Feb. 16
SOMALIA:
Puntland court sentences to death 4 suspected members of al-Shabaab
A military court in Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Puntland has sentenced
4 suspects having linked to the Somali Islamist group al-Shabab to death
penalty on Monday.
The 4 men, were found of having links with the extremist group who is
affiliated to also al-Qaeda. Their trial took place in the port town of Bosaso
and lasted only for few hours.
2 other members were sentenced to serve life imprisonment.
Prosecutor Abdifatah Haji Adan said that the men were preparing to participate
in a terrorist operation in the stable region of Puntland.
In recent years, Puntland authorities have launched a massive crackdown on the
network and its military has sentenced members and other individuals linked to
the terror group tough punishments such as death penalty.
In 2013, Puntland executed 13 suspected al-Shabab members including a woman,
after the military court found them guilty of orchestrating an assassination of
a famous scholar Dr Ahmed Haji Abdirahman. But al-Shabab denied that none of
them was part of the group.
(source: Horseed Media)
EGYPT:
Egypt's Morsi on trial accused of leaking secrets to Qatar -- Former president
charged with endangering national security, facing death sentence if convicted
An Egyptian court put the ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi on trial on
Sunday on charges of endangering national security by leaking state secrets and
sensitive documents to Qatar.
Morsi, who was toppled by the army in 2013 after mass protests against his
rule, remained defiant, insisting he was Egypt's legitimate president despite
facing several court cases.
"This court does not represent anything to me," said Morsi, who was on trial
with 10 other people. The maximum penalty if he is convicted is death.
Relations between Qatar and Egypt have been icy since July 2013 when Egypt's
then-army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, overthrew Morsi and launched a security
crackdown against Islamists.
Qatar had supported Morsi, who is already in jail along with thousands of
Muslim Brotherhood members, many of whom have been sentenced to death on
separate charges.
The public prosecutor had said Morsi's aides were involved in leaking to Qatari
intelligence documents that exposed the location of weapons held by the
Egyptian armed forces and detailed the country's foreign and domestic policies.
Human rights groups accuse Sisi, who went on to become Egypt's elected
president last year, of suppressing dissent, an allegation the government
denies.
Islamist militants based in the Sinai peninsula have killed hundreds of
soldiers and policemen since Morsi was deposed. Sisi says the Brotherhood still
poses a serious threat.
(source: The Guardian)
BANGLADESH:
Kazi Aref Murder Verdict ---- Family wants quick execution
Family members and party colleagues of slain Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD)
president Kazi Aref Ahmed and 4 other party leaders have demanded execution of
death penalty of 9 people in the murder case.
Family members of Kazi Aref spoke to The Daily Star ahead of his 16th death
anniversary today.
On the occasion, Kazi Aref Parishad and Lokman Hossain Foundation organised
discussions in Kushtia.
An armed gang killed Kazi Aref, Kushtia district JSD president Lokman Hossain,
general secretary Yakub Ali, local JSD leaders Shamsher Ali and Israil Hossain
at a rally in Kalidaspur village of Daulatpur upazila in Kushtia on February
16, 1999.
On August 30, 2004, the then additional district and sessions judge Fazlur
Rahman sentenced 10 people to death and 12 others to life-term imprisonment for
the murders.
On August 5 in 2008, a High Court bench acquitted 1 of the convicted who was
sentenced to death and upheld punishment of others.
Afterwards, 2 convicted -- Rashedul Islam alias Jhantu and Anwar Hossain alias
Anwar -- challenged the HC verdict that sentenced them to death.
Finally, the Supreme Court on November 19 last year upheld the HC verdict.
Advocate Al Mujahid Hossain, son of Lokman Hossain, yesterday said their
families are eagerly waiting for execution of death penalty of the convicted.
(source: The Daily Star)
SINGAPORE:
Cook charged with UiTM undergrad murder
A cook was charged at the magistrate's court here this morning with the murder
of a Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) undergraduate earlier this month.
No plea was recorded from Syarafi Abu, 25.
He is alleged to have murdered Nur Syuhada Johari, 20, at Km 228.2 of the North
South Expressway near here at 11.55am on Feb 2.
He was charged under Section 302 of the Penal Code which carries the mandatory
death penalty upon conviction.
Magistrate Eyu Ghim Siang fixed Apr 21 for mention pending chemist and
post-mortem report.
Syarafi was unrepresented while Deputy Public Prosecutor Mohd Amril Zuhari
prosecuted.
