Jan. 31
INDIA:
Kasab's death penalty appeal adjourned, no date set
The Supreme Court adjourned an appeal hearing on Tuesday into the death
sentence handed down to Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman from the 2008
Mumbai attacks.
Kasab, one of 10 gunmen who laid siege to Mumbai in attacks which lasted nearly
3 days and killed 166 people, has appealed for his sentence to be overturned
after he was convicted in May 2010.
The 24-year-old Pakistani was found guilty of a series of crimes, including
waging war against India, murder and terror acts.
The November 2008 attacks saw 10 heavily-armed Islamist gunmen storm targets
including luxury hotels, a Jewish centre and a train station.
1 of the 2 Supreme Court judges due to hear the appeal was unavailable on
Tuesday, forcing the adjournment, officials said. No date was immediately set
for the next hearing.
Kasab's court-appointed lawyer Raju Ramachandran told AFP that his job was "a
call of duty", but declined to talk further about the case.
India blames the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant outfit for
training, equipping and financing the attack with support from "elements" in
the Pakistan military.
Kasab's death sentence was confirmed by a state high court in Mumbai last year.
If he loses his Supreme Court appeal, he will be able to appeal for clemency
from the president.
Ujjwal Nikam, who prosecuted the case in Mumbai on behalf of the Maharashtra
state, is seeking to push through the death sentence.
"This is the rarest of rare cases," Nikam told AFP. "He should not be entitled
to any mercy."
At the trial, the prosecution produced fingerprint, DNA, eyewitness and
television evidence showing him opening fire and throwing grenades at Mumbai's
main railway station in the bloodiest episode of the attacks.
Kasab -- who is in jail in Mumbai -- initially pleaded not guilty but later
made a confession, admitting to being one of the gunmen sent by the banned LeT
militant group.
He then reverted back to his initial denial and said he was framed by the
police.
Pakistan has indicted 7 alleged perpetrators over the attacks but they have not
been brought to trial, triggering Indian accusations that the process is a
sham.
Pakistani investigators and lawyers will visit India next month to gather more
evidence ahead of any trial in Islamabad.
Most death sentences in India are commuted to life imprisonment, and convicts
can sit on death row for years awaiting a final decision.
(source: Hindustan Times)
*****************
Kasab not given fair trial: Amicus curiae tells SC
The sole convict in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack case, Mohammad Ajmal Amir
Kasab, on Tuesday contended before the Supreme Court that he was not given a
free and fair trial in the case.
Senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, who has been appointed as amicus curiae by
the apex court to defend Kasab, told a bench headed by Justice Aftab Alam that
he was not a part of the larger conspiracy for waging war against nation.
“Even if I am guilty under section 302 (punishment for murder) of the IPC and
other provisions, it cannot be said that I was a part of the larger conspiracy
of waging war,” said Mr. Ramachandran.
Maintaining that the prosecution has failed to prove the case against him
beyond doubts, he told the bench that his right against self-incrimination as
well as his right to get himself adequately represented by a counsel to defend
himself in the case have been violated during the trial.
The apex court had on October 10, last year stayed the death sentence of
24-year-old Kasab, the lone surviving gunman involved in the 2008 Mumbai
attack.
In the special leave petition filed by Kasab, challenging the Bombay High Court
judgement, he claimed he was brainwashed like a “robot” into committing the
heinous crime in the name of “God” and that he does not deserve capital
punishment owing to his young age.
Kasab has been lodged in Arthur Road prison in Mumbai and had moved the SLP
through jail authorities. He had challenged his conviction and death sentence
in the terror attack case.
Kasab along with 9 other Pakistani terrorists had landed at Budhwar Park in
south Mumbai on November 26, 2008 night from Karachi by sea and had gone on a
shooting spree at various city landmarks, leaving 166 people dead and many more
wounded.
While Kasab was captured, the other terrorists in the group were killed during
the attack. He was sentenced to death by a special anti-terror court on May 6
last year.
