[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 8


ZIMBABWE:

Gardener Gets Death Sentence for Murdering Expatriate


A HARARE gardener Maxwell Governor has been condemned to the hangman's
noose for the murder of an expatriate worker Ms Lisa Veron, who was
employed by the World Health Organisation.

His brother Edmore escaped the gallows and will serve an effective 17
years for his role in the crime.

Maxwell is entitled to automatic appeal at the Supreme Court in terms of
the law.

The two brothers had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Ms Veron and
stealing her property that included a Nokia 3310, a gold ring, a handbag,
a camera and $120 000 in January 2005.

Justice Chinembiri Bhunu sitting in the High Court with assessors Mr
Patrick Musengezi and Mr Paul Chidyausiku found Maxwell guilty of murder
with actual intent.

The court, however, found Edmore guilty of a competent verdict of being an
accessory after the fact of murdering Ms Veron.

Maxwell waylaid Ms Veron - a foreign national of Swiss extraction - as she
arrived home from work and strangled her to death.

After killing her, he repeatedly stabbed her with a sharp instrument
before stage-managing a road accident in an attempt to conceal the murder.

She had come to Zimbabwe with her husband Mr Martin Brunner who was
working for an NGO called the Doctors without Borders, doing humanitarian
work in Tsholotsho.

When he was arrested, Maxwell attempted to shift the blame on Zanu-PF and
the Government and even Ms Veron's workmates, resulting in them being
arrested and detained but were later released.

"This type of conduct exhibited maturity and brazen wicked determination
and resolve to achieve his purpose.

"This was a premeditated, vicious, diabolic and merciless attack on an
innocent soul," said Justice Bhunu.

The judge said the conduct that was shown by Maxwell after committing the
crime could hardly amount to a circumstance, which reduced his moral
blameworthiness in the mind of a reasonable man.

"That being the case, we are unable to find any extenuating circumstances
in this case.

"In the result the death sentence is unavoidable in respect of the first
accused (Maxwell)," Justice Bhunu said ordering Maxwell to be returned to
custody and that the capital punishment be executed upon him according to
law.

On Edmore, the judge said he assisted police and the State in unravelling
the heinous crime.

But his moral blameworthiness was high because his brother murdered Ms
Veron in his presence.

Justice Bhunu said instead of reporting the murder to the police, Edmore
voluntarily and actively participated in the disposal and robbery of the
victim.

"He actively participated in the thefts and plundering of the deceased's
property long after she had been buried.

"He even had the audacity to go and reside at the deceased's premises," he
said.

The court said his intolerable conduct could not be condoned and he
deserved a stiff and deterrent sentence.

Maxwell had, in his defence, argued that he had no reason to kill the
woman claiming that the 2 were in love.

Mr Andrew Makoni of Mbidzo, Muchadehama and Makoni law firm and Mr Piniel
Matizanadzo of Sawyer and Mkushi represented the 2 brothers.

Mr Andrew Kumire appeared for the State.

(source: The Herald)

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

Zim gardener gets death penalty


A gardener who murdered a Swiss expatriate in Zimbabwe in 2005 has been
sentenced to death by the Harare High Court, it was reported on Tuesday.

Maxwell Governor will be allowed to appeal the sentence in Zimbabwe's
Supreme Court, said the state-controlled Herald newspaper.

Judge Chinembiri Bhunu said Governor's murder of Lisa Veron, who worked
for the World Health Organisation (WHO) was a premeditated, vicious,
diabolic and merciless attack on an innocent soul, reported the paper.

Veron had come to Zimbabwe in the company of her husband, who worked for
Medecins Sans Frontieres, an international non-governmental organisation.

The court heard Governor, who was in the company of his brother Edmore,
waylaid Veron when she arrived home from work, strangling her and stabbing
her.

He then took the body and the car to a nearby highway where he made it
look as if the car had been involved in a road accident.

When interrogated, he tried to shift the blame on the ruling Zanu-PF party
and the government, and even implicated some of Veron's workmates.

This type of conduct exhibited maturity and brazen wicked determination
and resolve to achieve his purpose, said the judge.

