June 25
PAKISTAN:
Musharraf faces 4th death-penalty case as Pakistan names him in Bhutto's murder
Pakistani investigators Tuesday named former military dictator Pervez Musharraf
as the prime suspect in the December 2007 assassination of ex-prime minister
Benazir Bhutto, raising the tally of capital charges leveled against the once
all-powerful army chief over the last week to 4.
The Federal Investigation Agency, Pakistan's national police force, named
Musharraf in a document seeking his indictment by the court hearing the Bhutto
case in Rawalpindi, a city adjacent to Islamabad that houses the army
headquarters.
Musharraf ruled Pakistan from 1999 to 2008 after leading an October 1999 coup
d'etat against Nawaz Sharif, who was then in his 2nd term as prime minister and
is now back in the office after his party won May elections.
The Federal Investigation Agency gave little indication of what evidence would
be submitted against Musharraf, but it did say it included sworn statements
from 2 Bhutto associates, Briton Victoria Schofield and American Mark Siegel.
Both have previously said Bhutto had told them that if she were assassinated
when she returned to Pakistan after a decade in exile, Musharraf should be held
responsible.
Bhutto and Schofield attended Oxford University in England together in the
1970s and were close friends. Siegel was her longtime Washington lobbyist.
The FIA move came a day after Sharif announced to Parliament that his
administration would prosecute Musharraf for high treason for twice abrogating
Pakistan's democratic constitution - 1st, when he led the 1999 coup and then,
in November 2007, when he declared a state of emergency to facilitate the
sacking of the rebellious Supreme Court chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed
Chaudhry.
The 2 counts of high treason both carry the death penalty if he is convicted.
The court has given the attorney general's office until Thursday to specify its
planned method of prosecution, but the constitution specifies that treason
charges must be heard by a specially formed tribunal of 3 Supreme Court judges.
Musharraf was also formally arrested last week for the 2006 killing of Akbar
Bugti, a former chief minister of western Baluchistan province who rebelled
against Musharraf's rule in 2004, starting a low-intensity but brutal
insurgency that continues to rage. Again, if convicted on the charge, Musharraf
would face the death penalty.
He also has been charged with the illegal confinement of the judges he sacked
in November 2007 under anti-terrorism charges that, upon conviction, would
carry jail terms calculated in 7-year multiples with chain-gang-style hard
labor.
Such legal accountability against a former military dictator is unprecedented
in Pakistan's 65-year history, during which it has been ruled by four military
juntas for half that time. Even in previous democratic administrations, the
military and its Inter Services Intelligence directorate have exerted more
power than the politicians and twisted public opinion against them through
propaganda campaigns in a weak and intimidated news media.
Probably acting on unofficial advice from the government and the military, no
Pakistani news organization has even mentioned the possibility of a former army
chief being executed for treason, despite the media being relatively free from
censorship.
The current army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani - who is Musharraf's protege
and successor - in a rare public speech in April, before the May general
election won by Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, had complained
about the former dictator's arrest and prosecution by a caretaker government.
However, political analysts reputed as being privy to the military's political
thinking wrote Tuesday that Sharif had discussed the matter with Kayani before
announcing the decision to prosecute Musharraf. They believe that Kayani, while
unhappy, had swallowed the decision because of reassurances that it would not
publicly be styled as a trial of the military as an institution.
Musharraf is widely hated by the Pakistani public and has found few, if any,
people to speak up in his defense.
The exception is Musharraf's attorney, Ahmed Raza Kasuri, a small-time
politician. His sole claim to fame in Pakistan is that he accused Bhutto's
father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was prime minister from 1973 to 1977, of
ordering the killing of Kasuri's father.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was convicted of murder and hanged in 1979 after a trial
that Western jurists dismissed as a farce staged by Gen. Zia ul Haq, who'd
overthrown him in what was the 3rd of Pakistan's 4 military coups.
Kasuri previously had warned that any trial would force him to name others
involved in imposing the November 2007 emergency - a long list of politicians,
civil servants and military commanders, including the incumbent army chief. His
tactic has been dismissed as an attempt to blackmail the military into
intervening on Musharraf's half.
