March 19
MALAYSIA:
WA man could beat drug charge in Malaysia
A Perth man who faces a mandatory death penalty in Malaysia if he is found
guilty on drugs charges will hear next week if his trial is to proceed.
Dominic Bird was arrested in a police sting on March 1 last year for allegedly
attempting to supply 167 grams of methamphetamine to an undercover police
officer.
In his closing submission on Wednesday, prosecutor Ahmad Akram will tell the
Kuala Lumpur High Court the evidence against Mr Bird is overwhelming.
But lawyers for Bird say the case should be thrown out, amid allegations of
corruption against the prosecution's star witness, Inspector Luther Nurjib.
Insp Nurjib was the undercover police officer who arranged the meeting and
alleged drug deal with Bird.
Outside court on Tuesday, Bird's lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, repeated his
claim that Insp Nurjib's credibility had been destroyed.
Insp Nurjib has admitted in court to taking money from another dealer, named
Farizal, who is also an informant in the Bird case.
He has also been accused of having a long history of using the proceeds from
shaking down drug dealers to pay for a lavish lifestyle, including the purchase
of two luxury apartments.
He has denied those charges.
Mr Abdullah said he expected the judge would decide on Monday whether or not to
ask the defence to present its case.
The other alternative was acquittal, Mr Abdullah said.
(source: The Australian)
ZAMBIA:
Mukobeko jailbreak grinding shocker
The translocation of inmates from Mukobeko Maximum Security Prison to Mwembeshi
is a major antidote to overcrowding, but does not eclipse the fact that the
escape of three condemned prisoners from the country’s biggest penitentiary
last month is a grinding shocker.
Yes, 600 prisoners who endured an average of eight years of overcrowding,
hunger, and disease at Mukobeko were recently given a breather – driven in
grand style under a high security garb to the new Mwembeshi Maximum prison in
Mumbwa.
The relocation comes hot on the heels of an inexplicable prison breakout at
Mukobeko, nestled at the edge of Kabwe, the headquarters of the Zambia Prisons
service.
Three condemned criminals last month made their way out of the heavily
fortified maximum prison in a daring decampment attributable to a security
lapse, causing a shattering public embarrassment to the Zambia Prisons Service.
Shadreck Phiri was convicted of murder and aggravated robbery while his
namesake Shadreck Musonda is a murder convict along with Derrick Mwape, who
left Mukobeko in the early hours of February 13, this year, tip-toeing under
heavy rainfall.
Times investigations have revealed that the three used a chisel, screw driver,
and a hammer to break down the door of their cell before scaling over the high
wall using bed-sheets adjoined at each end.
This has left commissioner of Prisons Percy Chato and his command racking their
brains on how to deal with this daring prison breakout.
Alas, the command rebounded emotionally by unleashing 600 prison recruits to
conduct a search which was punctuated by shambolic scenes.
It was too late an action in which mobile phones of different makes, dangerous
weapons, cannabis, and other prohibited articles were retrieved.
It is mind-boggling that chisels and screw drivers found their way into a
heavily guarded penitentiary – home to condemned prisoners and other inmates
who have been swept out of public circulation for committing a host of capital
offences.
One cannot imagine that an inmate can breakout of Mukobeko, let alone, the
condemned section whose entry and exit are the most watched movements.
It is important to digest some of the finer aspects pertaining to security in
this institution.
There is always a sleep-in shift in-charge, a senior officer who has under him
other prison warders. The condemned section is always guarded and has a warder
on 24-hour basis detailed to ensure maximum security.
There are other barriers before the outer boundary wall, so high that it is
unimaginable for anyone to scale over.
Yes, a Board of Inquiry has been constituted but the situation still remains
that there was gross negligence. Mr Chato and company must address hanging
questions:
How did the condemned inmates get a chisel and screw driver? Have the officers
been conducting daily searches on inmates and in cells? Where was the officer
guarding the condemned section at the time of the escape?
Prison regulations demand that inmates must be searched before lock-up using
rub-down physical check; warders in this method use their hands to search
inmates from shoulders downwards and vice-versa.
