January 7
ENGLAND:
Leeds nostalgia: A hanging
A hundred years ago today, the Yorkshire Evening Post carried a report of an
execution at Armley Gaol. It was that of Een Hindle Benson, who was sentenced
to death at Leeds Assizes for the murder of Annie Mayne, a woman with whom he
lived in Hunslet prior to joining the Army.
The report ran: “During the whole of the time he has been incarcerated, Benson
has shown fortitude and the news that the petition for his reprieve had failed
did not appear to surprise him greatly. Indeed, on learning that, in the event
of a reprieve being granted, the alternaitve would be a long term of
imprisonment, Benson replied he would far rather suffer the full penalty of the
law.”
It went on to describe how the condemned man had “interviews” with his family
and close friends, to bid them farewell. As the hour of execution approached,
Benson showed no sign of fear, said the report.
It went on: “This morning, as usual, he ate a healthy breakfast and walked
quite calmly from the condemned sell to the shed where the execution took
placed, a distance of some 20 or 30 yards.”
Benson was 41 and had been in the Army about 18 months when, in July the
previous year, he heard that the woman, Mayne, had been “carrying on” with
another man. He confronted her on August 26 after finding her drunk and with
another man.
She was said to have taunted him, he cut her throat with a razor. Two more
executions, that of Percy George Barrett and George Walter Cardwell, were also
reported upon, they being planned for January 8.
The pair had earlier been found guilty of the murder of Pontefract jeweller,
Mrs Rhoda Walker. Cardwell vociferously protested his innocence.
(source: yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk)
MALDIVES:
Naifaru court sentences woman in absentia to death by stoning
Naifaru magistrate court has sentenced a 25-year-old woman from Naifaru island
to death by stoning, after she confessed to having extramarital sex.
Magistrate Judge Mohamed Moosa passed the sentence in absentia solely based on
her confession; that she had committed 'fornication' and had once before been
married.
The case was reported to the police in May of last year by the health center
after they delivered the woman’s child, believed to have been conceived in the
‘unlawful sexual act’, the sentence says.
The sentence makes no mention of the child's father, although RaajjeMV
understands that he is native to an island in the same atoll and the family has
'no way to contact' him.
Judge Moosa referred to Hudud Offenses, in 1205 of the Maldivian Penal Code,
which allows him to pass sentences predetermined in the Quran, under Islamic
Sharia.
In his sentence, Judge Moosa refers to the woman as a ‘muhsana’, a person who
is or had been in a valid and consummated marriage and is so subject to the
punishment of death by stoning.
While women and men who have never been married are sentenced to flogging, as
opposed to death by stoning or ‘Rajm’ as it called in Islamic law, the woman
herself had been divorced at the time of the act.
The current government, which took office in November of last year, has
expressed its commitment to upholding the moratorium on the death penalty,
until adequate judicial reform.
If the sentence is to be carried out, the case must have exhausted the entire
appeal process.
(source: raajje.mv)
CHINA----execution
China executes knifeman who attacked children because he wasn't happy with life
China has executed a farmer who attacked a dozen children with a knife because
he wasn't satisfied with the way his life had turned out.
Qin Pengan, 43, used a vegetable knife to slash and stab the youngsters at a
kindergarten in January 2017 until a teacher fought him off and called for
help.
Chinese state media claim Qin launched the frenzied attack in the southern city
of Pingxiang to extract revenge for his life not going as he wanted and a
dispute with a neighbour.
A local court in Pingxiang sentenced Qin to death, and the sentence was carried
out on Friday after it was approved by China's Supreme People's Court, state
media announced on Monday.
(source: mirror.co.uk)
**************
Chinese man executed for kindergarten knife attack
A court in southern China has put a man to death after he injured 12 children
in a knife attack at a kindergarten, the state broadcaster said on Monday.
Violent crime is rare in China but there has been a series of knife and axe
attacks in recent years, many targeting children.
