[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 1




INDONESIA:

52 inmates of Nusakambangan jails awaiting execution


A total of 52 inmates of prisons on Nusakambangan island, off the Cilacap
coast, are death row convicts some of whom have been waiting to be
executed for more than a decade, a provincial prison affairs official
said.

All the condemned prisoners were until now uncertain about the dates of
their execution, Bambang Winahyu, head of prison affairs at the Central
Java law and human rights office, said here Monday.

"There is a death-row convict who has spent such a long time in prison
that he is now 67 years old," he said.

The inmate Winahyu referred to was Bahar bin Matar who was jailed in 1971
for murder.

He said he did know why Bahar's death sentence had not been carried out
for 37 years.

As far as he knew, Winahyu said, executions were carried out according to
a priority scale whereby convicts who behaved badly, often tried to
escape, bribed guards, was uncooperative and a dangereous person to deal
with, were more quickly put to death.

An example of a death-row convict with a bad behavior record was Rio Alex
Bullo who had killed a fellow prisoner. He was executed last Agustus,
2008.

Conversely, the 67-year-old Bahar who had been waiting to be executed for
37 years had always behaved well and thus aroused the sympathy of many
quarters.

Winahyu said a group of House of Representatives (DPR) members visited
Nusakambangan in 2007 and after learning about Bahar's fate planned to do
something to have his death sentence commuted.

However, no follow-up on the parliament members' intention was heard of
ever since because there was as yet no law allowing death-row convicts who
had waited for more than 20 years and a good record of conduct to have his
or her sentence commuted.

"The possibility of commuting a death sentence to life is mentioned in a
bill to amend the Criminal Law but the bill has yet to be deliberated by
the House," he said.

Among other prisoners sentenced to death who had waited more than a decade
was Swabuana alias Adi Kumis alias Dodi bin Sukarno who had been in jail
since July 5, 1991 and whose death sentence was confirmed by the Supreme
Court in August, 1992.

Another one was Malaysian national Thum Tuck Al Atjay, a drug effender,
who was detained in May 1994 and whose death sentence was endorsed by the
Supreme Court in September 1995.

There were also 13 prisoners who had been on death-row for 5 to 10 years.
They include the 3 Bali I bombers Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra, and 36
others for 0-5 years, Winahyu said.

(source: ANTARA)

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



20 Nigerians on death row in Indonesia - FG begs for mercy


20 Nigerian citizens are currently awaiting the hangman's nose in
Indonesia for drug-related offences. The authorities in the country
insisted at the weekend that all was now set to execute the Nigerians.

The development came as the Federal Government pleaded that the lives of
the affected Nigerians be spared.

The plea was made on behalf of the Federal Government by the Minister of
State for Foreign Affairs, Alhaji Tijani Kaura, who spoke at a farewell
luncheon for the outgoing Indonesian envoy to Nigeria, Nurhadi Djazuli.

Nigerian Tribune gathered that the latest plea to the Indonesian
authorities to allow the affected Nigerians to come and serve their
sentences in Nigeria was the third in less than 3 months.

Djazuli said the law of his country was sacrosanct on the issue of drug
offences while responding to the pleas made on behalf of the Federal
Government in respect of the 20 condemned Nigerians.

The 60-year-old envoy preferred to speak on the pleasant bilateral
relationship that he said existed between his country and Nigeria and
foreclosed any attempt at saving the lives of the affected Nigerians.

Djazuli reminded Kaura that "both countries firmly adhere to the Bandung
spirit and the principles of the Non-Aligned Movement in governing the
relations among nations, including respect of each other's sovereignty in
the internal affairs of other countries."

He expressed the belief that there were ample opportunities to broaden and
deepen the bilateral relationship between the 2 countries in the years to
come.

Speaking on the issue while begging for mercy for the convicts, Kaura
noted that Nigeria was aware that Indonesian law was sacrosanct, adding
that the country was appealing that justice should be tempered with mercy
in respect of the affected Nigerians.

