June 18
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES:
Dubai Court sentences man to death for premeditated murder----Killer's 2
accomplices sentenced to life in prison
An Afghan who killed his former Iraqi employer with the help of 2 compatriots
has been sentenced to death for premeditated murder by a Dubai Court.
BG, 21, visitor, was awarded the death penalty and his accomplices TH, 21, and
AA, 22, were sentenced to life in prison for killing and robbing the Iraqi
victim HK.
The Dubai Criminal Court of First Instance also ordered TH and AA to be
deported after serving their jail terms.
According to the records, at night of November 6, 2012, the victim was attacked
by the 3 men who stabbed him with 2 knives in the back until the blades broke
under his skin.
While resisting them, the Iraqi managed to take one of the knives and stab BG
in the chest.
However, this did not scare the attackers who continued stabbing the Iraqi
until the knives broke.
The attackers covered the victim's body and stole his 3 mobile phones. BG
changed his clothes and fled using the victim's car.
A police patrol suspected a 4WD Lexus in the Russian Cluster of International
City after midnight. The patrol stopped the car and stepped towards the driver.
"We noticed blood stains on his shirt, so we asked him about it. The driver
claimed that he bled from his nose while playing tennis," a policeman
testified.
However, the driver failed to present his driving licence and the vehicle's
registration card.
The driver claimed that the car belonged to an Iraqi friend who had lent it to
him. The patrol arrested him and accompanied him to the police station.
In the station, policemen noticed a stab wound on the driver's chest.
"Questioning him about the stab wound, the driver BG admitted killing the car's
owner and claimed that the latter had tried to rape him.
He also said that he had worked for the victim for more than 20 days during
which he offered him massages upon his request.
"Last night he came out of the toilet wearing only a shirt and asked me for
sex," claimed the driver.
"I punched him on the face and he stabbed me in the chest.. I grabbed another
knife and stabbed him until he died. I called 2 of my friends to help me flee,"
BG told investigators.
AK, 49, supervisor, who had been working for the victim since 1998, told
investigators that BG used to work for the victim and was terminated as he was
not fit for the job.
Later, the Iraqi employer told the supervisor that BG kept on seeking financial
help from him after he returned to the UAE from Afghanistan and asked him to
employ him again.
Refuting BG's rape claim, AK told investigators that the victim was in his
house until 5pm and that while he was there he received a call from BG.
"The victim did not answer the call and instead he told me and another friend
who was with us how BG was annoying him with his calls and requests to employ
him," AK told investigators.
According to the records, the victim was a father of 3 daughters.
The verdict can be appealed within 15 days.
(source: Emirates247)
SAUDI ARABIA:
Saudi Arabia sentences 26 dissidents to death: Report
Saudi Arabia has sentenced 26 people to death on such charges as giving
speeches critical of the Al Saud regime and participating in protests against
the ruling family, Press TV has learnt.
Among those sentenced to death is the prominent Shia cleric, Sheikh Nimr
al-Nimr, who was attacked, injured and arrested by Saudi security forces en
route to his house in the Qatif region of Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province on
July 8, 2012.
He has been charged with disturbing the country's security, giving
anti-government speeches, insulting the Saudi king in Friday Prayers sermons,
and defending the political prisoners.
Shia activist Kamel Abbas al-Ahmed, who has been in detention after criticizing
the regime and fighting for religious freedom and against religious
discrimination, is another convict.
In 2009 Ahmed had rejected the remarks of Adel al-Kelbani, the Imam of Grand
Mosque of Mecca, who had alleged Shia Muslims are unbelievers.
Following Kelbani's comments, Ahmed joined a group of political activists
comprising writers and intellectuals who issued a statement saying the Saudi
authorities are responsible for sectarian discrimination against Shia Muslims
in the Kingdom.
Fazil Halal al-Jami' and Hassan Ahmad al-Saeed are 2 others handed the death
penalty on charges of acting against national security, staging anti-regime
demonstrations and strikes, and making petrol bombs to be used against Saudi
forces during protests.
Ali Jalan al-Jaroudi has been also condemned to death over participation in
anti-regime rallies, connection with the Arabic-language news network Al-Alam
and preparing banners and placards in condemnation of the Al Saud regime and
using them in anti-regime demonstrations.
