Jan. 25
LEBANON:
Military Tribunal issues death penalty over soldiers deaths
The Military Tribunal Wednesday issued the death penalty for 2 men found guilty
of involvement in the beheading of 2 Lebanese soldiers.
Bilal Mikati was given the death penalty for the execution of soldier Sgt. Ali
al-Sayyed on Aug. 28, 2014, and for involvement in executing soldier Pvt. Abbas
Medlej on Sept. 6, 2014.
The Tribunal, headed by Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdullah, also sentenced Mikati's
cousin, Omar Mikati, to death after finding him guilty of involvement in
Medlej's beheading as well as mutilating Sayyed's body.
They 2 soldiers were killed by Daesh (ISIS) after being taken hostage when the
militants and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham - previously known as the Nusra Front -
briefly overran the northeastern town of Arsal.
Bilal al-Atar was also sentenced to death for belonging to Ahmad Mikati's
militant group and planning to establish a so-called "wilayah" or province of
Daesh's self-proclaimed caliphate.
Among the verdicts issued, the Military Tribunal sentenced Ahmad Kasha to 7
years in prison for belonging to terrorist groups and attacking Army posts on
Aug.2, 2014.
Abdullah al-Jghabeer was acquitted of the charges of kidnapping Army soldiers.
They are among the 23 suspect handed verdicts, the Military Tribunal sentenced
some to life while others were acquitted.
Although the death penalty is still part of the Lebanese penal code, no death
sentences have been carried out since 2003. Most often the sentence translates
to life in prison.
(source: The Daily Star)
MALAYSIA:
Lorry driver to hang for trafficking over 45kg of drugs
A lorry driver was sent to the gallows by the High Court here today after being
found guilty of counts of trafficking over 45 kg of drugs, 2 years ago.
Judicial Commissioner Datuk Mohamad Shariff Abu Samah meted out the sentence
against S. Gopi Kumar, 33, after finding that the prosecution had succeeded in
raising reasonable doubt at the end of the defence's case.
Mohamad Shariff said the court found that the accused had control, possession
and knowledge of the drugs found in his Proton Perdana car and at his rented
house, which he moved into in 2015.
"I do not believe the excuses given by the accused that he did not know about
the drugs found in the car and at the house on grounds that they (car and
house) were accessible to the public," he said.
Gopi Kumar committed the offence in his car at Jalan 10/18A, Taman Mastiara,
Batu 5, Jalan Ipoh, Sentul here at 12.45am on June 22, 2016, and at his home on
Jalan 15/18A in the same area at 1.45am on the same date.
For that, he was charged under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952,
which carries a mandatory death penalty upon conviction.
The court also sentenced the man to four years' jail and five strokes of the
cane for another charge of being in possession of 16.2 gm of methamphetamine in
the same house at the same time and date.
He was ordered to serve the jail sentence from the date of his arrest on June
22, 2016.
A total of 11 prosecution witnesses and 1 defence witness - the accused
himself, were called to testify in the trial which began on June 14, 2017.
DPP Ahmad Nazneed Zulkifli prosecuted, while Gopi Kumar was represented by
counsel New Sin Yew.
(source: The Sun Daily)
SINGAPORE:
Singapore Announces Medical Cannabis Research, Despite Maintaining Death
Penalty for Cannabis Trafficking
A Singaporean government body has announced its upcoming research into
synthetic cannabinoids for medical purposes, a curious step in a country that
continues to impose the death penalty for certain cannabis offences.
In early January, the National Research Foundation (NRF) - a government body -
announced that it would be investing $25 million SGD (13.4m pounds) into a
Synthetic Biology Research and Development Programme. One of the programme's 4
projects is entitled Synthetic Cannabinoid Biology: Repurposing Nature for
Tomorrow's Therapeutics. The NRF hopes that this project will allow the future
delivery of "life-saving therapeutics derived from the cannabis plant in a
sustainable manner".
