Sept. 2
PHILIPPINES:
Eileen Sarmenta's mom now for life imprisonment over death penalty
The mother of Eileen Sarmenta on Monday said she now prefers life imprisonment
over death penalty for heinous criminals.
Maria Clara Sarmenta, in a previous news report, said she supports the revival
of the capital punishment following the possible release of Antonio Sanchez,
who was convicted in 1995 of raping and killing her daughter.
"At the spur of the moment I said I agreed to restoring the death penalty. But
then when I thought it over, being a Christian I would rather have the life
sentence because in death penalty, it's only one injection, tapos na (then it's
done)," Sarmenta said during a joint hearing of the Senate justice and Blue
Ribbon committees.
"In the life sentence, the prisoner would be given the chance to be reformed
and also the mere fact that he suffers, he should be suffering for the crime he
did."
Sanchez was sentenced to 7 reclusion perpetua terms (40 years each) for the
1993 rape-slay of Eileen and the torture-killing of her companion Allan Gomez.
His supposed release due to a new law increasing the good conduct time
allowance for inmates and a Supreme Court decision applying this law
retroactively was met with public outrage.
(source: ABS-CBN News)
***********************
Group backs Manny Pacquiao’s death penalty proposal
An anti-crime and corruption group supported yesterday Sen. Manny Pacquiao’s
proposal to restore the death penalty.
“The death penalty should be implemented by firing squad as proposed by
Pacquaio,” said lawyer Jose Malvar Villegas Jr., founder and chairman of the
Katipunan Kontra Krimen at Korapsyon (KKK), during a forum in Pasig City.
Malvar said large-scale online investment scams and economic sabotage should be
considered heinous crimes.
Thousands of Filipino investors are being victimized online because of the
absence of a “tough law that will protect them,” KKK director general Melchor
Chavez said.
The group has asked Senators Bong Go, Ronald dela Rosa and Pacquiao as well as
House Pro Tempore Luis Raymond Villafuerte to approve the death penalty bill
and include other crimes such as plunder, election fraud, vote-buying,
land-grabbing and planting of evidence.
Meanwhile, the KKK will hold a crime prevention summit in Batangas next month
to coincide with the celebration of the 154th birth anniversary of Gen. Miguel
Malvar.
Batangas Gov. Hermilando Mandanas will be the guest of honor and speaker.
Bernardo Villegas, co-founder of the CRC-University of Asia and the Pacific,
and Go were invited as resource speakers.
(source: Philippine Star)
SAUDI ARABIA:
He Helped Usher in the Saudi Awakening — Now He's Facing Death
On a hot September night in 1994, hundreds of people gathered in a city in
northern Saudi Arabia to listen to a 37-year-old cleric. Wearing a traditional
ankle-length white tunic, he called for reform in the Gulf kingdom, criticizing
the ruling family for betraying the laws of Islam and refusing to share power.
When he was done, the crowd followed him into the streets of Buraydah, the
heartland of Wahhabism. The House of Saud was on notice that Salman al-Awda had
become a fervent voice of dissent, unafraid to issue a direct challenge.
At the time, authorities preferred to pacify, co-opt or buy off opponents
rather than persecute them — unless they were jihadis. But such a brazen act of
defiance resulted in al-Awda’s immediate arrest, along with those of more than
a thousand of his supporters.
“The Saudi state didn’t practice the kind of heavy-handed, blind repression
that other countries in the region practiced. It wasn’t used to putting 1,000
people in jail,” says Stéphane Lacroix, a scholar of politics and religion in
the Gulf and the author of Awakening Islam.
The crackdown in Buraydah was unprecedented, and an early foreshadowing of how
the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (aka MBS) rules the kingdom today.
Al-Awda was released after five years, but 23 years later, MBS had the sheikh
arrested after he tweeted in September 2017 to millions of his followers that
he hoped Saudi Arabia and Qatar could reconcile their differences. Al-Awda, now
62, is facing the death penalty while being held in solitary confinement, his
health deteriorating.
Human rights groups see al-Awda’s recent arrest as part of a larger campaign by
the crown prince to silence dissent and any perceived rival. But the outspoken
cleric may have also been targeted for a very specific reason: He serves as the
face of a rebellious generation known as the Sahwa, or Awakening.
Sahwa was inspired by the tenets of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose members took
refuge in Saudi Arabia in the 1950s and ’60s after fleeing persecution in Egypt
and Syria. Hundreds of these exiles were hired by government ministries and
given prominent posts in universities. Over time, they cultivated a generation
of politically conscious Saudis pushing for greater rights and demanding that
Islam play a larger role in the ultraconservative kingdom.
