Aug. 29
IRAN----executions
Iran regime mass executes 30 prisoners in 3 days
The mullahs' regime has stepped up a spate of mass executions in recent days,
hanging at least 18 people last Thursday alone.
On Thursday, August 25, 7 prisoners, including a woman, were executed en masse
in the Central Prison of Yazd, central Iran.
The state-run Rokna news agency claimed that 5 of the victims were accused of
drugs-related charges.
Separately on Thursday, the regime mass executed 11 prisoners in the Central
Prison of Zahedan, south-east Iran. One of the victims was identified as Hamzeh
Rigi.
On Saturday, August 27, despite international calls for a halt to the
executions, 12 prisoners were hanged in the Central Prison of Karaj. These
prisoners had been transferred to solitary cells on August 24 to prepare them
for implementation of the death sentence.
Commenting on the recent spate of mass executions in Iran, on Monday Shahin
Gobadi of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance
of Iran (NCRI) said: "As the regime plunges further into domestic and regional
isolation, it resorts to more executions en masse and suppression, but the
reality is the regime is at a total strategic impasse, and these barbaric
measures only indicate its utter desperation."
The Iranian Resistance has called on all international human rights
organizations to take urgent action to stop the brutal death penalty in Iran
under the mullahs' rule.
(source: NCR-Iran)
*******************
Iran arrests nuclear negotiator suspected of spying
Iran has arrested a member of the negotiating team that reached a landmark
nuclear deal with world powers on suspicion of spying, a judiciary spokesman
said on Sunday.
The suspect was released on bail after a few days in jail but is still under
investigation, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said at a weekly news conference,
calling the unidentified individual a "spy who had infiltrated the nuclear
team," state media reported.
The deal that President Hassan Rouhani struck last year has given Iran relief
from most international sanctions in return for curbing its nuclear programme,
but it is opposed by hardliners who see it as a capitulation to the United
States.
Ejei was responding to a question about an Iranian lawmaker's assertion last
week that a member of the negotiation team who had dual nationality had been
arrested on espionage charges.
Tehran's prosecutor general on Aug. 16 announced the arrest of a dual national
he said was linked to British intelligence, but made no mention of the person
being in the nuclear negotiations team. On Sunday, Ejei did not explicitly
confirm that the arrested person had a second nationality. Britain said on Aug.
16 that it was trying to find out more about the arrest of a joint-national.
Iran last month executed a nuclear scientist convicted of spying for the United
States, an official said Sunday, acknowledging for the first time that the
nation secretly detained and tried a man who was once heralded as a hero.
Shahram Amiri defected to the U.S. at the height of Western efforts to thwart
Iran's nuclear program. When he returned in 2010, he was welcomed with flowers
by government leaders and even went on the Iranian talk-show circuit. Then he
mysteriously disappeared. He was hanged the same week that Tehran executed a
group of militants, a year after Iran agreed to a landmark accord to limit
uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Amiri first vanished in 2009 while on a religious pilgrimage to Muslim holy
sites in Saudi Arabia. A year later, he reappeared in a series of contradictory
online videos filmed in the U.S. He then walked into the Iranian-interests
section at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington and demanded to be sent home.
In interviews, he described being kidnapped and held against his will by Saudi
and American spies. U.S. officials said he was to receive millions of dollars
for his help in understanding Iran's nuclear program.
Iranian judiciary spokesman Gholamhosein Mohseni Ejehi said Amiri "had access
to the country's secret and classified information" and "had been linked to our
hostile and No. 1 enemy, America, the Great Satan."
The spokesman told journalists that Amiri had been tried in a death-penalty
case that was upheld by an appeals court. He did not explain why authorities
never announced the conviction, though he said Amiri had access to lawyers.
News about Amiri, born in 1977, has been scant since his return to Iran. Last
year, his father told the BBC's Farsi-language service that his son had been
held at a secret site. Ejehi said Amiri's family mistakenly believed he
received a 10-year prison sentence.
