Nov. 26



UNITED ARAB EMIRATES:

Worker could face death sentence over 0.8g of opium; Suspect accused of intending to promote drug to others


Drugs prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a worker accused of possessing 0.8 grams of opium for promotional purposes.

The 35-year-old Iranian worker, S.S., was said to have possessed a green plastic pouch containing less than one gram of opium, which he intended to promote to others.

Prosecutors have asked for the implementation of article 48 of the anti-narcotics law, which stipulates that a suspect who possesses drugs for promotional purposes could face the death sentence or life imprisonment.

"Yes, I possessed the opium for my personal consumption and not for promotional purposes or trading," said S.S. before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Tuesday.

According to the charge sheet the defendant possessed drugs for promotional purposes and took morphine and codeine.

The defendant confessed to taking drugs.

When asked by presiding judge Mohammad Jamal if he was capable of hiring a lawyer, S.S. replied: "I cannot do so."

An Emirati anti-narcotics policeman testified that an informant - the suspect's neighbour - told them that the Iranian suspect possessed drugs that he intended to promote to others.

"Drugs prosecutors provided us with a search and arrest warrant and allowed us to arrest the suspect in a sting operation. A police team headed towards the defendant's home in Naif. The informant was the suspect's neighbour and lived in the same building. I was present with the informant when he called S.S. and asked him to meet us in front of the building. When the defendant came the informant asked him if he had any drugs. The Iranian said he would provide him with a piece of opium for Dh500 and would provide him with another piece later. Member of the police squad raided the place and arrested the defendant. Police seized the opium piece hidden in his pocket," said the policeman.

Prosecution records said the defendant tested positive for drugs.

An Emirati anti-narcotics lieutenant told prosecutors that he committed a human error when he mistakenly wrote the incorrect time of the suspect's arrest in the police report.

Presiding judge Jamal said the court will appoint a lawyer to defend S.S. when it reconvenes on December 17.

****************

Murderers to face firing squad in Dubai----Dubai's highest court upholds death sentence against duo who killed compatriot


2 Bangladeshi men who killed their compatriot and stole his cigarettes have lost their appeal and will face a firing squad.

On Monday the 2 defendants, 27-year-old M.G. and 22-year-old R.N., failed to convince the Dubai Cassation Court to reduce their sentence after contending they killed the victim in self-defence.

Court records said the defendants planned the murder and lured the victim, identified as Rahimuldeen, to meet them in a sandy spot behind their labour accommodation in Al Rashidiya. They then battered his head with a metal rod and a concrete block. They also kicked and beat him until they were sure he was dead. The defendants also stole Rahimuldeen's cigarettes, mobile phone and wallet.

A 3rd Bangladeshi suspect, R.A., was cleared of involvement in the murder.

"I assaulted him but that was in self-defence. I defended myself after we exchanged blows. He attacked me first and I hit him back," said M.G., who records said suffered an injury to his left arm.

R.N. pleaded not guilty citing self-defence. R.A. denied any involvement in the murder or theft.

Financial dispute

According to court records, the victim's brother, S.A., said the murder was discovered after a financial dispute as M.G. owed his brother Dh3,500.

"Rahimuldeen lent M.G. money that the latter failed to pay back within 2 months. I saw them fighting once when we were in the market. They also fought a 2nd time in the room which we shared. I was worried when my brother did not return from his night shift. His mobile phone was switched off. M.G. answered in a suspicious manner when I asked him about my brother's whereabouts. M.G. didn't participate with us in searching for my brother. Rahimuldeen's body was discovered behind the accommodation," S.A. said.

Court records said investigations led to the arrest of the 3 defendants.

During prosecution and police questioning, the defendants confessed that they fought with Rahimuldeen and beat him.

The defendant's court-appointed lawyers contended their clients did not intend to murder their victim.

They asked the court to modify the charges from murder to assault which led to Rahimuldeen's death.

(source for both: Gulf News)






JAPAN:

Death penalty to stand in 2005 Hyogo killings


The Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday by a 47-year-old man who was sentenced to death for killing 2 women and dismembering their corpses in Hyogo Prefecture in 2005.