"We are aware your laws are sacrosanct. But we beg you to temper justice
with mercy with regard to Nigerians living in Indonesia. We beg your
intervention in that regard when you get back to your country," Kaura told
Djazuli.

It will be recalled that Samuel Iwuchukwu Okoye and Hansen Anthony
Nwaolisa were on June 26, 2008 executed by Indonesian authorities for drug
trafficking.

This was despite pleas for stay of execution or commutation of their death
sentences by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ojo Maduekwe, as well as the
summoning of the outgoing Indonesian Ambassador, Djazuli, to his
(Maduekwe's) office on May 30, 2008 for his home government to temper
justice with mercy.

(source: Nigerian Tribune)






JAMAICA:

Capital Punishment as a Populist Discourse of Violence: The Jamaican Case


Jamaica became independent from Britain in 1962. After almost a decade of
"democratic socialist" experimentation in the 1970s, it was made a "model
state" for Reaganism and neoliberalism in the Caribbean and Central
America during the 1980s, having already undergone an IMF structural
adjustment program in 1977. As a result of economic and political turmoil
in the 1970s and the 1980s, the lower segments of the population have
remained largely deprived of social security and economic prospects, and
the country has faced a rising level of violence linked to poverty,
politics, and crime. It was calculated that 15,891 Jamaicans have died due
to violence since 1989.1

The problem of violence is strongly intertwined with the controversy over
the death penalty in Jamaica. The state has not been able to implement
executions since 1988, when a binding Privy Council decisionmade all
prisoners who had been under sentence of death for 5 years or more
eligible for commutation.2 However, public support for the death penalty
is very high (up to 80% according to various surveys). The issue of
violent crime is deemed the number one cause of public concern in Jamaica,
since the state fails to guarantee the right of its people to live in
peace and free from fear. The escalation of violence legitimates "iron
fist" policies and harsh forms of punishment in the public eye. At the
same time, the proliferation and banalization of violence, especially
killing, obstructs the perception of capital punishment as a "cruel and
unusual punishment," the main argument of the abolitionist movement.

The faculty of dealing death or granting mercy is an expression of a
position of dominance. According to Max Weber, the monopoly of legitimate
physical force is the essence of the modern state. The representatives of
a state may know that the death penalty is actually useless and unfair but
still regard killing a small number of individuals who are declared
murderers by judiciary procedures as useful for the purpose of affirming
the state's position of dominance, and therefore control, over society. By
exercising a limited amount of controlled violence, the state may
effectively reinforce the consensus of a large part of the population
among whom the desire to see the state's power and feel its protection is
widespread. This is the essence of the death penalty as a symbolic act.

Jamaica is a young democracy, rocked by a permanent inner discourse of war
and the terror of a drift towards a bellum omnium contra omnes. To carry
out death sentences is imagined to be a powerful means to push back the
demon of violence under the sovereignty of law, so the state's inability
to do so is perceived to breach the social contract between it and
citizens.

The attitudes of the people in Jamaica are also correlated to the
generalized attitudes of a neoliberal, market-driven society: competitive
individualism and consumerism, micro-scale counterparts of globalized
neoliberalism, are two characteristics of the contemporary Jamaican
society. In this kind of socio-economic context, capital punishment
becomes, according to authors like Carel Mohn,3 a politically manipulated
discourse, used to satisfy deep socio-psychological needs, in particular
the people's longing for order and security. As Jonathan Simon argues, the
normal aspiration of people for order and security has been frustrated by
neoliberal economic policies in the last several decades, which have left
families and individuals increasingly alone in the struggle for survival
and more exposed to the risks of existence. In the neoliberal "risk
society," which is anxiogenic by axiom, the ruling elites have found a way
to canalize social anxiety in the formula of "governing through crime," in
which the death penalty plays a key role.4

In the perspective of neoliberal capitalism, the risk of economic
victimization is regarded as acceptable and even "stimulating," but the
risk of criminal victimization is considered as unacceptable. The state
withdraws from the protective role of the "social state" in many crucial
aspects of existence but takes charge to punish acts of crime with utmost
severity. The execution becomes in this context an opium of retributive
violence, administered by the state, that gives the population an
impression of justice and security within a socio-economic context in
which both are in fact scarce.

