[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 16


GLOBAL:

World Opinion On Death Penalty Still Mixed ----Another botched execution
in Baghdad sure to re-ignite debate.


Saddam Hussein's half-brother was decapitated in Baghdad earlier today
after a hangman apparently miscalculated the force needed to break his
neck. The foul-up comes just weeks after a cell-phone video of Hussein's
own hanging sparked a worldwide furor and re-ignited debate about the
morality of legally mandated killing.

Around the world, opinion is deeply divided about the death penalty. In
Latin America alone views on the issue lurch widely from country to
country. 82 % of Peruvians supported execution in a recent poll, for
example, and not just for murderers, for child molesters too. Mexicans,
however, are at the other end of the scale. Only 38 % of those surveyed
there approve of the death penalty for any crime.

What the polls say

25 % of Australians support the death penalty.

1 % more Americans supported the death penalty in 2006 than in 2003. The
number now sits at 65 according to this poll.

27 % of British adults think those convicted of seriously sexually
assaulting a child should be executed.

7 % feel the same should apply to those who assault adults.

21 % of El Salvadorans think the death penalty is the best way to curb
gang violence in that country.

51 % of Brazilians say they would vote yes in a referendum on re-instating
the death penalty. The practice was abolished in the country in 1979.

72 % of South Africans, meanwhile, want their country to bring execution
back.

For the British, who you murder, and how you do it, matters. 46 % of those
polled last January thought terrorists should be executed; just 7 % said
the same punishmen should apply to those who murder their husband or wife.

Opinion on Hussein's own execution was not nearly as mixed. In a 6-country
poll conducted before the execution, 82 % of Americans supported the death
sentence. A majority of respondents in Britain, France, Germany and Spain
concurred.

(source: The Tyee)

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

European Union to step up global anti-death penalty campaign


The European Union will intensify its international efforts to abolish
capital punishment, DPA reported Tuesday.

German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries announced on the sidelines of the
informal meeting of EU justice and interior ministers in the eastern city
of Dresden that the 27-member bloc was considering plans to introduce an
anti-death penalty resolution in the United Nations.

Italy has put the anti-capital punishment issue on the agenda of the EU
session in Germany.

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi vowed earlier this year to press ahead
with a "universal" moratorium on the death penalty.

Rome is hoping to gain the support of 85 UN member states which have
already announced their anti-death penalty stance in a non-binding
declaration.

(source: IRNA)






NIGERIA:

Murder Case - Supreme Court Affirms Death Sentence On Police Officer


The Supreme Court at the weekend okayed the death penalty passed Sergeant,
Adegboye Ibikunle who was fingered in the murder of one Godspower Edeha in
Asaba on May 21, 2001.

In a lead judgement delivered by Justice Sylvester Umaru Onu, the apex
court held that Ibikunle willfully shot Edeha without provoca-tion with
the intent to kill him.

Other Justices in the case are, Dahiru Musdapher, Aloma Mariam Mukhtar,
Walter Samuel Onnoghen and Francis Fedode Tabai.

Justice Onu upheld the findings of the Delta State High Court which was
also affirmed by the Court of Appeal saying that they were flawless, hence
could not be impugned, adding that "... I am mindful of the fact that it
is settled law that the Supreme Court will not reverse concurrent findings
except special circumstances can be shown by the appellant.

Godspower Edeha who was killed at about 2.am on 21st May, 2000, was
allegedly shot by Adegboye Ibikunle who fired a gunshot that hit the
deceased in the thoracic cavity.

It was the appellant who pointed out the apartment occupied by the
deceased at No. 12B Orishe Street as the residence of the suspected armed
robber.

There was no report against the deceased in any police station.

There was nothing to suggest that a crime was committed in the residence
of the deceased.

That the time was about 2am and it was the appellant who knocked on the
door of the deceased's apartment and asked for "Nonso".

The deceased was frightened and he said he was not the person being sought
by the police.

The appellant fired a gun shot through the door into the room where the
deceased was and the shot hit the deceased in the abdomen causing his
death.

The shooting was intent-ional and not accidental.

The appellant's life was not in danger or imminent death and there was no
evidence to support the defence of "self - defence".

The Justice held that the argument made by the appellant that all he
sought to do by firing a shot at the deceased was to "merely incapacitate"
him amounted to standing logic, common sense and truth on their heads.

