May 24
INDONESIA:
8 drug suspects handed over to prosecutors
The National Narcotics Agency ( BNN ) on Monday handed over 8 drug suspects,
who had allegedly attempted to traffic almost 100 kilograms of crystal
methamphetamine into the country from China, to the Semarang Prosecutor's
Office in Central Java.
The BNN also handed over the drug evidence for the case to be brought to trial
at the Semarang District Court.
"We handed over 8 suspects, including 97 kg of methamphetamine as evidence. The
suspects will be detained at the Kedungpane Prison," said chief BNN spokesman
Slamet Pribadi on Monday.
"Regarding the evidence, of the whole amount confiscated, 2.5 % is for evidence
and 97.5 % will be destroyed. It all depends on the prosecutor's office," he
said.
He added the suspects are accused of violating articles 112 and 114 of the 2009
law on narcotics, which carry either a life sentence or the death penalty.
The 8 suspects were arrested at a furniture warehouse in Pekalongan village,
Batealit district, in Jepara regency, Central Java, on Jan. 27 when they were
allegedly unloading a shipment of crystal meth concealed in Zhouma brand
generators from China.
The BNN disassembled the 194 generators, 94 of which it said contained drugs.
The agency claimed each generator was packed with between 1.5 to 1.9 kg of
methamphetamine.
The suspects consisted of 4 Pakistanis named Faiq, Amran Malik, Riaz and Toriq.
The other 4 are Indonesians named Yulian, Tommy, Kristiadi and Didit.
Of the 8 suspects, Didit was the official tenant of the warehouse owned by a
local man named Yunpelizar.
The warehouse appeared to be a finishing workshop for furniture. However, the
BNN claimed that it was a transit place for drugs before they were distributed
across Indonesia.
During the raid in Jepara, residents in Pekalongan village were unaware of the
fact that the CV Jepara Raya International furniture warehouse was possibly
used as a drug distribution center.
Residents were only aware of the regular presence of a foreign citizen, namely
Faiz, in the warehouse.
The BNN opened the case when it received information about a shipment of drugs
via the sea when it was working together with the local customs and excise
office in 2015.
At that time, the BNN did not know which port would be used to bring in the
drugs from China. It was eventually determined that the drugs would enter
through the Tanjung Emas Port in Semarang.
(source: The Jakarta Post)
SINGAPORE:
2 men charged with murder over Orchard Towers death----Muhammad Daniel Abdul
Jalil and Radin Abdullah Syaafii Radin Badruddin, both 22, had their charges
upgraded to murder after the death of the victim.
2 men were charged with murder on Tuesday (May 24), following the death of the
victim more than a month after being assaulted.
Muhammad Daniel Abdul Jalil and Radin Abdullah Syaafii Radin Badruddin, both
22, were previously charged with causing grievous hurt to 34-year-old Navarro
Dorian Regis in the early hours of Apr 1 at Orchard Towers.
Their charges were upgraded to murder after the victim died of his injuries
last week.
If convicted of murder, the pair could face the death penalty or life
imprisonment with caning. They will next appear in court on May 31.
Daniel faces a 2nd charge of causing grievous hurt for punching another victim,
Mr Goudal Pierre-Eric Jules, on the same day at Orchard Towers. Mr Jules
sustained a nasal bone fracture. For this charge, Daniel faces up to 10 years'
jail and caning.
(source: channelnewsasia.com)
*******************
Death penalty sought for man accused of beheading girl, 4
Taiwanese prosecutors have indicted a man for murder over the public
decapitation of a 4-year-old girl, saying they would seek the death penalty for
the "extremely cold-blooded" attack.
Wang Ching-yu, 33, is accused of overpowering the mother of the child near a
metro station in central Taipei, and beheading the young girl with a kitchen
knife.
The mother and a number of bystanders tried to intervene but were pushed away
and unable to save the child, whom police have identified only by the surname
Liu.
Prosecutors at the Shihlin District Court in Taipei said yesterday that it was
an "extremely cold-blooded" crime which had deeply shocked the generally
peaceful island.
"It has caused indelible pain to her mother, who witnessed the cruelty," the
prosecutors said in a statement at the close of their investigation, which took
less than 2 months.
"The suspect has never repented... so we suggest the court sentence him to
death," they said, adding that capital punishment in this instance was
important to maintain society's faith in law and justice.
Taiwan resumed capital punishment in 2010 after a five-year hiatus. Executions
are reserved for serious crimes such as aggravated murder. Some politicians and
rights groups have called for its abolition, but various opinion surveys show
majority support for the death penalty.
After the March 28 decapitation, hundreds of Taiwanese, many dressed in black
and wearing stickers reading "Death penalty is necessary", called for Wang to
be executed.