The Supreme Court's No. 1 Petty Bench effectively finalized the death sentence for Kazuya Takayanagi, ruling that capital punishment is unavoidable because the accused "committed violent and brutal crimes with a strong murderous intention."

Presiding Justice Seishi Kanetsuki said Takayanagi's act was "inhumane" as he thoroughly dismembered the bodies of the women and dumped them to prevent identification of the victims.

According to lower court rulings, Takayanagi killed his girlfriend, Mika Hatafuji, and her friend, Yoshimi Tanigawa, both 23, at his home in Aioi, Hyogo Prefecture, in January 2005 with a hammer and then dumped their remains in the mountains and at a port in the prefecture. The girlfriend was slain over money problems, the lower courts had ruled.

(source: Japan Times)






AFGHANISTAN:

Afghan Draft Text Raises Fears Of Shari'a-Fueled Return To Stoning


Human Rights Watch (HRW) has appealed to the Afghan authorities to nix a legislative effort to instate execution by stoning for "moral crimes" that involve adultery.

The group says it has seen draft provisions from "a working group led by the Justice Ministry" that include the stoning provision, and it seeks to enlist the help of lame-duck President Hamid Karzai to defeat the text.

The draft legislation sets the punishment for extramarital sex between unmarried individuals at 100 lashes. Sex outside marriage is punished by "[s]toning to death if the adulterer or adulteress is married," with the execution to take place "in public in a predetermined location," according to HRW.

Such a scenario is chillingly reminiscent of Afghanistan's hard-line Islamist Taliban regime in the mid- and late-1990s, when stonings were carried out in front of huge crowds at Kabul's Ghazi Stadium.

In its statement, issued on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25, HRW urges the international donors of billions of dollars to Afghanistan to "send a clear message to President Hamid Karzai that inclusion of stoning in the new penal code would have an immediate adverse effect on funding for the government."

Karzai, whose final term ends after an election in April, is a relative liberal but has generally tread carefully when it comes to opposing or overriding Afghanistan's most conservative religious and cultural forces.

As the United States and its allies try to hand over greater security responsibilities to Kabul, women's rights are one of the major areas of concern. (The nature of the U.S. relationship with Afghanistan after 2014 is still up in the air, highlighted by the weekend confusion over a so-called Bilateral Security Agreement.)

Brad Adams, HRW's Asia director, is quoted as saying that "[i]t is absolutely shocking that 12 years after the fall of the Taliban government, the Karzai administration might bring back stoning as a punishment.... President Karzai needs to demonstrate at least a basic commitment to human rights and reject this proposal out of hand."

HRW goes on to say:

Stoning was used as a punishment for adultery during the Taliban government, in power from the mid-1990s to 2001. The fall of the Taliban government led to the establishment of a new government that quickly signed on to international human rights conventions and pledged to protect human rights in Afghanistan, especially women???s rights. The penal code currently in force in Afghanistan, which was passed in 1976, makes no provision for the use of stoning as a punishment. While there have been isolated reports of executions by stoning in Afghanistan since 2001, there is no indication that any instances were condoned by the government.

The penalty of death by stoning violates international human rights standards, including prohibitions on torture and cruel and inhuman punishment. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Afghanistan has ratified, allows countries that continue to impose the death penalty - a dwindling minority ??? to do so only for the most serious offenses, which precludes such a sentence for adultery. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty.

As if a fresh reminder were needed of Afghan hard-liners' appetite for stoning, two young people in a province north of Kabul were gunned down his weekend after fleeing a stoning sentence handed down by village elders for trying to elope.

Reuters offered details of the incident:

"While they were fleeing, suddenly their car crashed and locals arrested them. People wanted to stone them on the spot but some elders disagreed," the provincial head of women's affairs, Khadija Yaqeen, told Reuters on Monday.

"The next day they decided and shot both of them dead in public. Our findings show that the woman's father had ordered to shoot both man and woman."

The public execution was confirmed by the provincial police chief's spokesman, who said the killings were unlawful.