In a 2009 ruling, Chaudhry, the reinstated chief justice, ruled that Musharraf
was solely responsible for the October 1999 coup, effectively giving other
soldiers involved amnesty from prosecution. Most commentators believe the same
amnesty would be applied in a treason trial of Musharraf. Analysts in Islamabad
said Sharif had many reasons for taking on the military immediately after
assuming the office of prime minister for a third time. He stepped down in his
1st term in 1993 under intense military pressure, and was overthrown in 1999,
jailed and exiled by Musharraf during his 2nd.
Sharif has said repeatedly that he carries no vendetta against Musharraf or
anybody else.
The analysts said Sharif had chosen to act because he intends to rule by the
letter of the constitution. The imminent retirement of Kayani in December, and
competition among generals to be his successor as army chief, have created a
1-time political window for Sharif to hold Musharraf accountable for his
actions.
"Sharif and his advisers debated and weighed the matter, and decided that they
must act," said Rauf Klasra, the Islamabad-based editor of Dunya, a popular
Urdu daily newspaper.
Sharif would face a difficult decision in the event Musharraf were to be
convicted and sentenced to death by the courts. The constitution provides for a
pardon by the president, a job held until September by Asif Ali Zardari, head
of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party. He or his successor, who would be
nominated by Sharif's party, would act on Sharif's advice as prime minister. In
turn, Sharif probably would seek Parliament's opinion which, if true to
Pakistan's political formbook, would be inclined toward reducing the death
sentence to life imprisonment or exile - as Musharraf had done to Sharif in
2000.
(source: Miami Herald)
NIGERIA:
Mark insists on death penalty for oil thieves
Kuku seeks international cooperation on menace
Senate confirms Nnamami, others for ICRC job
NOT minding the opposition of rights groups and other stakeholders, Senate
President David Mark has maintained his stance that nothing short of death
penalty would compensate adequately for stealing crude oil in the country.
Mark, who spoke on Tuesday while welcoming the senators back from their 2-week
holiday to mark the end of another legislative year, based his position on the
understanding that the menace would pose serious challenges to the nation's
economy if not adequately checkmated.
In related development, Chairman of the Presidential Programme on Amnesty and
Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta, Kingsley Kuku, has called for
a stop to illegal oil bunkering in the region even as the amnesty office
prepares to wind down its programme.
Kuku, at an event held in Abuja to celebrate the amnesty programme, called on
countries such as Cameroun, Gabon and others "where illegal refineries exist"
to stop the menace.
While imploring Cameroun, Gabon and other countries where the demand for the
illegal oil emanate from to cooperate to put an end to it, he regretted that
illegal oil bunkered runs into about 500,000 barrels per day while the country
legally drills about 2.6 million barrels per day.
Noting that persons in and out of Nigeria are involved, he, however, exempted
the Niger Delta indegenes from the illegal act, claiming, "the one our people
were involved in was illegal refining, which we call coal fire, but this has
been stopped by the Joint Task Force," adding that the international community
should stop those asking for the illegal oil from the region.
Speaking on the success of the amnesty programme so far, he said the peace
enjoyed in the region through the programme has made it possible to drill such
an amount of oil to the extent that sometime in 2011, the country???s oil
output was over N6 trillion.
While pointing out the challenge of identity duplication by youths who
desperately want to be enrolled in the programme, Kuku declared that the
programme must end in 2015.
Nevertheless, he assured that his office would complete the training of all
enrolled delegates while those pursuing long term programmes meant to outlast
the 2015 exit date would be handed over to existing government bodies
statutorily empowered by extant laws to oversee scholarships and training
programmes.
Meanwhile, the appointment of former Senate President Ken Nnamani as Chairman
and Aminu Diko as Director General of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory
Commission (ICRC) have been confirmed by the Senate.
Also confirmed were Mrs. Comfort Saro Wiwa of Rivers State (for South-South
geo-political zone), Janet Fabisola Adeyemi from Ondo (South West), Mrs. Yabawa
Wabi of Borno (North East), Musa Elayo from Nasarawa (North Central) and A.U.
Kanu from Abia (South East zone) as members.
