[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 23



INDONESIA:

Graphic bid to stop Bali executions


THE fate facing condemned Australian drug smugglers and the 3 Bali bombers
was played out in grisly detail as the bombers' death penalty challenge
heard a first-hand account of firing squads yesterday.

Catholic priest Charlie Burrows softly echoed the moans made by 2 Nigerian
drug traffickers as their life blood ebbed away close to midnight on June
26. "They were moaning again and again for 7 minutes," he told Indonesia's
Constitutional Court. "I think it is cruel, the torture."

Desperate to provide some sort of consolation, Father Burrows sang Amazing
Grace as the pair slowly died. They were pronounced dead 10 minutes after
they were shot.

Father Burrows was a last-minute addition to the constitutional challenge,
in place of notorious East Timorese militia leader Eurico Guterres, whom
the bombers had called to testify about the agony suffered by people who
were shot.

The bombers' lawyer, Adnan Wirawan, said the Irish-born priest, who has
lived in Indonesia for 35 years, was selected because he had witnessed
firing squads, while Guterres "had just seen people shot".

Father Burrows painted a picture of a torch-lit scene, with police aiming
M-16s at the prisoners' hearts from just a metre away. The pair were
trussed to wooden crucifixes "like mummies" with tyre inner tubes.

He had joined a convoy from Java's prison just after 11pm on June 26,
transporting Nigerians Samuel Iwuchukwu Okoye and Antonious Nwaolisa to a
remote location. Both had been convicted and sentenced to death for
smuggling more than three kilograms of heroin.

Arriving at a vacant field, the condemned men were tied to 2 crucifixes.
Their heads were covered with black cloth and the doctors came forward to
fix a small insignia above their hearts.

Then Father Burrows was told to come forward to pray with the men.
"(Nwaolisa) asked me to take out 3 things from his pocket, a handkerchief,
100,000 rupiah (about $A12) and a watch to be given to his wife." He also
removed his shoes, to be handed to his wife.

Then the priest was asked to stand back and the executions were carried
out. "It was simple, 1, 2, 3 then 'bang'," Father Burrows said. "The blood
came out slowly, they were in pain."

Following the hearing, Father Burrows said he hoped Indonesia would
abandon the death penalty, even in the case of the Bali bombers. "We don't
agree with Amrozi and the others being executed. Without forgiveness there
is no future."

(source: The Age, Sept. 19)






INDIA:

Domestic help gets death penalty for murdering employers


A city court Tuesday sentenced a domestic help to death for murdering his
employer and his wife here in 2005. "Domestic help Kebol Roy has been
found guilty of murdering his elderly employer Tarachand Banka and his
wife Sarada April 18, 2005 in their apartment in Camac Street in south
Kolkata," the City Sessions Court said.

Roy, 23, smashed 68-year-old Tarachand's head with a frying pan and
slashed 56-year-old Sarada's throat with a kitchen knife before fleeing
with jewellery and cash worth Rs.2 million.

Before fleeing Roy washed all the blood strains from the apartment and
even wiped his fingerprints from everything he touched, except the ones on
the knob of the locker from where he took out the booty. That evidence
helped the police to track him down in a months time from Ghorparan
village of Bihar.

This is the 2nd incident in less than a month of a domestic help being
given death penalty for murdering his employers.

Nikku Yadav, 24, was sentenced to death Aug 29 by a city court for
murdering his employer Ravinder Kaur Luthra, 51, in her Ballygunj
apartment in south Kolkata.

(source: Thai Indian)