[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 16


CHINA:

Death sentence for fraudster


A FORMER brokerage executive was given a death sentence with a two-year
probation by the Hainan Province Higher People's Court for fraud and theft
involving 26 billion yuan (US$3.15 billion), xinhuanet.com reported today.

Shi Xue, the former president of the now-defunct Dalian Securities Co and
the head of Hainan Huayin International Trust and Investment Corp, was
charged with corruption, embezzlement, financial certificate fraud,
stealing state funds, illegally raising money and cheating clients with
fake contracts.

The Website said the amounts involved make it one of the biggest cases
since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Shi was alleged to have embezzled 260 million yuan, the largest amount for
a single defendant in an embezzlement case in China. He was also suspected
of forging contracts, stealing company profits and illegally gathering 2.4
billion yuan in deposits from clients.

Shi was arrested in September, 2002 but the initial verdict was not
announced until January 8 this year when the Intermediate People's Court
in Haikou, the capital of Hainan Province, announced that Shi had been
sentenced to death with a 2-year probation and all his personal property
had been confiscated.

Shi's accomplice Liang Yong, the director of the Beijing Liyang Real
Estate Development Co Ltd and the Beijing Tianhai Real Estate Development
Co Ltd, was given a life sentence for collaborating with Shi to steal more
than 17 million yuan and embezzle more than 10 million yuan from Dalian
Securities Co.

Shi appealed to a higher court but the prosecutors' office also appealed
against the leniency of the sentence.

The Hainan Province Higher People's Court heard the appeals on July 8 and
only recently announced that it would uphold the original verdict.

(source: Shanghai Daily)






ISRAEL:

Say no to death penalty----Recent Rose tragedy should not prompt
introduction of death penalty


Assuming that Ronny Ron will be convicted of murdering his granddaughter,
Rose Pizem, is this act more despicable than Rabins murder by Yigal Amir?
Is it worse than the murder of taxi driver Derek Roth by teenagers in
2005? And what about Margarita Lautin, shot to death on the beach in Bat
Yam earlier this year by a shooter aiming for another criminal?

This question emerges in the face of the declarations that have flooded us
ever since Rose disappeared. For example, Rabbi Yisrael Lau
wondering-lamenting "what happened to us," or a senior police officer
saying "this is not yet another murder case" to explain why the police
were sending representatives to the funeral in France. The same is true in
respect to the calls for imposing a death penalty on those who murder
their offspring and even naming such death penalty after Rose Pizem.

Any attempt to define a "scale of wickedness" when it comes to murders is
foolish and damaging; foolish, because a murder is always a murder. Any
act where a person is murdered is a terrible matter that cannot be morally
quantified; damaging, because defining one type of murder as more severe
than another type cheapens the other type and grants it partial
legitimacy.

Therefore, the proposal to take advantage of the latest tragedy in order
to selectively impose a death penalty is wrong to begin it. Not only does
experience of many years, as well as common sense, teach us that such
punishment is not an effective means of deterrence  should it be adopted
only against the killers of young children (or those who are able to, God
forbid, murder senior politicians,) it will be a clear declaration that
the blood of some people counts more than the blood of others. Who needs
this horror?

Society's responsibility

And yet, there are different kinds of murder that can be distinguished
not in terms of their monstrosity, but rather, in terms of societys
responsibility for their occurrence and its ability to prevent them.

When crime organizations run wild on our streets, murder each other, and
while doing so also kill innocent civilians who happened to be on the
scene, we can certainly feel collective guilt for this. First, those in
charge of law enforcement should feel this way, and later, all of us, the
citizens. We should blame ourselves because we failed to demand that our
elected officials correct this twisted situation and because we didnt
condition our vote or our appreciation for politicians on an effective and
comprehensive war against these agents of death. Therefore, it is hard for
us to claim that we were not party to this bloodshed.

The same is true, to various extents, in other areas as well. For example,
in cases where there is public encouragement for political terror and the
security services deal with it clumsily, when violent men threaten their
partners but these complaints are not handled properly, or when thugs pull
out knives at schoolyards.

However, when it comes to the very rare cases where people lose the
natural instinct of appreciation for the lives of their children or
grandchildren and kill them secretly and surprisingly, there is no room
for our self-lamentations. All we need to do is sharpen our sense and
minimize human distress  demagoguery and kitsch wont help solve a thing.

(source: Amos Carmel, YNetNews)






IRAN:

Iran Parliament passes bill establishing death penalty for apostasy


Muhammad would have approved. Islamic Tolerance Alert from the Islamic
Republic: "Iran Parliament Passes Death Penalty for Apostasy Bill," from
the Christian Post, September 11.

The Iranian Parliament voted in favor of a bill Tuesday that would punish
apostasy with the death penalty, a human rights group reported. Lawmakers
approved the bill with 196 votes in favor, 7 against, and 2 abstentions,
according to U.K.-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide. The draft bill
seeks to add several crimes to the list of acts that would result in
execution, including "establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption,
prostitution, and apostasy."

CSW advocacy director Alexa Papadouris commented, "It is deeply worrying
to hear that just days after Matin-Azad and Basirat have been charged with
apostasy at a court in Shiraz, the Iranian Parliament is debating a bill
that could codify the death penalty for someone choosing their own
religion."

Mahmoud Mohammad Matin-Azad, 53, and Arash Ahmad-Ali Basirat, 40, are
Christian-converts from Islam who were charged with apostasy last week at
the Public and Revolutionary Court in Shiraz, Iran. They are currently
awaiting the court's verdict and have been detained since May 15.

