October 16
SOUTH KOREA:
Letters from inmates on death row----An overview of why South Korea needs to
abolish capital punishment
Letters written on death row were given to the Hankyoreh by Lee Sang-hyeok, the
attorney who set up the Council for the Abolishment of Capital Punishment in
South Korea in 1989. For more than 2 decades, from Mar. 1994 until this past
July, Lee received 63 handwritten letters running for more than 200 pages that
record the fear of death, guilt for crimes committed and remorse for family
members left behind.
"Even the most heinous of criminals should be given a chance to sincerely
repent for their crimes and apologize to their victims," said Lee while showing
the letters. Lee's correspondence with Kim Jin-tae, 52, offers insight into the
life of inmates on death row.
Kim Jin-tae was a death-row inmate until his death sentence was commuted to
life behind bars by a special amnesty on the last day of 2002. During the
decade between 1993 and 2002, he wore a red name badge on his chest and spent
each day waiting for death. In 1992, Kim was arrested by the police on charges
of killing his father and abandoning his body, and he was sentenced to death
the following year. That happened when he was 27 years old.
When Kim's father drank, he habitually resorted to violence. After getting
married at the age of 18, Kim's mother endured this violence for nearly 30
years. On the day of the incident, his father had been drinking heavily, as
usual. His intoxicated father struck his mother in the head with a blunt
object, knocking her out. Seeing this drove Kim out of his mind. He shot his
father with a shotgun and dumped his body in the Han River.
Arrested on charges of patricide, Kim said that he meekly confessed his crime
to the police. This resulted in his incarceration and induction into death row
at the Seoul Detention Center, where he has been doing time for 26 years now.
Kim went behind bars in his 20s and is now in his 50s.
While on death row, Kim was referred to as a "maximum-sentence prisoner" rather
than a "death row prisoner." The meaning is the same, as the term means a
prisoner receiving the maximum sentence. The term "death row prisoner" is not
often used in prison. The words "death penalty" exacerbate the inmates' fear.
Referring to death row prisoners as "maximum prisoners" is normal practice in
prisons.
Every passing day a step closer to death
Of course, use of the term "maximum-sentence prisoner" does not make the death
penalty any less of a reality. While in prison, death row prisoners are
constantly close to death. Every day could be their last. While most prisoners
hope for the days to go by quickly, death row prisoners see each passing day as
one step closer to death.
"We death row prisoners can't really be said to be serving sentences. I suppose
it's like getting bonus life," Kim wrote on Mar. 17, 1997. "You could say that
while people serving time get closer to their release as time passes, for us it
means the day of our death is drawing nearer. It's been 6 years since I was put
on death row. I came in as a 27-year-old, and now I'm 32."
Since every day is a "bonus," it is not considered strange that execution day
eventually will arrive. This does not erase the fear of death, however. The
life of a death row prisoner is one of constant uncertainty. Prisoners start at
even the smallest noises. Every guard's footstep, every prisoner number that is
called is a nerve-racking moment that could signal their ushering to the
execution chamber.
That sense of day-to-day anxiety for prisoners was apparent in a 2009 piece Kim
wrote from prison about his experience on death row. Its title was "Waiting in
a Cold Prison Cell for the Death Penalty System to Kill Itself."
"The shoes of the approaching prison guard echoing as he strode through the
corridor were like the ticking of a time bomb, the sound of the angel of death
drawing near. When they finally called out a prisoner's number for a visit,
chapel, or trip to the infirmary, cold sweat would stream down my spine and my
heart would drop through my stomach. I would confront this fear of death
several times a day.” (Dec. 3, 2009)
Kim could still vividly remember one moment when he seemed to be staring death
in the face. It happened on Dec. 30, 1997, during his 6th year of imprisonment.
That morning, he woke up earlier than he ever had before. "Human beings are
spiritual animals, and I just had a sense," he explained on why that morning in
particular seemed so chilling to him.
From the moment his eyes opened, Kim felt that this was to be the day. He took
a cold shower early in the morning. With his head now cleared, he wrote a final
message and silently prayed. After some time of praying and waiting, a guard
called out his prisoner number.