The NRF accepts that cannabinoids, the chemical compounds found in the cannabis
plant, can be used to treat a variety of ailments. However, as the cannabis
plant is illegal in Singapore for any purpose, the NRF has commissioned this
project with the intention of harnessing the medical potential that
cannabinoids offer without the government having to change its drug
legislation. By studying the molecular structure of cannabinoids, the project
aims to "discover cannabinoid genes for the sustainable production of
[synthetic] medicinal cannabinoids and their derivatives".
Cannabinoids can be used to alleviate chronic pain, spasticity, and several
other ailments or symptoms. Medical cannabis is legally prescribed and consumed
in several countries, including Canada, the Netherlands, and the Czech
Republic.
This development may come as a surprise to some, as Singapore currently has
some of the most repressive drug laws in the world, standing in stark contrast
with its apparent new-found appreciation for the benefits of medical
cannabinoids. Under Section 17 of the Misuse of Drugs Act (1973), anyone found
in possession of over 15 grams of cannabis will be presumed to be trafficking -
which is punishable by a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years in prison and 5
strokes of the cane. Someone found possessing over 500 grams of cannabis will
face a mandatory death penalty by hanging in the country's notorious Changi
Prison.
As TalkingDrugs has reported, the most recent execution for a cannabis offence
in Singapore took place in November 2016, when 31 year-old chemistry graduate
and aspiring football player Chijioke Stephen Obioha was hanged for possessing
a quantity of the drug that surpassed the threshold, triggering the automatic
death penalty. The state also executes people for the possession of relatively
small quantities of other drugs. In July 2017, Prabagaran Srivijayan was
executed in Changi Prison after 22 grams of heroin was found in the armrest of
a car that he had borrowed. These executions are illegal under international
law, according to the UN, as the offences do not meet the criteria of being the
"most serious crimes".
As NRF researchers embark upon their studies into the production of synthetic
cannabinoids, it appears that the Singaporean government is attempting to
harness the medical benefits of cannabis while maintaining harsh punishments
against anyone who attempts to use the drug in its natural form. In a bizarrely
contradictory stance, Singapore claims that properties of cannabis can be
"life-saving", yet the state can still take someone's life for carrying
cannabis.
(source: talking drugs.org)
PHILIPPINES/INDONESIA:
Injustice in Court of Appeals: Failing Mary Jane Veloso----Philippine legal
procedure is horribly ill-equipped for 21st century transnational issues like
human trafficking and modern slavery, the drug trade, terrorism, regional
environmental degradation, money laundering, and the legal needs of the
Filipino diaspora, all of which cross state borders
The new year greeted the Philippine legal community with 2 controversial Court
of Appeals decisions, in the cases of the Indonesian drug arrest and pending
execution Mary Jane Veloso, and the murder of Doc Gerry Ortega.
Both these decisions ironically revolve around the important concept of due
process, the legal virtue all but happily ignored when it came to the
casualties of the present drug war. Yet the controversy we tackle now showcases
the other unjust extreme: a myopic view that, just as happily, favors
technicality over the substantive ends of the judicial process, lip service
convenience over the obligations of professional thoroughness.
In both the drug war deaths and these decisions lie the same inequity: truth
shackled in silence. In this article, we tackle the CA's permanent injunction
of Veloso's deposition, having overturned the trial court's own decision to
proceed with it.
An important note: none of this is meant to prejudge the pending case against
the accused, or the merits of Veloso's accusations being the core of her
defense in her Indonesian trial. Our obligations under law are always with the
rights of all parties concerned, with attention to the vulnerable and needy -
but our emphasis is that those rights are best served by the thoroughness of
due process afforded to all parties, to arrive at the truth. A process stymied
by the transnational nature of Veloso's case, and the CA's decision.
There is an undeniably cruel aspect to the Appellate's injunction - we do not
say this with malice towards the division involved, but such is the necessary
consequence of their decision. Veloso (there is no delicate way to put this)
has been dangling on the end of death row since Indonesian President Joko
Widodo stayed her execution for drug running in April 2015.
