[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 16



SAUDI ARABIA----executions

Saudi beheads cruel couple


Saudi Arabia has beheaded a couple convicted of torturing to death a
nine-year-old girl, including burning her with a red-hot spoon and beating
her with a metal pipe, the interior ministry said.

Saudi Nashat Haji was beheaded by the sword for murdering his daughter,
Khosoun, said a ministry statement carried by the official SPA news
agency.

He was executed in the eastern city of Mecca along with his second Saudi
wife, Iman Ghazawi, after they both tortured the girl, including driving a
car into her in the courtyard of her home.

Haji decided to "get rid of" his daughter after he became doubtful that he
was her biological father from a previous marriage, the ministry said.

Another Saudi national, Adel al Huthrumi, was also executed in Mecca on
the same day for kidnapping and sexually assaulting a young boy, the
ministry announced in a separate statement carried by SPA.

The latest beheadings brought to 7 the number of executions announced in
Saudi Arabia this year, after a record 153 people were put to death in
2007. That figure compared with 37 beheaded in 2006, and the previous
record number of 113 executions in 2000.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry
the death penalty in the ultra-conservative Gulf country, where executions
are usually carried out in public.

(source: Agence France Presse)






IRAQ:

Iraq seeks end to "Chemical Ali" execution impasse


Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is trying to end an impasse that has
delayed the execution of Saddam Hussein's cousin and 2 other men convicted
of genocide, a government spokesman said on Wednesday.

Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majeed, known as "Chemical Ali", former
Defence Minister Sultan Hashem and former army commander Hussein Rashid
Muhammad are in U.S. military custody awaiting execution after they were
convicted for their roles in a campaign against Iraq's Kurds in 1988.

An Iraqi court in September upheld death sentences against the 3 men.

Iraq's constitution stipulates that the sentences must be carried out
within 30 days but they remain in custody while Iraq's leaders squabble
over who has authority to sign off on the executions.

The legal dispute between the government and Iraq's presidency council has
been complicated by growing calls for Hashem to be spared. Many Sunni
Arabs say he was a soldier who was just following the orders of Saddam's
feared cousin Majeed.

"The prime minister is trying to find a solution and a sort of balance
between these demands and upholding the law and the constitution and the
decisions made by the court," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told a
news conference.

Dabbagh did not say what form the balance might take, or whether Maliki
was considering any compromises in the dispute or a pardon for Hashem.

The U.S. military has said it will not hand the men over for execution
until it receives what it calls an "authoritative government of Iraq
request".

"It's dependent on a decision still to be taken by the government of
Iraq," U.S. military spokesman Major-General Kevin Bergner said at the
same news conference.

What constitutes such a request, and who is authorised to make it, is at
the heart of the argument between Shi'ite Islamist Maliki and President
Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and Sunni Arab Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi.

Maliki has written to U.S. President George W. Bush demanding that he
order the 3 men be handed over.

Talabani and Hashemi say Maliki has no right to make such a request and
the 3 man-presidency council -- made up of the president and 2
vice-presidents -- should sign the order.

(source: Reuters)