Feb. 25
BANGLADESH:
Mollah Verdict; Govt to appeal this week
The government may file an appeal with the Supreme Court this week seeking
death penalties to Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah for each of the 6 charges
he faced at the International Crimes Tribunal-2.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told reporters yesterday that his office would
move the appeal containing 3 grounds for challenging the verdict of
International Crimes Tribunal-2 in the case against Mollah.
The Tribunal-2 verdict delivered on February 5 convicted the 65-year-old for 5
wartime criminal offences among the 6 charges filed against him.
In 2 of the 5 acts of crimes against humanity, at least 350 Bangalees were
killed and a girl was raped. The tribunal awarded him life sentence (30 years)
for the offences.
He also got 15 years' imprisonment for his complicity in three other criminal
offences in which 6 people were killed.
He was acquitted of the 6th charge of killing hundreds of people at Keraniganj
during the Liberation War, as the charge was not proved in the tribunal.
Yesterday, the attorney general said the tribunal should have awarded death
sentences to Mollah for each of the charges.
The government would pray to the Supreme Court to award death penalty to Quader
Mollah on the charge of killing people at Keraniganj too, he told newsmen at
his office.
The government took the initiative for moving the appeal as the verdict of
Tribunal-2 caused a stir among common people and prompted the youths to take to
the streets that led to the Shahbagh protest.
The appeal would be lodged under the amended provisions of the International
Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973, that empower the government, informants and
complainants to appeal against any verdict of the war crimes tribunals.
The defence and the prosecution have time until March 6 to file the appeals and
the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court would have to dispose of the
appeals within 60 days of their filing.
(source: The Daily Star)
INDIA:
Hanging is futile
The hanging of Afzal Guru on Saturday, the 9th of this month, should once again
remind us of the futility of killing murderers. It does not have the slightest
impact on the incidents of murders. By now we should have learnt that killing
killers does not reduce the number of murders that take place. Most advanced
countries have abolished the death penalty.
It has not increased the incidents of murders. There are other forms of
punishments that have proved more deterrent than depriving the guilty person of
his or her life. Hanging them is medieval barbarism. More effective deterrent
would be to isolate them from society and deprive them of every kind of contact
including use of postal and telephone facilities.
Following this argument, I believe that hanging Afzal Guru was a mistake. The
President should have used his powers to convert death sentence to imprisonment
for life with hard labour. People convicted of murder should be force d to live
in isolation without any contact with their family or friends.
They should be made to do the menial job like clearing latrines and sweeping
prison floors for the rest of their lives. That is why I believe that hanging
Afzal Guru was a mistake. It sent the wrong signal to the public. Most Muslims
believe that his life would have been spared if he had not been a Muslim. I am
inclined to agree with them.
I hope very much that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who is a forward-looking
man of liberal views will, during his tenure in office, initiate legislation to
abolish death penalty.
(source: Letter to the Editor, Khushwant Singh----Hindustan Times)
**********************************
Mom wants lifer, not death
On a day when acid attack victim Vidya (21) succumbed to her injuries, her
family demanded harsh punishment for the attacker, though not death penalty.
Waiting at the mortuary of Kilpauk Medical College to receive Vidya's body, her
mother Saraswathi was emphatic that assailant Vijaya Bhaskar (31) should suffer
like her daughter did. "If he is hanged, he would not know how much my daughter
suffered. He should spend his entire life in prison. Only then would he know
how much suffering she had gone through," said a weeping Saraswathi.
Saraswathi also sought financial assistance from the State government, claiming
that her family was dependent on the meager salary of Rs 5,000 Vidya earned
while working at a browsing centre in Adambakkam.
Vidya died early on Sunday at the Kilpauk Medical College where she was being
treated after being attacked on January 30. Even in death, she helped others,
as she ensured that her eyes were harvested for donation.
A resident of Parameswaran Nagar in Adambakkam, Vidya was working at the
browsing centre in Tiruvallur Nagar for about a year-and-a-half. "Her father
died when she was 7. She went to work only because we could not run the family
with my earning," said Saraswathi, who tries to eke out a living as a domestic
help.
Bhaskar, a caterer with a software company, had proposed to her daughter in
August last, though her family came to know about it only a few days before the
attack. Even though Bhaskar's family approached them, Vidya's family requested
that they wait for a year as Bhaskar had a sister waiting to get married.
