[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 18


CHINA:

China Considers Cash for Clemency


Under pressure to reduce its huge number of annual executions as it
prepares to host the 2008 Olympic games, China has been experimenting with
commuting death penalties to life sentences in exchange for compensation.
But the practice is proving contentious.

A string of cases in the southern province of Guangdong where convicted
murderers were given amnesty in exchange for cash paid to the victims'
families created a storm of controversy earlier this year. Similar
practices have also been reported in the coastal provinces of Shandong and
Zhejiang.

The disclosures have sparked an intense debate on Internet forums about
the price of human life in a country which is routinely criticised for
executing more people annually than the rest of the world combined.

While impetus for reform of China's capital punishment system has been
growing in recent years, surveys indicate many Chinese continue to view
the death penalty as an important crime deterrent.

"The fate of criminals now seems to be determined by the depth of their
pockets," lamented Le Lan, a teacher at the Southwest University for
Nationalities, one of those who joined the public debate. "The seriousness
of law has been destroyed, further undermining the public's understanding
of justice."

Xu Shu, a factory worker from Shenzhen, agreed: "This is an insult to the
law. Can money now buy a life? What can't it buy?"

But some legal experts have defended the amnesty cases as a sign of
nascent reform.

"The practices conform to the latest call from the Supreme People's Court
to 'hand out fewer death penalties and do so prudently'," Jiang Qinghan, a
lawyer with the Shanghai Guangmao Law Firm wrote recently on the Internet
forum of the China Daily newspaper. "If there is repentance and the
criminal's behaviour does not merit execution, why is it necessary to take
a life?"

The dilemma faced by legal authorities is exemplified by the case of an
elderly woman Deng Rongfen from Dongguan in Guangdong province, reported
in the local newspaper Southern Weekend in March.

Deng's only son and the sole breadwinner in a family of five was stabbed
to death in May 2006. He had surprised 3 migrant workers robbing his
family house. The perpetrators were all given death sentences.

But even as justice was achieved on paper, Deng's family situation
remained insolvent. Deng had no money or means to send her grandchildren
to kindergarten or help her daughter-in-law raise them. The desperation of
Deng's circumstances eventually led to court-sanctioned negotiations
between her and the accused and the arrangement of a civil compensation
package in exchange for reduction in their sentences.

The judicial officials in Dongguan have defended the cash-for-amnesty
move, saying the commuting of the death penalty is done only with the
consent of the victim's family and it is not tantamount to "redeeming
crime with money". They argue that with the lack of unified compensation
system, the recompense received by the victims' families can help relieve
social strain, prevent numerous appeals and even curtail unrest.

"Some 90 percent of our criminal cases involve migrant workers and both
offenders and victims are quite poor, " Wang Chuanghui, a judicial officer
with the Dongguan Intermediate People's Court told the Southern Weekly.

Ironically, the publicising of the practice appears to have achieved an
effect opposite to the one desired. It has ignited debates about social
inequality at a time of deep divisions in Chinese society caused by
mounting income disparity.

While the country's headlong economic modernisation over the last 30 years
has benefited many urbanities, people in the villages have remained on the
fringes of China's development, earning less than their city counterparts
and lacking adequate education and health care.

"The poor crime victims have no option but to accept the money," an online
writer calling himself "Rule of Law" wrote recently on www.sina.com, one
of China's most popular news portals. "They are, to some extent, coerced'
into compromise". And as the country takes tentative steps towards
reducing the number of executions, legal experts foresee more conflicts.

"Chinese people are traditionally used to punitive justice and believe in
the death sentence as due punishment for serious crimes," Zhou Guangquan,
law professor at Beijing Qinghua University said at a round table on
China's compensation system organised by the Xinjingbao newspaper in
Beijing. "Should the number of death sentences decline, we need an
adequate system of relief for the victims' families or we risk seeing
people taking justice into their own hands." China reported fewer
executions in the first five months of 2007 after the country's Supreme
People's Court regained its power to ratify or rescind death sentences on
Jan. 1. The number of death sentences imposed by Beijing courts has
dropped 10 percent, which is reflected by a similar trend across the
country, Ni Shouming, the Court's spokesperson told the English-language
China Daily on June 8.

