[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 11


INDIA:

The newly constructed building of the Ranchi jail is awaiting a right
design for its gallows, as engineers have been entrusted with the task of
coming up with the perfect device.

The Birsa Munda Central Jail here was shifted to the outskirts of the city
last month to house more prisoners. The modern building, however, does not
have gallows, though no execution has been conducted in the past 40 years.

The engineers and jail authorities are still baffled over a suitable
design for the gallows.

'This is true that the engineers and jail authorities are unable to draw
the design of gallows,' news reports quoted Kulwant Singh, chief engineer
of the building construction department.

'We need a specific design but we do not have one right now,' he said.

In Jharkhand, there are about a dozen prisoners awarded with death
sentence by the lower court and their appeals are pending in higher
courts. The jail authorities point out that no person has been hanged in
the last 40 years in Ranchi jail as the gallows were in a bad shape in the
previous building.

'Whether a prisoner is hanged or not, we should have gallows. We are
sending a team to Bhagalpur central jail of Bihar to get a design,'
informed a jail official.

According to him, the Jharkhand government has never taken interest to
even appoint a hangman.

(source: Indo Asian News Service)






ENGLAND:

THE HANGMAN---Soham bodies farmer exports mobile gallows


A FARMER whose land was used to hide the bodies of murdered schoolgirls
Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells is selling mobile execution gallows to
terror regimes around the world.

David Lucas, 58, and his partner Brian Rutterford were horrified when the
corpses of the Soham 10-year-olds were found in a ditch on their farm.

But the pair's pity and compassion does not extend to the victims who
dangle from gallows which they export to brutal dictators like Zimabwe's
President Mugabe and Libya's Colonel Gadaffi.

Bearded Lucas, 58, whose farm includes land near Lakenheath airbase,
Suffolk, where evil Ian Huntley hid his victims, boasted to a People
undercover investigator: "I guarantee these will do the job. You can get
rid of as many as 5 people at a time.

"Each unit has 5 individual gallows and the beauty of it is you can use it
over and over again."

Lucas converts covered lorry trailers into mobile execution chambers
complete with trapdoors and ultra-strong nooses.

He also builds traditional hangman's scaffolds on platforms of solid oak
and redwood. The cynical farmer explained: "These are used mainly as
deterrents for outdoor public executions. They cost 12,000 each.

"I don't have one around to show you at the moment but I have got an oak
one on order and am just sorting out the paperwork on that. They take me
just over a week to make."

Posing as a representative of the Mugabe government, our investigator met
Lucas at his gruesome death "factory" at Eldon Farm near Mildenhall,
Suffolk.

At the entrance visitors are greeted by some of his grisly work - a
towering mock-up of a hangman's gallows.

We told him we wanted new gallows for provincial prisons in Zimbabwe and
admired British craftsmanship. Lucas said proudly: "I have 2 systems - the
traditional platform gallows or the mobile units which I have designed
myself."

He pointed to an articulated lorry trailer and said: "I build trap doors
into the bottom and you can have them with the sides open so people can
see.

"Depending on the length of the trailer you could use 5 or 6 gallows at
the same time.

"They are expensive but you can use them over and over again. Say you only
have one execution team - that's all you would need.

"They could travel around from village to village or prison to prison. It
could save a lot of time." Lucas added: "They still use these in places
like Libya and a few years ago I did some business with Zimbabwe so I know
what your problems are."

There are no legal restrictions on the export of execution equipment from
Britain but the EU plans to outlaw it from July 30.

When we confronted Lucas about his gruesome trade yesterday he said
defiantly: "I'm not doing anything illegal.

"There is a demand for these gallows. I know not everyone will agree with
what I'm doing but business is business."

His partner Rutterford - who helped discover the bodies of the Soham girls
- told us: "I own Eldon Farm and have been helping David with the sale of
gallows. We have a number of foreign countries who buy them."

Amnesty International's UK Director Kate Allen said: "It's appalling that
a British company is apparently selling gallows to Mugabe's government.

"It makes a mockery of the UK's efforts to oppose the death penalty around
the world."

(source: The People)

[MY NOTE: The address for the farmer manufacturing and selling Gallows to
Zimbabwe and Libya is:

Eldon Farm, Holywell Row, Mildenhall, Suffolk IP28 8LZ

Telephone: in UK: 01638 715967-------from outside: +441638 715967

remember to ask for David Lucas,

And for the partner putting up the money:

Brian Rutterford

121 Undley Hall, Lakenheath, Brandon, Suffolk, IP27 9BY

Phone: 01842 862677

Fax: 01842 861110

Mobile: 07836 777595 or +447836 77595










LIBYA:

CHRONOLOGY-Libya HIV trial of Bulgarian medics


The retrial began in Tripoli on Thursday of 6 foreign medics accused of
infecting 400 Libyan children with HIV.