"His mother called me and we agreed to the marriage though we were from
different castes and there was a big age gap between them. Maybe he was
insecure that we would not keep our word," Saraswathi said.
Just 4 days before attacking her, Bhaskar had threatened to kill Vidya by
either splashing acid or running her over with an auto. On January 30, Bhaskar
came to the browsing centre when Vidya was alone and reportedly pulled down the
shutters of the shop. Following an altercation, he threw sulphuric acid - which
he had purchased from a shop at Parrys - at her. While some of the acid fell on
her back, he rubbed her face on the floor and rammed it against the wall,
according to police sources.
Describing Vidya's stay at the hospital, she said she ate well on the 1st 3
days after being admitted at KMC. However, the severity of her injuries led to
a stage where she could not even recognize her own mother. "Her wish during her
lifetime was to donate her eyes and reminded us of it even on her death bed,"
Saraswathi added.
(source: The New Indian Express)
****************************************
Death to penatly--The pros and cons of the death penalty are well known and
have been debated by societies for centuries
Kaoru Kobayashi, a local newspaper deliveryman, who assaulted and murdered a
7-year-old girl in 2004 in the Japanese city of Nara, was hanged this February.
2 other death row inmates have been hanged in the 2 months since Shinzo Abe
became the Prime Minister of Japan for the second time. 43 death row criminals
were executed in the US in 2012. The latest of these was Manuel Prado, a
neo-Nazi and self-styled vigilante who killed 9 people. In 2012, around the
world, convicted persons were put to death by firing squad, lethal injection,
electric chair, hanging and beheading for crimes ranging from murder to
terrorism to crimes against humanity.
No reliable statistics are available for China, but it is widely believed to
put thousands of people to death each year.
At the same time, according to Amnesty International, only 21 out of 198
countries carried out executions in 2011. Each year 1 or 2 countries join the
so-called abolitionists - those where the death penalty has been abolished for
all crimes.
Waning public support for the death penalty has resulted in fewer death row
convictions in the US in recent years. In the last 35 years, the number of
abolitionist countries has risen from 16 to 96. These include all of European
Union, the UK and Australia.
India, as widely reported, has executed four people since 1995: the two most
recent being Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru for terrorism. India's historical
journey with the death penalty has strangely been less angst ridden than that
of many countries. Indian law allows the death sentence for murder, gang
robbery with murder, mutiny by a member of the armed forces and abetting the
suicide of a child. Large-scale narcotics trafficking and terrorism have been
added to this original list as capital crimes in recent years. There is no
government corroboration of the fact, revealed in a report, that over 1,000
people were executed in a single decade after independence (Report 35 of the
Fourth Law Commission of India, 1967). Indian law seems to have muddled along,
first permitting a large number of executions and then correcting course with a
Supreme Court directive in 1983 to apply the death penalty only in the
rarest-of-rare cases.
Until the recent gang rape murder crime in New Delhi that awakened a large
group of the middle-class, there has been no real intersection of society with
criminal law principle for over 30 years. There are few domestic volunteer
organizations that speak either for or against the death penalty. Justifiably,
during the recent debate the hotly discussed topic has been the status of women
in society. Much less attention has been focused on the merits of the death
penalty itself.
The justice J.S. Verma committee was constituted in December to recommend
amendments to criminal law to ensure quicker trial and enhanced punishment for
criminals accused of committing sexual assault against women. The panel's
report was presented in January. While punishments in general were enhanced, it
opined that death penalty should not be awarded for the offence of rape as
there was considerable evidence that death penalty was not a deterrent to
serious crimes. It recommended life imprisonment for rape. Despite this report,
the government of India has issued an ordinance called the Criminal Law
(Amendment) Ordinance, 2013, that includes the death penalty for (rare) cases
of assault and murder, particularly those from repeat offenders. (see
www.prsindia.org for a summary).
The pros and cons of the death penalty are well known and have been debated by
societies for centuries. The idea of abolitionism has grown considerably in
recent years. The newly constituted 20th Law Commission under justice D.K. Jain
should consider again the issue of capital punishment in India, update the
facts and contemporize law. While the recent ordinance is a retrograde step
that precludes full debate, I believe India has got it generally right with
respect to the death penalty. It is not abolitionist in the strictest sense,
but reserves the right to apply the death penalty for heinous crimes against
individual or the state. Where it can make improvements in both legal and
practical terms is to define rarest-of-rare better, restrict the scope of this
sentence to fewer crimes, eliminate mandatory clauses and use the privilege,
well, rarely. In addition to better justice, this will improve conviction
rates, cost and time of trial, and expenses incurred by the state after
conviction. The multiple stages of appeal and redress - including possible
clemency from the President - provide opportunity for those death row inmates
who believe they have been convicted wrongly.