(source: dailysabah.com)
PAKISTAN:
Blasphemy case: SC to hear Aasia Bibi's appeal against her death sentence in
October
Supreme Court will hear Aasia Bibi's final appeal against her death sentence in
a blasphemy case in October.
Asia Bibi, a 50-year-old mother of 5, has been languishing in jail since June
19, 2009 after being convicted of blasphemy during an argument with a Muslim
woman over a bowl of water in a village near Nankana Sahib.
An additional district and sessions judge sentenced her to death in November
2010. An LHC division bench dismissed her appeal on Oct 16 2014 and upheld the
sentence.
The then Punjab governor Salman Taseer visited Aasia Bibi in jail, criticised
her conviction and the blasphemy law. A couple of months later he was gunned
down by his bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri. An anti-terrorism court tried the killer
and sentenced him to death.
Aasia filed an appeal in the Supreme Court in November 2014, claiming she had
not uttered any blasphemous remarks and was falsely accused by her neighbours
over a personal feud.
? On July 22, 2015, a 3-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Mian
Saqib Nisar suspended till further orders the carrying out of death penalty
awarded to Aasia Bibi in a blasphemy case. The court also condoned an 11-day
delay in filing appeal against an order of a Lahore High Court division bench
that had upheld the Christian woman's sentence.
Aasia's counsel Saiful Malook said that his client's appeal against the death
sentence has been fixed for hearing in the 2nd week of October.
(source: Daily Pakistan)
****************
Supreme Court upholds death penalty of 16 terrorists involved in APS, other
attacks
The Supreme Court of Pakistan Monday (today) rejected 17 appeals for the stay
on death row sentences from the military courts.
According to reports, 17 appeals against death sentences handed by military
courts had been filed with the SC.
Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali announced the verdict. A 5-member bench
headed by the CJ had heard the case and reserved its decision on the appeal on
June 20.
The military courts had handed death sentences to suspects for their alleged
involvement in incidents of terrorism like the Army Public School massacre in
Peshawar, Parade Lane terrorist attack and the Bannu jail attack, as well as
other incidents of terrorism.
Renowned lawyer Asma Jehangir had challenged the military court judgment in the
apex court. The petitioners had pleaded that they had been denied their right
to fair trial.
(source: Pakistan Today)
********************
SC upholds death penalty to 16 terrorists
Dismissing the mercy appeals filed by 16 terrorists, Supreme Court of Pakistan
on Monday upheld the sentences meted out to them by the military courts.
A larger bench headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali heard the mercy
applications by the terrorists involved in attacks on Army Public School,
Peshawar, Parade Lane and Noshehra Masjid and discharged all of them.
It should be mentioned here that the apex court reserved its ruling on the
petitions on June 20 following the completion of arguments by the counsels from
the both sides.
(source: samaa.tv)
TURKEY:
Turkey's President Erdogan says he is prepared to bring back the death penalty
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he is preparing to bring back the
death penalty.
The country's premier says he will approve capital punishment if parliament
votes for it, following last month's attempted coup.
Speaking to supporters at a rally, he said: "My nation wants the death penalty.
That is the decision of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey."
President Erdogan vowed to "destroy terrorists" threatening to harm the
country, saying: "They will all be cleansed out like a cancer cell. We will
find them and punish them."
The death penalty was legal until 2004 in Turkey. However, in practice it had
not been enacted since 1984.
Capital punishment has been the source of much debate in the country, amid
concerns that to introduce it could hamper attempts to join the European Union,
as the death penalty is contrary to the EU's Charter of Human Rights.
The coup on 15 July represented a serious challenge to Mr Erdogan's presidency,
however he resisted the attempt and remains in power. He blamed US-based cleric
Fethullah Gulen for the coup and his supporters who are known as the "Gulen
movement". It is critical of Mr Erdogan who they see as supporting a "political
Islam" rather than a "cultural Islam" in his presidency.
During the coup, more than 300 people were killed and at least a thousand were
injured.
Since the uprising, about 18,000 people have been detained or arrested, and
tens of thousands of public sector workers have been fired or suspended.
