the inmates' appeal cases would resume on July 1.

"Lady Justice Hellen Omondi has been posted to Malindi to take over from
Lady Justice Wanjiru Karanja while Justice Leonard Njagi has been brought
from Mombasa High Court to team up with Justice Omondi for the cases,"
said Mr Douglas Ogot, the State counsel in Malindi.

Lady Justice Karanja was transferred after staying in office for only 2
days.

She had visited the inmates in the company of Mr Ogot and Law Society of
Kenya Malindi branch chairman Henry Muranje on her 1st day at the station.

Mr Mutunga had feared that even after the posting of a judge to replace Ms
Karanja, it would not be possible for the appeal cases to resume since at
least 2 judges must sit to hear them.

Transferred

The prisoners had been transferred from Shimo la Tewa Maximum Prison.

The appeal order affected murder suspects mostly because it was felt that
the lower courts had exceeded their powers in sentencing them.

(source: Daily Nation)






IRAN:

Rights group says 114 on death row in Iran for crimes committed as minors


Iran has sentenced 177 people under the age of 18 to death over the past
decade and has executed nearly 3 dozen of them, a human rights group said
Tuesday.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran published on its Web
site a list of the 114 minors who still remain in prison awaiting
execution, some of whom are now older than 18. The youngest person on the
list was a 12-year-old boy sentenced by a court in 2005. The group did not
specify what crime he was convicted of.

Aaron Rhodes, a spokesman for the group in Vienna, Austria, said the
campaign has called on the international community to take steps to press
Iran to abolish the executions.

Rhodes said many of the death sentences were based on confessions obtained
from defendants under torture or interrogations in which they had no
access to a lawyer.

Iranian judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi told reporters in Tehran on
Thursday that "there are no executions of individuals under the age of 18
in Iran."

But Jamshidi made a distinction between death sentences and Islamic law of
"qisas," or eye-for-eye retribution for murder, which he said the
judiciary does implement. He said in cases of qisas for those under 18
years old, "the main approach of the judiciary ... is based on peace and
compromise." Under Islamic law, an attempt is made to reach a settlement
with the family of a murder victim, but if no agreement is reached, the
killer is executed.

The International Campaign, which is based in New York and Vienna, said
the list was compiled by Iranian rights activist Emad Baghi, who is
serving a one-year prison sentence in connection with articles he wrote
critical of the country's rights record.

(source: Associated Press)