That stay is dependent on the outcome of the human trafficking case filed
against the alleged perpetrators of her fate: Ma. Kristina Sergio and Julius
Calanilao. In that case, Veloso is the primary witness, wherein her intent is
to explain how she ended up in Indonesia without knowledge of the drugs
discovered in her luggage.
And there lies the rub.
To briefly recap, what the CA denied is the motion to depose her in Indonesia.
In every trial, witnesses are bound to testify in open court. Yet there are
instances where a witness is unable to testify when he or she is called to do
so, by reasons of death, distance, sickness, cannot be subpoenaed, or under
similar exceptional circumstances.
This is where depositions come in, a mode of discovery by which the testimony
of a witness may be taken "upon oral examination or written interrogatories"
(Rule 23 Sec. 1, Rules of Court), written down, and presented to the court in
substitution. The deposition, in effect, "becomes the witness", to quote a
writing on the subject. Veloso's camp pushed for deposition as, by reason of
her arrest and conviction in Indonesia, she obviously cannot stand in or be
subpoenaed into local jurisdiction for her complaint against Sergio and
Calanilao. The trial Judge Anarica Castillo-Reyes granted the motion, and even
volunteered to fly to Indonesia to observe Veloso's deposition. And it was this
which the CA blocked.
Cruel the CA's decision may be, its legal foundation however is a sacrosanct
due process right of every person charged of a crime: the right to confront his
accusers and witnesses, and cross-examine them. Moreover, Philippine case law
emphasizes the importance of live testimony by a testifying witness, so that
the trial judge can observe their deportment and conduct during direct and
cross-examination in order to establish his credibility (in fact, this is the
motive behind Judge Castillo-Reyes' proposal to travel to Indonesia).
In the injunction, emphasis was made on the Supreme Court's ruling in Manguerra
v. Risos which ruled out using depositions in criminal trials. What was
allowable was Rule 119, conditional examination, requiring that the examination
be done "before the court where the case is pending." Yet Indonesia not being
Philippine jurisdiction (especifically Regional Trial Court Branch 88), any
examination done in Indonesia will likely not satisfy Rule 119, either. Ipso
facto: there was no way under the rules for Veloso's testimony to be admitted.
And since her testimony as the offended private party is the evidence-in-chief
of the prosecution...Nothing stops a case faster than a complainant unable to
raise a complaint (again, sadly familiar in Philippine history).
We obviously carry no opposition to protecting the confrontation right: it is a
pillar of the accused's Constitutional due process rights. This is carried over
from the American legal tradition, which has held that a person shall not be
convicted by reason of ex parte testimony: statements made by his accusers to
which he had no opportunity to respond, rebut, or refute directly.
One of the virtues of the adversarial process is that, when done properly, one
will most likely weed out the cow manure in either parties' case, in order to
arrive as close as possible to the truth. Which is why Rule 119 makes sense, as
emphasized by Manguerra: "this requirement ensures that the judge would be able
to observe the witness deportment to enable him to properly assess his
credibility."
Yet Veloso's case reveals a glaring inadequacy in Manguerra, showing how it -
and Philippine legal procedure - is horribly ill-equipped for 21st century
transnational issues like human trafficking and modern slavery, the drug trade,
terrorism, regional environmental degradation, money laundering, and the legal
needs of the Filipino diaspora, all of which cross state borders.
Upon her testimony lies the potential to discover the truth behind the drugs
found in her luggage, and thus the merits of her Indonesian conviction. It is a
merit that Indonesian courts obviously cannot pass completely upon, depending
on action in the Philippines to resolve the questions she raised. Yet that same
border is also the reason why Philippine courts cannot answer those questions
either, if her testimony cannot be heard per our Rules.
How terribly inconvenient. So many of our fellow Filipinos find themselves in
similar straits. Filipino law students should be familiar with Saudia v. Court
of Appeals, where a Filipina flight attendant working for Saudia Airlines
accused fellow cabin crew members of attempted rape in Jakarta. She instead was
charged with adultery before Saudi courts (later dismissed as a wrongful suit
by royal intervention) and fired as a consequence.
