[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 9


UGANDA:

Mbarara Court Sentences Woman to Death for Murdering Husband


Mbarara High Court has sentenced a 26-year-old woman to death for
murdering her husband. Jonah Tumuhairwe, a resident of Kakoni cell in
Kiruhura district, killed Edgar Mwijukye on September 30, 2004.

Court heard that Tumuhairwe cut Mwijukye several times on the neck using a
sharp knife. He bled to death.

Prosecution said Tumuhairwe connived with Justus Kusasira, Justus Kamiraho
and Innocent Asiimwe, to murder Mwijukye. But the trio was acquitted for
lack of evidence.

An uncle to the deceased, John Nabimanya, told court that Mwijukye had
confided in him on 4 occasions that Tumuhairwe had threatened to kill him
for marrying a 2nd wife.

Asiimwe, Tumuhairwe's secret lover, would visit the couple's house
whenever Mwijukye was away at his 2nd wife's home in Kakoni trading
centre.

Asiimwe said on the fateful day, he was in the house with Tumuhairwe when
Mwijukye unexpectedly returned from Kakoni at around 3:00am. He (Asiimwe)
later escaped from the house.

"I later heard noise, only to return and find Mwijukye lying in a pool of
blood. We dumped the body in a bush."

2 days after, Tumuhairwe, accompanied by Turyakira, reported herself to
Kazo Police Station, saying she killed her husband.

(source: New Vision)






INDIA:

Death To The Death Penalty


WORLD OPINION is now strongly veering round to the abolition of the death
penalty. In November last, the UN General Assembly's Third Committee
adopted a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death
penalty. India voted against the resolution. Is it not shameful that the
land of Gautam Buddha, Lord Mahavira and Gandhi  who proclaimed, "I cannot
in all conscience agree to anyone being sent to the gallows. God alone can
take life because he alone gives it" should present such a negative face
against human rights that embody the right to life?

The matter is to come up before the UN General Assembly this year. India
can still reclaim its position as an upholder of human rights by
abolishing the death penalty.

The rationale for abolishing the death penalty are qualitatively different
and were wisely expressed by former President of Chile, Eduardo Frei: "I
cannot believe that to defend life and punish the person that kills, the
State should in its turn kill. The death penalty is as inhuman as the
crime which motivates it."

The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, called the death
penalty "a sanction that should have no place in any society that claims
to value human rights and the inviolability of the person."

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon emphasised shortly after assuming office
on January 11, 2007: "I believe that life is precious and must be
protected and respected and that all human beings have the right to live
in dignity. International law affirms these values. I recognise the
growing trend in international law and in national practice towards a
phasing out of the death penalty."

In General Comment No. 6 on Article 6 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political rights, the UN Human Rights Committee has stated that
Article 6 "refers generally to abolition [of the death penalty] in terms
which strongly suggest that abolition is desirable."

Over the years, multi-nation forums have adopted four international
treaties providing for its abolition: the Second Optional Protocol to the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Right, aiming at the
abolition of the death penalty, adopted by the UN General Assembly in
1989; Protocols No. 6 and No. 13 to the Convention for the Protection of
Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human
Rights), adopted by the Council of Europe in 1982 and 2002 respectively;
and the Protocol to the American Convention of Human Rights to Abolish the
Death Penalty, adopted by the General Assembly of the Organisation of
American States in 1990.

So far, 133 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in
practice. Only 25 countries carried out executions in 2006. There were
1,591 recorded executions that year compared to 2,105 in 2005.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has been
ratified or acceded to by 105 states, excludes the death penalty from
punishments which the court is authorised to impose, even though the ICC
has jurisdiction over crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.

In 1996, the then South African President, Nelson Mandela, said, "It is
not because the death sentence has been scrapped that crime has reached
such unacceptable levels. Even if the death sentence is brought back,
crime itself will remain as it is."

The South African Constitutional Court unanimously ruled in 1995 that the
death penalty for murder violated the country's constitution.

The death penalty has been abolished since 1965 in the UK. Membership of
the European Union is dependent on having no death penalty. Italy, too,
has abolished it in the belief that retaining the death penalty does not
automatically reduce murders.

Apart from human rights, pragmatism and practical wisdom dictates against
the retention of the death penalty. People are usually silenced by the
pro-capital punishment lobby that it is only given in the "rarest of rare
cases", as decided by the Supreme Court of India, suggesting that since
the law propounded this restriction, the number of executions has
considerably reduced. Unfortunately, facts belie this, because ironically
after the rarest of the rare doctrine was propounded in 1980, the Supreme
Court confirmed the death penalty in 40 % cases during 1980-90 whereas the
figure was 37.7 % during 1970-80. For the high courts, the death sentences
confirmed rose from 59 % during 1970-80 to 65 % during 1980-90.

THE VOCIFEROUS opposition to the abolition of the death penalty springs
from the myth that abolition could embolden would-be murderers. But facts
show otherwise. In 1945-50, the then State of Travancore (later merged in
Kerala), which had no death penalty, saw 962 murders, whereas during
1950-55, when capital punishment was revived, it recorded 967 murders.

In 1997, the Attorney General of the US state of Massachusetts said,
"there is not a shred of credible evidence that the death penalty lowers
the murder rate. In fact, without the death penalty, the murder rate in
Massachusetts is about half the national average."

A survey released in September 2000 by The New York Times found that
during the previous 20 years, the homicide rate in the American states
having the death penalty was 48 % to 101 % higher than in the states
without the death penalty.

Whenever death penalty is used, there is a grave risk that individuals are
executed for crimes that they did not commit. Prisoners have been executed
despite strong doubts about their guilt. Others have been freed after
re-examinations of their cases showed that they had been wrongly
convicted.

In the US, 124 people condemned to death have been released since 1973
because they were found to be innocent or their convictions rested on
insufficient evidence.

Expressing concern, former President APJ Abdul Kalam had urged the home
ministry to review 20 such cases. There are 45 prisoners whose mercy
petitions are pending, 12 since the time of his predecessor, KR Narayanan.
The pending of such cases against condemned prisoners is itself an act of
inhumanity.

The belief that the death penalty lowers crime is indeed a myth, as the
evidence shows. It is high time we did away with it.

(source: RAJINDAR SACHAR, Retired Chief Justice, Delhi High Court Tehelka
Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 19, May 17, 2008)