China Central Television said that in January 2017 Qin Pengan stabbed the
children with a vegetable knife in order to extract revenge for his life not
going as he wanted and a dispute with a neighbour.
None of the children died from their injuries.
A local court in Pingxiang city in south China's Guangxi province sentenced Qin
to death, and the sentence was carried out on Friday after being approved by
the China's Supreme People's Court, the broadcaster said.
Despite efforts to reduce the number of people executed every year, China still
puts more people to death every year than any other country, according to
estimates from rights groups.
A Supreme People's Court judge in December made a rare defence of the death
penalty, saying that China could not abolish the system for fear of angering a
public that overwhelmingly supports its use.
(source: channelnewsasia.com)
INDIA:
Death penalty no panacea for sexual offences against kids
The Union Cabinet has approved certain amendments to the Protection of Children
from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, to strengthen the special law in view
of rising sexual crimes against children.
Approved by the Union Cabinet late last month, the amendments provide for
stringent punishment for crimes against children below 18, including death
penalty for aggravated sexual assault on minors.
Sexual offences, particularly against children, have been a big problem in
India. In 2016, 21 per cent of the total 39,068 cases of rape were against
girls below 16 years of age, forcing the legislature to act against it.
In recent years, states such as Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and
Arunachal Pradesh have taken legislative measures to prescribe death penalty
for the rape of girls below the age of 12 years. At the central level, the NDA
government promulgated the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2018, on April
21, 2018, providing for death as the maximum punishment for rape of girls below
12. It has since been passed by both Houses of Parliament.
Punishment is the most natural response to crime. Also, the quantum of
punishment awarded to offenders must be proportionate with the nature and
gravity of crime so as to deter criminals from disturbing peaceful citizens and
challenging the authority of the state.
Every time there is a brutal rape of a minor, there is popular demand to hang
rapists. But prescribing death penalty for rape of children is a problematic
idea. It increases the risk of the victim being killed by the offenders who
might think that leaving her alive could send them to the gallows as she would
be an eyewitness to the crime.
Second, it creates a tool that is unlikely to be used against rapists of
children. There has not been any execution in India for a non-terror capital
crime since August 14, 2004, when Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged in Kolkata
for the rape and murder of a minor girl. In fact he is the only convict sent to
the gallows in the entire country in the 21st century. Before that, serial
killer Auto Shankar was hanged on April 27, 1995, in Salem, Tamil Nadu.
Third, the Indian judiciary is becoming increasingly averse to death penalty.
It has already restricted the scope of capital punishment through a series of
judgments, the most important being the 1981 Bachan Singh versus State of
Punjab (1980) in which it propounded the doctrine of “the rarest of the rare”
cases.
But there are many positive points in the amendments approved by the Cabinet.
The POCSO Act is a gender-neutral legislation that defines child as any person
below 18 years and one of the amendments proposed to the Section 9 of the Act
aims to protect children from sexual offences in times of natural calamities
and disasters.
It also seeks to penalise those administering any hormone or any chemical
substance to children to make them attain early sexual maturity for the purpose
of sexual assault.
To address the menace of child pornography, Sections 14 and 15 of the Act are
proposed to be amended. Besides fine, the offender can be be jailed for
transmitting such material in any manner, except for the purpose of reporting
as may be prescribed and for use as evidence in court. It also prescribes more
stringent punishment for storing or possessing any child pornographic material.
What is needed is a mix of effective preventive social, legal and police action
to save children from falling prey to sex maniacs.
A problematic idea because…
Fear of death penalty is likely to increases the risk of the victim being
killed by the offenders who might think that leaving her alive could send them
to the gallows
The provision of death penalty creates a tool that is unlikely to be used
against rapists of children; there has not been any execution in India for a
non-terror capital crime since August 14, 2004
(source: tribuneindia.com)
******************
Bombay HC to begin hearing confirmation of death verdicts in 10 cases from
Tuesday----The 1st case to be taken up will be the Shakti Mills gang rape of a
photo journalist in 2013. The conviction of the trio, Vijay Jadhav, Salim
Ansari and Kasim Shaikh, were based on the new law which stipulated the death
penalty for convicts of multiple rapes.