"The lower courts have to be more prudent now," he was quoted as saying.
"If a case is sent back for a retrial by the highest court, it not only
means the final judgement is wrong, but also it is a matter of shame for
the lower court."

Centralising the right of final review by the Supreme People's Court ends
a 25-year-long practice of allowing lower courts to order executions. The
practice has long been denounced by legal rights advocates for leading to
arbitrary rulings by provincial judges and an excessively high number of
death sentences.

What is more, a string of wrongful convictions concealed by investigators
have come to light in recent years causing public outcry and adding
pressure to revise the system.

Chinese authorities classify the number of court-ordered executions as a
state secret. But Chinese legal experts believe the number of executions
could be as high as 10,000 a year. More than 60 offences -- including
non-violent offences like corruption and tax evasion -- are punishable by
death

(source: IPS)






JAPAN:

Japanese courts----Former death-row inmate warns of more hangings in Japan


An 81-year-old former death-row inmate is spearheading a campaign to
abolish the death penalty in Japan, amidst mounting fears that more
people, especially the wrongly accused, may soon be sent to the gallows.

Sakae Menda says he is dedicating the rest of his life to abolish the
death penalty because of his first-hand experience of the torture of
waiting for more than three decades for his own execution.

Menda narrowly escaped execution in 1983 after 34 years and 6 months of
incarceration, and since then he has become the leading voice for
anti-death penalty action inside and outside Japan.

The campaign is intensifying in Japan these days because of widespread
fears that the country will conduct more capital punishments when a new
court system is introduced in 2009.

"I'm highly concerned that public opinion seems to urge the extraction of
revenge," said Menda, one of 4 death-row inmates who have been able to
prove their innocence to breathe fresh air outside of prison.

Menda and other activists fear that the families of crime victims would
seek the extreme sentence against defendants when Japanese courts
introduce the new criminal trial system as early as May 2009.

The new trial system would appoint 6 eligible voters as lay judges to
discuss the verdict with 3 professional judges in trials of murder and
other serious criminal cases.

But the Japanese people, who "regard the death penalty just as habitual as
rain or shine," rarely doubt its ethics, according to Naoto Hosaka, a
general secretary of a parliamentarian league dedicated to abolishing the
death penalty.

Japan conducts executions by hanging. The condemned are not told when they
are to be killed. Inmates, who commonly spend decades in solitary cells,
are not granted a special last meal, or a meeting with their families, let
alone the last solemn moments to reflect on their lives.

On the day of the execution, the inmates are dragged out of their cells,
taken to a room where they will hear the chanting prayer by a Buddhist
monk and given time to write a last short letter to anyone they care for.
Then they are led to the gallows to be hanged.

While a cabinet office survey shows more than 80 % of Japanese support
capital punishment, the nation faces stern criticism and consistent
demands from the international community, especially from the European
Union, to work toward abolishing the system.

"Japan is not respecting the most basic human rights - the right to live,"
Danish Ambassador Freddy Svane said at a recent press conference held at
Tokyo's Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.

The EU is trying to achieve a universal moratorium on the death penalty as
the 1st step to universal abolition.

Svane said the EU policy is mainly directed at the United States and
Japan, the 2 leading democracies in the world that still conduct
executions.

In late May, Amnesty International criticized Japan for "lagging behind
the steady global march" toward the abolition of the death penalty.

Neighbouring South Korea has implemented a moratorium on the death penalty
during two presidencies and has not conducted an execution since 1998,
while Taiwan is experiencing an active anti-death-penalty campaign. Russia
and Turkey have also temporarily ceased executions, according to Hosaka, a
Social Democratic Party lawmaker.