"4088, Kim Jin-tae. Visit."
Thinking his time had finally come, Kim said a final goodbye to the "brothers"
sharing his cell and stepped outside, a Bible in his hands. He also said a last
farewell to the people he saw as he walked down the corridor. But the place the
guard escorted him to was the visitors' room, not the execution chamber.
Standing there was Rev. Moon Jang-sik, the Seoul Detention Center's head pastor
at the time. Seeing Moon’s bloodshot eyes, Kim vaguely sensed that someone
else's execution had been carried out, not his. On that day, the Kim Young-sam
administration carried out death sentences against 23 death row prisoners,
including 6 members of the "Chijon family" gang, who kidnapped and cruelly
murdered 5 innocent people. It was the last day executions were carried out in
South Korea. One of the people who died that day was a fellow "maximum
prisoner" Kim had been close with. He too had been baptized as a Christian. The
fellow prisoner had his organs and body donated when he was executed.
Death row prisoners often pledge to donate organs
Many death row prisoners make pledges to donate their organs before their final
day arrives. While it may have been a crime that brought them to prison, they
feel they should save other people's lives when their time comes. Kim was one
of them. In 1995, 2 years after his death sentence was finally confirmed, he
signed a pledge to donate his organs and allow the use of his body for medical
science experimentation. He reached the conclusion after pondering ways to
ensure his death was "not in vain."
He asked for his organs to be donated to those in need, his body to be
dissected in a medical school, and the remains to be cremated and spread on his
father's grave.
"Please donate my organs and bodies as needed and cremate the rest so that I
can at least fertilize the ground on the grave of the feather who died because
of me. I hope that what can be used is put to use and the rest can serve as
fertilizer on my father's grave as some small form of atonement to my departed
father and my remaining family as a depraved person who killed the father who
gave birth to me because he had become a servant of evil satanic demons and
beaten and abused by mother," he wrote on Mar. 27, 1995.
The organ donation was meant as a small gesture of atonement to Kim's father.
Donations have already become a customary way of expiation for Kim. Every year,
he donates 1 million won (US$890) from his custody holdings to relief groups
for underfed children and other causes. He also uses some of the money to buy
needed items for prisoners without family. "I feel so happy and grateful to be
able to help others from here," he wrote on Aug. 25, 2000.
Inmates performing penitence and turning to religion in prison
Death row prisoners often perform penitence for their crimes in prison. Many
turn to religion while behind bars, or awaken to the brutality of their crimes
on the outside during conversations with correctional commission members and
volunteers.
One example is Seo Chae-taek, who received a final death sentence in 1987 on
charges of homicide during a robbery. Seo became a Buddhist while in prison and
sincerely repented his acts. The wife of the man whose life Seo had taken
submitted a petition asking that his death sentence be commuted to life in
prison. But in 1994, he was put to death. In his final message, he wrote, "I am
sorry to [the victim's] family. I hope I will be the last, and there will be no
other executions." Seo too donated his body to science.
Death-row prisoners who choose suicide before execution
Living in daily fear of death, some death row prisoners opt to take their own
lives. In 2015, a prisoner surnamed Lee sentenced to death for killing 5
relatives was found hanging in his Seoul Detention Center; he died of related
injuries 2 days later.
Another death row prisoner surnamed Jeong hanged himself in 2009 in a solitary
confinement cell at Seoul Detention Center. No note was found, evidence
suggests Jeong was fearful of his execution. A notebook he kept included a
message that read, "They say there are no plans to abolish the death penalty
right now. Recently, the death penalty has been issued once again. [. . ]. Life
is like a cloud, coming and going all too soon." The Ministry of Justice
speculated Jeong may have taken his own life out of fears stemming from public
calls for enforcing the death penalty in the wake of the Cho Doo-soon assault
case.
After hearing the news, Kim sent a letter to his attorney saying, "I can
understand how he feels in some sense, having lived in fear of the execution
that might come at any time during 10 years as a death row prisoner."