Mark said: "I sill maintain my earlier stance that oil theft should attract
capital punishment. As we make progress and win hearts and minds of the people,
government must intensify the provision of social amenities in those areas
where normalcy has returned."
He further urged his colleagues to make the welfare of Nigerians paramount in
all their parliamentary actions during the third Session of the 7th Senate.
(source: The Guardian)
*******************
Man dragged to the gallows will now be executed by firing squad
A death row prisoner in Nigeria is due to be executed by firing squad later
this week after prison authorities dragged him to the gallows where they hanged
4 other men on Monday night, Amnesty International has learned.
They were the 1st known executions in the country since 2006.
Benin Prison authorities in Edo state had planned to hang the man along with
the 4 others, but halted his execution after they realized his death sentence,
imposed by a military tribunal, required that a firing squad carry it out.
Amnesty International understands that neither the prisoners nor their families
were told of the executions in advance. Secret executions, where prisoners,
families and lawyers are not informed beforehand, violate international
standards on the use of the death penalty.
"Cruel and inhumane do not even begin to describe the nightmare situation
facing this man - and it points to the spectacularly brutal nature of Nigeria's
sudden return to state-sponsored killing," said Lucy Freeman, deputy Africa
director at Amnesty International.
"The resumption of executions in Nigeria is deplorable and extremely worrying.
Edo state authorities have already executed four men this week and still plan
to execute a 5th - the Nigerian authorities must immediately halt all
executions and return to the moratorium on the death penalty that was
previously in place."
The 4 men hanged at Benin Prison last night still had appeals pending in their
cases. Their executions came only hours after a federal High Court had
dismissed a lawsuit against three of the execution warrants. The Edo state
Attorney General and the prison authorities ignored an appeal and application
for stay of execution filed immediately after the judgement. By executing the
prisoners, Nigeria has demonstrated a gross disregard for the rule of law and
respect for the judicial process.
The 5th man, sentenced by military tribunal, was never able to appeal his
original sentence because military tribunals at the time denied defendants the
right to appeal - itself a violation of fair trial standards and international
law.
Under Nigerian and international law, executions may not be carried out while
any appeals are still pending.
"Authorities at Benin Prison simply disregarded the due process requirements
under law and in a cold-blooded move they denied the inmates an opportunity to
exercise their rights," said Freeman.
The 5th man who is to face a firing squad has been on death row for 17 years,
and was sentenced to death by a military tribunal during the military rule in
Nigeria before the return to democracy in 1999. Amnesty International has
raised serious doubts about the fairness of trials during that period.
Of the more than 1,000 people currently on death row in the country, scores of
others were also sentenced by military tribunals before 1999.
"That Nigeria has resumed executions for sentences passed by military tribunals
only amplifies the disregard for human rights," said Freeman.
"At a time when West Africa and the world are moving away from the death
penalty, it is very worrying that Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan defies
the clear international trend and has instead encouraged a step backwards for
human rights."
Earlier this month, President Jonathan urged state Governors to sign death
warrants for death row prisoners - which in effect allows federal prison
authorities to proceed with executions of inmates who are held at state
prisons.
The Edo state Governor had signed execution warrants last October for 2 of the
4 men executed on Monday.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception,
regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime, or the individual's
guilt or innocence because it is a violation of the right to life and the
ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
(source: Amnesty International)
*******************
Death Row Prisoner To Be Executed By Firing Squad In Benin
A death row prisoner in Nigeria is due to be executed by firing squad later
this week after prison authorities dragged him to the gallows where they hanged
4 other men on Monday night, Amnesty International has said.
They were the 1st known executions in the country since 2006.
Benin Prison authorities in Edo state had planned to hang the man along with
the 4 others, but halted his execution after they realized his death sentence,
imposed by a military tribunal, required that a firing squad carry it out.
Amnesty International said it understands that neither the prisoners nor their
families were told of the executions in advance. Secret executions, where
prisoners, families and lawyers are not informed beforehand, violate
international standards on the use of the death penalty.
"Cruel and inhumane do not even begin to describe the nightmare situation
facing this man - and it points to the spectacularly brutal nature of Nigeria's
sudden return to state-sponsored killing," said Lucy Freeman, deputy Africa
director at Amnesty International. "The resumption of executions in Nigeria is
deplorable and extremely worrying. Edo state authorities have already executed
4 men this week and still plan to execute a 5th - the Nigerian authorities must
immediately halt all executions and return to the moratorium on the death
penalty that was previously in place."
