June 25
TRINIDAD:
26 years in jail instead----Privy Council rules man's death sentence 'cruel,
unconstitutional'...
A man who was sentenced to death in 2008, after being found guilty of murdering
a taxi driver 5 years earlier, had his sentence reduced to just below 26 years
in prison yesterday.
The re-sentence was handed down by Justice Althea Alexis-Windsor in the Sixth
Criminal Court of the Hall of Justice in Port of Spain after the Privy Council
held that the mandatory death penalty for murder based on the felony murder
principle was unconstitutional, cruel and contrary to the Constitution.
In January 2008, Nimrod Miguel was convicted by a 12-member jury of murdering
Ramesh Lalchan on December 30 or 31, 2003.
According to the State's case, Lalchan's lifeless body was found on the morning
of December 31, 2003, in Fairfield, Princes Town. He had left in his vehicle
from Tableland to San Fernando the day before.
On January 2, 2004, Lalchan's vehicle was found by police in Princes Town. The
following day officers lifted fingerprint impressions from the vehicle that
matched Miguel's. Later that month Miguel was arrested at an abandoned house in
Princes Town.
He allegedly admitted in a statement to police that he together with 3 other
people intended to rob Lalchan of his vehicle. Nimrod allegedly told officers
he tied Lalchan's mouth but that it was 1 of the other men who shot the taxi
driver.
During the trial, Nimrod said he had only signed certain parts of the
statements after being told by police he would have been allowed to go home if
he placed his signature on the statement.
In his written submissions prior to re-sentencing, defence attorney Daniel Khan
said the ruling of the Privy Council meant the death penalty for cases for
felony murder is no longer mandatory but discretionary.
Khan had submitted that the lower scale of the tariff should be set at the
maximum for the offence of larceny (10 years) which is the arrestable violent
offence that had triggered the felony murder. The maximum sentence should be 20
years Khan said, and discounts should then taken in consideration of mitigating
factors.
Attorney Brent Winter who along with Ravita Persad represented the State
submitted that Khan's criticisms of the felony murder rule should be
disregarded by the court and that the proposed sentencing regime should strike
a balance between the culpability of the prisoner, as well as the legislative
policy inherent in Section 2A of the Criminal Law Act to attach severe
penalties to people engaged in serious crimes of violence, if death, even
unintentional resulted.
After considering submissions from both sides, Justice Alexis-Windsor sentenced
Miguel to 25 years and 11 months imprisonment to begin from his date of
conviction in 2008. He will therefore serve 19 years and 6 months starting from
yesterday.
The felony murder principle states if a killing occurs during the commission of
an arrestable offence involving violence, all those who participated in the
arrestable offence are guilty of unlawful homicide, either murder or
manslaughter depending on the facts surrounding the participation of the
particular accused.
(source: Trinidad Express)
KENYA:
Mututho seeks death penalty for killer brew peddlers
The chairman of the National Authority for Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug
Abuse (NACADA) John Mututho is pushing for amendments to the Alcohol Drink
Control Act 2010 commonly known as 'Mututho Law' to include death sentences for
people found dealing in illegal and inferior quality brews.
Speaking to Capital FM News on Wednesday morning, Mututho indicated that this
will reduce the number of fatalities and ensure Kenyans are kept safe from
production of sub-standard alcohol.
He revealed that NACADA together with other stakeholders will appear before the
Senate Committee on Administration and Justice on Thursday to present their
proposals after which they expect it to be pushed forward to the floor of the
House.
"We have major proposals which we will come to discuss in a matter of days and
we would not like to see Kenya go to where the way of America and other
countries have. We would like to go the Singapore or China way such that if you
are caught, you will know within 48 hours that you are going to the gallows,"
Mututho warned.
Over 80 people died in May after drinking illegal liquor believed to have been
laced with industrial methanol.
"We are going to roll out a major program so that we can reduce the number of
drug dependent people. In the meantime, on the supply equation, we are getting
to be more and more strict; more and more serious. We are not going to take it
very kindly for people who walk scot free in the issue of alcohol and drug
abuse."
Section 32 of the Mututho Law requires every alcoholic drink package to bear a
statement as to its composition and prescribed health warning.
The statement and health warning must comprise not less than 30 % of the
surface area of the package, a requirement manufacturers have found difficult
to implement.
Mututho further pointed out that NACADA is partnering with the Kenya Bureau of
Standards (KEBS) to ensure that every drink produced is fit for consumption.
"KEBS has developed a software that before you drink, you just use your mobile
phone, punch that number there and the central data which tell you
automatically that this is a good drink, manufactured by the East Africa
Breweries on this date and if you want more, it is sold at Nakumatt for
instance and that it is a good drink," he stated.
He however indicated that the downside to that is that the contents of a drink
can be changed while the bottle still has the KEBS identification mark.
"That is what we are now really hurrying to do so that a normal consumer
doesn't have to worry very much, he just needs to check it out. I must however
warn you also that if that bottle is lost and then they put in dirty stuff on
board, then the number will still be there so it will be reflecting that it is
good stuff but it contains something different," he stated.
