[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 11



IRAQ:

'Chemical Ali' faces possible death penalty


The Iraqi high tribunal said yesterday it will issue a verdict in two
weeks in the trial of Saddam Hussain's cousin Ali Hassan Al Majid, also
known as 'Chemical Ali', and other former regime officials who face a
possible death sentence if convicted of war crimes and crimes against
humanity for the military campaign against the Kurds in the 1980s.

The decision will be announced on June 24, prosecutor Jaafar Al Moussawi
told the Associated Press after a short court session that he said was
attended by the 6 defendants, including Al Majid, former head of the Baath
Party's Northern Bureau Command.

Taher Tawfiq Al Ani, ex-governor of Mosul and head of the Northern Affairs
Committee, has also been charged, but the prosecutor said he should be
released because of insufficient evidence.

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish leader, told Gulf News: "Al Ani could receive a
lighter sentence ... because he was not in responsible positions back
then."

He said Kurdish political parties provided evidence to condemn the
culprits.

Hassan Shaaban, Chairman of the Iraqi Human Rights Organisation, told Gulf
News: "We consider [death penalty] as an encroachment on human dignity."

(source: Gulf News)






LIBYA:

EU officials visit Libya over Bulgarian death-row nurses


A top EU official and Germany's foreign minister began talks in Benghazi
on Sunday to seek a settlement over 6 foreign medics on death row after
they were convicted of causing an AIDS epidemic among Libyan children.

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and German
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier met victims' families in Libya's
seaside second city on the Mediterranean where they assured them of EU
support in resolving the case, Idriss Lagha, the families' spokesman, told
AFP.

The 2 officials also confirmed their support for an international fund set
up in 2005 to help the families, he said.

"However, they have not given a clear response" to proposals to increase
compensation payments, Lagha said.

The families initially asked for compensation of 10 million euros for each
victim, saying at the same time that the amount was negotiable.

The duo later arrived in Tripoli where they are expected to meet Libyan
leader Moamer Kadhafi and his son Saif al-Islam to discuss the issue of 5
Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to death for infecting
438 children with tainted blood at a Benghazi hospital.

56 children have since died.

The 6 medics are awaiting a final verdict on their appeal against the
sentence, first handed down in May 2004.

The death sentence against the nurses -- Kristiana Valcheva, Nassia
Nenova, Valia Cherveniachka, Valentina Siropoulo and Snejana Dimitrova --
and Doctor Ashraf Ahmad Juma was upheld last December.

Tripoli has acknowledged that negotiations are under way to resolve the
affair, saying however that an agreement could not be reached before the
court gives its "final verdict."

Families of the victims said earlier that an understanding had been found
during a meeting with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair that
would remove by the end of June, when Germany's presidency of the European
Union ends, the death sentence facing the 6.

Lagha earlier said that an agreement must guarantee meeting the expenses
and providing free treatment of infected children in European hospitals,
and the payment of indemnities to the families.

"Negotiations are under way to fix the total of these indemnities," he
said.

He said "the sympathy of representatives of the 27 European countries with
the cause of the Libyan children, as well as their support for the
independence of the Libyan justice system during negotiations on May 10 in
Brussels, are all pointers towards a solution soon" to the crisis.

The nurses and doctor have been in prison for more than eight years, while
foreign health experts have said the AIDS epidemic in Libya's second city
was probably sparked by poor hygiene.

(source: Agence France Presse)