(source: The Independent)
BANGLADESH:
UK government refuses to declassify Bangladesh prison report
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has refused to declassify files about its work
with Bangladeshi prison guards, as an elderly British journalist enters his
fourth month of detention without charge.(http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/23328)
The international human rights charity Reprieve is concerned that Shafik
Rehman, an 81 year old former BBC journalist, could face a potential death
sentence.
In 2015, the MoJ's commercial arm, Just Solutions International (JSi) carried
out a feasibility study of Bangladesh's prisons. Reprieve made a freedom of
Information request for copies of files from this JSi project, asking in
particular for details about healthcare and facilities for elderly prisoners.
However, the MoJ recently refused the request claiming that releasing the files
would damage international relations.
Mr Rehman's health deteriorated rapidly after he spent the 1st month in
solitary confinement sleeping on the floor. He has an arterial and was taken to
the hospital wing of Dhaka Central Jail but has since been moved back to his
cell.
The decision to keep JSi files secret comes months after the organisation was
shut down over its controversial work with the Saudi Arabian interior ministry,
which carries out executions and floggings.
Reprieve is calling on the Foreign Office to support Mr Rehman's release. He
was due to have a Supreme Court hearing last week but this was delayed until
Tuesday 30 August 2016.
Maya Foa, director of Reprieve's death penalty team, said: "By covering up
these files, the UK government is helping Bangladesh whitewash its abuse and
mistreatment of prisoners like Shafik. This 81 year old British journalist
spent a month in solitary confinement lying on the floor of a Bangladeshi
prison cell as his health collapsed. He has now spent over 100 days in
detention without charge and could face a death sentence, just for doing his
job. The Foreign Office needs to urgently step up its assistance for imprisoned
journalists like Shafik and support his release."
(source: ekklesia.co.uk)
***************
2 get death for killing wives
2 men got death penalty for killing their wives in Mymensingh and Manikganj
yesterday.
A Mymensingh court sentenced a man to death for killing his wife for Tk 50,000
as dowry in 2013, reports our correspondent.
The convict is Md Abdur Razzak, 55, son of late Chhamu Miah of Maizbari
Panchmile in Sadar upazila.
On March 14 in 2013, Razzak hacked her wife Julekha dead following an
altercation over dowry, according to the prosecution.
In Manikganj, a court here gave death penalty to a man in a case for killing
his wife over dowry in 2005.
The convict is Anwar Hossain of Shivalaya upazila, reports our correspondent.
****************
SC upholds death for JMB man
The Supreme Court yesterday cleared the way for executing Jama'atul Mujahideen
Bangladesh (JMB) leader Asadul Islam alias Arif for killing 2 judges of
Jhalakathi in 2005.
A 5-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra
Kumar Sinha dismissed a petition filed by Asadul seeking review of its earlier
judgement that upheld his death penalty.
The jail authorities can execute Asadul after finishing relevant procedures,
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told reporters at his office. Senior assistant
judges Jagannath Pandey and Sohel Ahmed were killed in a suicide bomb attack at
Purba Chadkati in Jhalakathi town on November 14, 2005 in the wake of a series
of violent militant attacks across the country.
The Appellate Division had upheld death penalty of 7 JMB leaders including JMB
chief Abdur Rahman, his 2nd-in-command Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai, Asadul
and 4 other militants in the case.
All except Asadul were executed on March 29, 2007. Asadul, arrested on July
10,2007, filed the review petition this year.
(source for both: The Daily Star)
MALAYSIA:
2 charged with murder of car dealership owner in Johor
2 men were charged at the Magistrate's Court here today with the murder of a
car dealership owner as well as the assault of a woman in late July.
For the 1st charge, Tan Kim Poh, 33, and Ong Wei Cheong, 34, were accused of
murdering Koh Peng Huat, 65, at an oil palm plantation in Jalan Kahang Timur,
Kampung Gajah on July 31 between 5.30pm and 7pm.
They were charged under Section 302 of the Penal Code which carries the
mandatory death penalty upon conviction.