The Supreme Court found her subsequent suit for compensation against Saudia in
Philippine courts proper, given the circumstances. Not every Filipino who finds
himself or herself in dire straits abroad finds the same happy ending, however,
especially when the death penalty becomes involved, or the poverty that drove
him or her to greener pastures is exploited here and abroad to enslave - and
keep from rescue and redress from home.
And on Philippine courts lie the hopes of these Filipinos to reveal the truth
behind their fate - except for that terrible inconvenience of borders. Indeed,
the confrontation right must be upheld (the past couple of years should bear
out its wisdom!). But the effect is to deny the due process right of the
aggrieved party to seek legal redress, through no fault or malice of said
party, only because of that terrible convenience.
Due process cuts both ways, says Dimatulac v. Villon: "Indeed, for justice to
prevail, the scales must balance; justice is not to be dispensed for the
accused alone. The interests of society and the offended parties which have
been wronged must be equally considered." One's due process cannot be advanced
at the expense of another, except in the case of genuine doubt as to
application of law or finding of fact (and certainly not due to technicalities
alone). And as with the drug war deaths, and so many other cases, ignoring
anyone's due process is injustice, period. Even if the CA technically had legal
basis to do so. Even if it was not the intent of Manguerra to do so.
Yet in looking at this inadequacy, we can point to ways by which the Supreme
Court can allow Veloso to testify while respecting the confrontation right.
Such requires the High Court's intervention, either to overturn/provide an
exception to Manguerra, or to provide new legal procedure to address the gap.
It pays to look back at the evolution of American legal process to the present
day, to see parallels which can inform our own dilemmas. The present
controlling doctrine there is Crawford v. Washington, penned by the late
Justice Antonin Scalia, noted (even notorious) for hewing quite closely to the
historical foundations of the US Constitution and legal concepts.
Prior to Crawford, out of court testimony could still be used in trial, despite
the lack of cross-examination, under one of the exceptions to the hearsay
doctrine, or if it bears an adequate "indicia of reliability", under the Ohio
v. Roberts case. With Crawford, accusatory testimony now required
cross-examination, otherwise it ought to be excluded as hearsay and/or for
violating the accused's confrontation right.
Yet even Crawford admits a long-standing exception to the confrontation right:
"forfeiture by wrongdoing." Per the US Federal Rules of Evidence 804(b)(6)
which codified it, "[a] statement offered against a party that has engaged or
acquiesced in wrongdoing that was intended to, and did, procure the
unavailability of the declarant as a witness" can be admitted as an exception
to the hearsay rule.
The later case of Giles v. California, Scalia once again divined case history
to opine that an accused strictly should more or less have had the deliberate
design of preventing the testimony against him for the exception to apply.
Justice Stephen Breyer strongly dissented with such an approach, noting that
the Scalian ratio decidendi of strictness was "built on what is at most
common-law silence on the subject."
Obviously here is not America; their cases do not bind Philippine cases, but
they are traditionally held to be very persuasive given our legal antecedents.
And neither is it our purpose here to hash through the debates surrounding
Giles. But looking at Crawford and Giles is useful because forfeiture by
wrongdoing is not a recognized hearsay exception under our Rules of Court,
whose strict adherence Manguerra mandated.
Neither does Manguerra allow for forfeiture, either - though it was not really
at issue in that case (to paraphrase Breyer, it is silent on the subject). Yet
even Veloso's case would have confounded the Giles court. Veloso's accusation
is the very reason why she is prevented from appearing in a Philippine court.
But the question required by the Giles ruling is, did Sergio and Calanilao act
with a specific design to prevent Veloso from testifying against them by
deploying her to Indonesia and thus to her arrest? (As this cuts into the heart
of the case against the accused, resolving it might have the effect of
prejudging the case just to resolve the admissability of Veloso's testimony!)
On the less Scalia-strict approach implied by Breyer, if evidence would show
even just Sergio's and Calanilao's principal involvement in Veloso's deployment
to Indonesia (regardless of whether it would constitute human trafficking, so
as not to prejudge the case), but knowing it would put her beyond Philippine
jurisdiction, would it count as forfeiture of the confrontation right by
wrongdoing?
