Nov. 30
ITALY:
Catholic activism on the death penalty
Rumors of the death of the church's passion for social justice have been
greatly exaggerated, at least to judge by a high-profile international
conference in Rome on Tuesday promoting global abolition of the death penalty,
which was organized by the Community of Sant'Egidio.
The conference was titled, "A World without the Death Penalty: No Justice
without Life." At a time when critics sometimes accuse Catholicism of backing
away from its broad peace-and-justice agenda, the event gave a much different
impression -- not just in terms of the fight against capital punishment, but
the overall vitality of Catholic civil society.
Held at Rome's elegant Donna Camilla Hotel, the conference was primarily
pitched at ministers for justice from various nations (what Americans would
call the "attorney general"). It brought together politicians, jurists,
scholars and activists to celebrate the progress made in the last 30 years
toward the elimination of capital punishment and to strategize about work
remaining to be done.
The all-star lineup included top officials from the United Nations and the
European Union, cabinet-level officials from Zimbabwe and the Central African
Republic, a senior counselor to the president of Mongolia, and testimonies from
attorneys general in Nicaragua, Mozambique and Tanzania.
Sant'Egidio, of course, is one of the new movements in the church, created by
progressive young Catholics in the 1960s who wanted to translate the faith into
social change. It's a global leader in conflict resolution, ecumenism and
interfaith dialogue, and a wide range of other causes, and tends to be
especially adept at building strong ties both with the hierarchy and secular
movers and shakers.
Tuesday's conference was timed to coincide with the annual Sant'Egidio-inspired
"Cities for Life/Cities against the Death Penalty" event, now in its 10th
edition. About 1,600 cities around the world are scheduled hold rallies,
marches, speeches and an assortment of other happenings Friday to promote the
end of capital punishment. Its symbol is Rome's Colosseum, which lights up
every time a jurisdiction somewhere in the world abolishes the death penalty.
The following are a few snippets from Tuesday's event.
* * *
A dossier compiled for the conference asserted there's a "clear global trend
toward abolition of the death penalty."
As of October, according to the documentation, more than 2/3 of nations on
earth have eliminated capital punishment either by law or in practice. 96
nations have abolished the death penalty entirely; 9 have eliminated it except
for exceptional crimes committed during wartime; and 35 nations are considered
to have ended capital punishment in practice because they haven't executed
anyone in at least 10 years.
Although the United States remains the lone member of the G8 to practice
capital punishment, 17 American states have legally abolished the death
penalty, most recently Connecticut in April.
Veteran activists called that a remarkable shift in a short arc of time. Robert
Badinter, a French politician who served as Minister of Justice in the years of
Francois Mitterand, said when he introduced a bill in 1981 outlawing the death
penalty in France, only 35 other nations had done so. Today, almost 150
countries have followed suit, which he called "unthinkable" not long ago.
Badinter also argued that for all practical purposes, the death penalty has
been eliminated from international law. Even the International Criminal Court,
set up to prosecute genocide and other crimes against humanity, has no
provision for capital punishment, and Badinter said no international judge
these days would agree to sit on any court that does.
Given that trajectory, Jan Jarab of the U.N.'s High Commissioner for Human
Rights described total abolition of capital punishment as "an achievable goal."
Several speakers suggested Sant'Egidio has contributed to this momentum --
perhaps especially in Africa, where the credibility the community gained
through successful conflict resolution efforts, notably the 1992 Mozambique
peace accords, gives it leverage with both governments and civil society. At
the end of 2011, 16 African nations had abolished the death penalty by law and
another 22 had ended it in practice, representing 2/3 of the continent.
At the same time, the conference confirmed that the death penalty is hardly on
the brink of becoming obsolete. Among the salient data:
--58 nations still have the death penalty on the books, though the number in
which executions are actually carried out is smaller. In 2011, executions were
performed in 20 nations.
--In 2011, there were an estimated 5,000 people executed around the world, of
whom roughly 4,000 were put to death in China.
--4 nations in 2011 and early 2012 returned to using the death penalty, bucking
the abolitionist trend: Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates, Botswana and
Japan.
--In 2011, 1,923 death sentences were handed down in 63 nations.
--Also in 2011, there were at least 18,750 persons on death row, an estimate
experts stressed is conservative, given that only a few nations release
complete data on whom they have in jail, and in countries such as Belarus,
China, Mongolia and Vietnam, death sentences are actually considered state
secrets.