The House of Saud was unaware of the growing internal threat — until Iraq
invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990. King Fahd feared that Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein would come after his oil next, so he called on his ally the United
States, which sent hundreds of thousands of troops to defend the kingdom.
The decision enraged young Saudis — including al-Awda.
Madawi al-Rasheed, a Saudi expert on politics and religion in the Arab world
and a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics, says the mass
opposition to American troops was rooted in questions of sovereignty. Having
financed so many foreign wars — the mujahedeen in Afghanistan and Saddam
Hussein against Iran — Saudis were skeptical that their country couldn’t defend
itself. “There were U.S. troops all over the place and even American women
driving in the kingdom. It was very overwhelming,” says al-Rasheed.
Al-Awda, an Islamist and nationalist, emerged as a popular voice to articulate
the collective grievances. He delivered fiery sermons in homes and mosques
criticizing the presence of American troops as un-Islamic. His lectures were
recorded on cassettes and distributed to tens of thousands of people throughout
the kingdom. Sa’ad al-Faqih, a political exile who knew al-Awda, remembers
listening to his speeches. “His sermons spoke to the ordinary man without using
overblown political language,” al-Faqih tells me from his home in London. “He
knew not to give the regime ammunition.”
Al-Awda wasn’t like anybody in the state-backed clergy. He had street
credibility.
In the winter of 1992, al-Awda signed his name to a 46-page document titled
“The Memorandum of Advice,” which in turn was signed by 109 religious figures,
including members of the state-backed clergy. It was the first time religious
scholars attempted to undo the founding pact of Saudi Arabia — established in
1744 — which gave the father of Wahhabism, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, control
over social norms and religion as long as the House of Saud ruled Arabia
unchallenged.
But al-Awda was issuing calls for the House of Saud to share power, even after
King Fahd removed him from his university post and ordered him to stop speaking
in public. “Al-Awda wasn’t like anybody in the state-backed clergy,” says Ali
al-Ahmed, a Saudi journalist living in the U.S. “He had street credibility.”
Then came the September night in 1994, followed by al-Awda’s arrest and
imprisonment. He was treated relatively well during his five-year incarceration
and released after agreeing to help the House of Saud combat the growing threat
of extremism. That was then. Today he awaits a trial that is set to begin in
December, his persecution a warning of the deadly consequences of awakening in
the Saudi kingdom.
(source: OZY)
MOROCCO:
Appeal opens in case of hikers slain in Morocco
The appeal opened on Wednesday in the case of 24 men convicted over the
beheadings of 2 young Scandinavian women on a hiking trip in Morocco's High
Atlas mountains last December.
The appeal at the court in Sale, near Rabat, comes six weeks after three Daesh
supporters were sentenced to death over the murders which have shocked the
North African country.
The other defendants, including the only non-Moroccan, Spanish-Swiss Muslim
convert Kevin Zoller Guervos, were handed jail terms ranging from 5 years to
life.
The accused were transported to court in high security for the appeal, which
was adjourned until September 11 after a brief hearing during which procedural
issues were discussed.
While those convicted are seeking lighter punishments, the family of
24-year-old Danish student Louisa Vesterager Jespersen are urging the court to
uphold the July 18 sentences, lawyers said.
Jespersen and her hiking companion, 28-year-old Norwegian Maren Ueland, nature
lovers who were training to be guides, were on a Christmas holiday hiking trip
when they were killed.
Their lives were cut short in the foothills of Toubkal, the highest summit in
north Africa, some 80 kilometres from the city of Marrakesh, a tourist magnet.
Prosecutors and social media users had called for the death penalty for all 3
main suspects, despite Morocco having a de facto freeze on executions since
1993.
Alleged ringleader Abdessamad Ejjoud had appealed to God to "forgive" him
during his trial.
The 25-year-old street vendor and underground imam has confessed to
orchestrating the attack with 2 other radicalised Moroccans.
Younes Ouaziyad, a 27-year-old carpenter who admitted to beheading one of the
tourists, also asked for "God's forgiveness".
Rachid Afatti, 33, had admitted to filming the grisly murders on his mobile
phone.
All but 3 of those on trial had said they were supporters of the Daesh group,
according to the prosecution, although Daesh itself has never claimed
responsibility for the murders.
Khaled El Fataoui, lawyer for Jespersen's family, aims to prove the state's
moral responsibility for the killings and to seek financial compensation.
The court, for its part, has ordered the three main accused to pay 2 million
dirhams ($200,000) in compensation to Ueland's parents, although El Fataoui has
said they did not have the means.
The defence team of those convicted has argued there were "mitigating
circumstances on account of their precarious social conditions and
psychological disequilibrium".
Coming from modest backgrounds, with a "very low" level of education, the
defendants mostly lived in low-income areas of Marrakesh.
