Nov. 7
SINGAPORE:
Murderer granted stay of execution on 11th-hour motion
Yesterday, a 5-judge Court of Appeal allowed the 11th-hour motion to give his
newly appointed lawyer more time to prepare his case. Kho, a 31-year-old from
Sarawak, had been due to go to the gallows today for the brutal murder of a
construction worker 7 years ago, after his appeal for clemency was rejected by
the President last month.
But his new lawyer, Mr Chandra Mohan K Nair - who was briefed by Kho's family
only on Tuesday night - filed a criminal motion on Wednesday asking for a stay
pending a ruling on arguments to quash his death sentence. He is seeking a
partial retrial focused on issues relating to Kho's sentence.
At yesterday's hearing, the motion was objected to by the prosecution, which
contended that no arguable issues have been raised. Kho's mother, sister and
cousin were in court.
On Feb 17, 2008, Kho and an accomplice attacked construction workers Cao Ruyin,
40, and Wu Jun, 44, in Geylang Drive while trying to rob the Chinese nationals.
Mr Wu received outpatient treatment but Mr Cao, who was bludgeoned with a tree
branch, died from head injuries 6 days later.
Kho's fate has seen many twists and turns since he and accomplice Galing Kujat
were given the death penalty - then mandatory for murder - in 2010.
Kujat, who used his belt buckle as a weapon, in 2011 successfully appealed
against the murder charge. He was convicted of robbery with hurt and sentenced
to 18 1/2 years' jail and 19 strokes of the cane.
Kho's appeal failed. But he was re-sentenced to life imprisonment in 2013,
after the law was changed to give judges the discretion to opt for a life term
for murder with no intention to cause death.
The prosecution appealed, arguing that Kho's vicious crime warranted the death
penalty. In a landmark ruling in January, the 5-judge court gave a split 3-2
decision in favour of sending Kho to the gallows for the fatal attack.
The case has attracted the attention of human rights groups, including Amnesty
International and local outfit Second Chances.
No date has yet been set for the next court hearing.
Significance of the case
Jabing Kho's case is a landmark decision in which a rare 5- judge Court of
Appeal decided, three to two, that the convicted murderer will hang.
It is the 1st murder case to come before the apex court since laws kicked in
giving judges the option of imposing life imprisonment on those who commit
murder without the intention to cause death. The apex court had to decide when
the death penalty was warranted when it is not mandatory.
All 5 judges agreed that capital punishment would be appropriate when the
offender had "acted in a way which exhibits viciousness or a blatant disregard
for human life". But the court was divided on whether Kho deserved to be
hanged.
Judges of Appeal Chao Hick Tin and Andrew Phang and Justice Chan Seng Onn said
the "sheer savagery" Kho displayed in continuing to strike Mr Cao Ruyin even
after he was floored, justified the death penalty.
However, the dissenting judges, Justices Woo Bih Li and Lee Seiu Kin, said
there was not enough evidence to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Kho
had struck Mr Cao 3 or more times, or that he had used such force that it
caused most of the 14 fractures on the victim's skull.
(source: asiaone.com)
ENGLAND:
Albert Pierrepoint: a 'haunted hangman' and the death penalty today
50 years ago this Sunday, Britain passed a law which brought an end to the
death penalty for murder and consigned the noose to history. One executioner,
though, did not simply recede into the shadows. Albert Pierrepoint was not the
last British hangman, but he was certainly the most famous. His legacy lives on
as a symbol of the terrible responsibility of those charged to do the state's
killing and a benchmark for our understanding of the job.
The 1965 Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act was a trial measure, with
abolition finalised in 1969. But parliamentary votes on reintroduction
continued into the 1990s, and it was only relatively recently that the last
remnants of the death penalty were definitively removed from UK law. Only in
1998 did treason and piracy cease to be capital offences.
Bridge to the past
Pierrepoint came to embody our strange relationship with the institution. As
the son and nephew of hangmen, he seemed to continue some kind of artisan
family tradition. His oddly sympathetic public profile was established during
the 1940s when he carried out multiple hangings of Nazi war criminals. By the
time Pierrepoint had resigned from the executioners' list in 1956 he had hanged
around 450 people.
After his retirement, he dispensed expertise about hanging for television and
radio audiences, acted as a film consultant and, in 1974, published a memoir,
Executioner: Pierrepoint. In the post-abolition era, Pierrepoint was an
authentic link with the practice of hanging; a bridge to memories of capital
punishment. And there are three significant aspects in his cultural persona
that have helped build our modern narrative of the executioner.