--The United States was in 5th place worldwide in 2011 in the number of people
it put to death, with 43. The U.S. trailed China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
(As a footnote, that was the 3rd-lowest annual total of executions in America
in the last 17 years.) At the moment, 3,189 people are on America's death rows.
Of particular concern, according to participants, is the application of the
death penalty to minors (as in Iran) and in cases of mental illness or mental
disability (including in the United States). Participants also flagged pressure
in some countries to expand use of the death penalty to combat drug
trafficking, terrorism and even homosexuality. (In 2011, Liberia and Uganda
both launched efforts to impose the death penalty for certain homosexual acts.)
Laurence Argimon-Pistre spoke on behalf of the European Union, saying it
intends to spend about $15 million next year on lobbying efforts against the
death penalty. As preliminary steps toward total abolition, Argimon-Pistre laid
out 5 priorities:
--Legal assistance to prisoners awaiting execution, to ensure they get a fair
trial
--Promoting legal and constitutional reform in states that still use the death
penalty -- for instance, making sure the right of appeal is upheld --
Monitoring detention conditions and the treatment of prisoners on death row
--Studies and reports on "miscarriages of justice" and abuse of the legal
system
--Restricting the trade of goods and technical assistance necessary to carry
out capital punishment -- for instance, Pistre said, tightening up the sale of
"new generation medicines used for lethal injection"
* * *
Because the conference brought together people who have been fighting against
capital punishment for a long time, it wasn't really necessary to lay out the
abolitionist case in great detail. People in that room, anyway, were already on
board.
Almost in passing, however, 4 core arguments against the death penalty surfaced
repeatedly:
--It's morally corrosive. Mario Marazziti of Sant'Egidio argued that "when the
state kills in the name of the entire community, it lowers the community to the
level of the murder."
--It doesn't deter crime or keep society safer. George Kain, police
commissioner in Ridgefield, Conn., told the conference that if he thought the
death penalty kept police and correctional officers from harm, he'd be all for
it. Instead, he said, research shows it doesn't.
--It's applied in a disproportionate manner to minorities and the poor, thereby
encapsulating the prejudices of a society. For instance, Marazziti cited an
exhaustive study of every execution in the United States for the crime of
murder up to 1989. Out of 15,978 executions, only 30 involved a white person
sentenced to die for killing a black person.
--It's a definitive and irrevocable penalty applied by a fallible legal system
that can and does make mistakes.
Few people at the Rome meeting were in a stronger position to drive that fourth
point home than Curtis McCarty, who spent 22 years in Oklahoma prisons, 19 of
them on death row, after being convicted three separate times for the 1982
murder of a young woman. Although he freely acknowledged that at the time he
was a drug addict, a petty criminal and "not very likeable," he also insisted
he didn't kill anybody.
He was eventually set free after an FBI probe revealed police and prosecutorial
misconduct in his case, including the falsification of forensic evidence.
Today living in Lincoln, Neb., McCarty dedicates himself to anti-death-penalty
activism. He described the experience of watching a fellow inmate led off to
execution -- a man who had once been a cold-blooded killer, McCarty said, but
who seemed over the years to begin to feel remorse and to make amends.
"I saw him come out of that cage wrapped in chains, completely defenseless,
without hope and without family or any kind of support, no one to lean on," he
said. "He had to walk down there with nothing. I could just feel it was wrong."
A similar account came from Marat Rakhmanov, a Russian accused of a double
murder in Uzbekistan at the age of 28. He spent eight years on death row and
was subjected, as he described it, to every form of humiliation and physical
abuse imaginable. He was eventually liberated after human rights lawyers and
non-governmental organizations, including Sant'Egidio, took up his case and
were able to prove Rakhmanov had nothing to do with the crime.
As a law enforcement professional, Kain questioned the reliability of the
system from a different point of view. He cited difficulties with eyewitness
testimony, the challenge of keeping up with evolving forensic technology
coupled with the inadequacies of many forensic labs, and breakdowns in
evidence-gathering procedures.
"The promise of a completely fair and equitable system of capital punishment is
simply impossible to obtain," Kain said. "It's permanently and irrevocably
broken."
* * *
Speaking of McCarty, his story also illustrates a final point: Catholic social
justice advocacy doesn't just have the potential to affect law and politics,
but it can also be a powerful missionary tool.