Secondly, cells and lavatories must regularly be searched for prohibited
articles which include weapons, cannabis, communication devices such as mobile
phones.
Roll-call must be conducted in the morning and at lock-up during which time
body searches could also be done thoroughly.
It is also a hard-and-fast rule that inmates only be visited at designated
times and there must not be any physical contact with their guests.
By law, the Zambia Prisons Service must provide food, detergents, toiletries,
but these basic requirements mostly come from relatives and friends ‘outside.’
Parcels coming from outside are supposed to be thoroughly checked so that
‘foreign’ matters do not get into prisons.
There have been instances when knives and screw drivers have been smuggled into
prisons carefully inserted into a loaf of bread or stuffed in mealie-meal.
Of course, some unscrupulous friends or relatives of inmates have smuggled
prohibited articles into prisons.
It is worrying that prisoners have the leisure of owning mobile phones and
laptops on which they could easily fit a modem and communicate with the
‘outside’ world.
One cannot rule out the possibility of some prison warders getting prohibited
articles into these fortified facilities; the prisons command must work hard to
weed out abhorrent elements within the ranks.
In fact, it is an offence under the Prisons Act Chapter 97 for any warder to
connive with prisoners in any matter.
The Act under Part VI (40) (1) says: “No prison officer shall accept any fee,
gratuity or reward from, or knowingly have any business dealings with prisoners
or discharged persons or with friends of visitors or with visitors to the
prison.”
Further, Part XI on escapes, prohibited articles or areas under 77 says: “Any
person who removes from or introduces into or throws from or into or attempts
by any means whatsoever to remove from or introduce into a prison or takes from
or gives to any prisoner any article whatsoever; or (b) communicates with any
prisoner; shall be guilty of an offence, and shall be liable on conviction to a
fine not exceeding 1,500 penalty units or to imprisonment for a period not
exceeding six months, or to both.”
All warders are conversant with the Prisons Act, which is availed on inception
of prisons recruits at the training college. Therefore, the command should be
strict on this matter.
The prison command should have correctly interpreted the signal when a horde of
condemned prisoners staged a protest on January 12, this year on overcrowding
and delayed appeals. This was a premonition of the escape!
Three condemned inmates bolted on February 13, exactly a month after that
protestation.
History has it that Mukobeko has recorded past escapes dating back to 1960s.
Times research has shown that Harry Banda, an inmate who was operating from the
workshop, escaped in the late 60s using a rope and some other implements he had
modified over the years.
Banda scaled over the wall and fled in one of the most daring episodes, but
fortunately he was recaptured in Lusaka.
In 1974, notorious criminal, Roy Mudenda, along with two Zaireans (Congolese)
bolted from Mukobeko after brutally stabbing to death a prison warder who was
manning the outer gate.
It was on a Saturday when Mudenda with his two ‘lieutenants’ stabbed the warder
as inmates were playing football.
Oblivious of what was happening, inmates and some warders continued cheering
the players, while Mudenda got the keys of the armoury and accessed a firearm.
He opened fire on the prison warder on the tower, hitting him on the collar
bone.
In the midst of that confusion, the three jumped on a vehicle which was parked
outside the prison and drove away. They were recaptured after some time.
In 1988, seven death row inmates including mastermind identified as Mohammed,
escaped from the condemned section in a similar manner the three condemned
escapees made their way out last month.
Further, Mukobeko recorded a unique escape in the late ‘90s when three
condemned prisoners led by Christopher Oldfield forged Presidential pardon
documents and confidently walked out of the thick walls.
The ‘Presidential Pardon’ was, however, short-lived when the three were
cornered in Chisamba area. They were among the last group to be executed during
late Frederick Chiluba’s administration.
Godfrey Malembeka, Prisons Care and Counselling Association executive director
says inmates are ‘filled’ with frustration and anger because of the inhuman
conditions they are subjected to, but condemns those who are escaping from
prison.
“We do not support escape, but one of the reasons prisoners are escaping is
because of the overcrowding which is caused by the slow and too centralised
judicial system,” he says.
Mr Malembeka regrets that there are some inmates who have been waiting to hear
their appeals for as long as 10 years.