To be fair, neither of us are suggesting adopting the whole forfeiture hog into
the Philippine Rules of Court, the danger of conviction by way of denying due
process rights to the accused being all too real in this country's past. That
much is and should be entitled to Sergio and Calanilao. Yet as we had earlier
noted, jurisdictional borders have a way of wrecking the legal process in
crimes of a transnational nature. And the Philippines sits in the perfect storm
for it, given the Filipino diaspora, illegal recruitment, weaknesses of local
institutions, and the never-ending search for labor to abuse.
We make no light statement saying "abuse". We recently read that, as a result
of Filipinos and Indonesians in Hong Kong increasingly pushing for their labor
rights, some unscrupulous employers there have begun mining alternative labor
pools.
Our OFWs deserve more success stories of faithful employers for faithful
service, of bonds professional and personal forged between Filipino labor and
foreign employment, between their countries and ours. They certainly do not
deserve the borders they cross, and the technicalities surrounding them,
getting in the way of legal redress and the search for truth, whether in their
adopted residence or their own homeland.
And that is the essential end of due process, a theme we will revisit in the
succeeding article on the Ortega case, another controversial CA decision:
truth-telling. This is why Dimatulac says the scales must balance. For in the
quasi-adversarial proceeding among accuser, accused, and judge that forms the
sacrosanct trinity of Philippine criminal procedure, lies the hope for truth
(or as damn close as we can get).
The final and just resolution of the questions Veloso raised, in her defense
against the death penalty in Indonesia and in accusation against Sergio and
Calanilao, depends on the process in "due process" pushing through. And the
American doctrine of forfeiture by wrongdoing, even if we do not call for its
wholesale adoption, should nonetheless open the door for the Philippine Supreme
Court to consider flexible application of the Rules of Court to address the
Manguerra gap, the insufficiency of Scalian strictness, and ultimately the
inadequacy of the Rules in a transnational legal world and a global
Philippines, and somehow allow Veloso's testimony to be admitted into
consideration. After all, it is enshrined in Philippine case law that rules of
procedure are meant to serve the ends of substantive justice, such that a
liberal interpretation may be allowed in order to do so.
Here, we may humbly offer a few alternatives, as all the ingredients are
already present. Given the exceptional nature of Veloso's predicament, a
finding by preponderant evidence (the standard required under American case
law) that the accused had a principal hand in her deployment to Indonesia ought
to give consideration to applying Rule 23 instead of Rule 119, in light of a
modified (and Breyer-centric) application of the forfeiture doctrine, except
with the added security of Judge Castillo-Reyes attending the deposition to
provide the personal observation of deportment required by Manguerra, as she
originally intended.
Alternatively, given that the Filipino diaspora regularly communicates with
loved ones back home through Skype, with the assistance of responsible
Indonesian authorities and the Philippine consulate, what is to say that the
hearings where Veloso is to testify and be cross-examined be conducted through
internet communications technology?
Certainly, this could be intended by Rule 10(1) of the Rules on Electronic
Evidence, permitting testimony presented by electronic means, as observed by a
2006 American Bar Association assessment of Philippine evidence rules - it went
as far as to note that it was "more expansive than practice in the United
States." To a Manguerra-based objection requiring live, in-court testimony or
conditional examination, again the forfeiture doctrine can be raised for
flexibility or a reconsideration.
Both options will require the cooperation of Indonesian jurisdiction, but this
is well within the province of the Supreme Court to request of a fellow foreign
High Court, as are the foreign ministries involved. After all, our countries
are fellow ASEAN members, and there is interjudiciary cooperation through the
ASEAN Chief Justices' Meeting, and legal cooperation through the ASEAN Law
Association. And again, given the need for interstate cooperation not just in
Veloso's case, but in transnational concerns, the Supreme Court could not do
worse now, given how it is beset with internal distractions, than to go out and
see the world, and work with it, for justice here and abroad.
