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

[Rick Halperin]

July 19


ZIMBABWE:

This Job Can Go Hang


THERE have been no takers for the gory job of hangman, and anti-death
penalty activists say this is evidence that Zimbabweans are opposed to
capital punishment.

Activists say the time has therefore come for Zimbabwe to abolish capital
punishment. But as the debate rages, the courts continue to mete out the
death sentence, swelling the numbers on death row.

No one out of the millions of jobless Zimbabweans seems to be interested
in taking up the macabre job. This could be a reflection of the sentiments
of Zimbabwean society about capital punishment.

Traditional chiefs, anti-death penalty activists and government officials
met in Harare last week to discuss the possibility of abolishing the death
penalty.

"We are here to solicit your views on the death penalty law in Zimbabwe.
We are coming to you as our elders and opinion leaders in our Zimbabwean
society," said Edson Chiota, coordinator of the Zimbabwe Association for
Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of Offenders (ZACRO).

"The country has been failing to attract a Zimbabwean for the job of a
hangman since 1995. During the period between 1995 to 2001, Zimbabwe did
not carry out any executions, not because there were no people on death
row, but because there was no Zimbabwean prepared to take up the job,"
said Chiota.

"The executions only started in 2001 after the job was given to a
foreigner. If all of us are not prepared to take up the job, why do we
want people to be killed?"

Since the beginning of the year, ZACRO has been spearheading a national
anti-death penalty campaign.

The organisation has lined up meetings with traditional leaders, churches,
the general public and members of parliament. It will also embark on
street campaigns and the distribution of T-shirts inscribed with
anti-death penalty messages.

But the organisation is likely to find opinion sharply divided.

"You should be given a sentence in accordance with your crime. If you
deliberately kill, you should also be killed," Chief Makoni declared,
eliciting strong opposing views from his colleagues.

"Is it the custom in our culture that one who kills should also be killed?
If one kills, and we say they should be killed, are we solving anything?
How does the family of the person killed benefit?" asked Chief Bushu.

After heated debate, the consensus that emerged among the chiefs was that
tradition outlaws executions.

Some within civil society have inevitably given the debate a political
slant.

They say the death penalty is a relic of colonial legislation, a tool for
silencing dissent.

Wonder Chakanyuka, ZACRO's information and publicity officer, did not
dwell on whether the death penalty was being used to crush dissent. He
focused on the perception that the death penalty violated traditional
norms and was a throwback to the colonial era.

"It was used to intimidate and eliminate black people, and as Zimbabweans,
we cannot continue having this law on our books," he argued in a newspaper
article.

"An increasing number of African states have abolished the death penalty
and Zimbabwe cannot afford to be left behind."

The Human Rights Trust of Southern Africa (SAHRIT) has also come out
staunchly against the death penalty saying it should be replaced by life
imprisonment to allow for "reflection and reform."

"The courts can sentence someone to death, but they cannot be 100 percent
sure that the person has committed the crime," said Noel Kututwa, SAHRIT
executive director.

The office of the Master of the High Court was contacted to establish the
number of prisoners on death row but these efforts proved fruitless.

However, 70 executions are known to have taken place since 1980.

(source: Financial Gazette)






INDIA:

Death penalty for bombers


An Indian court has sentenced 3 men to death for their involvement in a
series of bomb attacks in Mumbai in 1993 which killed 257 people,
prosecutors say.

"The court gave the death penalty to three people who planted bombs and
were involved in the main conspiracy," chief prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam says.

The sentencing brings to six the number of people to be sent to the
gallows over the attacks, which were allegedly organised by Mumbai's
Muslim-dominated underworld in revenge for deadly Hindu-Muslim clashes a
few months earlier.

Asgar Muqadam, an accountant for one of the alleged masterminds, and
Shahnawaz Qureshi were involved in placing bombs at a cinema in Mumbai,
India's financial and entertainment capital.

The other bomb planter, Shoaib Ghansar, was involved in the bombing at the
Zaveri Bazaar, a jewellery market.

"Asgar has argued that he was obeying orders... but he was aware of the
main conspiracy," Judge Pramod D Kode says.

"People who come for recreation (to the cinema) faced death and injury."

The court has so far sentenced 84 of the 100 convicted in the case.

6 have been given death sentences and 14 life sentences, Mr Nikam says.

The alleged masterminds of the blasts, Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon,
have been on the run since 1993. Indian investigators say they were helped
by Pakistan's intelligence service but Islamabad has denied any link.

(source: Agence France Presse)






IRAN:

Iran halts teenager's execution


Iran has halted the execution of a teenager who murdered a drug dealer
when he was 16, giving his family 10 days to reach a settlement with the
victims kin, his lawyer said Thursday.

Sina Paymard, 19, was going to be hanged at dawn on Wednesday for
murdering a 32-year-old man in a fight over drugs 3 years ago.

"(Judiciary chief) Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi halted the
execution for 10 days so that we can reach a settlement with the victim's
family," Paymards lawyer Nasrin Sotudeh told AFP.

She said the family had to come up with the hefty sum of 1.5 billion rials
(161,300 dollars) in blood money  compensation asked by the victim's
family  in order to save the boy from the gallows.

"They have raised half the blood money and some people have promised to
make up for the rest," Sotudeh said, without specifying who the donors
were.

The official blood money, cash paid out in the case of violent death, is
set at 350 million rials (37,600 dollars) for a man, and half that for a
woman.

Under Iran's Islamic law, anybody who kills another person has to pay
compensation to the victims family who can refuse it and demand the
murderer be executed.

Paymard was to be hanged in September 2006, 2 weeks after he turned 18.

But he asked as his last wish, to play his Iranian flute (ney) before the
executioners put the rope round his neck. Touched by his playing, the
victim's family agreed to demand financial compensation instead of his
death.

Iran's conservative judiciary maintains that minors are not executed in
the Islamic republic, but in some cases murderers have been hanged after
reaching the age of 18.

In April, a man identified only as Mohammad was reportedly hanged in the
southern city of Shiraz for murdering his friend when he was 16 years old.

A human rights group headed by Iranian Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi
said in a recent report that 15 people were sentenced to death in Iran in
the past 2 years for crimes they committed as minors.

(source: Agence France Presse)