This strategy may be part of what Trutz von Trotha calls the "Preventive
Security Order" (PSO).5 It is an order characterized by a high degree of
privatization and commercialization of security at the community level and
general fragmentation of the monopoly of power. The right of citizens to
protection and the correspondent duty of the state to guarantee it is here
replaced by the demand of consumers for security, which has to be
satisfied by security contractors operating in the free market: "equal
security for all those who can afford it." Poor communities, where people
are not in the condition to purchase protection in the security market,
face the other side of privatization, namely the return to violent
self-help and the surrender to local "entrepreneurs of violence" as
surrogate power monopolists.

Under the PSO, in which the state mostly retreats from territorial control
both in rich and poor communities, the public authorities are still
supposed to be competent for the control of "hardcore" crimes, by any
means necessary: special squads, undercover agents, anti-terror
operations, high-security prisons, death rows, and executions. It is in
this context of post-welfare-state society where the death penalty
discourse becomes "populist," aimed at creating a vertical consensus
between different social classes and political forces when the
institutions of the state enjoy little legitimacy. It seeks to provide a
way to vent the people's frustration and to limit, at least partially, the
anti-systemic potential of anger at the situation of permanent insecurity
created by neoliberal policies of deregulation.

1 Aram Ziai cites the structural adjustment programs in Jamaica as an
example of "structural violence in the neoliberal discourse" that can be
held responsible for the increase in crime and violence: "Entwicklung,
Neoliberalismus und Migration als Diskurse der Gewalt," in: Michael
Schultze (Ed.) (2005): Diskurse der Gewalt - Gewalt der Diskurse, p.
104-105. Lang: Frankfurt am Main. See also Robert O'Brien and Marc
Williams (2004): Global Political Economy, p. 239. Palgrave Macmillan:
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, New York.

2 JCPC (1993): Earl Pratt and Ivan Morgan v. Attorney General for Jamaica,
et al., Appeal 10/1993, November 02, 1993. London.

3 Boulanger, Christian (Ed.) (1997): Zur Aktualitt der Todesstrafe:
interdisziplinre Beitrge gegen eine unmenschliche, grausame und
erniedrigende Strafe, p. 121-160. Berlin Verlag Spitz: Berlin.

4 Simon, Jonathan (1997): "Gewalt, Rache und Risiko. Die Todesstrafe im
neoliberalen Staat," in: Trutz von Trota (Ed.): Soziologie der Gewalt, p.
279-301. Westdeutscher Verlag: Opladen/Wiesbaden.

5 Trotha, Trutz von (2003): Die prventive Sicherheitsordnung, in: Ruf,
Werner (Ed.): Politische konomie der Gewalt, p. 51-75. Leske und Budrich:
Opladen.

Bibliography

Amnesty International (2002): "State Killing in the English Speaking
Caribbean: A Legacy of Colonial Times." AI Index: AMR 05/003/2002

Beck, Ulrich (2003 [1986]): Risikogesellschaft: auf dem Weg in eine andere
Moderne. Suhrkamp:Frankfurt am Main.

Boulanger, Christian (Ed.) (1997): Zur Aktualitt der Todesstrafe:
interdisziplinre Beitrge gegen eine unmenschliche, grausame und
erniedrigende Strafe. Berlin Verlag Spitz: Berlin.

Fraser, H. A., et al. (1981): Report of the Committee to Consider Death as
a Penalty in Jamaica. Kingston.

Funk, Albrecht (2002): "Staatliches Gewaltmonopol und Kriminalpolitik."
In: Heitmeyer, Wilhelm; and Hagan, John: Internationales Handbuch der
Gewaltforschung, p.1315-1338. Westdeutscher Verlag:Wiesbaden.