Edmore Governor was given a 17-year jail sentence after he failed to
report Veron's murder to the police and helped steal some of her property.

(source: News 24)






IRAN:

Hope in art for Iran's death row children


Myspace, Flickr and other Internet networking sites are usually just a fun
way of sharing stories and pictures.

But for the children on death row in Iran they offer a tenuous lifeline to
the world while they wait to be executed.

Human rights group Amnesty International has set up MySpace and Flickr
accounts for the condemned children for them to be able to talk to people
beyond the walls of their cells.

Artist Delara Darabi was just 17 when her boyfriend persuaded her to
confess to a murder committed during a burglary.

He convinced her that she could not be executed because of her age but she
was sentenced to death in 2005.

They also both received 3-year jail sentences and 50 lashes for robbery,
and 20 lashes for an 'illicit relationship'.

Now 20, Darabi paints in her cell using her fingers and nails as paint
brushes as she awaits her execution.

A world of anguish: Iranian death row inmate Delara Darabi's haunting
pictures on the Flickr website She tried to commit suicide in January and
it is thought she receives frequent beatings.

She says on her Flickr page: 'I try to defend myself using colours, forms
and words. From behind the walls, I say hello to you, who has come to see
my paintings?'

Musician Sina Paymard, who was convicted of murdering a teenager when he
was 16, is another death row inmate.

He came very close to the gallows a few days after his 18th birthday in
September 2006 but was granted a last-minute reprieve by the family of his
victim, who were moved by his playing of the ney (a Middle Eastern flute),
which was his last request.

But then the victim's family demanded blood money, which Paymard's family
could not afford.

Iran has signed an international treaty promising not to execute minors.
Instead it imprisons them until they are 18 before ordering their deaths.

But Amnesty International says Iran even fails to keep this promise and,
last year at least one 17-year-old, Majid Segound, who killed a friend in
a fight, was executed in public.

Iran executed 177 prisoners last year. At least 24 children remain on
death row.

To join the protest, click on to www.stopchildexecutions.com

(source: Metro.co.uk)






JAPAN:

Number of inmates on death row again hits 100 mark


The Supreme Court has finalized the death sentence it upheld last month
for a 31-year-old man who murdered 2 women and injured six other people in
a 1999 random street attack in Tokyo, judicial officials said Monday,
bringing the number of death row inmates to 100.

According to the Justice Ministry, the number of people facing the death
penalty who had exhausted all avenues of appeal or had not appealed
recently reached 102, but the number dropped to 99 after 3 were hanged
April 27.

The top court's April 19 death sentence for Hiroshi Zota was finalized
last Wednesday as he did not file a motion of correction by the deadline.

According to the ruling, Zota randomly attacked passersby with a knife and
a hammer in the Ikebukuro area on the morning of Sept. 8, 1999, killing
Kazuko Sumiyoshi, 66, and Mami Takahashi, 29, and injuring 6 others.

(source: The Japan Times)






GUYANA:

10 years since last execution----Legal red tape ensnares process


For 24 death-row inmates, legal red tape has proven a dubious reprieve.

August will be ten years since the last capital punishment execution.
Since then, 7 death-row inmates who had their death warrants read to them
have effectively deferred their executions by mounting legal challenges.

At the end of the election campaign last year, President Bharrat Jagdeo
restated his support of the death penalty, while noting that the state
could not carry out executions as a result of the pending challenges
before the courts. In fact, there is nothing preventing the reading of
death warrants to prisoners who do not have petitions pending before the
still-to-be-constituted Advisory Council on the Prerogative of Mercy.

Attorney Anil Nandlall believes that the failure to read death warrants to
the remaining prisoners on death row has been an omission on the part of
the relevant authorities. He notes that the courts have found that the
death penalty is constitutional and that the delays resulting from the
litigation initiated by the death row appellants do not amount to cruel
and inhumane treatment. As a result, he believes that the law should be
applied where legal processes have been exhausted. "[The death penalty] is
part of the laws and the legislature has seen it," he says, while adding,
"the executive has seen it fit to keep it and the law must be applied
swiftly and strictly."