His words: "In his brief of argument, the appellant claimed that he fired
only one shot at 'the downward end of the door' and that it was the
appellant's intention to shoot towards the lower part of the deceased body
by directing his shot towards the downward end of the door with the
intention of incapacitating the deceased person, certainly not to kill
him, can only be accepted with a pinch of salt. In the same paragraphs,
the appellant also alleged that the lower court did not fully consider the
alleged fact that the appellant fired only one bullet.

"The foregoing assertions on behalf of the appellant are not only
misplaced in law and additional fly in the face of the credible evidence
on record and the findings of fact made thereto are not only prepost-erous
but concomitant with twisted falsehood.

He noted that "the appellant has never denied the fact that he shot
through the door with the knowledge that the deceased was there behind the
door. He has never denied the fact that he intended to cause the death or
inflict grevious bodily harm to the deceased. Whatever part of the door he
shot at, by shooting the deceased through the door, there can be no doubt
that the appellant intended to cause death or inflict on him grievous
bodily harm."

(source: Daily Trust)






SAUDI ARABIA:

Saudi beheaded for murder


A Saudi convicted of murdering a compatriot was beheaded by the sword
Tuesday in the eastern city of Dammam, the interior ministry said.

Abdullah bin Ahmad Al Zahrani had been found guilty of shooting to death
Saad bin Qahiwi Al Saadi following a quarrel, the ministry said in a
statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

The beheading was the second announced in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia
in 2007, after at least 37 were executed in 2006.

At least 83 were put to death in 2005 and 35 the year before, according to
AFP counts based on official statements.

Executions are generally carried out in public in the oil-rich kingdom,
which applies a strict form of Islamic law. The death penalty is applied
for murder, rape, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking.

(source: Agence France Presse)






BAHRAIN:

Shura backs death penalty for drug traffickers


A call for judges to impose the death penalty on drug traffickers went out
from a senior Interior Ministry official in Bahrain yesterday.

Drug crimes are increasing because judges are being too soft in not using
the ultimate penalty allowed by the law, said Interior Ministry
Under-Secretary Brigadier Shaikh Daij bin Khalifa Al Khalifa.

The death penalty has never been imposed for drug trafficking in Bahrain,
since the current Penal Law was introduced in 1973.

"Although we already have the death penalty for this crime, the number of
drugs cases hasn't decreased, but on the contrary has risen," said Shaikh
Daij.

"The reason isn't because we have the death penalty, it's because the
courts haven't implemented it.

"I believe that having the punishment and implementing it is the solution
to this problem."

He was speaking at the Shura Council, before members voted overwhelmingly
to keep the death penalty for drug traffickers, despite an impassioned
motion to drop it in favour of life imprisonment.

(source: Gulf Daily News)






IRAQ:

Iraqi Hangings Bring More Denunciations----Head of Hussein's Half Brother
Is Severed


By the time the corpses of Saddam Hussein's half brother and another top
official, hanged before dawn Monday, arrived in the village of Auja for
burial, the word had spread among the mourners: The head of Hussein's
brother had been severed from his body.

Many of the people who had gathered considered the decapitation of Barzan
Ibrahim to be a calculated insult, another act by the Shiite-dominated
government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to humiliate followers of the
executed former president and all his fellow Sunni Arabs. A doctor
inspected the remains to assess the government's explanation that the
noose inadvertently took off the head after Ibrahim dropped through the
trapdoor of the scaffold.

"We knew that he would be executed and would join a parade of heroes, but
Maliki, why did you behead him?" asked Salam al-Tikriti, 41, a relative of
Ibrahim. "Why did you insult his body? Are you still afraid of him even
after he is dead? We will cut your heads the same way that you are cutting
the heads of the heroes of Iraq."

In many parts of Iraq, the executions set off new waves of anger and
celebration along sectarian lines, though Maliki's government had gone to
great pains to prevent the type of chaotic spectacle that accompanied
Hussein's hanging 2 weeks ago, when Shiite witnesses in the execution
chamber taunted Hussein.

Shiites celebrated the new executions, while Sunni politicians vented.
Alaa Makki, a Sunni legislator, said that justice was done but the manner
of the execution was disturbing. "Everybody knows that when you hang
people, rarely the head will be decapitated from the body," he said,
criticizing what he called a "revenge on the body."

"It denotes that people are very reactive and very extremist and they want
revenge," he said.