The 4 men hanged at Benin Prison last night still had appeals pending in their
cases. Their executions came only hours after a federal High Court had
dismissed a lawsuit against three of the execution warrants. The Edo state
Attorney General and the prison authorities ignored an appeal and application
for stay of execution filed immediately after the judgement. By executing the
prisoners, Nigeria has demonstrated a gross disregard for the rule of law and
respect for the judicial process.
The 5th man, sentenced by military tribunal, was never able to appeal his
original sentence because military tribunals at the time denied defendants the
right to appeal - itself a violation of fair trial standards and international
law.
Under Nigerian and international law, executions may not be carried out while
any appeals are still pending.
"Authorities at Benin Prison simply disregarded the due process requirements
under law and in a cold-blooded move they denied the inmates an opportunity to
exercise their rights," said Ms Freeman.
The 5th man who is to face a firing squad has been on death row for 17 years,
and was sentenced to death by a military tribunal during the military rule in
Nigeria before the return to democracy in 1999. Amnesty International has
raised serious doubts about the fairness of trials during that period.
Of the more than 1,000 people currently on death row in the country, scores of
others were also sentenced by military tribunals before 1999. "That Nigeria has
resumed executions for sentences passed by military tribunals only amplifies
the disregard for human rights," said Ms Freeman. "At a time when West Africa
and the world are moving away from the death penalty, it is very worrying that
Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan defies the clear international trend and
has instead encouraged a step backwards for human rights."
Earlier this month, President Jonathan urged state Governors to sign death
warrants for death row prisoners - which in effect allows federal prison
authorities to proceed with executions of inmates who are held at state
prisons.
The Edo state Governor, Adams Oshiomhole had signed execution warrants last
October for 2 of the 4 men executed on Monday.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception,
regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime, or the individual's
guilt or innocence because it is a violation of the right to life and the
ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
(source: channelstv.com)
CHINA:
Retrial of 1995 Robbery, Theft Cases Opens in E China
The trial of 5 men who were sentenced to death with a 2-year reprieve or life
imprisonment for robbery and theft in 1995 reopened on Tuesday after new
evidence was discovered.
Chen Jianyang, Tian Weidong, Zhu Youping and Tian Xiaoping had been convicted
of robbing a taxi driver and contributing to his death on March 20, 1995 in
Xiaoshan District of Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province,
according to the provincial Higher People's Court.
Chen Jianyang, Tian Weidong, Wang Jianping and Tian Xiaoping had also been
found guilty of carrying out a robbery in the same area on Aug. 12, 1995.
Chen Jianyang and Tian Weidong were charged with stealing property valued at
1,600 yuan (260 U.S. dollars).
Tian Xiaoping also robbed 2 truck drivers on his own on Oct. 5, 1995.
Chen Jianyang, Tian Weidong and Wang Jianping were given the death penalty,
while Zhu was sentenced to death with a 2-year reprieve by the Intermediate
People's Court of Hangzhou on July 11, 1997. Tian Xiaoping was sentenced to
life imprisonment.
The 4 men who were given the death penalty appealed to the higher court, and
all of them received a death sentence with a 2-year reprieve by the Zhejiang
Provincial Higher People's Court on Dec. 29, 1997.
However, in July 2011, police arrested a man named Xiang Shengyuan, whose
fingerprints matched the ones found at the scene of the robbery and death of
the taxi driver in 1995.
Xiang was sentenced to death with a 2-year reprieve for the crime of
intentional homicide on May 30, 2013.
In May this year, the provincial Higher People's Court granted a retrial of the
cases of the 5 people who may have been wrongly convicted.
In Tuesday's trial, the prosecutor suggested that the verdicts be changed in
the 2 1995 cases, because there were factual errors in the original trial of
the robbery case in March 1995 and there was a lack of evidence in the other
robbery case in August 1995.
Nearly 100 people, including the 5 defendants in the original trial, their
families and journalists, attended the trial.
(source: English CRI)
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