McCarty said he used to think of himself as an atheist, but having been drawn
into the orbit of Sant'Egidio, he said every time he's in Rome, he goes to Mass
on a daily basis, and he "probably" considers himself a Catholic, though he
hasn't yet gone through the formal process of joining the church.
I asked what it was about Sant'Egidio's style that appealed to him.
"It's simple and direct," he said. "When asked about their faith, they just say
they live by the Gospels. It couldn't be clearer."
"In my experience, a lot of people who profess to be Christians in the United
States really aren't," he said. "They may want to be, but it seems they haven't
really read the Gospels. If you do, it's about service, generosity, love and
support for the poor, the infirm, for everybody, and we have to look out for
each other. The idea is to look at another person, no matter their race or
religion, and say: 'That's a human being, I love him, and I'll do what I can to
make his life better.'"
"In a way, it shames me to no end to spend time with the community, because I
really am embarrassed about who I was," McCarty said. "What I've come to
understand is that this is an opportunity to redeem myself."
(source: John L. Allen Jr. is National Catholic Reporter senior correspondent)
SWAZILAND:
ANOTHER DEATH SENTENCE
Assassin Mciniseli Jomo Simelane, who brutally killed a 7-month old baby, has
been sentenced to death by the High Court. This is the 2nd death sentence to be
pronounced by the High Court in 7 following that of serial killer David
Simelane in April.
Apart from the murder, Jomo Simelane was also found guilty of rape, attempted
murder, arson and assault with intent to cause Grievous Bodily Harm.
Simelane had been hired to kill one Veli Mamba in revenge as he had allegedly
killed Mndobandoba Masuku. Simelane had been hired by Ncobile Shabangu, who was
Masuku's wife. The court noted that of significance was the facts as agreed
between the crown and Shabangu that Simelane had been hired to kill Veli.
"This means that he was an assassin, who was actuated to kill Veli Mamba and
commit any of the other offences because he stood to gain financially," the
court stated. The court further observed that there was no mention of Simelane
feeling pity for Shabangu as a relative.
Simelane had alleged that he wanted evenge on behalf of Shabangu as they were
related but failed to prove how he was related to Shabangu. Simelane had said
Shabangu was his sister's daughter but failed to realistically disclose who
this sister was.
He eventually said the sister was staying next to his home somewhere in the
Shiselweni region and gave several areas as his place of residence. Of note,
was that he flatly refused to mention the precise area where this sister of his
was. The court eventually found that there was no biological relationship
between Simelane and Shabangu.
"The connection between them was a financial gain he stood to make after having
accomplished the mission for which he was hired," Justice Nkululeko Hlophe
stated.
Further, the court found that while the person who was eventually killed was
not Veli Mamba but the innocent minor, the court observed that, such was
deliberate because Simelane was aware that he had caused the baby to be placed
on the floor before sprinkling petrol on the bed and eventually setting the
house on fire and did not bother taking the baby outside.
The court stated that such showed that Simelane had premeditated the murder of
the child and that his intention in that regard was direct as opposed to
indirect.
circumstances
"The foregoing facts on how the death of the deceased came about indicate in my
view that that there were no extenuating circumstances on the part of the first
accused (Simelane) and I accordingly so find," Justice Hlophe stated.
Having found that there were no extenuating circumstances the court asked
itself it should impose capital punishment. The court highlighted that prior to
the advent of the Constitution, the position was that in such a case capital
punishment was unavoidable but then section 15(2) of the Constitution came with
a new position that death penalty shall not be mandatory, meaning same was
discretionary. Sipho Simelane, who represented the killer in the matter, asked
the court to be lenient on the killer because he was relatively young.
"Whilst this would be a factor to take into account in determining how I have
to exercise my discretion, it is very clear that in the matter at hand, I
cannot exercise my discretion in the accused???s favour because of the
elaborate extent he went in planning the murder concerned taken together with
the brutality, callousness and gruesome manner with which the murder of the
innocent child was committed and that it was all in the name of financial
gain," Justice Hlophe stated.
account
The court, however, took into account that Simelane was a 1st offender because
the criminal record he had was beyond 10 years which meant it could no longer
count as one in law. The court stated that it tried its best to look for
grounds that would make an alternative sentence to capital punishment but
failed to find any that was appropriate. The modern trend which seeks to move
away from such a penalty was also considered but again the court found the
circumstances of the matter to justify no other form of punishment particularly
in view of the position of the law.