"Many of the prisoners who heard about it said something like, 'Good for him
choosing to end his own life cleanly instead of living in fear of death every
day,'" he added.
"If it weren't for religion, something might have happened to me too," he
wrote.
"I've met with 70 to 80 death row prisoners over the years, and most of them
have shown some potential for rehabilitation," said attorney Lee Sang-hyeok,
who has devoted more than 3 decades to fighting for abolition of the death
penalty.
"In some cases, prisoners turn over a new leaf and sincerely ask for and
receive forgiveness from the victim's family," he added.
A model prisoner, Kim had his death sentence commuted to life in prison in
2002. At times, he seemed to have given up on life during period on death row.
"I'm astonished at my bizarre attachment [to life] when I think about the crime
I've committed," he wrote on Mar. 8, 1994. "I'll live an eternal life after
death."
But after his sentence was commuted in 2002, he vowed to live life to the
fullest. "After 10 years of waiting for execution day with a red prisoner
number on my chest, I have been granted life by the grace of God," he said.
Possessing 8 certificates that he earned in prison - as an auto mechanic,
boiler technician, and hot-water heating technician - he is committed to a new
life in the off chance he ever returns to society.
"There's something I used to imagine every time I crawled in my sleeping bag to
escape the cold that seemed to scrape into my flesh - that this prison was a
repository for human garbage, that I was garbage inside a trash bag. But while
some garbage is completely unsalvageable and gets buried or incinerated, other
garbage can be melted down and recycled," he wrote on Apr. 21, 2006.
"Sometimes I promise myself that I will be recycled, melting my ugly and foul
past crime away in the furnace and becoming usable again, if a little worse for
wear."
Dreaming of the day when the death penalty is abolished
In addition to his return to society, Kim also dreams of the day the death
penalty is abolished. Though he is no longer technically a death row prisoner,
he sees himself as "eternally a death row prisoner" in spirit, and he hopes to
see the system abolished so other prisoners are given the opportunity for
remorse for their deed and atonement to the victims. His hopes for the death
penalty's abolition were apparent throughout his letters.
"It was very welcome and inspiring news to hear that the Ministry of Justice is
re-examining the death penalty law. It was tremendously gratifying to think all
of your efforts over the years are beginning to bear fruit, and I sincerely
hope for and cautiously look forward to nothing unfortunate happening before it
is fully achieved," he wrote on Apr. 1, 2006.
"People like us who have been sentenced cannot speak for ourselves. We can only
await the disposition of the public and government," he added later in the same
letter.
Kim, who said he collects newspaper articles on the death penalty, also voiced
his hopes for the system's abolition in a letter from this year.
"I saw an article in the paper a few days ago saying the President was pushing
for a moratorium on executions within the year, and I thought my wish and
prayer was finally coming true," he wrote on July 3.
Inmates fear life in prison over death; the importance of redemption
Attorney Lee Sang-hyeok, who has been exchanging letters with death row
prisoners for decades, said, "What the death row prisoners really are afraid of
is not actually execution, but a life sentence."
"We need to abolish the death penalty and institute relative life sentences as
an alternative while allowing for parole according to very strict standards,"
he recommended.
"What inspires [the prisoners] to truly repent is hope, even if it's just the
eye of a needle in terms of possibility. It's a mistake not to grant
opportunities for rehabilitation to offenders who have committed severe
crimes," he said.
Kim's 71-year-old mother (surnamed Jang), who lost her husband as a result of
her son's crime, tearfully pleaded for him to be allowed to return home.
"It is true that my son did wrong, but he has repented for his past deeds, he
has lived an upstanding life in prison, and he has helped people in need," she
said. "I hope to hear some good news."
Having witnessed her son imprisoned for over 25 years, Jang is now over 70
years old. She has set up a small home where she hopes to spend the rest of her
life with the oldest son who committed an ineradicable crime to protect her.
She currently lives there alone.