In contrast, Japan seems to have accelerated its policy of execution, some
activists say.

Up until this year, Japan on average conducted 3 executions per year, but
it has already killed 4 inmates this year.

On Christmas last year, a 75-year-old Christian was led in a wheelchair to
an execution chamber, according to the head of the 74-member
parliamentarians league. 3 more were hanged on the same day.

Currently, 102 death-row inmates await their execution inside seven of
about 60 prisons across the nation which are equipped with execution
chambers. But many are expected to die of old age before their execution
day, Menda said.

Menda himself was able to regain his freedom after being convicted of
murdering 4 people and having been sentenced to death.

The former death-row inmate was granted a retrial because he insisted he
was wrongly accused and his confession was extracted by police brutality.

Japan's criminal justice system is flawed and leads to false convictions,
said Kazuko Ito, a criminal-case lawyer in Tokyo.

Because police are legally allowed to detain crime suspects up to 23 days
to conduct interrogations, Ito said confessions tend to be extracted due
to the great pressure applied to the subjects. Japanese prosecutors enjoy
a conviction rate of 99. 9 %.

Deficiencies also lie in the nation's criminal trials, where prosecutors
have no obligation to turn over evidence that could support defendants,
Ito said.

"I think there is a serious problem in proceeding with the death penalty
when the nation's criminal justice system has so many flaws," the lawyer
said, adding that such a system only contributes to higher chances of
executing the wrongly accused.

The nonpartisan lawmakers' league plans to submit a bill to the Diet to
set up a task force to study the Japanese capital punishment system. The
bill aims to start a 2-year debate over the practice and suggest
alternative punishments such as life sentences without parole.

Japan had a 2-year moratorium on capital punishments from 1990, but hanged
7 inmates as soon as it ended in 1993.

"I feel that the courts are becoming a place to seek punishment out of
emotional upsurge rather than a place to draw out fair justice," Menda
said. "This trend will certainly end up sending more innocent people to
death. "

Menda says he remembers the faces of 56 of his fellow inmates as they
claimed their innocence before they were dragged off to the gallows.

(source: Jurnalo.com)






BANGLADESH:

Bangla Army officer arrives home from US to face death penalty


A former Army officer, convicted of involvement in the 1975 assassination
of Bangladesh's founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, arrived home today from the
US after a court there rejected his appeal to stay back and was
immediately sent to a high-security jail here.

US Homeland Security agents escorted sacked lieutenant colonel Mohiuddin
Ahmed and handed over to Bangladesh authorities as a Thai Airways aircraft
brought him home to face justice.

Immigration police arrested him immediately on arrival.

Television footages showed that cordoned by security officials, Ahmed was
hastily guided to a prison van which brought him to downtown Dhaka's Chief
Metropolitan Magistrate's (CMM) Court.

Several vehicles of the elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)
troops and armed police escorted the prison van to the CMM Court where a
magistrate after a brief hearing ordered him to be kept at a cell
earmarked for prisoners convicted with death penalties. Jail officials
received him at the high-security Dhaka Central Jail.

Witnesses said tight security was enforced around Dhaka's Zia
International Airport and the court premises which the police evacuated
earlier for a brief period allowing only several lawyers and journalists
to stay in.

The exact time, route and flight carrying the convict were kept secret
earlier for "security reasons" as the foreign affairs adviser of interim
Cabinet yesterday said that a federal US court eventually cleared his way
home.

The US authorities, earlier, denied him asylum status in the US after
Ahmed fled the country when Awami League returned to power in 1996 after
21 years in political wilderness and initiated the delayed trial process.

(source: The Hindu)




LIBYA:

COURT COULD CONFIRM DEATH PENALTY IN MEDICS' CASE WEDNESDAY


Libya's supreme court is likely on Wednesday to confirm a death sentence
against 6 foreign medics charged with deliberately infecting 426 Libyan
children with the HIV virus, possibly setting the stage for a deal on
compensation, reports said Monday. A son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi,
Seif al Islam, surprised defence lawyers and EU observers when he hinted
over the weekend that the court would rule as soon as Wednesday and that
it would probably confirm a previous death sentence against the 5
Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor, Bulgarian news agency Novinite
reports.

