July 15
LEBANON:
Lebanon charges 3 over suicide bombings
Lebanon's military prosecutor has charged 3 people, including 1 Syrians, with
links to the Islamic State group and involvement in suicide bombings in a
village on the Syrian border.
A judicial source told AFP on Thursday that 1of the 3, a Syrian, had been
arrested last week during the dismantling of an IS-linked cell suspected of
planning attacks across Lebanon.
The 2 others, one Syrian and another believed to be Lebanese, are still at
large.
The 3 are alleged to have links to 2 waves of deadly suicide bombings that hit
the border village of Al-Qaa in a single day on June 27.
8 suicide bombers blew themselves up in the village, killing 5 people and
wounding dozens.
Al-Qaa lies on a main road linking the Syrian town of Al-Qusayr to the Bekaa
valley in eastern Lebanon.
Its 3,000 residents are predominantly Christian, but the Masharia Al-Qaa
district is home to Sunni Muslims and some 30,000 Syrian refugees live in a
makeshift camp on the edge of the village.
The indictment accuses the 3 suspects of "murder and attempted murder of
civilians, sowing terror and discord, and undermining stability."
The charges carry the death penalty.
The attacks were not claimed by any group, but bore characteristics of both IS
and Al-Qaeda.
At the end of June, the Lebanese army announced it had arrested 5 IS members
accused of planning attacks in Beirut.
Lebanon has been hit by a string of deadly attacks since the conflict in
neighbouring Syria began in 2011.
(source: Agence France-Presse)
INDIA:
Bilkis case: HC begins final hearing on appeals by 11 convicts
The Bombay High Court today commenced the final hearing on the appeals filed by
11 people convicted in the 2002 Bilkis Bano gangrape case and also on the
petition by CBI seeking death penalty for 3 of them.
11 men, who were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a special
court on January 21, 2008 for gangraping Bilkis and murdering 7 of her family
members in the aftermath of the 2002 Godhra riots, had approached the high
court challenging their conviction and sought quashing of the trial courts
order.
The prosecuting agency CBI had also filed an appeal in the high court seeking
death penalty for three of the 11 convicts.
A division bench of Justices V K Tahilramani and Mridula Bhatkar started final
hearing on the appeals while rapping CBI counsel Hiten Venegaonkar for not
being "prepared".
"You (Venegaonkar) are not prepared. Please take proper charge of the case.
Read the case papers over the weekend. Prepare a chart of witnesses, victims,
deceased persons, convicts and acquitted accused," the bench said.
The rap came after Venegaonkar while arguing kept fumbling and confusing names
of the witnesses, victims and convicted people.
During arguments when the court sought to know the cause of death of the 7
people, he said he did not know as the post-mortem report was in Gujarati.
"How can you (Venegaonkar) say so? You should have prepared yourself before we
start hearing the appeals," the court said.
According to the prosecution, on March 3, 2002, Bilkis Banos family was
attacked by a mob at Randhikpur village near Ahmedabad during the post-Godhra
riots and 7 members of her family were killed.
Bilkis, who was 5 months pregnant at the time, was gangraped while six other
members of her family managed to escape from the mob.
The trial in the case had begun in Ahmedabad. However, after Bano expressed
apprehensions that witnesses could be harmed and CBI evidence tampered with,
the Supreme Court had transferred the case to Mumbai in August 2004.
(source: India Today)
MALAYSIA:
'Secret' moratorium on executions in M'sia must be made public
Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture (Madpet) is happy that Malaysia
have in place a moratorium on executions, especially for those languishing on
death row for drug trafficking. Edmund Bon Tai Soon, Malaysia's current Asean
Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) representative, was
recently reported saying "...Malaysia's moratorium, I understand, is only for
drug trafficking cases' (The Star, July 10, 2015).
It must be noted that the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam), also
did reiterate on March 29, 2016 their recommendation that a moratorium on the
use of the death penalty be put in place in Malaysia.
Madpet is of the opinion that this positive development should not be kept
secret, but should have long been proudly announced by the Malaysian
government. In fact, Nancy Shukri, the de facto Law Minister, should have
proudly announced Malaysia???s moratorium on executions when she took the stage
at the 6th World Congress Against Death Penalty in Malaysia.
At the said congress in Oslo, Norway on June 21, 2016, the Minister in the
Prime Minister's Department did state that Malaysia will soon be amending the
laws to do away with the mandatory death penalty. Although, no time frame was
mentioned, Madpet and others have called that these long overdue amendments be
tabled at the upcoming sitting of Parliament in October 2016.
In November 2015, the same minister has said that the amendments would be
tabled in the March 2016 sitting of Parliament.
Madpet urges Malaysia to extend the moratorium on executions to all persons on
death row, not just those convicted for drug trafficking. This only makes
sense, since Malaysia is now in the process of abolishing the death penalty,
beginning with the mandatory death penalty.
In May 2016, Malaysia disclosed that there are 1,041 persons on death row.
Based on the statistics revealed in 2011, when the number on death row was 696
(as Feb 22, 2011), 479 (69 %) were for drug trafficking, 204 (29 %) were for
murder and 13 (2 %) for illegal processions of arms. It looks like almost all
that may be on death row are for mandatory death penalty offences.
There are at least 10 offences in Malaysian laws that carry the mandatory death
penalty, whereby only 3 are for offences that result in the death of the victim
- murder [Section 302 Penal Code], committing terrorist acts where the act
results in death [Section 130C (1)(a) Penal Code]; and hostage taking where the
act results in death [Section 374(a) Penal Code].
For all the other mandatory death penalty offences, death does not result,
namely Drug Trafficking (Section 39B Dangerous Drugs Act 1952) and 6 types of
offence listed in the Schedule of the Firearms (Increased Penalties) Act 1971,
which includes robbery, kidnapping, extortion and house trespass.
The existence of the mandatory death penalty for offences that do not result in
death, as in the Firearms (Increased Penalties) Act 1971, only unnecessarily
increase the risk of victims and/or witnesses to these crimes being killed by
perpetrators to avoid the mandatory death penalty.
Global trend is towards abolition
Malaysia's moratorium on execution will be most welcome by everyone including
the international community, as it will be seen to be in compliance with the
now 5 existing United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolutions, the 1st in
2007 and the last being in 2014, that urged 'a moratorium on executions with a
view to abolishing the death penalty'.
Every time, these UNGA Resolutions have been tabled, the number of countries
that have voted in favour have been increasing, demonstrating that the global
trend is towards abolition.
Malaysia has every reason to be proud of the fact that they have been
considering abolition, have in fact carried out serious studies which have now
been concluded, and will be soon be taking the 1st step by abolishing the
mandatory death penalty. Attorney-general Apandi Ali, also the public
prosecutor, is also for the scraping of the mandatory death penalty, and he was
reported saying in 2015, that the "...mandatory death sentences were a
'paradox', as it robbed judges of their discretion to impose sentences on
convicted criminals..."
Madpet also urges Edmund Bon to emulate his predecessor, Muhammad Shafee
Abdullah, in publicly declaring his personal position for the abolition of the
death penalty. AICHR representatives should also at the very least take a stand
for the abolition of the death penalty in Asean, as had been done by Suhakam.
Madpet urges Malaysia to immediately extend the moratorium on executions to
all, not just only for those convicted for drug trafficking.
Madpet urges that Malaysia tables in the upcoming sitting of the Malaysian
Parliament in October 2016, amendments and/or legislations that will see the
abolition of the mandatory death penalty; and
Madpet urges Malaysia to abolish the death penalty.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Hector is coordinator for Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture
(Madpet).
(source: malaysiakini.com)
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