[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

March 20



PAPUA NEW GUINEA:

Cannibal 'Black Jesus' Faces Death Penalty


A religious cult leader who raped, murdered and ate at least 3 women in
Papua New Guinea has been captured by a group of villagers.

Steven Tari, 35, who called himself the "black Jesus" was beaten by locals
from the village of Matepi before being handed over to police.

The failed bible student had gathered around six thousand followers as he
travelled through mountain villages promising disciples gifts from heaven
if they joined his congregation.

But communities discovered he was indulging in cannibalism, sacrificing
young women, drinking their blood and eating their flesh.

In one case a mother who had fallen under his spell was forced to drink
her own daughter's blood.

He was captured after going to Matepi to try to gather more recruits and
taken to the regional capital of Madang.

One onlooker said: "It was as if he thought he was being humiliated like
Christ before he was crucified."

Area commander Anthony Wagambie praised people for their courage.

"Tari has brought a lot of shame to not only the people of Madang, but
Papua New Guinea as a whole," he said.

"We are a Christian country and his deeds are not reflective of this."

Tari now faces the death penalty, although no-one has been sent to the
gallows since the 1950s.

(source: Fox News)






JAPAN:

Accused triple-killer's acquittal is upheld----Saga man's confession
deemed forced


The Fukuoka High Court on Monday upheld the acquittal of a 44-year-old
Fukuoka man who was charged with murdering 3 women in Saga Prefecture
between 1987 and 1989.

The victims, including one that the defendant, Teruhiko Matsue, had been
dating, were found near each other in a mountainous part of the town of
Kitagata in January 1989.

"There were no errors or misidentification of facts in the trial of first
instance, where his confession was not adopted as evidence because it was
illegally obtained," presiding Judge Katsuhiko Masaki said in upholding
the acquittal of Matsue, who wasn't arrested for the slayings until 2002
because Saga police, after he retracted his 1989 confession, decided they
couldn't make a case.

The Saga District Court acquitted Matsue in May 2005, rejecting as
evidence his written confession submitted earlier, on grounds that he had
been subject to "illegally long hours of questioning that went beyond a
voluntary nature" and "there is a possibility that investigators had
forced and led him to confess."

When he wrote the confession, Matsue was being held for an unrelated case.

The district court found Matsue not guilty in the murders of Sumiko
Fujise, 48, Kiyomi Nakashima, 50, and Tatsuyo Yoshino, 37, because the
evidence submitted by prosecutors was "not sufficient enough to judge that
the defendant was the true culprit beyond reasonable doubt." The
prosecutors had demanded the death penalty.

At the Fukuoka High Court, prosecutors again demanded that Matsue's
confession be adopted as evidence, arguing that he is presumed to have
killed the three, whose bodies were found in nearly the same spot, given
his relationship with Yoshino, whom he was dating, and the detection of
his bodily fluid on her body.

They also characterized as "new evidence" the discovery of mitochondrial
DNA in a substance found on a picture that was in his car, claiming it
matched the DNA of one of the victims, without specifying.

The defense counsel discounted the discovery, saying that mitochondrial
DNA is not sufficient for identification and contended that the
prosecutors had concealed forensic evidence indicating someone else may
have perpetrated the slayings, including the discovery of urine residue on
a seat in Matsue's car that did not match the urine of any of the victims.
They did not elaborate.

The bodies of the three women, who had disappeared between 1987 and 1989,
were found in January 1989 in a mountainous part of Kitagata.

In November that year, Matsue, who had been arrested and was in custody on
a drug charge, submitted a written confession during questioning by Saga
Prefectural Police.

He later retracted it, leading police at that time to give up on their
efforts to establish a case against him as a murder suspect, due to
insufficient evidence.

Matsue was arrested in June 2002 in connection with one of the murders,
just before the statute of limitations on the slayings was to expire later
in the year. He was charged with murder the following month. He maintained
his innocence from the time of his arrest to the end of his trial.

(source: Japan Times)