Hussein al-Falluji, another Sunni legislator, called the executions
"illegitimate and illegal."

The hangings drew criticism from abroad as well. The Moroccan Human Rights
Association said they were a "criminal political assassination
masterminded by American imperialism."

A U.N. spokesman expressed regret that Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's
request to spare the two men's lives was not granted. Jos? Manuel Barroso,
president of the European Commission, the European Union's executive arm,
said after the hangings that he would back an Italian initiative for a
worldwide moratorium on capital punishment under U.N. auspices.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, visiting Egypt, said she believed the
hangings of Hussein and the two others were mishandled and should have
been carried out with "greater dignity."

Ibrahim, who ran Hussein's intelligence service, or Mukhabarat, and Awad
Haman Bander, leader of Hussein's Revolutionary Court, were put to death
at 3 a.m. Monday, government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said. They had been
sentenced to death for their role in the killings of 148 men and boys from
the Shiite village of Dujail following an assassination attempt against
Hussein in 1982.

Iraqi officials denied that the decapitation was intentional, saying that
Ibrahim's neck had been unable to absorb the noose's force. Dabbagh
described it as a "rare incident" in a hanging and said that the
proceeding was marked by professionalism and restraint not shown during
Hussein's execution.

For Monday's hangings, the Iraqi government restricted the witnesses to a
judge, a prosecutor, a doctor, a prison warden and representatives of the
Interior Ministry and the prime minister's office, Dabbagh said. They made
the attendees sign documents pledging they would not misbehave, Dabbagh
added.

"Everyone obeyed the instructions of the government; no violation, chant,
slogans or words that would harm the execution of this verdict was
registered," he said.

Iraqi officials showed silent video clips of the hangings to reporters at
a news conference but did not release the footage to the public.

According to an Associated Press account of the video, the two defendants
appeared side by side at the gallows wearing red prison jumpsuits. They
were surrounded by five masked men, and black hoods were placed over their
heads. After the trapdoors beneath them opened, Bander dangled from the
rope, but the shock of the rope going taut severed Ibrahim's head from his
body, both of which fell to the floor, the news service reported.

By 6 p.m., the bodies had arrived in Auja, about 100 miles north of
Baghdad, and were greeted by more than 1,000 people. The crowd carried the
corpses, wrapped in Iraqi flags, on their shoulders into a hall as chants
rang out of "Allahu akbar" -- "God is great" -- and guns were fired into
the air.

The bodies were washed and wrapped in white shrouds before being buried in
a garden plot next to the hall that houses Hussein's grave. The crowd
surrounded the bodies, and the sound of crying mixed with chanted praises
to God.

"We are so proud that [Bander] died as a martyr defending his beliefs,"
said Abdulla al-Sadoon, 55, a relative of Bander from Basra. "It is a
proud thing to die like this."

Top officials from Salahuddin province attended the burials, and the
funerals for Bander and Ibrahim were expected to last 3 days.

The hangings occurred on a day when two top outgoing U.S. officials in
Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, told
reporters that they were optimistic about the new plan to secure Baghdad,
saying they sensed a deeper commitment by the Iraqi government to combat
Sunni and Shiite extremists who are fighting in the capital.

The Shiite-led Iraqi security forces have been widely accused of operating
death squads that target Sunnis while allowing Shiite militias in the
capital free rein. But Casey added that he did not expect to see
significant improvement in Baghdad's security until the summer or fall.

"There is a strong political commitment from the government of Iraq to the
plan, including the will to act, and including the will not to impose
constraints on coalition and Iraqi security forces," Casey said, adding:
"As with any plan, there are no guarantees of success, and it's not going
to happen overnight. But with sustained political support and concentrated
efforts on all sides, I believe that this plan can work."

President Bush has committed to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq
in order to maintain a more visible presence in Baghdad's embattled
neighborhoods and provide more support for Iraqi troops. The first of the
reinforcements have arrived, Casey said.

"Yes, there are still difficulties with the Iraqi security forces; that
has been a challenge," he said. "The increased deployment of coalition
forces will enable us to increase the level of support we are providing to
those forces, to strengthen them a little bit as we go forward with this
plan."

Also on Monday, the U.S. military announced that a U.S. soldier from the
89th Military Police Brigade died Sunday when a roadside bomb exploded
near his vehicle north of Baghdad. The soldier's name was not released.

(source: Washington Post)