[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 16



LEBANON/AUSTRALIA:

Indicted Aussies could face death penalty


The 3 Australians detained in Lebanon could be sentenced to death.

3 Australians who have been indicted with terrorism-related offenses over
huge weapons cache found in Lebanon may face death penalty.

The trio Omar al-Hadba, Ibrahim Sabouh and Hussein al-Omar, holding dual
Australian-Lebanese citizenships, were arrested by the Lebanese army in
June after anti-terrorism raids in Tripoli.

Hadba and Sabouh have been accused of supplying weapons to terrorists, a
spokeswoman for Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)
said, calling the charges so "serious" that could draw death penalty.

She says the embassy is in contact with the men's families and is
continuing to press for further details on the charges.

The 3 men were arrested in early July along with 2 other Australians, who
have claimed their interrogators tortured them after release.

Consular officials pay regular visits to the 3 men in custody to check
their welfare and facilitate their access to legal representation, the
spokesman said.

Should any of the 3 men eventually be sentenced to death, the Australian
government would ask for the penalty to be commuted.

(source: Press TV)






MALAYSIA:

Waiter's Death Sentence For Killing Cousin Upheld


The conviction and death sentence on a 30-year-old hotel waiter for
murdering 1 of his twin female cousins 11 years ago was upheld by the
Federal Court here Thursday.

Federal Court judges Datuk Arifin Zakaria, Datuk Bentara Istana Nik Hashim
Nik Ab. Rahman, Datuk Abdul Aziz Mohamad, Datuk Hashim Yusoff and Datuk
Azmel Ma'amor unanimously dismissed the appeal by S.Muniandy to reverse
the decision of the Appellate Court.

Arifin said there was overwhelming evidence pointing to Muniandy's guilt.
Muniandy was 19 years of age when he committed the offence.

He was convicted and sentenced to death by the High Court on Nov 10 1998
for murdering Usharani a/p Raja Durai, 16, at her house in Jalan Medan,
Taman Batu Caves, between 12.52pm and 2.20pm on May 30 1996. His appeal to
the Court of Appeal was dismissed on Jan 4 2005.

Muniandy's counsel, Karpal Singh, argued that the apex court should have
ordered a retrial as the trial judge had applied the wrong standard of
proof when ordering Muniandy to make his defence at the end of the
prosecution case.

Muniandy had opted to remain silent and the trial judge, after assessing
the evidence adduced by the prosecution, convicted and sentenced him to
death.

Karpal Singh said there was also a misdirection by the trial judge when he
admitted the statement of the deceased under Section 32 of the Evidence
Act 1950 (statement by a person who is dead or cannot be found is
relevant) as evidence.

Usharani's father had testified that his daughter told him through the
telephone two hours before her death that Muniandy was with her in the
house.

Karpal Singh said the trial judge failed to consider what weight ought to
be given to what was said by Usharani to her father as her statement was
hearsay.

Deputy public prosecutor Nurul Huda Noraini Mohd Noor submitted that there
were corroboration of evidence that Muniandy committed the offence. She
said there was evidence that Muniandy had pawned Usharani's jewellery on
the day she was murdered.

There was no evidence from Muniandy to challenge or contradict the
evidence adduced by the prosecution as he had remained silent, she said.

(source: BERNAMA, Malaysian National News Agency)






MONGOLIA:

Death Sentence on Badraa's Killer Upheld


THE Capital City Court has upheld a lower court's decision to sentence
Ts.Tumengerel to death for the murder of D.Badraa in June 2006. On August
6, it dismissed the appeal of the convicted man, who was director of the
Ger Khoroolol Barilgaljilt savings and credit union when he killed the
chairman of the Financial Regulatory Committee as also the Executive
Director of the Ulaanbaatar City Bank.

Ts.Tumengerel stabbed D.Badraa 2 times just outside his office and was
captured on the spot. The Chingeltei District Court sentenced him to death
on 2 counts, the murder and also for misappropriating Tg9.5 billion of
1,872 savings account holders. He then appealed to the Capital City Court
(CCC) to change the sentence to life imprisonment.