Let's bend forward, not backward, to help Mary Jane Veloso. We can do that
without violating due process and the rights of the accused.
To reiterate, the Filipino diaspora deserves no less.
(source: Christian Laluna is a graduate of the Ateneo School of
Law----rappler.com)
BANGLADESH:
Zubair's family to appeal against the verdict
The family Jahangirnagar University student Zubair Ahmed, who was killed in
2012, will file an appeal against the High Court that confirmed the death
penalty for 5 activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League.
Zubair's elder brother Abdullah Al Mamun confirmed the matter to the Dhaka
Tribune on Wednesday.
Earlier on Wednesday, the High Court confirmed the death penalty for five
Chhatra League activists.
The court also upheld the life sentence for two accused and acquitted four
others, who were initially sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court some
3 years ago.
While talking to the Dhaka Tribune after the verdict, He said: "We are not
happy with the verdict.
"4 people have been acquitted. We will appeal against it."
The death-row convicts are Khandaker Ashiqul Islam alias Ashik, Jahid Hasan and
Khan Mohammad Rois alias Sohan of zoology at the same university, Rashidul
Islam Raju of philosophy, and Mahbub Akram of government and politics. All of
them except for Raju are on the run.
On January 8, 2012, Zubair, an honours final year student of English at JU, was
stabbed to death by members of an opposing faction of the ruling Awami League's
student front over their previous animosity and political rage.
On February 23, 2014, Ashik, Sohan, Akram and Ishtiaq Mehbub Arup, who was,
too, sentenced to life imprisonment by the lower court, escaped from the
courtroom soon after it had rejected their bail pleas and sent them to jail.
Sources said most of the fugitive convicts had fled to Malaysia and are active
on different social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram.
(source: Dhaka Tribune)
INDIA:
Convict hurls bricks, grabs police rifle after getting death penalty
A man, who was sentenced to death for raping and murdering a minor girl, threw
bricks at journalists and lawyers and snatched a rifle from a policeman as he
came out of the District and Sessions court premises on Wednesday morning.
Salim (35) picked up some bricks lying on the ground while walking out of the
court premises and hurled them at journalists and lawyers.
He then grabbed a rifle from a policeman's hand. The police then wrested the
firearm back from him and took him away in an autorickshaw.
Salim was convicted and sentenced to death for raping and murdering a
nine-year-old girl. The police said Salim raped the girl on August 15, 2012, at
Janata Colony, Tavarekere, on the outskirts of Bengaluru.
Salim, a resident of Goriplaya in Bengaluru, had visited his sister in
Tavarekere on that day. He had raped the girl at his sister's house when no one
was at home and later killed her there. The Tavarekere police had registered
the case and arrested him.
The judge sentenced him to 10 years in jail and Rs 50,000 fine for the rape and
death sentence for the murder.
(source: deccanherald.com)
**************
Centre on the Death Penalty, NLU Delhi report: 371 prisoners on death row as of
2017
There are 371 death row convicts in India as on December 31, 2017. The
statistics were released by the Centre on the Death Penalty, National Law
University Delhi.
The total number of persons sentenced to death by Sessions Courts came down
from 149 in 2016 to 109 in 2017.
As far as High Courts are concerned, death penalty cases of 99 persons were
decided in 2017. Out of the 99, High Courts commuted the death sentences of 53
persons and acquitted the accused in 35 cases. The death sentences of 11
convicts were confirmed.
Interestingly, the Supreme Court heard death penalty cases of 7 convicts and
confirmed all of them. Out of the 7 confirmations, one was a criminal appeal
with 4 prisoners and 2 were review petitions with 3 prisoners. The apex court
did not commute or acquit any prisoners in 2017.
This marks a departure from the trend witnessed in 2016, when the Supreme Court
did not confirm a single criminal appeal in death penalty cases that came
before it. In 2015, the Supreme Court had considered the death sentences of
nine prisoners and confirmed 8.
A state-wise analysis of persons sentenced to death in 2017 reveals that
Maharashtra leads the pack with 23. Close behind is Uttar Pradesh with 19,
followed by Tamil Nadu with 13.
