March 18
CHINA:
Thai soldiers still awaiting trial for Mekong River murders;
9 elite anti-drug and border patrol special forces members face charges that
they colluded with Naw Kham in cargo boat attack
Despite the self-congratulatory live coverage provided by Chinese state
television of the last moments of convicted Mekong River pirate Naw Kham before
he was executed by lethal injection, that is not the end of the matter.
Naw Kham and three of his accomplices were executed on March 1 for the killing
of 13 Chinese sailors on two cargo boats plying the Mekong River in the Golden
Triangle region between Laos, Burma and Thailand on Oct. 5, 2011.
The murders provoked much public anger in China and the Beijing authorities
made a great public display of sending security teams to Thailand, Burma and
Laos, where they eventually captured Naw Kham and his gang.
The pirates were extradited to Kunming, the capital of China’s southwestern
Yunnan province, and subjected to a show trial before their executions.
But there are still nine Thai soldiers, members of an elite anti-drug and
border patrol special forces group known as the Pha Muang Task Force (PMTF),
awaiting trial on charges that they colluded with Naw Kham in the attack on the
two cargo boats, the Hua Ping and the Yu Xing 8.
The nine, including two commissioned officers, are also charged with murdering
the 13 Chinese crew members.
Indeed, there’s a significant group of Thai officials and others who believe
the attack on the two boats and the killings were entirely the work of the Thai
PMTF men.
Naw Kham, says this argument, was simply an obvious scapegoat because of his
history of operating as a pirate and hostage-taker from his Mekong River island
haven of Sam Puu. Naw Khan may be a pirate with a long history of involvement
in drug trafficking out of Burma’s Shan state, goes this view, but he has no
history of the kind of brutality meted out on the boats’ crews.
Naw Kham is not a reliable witness in his own defence, but there are several
reports that he only pleaded guilty in his first trial last year in the belief
this would spare him the death penalty.
When, on appeal in September, Naw Kham came to believe the Chinese intended to
execute him, he changed his plea to not guilty.
In court Naw Kham said “The crime was carried out by the Thais. I only got to
know about it through television.”
And despite the Chinese authorities’ attempt portray their response as
justifiable judicial vengeance for the murder of innocent Chinese, it is hard
to escape the conclusion that the crews of the two boats were engaged in the
smuggling into Thailand of massive amounts of the highly addictive
methamphetamine drug known as Yaa Baa (crazy medicine).
In all nearly one million Yaa Baa tablets with a street value of about $6
million were found on the two cargo boats, together with the bound and shot
body of one of the captains.
Over the next few days the bodies of the other 12 crew members, including two
women cooks, were found in the Mekong. Most had their hands bound behind their
backs and had been gagged with duct tape before being shot through the head.
From the start the finger of suspicion pointed at the PMTF, which has an
effective intelligence network about the movement of drugs out of Shan state in
Burma where they are manufactured.
The PMTF also has a history of making clandestine forays into the countries
neighbouring Thailand.
The suspicion hardened that the PMTF men had hijacked the drug shipment, left
enough Yaa Baa on the boats to be convincing and killed the witnesses – the
crews – when forensic tests showed it was Thai army rifles that had killed the
crews, not the guns used by Naw Kham’s men.
And last year a Thai parliament committee which looked into the case concluded
“Circumstantial evidence suggests that Thai officials were involved in the
sailors’ deaths. However, their motive, and whether it is connected to the
drugs found on the ships, remains inconclusive.”
There is no clear timetable for the court hearing of the charges against the
nine soldiers, and some suspect the matter may just be allowed to sink into
oblivion.
But the case may not be allowed to disappear because there is a sharp political
divide between the Thai police and the Thai army. The police have been doggedly
pursuing the investigation.
The current rift between the police and the army is a reflection of the cleft
in Thai politics since 2006 when Royalist army officers mounted a coup against
the Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thaksin was a police officer before launching a communications business that
made him Thailand’s richest man and a successful politicians. He is in exile,
but with the return of democracy, the prime minister is now his sister,
Yingluck Shinawatra, who like her brother is very popular with the police.
(source: Vancouver Sun)
INDONESIA:
The execution of Adami Wilson - questioning the aims of the death penalty
After refraining from executing individuals for four years, the Indonesian
authorities executed a Nigerian national, Adami Wilson, on 14 March 2013. The
Tangerang District Court named Adami guilty of drug dealing and sentenced him
to death in 2004. The Attorney General Office (AGO) mentioned to the press that
Adami's sentence is the first of other 9 executions planned to take place this
year.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is saddened by the execution of Adami
Wilson and condemns the plan of the AGO to continue with further executions.
While agreeing that individuals involved in criminal activities including drug
crimes should be punished, the AHRC insists that death penalty is a violation
to the right to life which is guaranteed by the 1945 Constitution as well as
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which has been
ratified by Indonesia. International human rights standards have established
that the taking of lives by states cannot be justified unless the tests of
necessity and proportionality are met. The death penalty does not meet these
two requirements as there is no life is imminently under threat at the time
such punishment is carried out and that the desired aims to be achieved are
equally possible with more lenient types of punishment.