The Bombay high court (HC) this year will decide on 10 confirmation cases,
wherein the convicts have been awarded death penalties by various trial courts.
The arguments are scheduled to commence before the bench of justices AS Oka and
AS Gadkari on January 8.
According to a public prosecutor, the 1st case to be taken up will be the
Shakti Mills gang rape of a photo journalist in 2013. The conviction of the
trio, Vijay Jadhav, Salim Ansari and Kasim Shaikh, were based on the new law
which stipulated the death penalty for convicts of multiple rapes.
The 2nd case is that of the 7/11 serial train blasts at Matunga, Mahim, Bandra,
Khar Subway, Jogeshwari, Borivli and Mira Road railway stations on July 11,
2006. The trial court convicted twelve persons for planting and detonating
bombs through timer circuits in the firstclass compartments of 7 trains on the
western line. While five were given death penalty, the other seven were awarded
a life sentence in 2015. Those on the death row include Kamal Ansari, Faisal
Shaikh, Ehtesham Siddhiqui, Naveed Hussain Khan and Asif Khan.
The 3rd case is that of Pune resident Vishwajeet Masalkar, who was convicted of
killing his wife, mother and 2 1/2-year-old daughter in 2012. He was given the
death penalty by the Pune trial court in 2016. Masalkar had committed the
heinous crime after an argument with his mother and wife over his affair with a
colleague.
The 4th case is that of a hotel management student, Ankur Panwar, who was
convicted of throwing acid on a 23-year-old nurse Preethi Rathi, resulting in
her death, in 2013. He was given a death sentence in 2016. Panwar, who was
Rathi’s neighbour, had followed her on to a train in Delhi and threw acid on
her right before she alighted at Mumbai.
In the 5th case, 2 people, Rahimuddin Shaikh and Sandeep Shirsat, were given
the death sentence by a Thane trial court in 2017. The duo was convicted for
raping 2 women who worked as garbage collectors in Belapur in 2012, resulting
in the death of 1 of them. The duo had slashed their body parts and fled,
assuming both of them were dead.
In the 6th case, the Pune trial court awarded a death sentence to three persons
– Yogesh Raut, Mahesh Thakur and Vishwas Kadam – for kidnapping, raping and
killing a software engineer in 2009. The death penalty was awarded in 2017.
The 7th case is one of honour killing, wherein a Nashik resident, Eknath
Kumbharkar, killed his pregnant daughter for marrying a man from a different
caste in 2013. According to investigation, Kumbharkar had premeditated the
murder. He had visited his daughter’s house, asked her to accompany him to
visit her mother, and strangled her on the way. He was awarded the death
sentence in 2017.
In the 8th case, 6 men, 5 Marathas and 1 Dalit, killed 3 Dalit men and dumped
their bodies in a septic tank in 2013. Ramesh Darandale, Popat Darandale,
Ganesh Darandale, Prakash Darandale, Sandeep Kurhe and Ashok Navgire were
convicted in 2018.
The 9th case is that of Ramdas Shinde, who was convicted in 2018 for murdering
a woman and her 6-year-old son, after she turned down his demand for sexual
favours in 2016. After the incident, Shinde had called a friend and confessed
to the crime. The woman lived with her husband in a house rented out by
Shinde’s father.
The 10th case is that of Imtiyaz Shaikh who kidnapped and murdered the
12-year-old son of his former employer in 2012. He was given the death sentence
by a Mumbai sessions court in 2018. According to the prosecution, Shaikh sought
revenge from his former employer after he was fired from his job at an
embroidery workshop.
(source: hindustantimes.com)
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