[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
April 11 BANGLADESH: Nizami's review plea hearing defers till May 3 The Supreme Court today deferred till May 3 the hearing on the review petition filed by condemned war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami. The four-member bench of Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha passed the deferment order following a time petition moved by Nizami's lawyer Khandaker Mahbub Hossain. He prayed to the court to shift the date for hearing citing his personal difficulties. On March 29, Nizami filed the petition praying to the apex court to acquit him of all the charges on which he was found guilty and awarded death penalty. Nizami mentioned 46 grounds in the 70-page petition. On October 29, 2014, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 handed down the death penalty to Nizami on four charges of war crimes, including murdering intellectuals during the Liberation War in 1971. The 71-year-old was also awarded life imprisonment on the four other charges. The SC on January 6 this year upheld his death sentence on three charges and life term imprisonment on 2 other charges. On March 15, the apex court released the full verdict. The ICT issued death warrant for him hours after the SC had released its full verdict. The following day, the jail authorities read out the judgment before the convict. (source: The Dialy Star) TAIWAN: Taiwanese rally for death penalty after child's beheading Hundreds of Taiwanese rallied Sunday to show support for retaining the death penalty, after the beheading of a child in a street attack shocked the island. Demonstrators dressed in black and held white roses in mourning for the four-year-old girl murdered on March 28 near a Taipei metro station. Many wore stickers reading "Death penalty is necessary." The girl's mother tried to stop the attacker but was pushed away. Several bystanders were also unable to stop the man, who decapitated the child with a kitchen knife. Police said the 33-year-old had previously been arrested for drug-related crimes and had sought treatment for mental illness. He was attacked by an angry mob while in custody. The killing came less than a year after the throat of an 8-year-old girl was slit in her school restroom in Taipei. It sparked widespread public anger and fresh debate about capital punishment. Taiwan resumed capital punishment in 2010 after a 5-year hiatus. But executions are reserved for the most serious crimes such as aggravated murder and kidnapping. Some politicians and rights groups have called for its abolition, but various opinion surveys show majority support for the death penalty. "Taiwan is not safe, so death sentences are needed to deter crimes and they should be carried out. I hope this will make our society safer for all children," said office worker Chen Pei-chi, who took her sons aged three and six to the Taipei rally. "I am really sad and angry that these random murders of children keep happening. All child-killers should be sentenced to death for hurting defenceless children and destroying their families, as losing a child is unbearable," said housewife Wu Chiu-mei, who has a 3-year-old grandson. In 2012 the murder of a 10-year-old boy in a playground reignited debate over the death penalty, after the suspect reportedly said he was anticipating free board and lodging in jail and would get a life sentence at most even if he were to kill two or 3 people. (source: The Daily Star) PAKISTAN: Pakistan court issues arrest warrant for former president Musharraf Pakistan's Anti-Terrorism Court issued a nonbailable arrest warrant on Friday against former president and military leader Pervez Musharraf for detaining more than 60 judges after declaring a state of emergency in 2007. The proceedings were held without Musharraf, who left the country for Dubai after a court removed him from the exit control list last month to seek medical treatment. However, the judge told his lawyers that Musharraf should have obtained specific permission from the court before departing the country. He is ordered to appear in court in Pakistan on April 22. The case against Musharraf has been ongoing since 2014. Pakistan's Sindh High Court (SHC) in June 2014 lifted a travel ban that had prevented Musharraf from leaving the country. Musharraf was indicted in March of that year on charges of high treason. If convicted, Musharraf could face the death penalty. Musharraf pleaded not guilty to each of the charges against him, including unlawfully suspending the constitution, firing Pakistan's chief justice, and instituting emergency rule in 2007. Musharraf called the charges politically motivated and maintained that the country had prospered under his 2001-2008 rule and that his declaration of a state of emergency was not unconstitutional. (source: Jurist.org) IRANexecutions 5 Prisoners Hanged in Northern Iran on Drug Charges On the morning of
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., FLA., LA., IND., US MIL.