(source: hani.co.kr)
PAKISTAN:
SC allows lawyers of four convicts to review death penalty
The Supreme Court has granted permission to the lawyers of 4 convicts, who have
been sentenced to death on terrorism charges by a trial court, to review their
case record.
The order was issued on Monday by a 3-judge bench of the top court that was
hearing appeals of the convicts - Ismail Khan, Wasim Shah, Liaquat Ali and Syed
Nabi.
The bench, headed by Sheikh Azmat Saeed, allowed the lawyers to review the
record of the trial court which handed down the sentences, and instructed the
additional attorney general (AAG) to show them the documents.
Justice Saeed said the lawyers should come prepared after reviewing the record
at the AAG office "because if they do not come prepared on the next hearing,
their clients will suffer."
The AAG told the court that some records could not be shown due to security
reasons. However, Justice Saeed said the Monday's decision was a collective one
but the next cases would be heard separately.
Later, the SC adjourned hearing for 3 weeks. During the previous hearing, the
bench had suspended implementation on the convicts' death sentences.
(source: The Express Tribune)
************************
Pakistan Court Dismisses Petition Seeking Public Hanging of Serial Killer
A serial killer will be executed inside a jail on Wednesday after a Pakistani
court on Tuesday dismissed a petition for his public hanging filed by the
father of a 7-year-old girl, who was raped and murdered by the convict.
A 2-member Lahore High Court bench comprising Justice Sardar Shamim Ahmed and
Justice Shahbaz Rizvi dismissed the plea of Amin Ansari, father of the minor
girl, seeking public hanging of convict Imran Ali.
In January last, police arrested Imran 2 weeks after he raped and killed the
minor girl and threw her body into a garbage dump in the city of Kasur, some
50-km from Lahore.
The incident triggered nation-wide street protests in Pakistan with people
demanding a harsh punishment for the 23-year-old accused. Violent protests in
Kasur city following her murder claimed 2 lives.
An anti-terrorism court here last week ruled that Imran's death sentence will
be carried out on October 17 at Lahore's Central Jail.
"You are required to hang Imran Ali, 23, by neck until he be dead at central
jail, Lahore on October 17 and to return this warrant to this court with and
endorsement certifying that sentence has been executed," read the ATC Lahore
Judge Sajjad Ahmed.
Imran, a resident of Kasur, was accused of being involved in at least nine
incidents of rape-cum-murder of minors. The court has given its verdict in five
cases.
Dismissing Ansari's plea to hang Imran in full view of public, Justice Shamim
asked the petitioner's lawyers "you should have filed the application to the
government. We are not the government. You have come here so late. The date of
the hanging has been fixed for tomorrow."
Ansari's counsel requested the court to allow a live telecast of the hanging
inside the jail. The court did not agree and dismissed the plea.
The petitioner said the convict can be hanged publicly under the Section 22 of
the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, which allows the government to specify the
manner, mode and place of execution of any sentence passed under this Act.
"The purpose and objective behind the incorporation section is very much clear.
The murderer of my daughter should be given exemplary punishment so as to avoid
any such tragedy in future, God forbid. The statutory violation of Section 22
of ATA 1997 cannot be allowed under the Constitution of Pakistan hence calls
for the interference of the LHC," the petitioner said.
The girl's mother had also demanded his public hanging.
"We want that the suspect should be stoned to death for his crime as hanging in
jail is a punishment which is given to other criminals but this beast deserves
either public hanging or stoned to death," she said.
According to central jail officials, Imran will be hanged at 5.30 am Wednesday.
The ATC on February 17 gave him 4 counts of death penalty, 1 life term, a
7-year jail term and Rs 4.1 million in fines.
The 4 death penalties were for kidnapping, raping and murdering the girl, and
for committing an act of terrorism punishable under Section 7 of the Anti
Terrorism Act.
(source: news18.com)
AUSTRALIA:
Victorian independent candidate calls for death penalty to return----Ronald
Joseph Ryan was the last person legally executed in Australia in 1967, but one
independent candidate wants the death penalty to return.