For the 2nd charge, Tan and Ong, along with another suspect still at large and
5 men who have already been charged in court, were accused of assaulting Koh's
friend Ong Choon Ngoh, 50, with a cane at the same place and date at about 5.30
pm.
They were charged under Section 324 of the Penal Code which carries a penalty
of 10 years' jail, a fine or a caning or any of the 2 upon conviction.
No pleas were recorded for the 1st charge while both accused pleaded not guilty
to the 2nd charge.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Natalie Chew appeared for the prosecution while Ong
was represented by counsel Abraham Mathew.
Tan was represented by Siachau Eng.
Magistrate Muhammad Hidayat Wahab set September 14 for mention of the case.
(source: New Straits Times)
PHILIPPINES:
Philippine Anti-Drug Strategy: 'Kill Them All'----Rodrigo Duterte echoes
American drug warriors.
33 countries have laws that authorize the death penalty for drug offenses. The
Philippines is not one of them. But since Rodrigo Duterte was elected president
last May after promising to "fatten all the fish" in Manila Bay with the bodies
of criminals, police and vigilantes have killed hundreds of drug dealers and
users.
Testifying before the Philippine Senate last Tuesday, National Police Chief
Ronald dela Rosa said cops had killed 756 drug suspects since July 1, the day
after Duterte was sworn in as president, while 1,160 people had been killed
"outside police operations." The death toll rose by 137 between Monday and
Tuesday, so by now it is presumably in the thousands.
Duterte's methods may be bloodier than those typically employed by American
prohibitionists, but his logic is similar, casting peaceful transactions - the
exchange of money for psychoactive substances - as acts of aggression that pose
an existential threat to the nation. This is war, after all, so there is no
room for legal niceties.
Dela Rosa says the drug suspects were killed because they resisted arrest.
Duterte, a former prosecutor whose anti-crime slogan is "kill them all," has
repeatedly said police waging his war on drugs should "shoot to kill" if they
face any resistance. As mayor of Davao, he declared that criminal suspects are
"a legitimate target of assassination," and after taking office as president he
urged citizens to kill drug users as well as drug dealers. "These sons of
whores are destroying our children," he told a crowd in a poor neighborhood of
Manila. "I warn you, don't go into that, even if you're a policeman, because I
will really kill you...If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them
yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful."
When Duterte was Davao's mayor, hundreds of people died in that city at the
hands of vigilantes, homicides he both encouraged and disavowed. Now Dela Rosa
says the vigilante killings since Duterte became president will be
investigated, but it's no mystery why they have recently exploded. Nor is it
surprising that the vigilantes have not been very discriminating about the
people they mark for death.
Last month Michael Siaron, a 29-year-old rickshaw driver in Manila, was shot by
gunmen who left a cardboard sign next to his body identifying him as a
"pusher." His relatives say he occasionally used methamphetamine (the main
target of Duterte's drug war), but they insist he never sold it. After The
Philippine Daily Inquirer ran a front-page photograph of Siaron's wife cradling
his body in the street under the headline "Thou Shalt Not Kill," Duterte seemed
unmoved. "There you are sprawled on the ground, and you are portrayed in a
broadsheet like Mother Mary cradling the dead cadaver of Jesus Christ," he said
in a speech to Congress. "That's just drama."
The police also have been less than punctilious about whom and when they kill.
After two small-time Manila dealers, 49-year-old Renato Bertes and his
28-year-old son, Jaypee Bertes, were killed while in custody last month, the
cops claimed the arrestees had tried to grab their guns. But an investigation
by the Philippine Commission on Human Rights found both men had been severely
beaten and were incapable of resistance. The evidence in that case, which a
senator described as a "summary execution," was so clear that the government
had no choice but to bring murder charges against two officers. Many other
cases in which police claim to have killed drug suspects in self-defense will
not get the same scrutiny.
Duterte says he wants to reinstate the death penalty, which at this point seems
redundant. Why bother making it official when you can execute people much more
efficiently in the street?