Previously Attorney-General Doodnauth Singh told Stabroek News that until
the legal issues are settled any prisoner to whom the death warrant is
read could approach the court on the same ground as the others with
existing suits. As a result, no death warrants have been read recently.

The oldest challenge is the constitutional motion by Noel Thomas and
Abdool Yasseen (Yasseen died in prison five years ago), contesting the
appointment of the appellate court justices, on the ground that it was
contrary to recommendations of the Judicial Service Commission. Thomas has
been on death row since 1988, when he and Abdool Yasseen were sentenced
for the murder of Yasseen's brother. Thomas has waged a legal fight for
almost 20 years in a bid to commute the sentence to life imprisonment. At
one point, the duo had successfully appealed to the UN Human Rights
Committee, which recommended their immediate release from prison; Guyana
subsequently withdrew from the UN Optional Protocol on Civil and Political
Rights, then re-subscribed with a reservation preventing convicted
murderers from appealing to the body.

Also pending are the motions brought by Oral Hendricks, Lawrence Chan,
Ravindra Deo, Ganga Deolall and Raymond Persaud, who have challenged the
constitutionality of their executions. Among the grounds they have cited
are that the death penalty is unconstitutional, and the length of time
that they have been on death row constitutes cruel and inhumane treatment
prohibited by the Constitu-tion.

What has yet to be tested is the provision in Article 39 (2) (introduced
in 2001) of the Constitution, which stipulates that in the interpretation
of the fundamental rights provisions in the Constitution a court is to pay
due regard to international law, international conventions, covenants and
charters bearing on human rights.

Some lawyers believe that the existing laws must now be interpreted in
order to avoid inconsistency with the relevant international conventions
and covenants governing the upholding and enforcement of human rights. At
the very least, persuasive precedent exists in the case of the State v. T.
Makwanyane and M. McHunce (1995), where the constitutional court of South
Africa declared capital punishment to be unconstitutional because of
republic's subscription to international conventions. Since Article 39 is
modelled on the Consti-tution of South Africa, it is believed that Guyana
is similarly enjoined to pay due regard to international law in relation
to the retention of capital punishment.

But Nandlall says that despite the ruling in South Africa, the proviso
simply requires the state and the courts to take into account the
international conventions in the application of the laws. He explains that
it does not mean that it can authorise the breach of the municipal law,
which prescribes capital punishment.

It is his view that Article 39 is really applicable in situations where
there is an anomaly or lacuna in the country's domestic laws that require
a court to resort to international conventions in order to find a
resolution. Moreover, he points out that the government's actions in
relation to the UN Optional Protocol on Civil and Political Rights
demonstrates the clear intention of the state.

Meanwhile, the Advisory Council on the Prerogative of Mercy, which expired
in 2005, is still to be reconstituted.

The constitutional body is required to get a written report of the case
from the trial judge, together with any other information derived from the
record of the case or elsewhere as may be required to be taken into
consideration at a meeting of the council. After obtaining the advice of
the council, a designated minister is to express his own deliberate
opinion to the President as to whether he should exercise any of his power
in relation to the person. The body was last set up in 2002, under the
chairmanship of then minister within the Ministry of Local Government
Clinton Collymmore. During its tenure, there were no recommendations on
the implementation of the death penalty.

The last executions at the Georgetown Prisons were on August 25, 1997,
when Michael Archer and Peter Adams were hanged for the 1986 murder during
a robbery in Berbice. Ayube Khan and Rocliffe Ross were hanged four months
apart in the previous year.

Although Guyana has adopted the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as its
highest appellate court, the situation in the region is still no closer to
being settled. In November last year, the CCJ dismissed an appeal by the
Barbados government challenging the commuted sentences given to two
convicts on death row. But the decision in the first capital punishment
case for the regional appellate court was a default ruling, since the
re-imposition of the sentences would have breached the five-year limit for
the prisoner's execution, established by the UK Privy Council precedent
set by Pratt and Morgan. The court also acknowledged the protection
offered by 2001's Neville Lewis v. Attorney General of Jamaica, which
allows for the right to petition an international human rights body before
execution in territories where such treaties have been ratified.