While the Australian Federal Government abolished the death penalty in 1973,
one Victorian independent candidate is hoping capital punishment will be
reinstated across the country.
Appearing on the 3AW Mornings show with Neil Mitchell on Tuesday, Gottfried
‘Goff’ Wolf explained that he wanted the death penalty to return to Victoria
and that it's at the top of his agenda. Wolf is running for the seat of Geelong
in the upcoming state election.
Ronald Joseph Ryan was the last person legally executed in Australia in 1967
after he was found guilty of shooting and killing a warder during a Victorian
prison escape.
"Why the hell are we keeping these people around?" Wolf said in response to
people who have murdered across Victoria in recent times. "There's got to be
some sort of consequence for these people to face what they've done."
During the interview, he wasn't able to detail the number of murders in
Victoria, while Mitchell pointed out the murder rate had remained steady for
the last decade. He said there hadn't been an outbreak of murder in recent
times as Wolf claimed, but acknowledged it was still awful. Wolf revealed he
wanted the people of Victoria to vote on the matter but said if there was
enough evidence to prove someone was guilty of murder, they should be executed.
He also said people with mental illness who murder shouldn't be exempt from
being executed.
"There's no excuse for it," he said. "There's hundreds of people with mental
illness or bloody drug addiction or alcoholism. If you take the life of someone
else, you forfeit yours."
During the interview, Wolf also described the prison system in Australia as "a
joke". He also said he'd prefer the lethal injection as a method of killing
murderers and admitted he wouldn't want to go back to hanging because it's
cruel.
Neil became confused when his guest said no one has the right to take
somebody’s life, pointing out that Wolf wanted to give that same power to
politicians. He explained that the power would be given to the public and that
the legal system would decide who faced the lethal injection.
Although he's one of the few speaking up about the issue, Wolf said he was sure
there were others who wanted the death penalty reintroduced.
"I'm pretty sure there'd be a lot of politicians that would like it to come
back, but everyone's being pretty quiet about it," he said. "They're too scared
to talk about it and that's what I said. You've got to bring it to a vote, to a
referendum so people can decide what they want to do."
Wolf said he didn't think drug dealers should be executed and that his plans
were for deliberate killers.
(source: startsat60.com)
INDIA:
Mistakes in death sentence judgment: HC directs Principal Judge to take action
against court staff
The Bombay High Court recently directed the Principal Judge of the Mumbai
sessions court to initiate action against the 'negligent and irresponsible'
court staff for making mistakes while typing judgments. The HC was irked over
the numerous 'discrepancies' made by the trial court staff in the original
judgment by which a special court had handed over death to a man for raping and
killing a 4-year-old girl.
A division bench of Justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre was seized with a
reference made by a special POCSO court to confirm the death sentence of Nazir
Javed Khan. Khan, a labourer in a hoarding manufacturing company at Saki Naka
in Andheri, had raped and killed a minor girl, who was playing near his godown.
The girl's dead body was found near Vile Parle and subsequently, Khan was
arrested and the court after conducting a full-fledged trial had found him
guilty under charges of murder and rape.
The court termed this case to be 'rarest of rare' and handed him a death
sentence and accordingly the judgment copy was sent to the HC for obtaining
confirmation of the capital punishment. However, the original judgment copy had
too many mistakes and this did not stop here, the bench of Justice More also
found several discrepancies in the copy placed before them. The bench noted the
mistakes in the operative part and also in the statements of some prime
witnesses and even the postmortem report.
Irked over this, Justice More said, "To say the least, the person who has
prepared, verified and certified the paper book (reference) is not only
negligent but irresponsible callous." "We expect a report from the Principal
Judge of city civil & sessions court, Mumbai regarding the lapses in this
judgment copy. The Principal Judge to further take necessary action against the
court staff responsible for such lapses," Justice More added.
(source: The Free Press Journal)
SRI LANKA:
2 sentenced to death for possession of heroin
Colombo High Court Judge Vikum Kaluarachchi has sentenced 2 persons to death
for the charge of holding 122.68 g of heroin today (16).