Guervos, the Spanish-Swiss defendant, was accused of having taught the main
suspects how to use an encrypted messaging service and to use weapons. He was
sentenced last month to 20 years in prison for joining a "terrorist group".
(source: menafn.com)
THAILAND:
Death Sentence for Thai ‘Death Island’ Defendants a Mockery
The Thai Supreme Court’s August 28 decision upholding the death sentence for 2
Myanmar migrants for the 2014 murders of British tourists Hannah Witheridge and
David Miller on the island of Kho Tao is regarded by critics as a travesty of
justice to protect the clan that controls the island, which has long been
considered little more than a criminal gang.
The two defendants, Htun Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo, were found guilty of killing the
2 backpackers and raping Witheridge in December of 2014. The 2 were beaten to
death with garden tools.
While the island has been called a paradise for skin-divers and backpacker
tourists, it has a dark side. At least nine European tourists have died or
disappeared on Kho Tao since the deaths of the 2 backpackers, beginning with a
32-year-old British IT consultant who died in 2012. In June of 2018, a
19-year-old British tourist allegedly became the latest victim of violence
charging that she had been raped. Police denied the rape had occurred. After
pressure was brought by the British press and authorities, police opened an
investigation and interviewed the victim in the UK, but said they had found no
evidence to support her claim of rape and closed the case.
That, critics say, is evidence of the clout of the clan, which is believed have
links to Thai Mafiosi connected to powerful southern Thailand politicians
Prawit Wongsuwan, the former minister of defense and army commander-in-chief,
who is now deputy prime minister, and Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy prime
minister and former secretary-general of the Democrat Party.
The 2015 verdict against the Myanmar migrants drew widespread criticism from
human rights groups given a long list of flaws in the case. After being given
access to human rights organizations, the two immediately recanted their
confessions, describing in graphic detail how the admissions were beaten out of
them and that they had been scalded, tortured and threatened with
electrocution.
“With their shoddy handling of cases like the Koh Tao murder case and the
Bangkok bombing, the Thai police are rapidly becoming laughingstocks in
international justice circles,” a representative for a western NGO told Asia
Sentinel at the time of the original sentencing. “At this rate, is it a wonder
that tourists from around the world are asking a new question – ‘is it really
safe to go to Thailand?’ When are the powers that be in Bangkok going to figure
out that jailing scapegoats while real culprits go free is not a persuasive
answer to that question?”
The police and courts reportedly ignored testimony by Pornthip Rojanasunand,
chief of the Central Institute of Forensic Science, that her agency’s
inspection of the weapon used to kill the backpackers actually contained traces
of DNA from unknown individuals, and that the agency didn’t find any from the 2
accused. There were neither fingerprints nor other evidence that tied the two
to the murders. Nonetheless, the prosecution came up with DNA samples that did
match.
“Police investigators are solely relying on their claim that the DNA in the
sperm found on Hanna Witheridge is that of the 2 Burmese defendants but they
have not produced any independent corroborative evidence linking them to the
murder,” said the NGO representative.
Thai police, he said, “had no proper and adequate chain of custody documents
for the court; no photos of any of the DNA analysis processes, no case notes,
no written description of testing processes,” the source said. “Originally they
just had charts of DNA profiles. No DNA information was presented at all on the
cigarette butts (found near the bodies), just a piece of paper saying they
matched. The defense further highlighted the fact that the DNA sperm data was
written, crossed out, and revised and dates and times were clearly wrong.”
Police Under Pressure to find Scapegoats
Htun Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo were collected up by Thailand’s notoriously corrupt
and inept police two weeks after the murders were committed. Critics have said
the suspects were arrested because the police, under enormous international
pressure to solve a heinous crime, had to find killers and picked out the two
youths, who had migrated from Rakhine state in Myanmar to work in the tourist
trade.
The police investigation was a mess, with media and onlookers allowed to
trample the murder scene and with a wide range of suspects targeted before the
police settled on the Myanmese. The two were forced to reenact the murders at
the crime scene while being filmed by television cameras.
It has long been Thai police practice to collect up luckless suspects, usually
foreigners, and charge 1 or 2, especially if a politically powerful figure or
his relatives had actually committed the crime instead. Police initiated
blanket DNA testing of the migrant community living on Koh Tao, leading to
well-justified fears that migrants would be arrested.
There were procedural problems connected to police incompetence. Dozens of
people wandered through the crime scene. Collection of DNA evidence was badly
handled. When the two defendants’ confessions fell apart because they said they
were tortured, the police and the prosecutors showed no interest in
investigating their claims.
Lawyers for the 2 said they would request a royal pardon, which is allowed
under Thai law. The country retains the death penalty but rarely employs it.
