[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 27



INDIA:

Mercy pleas of 50 on death row still pending


Mohammad Afzal, who has been sentenced to death by the supreme court in
2004 for his role in the December 2001 attack on parliament, has been
counting his days in Tihar Jail. His clemency petition lies with the home
ministry. Afzals is not the only file.

Figures with the Union home ministry show that though the apex court has
sentenced 50 persons to death in the last 10 years, none of them has yet
been hanged. Of the 50 convicts, 32 were sentenced more than 5 years ago
and include high-profile names like Murugan and Santhan, who were part of
the Rajiv Gandhi assassination plot.

Except in 3 cases, where the union home ministry is examining the files,
the buck stops at Rashtrapati Bhavan. President after president has been
unwilling to either grant mercy or withhold it.

"The inability of the state to punish the guilty as per the law will only
promote lawlessness," says Shailesh Gandhi, the activist who filed under
the Right to Information Act for details on the status of mercy petitions
before the President. His query was transferred to the home department
which furnished him "with these shocking figures."

(source: Times of India)






IRAN:

Executions of Juvenile Offenders Rising----Iran Executes 6th Juvenile
Offender This Year, 26th Since 2005


Calling Irans execution on August 26, 2008 of juvenile offender Behnam
Zare abhorrent, Human Rights Watch urged the Iranian judiciary to
immediately commute the sentences of more than 130 other prisoners facing
death for crimes committed while children.

Zare is the sixth juvenile offender Iran has executed this year. No other
country is known to have executed a juvenile offender in 2008. Since
January 2005, Iran has executed at least 26 juvenile offenders. During the
same period, only four other countries  Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, and
Pakistan  are known to have executed any juvenile offenders, with a
combined total of six such executions in the four countries.

"Iran leads the world in executing juvenile offenders" said Clarisa
Bencomo, researcher on children's rights in the Middle East at Human
Rights Watch. "Everywhere else, countries are moving to end this abhorrent
practice, but in Iran the numbers of death sentences seem to be
increasing."

As a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and
the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Iran is obligated to prohibit
executions of persons under 18 at the time of the crime.

Branch 5 of the Fars Criminal Court had sentenced Zare to death on
November 13, 2005, for a murder committed on April 21, 2005, when he was
16. Branch 33 of the Supreme Court upheld the ruling on May 14, 2007.
Authorities at Shiraz Prison executed Zare on August 26, 2008.

Zare's family and his lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, only learned of Zare's
execution after the fact, although Iranian law requires that the lawyer be
notified 48 hours before the execution. Zare's family and lawyer had been
trying to reach a settlement with the victims family at the time of the
execution.

Zare's execution closely follows the execution of juvenile offender Seyyed
Reza Hejazi at Isfahan Central Prison on August 19, 2008. Branch 106 of
the Isfahan General Court had convicted Hejazi of murder on November 14,
2005, for his role in a 2003 fight involving several people. Hejazi was 15
at the time of the crime, and repeatedly told authorities that he had not
intended to kill the victim.

As in the case of Zare, the authorities did not notify Hejazis lawyer,
also Mohammad Mostafaei, 48 hours prior to the execution. Instead,
Mostafaei learned of the pending execution from a journalist the night
before. Prison authorities refused to allow Mostafaei to visit Hejazi the
morning of the execution, and he eventually left after a prison official
told him the execution had been stayed. Instead, prison officials executed
Hejazi an hour later.

"Killing people for crimes committed as children provides neither justice
nor safety for Iranian society," Bencomo said. "The Iranian authorities'
willingness to lie to lawyers and to deprive families of a last chance to
see their loved ones only underscores the depravity of these executions."

(source: Human Rights Watch)

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11 other prisoners hanged in Iran


11 prisoners hanged in Iran in the past week. Among those executed, there
was a prisoner 15 at the time of the alleged crime and another was hanged
for a crime allegedly he committed 19 years ago. The mullahs' inhuman
regime hanged 9 other prisoners in different cities throughout the
country.

On August 20, the Iranian regime hanged 6 prisoners without naming them in
the northeastern city of Birjand while two others were hanged in the
Qezelhesar prison 40 kilometer west of the capital, the state-run dailies
Khorasan and Qods reported respectively.

According to the state-run daily Etemaad a man identified as Bahram who
had allegedly committed a crime 19 years ago was executed in the northern
city of Tabriz on August 20. The same source reported another hanging this
time in the northeastern city of Bojnourd also on August 20.

This morning a young man, Behnam Zare, after spending 5 years in prison,
was hanged for a crime allegedly committed when he was 15 in Adela Abad
prison in the southern city of Shiraz.

The mullahs' inhuman regime has stepped up executions throughout the
country as a criminal and fearful reaction to the popular uprisings and
other crisis in Iran.

Emphasizing that silence and inaction by the international community over
the brutal violation of human rights in Iran emboldens the mullahs to
continue and expand its crimes, the Iranian Resistance calls on the UN
Secretary General, Security Council, High Commissioner for Human Rights
and other competent international bodies to take urgent measures to
prevent growing trend of executions in Iran. It also calls for immediate
referral of the clerical regime's human rights dossier to the UN Security
Council for adoption of binding measures.

(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)






BOTSWANA:

Botswana murder trial sees death sentence, 18 years for S Africans


A Botswana court on Tuesday sentenced one local to execution and 2 South
African men to 18 years imprisonment each for the murder of a
businesswoman 7 years ago, court documents said.

The high court in Lobatse town, south of the capital Gaborone, imposed the
death sentence on Benson Keganne, a Botswana national, who allegedly
played a major role in the murder, in March 2001, of Gloria Mahowe, a
Botswana national.

The court also handed down convictions to Kagiso William Sebi and Amos
Suna Moloi after finding them guilty of involvement.

Moloi and Sebi have 6 weeks to appeal their sentences, the court said.

Judge David Newman said in his ruling that the two South Africans had
played a minimal role in the woman's killing.

Botswana is the only country in southern Africa still to carry out the
death penalty, which was banned in South Africa after the end of apartheid
white minority rule.

(source: Africasia)