"The first accused is sentenced to death.
"Accordingly, Mr. Simelane you are to be returned to custody and you shall hang
by your neck until die. May God have mercy on your soul," Justice Hlophe said.
Stanley Dlamini represented the crown in the matter.
Simelane gets a further 37 years for other offences
Apart from the death sentence Jomo Simelane was sentenced to a total of 37
years for the other offences.
He was found guilty of attempted murder, rape, arson and assault with intent to
cause Grievous Bodily Harm.
He was also sentenced to 10 years for attempted murder.
For the rape, he was sentenced to 20 years.
For the arson, he was given 5 years and 2 years for the assault GBH.
Widow sentenced to 35 years
Ncobile Shabangu, the widow of the late Mndobandoba Masuku was sentenced to a
total of 35 years imprisonment.
Shabangu was an accomplice in the murder of Cololwakhe Mamba, who was 7 months
old. The minor died when Jomo Simelane who had been hired to kill Veli Mamba
doused the house which he was in with petrol.
Shabangu was sentenced to 10 years for the attempted murder of Samkeliso
Sacolo.
arson
She was given 5 years for the arson and 20 years for the murder of the minor.
The court, however, ordered the sentences to run concurrently.
On the murder count, the court found that Shabangu's position was different
from that of Simelane because she had sent Simelane to kill Veli Mamba. But the
court stated that Shabangu foresaw the death of someone else as a possibility
if not a probability and was reckless whether or not it happened.
factors
The court was, therefore, convinced that concerning Shabangu, there was a
cummulation of factors which established the existence of extenuating
circumstances.
"I am, therefore, of the view that despite her being the person who initiated
the whole incident that resulted in the death of the deceased and by extension,
the commission of all the other crimes, there are extenuating circumstances in
the case of the 2nd accused (Shabangu) which, as I have already found, cannot
be said of the 1st accused (Simelane)," the court stated.
Death sentence is real
The death sentence imposed on criminals is not a threat.
Macebo Nxumalo from the Director of Public Prosecution???s chamber said once
the court had pronounced the sentence it had be executed.
He said the only hindrance to execution could be the fact that there was no
hangman otherwise the sentence had to be executed.
sentiments
Mandla Mkhwanazi from the lawyers for Human Rights also shared Nxumalo's
sentiments.
"If judgement has been passed, it has to be executed," Mkhwanazi stated.
Killers did not show any remorse - Judge
Justic Nkululeko Hlophe observed that Jomo Simelane did not show any remorse.
"This makes it difficult to pass a lenient sentence as there is no guarantee he
has learnt his lesson," Judge Hlophe stated.
factor
The judge stated that he considered as an aggravating factor, the brutality and
callousness with which the crimes concerned were committed, which compelled it
(court) to pass an appropriate sentence.
"Equally worrying is the lack of remorse by the accused," Judge Hlophe
observed.
crimes
The court said crimes of the nature where people were hired to kill others
could not be tolerated and should be nipped from the bud before they became a
norm in the country as noted that in other parts of the world, where such
occured without being rooted out, that there was no peace as revenge killing
never ended given that everyone had relatives.
message
"Otherwise, society expects this court to send a proper message so that other
would be offenders may be deterred from committing such crimes," Judge Hlophe
said.
(source: The Swazi Observer)
IRAQ:
Iraqi court issues death penalty to 4 guards of fugitive vice president
An Iraqi court on Thursday issued death penalty verdicts against 4 bodyguards
of the fugitive Sunni vice president Tariq al-Hashimi over criminal charges, a
judicial source said.
"The Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI) on Thursday issued verdicts of
penalties by hanging against four bodyguards of Hashimi for their involvement
in the killing of an Iraqi civil defense major and his wife along with wounding
their son in al-Jamia district (in western Baghdad) in 2011," the spokesman of
the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) Abdul-Sattar al-Biraqdar told
reporters.
Earlier, Iraqi judicial authorities said that dozens of Hashimi's guards are
accused of carrying out 150 armed attacks, including car bombs, roadside bombs
and attacks against Shiite pilgrims and security officers.
Iraqi courts earlier issued 4 death sentences in absentia against Hashimi, one
of Iraq's top Sunni Arab officials, charges of orchestrating death squads.