April 10 VIRGINIA: Virginia governor has hours to decide on return of compulsory electric chair As state faces drug shortage, Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe has until midnight to decide whether chair should again be compulsory method of execution - while f1st inmate who could face it, Ivan Teleguz, has strong claim to innoncence The governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, has until midnight on Sunday to decide whether to bring back the electric chair as a compulsory method of execution. Should the Democratic governor sign the bill currently sitting on his desk, the Virginia department of corrections would be empowered to kill condemned prisoners using a contraption known macabrely in the state as "Old Sparky". Should McAuliffe abstain tonight from doing anything, the law will come into effect on 1 July - only his active veto would stop it. As a final twist in the governor's decision, the first inmate who might be killed by electrocution under the new law is a man, Ivan Teleguz, with a highly credible claim to innocence. The decision confronting the governor is a fraught one, given the dark track record of the electric chair in Virginia's racially skewed history. The chair was first used in 1908 to kill a black man convicted of the rape of a white woman. Since then, 217 of the 267 people who have died by electrocution have been African American. The dilemma is further intensified by McAuliffe's close ties to Hillary Clinton, and the likelihood that any decision to facilitate the return of the electric chair will reverberate on the presidential campaign trail. McAuliffe was chairman of Clinton's last presidential campaign, in 2008, and before that helped Bill Clinton earn a second term in the White House in 1996. Hillary Clinton's views on capital punishment have already impinged on her race for the presidency. In October she declared she was in favor of executions in "very limited and rare" cases. That sets her apart from her rival Bernie Sanders, who is adamantly opposed to the practice. The issue welled up again in March, when Clinton was confronted at a presidential town hall debate by a former death row prisoner who was exonerated after his innocence was proved. "I came perilously close to my own execution," Ricky Jackson told her, so "I would like to know how you can still take your stance on the death penalty." So far, McAuliffe has given no indication of his thinking. Last week, 300 Virginia religious leaders wrote a joint letter urging the governor to veto the bill and prevent the compulsory return of a "barbarous relic" that kills with "unspeakable cruelty". On the other side of the argument, the department of corrections has long been calling for a change in procedures given that its stockpile of lethal injection drugs - the prevalent form of execution for 40 years - has run dry. Like most death penalty states, Virginia has struggled in the face of a tight boycott imposed by the European Union and major drug companies that refuse to send medical drugs used in executions to the US on ethical grounds. Virginia has indicated that it has only 2 vials left of compounded pentobarbital, a sedative often used in the triple lethal injection, and its own protocols require it to have 3 vials available for any execution. On 10 March, the department of corrections changed its death protocols, but did so in secret without revealing to the public what the change involved. As the law currently stands, the state's hands are tied because the only permitted form of execution other than lethal injection is the electric chair. But "Old Sparky" can only be used where a condemned inmate chooses it - hence the bill sitting on McAuliffe's desk that would allow the state to impose electrocution compulsorily. Ivan Teleguz was sentenced to death in 2006 for a "hit job" - he was accused of hiring other men to murder his former girlfriend. Since then, 2 of the 3 main witnesses in the state's case against him have issued affidavits in which they recanted their testimony. Edwin Gilkes wrote that most of his testimony was fabricated under duress from prosecutors who threatened to put him on death row himself if he failed to cooperate. The 2nd witness, Aleksey Saronov, said he made up testimony on a promise from prosecutors that they would help him with immigration papers. Transcripts of an interview with the shooter in the case, Michael Hetrick, reveal that he was put under intense pressure by investigators to implicate Teleguz. "Ivan is the guy that I want. I'm going to get Ivan," the investigator said, adding: "If you cooperate, no death penalty. If you don't cooperate, [the district attorney] will go after the death penalty." A death warrant ordering the execution of Teleguz was set for 13 April but it has been postponed by the courts to give time for his lawyers to petition the US supreme court. Michael Williams, a