Civilised hanging
The 1st was Pierrepoint as an efficient and professional hangman. This was a
portrayal that he contributed to in his memoir and media interviews. It
stressed the meticulous care he took and emphasised his speed and efficiency.
It was in keeping with 20th century understandings of execution. The bodily
suffering of the condemned should be minimised or, preferably, non-existent.
Whether this could actually be achieved is debatable but it was important that
hanging was understood to have been "modern" and civilised.
Famously, Pierrepoint also renounced the death penalty in his memoir, stating
that it achieved nothing but revenge. My trawl through the archives of the time
shows that those who opposed the reintroduction of capital punishment seized on
this as compelling support. This "reformed hangman" aspect of Pierrepoint's
external cultural persona earned him respect and fascination. But this appears
to have been an oversimplification; statements he made in interviews I have
read were more equivocal. Pierrepoint does not seem to have been firmly against
capital punishment in all circumstances.
Regrets
The final aspect of Pierrepoint's cultural persona is that of the haunted
hangman, traumatised by guilt and regret. It is a noteworthy portrayal because
it does not draw on his self-image. In fact, it contradicts his accounts of
being untroubled about those he had hanged, even if they were subsequently
pardoned.
Some press reports about Pierrepoint when he died in 1992 suggested that he was
troubled by his past. However, the clearest portrayal of Pierrepoint in this
way is found in the eponymous biopic. In this film, the character of
Pierrepoint, played by Timothy Spall, is haunted by executing an acquaintance
and, eventually, traumatised by the many hangings he has carried out. It is an
appealing idea, one perhaps that the public cling to, that life is not easily
taken by anyone.
Fraught future
Maybe Pierrepoint had an easy ride. Now that it is more than half a century
since anyone was hanged in Britain, we can use him to understand better how
this conflicting cultural persona of the executioner has contemporary relevance
in the US, where the death penalty is increasingly beset by scandal.
Pierrepoint was able to construct an air of professionalism around the
mechanics of the gallows, but that is not a luxury afforded to his modern-day
equivalents. The availability of the drugs necessary to perform lethal
injections is increasingly restricted, which has forced states that retain the
death penalty to "experiment" with alternative drugs, or add other execution
methods.
High-profile botched executions by lethal injection have raised the problem of
how to carry out those "civilised" executions that avoid pain and suffering,
and which helped to create the Pierrepoint persona in the UK. This seems almost
impossible now for the Americans who try to do the same under intense scrutiny.
The prospect of putting people to death in the gas chamber, electric chair or
by firing squad feels like a step backwards.
In an echo of Pierrepoint's life, some former executioners and prison governors
in the US have spoken out against the death penalty. They have detailed their
trauma, and campaign groups raise this potential for capital punishment to harm
people other than just the condemned prisoner as an argument for abolition.
Pierrepoint would have had no truck with that, I suspect. But those somewhat
contradictory narratives around his career - the quest for professionalism, his
apparent reformation and the biopic tale of a man haunted by his deeds - remain
deeply relevant in understanding how today's executioners might think, and how
the public might view them.
(source: Lizzie Seal, Senior Lecturer in Sociology/Criminology, University of
Sussex -- The Conversation)
SCOTLAND:
The last execution in Scotland: A lookback 50 years after end of death penalty
In August 1963, a 21-year-old man called Henry John Burnett was hanged in
Craiginches Prison in Aberdeen for the murder of his girlfriend's husband.
2 years later, capital punishment was finally abolished, making Burnett the
last man to be executed in Scotland.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the abolition, BBC Radio 4 is to broadcast
archive material tonight that recalls the debates and events leading up to the
end of the death penalty. The programme includes interviews with some of those
who were involved in the Burnett case.
The programme also reveals that, even though capital punishment was abolished
50 years ago - on November 9, 1965 - support for it in the UK remains
remarkably high.
The programme, The End of The Rope, has been made by the broadcaster John
Forsyth, who interviewed some of the eyewitnesses to the Burnett case,
including Bob Middleton, an Aberdeen councillor who watched the hanging, child
psychiatrist Dr Ian Lowit, and Robert Henderson, the junior prosecuting counsel
in the case.
Mr Forsyth says all the witnesses were horrified by what they saw. "They all
hated it," he said. "If you had anything to do with it, you never forgot it.
"The child psychiatrist was traumatised by it. He said Burnett had a
personality disorder that meant he was aware of what he was doing but did not
have the responsibility.
"It was also shortly before legal aid was available in criminal cases, so he
was defended by somebody who had virtually no experience of criminal defence at
all."
Burnett's was the first execution since 19-year-old Anthony Miller, who was
hanged in Glasgow in December 1960 for the murder of John Cremin in Queen's
Park.
