[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
August 20 SRI LANKA: SC informs Parliament petitions on death penalty rejected The Supreme Court (SC) has informed Parliament that 3 petitions submitted against the implementation of the death penalty have been rejected. Deputy Speaker Ananda Kumarasiri informed Parliament today about the ruling of the Supreme Court. (source: menafn.com) MALAYSIA: Biggest drug bust in Malaysian history: Almost 4 tonnes seized worth over half a billion ringgit More than a half a billion ringgit worth of ketamine and cocaine have been seized in a joint operation between Bukit Aman and the Customs Department at Pusat Perdagangan Alam Jaya, Puncak Alam. Said to be the biggest drug bust to date, over three tonnes of cocaine and half a ton of ketamine were seized during the joint raid. Facebook page Kuala Selangor Official uploaded a post at around 6pm on Monday (Aug 19), saying that authorities found 500kg of ketamine and over 3.23 tons of cocaine worth more than RM676mil. It is learnt that a team of Customs Department enforcement division and Federal Narcotic Crime Investigation Department personnel arrested four local and nine foreign men after raiding a shoplot at Jalan PPAJ 1/1, Pusat Perdangan Alam Jaya, at around 4.30pm on Sunday (Aug 18). The raiding party discovered 11 gunny sacks containing over 500kg of white powder, believed to be ketamine. Several hours later, the team was then led by two of the suspects to another shoplot at Jalan Musytari U5/AN, Subang Pelangi, U5 Shah Alam, where they discovered over three tons of compressed bricks, believed to be cocaine. It is also learnt that all the suspects and the seized items have been taken to the Bukit Aman NCID headquarters for further action. The case is being investigated as drug trafficking under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, which carries the mandatory death penalty upon conviction. As of 2019, one kilogramme of ketamine has a street value of RM60,000, while a kilogramme of cocaine is worth at least RM200,000. Customs director-general Datuk Seri Paddy Abd Halim confirmed the case, calling it the biggest drug bust in history. "It is a collaboration between Customs and the police. "Our target is to rid the country of the drug menace," he told The Star. He saluted his personnel, as well as NCID personnel, in successfully carrying out this major operation. "We expect to divulge further details during a press conference on Friday (Aug 23)," he said. (source: thestar.com.my) IRAQ: Iraq has executed 100 since January, 8,000 on death row: official More than 100 individuals have been executed in Iraq since January, with a staggering 8,000 more on death row, according to Iraq's UN-approved human rights body. The execution figures came from Iraqi Ministry of Justice data that was reviewed by the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights, according to one commission member. "According to the data of the Iraqi Justice Ministry that have been reviewed by the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights, over 100 people have been executed in Iraq," Hemin Bajalan told Rudaw English on Sunday. "There are 8,022 prisoners in Iraq convicted with execution." Iraq has one of the highest rates of execution in the world, and is ranked in the top four along with Iran, Saudi Arabia and China, according to Human Rights Watch's 2019 report, which documented the year prior. Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s government has not made public the number of executions it carried out this year, according to the watchdog. "Iraqi authorities handed down hundreds of death sentences to those convicted under counterterrorism legislation and carried out executions without publicizing any official numbers or sharing this information with international actors," Human Rights Watch report read. The trials were also rushed and were sometimes based on a single confession or missing victims' testimonies, according to the report. The 100 plus figure marks a big increase in Iraqi executions. In 2018, more than 52 recorded executions took place in Iraq, according to a report from Amnesty International. The more than 8,000 people with death sentences is also a striking increase from 2018. At the end of that year, Amnesty reported that there were more than 285 people with death sentence. Iraqi security forces captured Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIS) in late 2017, and subsequently put its alleged members and affiliates on trial. The US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria have also transferred hundreds of ISIS fighters into Iraqi custody. Iraq is known to have conducted fast trials for ISIS members, often without sufficient evidence. One member of parliament said Iraq is asking Western countries to take back their citizens who joined ISIS. "There are many foreign ISIS fighters in Iraqi prisons, and Iraq is frequently demanding the western countries t