In August, there were 5 known arrests of Iranian Christians in three
cities by authorities, according to the persecution watchdog agency
Compass Direct News. Among those arrested was Ramtin Soodmand, who is the
son of the last Christian convert to be executed for leaving Islam, on
Aug. 21.

Soodmand's father, Hossein Soodmand, was an Assemblies of God pastor who
was executed by the state in 1990 under the false charge of working as an
American spy. Since Soodmand's death, six other Protestant pastors have
been assassinated by unknown assailants.

(source: Pakistan Christian Post)




ARGENTINA:

Argentina takes steps to abolish death penalty


On September 2, 2008, Argentina ratified the Second Optional Protocol to
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aimed at the
abolition of the death penalty. This was followed by the government's
ratification of the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to
Abolish the Death Penalty, on September 5, 2008, making Argentina the 10th
country to ratify, reported Amnesty International.

This latest move is being seen as an encouragement to other countries to
follow suit. The other states that have already ratified all the
inter-American human rights treaties are Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico,
Paraguay, Peru, Panama and Venezuela. Some 137 countries in the world have
abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

These significant developments come only a month after the Argentine
Senate unanimously approved the law repealing the 1951 Military Code of
Justice, on August 7. This move abolishes the death penalty for all crimes
including those committed in times of armed conflict or in peace time by
members of the armed forces, and deposes the military courts of justice.

"The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) welcomes this move
and encourages other states to move ahead with the ratification of the
seven inter-American human rights instruments, in order to achieve its
universality", stressed the organization in a statement. The last
execution took place in Argentina in 1916.

The inter-American human rights instruments are the own American
Convention on Human Rights, the Additional Protocol to the American
Convention on the field on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the
Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights concerning
the abolition of Death Penalty. To have ratified all of the important
human rights instruments of the inter-American system is a very positive
development, but must be followed through by their full implementation,
said Susan Lee, Americas Director at Amnesty International.

(source: Religious Intelligence News)






PHILIPPINES:

Escudero cool to endorsing return of death penalty


THE SENATE committee on justice and human rights is not inclined to
support a measure that seeks to reimpose capital punishment.

Committee chairman Senator Francis Joseph G. Escudero yesterday said
reimposing death penalty is "not an answer" to deter crimes.

Senator Juan Miguel F. Zubiri has filed Senate Bill 2322 in May following
the murder of 10 officials and employees of a bank in Cabuyao town, Laguna
province.

"I won't use my position as committee chairman to block the bill. I would
just like to know if [Mr. Zubiri] would be willing to sponsor and defend
the bill because I would not defend it in plenary. In fact, I would vote
and interpellate against it," he told reporters in a chance interview
shortly after a hearing on the proposal.

Republic Act (RA) 7659, or the law imposing death penalty on certain
heinous crimes, has been repealed by RA 9346 in 2006.

"I voted to remove the death penalty no more than 5 years ago. Certainty
of conviction would deter crimes," Mr. Escudero said, adding he is willing
to report the bill for plenary action.

Asked if he is willing to sponsor the measure, Mr. Zubiri said, " Let's
put it off in plenary and Im willing to defend it. I would be the
principal sponsor of the measure."

"I think it's about time that we look into countries such as Malaysia,
China, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries that we should learn from.
That's why crime especially heinous crimes have been in low levels in
these countries," he added.

(source: Business World)






KENYA:

High Court quashes terror suspect's death sentence


There was jubilation at the High Court Tuesday morning when terror suspect
Omar Said Omar was acquitted of terrorism charges.

Omar who had been sentenced to hang shed tears of joy following his
acquittal after 2 years in remand.

Omar who was represented by lawyer Mbiu Kamau had been convicted by senior
principle magistrate Rosemelle Mutoka on April 4 2006.

In his ruling Justice J. B. Ojwang accused the police of conducting a
shoddy job, as investigations failed to provide substantial proof to
convict Omar.

Ojwang said the police and the prosecution had violated Omar's
constitutional rights by holding him in custody for over 2 years before
arraigning him in court.

Justice Ojwang also chided the police for carrying out a shoddy
identification parade as no witness linked Omar to renting the house in
which the explosives were discovered.

Omar had been linked to the terror bombing of paradise Hotel in Kikambala,
Kilifi district on November 28 2002 where 12 people were killed.

The hotel was a popular destination for Israeli package tourists.

On the same day a missile was fired at an Israeli airliner leaving Mombasa
airport, but it missed. Prosecutors had not directly linked Omar to that
air attack.

So far, no one has been convicted in either case, which were the most
high-profile militant attacks in the east African country since the 1998
bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi.

The al Qaeda network claimed responsibility for the two attacks.

Omar was among 4 Kenyans cleared of murder in 2005 after being detained in
connection with the al Qaeda-linked suicide bombing.

He was re-arrested and sentenced to eight years for possessing heavy
weapons that police said were intended to be used in a possible strike on
an airline.

In a related development, a man was charged with giving misleading
information regarding the whereabouts of terror suspect Fazul Abdul Karim.

Sharrif Mohammed Abdul Kadir was accused of giving the false information
to senior assistant of police Julius Ndegwa on August 18 and 19 this year.

Sharrif is said to have claimed that Karim was living in a house at
Loresho in Nairobi.

He was released on a 50,000 shilling cash bail and his case set for
hearing on October 30 this year.

(source: Kenya Broadcasting Corporation)