Where do you stand?
PS: "Arise, awake and stop not till the execution is annihilated," said retired
judge V.R. Krishna Iyer. "The measure of punishment in a given case must depend
on the atrocity of the crime," said Supreme Court justices A.S. Anand and N.P.
Singh on the Dhananjoy Chatterjee case.
(source: Narayan Ramachandran is an investor and entrepreneur based in
Bangalore----Live Mint)
***************************
'Capital punishment a product of political play'
The execution of the mastermind of the 2001 Parliament attacks, Afzal Guru, and
the implications it could have on Indian polity and thought formed the crux of
a seminar against death penalty, held here recently, attended by noted
litterateurs and intellectuals. The topic finds more relevance, as the
hangman's noose awaits many undertrials across the nation, including the aides
of forest brigand Veerappan.
Speaking on the occasion, noted lawyer and human rights activist Pugazhendi
said, "The unusual haste shown by the government in this case has embellished
the failure of democracy, wherein Guru's right to life was violated."
Stating that there have been precedents where the Supreme Court has overruled
death sentences even after obtaining the President's assent, he added that the
actions only proved political interests were at play. He also brought to note
the fact that a whopping 80 % of appointments in the judiciary had been
vitiated by politicians.
Striking a parallel,human rights activist 'Evidence' Kathir likened the
ham-handed action of the Government in the case to the encounter deaths by the
Police department. Ruing that vital departments such as Human Rights Department
and other key investigative agencies have become mere puppets in the hands of
the government, Kathir said that this was indicative of the growing intolerance
in society.
Noted litterateur Manushyaputhiran, however, suggested that if the government
itself was able to get away by committing such crimes, the actual fault lay not
with it, but with the masses, who, in their deafening silence on the issue,
have been complicit with the rulers. Such an attitude, he pointed out, was a
dangerous trend, while criticising the media for virtually acting as kangaroo
courts in passing their judgments on such people. "The nation would do well to
reflect on its collective conscience. It must not allow fascism to fester
again," he said.
(source: New Indian Express)
****************
Delhi gang-rape: Singapore hospital doctors depose before court today
3 doctors from the Singapore hospital where the Delhi gang-rape victim
succumbed to her injuries, will depose before the fast track court hearing the
case on Monday via video conference.
The doctors at the Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital treated the victim, 23,
after she was flown in to the country after her condition deteriorated. She was
badly assaulted and her intestines were exposed owing to mauling with an iron
rod.
An ortho-dental report has been prepared by the doctors, which will confirm
that the bite marks found on the body of the victim match with the men arrested
for the heinous act. One of the accused, aged 17, is being tried in a juvinile
court.
One of the doctors who will depose before the court prepared an autopsy report
when the victim succumbed to her injuries on December 29. The defence lawyers
will cross examine the 3 Singapore doctors.
The trial is completely out-of-limits for the media.
The family members of the victims have demanded death penalty for the accused,
including the juvinile, who is said to be the most violent among the group of 6
perpetrators.
Massive protests had broken throughout the country after the gang rape incident
in national capital Delhi on December 19. The police has made 80 people
witness, including the friend of the victim, who was with her on that fateful
night and was thrashed by the goons.
(source: livepunjab.com)
*********************************
Not in favour of death penalty for rape accused: Justice Verma
Former Chief Justice of India J S Verma has said that he does not favour death
penalty, including that for rape accused.
Addressing 'Conference of Peace', organised by Rotary International District
3080 at Indradhanush auditorium here on Sunday, Justice Verma said that
majority of women welfare groups have suggested that death penalty will not be
an effective deterrent against incidents of rape.
Talking about his report on amendments to criminal law, he explained that
giving death penalty requires high standards of evidence which may not be
available in certain cases. "In 26 years of service as a judge, I have awarded
death penalty to only 2 accused and that was only when the convict was a repeat
offender. But we have made new additions of offences of trafficking and
stalking in the report," he said.
