[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 13



SAUDI ARABIA----executions

Saudi man, 2 Pakistanis beheaded:


A Saudi convicted of murder and 2 Pakistanis found guilty of drug
trafficking were beheaded by the sword on Sunday, the interior ministry
said.

Mufreh bin Ahmad al-Missbali Assiri stabbed to death Abdullah bin Mohammed
al-Mudhlim Assiri after an argument, the ministry said in a statement
carried by the state news agency SPA.

He was executed in the southwestern region of Assir.

The 2 Pakistani men were beheaded in the Red Sea city of Jeddah for drug
trafficking, the ministry said in a separate statement.

Nasser Khan and Abdulrasheed Musharaf were caught trying to smuggle
undisclosed amounts of heroin hidden in their stomachs into the kingdom,
the ministry said.

The beheadings brought to 66 the number of executions announced by the
Saudi authorities this year.

At least 37 people were executed in 2006, while 83 were put to death in
2005 and 35 the year before, according to AFP tallies based on official
statements.

Executions are usually carried out in public in Saudi Arabia, which
applies a strict form of sharia, or Islamic law. Rape, murder, apostasy,
armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty.

(source: Agence France Presse)






NIGERIA:

Supreme Court frees man, police officer on 17-yr death row


The Supreme Court has set aside the death sentences hanging on a police
officer, Simon Edibo and another man, Sunday Ndidi, who had been on the
death row for over 17 years.

In separate judgments last Friday, a full panel of the court, comprising 5
justices, unanimously discharged Edibo, who had his fate hanging for 10
years, while 4 out of 5 justices making another panel on Ndidis appeal
discharged and acquitted him.

The acquittal missing in Edibo's appeal meant that he was still open to
re-trial.

He was convicted by the lower courts for taking part in the killing of 2
civilians in Markurdi, Benue State on January 11, 1997.

Edibo's reprieve came through a technical error in his trial, with the
apex court holding that the trial High Court judge erred in law by taking
the plea of the accused in his chambers.

The apex court also described the affirmation of the judgment of the lower
court by the Court of Appeal, as an error.

Holding that such proceeding was unconstitutional, the apex court, in
Justice Francis Fedodo Tabals lead judgment, said such proceeding should
have been held in public, adding that ordering a re-trial would mean
re-arresting all the 10 persons initially charged with the culpable
homicide.

8 out of the 10 were discharged and acquitted by the trial court, while
another police sergeant sentenced to death alongside the appellant died
before the appeal could be determined.

In Justice Niki Tobi's concurrent judgment, he held that, If this court
came to the conclusion in the 2 cases cited above that delivery of
judgment should be held in public, an act which does not involve any of
the parties, how much less is plea, which emanates from the accused?

"In my humble view, unless this court overrules itself, it cannot with the
greatest respect dismiss the appeal. This is because the dismissal of this
appeal means that the court has, by necessary implication, overruled the 2
decisions. That will be a dangerous precedent, and I will not go that way.

"It is in the light of the above and the more comprehensive reasons given
by my learned brother, Tabal JSC, in his judgment, that I allow this
appeal.

"The appellant (Edibo) is hereby discharged. I do not see any reason to
order a re-trial in the circumstances of the case."

(source: Associated Press)