Following is a chronology of key events in the case:

Feb 1999 - Nineteen Bulgarian medical workers in Libya detained in
connection with investigation into how children in a hospital in the
eastern town of Benghazi became infected with the virus that causes AIDS.
13 were later freed.

Feb 2000 - 6 Bulgarians (5 female nurses and a male doctor), a Palestinian
doctor and 9 Libyans stand trial at Tripoli People's Court. The foreigners
are accused of deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with
HIV-contaminated blood products as part of conspiracy by foreign
intelligence forces undermine Libya. Libyan defendants are charged with
negligence.

June 2, 2001 - Defendants plead not guilty. 2 Bulgarian nurses retract
confessions, alleging they were tortured. Libya denies this.

Feb 17, 2002 - People's Court, which tries national security cases,
returns trial to ordinary court citing insufficient evidence that
defendants acted against Libyan security.

Sept 3, 2003 - French doctor Luc Montagnier, who first detected the HIV
virus, testifies the epidemic broke out a year before the arrival of the
Bulgarians.

Sept 8 - Libyan prosecutors demand death sentences for the six Bulgarians
and Palestinian accused. They demand 9 Libyan officers charged with
torturing the medics be tried separately.

May 6, 2004 - Libyan court sentences 5 Bulgarian nurses and the
Palestinian doctor to death for deliberately infecting 426 children. The
Bulgarian doctor is acquitted. The nine Libyans are acquitted. Torture
charges against the Libyan officers are transferred to a Tripoli court.
Bulgaria, the EU and the United States condemn the death sentences as
"absurd".

Dec 5 - Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam says will
discuss overturning sentences if Bulgaria offers compensation. Bulgaria
refuses, saying that would be an admission of guilt.

May 28, 2005 - Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov, visiting Libya, meets
children with HIV in Benghazi and the nurses in a Tripoli prison.

June 7 - A Tripoli court acquits nine Libyan policemen and a doctor of
torturing the nurses.

Dec 19 - Supreme Court brings forward its appeal hearing to Dec. 25.

Dec 23 - Bulgaria, Libya, the EU and the United States agree to set up
fund to help the Libyan children and their families.

Dec 25 - Libya's Supreme Court scraps death sentences against the nurses
and the Palestinian doctor, sends the case back to a lower court for
retrial.

Jan 21, 2006 - Families demand total of 4.4 billion euros from donors
trying to end the standoff.

May 11 - Retrial resumes in Tripoli court.

(source: Reuters)






PAKISTAN:

Attacks on Musharraf: Another death row convict moves SC


Naek Arshed Mahmood, who was sentenced to death by a military court for
his involvement in an assassination bid against President General Pervez
Musharraf, has filed a petition with the Supreme Court appealing against
his conviction.

Army intelligence authorities carried out an investigation against
Mahmood, after which a joint summary of evidence was recorded. Mahmood was
then tried before a Field General Court Martial and sentenced to death.
His subsequent appeal before the Military Court of Appeal was rejected.

The Lahore High Court also dismissed his appeal. He has now moved his
appeal to the Supreme Court and made the Defence Ministry secretary and
the federal government respondents.

Nine appeals by other death convicts are already pending before the
Supreme Court in the cases regarding 2 attacks on President Musharraf on
December 14 and 25, 2003. Advocate Hashmat Habib said the court could take
up the petition in a day or 2.

(source: The Daily Times)






CHINA:

British Surgeons, Rights Groups Warn Chinese to Halt Organ Harvesting


Top British transplant surgeons and human rights campaigners said new
measures to curb the harvesting of organs of executed prisoners to sell
for transplants in China may do little to halt the practice.

The Chinese government will introduce new regulations from July 1 banning
the sale of human organs and requiring written permission from transplant
donors. It announced the measures in March following numerous reports by
human rights groups that prisoners' organs were being removed without
their consent or that of their families.

However, groups that include the London-based Amnesty International and
British Transplantation Society (BTS) fear that little will change under
the new measures. As long as the death penalty remains in the country, the
practice of organ harvesting may also continue, they charged.

"We cautiously welcome this move, but our position on the use of organs
from executed prisoners remains the same. Given the coercive nature of the
death penalty there will be few, if any, circumstances under which a
prisoner facing imminent execution will be able voluntarily to give free
and informed consent to having their organs extracted," Saria
Rees-Roberts, spokesperson for Amnesty International, told IPS.