Wang was arrested at the scene of the crime and was subsequently taken into
custody. Prosecutors say that blood tests show Wang was not under the influence
of drugs at the time of the crime, nor had he displayed any signs of mental
illness after the attack.
Police said the 33-year-old had previously been arrested for drug-related
crimes. He was attacked by an angry mob while in custody. Taiwan's Apple Daily
has reported that he was unemployed and living with his parents, and had
previously been hospitalised with mental health issues.
The killing came less than a year after an 8-year-old girl's throat was slit in
her school restroom in Taipei. It sparked widespread public anger and fresh
debate about capital punishment.
(source: The Straits Times)
PAKISTAN:
5 naval officers given death sentence in Pakistan for attack on dockyard
5 navy officers were given the death sentence by a Navy court in Pakistan for
planning to hijack a warship and attacking 1 of the US Navy's refuel ships in
2014.
Sub-Lieutenant Hammad Ahmed and 4 other officials were convicted of the naval
dockyard attack that took place on 6 September, 2014, Dawn online quoted
retired Major Saeed Ahmed, father of Ahmed, as saying.
They were charged with having links with the Islamic State group, mutiny,
hatching a conspiracy and carrying weapons to the Karachi dockyard, Saeed said.
Saeed claimed that the naval authorities did not provide his son the right to a
fair trial.
"I wrote a letter to the Judge Advocate General (JAG) of the navy on 15 August,
2015, asking him to provide the opportunity of a defence counsel to my son,"
Saeed said.
"The Navy JAG on 21 September replied that the option of defence counsel would
be available at the time of trial."
Saeed was waiting for the commencement of the trial but was recently informed
that his son was shifted to the Karachi Central Prison.
He came to know about the capital punishment when he met his son and the other
4 officials -- Irfanullah, Muhammad Hammad, Arsalan Nazeer and Hashim Naseer --
in the prison.
There was no official word by the Pakistan Navy, he said.
"My son told me that a naval court had awarded death penalty to them after a
secret trial," Saeed claimed.
He claimed that the 5 were made scapegoats as this was not the 1st time when
such security lapses came to light.
(source: firstpost.com)
**********
Rise in death penalty in India's neighbourhood----Hangings in Pakistan and
Bangladesh are inevitably followed by more violence
It seems to be hanging season on India's western and eastern borders. If
Pakistan is hanging militants and terrorists responsible for the upsurge in
violence in recent years, Bangladesh is going after the war criminals behind
the mass atrocities in the lead-up to the liberation of the country in 1971.
The reasons are clearly different, but in both Pakistan and Bangladesh each
execution is often followed by attacks on civilians. If, in Pakistan,
terrorists often zero in on random targets, in Bangladesh, secular bloggers are
now under the militant radar.
In Bangladesh, the latest to be hanged was former Agriculture Minister Motiur
Rahman Nizami, chief of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami. He was hanged on
May 11 after being convicted by a war crimes tribunal for his role in the mass
killing of civilians in 1971.
With Nizami's execution, 4 top Jamaat leaders have been sent to the gallows by
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina'a government, while the 5th, Salahuddin Quader
Chaudhry, belonged to the opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) of Begum
Khaleda Zia.
Given that these 5 were pillars of the political establishment till yesterday
despite their widely known role in the 1971 killings, the hangings have shaken
up Bangladesh's politics like never before.
On May 12, Pakistani Army Chief Raheel Sharif confirmed the death sentence on
Saad Aziz, Tahir Hussain Minhas, Asad ur Rehman, Hafiz Nasir and Muhammad Azhar
Ishrat for the May 2015 bus attack on minority Shias and the April 2015
assassination of human rights' activist Sabeen Mahmud in Karachi.
Of the 5 convicted by a Pakistani military court, there has been considerable
focus on Aziz, who has a BBA degree from the Institute of Business
Administration in Karachi and is known to have personally shot Sabeen Mahmud
dead. He did his O-levels from Beaconhouse in Karachi, 1 of Pakistan's
best-known schools.
A graphic account in the Dawn newspaper reveals that Aziz was "inspired" by the
sectarian conflict in Yemen and got to know a Jamaat-e-Islami activist linked
to al-Qaeda while doing an internship in Unilever.
It's of some interest that Aziz came into contact with the Jamaat-e-Islami in
Pakistan, which has been umbilically linked to the Jamaat in Bangladesh, of
which Nizami was the Amir or chief.
Again, today Dawn reported that 5 officers of the Pakistan Navy linked to
Islamic State (IS) have been sentenced to death by a naval tribunal for their
role in the September 2014 Karachi naval dockyard attack in which 1 sailor and
2 terrorists were killed.
The Jamaat and its youth wings, both in Pakistan and Bangladesh, are known to
try and impose a harsh Islamist order in the public sphere with special focus
on how women should dress and behave.
