[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Sept. 15 IRAQ: They Left to Join ISIS. Now Europe Is Leaving Their Citizens to Die in Iraq.A Belgian fighter captured in Syria was transported to Iraq to face trial. He's now on death row. There was no other way out. After months under siege in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the Belgian Islamic State member Bilal al-Marchohi decided to escape. He fled his post as a religious police officer at the break of dawn on August 29, 2017, and ran with his wife and son to the closest enemy checkpoint. With his arms up, he handed himself over to the Kurdish militants in the hope of eventually being repatriated to Belgium. The family was immediately separated, and his spouse and child were transferred to a nearby Islamic State relatives camp. Along with other jihadi comrades, al-Marchohi was driven to a prison near the city of Tabqa, where he was interrogated by U.S. officials on his role in the organization, his closest companions, and on weaponry manufacturing. The 23-year-old jihadi told them he used to attend the Friday prayers at De Koepel mosque in Antwerp, whose imam, Youssef, ended up joining the fight in Syria. Al-Marchohi waited until he turned 18 to cross the Turkish-Syrian border with his girlfriend and other acquaintances, first joining the Nusra Front and later deserting to the Islamic State, after internal clashes erupted within the armed opposition brigades. U.S. soldiers took him to Kobani in northern Syria and from there to Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan by helicopter, he recalls. “I was alone. I stayed there for 2 months and I went crazy. It was very hard. … Because of the strong lights, I was not able to sleep,” al-Marchohi told Foreign Policy in an exclusive interview. The Belgian was one of the first jihadis transferred by the U.S. army from Syria to Iraq after the liberation of Raqqa, as part of a series of renditions, during which at least 3 other European citizens were handed over to the Iraqi judiciary. The Belgian was one of the first jihadis transferred by the U.S. army from Syria to Iraq after the liberation of Raqqa, as part of a series of renditions, during which at least three other European citizens were handed over to the Iraqi judiciary, possibly in contravention of international law. “I even met the Belgians there and I cooperated with them,” he said, referring to Belgian intelligence agents. “They told me: ‘We will take you to the local government now, and you will wait to see the judge and maybe you go back to Belgium, maybe not.’” But al-Marchohi wasn’t repatriated; instead he was escorted from Erbil to Baghdad, where he was delivered to Iraqi counterterrorism forces and subjected to a new, harsher round of interrogations. Western governments are generally reluctant to facilitate the repatriation of Islamic State militants. After the departure of more than 5,000 European citizens, European countries don’t wan’t to deal with the returnees file. “Except Germany, no other European country is interested in the return of their citizens accused of being Daesh members,” claimed Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi researcher who briefs officials on jihadi group dynamics. “Western countries don’t have a policy for jihadi returnees, they are not ready for their arrival. … And if they get a death penalty in Iraq, they will be thankful,” he says. The issue of repatriation would also require consensus across the European Union from a security perspective. If a returnee enters the Schengen Area, all of that territory would be at risk because of free movement. A returned Belgian could strike in Spain. Bringing Islamic State members back also exposes a judicial weakness; a lack of evidence could lead to short prison sentences, and jihadis might only serve three- to five-year jail terms before they are back on the streets. If a terrorist attack were perpetrated by a repatriated fighter in coming years, the political party that approved their return would face devastating consequences. Al-Marchohi has become a pawn in this international political chess match—rejected by his own nation and subject to the judicial system of one where he has never lived. He claims Iraqi officers fabricated a confession to show he could therefore be tried under Iraqi jurisdiction. “They wrote that I got arrested in Mosul, and forced me to put my fingerprints on it,” he explains, despite the fact that he surrendered in Raqqa. An investigative judge examined this evidence and passed his case on to a criminal court. It was not until a year later that al-Marchohi attended his first hearing, at Rusafa court in Baghdad. In front of three magistrates, confined in a wooden cage, the Belgian got a court-appointed defense lawyer with whom he couldn’t communicate before the trial. During the third hearing, with Belgian consular officials in attendance, he was sentenced to death by hanging for “belonging to a terrorist organization and his involvement in
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, NEV., US MIL.