Another interesting piece of information is with respect to the number of
persons sentenced to death for murder involving sexual violence. It has gone up
from 24 in 2016 to 43 in 2017.
The President of India disposed of 9 mercy petitions in 2017. 5 out of the 9
disposed petitions were rejected and the other 4 were commuted. In comparison,
in 2016, only 2 prisoner's sentence was commuted by the President, whereas
mercy petitions of 5 prisoners were rejected.
(source: barandbench.com)
PAKISTAN----executions
2 condemned prisoners executed in Haripur jail
2 condemned prisoners were executed at Haripur Central Jail amid tight security
in the wee hours on Tuesday, prison officials said.
One of the prisoners, Amanullah, was convicted of killing a woman lawyer and
social activist, Naseema Bibi, on the premises of Dera Ismail Khan district
courts. The other condemned prisoner, Jan Bahadur, had killed a person in Oct
1993 in Mardan district.
After exhausting all the forums of appeals the 2 convicts were allowed final
meetings with their families on Sunday and Monday.
The bodies were later handed over to their families after completion of the due
process.
On April 23, 2008, an additional district and sessions judge had convicted
Amanullah in Peshawar. The Peshawar High Court and the Supreme Court had
rejected his appeals against death penalty on May 4, 2010 and Nov 10, 2010,
respectively.
Subsequently, his mercy petition was also rejected by the president of
Pakistan.
Amanullah was taken into custody shortly after the murder. He later confessed
to the crime in front of the trial court.
The convict had insisted the deceased was his wife but she was reluctant to
declare that publicly and therefore, he killed her.
However, the claim was refuted by the deceased during her lifetime.
She had alleged that Amanullah was a blackmailer, who had been trying to grab
her property.
The deceased had also filed cases of forgery and fraud against him in local
courts besides challenging her 'fake' nikahnama which, she claimed, was
prepared by Amanullah.
The Dera bar association had decided that none of its members would represent
the suspect in the courts.
For the reason, the trial of the case was shifted to Peshawar on the high
court's orders.
The 2nd convict Jan Bahadur was arrested in connection with a murder case
registered at Takhtbhai police station, Mardan, on Oct 22, 1993.
He was sentenced to death by an additional district and sessions judge on April
7, 2000, at Takhtbhai. The judgment was upheld by the high court On March 12,
2002, and subsequently, the Supreme Court also upheld the verdict. His review
and clemency petitions were also rejected.
He had also filed a writ petition in the Peshawar High Court recently
requesting that his death penalty may be carried out through a less painful
mode and not by hanging. A few days ago, the court had rejected his petition
observing that the petitioner should have moved the Federal Shariat Court and
not the high court.
(source: dawn.com)
IRAQ:
Facing death in Iraq, European jihadists won't get help from home----The
Islamic State group has claimed a number of attacks on European soil, leading
to little sympathy for foreign fighters facing the death penalty in Iraq and
Syria
European nations rarely miss a chance to slam the use of the death penalty by
others, but they have largely turned a deaf ear to pleas from citizens facing
execution in Iraq for fighting with the Islamic State group.
Several hundred foreigners, both men and women, are thought to have been
detained in Iraq since the counter-offensive that dislodged IS fighters from
the country's urban centres last year.
Diplomatic efforts to secure their return to Europe for trial have been
half-hearted at best, with few politicians eage r to be seen defending people
who joined the terror group behind the deaths of dozens on home soil in recent
years.
More often they reiterate that Iraq has the sovereign right to try and punish
people found guilty of killing its own citizens in an effort to create a modern
"caliphate".
The fate of European captives in Syria is even more complicated, since they
have often been seized by Kurds who do not have a formally recognised state of
their own.
Lawyers for French fighters in Syria, for example, have claimed they are being
held "arbitrarily" by non-state authorities -- an argument that has failed to
sway official stances so far.
Faced with overwhelmingly hostile public opinion, humanitarian appeals have
also made little traction, even when captives are being held with young
children born after they left for Iraq and Syria.