"That is why I was insisting that we also use the manual system other than that
whereby every outlet will have to display certificates of the company that they
represent. You can then take the receipt and then confirm with the company
whether they sold alcohol to this particular outlet," he said.
He stated that the leadership challenges facing the Authority had a part to
play in the delay of the implementation of the various initiatives.
"We have challenges at NACADA and the management is still unstable. I attribute
this mainly to the appointing authorities. If they can stabilize the
management, we would have been able to implement this initiative in just about
under 1 month," he explained.
(source: Capital News)
INDIA:
Bihar police officer gets death sentence for killing 3 teens----He shot the
students and then lied in police records that they were robbers killed in a
shoot-out with police
A Bihar police officer was on Tuesday sentenced to death for the murder of 3
teenage students 12 years ago in Patna, a lawyer said.
Shamse Alam got the death penalty while Constable Arun Kumar Singh and 6 others
- all shopkeepers - got life sentences for their role in the crime.
The fast-track court headed by Judge Ravi Shankar Sinha had reserved its
judgement after completing the hearing last week.
According to the charges, the three students - Vikash Ranjan, Prashant Singh
and Himanshu Shekhar - were killed at a market near Ashiyana Nagar area on
December 28, 2002 in Patna.
The shopkeepers had brutally beaten up the 3 students following a scuffle over
a payment dispute. They then called the police.
The shopkeepers then called the police and handed over the students, saying
they were thieves and involved in crimes. The 2 policemen later shot the
students. In police records, they said the teenagers were robbers who they had
killed in a gun battle.
However, following opposition outcry, the case was handed over to the local
police, who later handed it over to Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and
subsequently to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for investigation.
(source: Gulf News)
****************************
Maharashtra: Bus driver given death for mowing down 9 pleads 'unsound mind'
Santosh Mane, a former state transport bus driver, who has been awarded death
penalty for mowing down 9 persons in a fit of reckless driving on Pune roads in
January 2012, on Wednesday pleaded before the Bombay High Court that he was of
"unsound mind" at the relevant time.
Mane's lawyer argued that he did not have the motive to commit such a heinous
crime and that at the time of the incident he was of "unsound mind". A bench of
Justices VM Kanade and PD Kode was hearing an appeal filed by Mane against his
conviction by the Pune trial court.
To a query by the bench whether the trial court had observed that he was of
"unsound mind" at the time of the incident, the lawyer replied in the negative.
However, the lawyer said, at the stage of remand, the driver had filed an
application in the trial court saying that he was of "unsound mind" and for
that he needed treatment. The court had then asked a psychiatrist to give him
medical help.
A bench of Justices VM Kanade and PD Kode was hearing an appeal filed by Mane
against his conviction by the Pune trial court.The lawyer further informed the
bench that the trial court had rejected Mane's plea that he was of "unsound
mind". The high court wanted to know whether Mane had challenged that order in
a higher court. To this, lawyer replied in the negative but said he had a
doctor's certificate saying Mane was of "unsound mind".
However, the high court said that it was not sufficient to have a letter from
the doctor about the accused being of "unsound mind". "You (Mane) cannot take
such a plea just because you are being treated for this. The trial court should
have given a finding to this effect," the bench said.
The court was hearing an appeal filed by Mane against death sentence, along
with the appeal on confirmation of death penalty given to Mane. In September,
2013, the high court had set aside the death penalty awarded to Mane, noting
that the trial court had not heard him on the point of sentence. The court
referred the matter back to the trial court, asking it to hear Mane again.
The trial court subsequently once again awarded him death sentence. It reasoned
that the crime was of the "rarest of the rare" category as Mane had killed
people by running them over with an ST bus, fully conscious of the
consequences.
On January 25, 2012, Mane hijacked a state transport bus from Swargate depot in
Pune city and went berserk as he drove it around, mowing down whoever came in
his path. By the time police chased him down and stopped him, he had left 9
people dead and 37 others injured.
(source: Press Trust of India)
BANGLADESH:
Bangladesh sentences 8 to death----Head of the outlawed HuJI outfit Mufti Abdul
Hannan among the eight sentenced to hang for New Year bomb attack
A Dhaka court on Monday handed down the death penalty to 8 people over a deadly
2001 bomb attack that killed 10 people. The 8 were kingpins and operatives of
outlawed Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (Huji). They launched the
attack during Bengali new year celebrations, which they called "anti-Islamic".
"They shall be hanged by the neck until they are dead," additional metropolitan
judge Ruhul Amin pronounced at the crowded courtroom as detained HuJI chief
Mufty Abdul Hannan and 8 others appeared on the dock under heavy security
vigil.
The court sentenced 6 others to life in prison, but three of them are still on
the run.
A prison van escorted by several police cars earlier brought the detained
convicts to the court complex at downtown Dhaka from nearby Dhaka Central Jail,
where armed police contingents and plainclothes officers enforced a sharp vigil
allowing people inside the court only after thorough security checks.
They were taken back to jail for subsequent legal procedures. Under the law,
the convicts could now challenge the judgement in the High Court.
Legal experts said the according to Bangladeshi law, the High Court must review
the capital punishments handed down by trial courts even if the convicts do not
challenge the verdict.