Hardisty, Max (2005): Internship Report. In: Centre for Capital Punishment
Studies: Internship Reports 2005. University of Westminster: Westminster.

Harriott, Anthony (Ed.) (2003): Understanding Crime in Jamaica. UWI Press:
Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago.

Hood, Roger (2002): The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective. Oxford
University Press: NewYork.

Human Rights Watch (2001): "Jamaica: Investigate Police and Military
Killings." Human RightsNews, 7 December, 2001.

Nettleford, Rex (Ed.) (1989): Jamaica in Independence: Essays on the Early
Years. Heineman Publishers (Caribbean) Limited: Kingston, London.

O'Brien, Robert, and Williams, Marc (2004): Global Political Economy:
Evolution and Dynamics. Palgrave Macmillan: Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire, New York.

Ruf, Werner (Ed.) (2003): Politische konomie der Gewalt. Leske und
Budrich: Opladen.

Tafari-Ama, Imami M. (2006): Blood, Bullets and Bodies: Sexual Politics
below the Poverty Line. UWI Press: Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago.

Trotha, Trutz von (Ed.) (1997): Soziologie der Gewalt. Westdeutscher
Verlag:Opladen/Wiesbaden.

World Bank (2003): Jamaica: The Road to Sustained Growth. Country Economic
Memorandum, Report No. 26088-JM, December 4, 2003.

(source: Monthly Review; Matteo Elis Landricina is a graduate of the Peace
and Conflict Master of Arts Program of the Philipps-Universitaet in
Marburg (Germany). He spent various months in Kingston working as an
intern for the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights. His Master's
Thesis, "The Death Penalty and the Violence Issue in Jamaica," is
downloadable at the following address: .






KENYA:

How missing court records saved death row convict from the gallows


The courts must try to hold the scales of justice and in doing so, must
consider all the circumstances under which the loss has occurred. Who
stands to gain from the loss? Is it merely coincident that both the
magistrate's file and that of the police are lost? Does the available
evidence point to anyone as being responsible for the loss? And if so, can
such a party be allowed to benefit from a situation of his own making? In
final analysis, the question to be answered must be whether the order
proposed to be made is the one which serves the best interest of justice.

We reject any proposition that in cases where a file has disappeared, and
it is not reasonably feasible to order a retrial, an acquittal must follow
as a matter of course.

After all a person who has been tried or has pleaded guilty before a court
with competent jurisdiction and has been convicted by such court has lost
the benefit of the presumption of innocence given to him by section 77 (2)
(a) of the Constitution and on appeal the burden is on him to show that
the court which convicted him did so in error.

The loss of the file may deprive him of the ability to discharge that
burden, but it by no means follows that he must of necessity be treated as
innocent and automatically acquitted. The interest of justice as a whole
must be considered."

This was an appeal to the Court of Appeal from the High Court in Kisumu.
The appellant was appealing a death sentence handed down by the High Court
at Kisumu after being convicted of murder.

The issue before the court in the hearing of this appeal was that the
entire records and files containing the proceedings and judgment of the
High Court, which was the trial court were lost and could not be traced.

Record of appeal

This appeal had actually come before the Court of Appeal previously but on
that occasion, the court had ordered the Deputy Registrar to contact the
police and the Attorney General's office with a view to reconstructing the
file.

Interestingly, whether by coincidence or not, the police file could not be
traced. The prosecution's file at the AG's office could not be traced
either.

All the court had in this appeal was the Notice of Appeal.

This pleading, albeit important, should be supported by a Memorandum of
Appeal as well as the Record of Appeal which contains a copy of the
proceedings.

None of these were provided by the appellant, on the ground, of course,
that they were missing.

The appellant's counsel, in submissions, attributed the blame wholly to
the Kisumu High Court. According to her, it was the responsibility of the
High Court to ensure that court files were securely stored in the
registry.