The hangings of Jamaat leaders by Bangladesh has led to howls of protest from
Islamabad - diplomats have been summoned and then counter-summoned by both
sides - revealing that the Pakistan-Bangladesh relationship remains tenuous.
A press release issued by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry on Nizami's hanging
said, "Pakistan is deeply saddened over the hanging ... His only sin was
upholding the constitution and laws of Pakistan."
In a direct response to Nizami's role in furthering the cause of Pakistan as
Bangladeshis fought their war of liberation, Dhaka said in a statement, by
'repeatedly taking the side of those Bangladesh nationals who are convicted of
crimes against humanity and genocide, Pakistan has once again acknowledged its
direct involvement and complicity with the mass atrocity crimes committed
during Bangladesh???s Liberation War in 1971."
"It is a matter of great regret that Pakistan continues to comment in the
misguided defence of this convicted criminal. These uncalled reactions amount
to direct interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country, which is
totally unacceptable ..." the statement added.
One can't think of an uglier exchange - Pakistan argues that Nizami was
upholding its "constitution" while Bangladesh reiterates that Pakistan was
complicit in the 1971 war crimes. In point of fact, Pakistan was under martial
law at this point of time and no constitution was in force.
It is evident that the fault-lines in Pakistan-Bangladesh relations have
deepened after the hangings of Jamaat leaders by Dhaka. Given that this is for
the first time the 1971 criminals are being brought to justice, some years
after the mass killings, this acrimony was perhaps inevitable.
Though Islamabad has had good relations when the BNP and the Jamaat have been
in power, it has been unable to address the fundamental issue - that its troops
aided by collaborators - were responsible for the deaths of lakhs of
Bangladeshis.
Even as they differ and bicker very publicly, both countries have resorted to
the drastic and irreversible punishment of the death penalty in an effort to
give justice and bring closure to victims.
In Pakistan, 332 persons have been executed in 2014-15, with the death
sentences being handed down by military courts and being confirmed by the Army
Chief, who has made the battle against some terrorists a very personal battle.
In Bangladesh, as many as 197 persons were sentenced to death in 2015, Amnesty
International reported. The parallel processes of hanging in Bangladesh and
Pakistan have different, contending motivations.
The real question, of course, is this: will it help in healing the wounds or
just open fresh ones?
(source: The Hindu)
INDIA:
The bias of death penalty against the economically vulnerable
The death penalty seems to perpetuate a "systemic marginalization' against
prisoners from vulnerable and marginalized backgrounds.
A prisoner's economic status and level of education directly affects their
ability to effectively participate in the criminal justice system and claim
their fair trial rights.
"1 of the more difficult tasks for me as President was to decide on the issue
of confirming capital punishment awarded by courts," former President APJ Abdul
Kalam once wrote. "I thought I should get all these cases examined, to my
surprise, almost all cases which were pending had a social and economic bias."
Last week, the Death Penalty Research Project at National Law University, Delhi
released a seminal report on the death penalty. For the 1st time, researchers
tried to interview all prisoners under sentence of death and their families, to
understand who gets the death penalty and how, and what it is like to live
under sentence of death in India.
What they found, in interviews with hundreds of prisoners and their families
over 2 1/2 years, was a system plagued by fundamental flaws.Whose structural
foundations "render the systematic erosion of basic protections inevitable",
and where the death penalty seemed to perpetuate a "systemic marginalization"
against prisoners from vulnerable and marginalized backgrounds.
Media debates in India on the death penalty almost always erupt around an
imminent execution, and focus on whether the punishment is morally justified.
However most prisoners sentenced to death in India are not eventually executed.
(Less than 5 % of those sentenced to death by trial courts during the study
after higher courts ruled on their appeals.) Yet issues of how prisoners on
death row are treated by the criminal justice system are almost never
discussed.
The NLU report emphasizes that its findings do not necessarily suggest that
there is any direct discrimination at work - which means that state authorities
do not intentionally discriminate against poor or less-educated prisoners. But
the disparate impacts that it identifies do raise an important question: is
there a degree of indirect discrimination at work, which worsens the impact of
the denial of fair trial rights for prisoners from disadvantaged backgrounds?
Indirect discrimination occurs when a seemingly neutral practice or rule
impacts particular groups disproportionately, even if it is not intentionally
directed at that group.
Almost 75 % of the prisoners interviewed were "economically vulnerable", a
category the report's authors defined using occupation and landholding. There
is no direct equivalent government statistic, but about 21 % of people in India
live below the international poverty line of $1.90 a day, and 58 % on below
$3.10 a day.
Over 1/2 the prisoners worked in the organized sector, their occupations
reading like a directory of unstable jobs: auto driver, brick kiln labourer,
street vendor, manual scavenger, domestic worker, construction worker.
About 19 % of those on death row had attended only primary school (including
those who started but dropped out). The comparative national figure is about 32
% (2011 census). Many prisoners were disadvantaged on both counts; 9 out of 10
who had never gone to school were also economically vulnerable, for example.