Others include Mukhallaf Daham al-Shemri, Mortaji Abu Al Saud, Hossein Ali
al-Barbari and Al-Seyyed Mortaji al-Alawi, who brought down the Saudi national
flag raised on a school roof.
International rights organizations say Saudi Arabia has persistently
implemented repressive policies that stifle freedom of expression, association
and assembly in defiance of international criticism.
Peaceful demonstrations and gatherings are banned and many people have been
jailed merely for posting messages critical of the ruling authorities on social
media networks.
(source: Press TV)
CHINA:
Multiple Xinjiang executions no answer to violence
When China put 13 people to death in one day for terrorism offences in mainly
Muslim Xinjiang, it raised the spectre of the mass executions of years past.
But experts say Beijing's "strike hard" campaign is unlikely to curb mounting
violence.
The 13 were executed on Monday in connection with seven different cases, the
official Xinhua news agency said, including a riot in Lukqun last June when
"knife-wielding mobs" attacked police stations, a government building and a
construction site and set cars ablaze before officers opened fire. A total of
24 police and civilians were killed with 11 attackers also dying, according to
previous Xinhua reports.
The executions came on the same day a court in the regional capital Urumqi
sentenced 3 people to death over a fiery car crash last October that killed 2
tourists in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the symbolic heart of the Chinese
state, along with the trio in the vehicle man, his wife and his mother.
Resource rich Xinjiang, where mostly Muslim Uighurs are the largest ethnic
group, borders Central Asia far from China's heartland, and has long seen
sporadic clashes.
Rights groups accuse authorities of cultural and religious repression that
feeds dissent in the region, while Beijing counters it has invested heavily in
economic development in the area.
Recently, violent incidents have escalated in scale and spread, with a horrific
knife assault at a railway station in the distant southern city of Kunming
leaving 29 dead and 143 wounded in March, and 39 civilians killed and more than
90 wounded in an attack on an Urumqi market last month.
'Bloody agenda of terror'
The development has alarmed authorities and Xinhua hailed the executions and
sentences in a commentary Tuesday, arguing that "to fight such crime, China
must mobilise all the people and use all legal weapons to deal a crushing
blow".
"Only the rule of law will protect the people from the bloody agenda of terror.
Anyone who breaks the law, threatens life or property, any separatists, will be
severely punished," it wrote.
Yet death penalty experts and campaign groups say that while harsh punishments
and public sentencing rallies may help the government garner attention, such
moves actually do little to reduce the likelihood of further violent attacks.
"The death penalty may work in those cases where someone is committing a crime
and thinking rationally," said Surya Deva, a professor at the City University
of Hong Kong and an expert on Asia's use of the death penalty. "But in many of
these crimes, these elements are not there.
"Capital punishment is not going to work against the potential terrorists
because these people are already willing to die."
The recent crackdown and now-unusual public announcement of as many as 13
executions have echoes of China's past mass-sentencing drives - which were
popular throughout the tumultuous Cultural Revolution and, more recently, in a
series of occasional "strike hard" anti-crime campaigns that began in 1983.
Authorities would sometimes parade criminals through the streets before
executing them with a bullet to the back of the head.
One campaign in 1999 saw the southern province of Guangdong hold 57 public
rallies to announce sentences for 818 convicted criminals.
Another in 2001 saw 89 convicts executed in 1 day across the country - one of
the highest single day tallies on record for China, which puts more people to
death annually than the rest of the world combined, according to the human
rights group Amnesty International.
Executions shown on TV
China has since largely adopted lethal injection but occasionally there are
echoes of such events, as when 4 southeast Asian gangsters were shown live on
state television last year being taken away for execution for the murder of 13
sailors on the Mekong.
The approach may allow ruling Communist Party leaders to burnish their
anti-crime credentials, but "it doesn???t really deliver the stability" they
aim for, according to Anu Kultalahti, China researcher for Amnesty.
Recent highly-publicised "speed trials" such as May's mass sentencing of 55
people before a 7,000 strong crowd in a Xinjiang stadium suggest that Chinese
authorities "have been more concerned about public opinion than delivering
justice", she said.
Chinese courts are controlled by the ruling Communist Party and have a near
perfect conviction rate.