State counsel on the other hand submitted that, as there was no judgement
and no proceedings, this was not a competent appeal. Hence the only
recourse was for the court to order a re-trial. The court anxiously
considered the appeal.

The appellate judges stated that it was a common occurrence for court
files to go missing at the registry. However, it was indeed a very rare
occurrence for the police file and the prosecution file to be misplaced as
well.

Further, the court stated that it was not automatic that when the court
file went missing, an acquittal would ensue where a re-trial was not
feasible.

In fact, the law was such that if a person has been tried, or he has
pleaded guilty, and has been convicted, then he loses the benefit of the
presumption of innocence granted to him by Section 77 (2) of the
Constitution.

On appeal, the appellant must then show, in such circumstances, that the
trial court which convicted him did so in error. In short, the interests
of justice must be considered as a whole.

For instance, where in a similar case the prosecution witnesses are all
dead, then the court would order an acquittal because a fair trial would
not be possible.

In addition, the court took exception to the appellant's counsel's
assertion that the High Court was to blame for the lost file.

Without evidence, the court was unwilling to attribute blame to the High
Court, especially in view of the fact that the police and prosecution
files were also missing.

Escape justice

In the court's view, these circumstances pointed to a collusion.
Therefore, it could not rule out the possibility of a conspiracy to enable
a party to escape justice.

Because the state counsel submitted that a re-trial was possible because
all the prosecution witnesses were from one locality, the court ordered
that the conviction be quashed, the death sentence be set aside, and the
appellant be re-tried.

However, he was to remain in custody for the duration of the new trial.

(source: The Daily Nation)




MALDIVES:

Umar calls for death penalty to drug smugglers


Presidential candidate of Islamic Democratic Party (IDP) has said under
his leadership that death penalty will be given to all who smuggle drugs
in Maldives and that it will be the case even if his son or daughter is
the offender.

He made the statement while speaking to the islanders of Mahibadhoo of
Alif Dhaalu atoll. In addition to death penalty for drug smugglers, Umar
also said he will introduce death sentence to convicted murderers. He
further he will not provide these hardened criminals to stay in jail and
lead comfortable lives.

Speaking to the people of Himendhoo of Alif Alif atoll, Umar said
development in Maldives is directly connected to population consolidation.
Umar promised that under his leadership a workable population
consolidation program will be introduced.

Umar said the political scenario is constantly changing with the
introduction of more and more political parties and more and more people
gaining membership and as the election draws nearer. He said the Jumhoory
coalition formed by Adhaalath Party (AP) , Maldives National Congress(MNC)
, and Jumhoory Party(JP) was a shock to other parties and that it is
likely others will follow suit. There is widespread speculation that it
will be IDP that will join the coalition next.

The campaign trip of Umar aimed at all the inhabited islands of Ari atolls
was shortened due bad weather, IDP reports. IDP has yet to reveal when the
trip will commence again.

(source: Miadhul Online)






CHINA:

Man gets death penalty for killing 6 police in Shanghai


An unemployed Beijing man who killed six policemen and injured another
four in a knife attack in Shanghai was sentenced to death at the Shanghai
No.2 People's Intermediate Court on Monday.

Yang Jia, 28, stabbed a security guard at the police branch in Zhabei
District and started a fire at its gate at about 9:40 a.m. on July 1.

He then forced his way into the building and attacked nine police
officers, according to the prosecution. 6 police officers died. 3 others
and the security guard were injured. Yang was apprehended at the scene and
confessed to the killings, the prosecution said.

The No. 2 division of the Shanghai Municipal People's Procuratorate
alleged Yang guilty of premeditated murder on July 17.

The procuratorate said Yang was arrested by Shanghai police for riding an
unlicensed bicycle on October 15, 2007, and was interrogated.

Yang later sued the officers for 10,000 yuan ($1,464) in compensation for
psychological damage. The claim was rejected by the local public security
authority.

(source: China Daily)