The 2 defendants were arrested on December 2010 on a police raid conducted in
Mirihana area.
The case against them was filed by the Attorney General for the possession of
illegal drugs.
Following an extensive hearing, Judge Kaluarachchi stated that the charges
against the defendants have been proved without reasonable doubt.
Accordingly, the judge ordered that the 2 defendants were to receive the death
penalty.
(source: adaderana.lk)
MALAYSIA:
30 years' jail to replace death penalty, says Liew
Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Liew Vui Keong says death row
inmates will serve 30 years' life imprisonment under the proposed abolition of
the death penalty.
The de facto law minister said the inmates would serve the full jail term.
"Their jail term will run from the date the Pardons Board commutes the death
sentence to life imprisonment," he said in the Dewan Rakyat today.
Liew previously said the Cabinet had agreed to abolish the death penalty with
the bill to be tabled in the Dewan Rakyat soon.
There are 1,267 prisoners on death row. About 900 of them were convicted of
drug offences, including trafficking in dangerous drugs.
(source: freemalaysiatoday.com)
EGYPT:
Civilians Hastily Executed Without Due Process Protections by Egyptian Military
Courts
Joint Statement
Today October 15, 6 independent rights organizations released a new report as
part of the campaign to end capital punishment in Egypt. The report, "Military
Execution," examines the state-sponsored killing of 33 civilians between July
2013 and September 2018, following 8 trials in military courts lacking basic
due process guarantees, and rife with violations and irregularities. The
organizations contributing to the report demand an immediate moratorium on
death sentences issued by both civilian and military courts, as a prelude to
societal dialogue on the abolition of the death penalty.
Since the beginning of 2018, 175people in 11 cases have been sentenced to death
in Egypt, most recently in September with a mass death sentence for 75 people
in the Rabaa Dispersal Case. In addition, the Court of Cassation upheld death
sentences for at least 28 people in 3 separate cases this year, recently
affirming the death penalty for 20 Egyptians in connection with the 2013 attack
on the Kerdasa police station. 10 people have already been executed this year
following 6 military trials, including the 4 Egyptians executed on January 2,
2018 after being convicted for the Kafr al-Sheikh bombing in 2015.
The report begins by reviewing Egyptian legislation that subjects dozens of
crimes to the death penalty, with an eye to narrowing their vague terms and
reconsidering their prescribed penalties. This is particularly urgent for
statutes carrying the death penalty for unconsummated crimes, such as intention
to kill or possession of weapons for a criminal purpose that was not realized.
These include the Penal Code (Law 58/1937) and its amendments, the Military
Code of Justice (Law 25/1966); as well as the laws regulating weapons and drugs
(laws 394/1954 and 182/1960, respectively). It also focuses on laws allowing
politically sensitive cases to be heard by exceptional courts, whether military
courts pursuant to Law 136/2014 on the protection of vital facilities, or
before the special terrorism circuits created through decree of Interim
President Adly Mansour.
This legislation laid the groundwork for the 8 military trials ending with 33
civilian executions, starting with the six Egyptians executed in May 2015 in
connection with the Arab Sharkas case; the 1st time after the January 25th 2011
revolution that a death sentence given to civilians by a military tribunal was
carried out. This would only portend what would swell into an unprecedented
increase in the number of Egyptian civilians executed by the state. By the
beginning of this year, the Egyptian authorities had executed 27 civilians in
connection with seven cases, including case no. 93/2011, where three civilians
were executed on January 9 2018 - the only case in which civilians were
sentenced to die by a military court for non-political charges.
Although military courts issue death sentences less frequently than the regular
judiciary, these sentences are of grave concern due to the partiality of
military courts and their haste in carrying out death sentences, relative to
civilian courts. Of the 10 cases in which death sentences were executed during
the period under review, 8 of them were issued by military tribunals. The
Minister of Defense appoints the judges of these tribunals, leaving them with
no claim to neutrality or independence. Fundamental rights are denied,
disregarded, or severely curtailed - including the rights to defense and a
trial before one’s natural judge, and the principle of a public trial. The
military judicial system is also prone to extracting confessions using illegal
practices such as torture and enforced disappearance, as detailed in the
report.