That the death penalty is a deterrent to crime is merely a myth. High crime
rates exist in both countries that impose the death penalty and those that have
abolished it indicating that the rate is the result of mixed factors instead of
being influenced solely by the severity of punishment imposed on wrongdoers.
The death penalty is a lazy response to a high crime rate for it oversimplifies
the greater problems that exist in a society as to why individuals commit
crimes in the first place.
It is important to protect society from criminals and it is the obligation of
the state to ensure the safety of individuals residing in its territory. Yet
protection of society is something that is still possible to achieve even if
criminals are not sent to a firing squad. So long as the criminals have their
liberty legally deprived and their access to outside world is proportionately
limited, keeping them alive poses no harm to the society. If anything, it may
in fact help the law enforcement officials to solve other wrongdoings that the
criminals are aware of.
In the case of Adami Wilson, for instance, keeping him alive may lead to the
investigation on illegal transactions between death row convicts and the
Indonesian law enforcement officials. In an interview with a local media
Majalah Detik in October last year, Adami made a scandalous statement in which
he explained how bribery gives the possibility for death convicts to have their
punishment annulled. According to him, with IDR 1-3 billion (approximately USD
100,000-300,000), a convict may have his or her sentence commuted from death
penalty to life or 20 years imprisonment. He claimed that he has heard of at
least 12 cases in which the death convicts had their punishment commuted to a
lighter one due to bribery, one of which involved his own friend.
Adami's statement sparked controversy at that time, yet it was 'not
controversial enough' to urge the authorities to seriously investigate the
bribery allegation. Now that Adami has been executed, it is even more unlikely
that the allegation will actually go anywhere.
In the last four years, Indonesia had received praise from human rights
organisations and activists for not executing death row convicts. There was
even positive development on this matter last year when the Supreme Court ruled
that the death penalty is a violation to the right to life. Whereas the
government had previously voted against the UN resolution on the moratorium of
the death penalty on the last occasion they abstained from voting, as pointed
by KontraS and other local organisations.
The sudden decision to execute Adami Wilson is therefore not only regrettable,
but also worth questioning. Was it really for providing a deterrent effect and
protecting society from the harm of drugs as have always been claimed? Does the
absence of an execution for four years indicate that the Indonesian government
no longer wishes to provide a deterrent effect or protect the society?
The death penalty is not a solution; it is part of the problem. Maintaining it
will not result in the reduction of crimes. It's only aim is revenge, to cover
illegal activities, preservation of arbitrariness, or the violation of an
individuals' most fundamental right.
(source: Asian Human Rights Commission)
SAUDI ARABIA:
With Swordsmen in Short Supply, Saudi Considers A Greener Execution Solution
Tardy executioners have prompted Saudi Arabia to re-evaluate their
centuries-old practice of public beheadings.The use of capital punishment in
Saudi Arabia is based on a hardline interpretation of Sharia (Islamic) law. The
practice attracts international scorn because of the wide array of crimes which
garner the death penalty, ranging from murder to witchcraft. Lose your head
after your fourth theft, too.
After centuries of public beheadings, the kingdom is considering firing squads
as an alternative means of execution. The New York Times reports that a
special inter-ministerial committee recommended that the kingdom’s governing
princes should have the option to utilize firing squads “because of the
scarcity of swordsmen and their unavailability in a number of regions,”
according to a statement from the committee.
That statement explained that the few “officially authorized” swordsmen were so
busy traveling between different regions to conduct executions that they
sometimes arrived late, “which causes security confusion” complicated by waves
of “resulting spreading of rumors through modern technology”. Using local
firing squads resolves those problems – and – lowers the executioners’ carbon
footprint by eliminating regional travel.
Executioners use a scimitar that’s about four feet long. The condemned is
dressed in white, blindfolded, and made to kneel in the direction of Mecca.
Condemned women had been killed by firing squad until the 1990s, when
authorities revised the rules, ushering in equal-opportunity beheadings.
The Telegraph cites a 2003 interview where executioner Mohammed Saad al-Beshi
boasted that decapitation required a single swing of his blade. He told the
Arab News, “I look after it and sharpen it once in a while, and I make sure to
clean it of bloodstains. It’s very sharp. People are amazed how fast it can
separate the head from the body.”
As an extra deterrent, headless bodies may also be crucified and displayed for
several days.
Capital punishment has been used in almost every part of the world, but as of
2012, according to Amnesty International, only 10 percent of nations continue
the practice. That’s 55 places where you pay the ultimate price for
misbehaving and 5 of those conduct executions publically: Iran, North Korea,
Syria, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. And of these, only Saudi opts for beheadings.
In Riyadh, beheadings are held in a downtown public square equipped with a
large drain in its center, expatriates call it “Chop Chop Square”. Eighteen
people were beheaded in Riyadh this year; for the past 2 years, averages
hovered around 75 per annum.
Although most Muslim scholars disagree, the kingdom has generally treated
beheading by sword as the proper Islamic method of execution. It’s a literal
interpretation of Medieval punishments described in the Koran, which also
include cutting off thieves’ hands and stoning adulterers.
The special committee concluded that killing by gunfire “does not constitute a
religious violation”.
(source: Green Prophet)
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