[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 15


CANADA/USA/BANGLADESH:

U.S. to deport Bangladeshi facing execution: sources


Canada was willing to offer sanctuary to former diplomat Din Ahmed to
spare him the prospect of execution in his native Bangladesh but U.S.
officials have nixed the idea, sources close to the case said.

With Canada no longer an option, Ahmed's deportation from the United
States was imminent after his appeals were exhausted on Thursday.
Deportees are normally escorted directly to their country of origin.

Ahmed, 60, was convicted in absentia in 1998 for the 1975 assassination of
Bangladesh's 1st prime minister.

But his family and supporters say Ahmed, then a junior army officer, was
at a roadblock more than a kilometre away. They say he is being persecuted
by a government bent on seeking revenge for the coup.

Ahmed's plight has attracted the support of the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops, actor Martin Sheen and Amnesty International, as well as
legislators in the U.S. Congress and some Canadian opposition members of
Parliament.

The sources said top Canadian officials were sympathetic to his case and
laying the groundwork for his transfer to Canada as a refugee.

They asked for a signal of co-operation from U.S. authorities at a high
level. While the State Department was on side, the Homeland Security
Department refused to consider letting Ahmed go to Canada, the sources
said.

Ahmed's last legal recourse ended Thursday after a U.S. district court in
Los Angeles said it didn't have jurisdiction over his removal order to
Bangladesh.

Ahmed, who has relatives in Toronto and Nova Scotia, has been in the
United States since 1996 but hasn't been able to win asylum.

"It would be unconscionable for Mr. Ahmed to be sent to Bangladesh to be
executed," Liberal MP Mike Savage said Thursday.

"Canada is a humanitarian nation that opposes the death penalty and
supports due process," he told the House of Commons in Ottawa.

"If he is sent back, we ask the government of Canada to monitor Mr. Ahmed
and ensure he is not tortured and that we do everything possible to ensure
the death penalty is not carried out."

Activists and religious groups urged Canada to help Ahmed after his son
and daughter made emotional appeals last month.

Irwin Cotler, the former Liberal justice minister and well-known civil
rights activist, also took up the case.

Ahmed, a junior officer in the Bangladesh army on Aug. 15, 1975, was
ordered to man a roadblock in Dhaka leading to the villa of then-president
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

His family says he didn't know about the assassination until after he and
his platoon were ordered back to their barracks later that day.

He left the military and became a diplomat, serving in foreign capitals
over 2 decades.

When Rahman's daughter came to power in 1996, she overturned immunity
legislation for acts that occurred during the coup and launched an
investigation.

Ahmed, ordered to return to Bangladesh, entered the United States instead
on a visitor's visa in 1996.

Three men in his platoon went to Canada at about that time and 2 have
become citizens. Ottawa refused to deport them after the 1998 convictions.

In a recent statement, Ahmed said his deportation is within the discretion
of Homeland Security and asked officials to spare his life.

"Please help me. I am not a terrorist. I am an innocent man," he said.

"I have to ask you: 'How is it possible for me to have an honoured,
20-year diplomatic career under 8 successive Bengali administrations, to
then suddenly be labelled a killer and terrorist?"

"The answer is revenge and politics."

(source: Canada News)






NORTH KOREA:

Rise in executions for mobile use


The number of public executions for using a mobile phone in North Korea
has increased, according to a new report.

The Korea Institute for National Unification think tank, which is
associated with the South Korean government, reported the findings in a
white paper on the North's human rights conditions. No exact figures were
given.

"The North carries out public executions regularly to maintain social
order by creating an atmosphere of fear," said the institute.

North Korea recalled mobile phones from its citizens in 2004, just a
year-and-a-half after the service was introduced in the communist country.

Experts believe North Korea had introduced the mobile technology to make
communications convenient but later realised the device caused floods of
foreign culture into the reclusive country.

The North has been struggling to prevent outside information from seeping
into the country and believes the influx of information could possibly
lead to the overthrow of the reclusive regime.

(source: ITV News)






LIBYA:

Appeal of Libya death sentence set for Bulgaria nurses


 426 Libyan children were infected with HIV in the 1990s

 5 Bulgarian nurses were sentenced to death for infecting them

 A Libyan court will hear the nurses' appeal June 20

 The EU, nurses' families and Libya government are working on a deal

A Libyan court will hear an appeal next week by 5 Bulgarian nurses
sentenced to death on charges of infecting hundreds of Libyan children
with the HIV virus, a Bulgarian official said on Friday.