The Burnett case was particularly sad: he had spent much of his childhood in
borstals and had tried to kill himself when he was a teenager. He began a
relationship with a married woman, Margaret Guyan, but when it looked like she
was on the point of leaving him, he shot her husband Thomas.
After being sentenced to death, there was an appeal which failed; the family
also sent a telegram to the Queen asking her to intervene which went
unanswered. Burnett was eventually executed on August 15, 1963.
Speaking on the programme, the man who executed him, Harry Allen - 1 of 10
professional executioners in the UK who was was paid 15 pounds per execution -
said he had no regrets about Burnett or any of the other people he had
executed.
"They've all done wrong," he said. "They've murdered somebody, they've taken an
innocent life and I think it's the right thing to do."
However, even though Burnett was executed, there was a feeling among law-makers
and lawyers that the days of capital punishment were numbered and 2 years after
Burnett's death, a temporary ban was introduced in the Commons. 4 years later,
it was confirmed by a vote of the Commons and the Lords.
What struck Forsyth in making the programme was that, despite the change in the
law, public support for capital punishment was strong and remains relatively
high, which is confirmed by the most recent attitude surveys.
The Scottish Attitudes Survey of 2014 showed that 51 % agreed with the
statement "for some crimes, the death penalty if the most appropriate
punishment" and that figure has been pretty consistent for the last 15 years.
Rachel Ormston, co-head of social attitudes at the social research institute
ScotCen, pointed out that there has been a decline in support since the 1980s,
when there was about 75 % support for the death penalty.
"But it has declined over a huge amount of time when you think about when it
was abolished," she said. "The whole area of the death penalty is a classic
area where public opinion and what parliament repeatedly decides are in
conflict."
As for any chance of capital punishment ever being reintroduced, Forsyth
believes it is close to zero, although that could change if the UK votes to
leave the EU. As members, the UK is banned from reintroducing the death penalty
but leaving the EU would give the UK the freedom again. That may not happen,
said Forsyth, but it is on the radar.
(source: heraldscotland.com)
SAUDI ARABIA:
Saudi Arabia seeks to encourage sectarianism: Activist
Press TV has interviewed Massoud Shadjareh, a member of the Islamic Human
Rights Commission in London, to discuss the death sentence against Saudi Shia
cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
Following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: I do understand that protests ... have taken places well against this
verdict against Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. However, do you think that the Saudi King
is going to heed the calls of the people?
Shadjareh: Well I think what is essential is for us to expose the reasoning
behind the arrest of Sheikh Nimr. Sheikh Nimr was arrested originally because
what Saudi Arabia tries to do is to show that the opposition to itself is based
on sectarianism i.e. it wants to blame the minority Shia community as
troublemakers.
The reality is that there is a huge unhappiness and dissent by mainstream
Saudis. There are 30,000 political prisoners in Saudi Arabia, 80 % of them from
the Sunni and Salafi background. So this is not a Shia-Sunni thing but Saudi
Arabia ... dismisses this dissent against their oppressive rule, wants to
present this as a Shia-Sunni [conflict] and that is why Sheikh Nimr originally
was arrested. We need to expose that if we are going to make them stop this
sort of behavior because what Saudi Arabia is trying to do - not just in Saudi
Arabia and elsewhere - is to ride and encourage sectarianism and try to justify
its policy on those bases. And that is why many of us from different
backgrounds and indeed Muslims and indeed non-Muslims are upping arms of this
sort of abusive policies of using the judicial system for a political end.
Press TV: So when Saudi Arabia says that Sheikh Nimr is a threat to the kingdom
security, what do they mean?
Shadjareh: Well the fact is that Sheikh Nimr originally was arrested because 2,
3 days before that, there was demonstration in some malls in Saudi Arabia by
the Sunni dissent against the Saudi rule and the fact that prisoners were being
badly treated. And the response of Saudi Arabia was to turn that into sort of
[propaganda that] these are troublemaker Shias causing the problem and arrest
Sheikh Nimr. These are sort of playing with the judicial system and the due
process for political end and creating sectarianism as a justification for
behaving so badly against their own people and we need to expose this [at] many
levels.
The fact is that the judicial system in Saudi Arabia now is totally under
control of this abusive dictatorial ruling family and there is no way anyone is
going to get justice and we need to stand up against the whole policy that
Saudi Arabia wants to unleash and justify by saying that these are the Shia
minorities, these are encouraged by Iran. This policy which they insist on is
false and the reality is that there are huge numbers of people in Saudi Arabia
from all different backgrounds opposing this regime and we need to expose that.
(source: PressTv)
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