Al Islam then said that after the court pronounces the final sentence on
the case, Libya will immediately start working on an agreement with the
children's families.

Meanwhile the spokesman ofor a group representing the families of the
infected children said he expected the court to dismiss the defence's
appeal

. Ramadan Fitouri of the Association for the Families of the HIV infected
Children told Reuters that "this will then be an ideal time to negotiate
the issue of compensation."

"If an agreement is reached about this - I mean, if the families accept
the compensation - then the council could cancel the death penalty," he
added.

Once the Libyan supreme court has ruled, the case will go to the
government-controlled high judicial council which could change the
decision.

The medics, who have been jailed in Libya since 1999, have long claimed
they are innocent and are being used as scapegoats for unsanitary
conditions in the Benghazi hospital where they worked and where they say
the HIV virus already existed before they arrived in 1998. Of the infected
children, 52 have died.

A court on 19 December last year found the 6 defendants guilty of
deliberately infecting the Libyan children and sentenced them to death.
The medics had been sentenced to death by firing squad in a previous trial
in 2004, but Libya's supreme court ordered a retrial in December 2005.

An international group of physicians and scientists has urged Libya to
free the medics, saying that accusations against them were unfounded.

An independent report by leading experts including Luc Montagnier, who
co-discovered the HIV virus, supported the medics' claim that the HIV
infections started in the Benghazi hospital before their arrival and were
caused by poor hygiene standards.

(source: AKI)

****************************************

PROSECUTION IN LIBYA DEMANDS CONFIRMATION OF BULGARIAN NURSES' DEATH
SENTENCES


Libya's prosecution demanded the confirmation of the death sentences of
the 5 Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death for intentional HIV infection.

On June 20, Libya's Supreme Court will examine the nurses' appeal against
the death sentence. This is their final chance to see a verdict change.

Libya Today reported that the prosecution already presented its stand on
the appeal. According to the report, the 5 nurses will not be present in
the courthouse during the June 20 sitting.

Agence France-Presse reported that the fate of the nurses depended mostly
on the negotiations between Libya and European countries.

According to Libyan sources that the agency quoteds, the death sentences
of the nurses will be confirmed.

Head of Gaddaffi foundation Saif al-Islam said that immediately after the
court pronounces the verdict, the foundation will start working on a
package of measures that will ensure the freedom of the nurses.

(source: Sofia Echo)






GRENADA:

'Grenada 13' to be resentenced

After years of uncertainty, the "Grenada 13" will be re-sentenced on
Monday. The week-long re-sentencing hearing will be held at the Grenada
Trade Centre, which will be used as the high court for the purpose.

The resentencing was ordered in February by the London-based Privy
Council, the highest court of appeal for many former British colonies. The
court struck down the 1986 death sentences and ordered the resentencing by
island's high court.

The inmates were among 17 whose 1983 coup led the US to invade Grenada.
One was freed in 2000 to undergo cancer treatment, and 3 other
conspirators were not given death sentences and released early for good
behaviour in the slayings of former socialist leader Maurice Bishop and
others.

When the men appear before a high court judge, family members of those who
lost their lives during the revolution era, have planned a protest in the
vicinity of the court.

While some believe the men should be freed, others think they ought to pay
for the many lives lost during the era some Grenadians will never forget.

Caribbean Net News understands that there will be heavy security put in
place for the duration of the proceedings.

Legal Affairs Minister Elvin Nimrod has been heavily criticised over for a
statement made during a recent political rally.

Nimrod was reported as saying that his government (New National Party)
will do everything to ensure that the men remain behind bars.

This statement did not go down well with some sections of the population
here. Some believe the men have spent their time and should be given a
chance to live normal lives.

(source: Caribbean Net News)