Stating that one of the important fundamental duties as mentioned in Article
51(A) is to abide by the Constitution, he emphasised, "Individual liberty is
the need of the hour. Freedom of press is also important. Today, it is because
of media exposure that the number of public interest litigations have gone up."
Rotarians from 76 clubs of the entire Rotary International District 3080
attended the conference.
(source: Indian Express)
******************
Death sentence in Rajiv case will mean double penalty: ex-judge
The former judge of the Supreme Court, K.T. Thomas, who headed the 3-member
Bench that pronounced the final judgment in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination
case, has called for its review as, he said, it would be unconstitutional to
implement the ruling now.
On May 11, 1999 the Bench of Mr. Justice Thomas, Justice Sayeed Shah Mohammed
Quadri and Justice D.P. Wadhwa pronounced the judgment in the appeal by the 26
sentenced to death in the case by the Special Court.
The apex court sentenced Murugan (A-3), Santhan (A-2), Perarivalan alias Arivu
(A18) and Nalini (A-1) to death penalty. In a minority judgment, Mr. Justice
Thomas commuted the Nalini's death sentence to life imprisonment, citing that
she was led into the conspiracy and was not aware who the target was till the
last moment. He also maintained that the child of Nalini and Murugan would be
subjected to orphanhood if the mother too was sentenced to death penalty.
Later, her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the then Tamil Nadu
Governor Fatima Beevi.
Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Thomas said he was expressing his opinion as the
media had prompted him to respond to the issue. He cited 2 reasons for his
present opinion. The 3 have been undergoing imprisonment for the past 22 years.
Had they been sentenced to life imprisonment, they would have been able to
avail themselves of certain beneficial provisions in the law for consideration
of remission and relaxation after 14 years as provided by Section 433 (a) of Cr
p.c.
Implementing the death sentence now would, in effect mean a double penalty for
the crime, he said. "Law does not provide for it. This will go against the
provisions of Article 21."
The judgment, while pronouncing the death sentence also failed to go into the
antecedents, nature and character of the accused. In his 2010 judgment Justice
S.B. Sinha called for considering the nature and character of the accused while
awarding the death sentence. This was a flaw in the judgment, he said adding
that the sentence part of the final judgment could be subjected to review.
Mr. Thomas said his original judgment to hang the three was based on the oath
he took when he joined as a judicial officer that his personal views would not
influence the discharge of his duties. According to him, he had expressed his
opinion for a review of the final judgment of the State Vs. Nalini Case earlier
also. As a judge at the trial court, he had awarded the death penalty on 3
occasions and at the apex court, the death penalty was awarded in three cases,
including the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, he said.
(source: The Hindu)
*********************
Following the 'farce' of Afzal's hanging it is time to abolish the death
penalty
When people kill it is homicide. When the State hangs, it is legicide. When
terrorists kill, it is collective murder.
When terrorists are killed, it is justified as counter-terrorism. When
innocents are massacred, it is genocide. When the great empires of the day kill
thousands of innocents it is called collateral damage for the greater glory of
the world.
Afzal Guru's hanging was celebrated as national pride to symbolise that India
and the Congress party had not gone 'soft'.
This was to offset the BJP's electoral campaign against the UPA's soft state.
To the cynic and the thoughtful, Afzal's hanging became a political farce about
collective revenge, national honour and electioneering for 2014.
If his hanging was a deterrent for terrorists in the Valley or otherwise, the
facts belie the truth. If a chain of hangings are to follow, why talk of mercy?
Is India clear about the death penalty, state killings by hanging, mercy
petitions and legicide?
Years ago mandatory death sentences were declared unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court. From 1980 - 83, the new formula was death in the 'rarest of rare
cases'.
Given shrill polities and social clamour for death, are we returning to de
facto mandatory death sentences while retaining the de jure 'rarest of rare'
clausula?
Recently on 2nd March 2012 Justices Alam and Desai opined that mandatory death
sentences for all under the Narcotics Act were contrary to the Constitution's
due process and civil liberties.
The BJP wants mandatory death sentence for all terrorists. Unable to contain
the political implications of this clamour, the Congress has joined the
'mandatory' bandwagon.
Kashmiris protest against the hanging of Afzal Guru in Srinagar
Omar Abdullah took a pragmatic, not a principled, view that death for Afzal
would shake up Kashmir. Instead it shook up Hyderabad!
