[Deathpenalty] death penalty news---worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 4



PAKISTAN:

Reprieve Call Could Save Thousands


Some 7,000 death row inmates -- a quarter of the estimated condemned
prisoners worldwide -- are expected to be spared and eventually freed
following a call by Pakistans prime minister to honour the memory of the
assassinated political leader Benazir Bhutto.

On Jul. 3, the cabinet approved a proposal of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza
Gilani to commute the sentences of prisoners currently on death row to
life imprisonment, announced to parliament on the occasion of Bhuttos 55th
birth anniversary on Jun. 21. Bhutto was assassinated during an election
rally last December. Her Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) swept to power on
Feb. 18.

The commutation is expected to benefit the majority of Pakistans condemned
prisoners, except those charged with terrorism or plotting to assassinate
the president, I.A. Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan (HRCP), told IPS.

The final approval of the commutation -- the largest in modern times --
rests with President Pervez Musharraf. "There are indications the
president will approve the proposal," added Rehman, quoting a
well-informed, confidential source.

Following the prime ministers announcement, both HRCP and Amnesty
International (AI) pressed Pakistan to announce an execution moratorium.
In the first 5 months of this year, there was an execution on the average
once a week, according to newspaper reports. Last year, Pakistan executed
at least 135 inmates, the fourth largest number among the 25 countries
whose executions were recorded by AI.

Pakistans "first step" now should be to declare an execution moratorium,
Rehman declared.

"At the very least, this government could ensure that there are no
executions as long as it is in office by signing the U.N. (General
Assembly) moratorium on executions," Ali Dayan Hasan, senior researcher
for Human Rights Watch (HRW) in Pakistan, suggested to IPS.

Four days before the prime ministers call for death sentences to be
commuted, HRW sent an open letter to the prime minister, calling for
Pakistan to abolish the death penalty and in the meantime to impose an
execution moratorium. The New York-based organisation also called for a
reduction in the number of death penalty offences. There are currently 26
crimes carrying the death penalty, ranging from murder to consensual sex
outside marriage.

"Of course there are many problems to be resolved until this -- a
moratorium and the reduction in death penalty crimes -- can happen,"
Rehman conceded. "In a conservative country, brutalised by successive
military regimes, there is bound to be opposition to the move."

Religious parties like the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islam have already voiced their
disagreement with the move. Days after the prime ministers call for death
sentences to be commuted, some clerics also issued a joint statement
criticising the proposal.

Human rights organisations and activists have long campaigned for an
amnesty for Pakistans death row inmates, arguing that many of the
convictions were likely to be unsafe.

Torture is "endemic" as a way of extracting confessions, alleged HRW in
its open letter.

Kamran Arif, vice-chairman of HRCP, supported this allegation citing the
case of Maqsood Kalia, arrested in Lahore in 1989 for petty theft. Police
later charged him with the murder of a trader and tortured him into
confessing, producing witnesses against him, Arif told IPS.

Kalia was convicted of murder, even though he had been so badly beaten
that he could barely stand in court at the trial, Arif said. Later, two
suspects, detained for another case, confessed to the murder. But the High
Court refused to re-open the case or admit new evidence, even though the
Lahore head of police confirmed Kalia was innocent. Kalia was hanged in
March 1998, Arif said, adding: "There are many more such cases, but in
most, innocence cant be established with such certainty."

A more recent case taken up by several rights organisations is that of
Zahid Masih, an illiterate army janitor, hanged in Peshawar jail on Mar
12, 2008.

Masih was arrested along with 3 others for the murder of an army officers
child in 2005. Army investigators found the other accused (all of them
Muslim) innocent. A military court sentenced Masih to death.

"Masih was allegedly tortured for 28 days and made a series of
confessions. He also maintained that some army officers and their
orderlies had convinced him that he would be absolved of charges if he
confessed," HRW reported.

Rights organisations maintain that most of those on Pakistans death row
are too poor to pay for an adequate legal defence.

"Those awarded capital punishment here tend to be the poorest of the
poor," Faisal Siddiqi, a Karachi lawyer defending condemned prisoners in
Karachi Central Prison, told IPS.

"In death penalty cases, the absence of an effective private counsel
appears to be the difference between whether the death penalty is
confirmed or set aside. Prisoners are condemned not for the worst crime
but for the worst lawyer," Siddiqi said.

The family name Bhutto is closely linked with the post-independence moves
towards abolishing the death penalty in Pakistan. In December 1988, one of
Benazir Bhuttos first acts when she was elected prime minister was to
commute the sentences of those on death row. At that time, there were
several hundred death row inmates.

In 1970, the government led by her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, raised the
minimum life imprisonment term from 14 to 25 years with the idea of
eventually abolishing capital punishment. Bhutto was overthrown by General
Zia ul-Haq in a military coup in 1977.

Zia retained the death penalty and 2 years later signed Bhuttos "black
warrant". Bhuttos execution by hanging is widely termed as a "judicial
murder".

News of the prime ministers call for the death row inmates to be spared
has raised hopes in India that Sarabjit Singh, an Indian sentenced to
death for terrorism in Pakistan, will be returned to his country.

(source: IPS News)