The Bombay High Court had in its February 21, 2011, verdict upheld the trial
court order of death sentence to Kasab for the “brutal and diabolical” attacks
aimed at “destabilising” the government.
Kasab’s death penalty was upheld on charges of criminal conspiracy, waging war
against the nation and various other provisions of the Indian Penal Code and
the anti-terror law - Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
The High Court had upheld Kasab’s conviction on 19 counts under the IPC, Arms
Act, Explosives Act, Explosive Substances Act, the Foreigners Act, the Passport
Act and the Railway Act.
(source: The Hindu)
*********************************
Trial against Salem can't be halted: CBI
The CBI on Tuesday said that they don't accept Portugal Supreme Court's verdict
which recently confirmed the decision to terminate the extradition of
underworld don Abu Salem to face trial in various cases in India.
The CBI on Tuesday filed its reply in the special TADA court in Mumbai. This
reply has been filed after Salem moved the court stating since his extradition
had been revoked, no trial can continue against him in India.
"We don't accept Portugal SC's verdict. We are governed by the Supreme Court of
India. We have appealed in the Constitutional Court in Portugal. Trial against
Salem can't be halted. It's a matter between the 2 governments," the CBI said.
Portugal's Supreme Court had on January 14 upheld an order of Court of Appeal
in Lisbon which on Salem's petition had canceled his extradition holding that
by slapping new charges under MCOCA, which attracted death penalty, there was
breach of deportation rules and Rule of Speciality. 46-year-old Salem, a key
accused in 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, and his girl friend Monica Bedi were
extradited to India on November 11, 2005, after a marathon legal process in
Portugal lasting 3 years.
The extradition of Salem, who was also wanted in various cases including the
murder of noted film producer Gulshan Kumar, came after an assurance by the
Indian government to Portugal that he would not be given death penalty, a key
requirement for extradition from European countries.
(source: IBNLive.com)
****************************
Honour crimes, the scourge of South Asia----A 'feudal practice' and 'a slur on
our nation,' India's supreme court says
Killing his own daughter was necessary to protect the family's honour, Bagawan
Dass argued, and that was why it didn't merit a life sentence.
Dass took his appeal all the way to India's Supreme Court. Because for him and
others in this part of South Asia, what he did in 2006 was not only his right,
but his responsibility.
The family's honour and standing in the community had to be protected after
Dass's daughter married someone against the family's wishes. For them, the life
sentence didn't fit the crime.
Last May, the Supreme Court of India agreed: it sentenced Dass to death.
It's a ruling that set a precedent in a region where the role and
permissibility of so-called honour killings have wound their way through
religion, caste and culture.
In the court's judgment, so-called honour killings "come within the category of
the rarest of rare cases deserving death punishment."
Now is the time, it said, "to stamp out these barbaric, feudal practices which
are a slur on our nation."
It was a bold statement, one that Indian politicians have generally been
reluctant to make.
But while high-up officials and police are being shaken into action by these
kinds of high-court pronouncements, those in local communities, where the root
of the problem begins, do not appear to be nearly as moved.
"The community pressure is to go with the stream," says Yogesh Kamdar, a
Mumbai-based rights activist.
As he sees it, while many cases of honour killings are now publicized, and
their perpetrators held up to ridicule in the media, many more are believed to
go unreported.
"And that would only be possible with the collusion of police and the [village]
administration."
Tougher penalties
Many experts believe there are about 1,000 so-called honour killings a year in
India, a harsh but relatively small number, it might be said, in a country with
over a billion people.
But no one can be really sure if this is not just the tip of the iceberg.
Muslim Pakistan next door is often said to have proportionally more of these
crimes and it, too, appears to be having the same kinds of problems India has
when it comes to stamping them out.
After years of agitation, Pakistan's legislature passed a law in 2004
authorizing the death penalty for so-called honour killings. But a few years
later the country's chief justice was still lamenting the "enabling culture"
that allowed the practice to continue.