Parliament dare not make death sentence for terrorists or rapists mandatory. It
would be struck down. Instead this is achieved through politics, inciting
people and numbing the conscience of the President.
The parliament attack occurred on 13 December 2001, and Afzal was arrested on
15 December 2001.
The High Court acquitted 2 accused, Geelani and Afsan, and on 4 August 2005 the
Supreme Court convicted Afzal to death and awarded 10 years for Shaukat.
President Pranab denied mercy on 3 February 2013. After 6 hurried days, he was
executed. The quality of mercy was not just strained but ignored.
Both Kasab and Afzal were hanged within days of the Presidential rejection of
their mercy petition - ignoring the right to approach the courts to challenge
the rejection.
Indeed, in 2013 the Karnataka High Court stayed the execution of Saibanna while
it examined the legality of the presidential rejection.
Recently, the Supreme Court has stayed the execution of Veerappan's aides until
it heard arguments on the rejection of mercy.
Afzal had no such chance. Afzal's wife was informed of the death 2 days later -
by speed post, sent a day before the execution!
Home Secretary R K Singh said his family was informed. Indira's killer's family
met the condemned before execution.
Mr. Singh deserves suspension and Minister Shinde removal for his outrageous
defence of secrecy. But the body?
Surely the family have a right to the body rather than a State burial. They
had, and have, a right to a namaaz-e-janaza.
Or is Afzal to be damned in the life hereafter? Don't quote Prison Rules. The
government's alleged fear is that his tomb will symbolise martyrdom. Who can
prevent that? Or a memory stone in his honour at Sopore?
Would the army crush it to pieces? Why punish Tabassum, Afzal's wife? Unmarked
graves and unceremonious cremations was British policy that ill becomes a post
colonial republic. Give Tabassum the body.
Innumerable convicts await death row - a death in itself. Unwise Law Minister
Ashwin Kumar, who knows little law, seemed more concerned with speed than
justice.
In Bachan's case (1980) the court factorised both the aggravated crime (public
interest) and individuating of concern for the criminal (mitigating justice) as
separate live elements in sentencing. The former could not drown out the
latter.
Recently on 20 November 2012, Justices Lokur and Radhakrishnan exposed the
sentencing error in looking at the crime and ignoring the criminal totally.
This is the flaw in the Machi decision's (1983) 'rarest of rare' test which
seems to be on everyone's lips as they look at the crime and ignore the
criminal.
The Supreme Court has now exposed a dozen of its own errors in this regard.
What we have done is shocking: restored the mandatory death penalty by the back
door.
The presidential mercy has become a farce. Mercy petitions are not a
will-of-the- wisp. They have developed a culture of killing.
Imagine the Justices Radhakrishnan and Misra's distress on reading a trial
judge's advocacy of slashing, beheading, lynching and death sentence as the
only way to eliminate crime. That too, in a judicial verdict.
This is the state we have reached. A UN report states that over 150 countries
have abolished or do not use the death penalty.
Building on earlier resolutions, in 2012, the General Assembly resolved for no
more death penalties - supported by the African Republics Tunisia, Niger and
South Sudan.
Even Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia abstained rather than vote
against. One last comment: Judges should straighten out the law. Parliament
should abolish the death penalty.
Tihar should deliver Afzal's body to his wife Tabassum.
(soure: The Daily Mail)
JAPAN:
Survey shows over 85% of Japanese in favor of death penalty, if not 'something
worse'
The Research Panel website conducted a survey and asked of 29,364 Japanese them
how they felt about the death penalty, this in the wake of the recent
executions of 3 murder convicts. According to the survey, 85.2% of people
responded that they are in favor of the death penalty, and 14.9% were against
it.
On 21 February, Japan executed 3 convicts for murders including the kidnapping
and death of a young girl, and a stabbing rampage that left nine dead. Those
executed were Masahiro Kanagawa, Kaoru Kobayashi and Keiki Kano. These hangings
drew outrage from Amnesty International and the Japanese Federation of Bar
Associations, who made a statement saying they find "these executions
unacceptable." Amnesty International called the Abe administration 'merciless'
after these executions.