A member of the Afghan committee drafting the legislation to revive the practice of stoning, Rohullah Qarizada, defended the move, telling Reuters, "We are working on the draft of a Shari'a penal code where the punishment for adultery, if there are 4 eyewitnesses, is stoning." He added, "The judge asks each witness many questions, and if one answer differs from other witnesses then the court will reject the claim."

Qarizada is head of the Afghan Independent Bar Association.

The list of countries where the punishment is still invoked is surprisingly long. It includes places where such executions are enshrined in law and may be ordered by courts -- Indonesia (Aceh), Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and northern Nigeria -- as well as areas where more makeshift proceedings have resulted in stoning sentences -- in Pakistan, Iraq, Mali, and Somalia, and indeed Afghanistan.

In Iran, stoning remains on the books although authorities claim it is no longer carried out as a result of a decade-old moratorium. That has not stopped the trickle of occasional, unconfirmed reports of executions by stoning in Iran, the latest just last month (when a foreign-based rights group claimed that the bodies of four women turned up in Tehran that appeared to have been stoned to death, one year after a similar report). What's worse, the powerful Guardians Council in April was said to have rebuffed a legislative effort to remove stoning from Iranian law.

Alarmingly, the list of countries that prescribe death by stoning is growing. Just last month, Brunei's sultan, Hassanal Bolkiah, ordered that "amputation and death by stoning...be added to Brunei's penal code next year as the oil-rich and increasingly conservative Islamic kingdom applies the strictures of Sharia," according to "The Australian."

(source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty)






INDIA:

Indian couple convicted of double murder


An Indian dentist couple could face the death penalty after a judge on Monday convicted them of murdering their teenage daughter and a servant in a sensational trial that riveted the country.

Rajesh and Nupur Talwar are due to be sentenced on Tuesday after being found guilty of slitting the throats of Aarushi, 14, and their Nepalese live-in help Hemraj Banjade, with "clinical precision" at their home in an affluent New Delhi suburb in May 2008.

"The penalty is life imprisonment or death -- there are only 2 sentences," prosecutor R.K. Saini told a horde of reporters at the decrepit court complex in Ghaziabad, a satellite city of the Indian capital.

Saini, who declared he had "done his duty", said he would reveal on Tuesday whether he would argue for the death penalty for the Talwars, who were immediately taken into custody.

Investigators alleged that the Talwars killed Aarushi in a fit of rage when they found her with the 45-year-old servant in an "objectionable" situation, while the couple insist they are victims of a bungled police probe and a media witch-hunt.

Police suggested the double murder was a so-called "honour killing".

The trial came as India increasingly focuses on violent crimes against women following the fatal gang rape of a student in Delhi last year that sparked national outrage.

The case has spawned a nation of armchair detectives debating every twist in the investigation, turned the Talwars into household names and polarised public opinion.

The prosecution conceded there was no forensic or material evidence against the couple, and based its case on the "last-seen theory" -- which holds that the victims were last seen with the accused.

"We only have truth on our side, the facts and evidence as we knew them," Vandana Talwar, Rajesh's sister-in-law, told reporters.

"But we're pitched against an organisation (the Central Bureau of Investigation) that believes and deals with fabrications, manipulations, with suppressing and hiding all the facts showing the parents are innocent," she said.

(source: Agence France-Presse)






MALAYSIA:

Customs thwart Indian national's attempt to smuggle 45kg drug at KLIA


It was no 'Chennai express' for the man from Tamil Nadu who was 'derailed' by Malaysian customs officers when they saw through his bid to smuggle 45kg of methamphetamine hidden within henna hair dye packages to hoodwink the authorities.

The drug, also known as 'ice', was worth about RM8.54 million and its seizure is the largest this year, by the Royal Malaysian Customs Department.

The suspect, in his 30s, was nabbed about 7.30pm last Thursday, at the KL International Airport when customs enforcement officers stumbled on 5 parcels containing the drug in his baggage.

Customs director-general Datuk Seri Khazali Ahmad said the man had packed the drugs in black plastic before concealing it under packages of henna hair dye to throw the authorities off-guard.

He said the man was remanded for seven days to facilitate investigations under Section 39 (B) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952. The foreigner faces the mandatory death penalty upon conviction.