Perhaps that should not be so surprising. For all the headlines you read here
boasting about, say, India's economic growth or the number of BMWs on the
roads, there are many more stories about social traditions that are locked in
the past.
That's why some activists are starting to argue for stricter penalties (no
bail, for example, being the latest cause), not just for those who commit these
crimes, but for those responsible for enforcing the laws and who might turn a
blind eye.
Already, tougher action against lower officials has had some effect, with
officers being suspended or even dismissed in the past year.
"This sends a positive signals to the lower levels of enforcement that they
have to hold up the constitution and not their own personal convictions,"
Kamdar says. "But this is happening gradually."
Rights and caste
Through the centuries, so-called honour killings have become deeply rooted in
cultural and social norms — and not just in rural and urbanizing India but
around the world.
On Monday, the BBC reported that a woman in Afghanistan was arrested for
allegedly strangling her daughter-in-law because she had given birth to a 3rd
daughter.
In May 2010, police in the Indian state of Jharkhand arrest the mother of a
pregnant journalist who was killed, allegedly for wanting to marry her
boyfriend from another caste. A UN study in 2000 suggested there were as many
as 5,000 women and girls killed each year by a family member as part of some
so-called honour crime. These incidents involved Muslim, Hindu and Christian
families in South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and as far away as
Ecuador and Brazil.
Such crimes are also showing up in Canada, the U.S. and Europe among immigrant
communities. Britain, Italy and Germany have all convicted people for the
so-called honour killing of a close family member in the past 4 years.
Last month, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported that U.K. police forces,
asked to compile lists, came up with more than 2,800 cases of so-called honour
crimes, including killings, abuse and intimidation, in 2010.
There has even been a case of a British court taking a proactive stance by
allowing an unmarried Muslim woman to have her child adopted, against the
natural father's wishes, in order to prevent the woman's father finding out
about the child and doing something to protect family honour.
Marriage and control
Rajana Kumari, who heads a New Delhi-based non-governmental organization for
women's rights, says the notion that killing a woman is permissible basically
stems from discrimination against children and women.
"It's the mindset that women have no rights to decide," she explains. "That
once a decision is made, the family takes any challenge to that decision as a
challenge to culture and family and values."
Most of these cases deal with disputes between girls and their parents over
marriage and control. In the past few years alone, stories of fathers axing
their daughters to death for seeing a boy from another caste, or a brother
shooting his sister because she ran off with someone the family did not approve
of, regularly crop up in the media.
In Hindu India, Kumari says, these incidents largely stem from the rules
surrounding caste. "If you marry outside your caste you are going outside the
norm and bringing dishonour."
She adds that the tradition of caste and control over a woman's body is very
patriarchal and a central reason why the killings are usually done by the
woman's family.
"In sociological terms, when a woman marries she goes into the husband's caste.
Men maintain caste if they marry lower caste, not women. So women bring the
family status down if they marry to a lower, or even just another caste."
Economic independence
Today, there are several countries trying to tackle the scourge of these crimes
by top-down decree.
A few years ago, well before all the recent unrest, Syria's senior clerics
denounced them as un-Islamic; Turkey set up a special department to try to
track and prosecute them; and Jordan recently eliminated the "fit-of-fury"
defence, which some courts had granted perpetrators.
But the greatest liberator might yet be the economy. As many more women join
the workforce, more are also gaining independence along with their paycheques.
"It has to do with education and women becoming more economically independent,"
Kumari says.
"Because of the economy in India now, women are leaving their homes, without
having to get married. And they have more power and means to make their own
decisions."
In the long run, this kind of sociological change may reduce the number of
so-called honour crimes. But the mentality that provokes them in the 1st place
will likely take more than a fistful of rupees to overcome.
(source: CBC News)
SAUDI ARABIA----execution
Saudi Arabia beheads Pakistani drugs smuggler
Saudi Arabia has beheaded a Pakistani man who was arrested for trying to
smuggle drugs into the kingdom, the interior ministry has said.
"Salman Khan Taj Mohammad, a Pakistani... was arrested as he was caught
smuggling a large amount of heroin" into the country, the Gulfnews quoted the
ministry, as saying in a statement.