Why is this important? A prisoner's economic status and level of education
directly affects their ability to effectively participate in the criminal
justice system and claim their fair trial rights.
Take something as basic as the right to be present at one's own trial -which is
an integral part of the right to defend oneself. Only 1 in 4 prisoners
interviewed said they had attended all their hearings. Some prisoners said the
police would be taken to the court premises by the police and then confined to
a court lock-up without being produced in the courtroom.
A prisoner named Muhafiz told researchers that he had only been present in
court during the depositions of 2 witnesses, and had been kept in the lock-up
for the rest of his trial. He had never been to school, and said that even his
limited presence in court would have been more meaningful if he had been
educated.
Even when prisoners were present in court, the report says, "the very
architecture of several trial courts often prevents any real chance of the
accused participating in their own trial." Accused persons were usually allowed
at the back of the courtroom while proceedings between the judge and lawyers
took place in front, out of earshot.
Everyone charged with a crime has the right under international human rights
law to an interpreter if they do not understand the language used in court, and
to translated documents. But this requirement is rarely met. Over 1/2 of the
prisoners interviewed said they did not understand the proceedings at all -
either because of the court architecture or the language used (often English).
Abed, a prisoner who only understood simple English words, said he could not
comprehend large parts of his trial, which lasted for over 12 years. He
understood the trial court decision to sentence him to death only after his
fellow inmates explained it to him. Another prisoner who knew English told
researchers he could not understand the proceedings in his trial as they were
conducted in a different state language. The trial court rejected his requests
for a translator, and went on to sentence him to death.
Part of an accused's right to a fair hearing is the right to challenge evidence
produced against them. In India, trial courts can question the accused directly
at any stage, and the Supreme Court has ruled that accused persons must be
questioned separately about every material circumstance to be used against
them, in a form they can understand.
The study found that these provisions were routinely violated. Over 60 % of the
prisoners interviewed said they were only asked to give yes/no responses to a
string of questions in their trials, with no meaningful opportunity to explain
themselves. A prisoner named Hemrajsaid that the judge only asked him 1
question - whether he had committed the crime. When Hemraj tried to respond to
the evidence put forward by the prosecution, the sessions judge didn't let him
speak, and told him that "the lawyer would handle all that."
The lawyers typically don't. 7 in 10 prisoners said their lawyers did not
discuss case details with them. Nearly 77 % said they never met their trial
court lawyers outside court, and the interaction in court was perfunctory.
(Many of the prisoners chose to hire private lawyers at the trial and High
Court, despite their economic vulnerability, because of their fear that the
underpaid legal aid lawyers would not be competent or interested.)
And on it goes. In higher courts, prisoners had even less information about
their cases, often finding out about developments only through prison
authorities or television and newspaper reports. As the report puts it, "There
is widespread alienation ... among prisoners sentenced to death with an intense
sentiment of systemic injustice."
It isn't just death row prisoners who face these kinds of violations, of
course. (And India isn't the only country with these problems: Amnesty
International has also documented how death row prisoners in countries such as
Indonesia face similar flagrant fair trial rights violations.) But given the
irreversible nature of the death penalty, it is particularly important that
fair trial rights are scrupulously followed in these cases. International human
rights bodies agree that every death sentence imposed at the end of an unfair
trial violates the right to life. The only way to end this injustice, clearly,
is to impose an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty, as a 1st
step towards abolition.
On the issue of indirect discrimination, human rights treaty bodies such as the
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination have said that it goes
"beyond measures which are explicitly discriminatory, to encompass measures
which are not discriminatory at face value but are discriminatory in fact and
effect."
Indirect discrimination isn't always easy to prove, and can often only be
demonstrated circumstantially. But reliable statistics can go some way in
showing that it exists where policies and practices appear to be neutral. UN
treaty bodies accept statistics as proof of discrimination, as do many European
countries. Combined with the knowledge about the broader societal context
prejudices, statistics can make out at least a prima facie case of
discrimination.
Indian criminal justice authorities follow several practiceswhich hurt poor or
otherwise marginalized prisoners much more than others.What needs investigation
is whether these practices are just the offshoots of social and economic
inequalities, or whether they have become a form of institutionalized indirect
discrimination.
Just last year, the Law Commission concluded in a report on the death penalty,
"The vagaries of the system also operate disproportionately against the
socially and economically marginalized who may lack the resources to
effectively advocate their rights within an adversarial criminal justice
system." The NLU study sets out in stark and dismal detail the evidence for
these claims. The death penalty is a lethal lottery in India, and the dice are
loaded against some. (Names of prisoners changed)
(source: Shailesh Rai is Senior Policy Advisor, Amnesty International India.
Views expressed by the author are personal----indianexpress.com)
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