"The court session on the appeal of the verdicts will be held on June 20,"
said foreign ministry spokesman Dimitar Tsanchev. Legal experts say the
court might have several sittings or may actually rule on the appeal next
Wednesday.

Othman Benzanti, leading lawyer for the 5 nurses, said he had been told
the date of the appeal but gave no other details.

The 5 nurses and a Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death in December,
convicted of infecting 426 Libyan children with the deadly virus while
they worked at the children's hospital in the eastern city of Benghazi in
the 1990s.

In a Libyan jail since 1999, they say they are innocent and were tortured
to confess. Bulgaria and its allies in Brussels, Belgium, and Washington
have intensified efforts to ensure their release.

Talks between the European Union and the association of the families of
the infected children re-started last month and both sides have expressed
hope a deal that may lead to the release of the medics could be reached
soon.

Bulgarian officials said even if there is an agreement, it would not be
taken into an account by the court, but would be taken to Libya's High
Judicial Council that has the power to amend or overturn decisions by the
judiciary.

Libya has suggested it could free the nurses if an agreement is reached to
pay compensation to the families, which have asked for 10 million euros
($13,311,00) for each child.

Brussels, Sofia and Washington have refused to pay compensation, saying it
would amount to an admission of guilt, but have set up a fund to provide
medical aid for the children and financial support for their relatives.

(source: Reuters)






VIETNAM:

Death sentences upheld on seven drug traffickers, producers


The Peoples Supreme Court on June 14 upheld death sentences for 7
defendants on the charges of producing, trading and transporting large
volumes of drugs.

The 7 defendants, namely Trinh Nguyen Thuy, Dang Van Au, Le Van Tinh, Ngo
Trung Hieu, Pham Xuan Tho, Vu Hong Diep and Pham Khac Hung, were handed
down death penalties by the Peoples Court of northern Son La province last
January.

3 other defendants, Nghiem Dinh Bong, Ngo Thanh Soai and Nguyen Van Thuan,
got life-imprisonment sentences for their involvement in the ring, in what
is considered one of the countrys biggest drug cases.

Thuy, born in 1958, and was arrested in August 2005 when he was director
of a local company. He and his accomplices were accused of trafficking 216
kg of heroin and 199.5 kg of opium, and producing 48 kg of heroin.

In addition, the defendants were also forced to pay fines of between VND
10-500 million (US $625-31,250).

Vietnam has over the past 10 years prosecuted some 111,000 drug
trafficking cases, including several transnational drug rings, in which
more than 190,000 smugglers and dealers were sentenced to imprisonment.

(source: Vietnam News Agency)


AUSTRALIA:

Sunny Jacobs - campaigner against the death penalty

In 1976, Sunny Jacobs was sent to prison when she was convicted of the
murder of 2 policemen in Florida. Her partner Jesse was sent to the
electric chair for the same crime - but they were both innocent. Sunny
spent 17 years in jail - 5 of those years on death row; she went in a
young mother, a daughter and a wife and when she came out, she was a
grandmother, a widow and an orphan.

When the crime was committed, Sunny was travelling to Florida to help out
her partner Jesse. They got caught up with one of Jesse's friends, ex-con
Walter Rhodes, who actually murdered the 2 policemen in front of Sunny and
Jesse.

Now, with hindsight, Sunny admits she was blind to the potential danger of
following Jesse to Florida where he was associating with Walter Rhodes. "I
made a fateful decision that now when I look back at it I can say I was
pretty stupid," she says. "We (son Eric, 9-years-old, Tina, 10-months-old
and Sunny) were just sitting in the back seat of the car and then after
the shooting we were just paralysed with disbelief and fear that this was
actually happening around us ... Eric was sitting beside me completely
silent and so was the baby silent. There was Mr Rhodes... with a gun in
his hand telling us to get in the police car...