Tumengerel pleaded that it was not a case of willful murder. He had been
under severe stress and had stabbed Badraa without any premeditation, in a
moment of provocation. If this plea had been accepted the CCC might have
reduced his sentence to only 4 years in jail, under article 93 of
Mongolian Criminal Law.

The case was a landmark in the history of Mongolian Law. B.Sarantuya,
supervising judge at the Criminal Division of the Capital City Court, went
through 75 folders and an 18,000-page casebook. Badraa's father, brother
and some victims of the bankrupt savings and credit unions were present at
court when the appeal was dismissed.

Defense lawyer N.Jantsan told the court that as a member of the Citizens
Representatives Hural, Tumengerel had helped the Ulaanbaatar City Bank to
become one of the top banks in Mongolia. He had hoped Badraa would help
him when he was in trouble, but, instead, Badraa had called him a cheat.
This put him under psychological pressure.

Tumengerel's wife, U.Enkhjargal, was also tried for misappropriation of
the union's money. She denied any wrongdoing and said she had merely
followed instructions of the director (who was Tumengerel). "I didnt
swindle any one. Show me mercy and allow me to be rehabilitated. I have 2
children."

Here too the CCC upheld the lower court's decision to sentence her to 7
years in prison.

Tumengerel is now likely to appeal to the Supreme Court.

(source: The UB Post)






IRAN:

US slams death sentences for journalists


The United States said on Wednesday that Iran's sentencing of two
journalists to death demonstrated its willingness to "trample on the
rights of its citizens".

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack assailed Tehran's giving death
sentences on July 16 to two Kurdish journalists who wrote for the magazine
Aso (Horizons) before it was banned in August 2005, for being "enemies of
God".

"By sentencing journalist Adnan Hassanpour and writer and environmental
activist Abdolwahed (Hiwa) Butimar to death after a fundamentally flawed
trial, the Iranian government has once again shown a willingness to both
trample on the rights of its citizens and disregard the most basic
standards of acceptable international behavior," McCormack said in a
statement.

He added that Tehran's reported stepped-up campaign against Iranian news
media paints "a sadly familiar and troubling picture of what is happening
in Iran under the (President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad government".

'Spreading lies and material against the system and giving news to foreign
websites' "Iranian authorities continue to keep their citizens from
accessing unbiased information by cracking down on independent media
outlets, harassing Internet providers, and confiscating satellite dishes,"
he said.

"A significant number of Iranian editors, journalists, and bloggers have
been harassed, arrested and convicted for exercising their universal right
to freedom of expression and assembly, highlighting the regime's
intolerance toward the expression of independent views."

On Wednesday Tehran confirmed it was holding two reformist journalists
behind bars for allegedly spreading propaganda against its Islamic system
and disclosing information to foreign news websites.

Judiciary spokesperson Alireza Jamshidi told reporters that journalist
Soheil Asefi is "in detention and is being investigated".

Fellow journalist Farshad Ghorbanpour is also being detained and bail of
1,5-billion rials (about R1,1-million) has been set for his release, said
Jamshidi.

Both are accused of "spreading lies and material against the system and
giving news to foreign websites", he said.

According to press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Asefi
was arrested on August 4 while Ghorbanpour was detained on July 31.

(source: IOL)






INDIA:

1850 EXECUTIONS IN 12 YEARS, MANY MORE?


The People's Union for Democratic Rights recently unearthed government
records which show that 1850 executions had taken place in 16 states from
195365. The unearthing has led to many questions about the history of
death sentencing in post-1947 India.

In a country like India where rights violations are common, the campaign
against the death penalty remains on the sidelines. Much like economic,
social and cultural rights tended to be seen as second-level rights, the
death penalty seems to be a second level concern amidst the vastness of
other violations of human rights  particularly the thousands of
extra-judicial killings and disappearances and the countless cases of
torture. Yet this is a not a numbers game and the death penalty is
emblematic. It symbolises the power of the State to end the life of a
person  by a process that is legally sanctioned, and officially sanitised.
To paraphrase Albert Camus, it is 'theoretically defensible' murder on the
part of the State.