(source: New Straits Times)
MALAYSIA:
Accused in Dutch schoolboy's kidnap case ordered to enter defence
3 men accused of kidnapping a Dutch schoolboy have been ordered by the High
Court to enter their defence.
Self-employed Chong Tat Siong, 25, together with mobile phone seller Foong Khar
Fai, 21, and unemployed Lee Phak Seng, 25, will take the stand over the
kidnapping of the then 12-year-old boy, with the intent to get RM300,000
ransom.
Justice Kamardin Hashim ruled that the prosecution had proven a prima facie
case based on the victim's testimony and supporting evidence.
The boy's testimony had identified Chong, Foong and Lee as the people who had
kidnapped him from his school, held him in a house in Chemor, Perak and later
released him at a rest stop in Rawang.
The court fixed May 6 to 8 to hear the defence's case.
Under Section 3 of the Kidnapping Act 1961, Chong, Foong and Lee face the death
penalty, or life imprisonment and possible whipping if spared the death
penalty, upon conviction.
(source: The Star)
VIETNAM:
Wanted drug trafficker changes her look with plastic surgery, still gets
arrested
Vietnamese police have arrested 3 people for smuggling cannabis from Laos to
Hanoi, including a woman who underwent facial cosmetic surgery to avoid an
arrest warrant on drug trafficking charges.
The woman, 40-year-old Phan Thi Chin, was arrested on February 14 while
receiving 32 kilograms of cannabis from Nguyen Van Hung, 46.
Police in the central province of Nghe An also seized a car and an electronic
scale meant for weighing the drug.
Subsequent investigation led to the arrest of Nguyen Van Minh, 26.
Cannabis is still considered an illegal drug in Vietnam, as in many other
countries.
Investigators said the trio intended to smuggle the drug from Laos to Nghe An
before transporting it to Hanoi.
Preliminary investigation found Chin faced an arrest warrant issued by Nghe An
police for drug smuggling charges several years ago, Tuoi Tre newspaper
reported.
She had changed her face and used a fake ID to avoid police detection,
investigators said.
Police are expanding investigation into the case.
In Vietnam, drug-related crimes are among the most aggressively prosecuted
cases.
Those convicted of trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5
kilograms of methamphetamine are punishable by death.
Producing or selling 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal
narcotics is also a death penalty crime.
(source: Thanh Nien News)
IRAN----executions
6 prisoners hanged in Kerman and Shiraz
The Iranian regime's henchmen hanged 6 prisoners on Sunday in two prisons in
the southern cities of Shiraz and Kerman.
A group of 4 prisoners were hanged in Adelabad Prison in the city of Shiraz,
according to reports received from Iran.
Another group of 2 men were executed in Shahab Prison in the city of Kerman.
Asghar Shabani and Mehrdad Abshirin were members of a group of 3 prisoners who
had been transferred to isolation on Saturday to face execution.
The 3rd member of the group was Shabani's wife whose fate is unknown.
These executions have been carried out in secret and no information has been
published in the news media in the country.
These executions followed the hanging of 2 Baloch prisoners in the main prison
in the southeastern city on Saturday.
The 3 Balochi men, identified as Hamed Kahrazhi, 28 and Mobasher
Mir-Balochzehi, had spent 4 years in prison.
They had been sentenced to death for 'Moharebe' or enmity with God.
(source: NCRI)
************************
Iranian Kurdistan: Human Rights Group Calls for Release of Death Row Teen
Amnesty International has implored the Iranian Government to release an Iranian
Kurd, sentenced as a teenager, who is to be executed next week. The man, who is
now 22 years old, was only 17 at the time of the sentencing. The death sentence
was originally overturned by the Supreme Court because of his age when he
committed the offence, but was later re-imposed.
Below is an article published by Vatican Radio:
An Iranian Kurdish man who was arrested when he was 17 years old and alleges he
was tortured into confessing has been informed he will be hanged next week,
rights group Amnesty International said on Friday. The London-based group is
urging Iranian authorities to immediately halt the execution of the man, Saman
Naseem, who is now 22, and thoroughly review his case. "Imposing the death
penalty on someone who was a child when the alleged crime took place goes
against international human rights laws that Iran has committed to respect,"
the group's deputy director for the Middle East, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, said in
a statement.
Naseem was arrested in July 2011 after a firefight between Revolutionary Guard
forces and members of the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, a Kurdish rebel
group known as PEJAK, in the northwestern city of Sardasht. He was held without
access to a lawyer in an intelligence service detention center, according to
Amnesty. In a letter seen by the rights group, Naseem alleged that he was held
in a cell measuring 2 meters (yards) by half a meter. He says he was repeatedly
beaten and suspended by his hands and feet before being forced while
blindfolded to put his fingerprints on documents to confirm his alleged
confession.