The HuJI operatives staged the bomb attack on crowds who joined a cultural
festival to celebrate Bengali New Year "Pahela Baishakh" - at Dhaka's Ramna
Batmul on April 14, 2001 - a traditional festivity that they saw as
"anti-Islamic".
The court indicted the outlawed HuJI chief and 13 others for the blasts on
April 16, 2009 and subsequently recorded statements of 61 prosecution
witnesses.
The United States earlier designated HuJi as a foreign terrorist organisation
and "specially designated global terrorist."
The Ramna Batmul case was the 2nd major charge that brought HuJI to dock after
police in June 2008 formally pressed charges against 21 HuJI operatives and an
ex-junior minister of past BNP government for a grenade attack on incumbent
Prime Minister and Awami League chief Shaikh Hasina on August 21, 2004.
Then in the opposition, Hasina narrowly escaped but 24 people were killed in
the attack.
The banned outfit is also believed to have carried out several other blasts
including an attack on a Communist Party rally in 2005 claiming 5 lives, while
Bangladeshi-born former British envoy to Dhaka Anwar Chowdhury escaped with
minor injuries.
HuJI leaders announced its emergence on April 30, 1992 in Bangladesh through a
news conference wearing sleeveless olive combat jackets over shelwar-kameez
(traditional dress) with its leaders sitting shoulder to shoulder at the
National Press Club and boastfully described how they had fought in the
previous Afghan war.
They had demanded that Bangladesh be turned into an Islamic state conforming to
their brand.
(source: Gulf News)
NIGERIA:
15,316 Nigerians on death row abroad - Confab Asks FG to declare total war on
Boko Haram
A total of 15,316 Nigerians are on death row in some foreign countries and a
good number of others are being incarcerated in various prisons abroad, a
delegate at the ongoing National Conference, has revealed.
A South-East delegate, Mr Ihechukwu Madubuike, disclosed this while making his
contribution to the debate on the report of the Committee on Foreign Policy and
Diaspora Matters, at the plenary on Tuesday.
Most of the delegates, who spoke at the plenary took a swipe on the Federal
Government for its defective foreign policies, saying it was responsible for
the poor and negative image accorded the nation broad.
They said government must live up to its responsibility by developing a
pragmatic foreign policy that would restore the country to its pride of place
among the comity of nations.
Madubuike, speaking on the huge number of Nigerians languishing in prisons in
foreign land, said more 15,316 Nigerians are in various prisons abroad, most of
them awaiting death penalty.
He also disclosed a staggering 6,000 Nigerian citizens held in various
countries for drug related activities.
He further revealed that over 5,145 Nigerian girls are in foreign countries
languishing owing to trafficking, adding that another 3,719 citizens are
somewhere in Canada, undergoing all manner of harrowing experience.
Madubuike noted that consular services was not enough to take care of the
challenges faced by diasporans and the staff, hence, the recommendation for the
creation of Foreign Service Commission.
He said: "If a nation's foreign policies is a mix of strategies to safeguard
the interest of the nation, then, they must pay special interest to our
diasporan citizens, especially those diasporans, who are in jail or who have
been detained justly or unjustly.
"18 of them are awaiting trial, a report from the Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement
Agency (NDLEA), recently said that 6,000 Nigerians are in various countries
because of drug related activities, other reports yet from the foreign services
is that 15,316 Nigerians are in various prisons abroad many of them awaiting
death penalty.
"The foreign policy of a country begins and reflect its domestic policy, what
you call your person that is what he answers, if our domestic policies can take
care of our people,can give them job, can provide social securities for them,
many of them who are languishing in prisons abroad would not be there today.
"Consular services is not enough to take care of these people, that is why I
support setting up commission that will give relief to our maligned Nigerians,
most of them have suffered unnecessary masturbation and treated with hedonistic
instinct not meant for human beings.
Meanwhile, delegates at the ongoing National Conference, on Monday, asked the
Federal Government to declare total war on terrorism that is threatening
national security.
The conference also condemned the bomb explosion that rocked Kano State on
Monday, which claimed about 10 lives by the suspected members of Boko Haram.
Reacting to the development Senator Adefemi Kila, who also condemned the
killing of innocent citizens, called for a minute silence, and urged the
government to declare total war on terrorism.
He said, "We need to hammer on issues that bring this country together more
than what divided us. One of such is the performance of the Super Eagles at the
World Cup. I want this conference to support the team tomorrow."
The delegate further commended the conduct of the election in Ekiti State
including the conduct of Governor Kayode Fayemi and the governor-elect, Ayo
Fayose, saying "This is the kind of thing we want in this country," he said.
The conference vice chairman, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, said the bombing in
Kano was a very disturbing phenomenon and it is one too many, but "let us be
careful not to politicise tragedy."
He recalled how he was insulted by one of the victims of a bomb blast in Kano,
saying that when the victim later opened his wound, it was clear that the
person was under pressure and his aggression was justifiable.
He also mentioned how his team was attacked by Boko Haram in Borno State while
on a visit to the state to commiserate with victims of terror attacks but was
saved by the intervention of the military.
(source: The Tribune)
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