"This year alone, the suspect who had posed as an electrical goods dealer had been in and out of the country for 16 times, having stayed here for 2 to 3 days on each trip," he told reporters at his office here yesterday.

Meanwhile, Khazali noted that most international drug trafficking cases this year involved Indian nationals who used various modus operandi while using the KLIA as transit point before taking a 'connecting flight' to other airports in the country, using domestic flights.

"They assume that when changing flights at KLIA, we will not check their luggage at other airports," he said.

He said, between January and last month, the customs department had thwarted 120 different attempts to smuggle/traffic drugs worth about RM114 million nationwide.

Of the total, 61 cases involving seizures worth about RM44.39 million occurred at the KLIA, added Khazali.

(source: The Borneo Post)





************************

Malaysia adjourns hearing on 2 death-row RI brothers


The panel of judges at the Appeal Court in Putrajaya, Malaysia, has decided to adjourn the hearing on the appeal petition of 2 Indonesian brothers found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by a lower court.

The judges decided to adjourn the hearing until Jan. 28, 2014 because they said they had not yet thoroughly studied the appellants' petition, even though it was sent to the court on Aug. 1, according to a statement by the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, made available to The Jakarta Post on Monday.

The appellants' lawyers urged the judges to allow the hearing to proceed with verbal explanations by the legal team of the appeal petition but the judges rejected this saying they were afraid the hearing could be "unjust and unfair" if all the judges had not read the whole petition thoroughly beforehand, added the statement.

On Oct. 18, 2012, the Shah Alam High Court declared Frans Hiu, 22, and his brother Dharry Frully, 20, guilty of the murder of Malaysian citizen Kharti Raja on Dec. 3, 2010 and sentenced both to death. "The embassy and the retained legal team are confident the appellants can avoid the death penalty because many facts were ignored by the judges in the high court," the statement said.

The brothers denied they killed Kharti. They told the court that Kharti died after the 2 Indonesians and a Malaysian co-worker were woken by Kharti's sudden arrival in their lodgings in the shop-house where they worked.

Kharti, a suspected burglar, had failed to gain entry through the back door and instead attempted to enter through the ceiling and woke the inhabitants when he fell through it.

The 2 brothers tied Kharti up and dragged him outside and waited for the police to arrive. They said Kharti was under the influence of drugs or alcohol allowing them to apprehend him easily.

Frans claimed Kharti was already dying when they dragged him out of the premises. However, the indictment stated that the two killed the victim through blunt force trauma.

Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar previously said that the legal proceedings had been unjust. "The Malaysian co-worker who also faced the same murder charge was acquitted. It is discriminatory," he said.

Lawyers from the Gooi & Azura law firm, who have been appointed by the Indonesian Embassy to provide legal assistance to the brothers, said that the appeal court must grant the appeal for at least 2 reasons.

"The judges in the lower court failed to disclose the specific cause of Kharti's death," said lawyer Gooi Song Seng, as quoted by Antara. Secondly a forensic examination had confirmed a substantial presence of methamphetamine in the victim's body, sufficient to cause a heart attack.

Meanwhile, the government has begun the repatriation from Malaysia of an Indonesian jailed for 31 years for armed robbery. Shamsuddin bin Yaakob, 59, will be returned to his hometown in Sumbawa, West Nusa Tenggara, according to a statement from the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur made available to the Post on Monday.

Shamsuddin was arrested in 1982 and subsequently found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment on June 26, 1989.

(source: Jakarta Post)



IRAQ----executions

Iraq executes 11 prisoners over terror charges


The Iraqi Ministry of Justice on Tuesday said it executed 11 convicted prisoners 2 days ago over terror charges, despite international calls on Baghdad to end the death penalty in the country.

A statement issued by the ministry said that the convicts were all Iraqi men, adding the executions were carried out on Sunday after the presidency approved their penalties according to the Iraqi law.

The increasing of executions in Iraq sparked calls to stop use of capital punishment by the UN mission in Iraq, the European Union and some international human rights groups, which have criticized the lack of transparency in the proceedings of the Iraqi courts.

Death penalty in Iraq was suspended on June 10, 2003, but was reinstated on Aug. 8, 2004.

(source: Xinhua news)
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