He then appeared in a televised confession and in January 2012 was sentenced to
death following a conviction for "enmity against God" and "corruption on earth"
over his supposed involvement with the Kurdish armed group. He later retracted
his confession at trial, noting his torture claims, and his lawyers have not
been allowed to pursue his defense, according to Amnesty. The group says his
death sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court because he was under 18 when
arrested, but another court later re-imposed the punishment.
The United Nations General Assembly human rights committee in November approved
a resolution expressing deep concern over Iran's "alarmingly high frequency" of
the use of the death penalty. The country has the 2nd-highest number of
executions worldwide, after China.
(source: unpo.org)
TURKEY:
EU Minister: State should refrain from death penalty
Turkey's EU Minister Volkan Bozkir stated on Monday that he is deeply sorry
about the tragic death of Ozgecan Aslan and stated that the death penalty
should not be evaluated with emotions and that the state should sentence
criminals with the harshest punishment under the scope of the law. Bozkir also
expressed his sorrow over the incident and said he would kill the perpetrators
himself if the same thing happened to his own daughter.
Speaking after a meeting organized for academics in Ankara, Bozkir stated that
the ruthless murder of the 20-year-old psychology student was devastating, but
he said that the issue of the death penalty must be evaluated without personal
feelings.
"I think it would be more appropriate if we could evaluate the situation and
the possibility of death penalty in a less emotionally charged atmosphere with
rationality" said the minister, noting that the death sentence was abolished in
Turkey in 2000 after long and heated debates. He pointed out that the death
sentence has not been used in Turkey since 1986 and it is crucial to
differentiate between one's personal feelings and the state's reaction to
incidents.
Bozkir stated that he would personally punish the murderer himself by shooting
him if his own daughter was killed in a similar situation and would bear the
punishment, but that the state's reaction should not be the same.
"It is not befitting of a state to kill humans" Bozkir said, adding that the
duty of the state is to arrest criminals and sentence them with the harshest
punishment possible under the scope of the rule of law and justice, while he
cursed the killer and his accomplices for what they did to Ozgecan Aslan.
The EU minister said that the criminals should spend their days in utter pain,
shame and regret and stated that it would be more appropriate to give the
culprits a life sentence rather than death sentence.
Contrary to Volkan Bozkir, Aysenur Islam who is Turkey's Family and Social
Policies Minister said on Sunday that the death sentence could be an option for
the murderers of Ozgecan Aslan.
"What Songul and Mehmet Aslan (the father and mother of Ozgecan) experienced is
the worst disaster that a family can experience," she told press members after
she visited the grieving family of the victim. She added that speaking as a
mother; the death sentence should be on the government's agenda for these kinds
of heinous crimes.
Turkey's Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci has also supported the possibility of
introducing the death penalty: "We must discuss the possibility of introducing
the death penalty for brutal murders such as Ozgecan Aslan's case" he said on
his Twitter account.
Ozgecan Aslan, who was a psychology student at Cag University in the southern
province of Mersin, was burnt after she was allegedly raped and heinously
murdered by the driver of a bus she had boarded to go home. Aslan's murder has
caused uproar across the country, with politicians and various organizations
protesting the incident and raising awareness about the issue of femicide in
Turkey.
(source: Daily Sabah)
SAUDI ARABIA:
Blood Money Paid for Filipino on Death Row
A member of the Saudi royal family ordered the government to pay 'diya' (blood
money) on behalf of a Filipino who is serving jail for killing a compatriot
after he converted to Islam and persuaded 14 other Pinoys to embrace the
religion, according to a media report.
Prince Saud bin Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, prince of the eastern province,
instructed a government committee in charge of prisoners welfare to
'immediately' pay Dh66,000 diya to the victim's family and release the
prisoner, Emirates 24/7 reported.
"We visited the prisoner and informed him about the positive development. We
also gave him a present and some money in recognition of his efforts to
persuade 14 other Filipinos to embrace Islam," the committee's director Sheikh
Ahmed Al Shahri reportedly said.
"Upon hearing the news, he cried and prayed for the prince. He promised that he
would pursue his campaign for Islam whether he stays in Saudi Arabia or
leaves," he added.
The inmate was on death row after he was awarded death sentence by a court in
the eastern port of Dammam for killing another Filipino during a fight several
years ago.