He was interrogated and convicted of drug smuggling, a crime punishable by
death according to the kingdom's laws.
Reports have suggested that the man was beheaded in Dammam in eastern Saudi
Arabia, bringing to five the number of Saudi executions carried out so far in
2012.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights voiced alarm this month
over the increase in executions in Saudi Arabia last year.
Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty for a wide range of offences, including
rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking.
At least 76 death row inmates were executed in 2011, while Amnesty
International said the kingdom executed 79 people last year. In 2010, 27 people
were reportedly executed.
(source: ANI)
JAPAN:
CABINET INTERVIEW----Justice minister feels signing off on hangings just part
of job description
Toshio Ogawa is the first justice minister to tacitly support capital
punishment since the Democratic Party of Japan came to power in September 2009
and has no intention of engaging in the debate over whether to end the death
penalty.
He said the study group weighing the possibility of abolishing capital
punishment has run out of things to discuss.
"Whether or not the death sentence should be kept had been discussed in depth
before the study group was set up (in September 2010 by then Justice Minister
Keiko Chiba).
"It has not yielded any new opinions and it is a waste of time to listen to the
same opinions," Ogawa told journalists in his Tokyo office Jan. 23.
"We are done discussing and are now in the midst of compiling opinions, and
will make an announcement when everything is compiled," he said.
Ogawa, who passed the bar in 1970 and served as a judge, prosecutor and lawyer
before becoming a lawmaker, was senior vice justice minister for a year to last
September in Naoto Kan's administration.
The study group was never tasked with coming up with proposals. Chiba, who
signed the orders for 2 hangings despite her personal beliefs, established the
group because she wanted nationwide discussions on capital punishment.
Ogawa reiterated he feels it is his responsibility as justice minister to sign
off on executions.
"I don't really want to do it, but that is one of the justice minister's job
descriptions. With 130 inmates on death row and public opinion showing 85 % of
Japanese support the death sentence, it is inexcusable not to sign off on
executions," he said.
No hangings have taken place since Chiba, a DPJ member, gave the go-ahead for
the 2 executions in July 2010.
The frequency of executions appears to vary depending on the justice minister
at the time. Other than the 2 inmates sent to the gallows in 2010, 7 were
hanged in 2009, 15 in 2008, nine in 2007 and 4 in 2006.
Japan is one of 58 countries, including the United States, China, India and
Iran, where executions take place. A total of 104 countries, including all
European countries, Canada and Australia, either have abolished the death
sentence or have not resorted to its use in years, according to Amnesty
International.
Ogawa said he has not ruled out signing off on executions while the Diet is in
session. Past justice ministers have generally refrained from having anyone
executed during legislative sessions, apparently to avoid coming under fire
from fellow lawmakers.
Ogawa said he is neutral on calls for establishing an alternative punishment,
such as life in prison with no chance of parole. Some argue this sentence is
necessary because the gap in harshness between hanging and life with possible
parole is too wide.
"I think it is extremely painful if inmates have no possibility of parole. They
may give in to despair. On the other hand, it is better than death," he said.
On whether to allow shared child custody in cases of divorce, Ogawa effectively
said Japan does not need to revise the Civil Code to allow this, because
ensuring visitation rights is sufficient.
The Civil Code stipulates that custody, or "parental rights," over children
must belong to one of the parents in a divorce. This provision is one of the
reasons foreign or Japanese parents who lose custody have difficulty playing a
role in their children's lives.
"If we allow dual parental rights, it will be difficult to decide which parent
the children live with and to make other decisions. I believe a major complaint
that people seeking dual parental rights have is that they don't get to see
their children enough. That can be largely solved by ensuring visitation
rights," he said.
Japan is under pressure to revise family laws to ratify the Hague Convention on
the Civil Aspect of International Child Abduction, under which countries must
return children abducted from another country that has signed the agreement to
the country of their original residence.
(source: Japan Times)
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