While the complete lack of due process makes Duterte's homicidal anti-drug
crackdown especially appalling, the legal, cold-blooded execution of drug
offenders who are duly sentenced to death is horrifying in its own way, since
the government feels no need to pretend something else is going on. "The death
penalty for drugs is both distressingly common (in terms of the overall number
of people killed) [and] incredibly rare (in terms of the number of States that
carry out the sentence)," Patrick Gallahue and Rick Lines observe in a 2015
report from Harm Reduction International (HRI). "Hundreds of people are
executed every year for drugs, the overwhelming majority of them in just a few
countries. Thousands more are sentenced to death. Those few countries that
execute people for drugs represent an extreme fringe of the international
community."
HRI identified 33 countries that authorize the death penalty for drug offenses,
but it classified just 7 - China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Singapore,
Vietnam, and Indonesia - as "high application states," meaning "the sentencing
of people convicted of drug offences to death and/or carrying out executions
are routine and mainstreamed part of the criminal justice system." 3 of those
countries - China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia - account for almost all known
executions of drug offenders: 546 out of 549 in 2013.
The actual total is probably higher, and the list of states that carry out
executions may be a bit longer, especially since no data are available for
North Korea. But the idea that death is an appropriate penalty for supplying
people with products they want - sometimes in cases involving drug quantities
as small as a few grams - has increasingly fallen out of favor in recent years.
Many argue that the practice violates the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, which says the death penalty must be reserved for the "most
serious crimes." According to the U.N. Human Rights Committee, the U.N. Office
on Drugs and Crime, and the International Narcotics Control Board, that
category does not include drug offenses.
But in the United States, it does. The Violent Crime Control and Law
Enforcement Act of 1994, the crime bill that former President Bill Clinton
alternately brags about and apologizes for, authorized the death penalty for
large-scale drug trafficking, a provision that has never been carried out. It
probably never will, since it seems to be unconstitutional under Kennedy v.
Louisiana, the 2008 case in which the Supreme Court said the Eighth Amendment
requires that the death penalty be reserved for "crimes that take the life of
the victim."
As far as William J. Bennett is concerned, that's a shame. Back in 1989, when
he was running the Office of National Drug Control Policy under Clinton's
predecessor, Bennett said "there's no moral problem" with beheading drug
dealers - the preferred method in Saudi Arabia. Although beheading might be
legally problematic, he said on Larry King Live, it would be "morally
proportional to the nature of the offense." And Bennett ought to know, since he
has a Ph.D. in philosophy. "I used to teach ethics," he told Larry King. "Trust
me." The following year, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates took Bennett's
logic a step further, telling a Senate committee that casual drug users "ought
to be taken out and shot" as traitors in the war on drugs.
Although Rodrigo Duterte is sometimes compared to Donald Trump, he could be
taking his cues from Bennett, Gates, and other American drug warriors who
heartily endorsed lethal responses to nonviolent actions. Duterte's portrayal
of meth addicts as subhuman and unworthy of life also has parallels in American
propaganda. His main distinction is that he follows through on the murderous
implications of his mindless anti-drug rhetoric - something voters apparently
admire. The New York Times reports that "Mr. Duterte's crackdown has been
hugely popular."
(source: reason.com)
**************
Spy cams 'better' than death penalty in fighting crime
Intensified closed-circuit TV (CCTV) public surveillance would go a longer way
in suppressing crime than the restoration of the death penalty, according to a
lawmaker.
"We would prefer any day a surveillance state over an executioner state," House
Senior Deputy Minority Leader and Buhay party-list Rep. Lito Atienza said over
the weekend.
Atienza opposes judicial killings on grounds that they violate the sanctity of
human life and do not serve any purpose that is not already being served by
life imprisonment.
A greater number of spy cameras in public places would be more effective in
pinning down criminals, and in discouraging other would-be felons, according to
the congressman, a former 3-term mayor of Manila.
"Round-the-clock public video surveillance has become an extremely practical
crime-fighting tool. It has helped law enforcement agencies everywhere
apprehend all sorts of offenders, from car thieves to kidnappers," he said.