Hashimi, a prominent critic of Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, has been
living in Turkey since accusations he described as politically motivated were
first made against him in December last year.
Soon after the U.S. troops fully withdrew from Iraq late last year, Iraq
plunged into serious political row as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sought to
arrest his political rival Hashimi, a leading member of the Sunni-backed
political bloc of Iraqia, over terror charges.
(source: Xinhua)
******************
Scottish MEP calls for end to "disgraceful" executions in Iraq
Scottish MEP Struan Stevenson has called for the end to the number of
"disgraceful" executions in Iraq.
He says the 30 % rise in executions in the country should be "cause for deep
concern".
The ECR member was speaking in parliament at a hearing to mark the publication
of a report by the Hands Off Cain (HOC) organisation.
The report says the worldwide trend towards abolition, underway for more than
10 years, was again confirmed in 2011 and the 1st 11 months of 2012.
It says there are currently 154 countries and territories that have decided to
renounce the death penalty.
Of these, 100 are totally abolitionist; seven are abolitionist for ordinary
crimes; 5 have a moratorium on executions in place and 42 are de facto
abolitionist.
On the other hand, there are 44 countries retaining the death penalty
worldwide.
In 2011, executions were carried out in 19 countries, compared to 22 in 2010,
19 in 2009 and 26 in 2008.
According to the report, in 2011, there were at least 5000 executions, compared
to at least 5946 in 2010, at least 5741 in 2009 and at least 5735 in 2008.
The decline of executions compared to previous years is linked to the
significant drop in executions in China, estimated to be down from about 5000
in 2010 to about 4000 in 2011.
Stevenson, who is president of parliament's delegation for relations with Iraq,
hosted the event on Tuesday.
He said, "I agreed to host the seminar with the international NGO 'Hands Off
Cain' as a platform for them to publish their annual report on the death
penalty worldwide, particularly so that they could highlight the deteriorating
situation in Iraq.
"We are getting closer and closer to the finalisation of an EU-Iraq partnership
agreement, one article of which calls on Iraq to "foster European values".
"One of our core values is respect for human rights and yet in Iraq we have
seen 129 executions so far this year.
"10 people were hanged on 11 November alone. Iraq is now in 3rd place globally
in terms of the number of people it executes. Only China and Iran execute more
people.
"We also hear repeated news of torture, secret prisons, a flawed judicial
process and horrific human rights violations."
He added, "There are now 30 % more executions in Iraq during the past 8 years
than there were at the time of Saddam Hussein.
"This is disgraceful and a matter of deep concern to the European parliament.
We repeat our call on Iraq to re-introduce a moratorium on the death penalty,
which in our view can never be justified in any circumstances."
He said he supports the HOC campaign objective to obtain a moratorium on
executions in the world.
The event heard that on December 18, 2007, the approval of a resolution for a
moratorium on executions by the UN general assembly was, "without a doubt, a
milestone in the struggle to abolish the death penalty worldwide".
It was said that from 1993 to today, about 60 countries have abandoned the
practice of the death penalty, 20 of which have done so in the last 5 years.
(source: The Parliament)
PAPUA NEW GUINEA:
Papua New Guinea residents offer to carry out executions; Residents of Papua
New Guinea have "expressed interest" in carrying out executions if the
government cannot agree on a method of execution for its 10 people on death
row.
The Commonwealth nation introduced capital punishment in 1991 but has been
unable to decide between hanging, gas or lethal injections and has not yet
executed any prisoners. The death penalty can be given for the crimes of
treason, piracy and murder.
The justice minister, Kerenga Kua, is seeking to broaden the scope of the death
penalty to try to reduce the country's soaring crime rates. Facing pressure
over the country's failure to kill the ten condemned prisoners, he told
parliament he favoured Texas-style lethal injection and wants capital
punishment to cover rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking.
"While we have to consider the costs involved and the need to prepare the
killing chambers, which will run into the millions, we have many Papua New
Guineans who have already expressed their interest in carrying out the
executions," he said.
Mr Kua has blamed the courts for failing to condemn people to death and is
consulting the United States on the most efficient and cost-effective way to
conduct the executions. However, he said, lethal injections would cost about
AUS$ 1 million - more than double the cost of a hanging.
"We need to prepare things like chambers for that process," he said. "Then we
have to provide the funding."
(source: The Telelgraph)
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