"The strike hard campaign is not new to Xinjiang at all," said Shan Wei, a
political scientist at the National University of Singapore's East Asian
Institute. "If you search this keyword online, you see it almost every year.
But, he added: "The trend is, the violence is getting more and more
terrorism-oriented.
"Before, in past years, before the Tiananmen attack, most targets were
government buildings or police stations. But now, you can see more and more,
the target is ordinary people."
(source: Capital News)
NEW ZEALAND:
On this day in true crime the trial of the only woman executed in New Zealand
began
'Baby Farmer' Williamina (Minnie) Dean was tried in New Zealand on June 18,
1895, and was convicted of murder, and hanged later that year - the only woman
to get the death penalty in the country's history.
Other death sentences were imposed over the years, but always commuted to life
imprisonment.
However, Minnie's crimes were considered too heinous for the court to show any
mercy.
2 babies had died in the babysitters care, and a 3rd had gone missing, later
found buried in her flowerbed.
Minnie had long been a figure of suspicion in the community, linked in the
public's mind, to cases of infanticide or baby farming in the United Kingdom
and Australia, referring to women who killed children under their care to avoid
having to support them.
At the time, lax childcare legislation meant that Minnie did not have to keep
records of the children she agreed to take in, so proving that the children's
disappearances were her fault was difficult.
But in 1895, Minnie was observed boarding a train carrying a young baby and a
hatbox. She left the same train without the baby and only the hatbox. As
railway porters later testified, the object was suspiciously heavy.
A woman, Jane Hornsby, came forward claiming to have given her granddaughter,
Eva, to Minnie, and clothes identified as belonging to this child were found at
Minnie's residence, but Minnie could not produce the child herself. A search
along the railway line found no sign of the child. Minnie was arrested and
charged with murder. Her garden was dug up, and 3 bodies (2 of babies, and 1 of
a boy estimated to be 3 years old) were found under the dahlias and
chrysanthemums.
An inquest found that 1 of the children (1 month old Eva) had died of
suffocation and 1, later identified as 1 year-old Dorothy Edith Carter, had
died from an overdose of a sedative. The cause of death for the 3rd child, a
boy, was not determined, and Minnie was charged with their murder.
Following the verdict, the judge assumed the black cap and Minnie made legal
history. Newspaper reports said she was the most composed person in the
courtroom as the death sentence was pronounced.
Heartboxes containing baby dolls were sold outside the courthouse during the
trial.
(source: Sunday World)
VIETNAM:
Vietnam province makes record heroin bust
Police in Lao Cai arrested a Lao woman and 2 Vietnamese nationals on Tuesday
for smuggling about 14 kilograms of heroin into Vietnam; police say it was the
largest single heroin seizure in the northwestern province's history.
Police stopped their van at around 8:30 p.m. on June 17 at a section of
National Road 70 that connects Hanoi to Lao Cai in Bao Thang District's Ban
Phiet Commune near the Chinese border.
Police found about 14 kilograms of heroin hidden in different parts of the
vehicle, which bore a Lao license plate, VOV reported.
They arrested Veu Pia, 20 of Laos' Bonkhamsay Province and 2 Vietnamese
nationals, Lau A Cu, 30, and Vang Thi Soa, 26, both of whom belong to the
H'Mong ethnic minority.
Police seized the van and 5 cell phones from the arrestees.
The raid was part of a province-wide anti-drug project launched by Lao Cai
police in December 2013.
Giang Ly Pao, deputy director of the provincial police department, said they
had invested a great deal of effort in investigating this particular drug
smuggling ring.
"The investigation was very difficult because the smugglers often change means
of transportation are very cunning in avoiding police detection," he said.
In 2011, Lao Cai police busted a major drug smuggling ring and seized more than
4 kilograms of heroin.
Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws. Those convicted of
smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of
methamphetamine face the death penalty.
In related news, a Hanoi court last week sentenced a Thai national and 3
Vietnamese nationals to death for smuggling more than 25 kilograms of heroin
and methamphetamine into Vietnam in 2012.
In another case, on June 16, the Supreme People's Court began its review of a
death sentence handed down by a Quang Ninh Province court in January to 30
people found guilty of smuggling nearly 1.5 tons of heroin.
(source: Thanh Nien News)
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