Sept 15 OHIO: New twist in Ohio death penalty Vicki Williams of Lima believes Cleveland Jackson showed little regard for her daughter, Leneshia, when he killed her in 2002. As for his death sentence, the only thing she sees as being “cruel and unusual punishment” are the 17 years she’s waited for his execution. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with her on Wednesday. It said a federal judge in Dayton was wrong when he ruled in January that Ohio’s execution protocol was cruel because it created a sensation of drowning. Now the big question is what will Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine do? He delayed executions following the Dayton judge’s ruling, saying “Ohio is not going to execute someone under my watch when a federal judge has found it to be cruel and unusual punishment.” That’s no longer a factor. (source: limaohio.com) *** Death penalty hearing scheduled for 1985 murder of Boy Scout A federal appeals court will hear oral arguments later this year about whether an Ohio man should be executed for the torture, rape and murder of a 12-year-old Boy Scout. Danny Lee Hill was sentenced to death for the 1985 slaying of Raymond Fife. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in February 2018 ruled Hill shouldn't be executed because he showed signs of being intellectually disabled. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which unanimously agreed the 6th Circuit should reconsider the case saying in making its ruling it had relied extensively on a case decided after Hill was sentenced to death. The Supreme Court in 2002 ruled that executing people with intellectual disabilities is unconstitutional. Oral arguments are scheduled for Dec. 5. (source: Associated Press) NEVADA: Nevada Inmate Released From Prison After 33 Years on Death Row Paul Browning was released from Ely State Prison on Wednesday after spending 33 years on death row. Browning, 63, was convicted of murder and sentenced to death for the 1985 stabbing of Las Vegas jeweler Hugo Elsen, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. 33 years later, he was freed due to a 2017 opinion from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found “a mixture of disturbing prosecutorial misconduct and woefully inadequate assistance of counsel” led to “extreme malfunctions” at his murder trial. District Judge Douglas Herndon dismissed the murder conviction, but Browning, who has always maintained his innocence, stayed behind bars because prosecutors asked to postpone the ruling to appeal the decision with the Nevada Supreme Court. Browning was able to walk free on Wednesday after Herndon lifted the hold. “I just want to find a little bit of peace after coming through all this madness,” he told the Review-Journal. (source: thedailybeast.com) US MILITARY: Green Beret charged with murdering suspected Taliban bomb-maker will finally get his day in court Nearly a decade after he allegedly murdered an unarmed Afghan civilian during a 2010 deployment, the case of Army Maj. Matthew Golsteyn is finally going to trial. In February 2010, Golsteyn allegedly executed an Afghan villager who an Afghan tribal leader had identified as bomb-maker who had killed two Marines earlier that month. According to the Washington Post, Golsteyn and two other soldiers later exhumed the victim's remains and burned them. But while Army documents indicated that Golsteyn had admitted during a 2011 CIA polygraph test that he'd killed the man, it took 8 years and 2 separate Army investigations to actually bring the decorated Special Forces officer to trial. Following the 2011 polygraph, Army Criminal Investigative Command opened an investigation into Golsteyn's alleged admission, which civilian lawyer Philip Stackhouse dismissed as a "fantasy," per Army Times. The Army closed its investigation in 2013, and the polygraph only became public knowledge in 2015. In December 2018, the Army officially charged Golsteyn with murder. But days later. President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he planned on reviewing Golsteyn's case. "At the request of many, I will be reviewing the case of a 'U.S. Military hero,' Major Matt Golsteyn, who is charged with murder," Trump wrote. "He could face the death penalty from our own government after he admitted to killing a Terrorist bomb maker while overseas." Trump's announcement appeared to come in reaction to a segment by Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth that asked whether the Army was "betraying Maj. Matthew Golsteyn." "A decorated war hero who fought for our country overseas, now a suspected war criminal," Hegseth said in opening the segment. "Former Green Beret Maj. Matt Golsteyn could face the death penalty from our own government after he admitted to killing a Taliban bomb maker while overseas in 2010." Indeed, Golsteyn claimed during a February 2019 interview with Hegseth that he had "conducted an ambush" when he engage