However, the Japanese government largely ignores these reactions and opposition
by maintaining that the population at large is in agreement with their policy
of penalty by death. This survey apparently supports that argument. These
figures are in line with separate surveys conducted by major newspapers on
their subscribers on the same issue. The percentages of readers who support
capital punishment range from above 80% to 90%. It certainly seems that in
Japan people are overwhelmingly in favor of executions. The reasons why they
are in favor are typical of death penalty supporters around the world. A
sampling of the reasons gathered by the Research Panel website show that they
think "Keeping violent criminals alive is a waste of tax revenue," or that "if
a loved one was killed in cold blood, it's only natural to want them to pay
with their life."
A more surprising idea comes up when some of the reasons of the anti-death
penalty crowd are analyzed. Apparently, there are opinions that convicted
criminals deserve something "worse than death". Some are of the opinion that
"ending a person's life by death is way too light a punishment." This only
proves that while much of the developed world seems to be moving away from
capital punishment, the people of Japan remain firmly in favor of it and are
perhaps even willing to take things a step further.
(source: Japan Daily Press)
IRAN----executions
4 executed in Iran
3 people were executed in Qazvin, 1 in Behbahan yesterday.
APA reports that the district court had sentenced to the death penalty 4
prisoners accused of drug smuggling. Totally 5 kg and 51g various drugs were
seized from them when they were arrested. Three prisoners were hanged in Qazvin
prison and one in Behbahan prison after the Iranian Supreme Court approved the
death penalty.
Iranian Human Rights Activists News Agency reported that 41 people were
executed from January 21 to February 19.
(source: APA News)
NIGERIA:
The Death Penalty for Kidnappers in Bayelsa
Governor Seriake Dickson last week signed the Bayelsa State kidnap and allied
offences Law 2013 last week, underscoring the seriousness with which the crime
is regarded in the state. The new law prescribes the death penalty for anyone
convicted of the crime. In view of the recurrence and deadly cases of
kidnapping being recorded in many parts of the country, the law, with all the
reservations of the deterrence effect of capital punishment, is however the
best answer to a growing problem.
Human Rights activists and others are opposed to the law on various grounds;
but the crime of kidnapping has reached epidemic proportions in Nigeria it
would require the severest punishment as deterrent. Kidnappers have grown more
daring, attacking and abducting their victims at will.
Regardless of age or nationality, victims are manhandled and generally taken to
live in inhuman conditions while traumatised relatives are hounded for ransom.
So very often, victims are killed during the kidnap attempt, or while in
captivity, at the point of rescue, or even after ransom has been paid. More and
more Nigerians are today afraid to travel home to their villages, out of fear
that they might get kidnapped on the way.
In the face of apparent helplessness of the authorities, the kidnappers indulge
in their nefarious activities, getting richer with each daring kidnap. They
deliberately choose their victims: children of the wealthy or well-to-do
individuals they believe would be capable of exchanging money for their life.
Some states, like Anambra, publicly demolish the homes and confiscate other
property of known kidnappers. The deterrent effects of such measures have not
been impressive. That is a harsher measure like the death penalty should be
considered a painful but necessary one. That is the only way to stop them and
deter others.
At a ceremony to sign the new law, Dickson described noted 'It is morally
indefensible for young people, for whatever reason, to go under the cover of
darkness, armed with illegal weapons, to terrorise villages and old people in
their homes, and then forcefully abduct and rough handle them and take them as
articles of trade.' It is obviously time to arrest this horrible phenomenon. It
would be futile to treat such a growing national scourge with kid-gloves.
Even where the victims were able to return home safely, the trauma of having
been in kidnappers' den is one that lingers for life. Many young children who
had been rescued have had to suffer nightmares long after the incident. Any
argument that kidnappers have not killed and must not be killed does not stand
in face of facts because they often kill their victims.
The fact that they have been kidnapping foreigners has given the country
another cause for unwelcomed scrutiny. The few foreign nationals that have been
killed in attempted rescues have cost the nation dearly. This is not to talk of
the many potential investors that may have been discouraged from venturing to
do business in Nigeria.
Other countries also prescribe the death penalty for crimes other than murder,
due to the harm the criminals inflict on the nation. In Saudi Arabia,
drug-trafficking attracts the death penalty, in China high-level corruption is
punishable by death, while in others trafficking in humans is also a capital
offence. Kidnapping has become a crime of great national embarrassment and huge
international implications.
The National Assembly may also consider a law similar to the Bayelsa's that
would be applicable all over the country. It is time the authorities did
whatever is and possible to stop the national menace of kidnapping.
(source: Editorial, All Africa News)
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