On Sunday, an Iraqi court condemned a German woman to death by hanging after
finding her guilty of belonging to IS, the first such sentence in a case
involving a European woman.
So far, the German government has said only that it is providing "consular
support" for four of its citizens held in Iraq, declining to provide details.
'No leniency'
In December, an Iraqi-Swedish man was hanged along with 37 others accused of
being IS or Al-Qaeda members, despite efforts by Sweden to have the prisoner
serve a life sentence instead.
"These jihadists have never had any qualms about what they're doing, and I
don't see why we should have any for them," French defence minister Florence
Parly said Monday.
Three French women captured after Iraqi forces retook the city of Mosul last
July are awaiting trial in Baghdad, sources close to their cases say, and risk
the death penalty as well.
2 of the women are being held along with their young children.
"When they are caught by local authorities, as far as possible they should be
tried by these local authorities," Parly added in a separate interview on
Sunday.
Britain has also ta ken a firm stance against repatriation, as has Belgium,
which denied a request by Tarik Jadaoun, a Belgium detained in Iraq, to be sent
home in exchange for cooperating with the authorities.
"I don't see how it's possible to negotiate with war criminals," Prime Minister
Charles Michel said in December, adding that "there can be no leniency."
Security experts generally discount the value of any intelligence offered by
former extremists, while warning that bringing back their children exposes
other risks.
Youths exposed to decapitations and other atrocities "could be time bombs,
given what they have seen," said Paris prosecutor Francois Molins, who has
overseen investigations into terror attacks on French soil.
Rule of law?
Iraq is among the countries which execute the most prisoners, along with China,
Iran and Saudi Arabia, according to Amnesty International.
Rights groups and lawyers have urged European governments to live up to their
ideals.
Lawyers for one of the French women held in Iraq point to France's intense
diplomatic campaign for Serge Atlaoui, who faces the death penalty in Indonesia
on drug trafficking charges.
"No matter how grave and horrific the acts, if a European citizen risks the
death penalty, we must demand that the state holding him guarantee it won't be
carried out, or transfer him to his country of origin for trial," said Patrick
Baudoin of the International Federation of Human Rights. "If we start allowing
exceptions to this principle, we're no longer applying the rule of law," he
said.
But a European diplomatic source said the principle was to let Iraqi courts
rule as they see fit.
"If there's a risk of capital punishment, we will intervene" via consular
services as is the case anywhere else, the source said.
(source: al-monitor.com)
DR CONGO:
Scores convicted in Congo's Beni massacre trial
A military tribunal investigating a wave of massacres in eastern Congo blamed
on Ugandan rebels has convicted 134 people, a senior army prosecutor and a
human rights group said on Wednesday.
More than 800 people were killed -- often hacked to death with machetes during
the night -- around the town of Beni, near Democratic Republic of Congo's
border with Uganda, between 2014 and 2016.
Congolese authorities say the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan
Islamist group active in the area, were behind the killings, but Congolese army
officers have also been accused of involvement.
Rebel and militia attacks are on the rise again in central and eastern Congo
and the latest violence coincides with a political crisis brought on by
President Joseph Kabila's decision to overstay his mandate, which expired in
December 2016.
Congolese troops are currently battling the ADF in the eastern border zones in
coordination with the Ugandan military.
General Timothee Mukutu, the Congolese army's First Advocate-General, said a
portion of the earlier massacres were committed by ADF fighters during supply
raids or in reprisal attacks.
"Others were carried out by proxy on the orders of certain local figures," he
said in an interview broadcast by U.N.-supported Radio Okapi. "We came to
understand that there were poorly managed land conflicts that could be an
explanation."
CEPADHO, a human rights group that observed the trials, said that of those
convicted - a mix of ADF rebels, militia fighters, civilians and local chiefs -
42 were sentenced to death, several of them in absentia.
Congo does not apply the death penalty and, in practice, those who receive it
serve prison sentences instead. Other defendants received lighter sentences and
45 were acquitted.
(source: Reuters)
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