While this may not be a numbers game - numbers count all the same. Till
recently we were informed that there had been 55 executions till date in
post-independence India. We don't quite know where this number came from.
Most in the media clearly didn't ask. Others, who didn't know of this
magical figure, said nothing at all. Instead they preferred a blander
disclaimer that the government did not collect/provide statistics on
executions in India. Those who wrote that the government did not provide
data were probably right. But those who wrote that the government did not
collect such information clearly did not realize their claim would not
stand for long. Either way, the only figure floating was "55" and
initially no-one contradicted it, not least the government.

Thankfully  not all of us believed this. Recently the Peoples Union for
Democratic Rights announced that it had unearthed government records which
revealed that 1422 executions had taken place in 16 Indian states from
1953  63. This information comes from Appendix 34 of a 1967 report of the
Law Commission of India  a public document that is freely available. Since
PUDR's announcement, several media have reported the 1422 number.

The government itself has not yet responded to this 'discovery', but past
record suggests that it will maintain its silence. After all, silence has
worked for so long.

But the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) did respond. It said that
PUDR's claims were exaggerated (ignoring that these were not PUDR's but
Law Commission figures) and stated that they would wait for the government
to ask them to look into this matter before further comment. The Law
Commission too has preferred not to comment.

A lot of questions need to be raised at this stage - if all this
information was available in a 1967 document, why was everyone unaware of
it? Most likely answer - not everyone was unaware (NCRB etc) of these and
other statistics. Why does the State maintain such a secret approach to
past executions? Is there something more that we don't know  Is there
something the State doesn't want us to know? It appears that information
on executions has become a de-facto state secret.

There are other questions as well. The Law Commission statistics cover
only a decade from 1953 to 1963 and only 16 states. What about the other
states? What about executions prior to 1953? Once again some media-persons
inform us that Nathuram Godse was the first person to be executed in
independent India in early 1949. Given the now shaky record of the media
on executions one cannot be certain of the authenticity of such a claim.

Furthermore we must keep in mind that this was an era when death sentence
was the norm for a number of crimes and not an exception - clearly then
the number of people hanged from 1947 to 1952 must be high as well. What
about figures from 1964 onwards? The NCRB has only published execution
figures post 1995  that leaves at least 30 years unaccounted for. While
the general belief is that executions reduced after an early 1980's
"rarest of the rare" judgement, we would like to know for certain.

Even assuming that executions reduced sharply after 1980, that still
leaves executions during 1950-1980 for which the government needs to
provide numbers. Taking an average of 100 executions a year from 1950 -
1980 gives us a total of 3000 executions. But given that the average
between 1953 and 1963 was 142 per year, the final figure of executions in
India could be anywhere between 3000 - 4300, and these are just estimates.

Other than the number of people executed between 1953-63, the tables in
the Law Commission appendix are devoid of other information. Who were
those people? What crime did they commit? Did they even have lawyers? Were
their cases appealed to the Supreme Court? We don't know - and we are
unlikely to know unless the State starts revealing this information. The
bulk of these cases are unreported judgements  not even included in the
various collections prepared by All India Reporter, Criminal Law Journal
and even the various local state specific journals.

Clearly more information must exist in other government files. Given the
manner in which the life of a 'condemned person' is regulated, it is hard
to believe that the State does not have records of these people who have
been executed. Also, absolutely no other records exist outside what the
State controls. Some references to executions appear to have come before
Parliament over the years and there have been cryptic statements made in
United Nations fora as well. In such circumstances where the State has
information not available elsewhere and which clearly affects public
policy  the State must be pressured to make such information available.

The PUDR 'discovery' may reignite the sporadic debate on the death
sentence in India. It would be a rare debate that is not focussed on one
case alone and that might allow a broader, more holistic view of the death
penalty. It is however important now that this debate be conducted in an
informed climate where facts and figures are made available by our central
government.

It is unlikely that this information will come easily from the State. But
the immediate task ahead is to lobby and pressure the Ministry of Home
Affairs to make this information available. The National Human Rights
Commission too could play a role in raising questions. Given the past
silence of various governments and the harsh truth that the death penalty
has not been a subject "hot" enough to retain media interest for long,
maintenance of pressure needs a well-coordinated campaign  for information
and eventual abolition of the death penalty.

(source: Hyderabad News)