Jan. 15
CHINA:
Death penalty upheld for ex-official in China's Hunan over embezzlement
A local court in central China's Hunan Province has upheld its 2005 death
sentence against a former official who was convicted of graft and
misappropriating public funds, a court spokesman said Thursday.
The final verdict against Li Shubiao, former head of the Administrative
Center for Housing Accumulation Funds of Chenzhou, a city in southern
Hunan, was announced Tuesday by the Chenzhou City Intermediate People's
Court following a retrial.
No date was announced for the execution, which requires Supreme Court
approval.
A spokesman for the Chenzhou court said his court had been assigned by the
Hunan Provincial Higher People's Court to carry out the retrial.
Li was first tried in May 2005. Prosecutors charged that Li embezzled more
than 118 million yuan (17.35 million U.S. dollars) in funds allocated to
buy homes for 200,000 city workers between 1999 and 2004.
The court heard that Li mainly used the embezzled funds to gamble in Macao
and other places or spend extravagantly. About 77.475 million yuan was
outstanding when Li's case was first investigated in January 2004.
A total of 40 million yuan in cash and property was confiscated.
In the 1st trial, Li, now 45 and a native of Yizhang, Hunan, was convicted
on 3 counts: graft, misappropriation of public funds and gambling. In
August 2005, the court sentenced Li to death, stripped of his political
rights for life and seized all his personal property.
Li appealed and the Hunan Provincial Higher People's Court accepted his
case in September 2005.
The new hearing opened in November 2008. In the sentencing Tuesday, Li was
again found guilty, but on only 2 counts: graft and embezzlement. All
aspects of the original sentence were upheld.
(source: Xinhua News)
ZAMBIA:
Death row RB pardons 53
PRESIDENT Banda has converted the death sentences of 53 prisoners at
Mukobeko Maximum Prison in Kabwe to custodial sentences.
Vice-President George Kunda announced this in a statement released in
Lusaka yesterday.
"His excellency the President, Rupiah Bwezani Banda, has pardoned and
commuted sentences of 53 prisoners on death row at Mukobeko prison, Kabwe,
to terminable custodial sentences or life imprisonment pursuant to Article
59 of the Republican Constitution," Mr Kunda said.
He said this was in line with Article 59 of the constitution which states
that the President may inter alia "substitute a less severe form of
punishment for any punishment imposed on any person for any offence."
Mr Kunda, who is also Minister of Justice, however said the death penalty
was provided for under various \offences under the laws of Zambia.
He said Mr Banda, like his predecessor, President Mwanawasa, was
personally opposed to the death penalty.
Mr Kunda said in light of this development, the Commissioner of Prisons
has been served with warrants of commutation of death sentences in respect
of the 53 prisoners.
He said these warrants would in turn be served on each prisoner
individually.
Mr Kunda said in exercising his constitutional functions pursuant to
Article 5, the President took into account the recommendations of the
advisory committee on the prerogative of mercy.
In August, 2007, President Mwanawasa commuted to life imprisonment the
death sentences of 97 prisoners who were on death row.
Dr Mwanawasa also released 823 prisoners who were serving sentences for
various offences across the country.
The prisoners were released on condition that they did not commit similar
offences until their commuted sentence expired.
Dr Mwanawasa was concerned about the congestion and the bad state of
detention facilities in the country.
He said then that his government was considering ways of making conditions
of detention in prisons humane and bearable.
(source: Daily Mail)
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