[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 3



INDONESIA:

Bali bombers to lodge third judicial review: lawyer


A lawyer for 3 Islamic militants who were sentenced to death for the 2002
Bali blasts says his clients plan to lodge another judicial review with an
Indonesian court, which could delay or prevent their execution.

The 3 men, Amrozi, Imam Samudra, and Mukhlas face execution by firing
squad for their role in the bomb attacks which killed more than 200
people, 88 of them Australians, and dealt a blow to tourism in the
predominantly Hindu resort island of Bali.


The 3 Bali bombers, who are being held at a maximum security prison in
Central Java, submitted separate review documents to the prison head on
Wednesday and asked for these to be given to the nearby Cilacap District
Court, lawyer Achmad Michdan said.

The 3 militants had previously submitted a request for judicial review to
a court in Denpasar, Bali, but want the review to be considered by a local
court in predominantly Muslim Central Java.

"We want the Cilacap court to hear the judicial review case and allow us
to present the convicts," Mr Michdan said.

In the militants' second judicial review earlier this year, the Denpasar
District Court refused to bring the 3 men to Bali to testify because they
had already given their testimony.

The 3 bombers have repeatedly told the media they are ready to die as
martyrs, and refuse to use their right to ask for a pardon from
Indonesia's President.

Indonesian prosecutors have said they will execute the men but will wait
until every legal step for the bombers has been exhausted, saying there is
no deadline for execution.

One of the bombers, Amrozi, is planning to remarry his former wife inside
the heavily guarded prison on May 12.

(source: Reuters)






PAKISTAN:

Pakistan stays execution of Indian


The Pakistani government has deferred the execution of an Indian man
condemned to death for spying and carrying out bombings in 1990, the
Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

Last week, the family of Sarabjit Singh visited Pakistan to campaign for
his pardon. Besides meeting officials and human rights activists, they saw
Singh for the first time in 18 years in a prison in eastern city of
Lahore.

President Pervez Musharraf rejected his mercy plea in March, but deferred
his execution by hanging until April 30 after a request from the Indian
government.

"The implementation on the orders of Sarabjit's hanging has been stopped
temporarily. It's not clemency or anything else," Foreign Ministry
spokesman Mohammad Sadiq told Reuters.

He said the government would make a decision on the issue after consulting
various ministries.

"There's no timeframe. Now, the government will start a consultation
process and then submit its decision to the president," Sadiq said.

Singh was sentenced to death in 1991 for spying and carrying out bomb
blasts that killed 14 people, but his family said he was innocent and had
crossed the border into Pakistan accidentally in 1990 while he was drunk.

Pakistani officials said Singh was arrested while trying to slip back into
India after the bomb blasts.

Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan have fought three wars since the
partition of British-ruled India in 1947. They began a peace process in
2004. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee is due to visit Pakistan
later this month for a review of the 4-year-old process.

But despite better relations, the neighbors remain deeply suspicious of
each other.

In March, Pakistan freed an Indian man who had spent 35 years on death row
in a Pakistani jail on spying charges.

A Pakistani national, who went to India to watch a cricket match in 2005,
was arrested and died in an Indian prison in February this year.

Pakistan has asked India to explain the death of the man, whose family
said had lost his passport, after being detained and tortured in prison.

(source: Reuters)






TRINIDAD:

More waiting for death row inmates


IT is back to the drawing board for a group of attorneys trying to
determine exactly how much more time the majority of death row inmates
would have to remain in prison.

Justice Nolan Bereaux yesterday adjourned the matter of Gudson Neptune and
others versus the Attorney General in the Port of Spain Civil Court to
June 2.

Bereaux gave Fyard Hosein, SC, who is leading a team of State attorneys
just over four weeks to place the prisoners files into specific "area of
commonality".

Bereaux said the categories should include the time frames of the Earl
Pratt and Ivan Morgan ruling, the Charles Matthew ruling and also whether
the prisoners' death sentences were commuted to either natural life or 75
years imprisonment.

Bereaux made the call to make it easier because the matter covers most
persons on death row.

However, Bereaux told attorneys he may have to recuse himself from hearing
Lal Siewrattan's case because he was involved as a State attorney in the
matter.

Dana Seetahal, SC, Keith Scotland, Mark Seepersad are among the attorneys
representing the inmates.

(source: Trinidad & Tobago Express)






MEXICO:

Help from home for death row Mexicans


Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) announced plans last week
to visit 55 of its citizens sitting on death row in the United States, in
the wake of 2 recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that lifted a moratorium
on prisoner executions.

CNDH representative Andres Calero says the agency will attempt to first
visit penitentiaries in California and Texas, where 60 % of Mexican death
row prisoners reside.

As part of the agency's anti-death penalty program, officials will
interview prisoners about potential human rights violations in their
cases, gather legal data and prepare to petition U.S. authorities to delay
execution, according to Calero.

In April, the Supreme Court ruled that lethal injection, the most common
method of administering the death penalty, is sufficiently humane. And
earlier this year, the Court ruled in the case of Medellin v. Texas that
President Bush does not have authority to order states to comply with
international court rulings.

Mexico, which opposes the death penalty, hoped the case might have
overturned the sentence of Jose Medellin, who, like other Mexican
prisoners, was not informed of his consular rights guaranteed in the
Vienna Convention.

The anti-death penalty program is one of Mexico's longest running human
rights campaigns, petitioning state and federal governments for stays of
execution on behalf of Mexican citizens and appealing their cases to
international judicial bodies.

Despite the execution moratorium, the United States carried out 42
prisoner executions last year, the 5th highest number (after China, Saudi
Arabia, Iran and Pakistan) in the world, according to Amnesty
International.

(source: Guadalajara Reporter)






CHINA:

Drug smuggler gets death sentence in east China


A drug smuggler in east China was given a death sentence with a 2-year
stay for smuggling 3.8 tonnes of methaqualone pills, a potentially
habit-forming drug used as a sedative and hypnotic.

Wu Jiang was accused of hiding the pills by layering them among 203 wooden
gates and transporting them to South Africa in March 2006, the Zhejiang
Provincial Higher People's Court said in its final ruling handed down on
Tuesday.

South African police seized the drugs on May 10, 2006. Wu was apprehended
on Nov. 3 in Yiwu city.

His accomplice, Zeng Jianhua, was given a life sentence and had 20,000
yuan (2,857 U.S. dollars) of his assets confiscated. 2 other accomplices,
Pu Kui and Xu Zhikun, received 15-year jail terms.

(source: Xinhua News)