Documents in some cases have gone missing while in other instances matters have
not been cause-listed despite records being available.
Mr Malembeka says that Zambia is a signatory to the United Nations Convention
Against Torture, which requires member States to prevent torture within their
borders.
He says inmates have been held for longer that necessary and that this amounts
to torture.
Prisoners, he notes, should equally enjoy human rights such as right to
shelter, food, and that they should not be subjected to inhumane conditions
such as overcrowding.
Do the prevailing poor conditions in prisons warrant an escape, which is
illegal?
Zambia now has 54 prisons, most of them constructed between 1910 and 1964, Mr
Chato said during the commissioning of the Mwembeshi Maximum Prison in Mumbwa
recently.
Mukobeko itself has a capacity to hold 426 inmates, but had 1,800 inmates
huddled in the facility before 600 of them were transferred to Mwembeshi. The
condemned section which was designed to hold 40 inmates has more than 260
people.
It is sad that the current penitentiaries have a holding capacity of slightly
more than 8,000 but have been ‘stuffed’ with 16,000 inmates.
The resultant effect of this sad scenario has been rapid spread of communicable
diseases such as Tuberculosis and poor sanitary conditions.
Last year, Vice-President Guy Scott declared that Mukobeko was ‘Hell on Earth’
and pledged Government’s commitment to addressing the deplorable and
hair-raising conditions.
Thus the commissioning of Mwembeshi is a great stride towards decongesting
prisons as summed up by Home Affairs Minister Edgar Lungu who pledged more
effort towards improving the living conditions of prisoners.
In the meantime, the Zambia Prisons Service will do well to procure modern
security equipment such as Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) units and establish
computerised control systems to monitor movements electronically from a central
unit.
Modern alarm systems must be fitted while the manual locking system must be
replaced with electronically operated devices.
The service must embark on capacity building and retraining of prison warders,
who should be personnel of high integrity and credibility. Incompetent and
dishonest officers must be weeded out.
Prisons must serve as correctional facilities able to transform and
rehabilitate wrong-doers, who at the end of their jail terms must be able to
integrate into society as responsible citizens.
With Government commitment exhibited so far, correctional facilities can
improve.
Prisons in Zambia must be turned into production centres and not ‘Hell on
earth’ from where inmates escape or become hard-core criminals.
(source: The Times of Zambia)
TAIWAN:
Government ‘assessing’ death penalty; Premier Jiang Yi-huah said officials were
studying the issue, but many Taiwanese support capital punishment, which
death-row inmates still face
Premier Jiang Yi-huah said yesterday that the government is cautiously
assessing scrapping capital punishment, but added that the current policy of
executing death-row inmates remains unchanged.
The premier said the Criminal Code still stipulates capital punishment,
although a number of people have advocated its scrapping and several European
countries have often called for its abrogation.
Jiang said that many Taiwanese believe in the use of capital punishment as a
way to deter crime.
“Currently, a majority of Taiwanese hold a positive view of capital punishment
as a means to deter heinous crimes. The Ministry of Justice is constantly
studying the issue, but our current policy has not changed,” the premier said.
He stressed that the government is adopting a cautious attitude and continues
to review cases in order to avoid wrongful convictions or capital convictions
with insufficient evidence.
However, if all due procedures had been completed and convictions are upheld,
the Ministry of Justice would execute death-row inmates in due time, the
premier said.
He was responding to questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator
Tsai Chin-lung, who asked if the government would execute any death-row inmates
in the run-up to Tomb Sweeping Day, a national holiday that falls on April 4
this year.
Tsai was referring to a tradition in which the relatives of those who were
murdered can inform the deceased as to whether justice had been done to their
killer.
Tomb Sweeping Day is an important festival in Chinese communities during which
people gather at family tombs to pay respects to their ancestors.
Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu said the ministry would carry out such
sentences if there are no further reasons for special appeal or retrial.
However, he did not give a timetable.
Following the country’s most recent execution, which took place in December
last year, the number of death-row inmates stands at 55, the ministry said.