(source: asiasentinenl.com)
CHINA:
Man who killed high school friend sentenced to death
Zhou Kaixuan, a postgraduate at the Chinese Academy of Sciences who stabbed his
high school classmate, was tried at the Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's
Court, Aug 30, 2019. [Photo/Official Sina Weibo account of chinacourt.org]
A man who stabbed to death his high school classmate, who was a postgraduate at
the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing about a year ago was sentenced to
death on Friday.
The Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court pronounced the capital punishment
sentence to Zhou Kaixuan for the crime of intentional homicide after it heard
the case on May 24.
According to the ruling, Zhou and the victim, Xie Diao, were classmates in a
Chongqing high school. They quarreled when attending a class reunion party in
their hometown in January 2016.
Due to the grudge, Zhou killed Xie in Beijing in June last year by stabbing Xie
in the back and chest with a knife he'd been carrying. "Although the defendant
turned himself over to police, we didn't decide to leniently penalize him for
his extremely cruel behaviors," the court added in the ruling.
Wang Zhiyuan, Zhou's lawyer, said he will ask his client whether to appeal to a
higher court, as Zhou did not show any emotion after the judgment was
announced.
Standing behind Zhou in the courtroom's public gallery, Xie's mother began
crying when she heard the sentence. Xie's father, Xie Zhonghua, told China
Daily that he and his wife were satisfied with the ruling, even though their
son will never come back.
"The judgment was made in line with the law, and Zhou deserved such a penalty,"
Xie Zhonghua said. Last year he took to the streets and publicized the case to
get justice in the city. "So far, Zhou has not apologized to our child, let
alone our family," he said.
If Zhou does not appeal to a higher court, his death penalty sentence will be
submitted to the Supreme People's Court for a review under the Chinese Criminal
Procedure Law.
Chinese media reported Xie and Zhou had known each other for many years and
shared the same dormitory when they were in high school in Chongqing. Unlike
Xie, who studied hard since graduation, Zhou failed in his studies due to his
addiction to online games. While Zhou felt frustrated in study and life, Xie
became a postgraduate at the academy. The reports also said Zhou argued with
Xie during a role-playing game, Werewolf, at their class reunion party at the
beginning of 2016. Zhou told police that Xie insulted him, but that was not
verified by those who also attended the party.
During the trial in May, Zhou's lawyer said his client did kill Xie but he
suffered from mental issues triggered by Xie's insults. But after a mental
health examination, it was determined that Zhou has a neurosis but that did not
affect his ability to know the difference between right or wrong.
(source: ecns.com)
PAKISTAN:
Pak will grant India consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav today----Last month,
the International Court of Justice had ruled that Pakistan had violated
Jadhav’s rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and sought a
review of his death sentence.
Pakistan on Sunday announced that it will grant consular access to Kulbhushan
Jadhav on September 2.
Jadhav, 49, will be provided consular access “in line with the Vienna
Convention on consular relations, the ICJ judgement and the laws of Pakistan,”
Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal said, news agency PTI reported.
The retired Indian Navy officer is on death row in Pakistan which has accused
him of spying. Earlier,New Delhi had asked Islamabad to provide “unimpeded”
contact with the Indian national in response to Islamabad’s conditional offer
of consular access that had been conveyed to India.
India maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business
interests after retiring from the Navy and has been wrongly framed by Pakistan.
Last month, the International Court of Justice had ruled that Pakistan had
violated Jadhav’s rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and
sought a review of his death sentence.
The 2 sides are engaged in sensitive negotiations on consular access in view of
the complex diplomatic and legal issues involved. People familiar with
developments said Pakistan had attached several conditions to its offer,
including the presence of Pakistani officials during a meeting between Jadhav
and Indian officials and the use of audio and video devices to record the
conversation.
This was the reason why the Indian side had insisted on the meeting being held
in an environment free from intimidation and reprisal. This will ensure Jadhav
can speak to Indian officials freely and not be afraid of any possible
reprisals, they added.
Jadhav was arrested by Pakistani security agencies in Balochistan in March 2016
and charged with involvement in spying and subversive activities. In April
2017, Pakistan announced he had been given the death sentence by a military
court.
India rejected the allegations against Jadhav and said he was kidnapped by
Pakistani operatives from the Iranian port of Chabahar, where he was running a
business. In May 2017, New Delhi petitioned the ICJ, which stayed Jadhav’s
execution. In its ruling on July 17, the ICJ said its stay of the death
sentence should continue.
(source: Hindustan Times)
_______________________________________________
A service courtesy of Washburn University School of Law www.washburnlaw.edu
DeathPenalty mailing list
DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Unsubscribe: http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/options/deathpenalty