Accordingly, the path to execution for the 33 defendants in these eight trials
was paved with grave violations, with some defendants forcibly disappeared and
detained incommunicado, putting them at risk of torture, inhumane treatment,
coerced confessions. These trials also infringed upon the right to have a
lawyer present, a key due process protection enshrined in Article 54 of the
2014 Egyptian Constitution.
The report calls on the Egyptian authorities to suspend and reconsider the
death penalty and take action to amend laws codifying the death penalty - such
vague and loosely-defined legislation cannot serve as the basis to deny the
right to life. It further recommends for the authorities to stop infringing
upon due process guarantees and violating defendants' rights in death penalty
cases, most significantly by prosecuting them before exceptional courts and
circuits, such as military tribunals and terrorism circuits. Such due process
violations render the death penalty in Egypt a "gross and irreversible
miscarriage of justice" according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Indeed, the report’s recommendations echo those of the international community,
including the UN and European Parliament, which have called on the Egyptian
government to halt death sentences and executions, and refrain from using
terrorism as a pretext. Only by following these recommendations can the rising
tide of injustice in Egypt be curbed to prevent the arbitrary and mounting loss
of civilian life.
Signatory organizations
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
Egyptian Front for Rights and Freedoms
Committee for Justice
Nadeem Center
Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms
Adalah Center for Rights and Freedoms (ACRF)
(source: allafrica.com)
GHANA:
Ghana urged to remove death penalty from its laws
Mr Robert Akoto Amoafo, the Country Director of Amnesty International Ghana has
disclosed that as at the end of 2017, there were about 160 prisoners on death
row.
He said they comprised 154 men and 6 women who remained locked up under death
sentence at Nsawam prison complex.
Mr Amoafo who recently mentioned this during this year's Day Against Death
Penalty in Accra said although Ghana had not carried out a single execution
since 1993, the law allowing it, was still preserved in Ghana's statute books,
and therefore, called for its total removal.
Mr Akoto Amoafo mentioned overcrowding, poor nutrition, inadequate healthcare
and isolation of male inmates as some of the sub-standard conditions in which
inmates on death row lived in, that needed immediate intervention.
"On the world day against the death penalty 2018, Amnesty said prisoners on
death row must be treated with humanely and dignity and held in conditions that
meet international human rights law and standards.
“We believe that it is time for Ghana to abolish the death penalty as many West
African countries have done, he stated, and appealed to President Nana Addo
Dankwa Akufo Addo to give prisoners on death row a special Christmas gift by
publicly committing to the abolition of the death penalty for all crimes and
rather convert all death sentences to terms of imprisonment.
The organisation appealed to the President to order the review of all cases of
death row prisoners to identify potential miscarriages of Justice and provide
the necessary support to mandated agencies to ensure that all death row
prisoners were treated in accordance with the UN standard minimum rules for the
treatment of prisoners.
He called for the implementation of the Nelson Mandela Rules that ensured that
prisoners got adequate medical care, including access to recreational and
educational facilities.
The world day against death penalty is celebrated on October 10 annually. The
2018 day focused on the substandard conditions of prisoners on death row.
(source: Ghana News Agency)
IRAN----executions
2 Men Executed in Shahrekord Prison
2 Prisoners were executed on murder charges at Shahrekord prison yesterday
morning.
HRANA identified the aforementioned prisoners as Saleh Dehkordi, 38, and Yarali
Nouri, 40.
Saleh Dehkordi was in prison for 7 years for murdering a person and convicted
to qisas (retribution in kind).
The Iranian media outlets have not published news related to the aforementioned
execution so far.
According to Iran Human Rights annual report on the death penalty, 240 of the
517 execution sentences in 2017 were implemented due to murder charges. There
is a lack of a classification of murder by degree in Iran which results in
issuing a death sentence for any kind of murder regardless of intensity and
intent.
(source: Iran Human Rights)
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