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., OHIO, ILL., MO., UTAH, ORE., USA
August 20 TEXASimpending execution Death row inmate Larry Swearingen denied clemency before Wednesday execution Montgomery County’s only death row prisoner lost a long-shot bid for clemency Monday, just over 48 hours before he is scheduled for execution. For convicted killer Larry Ray Swearingen, these final days and last-minute legal filings must feel familiar. The Wednesday execution date marks the 6th time he’s been scheduled for death in the past 2 decades. The 48-year-old Willis man was sent to death row in July 2000, after he was convicted of slaughtering Montgomery County college student Melissa Trotter and dumping her body in the Sam Houston National Forest. (source: Houston Chronicle) How 'Body Ranch' Research Impacts The Appeal Of A Texas Death Row Inmate In a murder investigation, establishing a time of death help can lead to arresting and convicting the perpetrator — or exonerating someone wrongfully accused. That's why getting it right can mean life or death for someone like Texas death row inmate Larry Swearingen. He is facing execution Wednesday for a murder he says he didn’t commit. The science of “time of death” is something studied every day at the Forensic Anthropology Center in San Marcos, also known as “The Body Ranch.” Scattered around an open field under the hot Texas sun there are a dozen human bodies. Their skin is blackened, their flesh is half eaten by bugs and varmints. They are in varying states of decay. This isn’t the scene from a horror movie or a mass murder — this is science. “What we're interested in doing is getting some kind of idea of the rate of composition and then the pattern of decomposition,” said Daniel Wescott, the center’s director and professor of Anthropology at Texas State University. “We typically have about 60 to 70 bodies out at at any given time that might be involved in various different experiments.” This is 1 of the 7 outdoor body composition laboratories in the United States and the largest such forensics research facility in the world. “So what you want to try to do is have some kind of baseline information about what's going on and then alter a single thing to look at how that affects it,” Wescott said. Here, human cadavers are left out in the open and carefully monitored for patterns of human body decomposition. That data is used to train forensic experts so when they look at a murder victim they can read the body and the crime scene to gain an understanding of the time of death. “It's not guesswork,” Wescott said. “We do lots of bodies, so we have a good idea of the normal variation.” In the murder of Melissa Trotter, establishing when she died is central to the conviction and the pending execution of Larry Swearingen. Trotter went missing in Willis Texas on Dec. 8, 1998. Her body was found 25 days later on Jan. 2 in the Sam Houston National Forest. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Her body was tossed onto a pile of bushes. Swearingen had been arrested and jailed on Dec. 11 — three days after Trotter was last seen alive. Swearingen maintains he didn’t kill her and based on the condition of Trotter’s body, forensic experts have said there are questions about his guilt. “The climate, weather, temperature, the data where the body was found, the environment where it was found,” Swearingen said. “[The forensic doctors] looked at all the weights, the organs — [they] looked at everything and they said Melissa died within 10 to 12 days of her body being discovered.” There is a lot of circumstantial evidence in this case that the prosecution says points directly at Swearingen but there is no DNA that ties Swearingen to the death of Trotter. The prosecution’s case depends on establishing that Trotter died before Swearingen was jailed. The forensic evidence for that narrative is weak at best. “Every doctor has said from Texas and beyond that Melissa was dead no more 10 to 12 days before discovery, which would have put it at about the 18th [of December] and I had been locked up over a week by that time,” Swearingen said. Kelly Blackburn is with the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Swearingen. He said one piece of evidence isn’t what this case is about. “Science can only tell you so much,” said Blackburn. “You have to look at the whole story because no matter how good the scientist is, no matter how unbiased they claim to be, there is still interpretation.” And what the conditions were in the Sam Houston National Forest for those 25 days is also undetermined. “If you're looking at what the weather was like at Intercontinental Airport and basing the way the body would decompose on those weather patterns versus what's actually happening 20 miles north of here in the national forest, and how cold the temperature could have gotten during that period of time, and how cold it stayed for that period of time, all of th