It said the diya nullified the death sentence and he would soon be freed, the
Dubai-based news portal reported.
(source: Filipino Times)
MALAWI:
Courts Begin Re-sentencing of Death-row Prisoners ---- Re-sentencing for some
170 death row inmates begins this Wednesday as part of adherence to a landmark
court ruling in 2007 which nullified mandatory death penalty.
The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions says the 1st of 16 cases in
the 1st phase starts in the country's old capital Zomba with the murder
convicts standing a chance for acquittal or lesser sentences.
"All is set for the for the re-hearing, we have various stakeholders involved
including Malawi law society that have provided 30 lawyers to handle the
cases," said Dzikondianthu Malunda Senior Assistant Chief State advocate in the
ministry of Justice.
He however said 88 of the 170 case files for resentencing are missing in what
he attributed to poor record keeping system.
The 170 prisoners include 23 on death row as well as 164 men and 3 women whose
mandatory death sentences were commuted to life in prison by the president.
"On the missing files what we are doing is to re-construct the files by talking
to relations of the deceased, the convicts and other respected people in
society such as chiefs," added Malunda.
Re-sentencing of the death row inmates followed a 2007 high court ruling
nullifying mandatory death sentenced for any murder convict marking a turning
point in the country's criminal justice system.
In the case, 1 Kafantayeni (Now deceased) and 4 other murder convicts
challenged imposition of a mandatory death penalty and true to their wish the
court held that mandatory death penalty was a violation of the right to fair
trial.
The Malawi Human Rights Commission says this implies that death penalty remains
applicable but not mandatory and that it remains at the discretion of the judge
to determine whether a murder convict be sentenced to life or a lesser
sentence.
In another ruling on a murder case in 2010, the high court ruled that in light
of the Kafantayeni case, all inmates on death row be subjected to re-hearing.
There are 170 inmates to undergo re-sentencing.
Briefing journalists in Lilongwe, Malawi Human rights Commission executive
secretary Grace Malera said "the re-sentencing does not mean the death penalty
has been scrapped off from the law".
The sentence rehearing project has been funded by Tilitonse Fund (a pool of
various donors) to the tune of about 150 million kwacha under a 3 year project
which end this year.
But Malera said there is enough funding to complete re-hearing all the 170
cases.
(source: Zodiak Malawi)
PAKISTAN:
Lahore High Court releases 2 prisoners facing death penalty due to lack of
evidence
Lahore High Court's 2-member bench began hearing a case in which criminals
Ashraf and Asif were produced before the court.
The accused were charged with the murder of Nasreen Bibi and Sadiq. The court
was told that a death penalty had been passed out in the case by a Session
Court whereas on the time of the offense, the people in question were out of
the city.
During the proceedings, the court was told by the prosecution that upon proving
of the charge, the trial court had passed the verdict of death sentence.
The incumbent bench nullified the death sentence after hearing all the evidence
on the basis of irregularities between the accounts of eyewitnesses.
(source: Dunya News)
COLOMBIA:
Colombia's police director proposes resumption of death penalty
Colombia's police director proposed Sunday restarting the debate on death
penalty, citing the recent killing of 4 children in the southwestern city of
Florencia.
Colombia repealed the death penalty in 1910.
It is worth resuming the debate on whether death penalty should be imposed on
those who commit heinous crimes, especially when the victims are underage,
Rodolfo Palomino said while announcing the capture of 2 of the 5 suspects
involved in the killing, Colombia's Caracol Radio network reported.
Someone like Christopher Chavez who was captured on Saturday and had been
convicted of murdering and raping a woman in Ibague city, should not be in the
streets because of the danger he clearly poses, Palomino said.
Chavez, aliased "El Desalmado" or the "The Soulless," who had been sentenced to
40 years in prison, was released on bail by a judge of Neiva city for good
performance.
He is now facing charges of aggravated murder, conspiracy and illegal
possession of weapons after allegedly killing the 4 children.
(source: Global Post)
FRANCE/FIJI:
France welcomes removal of death penalty in RFMF Act
France has welcomed the vote by the Government in Parliament to permanently
abolish the death penalty in the Republic of Fiji Military Forces Act.
After abolishing the death penalty for common crimes in 1979, Fiji becomes the
101st country to abolish it completely.
France reiterated its resolute and steadfast opposition to the death penalty
worldwide and in all circumstances.
The bill to amend the RFMF Act was passed in Parliament last Wednesday.
(source: fijivillage.com)
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