(source: Taipei Times)
IRAN:
Death Row Al-Hiwar Activists on Hunger Strike, Nominated for International
‘Courage’ Prize
Members of the Al-Hiwar Institute, a civil rights group, who are on death row
in Iran were recently nominated for an international prize sponsored by the
Train Foundation. According to this New York-based organization, the annual
Civil Courage Prize was founded to draw attention to “extraordinary heroes of
conscience” and is awarded to individuals who have demonstrated “steadfast
resistance to evil at great personal risk.”
The nominees– Mohammad Ali Amourinejad, Hashem Shabani, Hadi Rashedi, Jaber
Alboushoukeh and Mokhtar Alboushoukeh— along with another prisoner, Rahman
Asakereh—who is sentenced to 20 years in prison– are currently on their 15th
day of hunger strike in Ahwaz’s Karoun Prison. They are protesting against
deplorable prison conditions. According to Kamel Alboshokeh, a cousin of the
two of the condemned prisoners, the physical state of these prisoners on hunger
strike, especially Hadi Rashedi and Mokhtar Alboshoke is deteriorating and they
require proper care.
The trustees of the Train Foundation will announce the 2013 honoree(s) in the
fall.
Iranian authorities arrested the five Al-Hiwar activists in 2011 and severely
tortured them until they confessed on camera to false criminal charges. After
some of the confessions were aired on Press TV, a broadcasting channel
controlled by Iranian regime officials, the five activists were sentenced to
death. In an unlawful move, Press TV had aired the false confessions months
before the activists were tried in court. According to a report recently
published by Justice for Iran (JFI), Al-Hiwar activists have been deprived of
their basic civil rights and chance for a fair trial. The death sentences were
upheld by Iran’s Supreme Court in January 2013.
On March 12 the European Union imposed sanctions on some Iranian regime
authorities who are responsible for violating human rights. Among the
individuals who have been sanctioned is Mohammad Sarafraz, the head of IRIB and
Press TV, for his cooperation with Iranian regime authorities to air forced
confessions of prisoners and judge Seyed Mohammad Bagher Mousavi who imposed
death sentences on five Al-Hiwar members.
JFI calls on the international community to continue holding accountable
perpetrators of human rights violations against prisoners of conscience in Iran
and to help ensure the protection and safety of imprisoned Al-Hiwar activists.
(source: Persian 2 English)
UNITED KINGDOM:
John Christie, Timothy Evans and the horrors of 10 Rillington Place
No spot of DIY can ever have had more momentous consequences.
It sent one man to the gallows. And proved beyond reasonable doubt that the
hanging of another – an illiterate van driver from Merthyr – was a terrible
miscarriage of justice.
It also helped bring about the abolition of capital punishment.
So let us look back 60 years, to a Saturday afternoon in March, 1953.
The afternoon when Mr Beresford Brown, recent arrival from the West Indies,
decided to strip away the wallpaper in the kitchen of the flat he rented.
Behind the paper on one wall he found a door. He opened it.
And what he saw in the alcove behind would haunt him for the rest of his days.
Stuffed into the alcove, three bodies, two wrapped in blankets, the other
simply laid across them.
He called the police. They searched the house and garden, and discovered three
more bodies.
And so 10 Rillington Place, home of John Reginald Halliday Christie,
a name to rank with the Ripper, became the most notorious address
in the country.
6 bodies – but not the first found at what was swiftly labelled the House of
Horror.
So now we go back further, to November 30, 1949, when Timothy John Evans
diffidently stepped into Merthyr’s police station.
He had come to give himself up, he said. “I have disposed of my wife. I have
put her down a drain.”
A search of 10 Rillington Place uncovered the bodies of Evans’ 23-year-old wife
Beryl and 13-month-old daughter Geraldine.
Evans, persuaded by Christie to flee to his hometown, was taken back to London
where he signed a confession “because I have nothing left to live for”.
By signing that confession he signed his own death warrant. He was charged with
murder although at one point he muttered, “Christie dunnit”.
But Christie, 64, Great War soldier, World War II reserve policeman was thus a
man of good character.
Yet the man, Evans claimed, had performed an abortion on Beryl, telling him she
had died during the then illegal operation.
And Geraldine? Taken to stay with friends, Christie said.