At least four of the seven judges sitting on the CCJ agreed that the two
cases have created a legal "dilemma" for countries in the region. In a
joint judgement, President of the Court, Justice Michael de la Bastide,
and Justice Adrian Saunders said that states that constitutionally
sanction the death penalty might be unable carry it out because of the
co-joint effect of Pratt and Morgan and Lewis.

At the Georgetown Prison, the inmates on death row are housed in a
separate cellblock, which can accommodate a maximum capacity of 30. Each
inmate is housed in a separate cell and is isolated from the general
prison population under the strictest security regime at the facility.

Among the inmates are Muntaz Ally, Terrence Sahadeo and Shireen Khan, who
have been in prison for almost 22 years for 1985 murder of Roshanana
Kassim. After their appeal was heard, the Guyana Court of Appeal affirmed
their sentences and dismissed their appeal in 1996. They approached United
Nations Human Rights Committee that same year and it recommended that
Sahadeo's sentence be commuted to life imprisonment, but the government
has not acted. Khan is one of the two female inmates on death row.

Lallman and Bharatraj Mulai have been on death row since July, 1994, when
they were sentenced to hang for the 1992 murder of Doodnauth Seeram. The
Court of Appeal set aside the death sentence and ordered a retrial in
1995, but the Mulais were convicted and sentenced to death a year later.
The Court of Appeal confirmed the sentence on appeal. After several
requests to the government for information on the case in April 1998,
December, 1998, December, 2000, August, 2001 and March, 2003 went
unanswered, the United Nations Human Rights Committee concluded in August
2004 that the brothers' trial had been unfair and recommended "an
effective remedy, including commutation of their death sentences."

More recently, in 2002 Joseph Craig was sentenced to death for the murder
of Nellis Hope, a female security guard in February, 1998.

Shawn St. Hillaire was sentenced to death in April 2004 after he was found
guilty of murdering his aunt, Norma Sandiford in 2002.

In the same month Odinga Green was sentenced to death after a jury
unanimously found him guilty of the murder of Sandra Harvey at Wisroc,
Linden in December 1999.

In November 2005, Niranjan Rattan, also known as 'Engine,' was sentenced
to death for the 2003 stabbing murder of Lalbahadur Singh also called
'Petromax.'

In July 2006, Brian Vandeyar was sentenced to hang after a jury found him
guilty of the murder of Haimnauth Ramnarine in 2003. Vandeyar stabbed
Haimnauth several times to his body at Governor Light, Mahaicony River.

In September the same year Devanand Tilaknauth, called `Fine Boy', was
found guilty by a jury for the 2004 murder of his wife, Chandrawattie
Ramnarine, at Hampshire Village Coren-tyne, Berbice.

(source: Starbroek News)



JORDAN:

Jordan court upholds death sentence for Briton's killer


Jordan's Court of Cassation has upheld a death sentence handed down by a
military tribunal on a Jordanian blacksmith for killing a British tourist
last September, a judicial source said on Tuesday.

"The Court of Cassation on Monday approved the State Security Court's
verdict to sentence Nabil Ahmad Jaaoura to death by hanging," the source
told AFP.

Jaaoura, 38, shot dead Briton Christopher Stokes and wounded 5 other
Western holidaymakers as well as their Jordanian police escort in a Roman
amphitheatre in the centre of Amman.

He was charged with "carrying out a terrorist act that led to the death of
an individual," and in December was condemned to die by hanging.

Officials have said that the father of 5 acted alone and wanted to avenge
2 brothers killed in an Israeli attack during the 1982 invasion of
Lebanon.

Under Jordanian law the sentence must also be approved by King Abdullah
II.

(source: Agence France Presse)






INDIA:

No plans to abolish death penalty: Government


The government has no proposal to abolish capital punishment, the Lok
Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

Minister of State for Home S Regupathy replied in the negative in a
written response to a query whether the government had any proposal to
abolish capital punishment.

He informed the House that as many as 99 countries had abolished the death
penalty so far.

(source: Zee News)