"I asked Jesse couldn't we just stay there and not have to go with him but
he said the guy had just shot 2 policemen and he was desperate and he
might consider us witnesses and kill us if we didn't come with him, so you
don't argue with a guy with a smoking gun." Sunny says the motivation
behind her then being charged and tried as an accomplice to the murders
was partly political. "I later was told by one of the jurors that they
were trying to make an example of a woman; to send a clear message to all
the criminals out there that even a woman would get the electric chair."

Sunny spent the first 5 of her 17 years in prison on eath row. "Sanity
really didn't apply to my situation. You had to go someplace deeper inside
yourself. Your mind was totally boggled, your identity was taken away from
you. Your power is taken. Your clothes are taken. You're put in a cell and
you're given a number and that number is basically your inventory number.
You belong to the state and you have a number and you're only there
waiting until they decide to take your life," she remembers.

"In the rules, the guards weren't to speak to me because if they get to
know a person as a human being they can't possibly participate in taking
that person's life. So I had to be treated as less than human; as 'other
than'."

Sunny drew on her inner resources through meditation and yoga to endure
the isolation of death row and stave off hopelessness. "[Meditation] let
me know there was more to me than just what they could keep in the cell. I
used the yoga to clear myself and I used the meditation to get beyond the
situation my body had to suffer... When people say, 'did you lose your
mind?' I say, 'Maybe I did, but it is really at a deeper level that we
find our survival when we're tested in that way'."

After five years, Sunny's death sentence was commuted to a life sentence.
"I was allowed to be among people again. I was delighted. I thought this
was wonderful. I got to have breakfast with people, I got to interact with
them and talk with them and while everybody else was completely miserable
for having been sentenced to prison, I thought it was great!" she says.

Jesse, however, never made it out of death row, and his wrongful execution
by electric chair was made more horrific by malfunctioning equipment.
"From the time they pulled the switch the first time it took 13 1/2
minutes for Jesse to die... The people that were there on behalf of the
press to witness the execution were so traumatised by it that even ten
years later they're still writing about it, because... his head caught
fire and smoke came out of his ears and he strained against the restraints
and they did this three times before he was actually pronounced dead."

Now Sunny lives in Ireland, and travels the world campaigning against the
death penalty. Since her release she's become aware of the multitude of
injustices contained in her case. "The problem with the justice system as
it was and as it remains, is there's no accountability. They can do that
to a person and then say, 'Oh well, made a mistake'."

Sunny's book about her experiences is called Stolen Time.

(source: ABC Radio News)






CHINA:

China to make death penalty cases more transparent


China has pledged to make its death penalty system more transparent after
reforms introduced this year led to a 10 percent drop in executions, state
press reported Friday, quoted by AFP.

China's top court issued a legal notice saying more trials that could
result in a death sentence should be held in public, and that there should
be much more openness across the legal system, according to the China
Daily.

"First-instance hearings of capital punishment cases must be open," the
Supreme People's Court said in the document Thursday, according to the
report.

"Courts should eventually carry out public trials for appeal hearings in
criminal cases," the notice said. "They should also hold more public
trials for appeals in civil and administrative cases."

(source: Focus Information Agency)






RWANDA:

Death penalty likely for aggressor against Rwandan journalist


The public prosecutor demanded the death penalty against Aimable Murenzi,
sued for plotting aggression against Rwandan journalist Jean Bosco
Gasasira, editorial director of the Kigali-based newspaper `Umuvugizi`,
who was severely beaten in February 2007, judicial sources revealed here
Thursday.

Gasasira had been assaulted by a group of individuals not yet identified
while he was leaving a supermarket in the locality of Kimironko, some 17km
east of Kigali.

According to eyewitnesses, four men dressed in suits, who had kept
surveillance on the movements of the journalist since early during the
day, started beating him up with iron bars while humiliating the victim,
saying he was a critic of the Rwandan government.

The only aggressor arrested, Aimable Murenzi, currently detained in the
Kigali central prison, pleaded not guilty at the Tribunal of Remera,
affirming to have intervened to save the endangered life of the
journalist.

The verdict is expected on 2 July 2007.

This sentencing to the death penalty comes at a time when the Rwandan
parliament has just adopted the abolition of the death penalty in the
Rwandan Constitution.

The death penalty existed long ago in Rwanda, but no statistic is
available today on the number of those sentenced to death or executed
during this period before Rwandan judicial authorities.

(source: Angola Press)