[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 31


VIETNAM:

Son La court hands death sentences to 8 drug dealers


8 heroin producers and distributors were handed death sentences while 13
others were given life imprisonment, by the People's Court in Son La
northern mountain province, yesterday.

Masterminds Trinh Nguyen Thuy, Le Van Tinh and their accomplices were
convicted of producing, trading, transporting and storing nearly 1 ton of
drugs.

The 6 others who were sentenced to death were Dang Van Au, Vu Hong Diep,
Ngo Trung Hieu, Pham Xuan Tho, Nguyen Xuan Thanh and Pham Khac Hung.

Le Van Tinh's wife, Vu Thi Hue, was among the 13 that were given life
imprisonment terms. Other members of the ring that included family members
of the leaders, were also handed sentences ranging from 6 months to 20
years.

The court also fined the accused from between VND5 million to VND500
million.

The case is the 1st to involve drug production in the country, and the
biggest to be handled by the provincial court.

(source: VietNam News)






INDIA:

Death sentence for rape, murder


In Angul, a local court has convicted and sentenced a 25-year-old youth to
death for raping a minor girl and murdering her 2 years ago.

Additional district and sessions judge, Angul, Ajay Kumar Dey, yesterday
convicted Duryodhan Rout for the crime he committed on September 11, 2004
on the basis of circumstantial evidence.

According to the prosecution, Rout had lured the girl to a nearby jungle
at Kundajhari village under Thakurgarh police station limits and raped
her. He then strangled her to death.

In his judgement, the judge observed that life imprisonment would be
inadequate for such a crime.

(source: Chennai Online News Service)

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

Tihar has 10 inmates facing death sentence


Mohammad Afzal, convicted for his role in the 2001 attack on the Indian
parliament, is not the only inmate at the Tihar jail here facing capital
punishment. There are 9 more.

Of the 10 convicts, 2 have filed mercy petitions before the president and
3 have their special leave petitions pending before the Supreme Court. The
others' petitions are in the Delhi High Court.

'Ten inmates are facing the gallows but they have appealed to various
authorities for reconsideration of their punishment. We are ready to
execute them as per the direction of the judiciary,' jail director general
Brijesh Gupta told reporters Wednesday.

A trial court sentenced Afzal to death Dec 18, 2002 and the Delhi High
Court confirmed the sentence in August 2005. The apex court, which
ratified it last year, has dismissed his special leave petition and
curative petition.

However, Afzal's mercy petition is still pending before the president.

Among the others, Mohammad Arif was convicted Oct 31, 2005 for the terror
attack on the Red Fort here in December 2000 along with his
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) lieutenants.

He has appealed against the sentence before the Delhi High Court, where
his petition is pending.

Sushil Sharma, convicted for murdering his wife Naina Sahni and burning
her body in a tandoor (clay oven), has moved the Delhi High Court with a
petition to review the death penalty awarded on Nov 7, 2003.

Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar, a Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) militant,
was sentenced Aug 25, 2001 for his involvement in a bomb attack. The
Supreme Court dismissed his special leave petition Dec 27, 2006. His mercy
petition is with the president.

S.K. Singh, sentenced on Oct 17, 2006 by the Delhi High Court, has moved
the apex court. A local court awarded capital punishment to Mohammed
Hussain Nov 11, 2003 and the Delhi High Court upheld the judgement Aug 4,
2004. His special leave petition is pending before the Supreme Court.

Others facing the death row are Atbir, Zameel Ahemad, Dilshad and R.P.
Tyagi.

Tihar, one of the biggest prisons of South Asia, is home to over 14,000
prisoners as against its capacity of 6,250. It has 864 prisoners including
25 females who have been awarded the life term.

(source: Indo-Asian News Service)






CHINA:

Oil thieves to face death penalty


Serious cases of oil and gas theft could result in the death penalty,
according to a legal document released by the Supreme People's Court
recently.

The document, issued on Jan. 15 and reported yesterday by the
Sinopec-backed China Petrochemical News, is the first to deal specifically
with the theft of oil and gas and the damage of equipment, and is aimed at
reducing rampant criminal activities in the industry.

The new document makes it clear that anyone caught hacking into oil or gas
pipes is endangering public safety and will be punished accordingly, the
report said.

Any act of oil or gas theft that leads to "serious consequences" such as
the death of more than one person and the injury of more than three
people, causes a well to blow out, leads to heavy pollution or creates
"heavy economic losses" of more than RMB 500,000 ($64,000), will be
subject to the death penalty, the document said.

All oil and gas reserves belong to the state, but the breakdown of the
"iron rice bowl" system in some of China's resource-rich regions has left
thousands of oil workers unemployed, desperate and more than prepared to
put their skills to illegal use.

One underground production chain begins in the oilfields of northern
Shaanxi, where suborned local workers turn a blind eye while the oil is
smuggled out of state-owned facilities to ramshackle backyard refineries
before being shipped on to Guangdong in the southeast.

The execution of oil and gas thieves has been a regular occurrence in
recent years. Local experts say that the government should make a bigger
effort to spread the oil wealth, but in the meantime, it continues to
launch nationwide crackdowns on theft. Over the course of last year, the
police arrested 4,544 suspects during its campaign against "oil pirates."

The campaigns have been going on for years. In 2001, almost the entire
male population of a small rural town in Gansu was either executed or
imprisoned after being implicated in a far-reaching illegal oil ring. The
town was subsequently known as the "widow's village".

(source: China Business News)