Evans, naive and credulous, accepted Christie’s story that he had placed Beryl
“down the drain” and appropriated it for himself.
He was hanged on March 9, 1950, for the murder of his baby daughter.
Christie, the principal witness for the prosecution, the real killer, walked
away from the court with his wife – who would be his next victim.
He had three years to wait before Mr Beresford Brown began his wallpaper
stripping.
Besides the three women in the alcove, police found the remains of Christie’s
wife beneath floorboards and two more bodies in the garden.
One of them, Ruth Fuerst, a 21-year-old Austrian, was killed in 1943,
Christie’s first victim. It’s said that when her skull surfaced years later
Christie simply dumped it into a dustbin used as an incinerator.
Six bodies. But no Christie. He had vanished into a London preparing for the
Coronation, triggering a massive manhunt. They finally found him, penniless, a
vagrant hiding near Putney Bridge.
At the Old Bailey he was found guilty of his wife’s murder and, in a macabre
coincidence, was hanged on July 15, 1953, from the same gallows that had ended
the life of Timothy John Evans three years earlier.
He had confessed to the murders of the six women found at 10 Rillington Place,
and later to the killing of Beryl Evans.
But he denied murdering the baby, although it’s alleged that while awaiting
execution he told a prison officer “Geraldine was crying so I had to do her
in.”
And so, the name Timothy John Evans was back on the front pages.
4 of the women found had been killed after he was hanged so suddenly he was a
cause celebre, a rallying point for all those opposed to the death penalty.
Was it possible, they asked, that two murderers had simultaneously occupied the
same small house?
They insisted the Christie confession was surely enough to prove Evans’
innocence.
But a public inquiry in 1965 concluded that Evans had murdered his wife, but
not the baby, the crime for which he was convicted.
Despite this, he was granted a posthumous royal pardon, his body removed from
Pentonville Prison and reburied in consecrated ground, St Patrick’s Catholic
Cemetery, Leytonstone.
Rillington Place was renamed Ruston Close, the tabloids’ House of Horror
demolished in 1971, the year that 10 Rillington Place came to cinemas, Richard
Attenborough a convincingly creepy Christie, John Hurt as Timothy John Evans.
And all because, 60 years ago this month, Mr Beresford Brown became a footnote
to one of the most sensational cases in criminal history.
(source: Wales Online)
INDONESIA:
Indonesia executes first prisoner in 4 years
Human rights groups have criticised the Indonesian government for carrying out
its first execution in more than four years.
Officials say 48-year old Adami Wilson, executed by firing squad last week, was
a convicted heroin trafficker from Malawi in southern Africa.
He was the first prisoner executed in Indonesia since 2008.
The Indonesian Attorney General's Office says it plans to put nine more people
to death this year, a surprise turn-around after Indonesia had indicated it was
shifting away from the death penalty.
The resumption of executions has alarmed rights groups who say the government
is using the death penalty as a political tool in the lead up to 2014 general
election.
Amnesty International's Indonesia Researcher, Papang Hidayat, says Indonesia's
return to the death penalty is "shocking".
"Carrying out even more executions now would be hugely regressive," he said.
"We urge the Indonesia government to immediately halt any plans to put more
people to death."
Attorney General Office spokesman, Setia Untung Ari Muladi, told Radio
Australia the total number of death row inmates in Indonesia is 111.
Murder cases make up 60 of those, two are terrorism cases and 49 are drugs
related.
This includes people waiting for appeal, judicial review and clemency, he said.
Most of the death row cases related to drugs involve foreign citizens.
Indonesia has more than 100 of its own citizens on death row overseas.
Foreign Minister, Marty Natelegawa, says it's difficult to ask other countries
not to apply the death penalty on Indonesian citizens while Indonesia still
uses the punishment.
While it's believed some senior government figures are in favour of scrapping
the death penalty, public popularity of the punishment makes it difficult to
remove.
The last time an execution was carried out in Indonesia was when three of the
men involved in the 2002 Bali bombings were put to death.
(source: Radio Australia)
******************
Adami Wilson Execution - Questioning Aims
A Statement from the Asian Human Rights Commission
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 nine 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: Scoop News)
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