Britain's leading transplantation society added its voice to the growing
concern over the practice of organ harvesting in April when it claimed in
a statement on its website that an "accumulating body of evidence"
convinced them that organs of executed prisoners were being removed for
transplantation without consent.

"The British Transplantation Society condemns unreservedly any activity
that transgresses an individual's human rights or involves the coercion of
an individual to become an organ donor. A reported close relationship
between transplant units and the authorities regulating executions and the
availability of organs is unethical," Professor Stephen Wigmore, chairman
of the BTS ethics committee, told IPS.

Such evidence includes information from the Beijing-based
Bek-Transplant.com website which openly admits under its "Frequently Asked
Questions" section that the organs they use come from "people that are
executed in China."

More than 3,000 executions were documented in China last year by Amnesty
International, although the true figure is known to be much higher. In
March 2004, a senior member of the National People's Congress announced
that China executes around 10,000 people per year.

The Bek.Transplant website openly advertises for business from foreigners.
The cost of a kidney transplant for non-Chinese nationals is put at 70,000
dollars, and a liver transplant at 120,000 dollars for both the organ and
the operation. Payments are made to the medical centres.

Although the exact number of organs taken from prisoners is unknown, the
organisation reckoned the figure could be in the thousands. The organs are
being sold both to Chinese residents and foreign nationals, the BTS
official said.

"We know that Japanese and Koreans are the main users but individuals from
USA, Britain, Israel and Arab countries are all reported to have been to
China for transplants," said Wigmore.

Many of the patients who travel to China for an organ often are desperate,
Wigmore said, adding, however that purchasing an unethically-obtained
organ could backfire. "Any act that risks calling the practice of
transplantation into disrepute is to be regretted," Wigmore said.

The society membership decided to speak out on the practice to lower
demand, he added.

"We hope that by raising awareness of the practices in China we will
discourage people from going there for transplants thus reducing the
demand for organs and also the financial incentive to do this activity,"
said Wigmore. "We hope that other medical societies and governments will
support the position that we have taken and apply their own pressures to
China to make it stop doing this."

The Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group has been documenting the
practice. The group reported on its website that many of its practitioners
are being killed for their organs in the Sujiatun Concentration Camp. The
cut-open bodies are then cremated, the group charged.

"It is known that human organs from the Sujiatun Concentration Camp are
sold to various hospitals. Those hospitals purchase human organs for
resale on the international market. In the past, many Falun Gong
practitioners were tortured to death, and some of their organs have been
harvested," the group wrote in a statement on its website.

The group, which practices the ancient art for mind and body, highlighted
a number of examples of people who it claims have been subject to the
practice. One of these is the case of Ms. Yang Ruiyu from Fuzhou City in
the Fujian Province of China.

"On the morning of July 19, 2001, at around 10 am, Ms. Yang was taken away
from her work. Ms. Yang was tortured to death on July 22. Her body was
sent under police escort all the way to a crematorium. Yang Ruiyu's
husband and daughter were not allowed to approach the body. It was said
that there was a hole in Ms. Yang's side as large as a fist," the group
wrote.

Since making its appeal to halt organ harvesting last month, Wigmore said
limited progress has been made, but insisted the practice is far from
over.

"One website originating in China representing transplants in Chinese
hospitals being sold overseas has been closed down. Another which does the
same but is based in Japan stopped working for a few days then came back
online," said Wigmore.

The BTS hoped that the political pressure it has applied on the Chinese
government will ensure that the regulations they are planning from July
will be effective, and said the group will continue to monitor reports
from China on the issue.

Amnesty International said secrecy remains a problem within China. The
Chinese government does not allow Amnesty access to conduct research
within the country, for example. Still, it is not immune to international
criticism and pressure, the London-based rights group said.

"The fact that the authorities legislated against the sale of organs shows
that they are aware that the practice goes on and that it is damaging to
their credibility. This is a key way to push for change," said
Rees-Roberts.

The group doubted, however, that there will be few instances where a
voluntary consent to organ extraction could be given. "Given the cruel,
inhuman and degrading nature of the death penalty, Amnesty International
considers that there will be few, if any, circumstances under which a
prisoner facing imminent execution will be able to 'voluntarily' give
'free and informed consent' to having their organs extracted," she added.

The group has long called on China to ban such practices, first reporting
the practice of harvesting organs from executed prisoners in 1993. The
death penalty remains applicable to around 68 crimes in China. They
include non-violent offences, such as committing tax fraud, embezzling
state property and accepting a bribe.

(source: IPS)