January 1, 2019
SAUDI ARABIA:
Saudi seeks death penalty for 5 Khashoggi murder accused
Saudi's deputy public prosecutor, Shalaan al-Shalaan, says 5 Saudi officials
face the death penalty over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a
press conference in Riyadh. Meanwhile Turkey says the Saudi statement over
Khashoggi's murder is "insufficient" and insists that the killing was
"premeditated."
(source: Deccan Chronicle)
JAPAN:
In retaliation for the death penalty: the 21-Year-old driving in Tokyo, with
car in crowd
In Tokyo, is a 21-Year-old in the new year lot of dangers night with a car
targeted in a people. In the case of the incident 10 minutes after midnight on
a busy shopping street in the Japanese capital, 8 people were injured, local
media reported.
The young man attacked on the road another people and injured. A student was
injured, according to police difficult and had to be operated on in the
hospital.
The driver was arrested. He was killing with the “intent to” in the crowd of
the dangers, said a police spokesman. The 21-Year-old had told the police that
he wanted to commit a terrorist attack, reported the Japanese news Agency
Kyodo. Therefore, he wanted to avenge himself “for an execution”.
The Japanese broadcaster NHK, according to the driver, the police said he did
not want to practice “in retaliation for the death penalty”. More detailed
information on his subject of the man made accordingly. It is unclear yet
whether the alleged anger of the husband against a single execution, or against
the System of death penalty was addressed. Against him is now being
investigated for attempted murder.
As the 3rd largest Economy in the world, Japan ranks as one of the few
industrialised countries to retain the death penalty. Only last week, the
conservative government had to death 2 convicted murderers executed in July,
several members of the apocalyptic sect Aum Shinrikyo end of the strand, which
had shocked 23 years ago, with a deadly poison gas attack in Tokyo’s subway to
the country.
the International criticism of the death penalty makes the government of Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe to bounce off. Human rights activists have decried for
years dealing with executions and prison conditions in Japan – so the death is
not communicated to the candidate, the date of their execution. The prisoners
Condemned to death, often live for years in solitary confinement. Since Abe
took office in December 2012, 36 people have been executed.
(source: newsarticleinsiders.com)
INDIA:
Poor convicts on death row get a new year gift
In 2019, poor and marginalised litigants approaching the Supreme Court can
expect quality legal aid to fight their cases. This came about after an
in-house study by the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee (SCLSC), that
concluded that poor litigants on death row or facing harsh punishments are
getting a raw deal on account of poverty.
While this mechanism could take time to set in, 2 recent judgments by the apex
court, both given in early December, did factor the poor socio-economic
condition of prisoners while commuting their capital punishment to life term.
One such case was death row convict Antony alias Antappan who wiped out 6
members of a family in Kerala in 2001. The other was Rajendra Wasnaik from
Maharashtra, who brutally raped and murdered a 3-year-old in 2007.
Quoting from the report prepared by the SCLSC in its judgment, a bench of
justices Madan B Lokur (since retired), S Abdul Nazeer and Deepak Gupta said,
"The poor are more often than not at the receiving end in access to justice and
access to remedies available, as is evident from a fairly recent report
prepared by the SCLSC which acknowledges, through Project Sahyog, enormous
delays in attending to cases of the poor and the needy."
For 2019, the judges resolved, "Quality legal aid to the disadvantaged and
weaker sections of society is an area that requires great and urgent attention,
and we hope that a vigorous beginning is made in this direction in the new
year."
For impoverished prisoners in the country, the court's judgment must come as
welcome relief. Statistics compiled by the National Law University, Delhi, in
its Death Penalty India Report based on interviews with 373 death row prisoners
across the country, found out that 3/4 of these prisoners (numbering
approximately 274) were economically vulnerable, with most of them being the
sole or primary earners in their families. Even educationally, almost 225
prisoners didn't complete secondary schooling, while 84 never went to school at
all. As trials in their cases progressed, they were forced to borrow loans or
sell valuable assets in order to engage lawyers. By the time their appeals
reached the high courts or the Supreme Court, they were financially drained and
relied on anything the court gave by way of free legal aid.
It is this legal aid that the Supreme Court has targeted to improve in the new
year as part of a systemic reform in the criminal justice delivery system.
Judges were cautious to add that consideration of convicts' socio-economic
condition does not mean disproving his/her guilt, but to help in awarding an
appropriate sentence.
Article 39A of the Constitution promises free legal aid to all citizens. But
'Project Sahyog', a pilot venture of the SCLSC, upon analysis of 1,188 cases
relating to poor convicts pending in the Supreme Court, found that in about 48
cases, the convict's appeal couldn't be listed for more than a decade for want
of legal aid. Similarly, about 165 cases are pending since 2006 on account of
the convict's failure to get legal aid. Of these, 776 were criminal cases and
412 civil matters.
(source: dnaindia.com)
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