[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 23



ENGLAND:

Death penalty has its merits


THE new Tory Home Secretary Dominic Grieve has stated what he intends to
do to combat violent crime, such as murder, if the Tories win the next
general election but, like other Home Secretaries, he is afraid to mention
the death penalty for cold-blooded murder  something which happens daily
in this country.

As much as I admire and respect what Amnesty International do, I cannot
agree with their stance against the death penalty.

I agree with them when the organisations members say that life is
precious, but not the lives of those who commit the cold-blooded killing
of another in our so-called civilised society.

The death penalty must be put back on the table. This, in my opinion, will
vastly reduce this monstrous crime, and to add another, paedophiles should
at least be castrated as there is no cure for this abominable crime
against children, except the death penalty.

D WILKINSON----Newtown Road; Carlisle

(source: Letter to the Editor, News & Star)






NIGERIA:

Court Sentences 27-Yr-Old to Death By Hanging


A High Court in Kano on Friday sentenced a 27-year-old man to death by
hanging for culpable homicide.

In 2006, Auwal Sanusi, living in Karkasara Quarters Kano, stabbed Maikudi
Musa of the same address for daring to tear off from a wall the poster of
political candidate, which he (Auwal Sanusi) belongs to.

While presenting 6 witnesses, which include the mother of the deceased,
Barrister Ibrahim Mukhtar, the Senior State Counsel also tendered the
knife and the gory photographs of the deceased.

The witnesses told the court that when the accused stabbed Maikudi, he
removed the knife and leaked out the dripping blood on it, saying before
he was taken to hospital he bled profusely and died.

The state counsel prayed the court to sentence the accused to death under
Section 221 of the Penal Code Act. But the accused pleaded for mercy.

Delivering judgment, Justice Wada Abubakar Rano sentenced the accused to
death by hanging for his guilt in culpable homicide.

(source: Daily Trust)






IRAN:

Imminent execution for teen offender


A young man who allegedly committed a crime when he was 15 years old is
due to be executed in Iran in the next few days.

Salah Ghasseh, 18, will be the 2nd ethnic Kurd youth to be hanged in the
past 6 months at the Sanandaj prison in the area known as Iranian
Kurdistan.

Last December, Makwan Moloudzadeh, also an ethnic Kurd, was arrested at
age 17 for allegedly having homosexual relations 4 years earlier. He was
hanged last December at the age of 21.

Iran has ratified international treaties including the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids capital punishment
for underage youth who commit crimes.

In Iran young men are considered to be adults from the age of 14 and young
women from the age of eight and a half, and therefore responsible for any
crimes that they commit.

There are now 124 prisoners in death row who committed crimes when they
were under 18 years of age, say human rights groups.

Amnesty International said in its latest report, that at least 335 people
were executed in Iran in 2007, seven of them children.

It said sentences of flogging and amputation continued to be implemented
in Iran, and torture and ill-treatment were widespread in prisons and
detention centres.

Iran has one of the highest rates of capital punishment in the world. The
government insists that it is a deterrence for crime.

(source: AKI News)






PAKISTAN:

Pak mounts mercy pitch


The new Pakistan government urged President Pervez Musharraf to spare all
the 7,000 prisoners on death row in the country, raising hopes for the
release of alleged Indian spy Sarabjit Singh.

"The interior ministry will be asked to move a summary to the President to
commute sentences of those on death row to life imprisonment," Prime
Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told the National Assembly, pitching the move
as a tribute to Benazir Bhutto on her birthday.

Lawyers and other sources said Musharraf was likely to accept the request
since he needed goodwill from the government, which once spoke of
impeaching him.

The development could prompt Indian anti-death penalty lobbies to mount
pressure on Delhi for a similar move. India has about 400 prisoners on
death row.

Indian foreign ministry sources were cautious, saying it was Pakistan's
"internal matter" and that the matter had to be first "studied"
thoroughly.

If Musharraf signs on the dotted line, Sarabjit, sentenced to hang on
spying and terror charges, can be freed since he has spent 18 years in
Pakistani jails. Most lifers are released after 14-15 years, former
Pakistan human rights minister Ansar Burney said from Karachi.

Burney said he would move the Pakistan Supreme Court on Monday seeking
immediate release of Sarabjit and Kirpal Singh, another Indian on death
row on spying charges who has been in jail since 1991.

Sources said Gilani's move could be part of a larger plan to signal to the
world that his democratically elected government was more humane than
Musharraf's military regime. Domestic and international rights bodies,
such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), have been clamouring for the abolition
of the death penalty in Pakistan.

Of the 31,400-odd convicts in Pakistan, over 7,000  almost 1/4  are on
death row. About 40 are women. Last year, 309 were sentenced to death and
134 hanged.

However, sources said, there could be a debate on those accused of heinous
crimes of terror. One of them is Omar Sheikh, who was freed in exchange
for the Indian Airlines hostages at Kandahar in 1999 before being
convicted in 2002 of the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel
Pearl.

(source: The Telegraph)