The lawmaker added that 24-hour CCTV monitoring has become even more potent now
because of growing use of social media, where the community and law enforcement
agencies may easily share and exchange information that could solve a crime
quickly.
"In fact, if we look at some of the most-shared social media posts by
Filipinos, they are videos of all sorts of criminals caught red-handed," he
said.
"Video surveillance succeeds in achieving the certainty of swift capture and
punishment, which is our best deterrent to crime," Atienza added.
He cited many ordinary as well as high-profile crimes that were solved fast
with the help of CCTV footage, including:
-- The July 25, 2016 fatal shooting of cyclist Mark Vincent Garalde in Quiapo,
Manila, in a case of "road rage" that was captured on CCTV. Inactive Philippine
Army reservist Vhon Martin Tanto was promptly identified as the perpetrator and
nabbed 4 days later in Masbate;
-- The 2014 EDSA, Mandaluyong City (Metro Manila) "hold-up" of 2 employees of
a private contractor who were seized at gunpoint and then robbed of P2 million
in cash by 12 active and inactive police officers in the guise of carrying out
a drug bust. CCTV footage helped verify the license plates of the cars used in
the bogus police operation, and led to the arrest of the outlaws, which
included the La Loma, Quezon City station commander, Chief Insp. Joseph de
Vera; and
-- The 2012 kidnapping and murder of businesswoman Leah Angeles-Ng in Quezon
City. The 4 suspects - active and inactive police officers - were nabbed after
2 of them were spotted on CCTV using Ng's Toyota Prado soon after the victim
went missing. The culprits, including Supt. Rommel Miranda, 1-time spokesman
for the Metro Manila police office, are now facing trial.
Atienza said stepped up CCTV shadowing would help compensate for lack of police
visibility while the Philippine National Police (PNP) is still recruiting and
training additional officers.
At present, the country has 1 police officer for every 690 persons - still a
far cry from the PNP???s target to have 1 officer for every 500 persons.
"We do not see video surveillance upsetting law-abiding and peace-loving
citizens, as long as it is restricted to public places, and provided it does
not violate the right to privacy," Atienza said.
Public video surveillance is most widespread in the United Kingdom, which has
some 5.9 million CCTV cameras, or 1 for every 14 people, according to the
British Security Industry Authority.
(source: The Manila Times)
UNITED KINGDOM:
14 people executed in Bristol Prison: Who were they and why were they killed?
From a few years after it opened to just before hanging was abolished in
Britain, 14 people were executed at Bristol Prison.
As the government reviews the future of what it calls "ageing, inefficient
prisons on prime real estate", in order to free up land for new homes, the days
of the city's Victorian jail could be numbered.
Here is a look at some of the darkest chapters of the history of the jail - the
murderers who were hanged at Horfield.
The 1st execution to be carried out at Bristol's new prison, supervised by
hangman James Berry, took place in 1889, at the end of the decade in which it
was built. The final hanging took place in 1963, just two years before the
death penalty was abolished for murder.
These are the men who were executed - and the crimes which sent them to the
gallows:
John Withey - April 11 1889
Withey was a poor labourer in St Philip's who occasionally worked as a
slaughterman. His wife Jane was an alcoholic and he was found guilty of
stabbing her to death when she returned home drunk one night, having spent the
rent money.
Withey attempted to cover up his crime with the help of his neighbour,
Elizabeth Nutt, who was later sentenced to 5 years.
Edward Palmer - March 19 1913
The 1st execution in Bristol in 24 years took place when Edward Henry Palmer,
age 23, was hanged for the murder of his girlfriend, Ada Louise James.
Palmer was an unstable character and a loser, who drank too much and talked of
grand schemes which came to nothing. It seems that when the 2 were walking on
Purdown, she had been angered by his latest scheme and threw her engagement
ring at him, whereon he cut her throat. She was later found, still alive, by
passers-by, and was able to identify her assailant, but died in hospital the
following day.
William Bressington - March 30 1935
Executed for the murder of 8-year-old Gilbert Amos, at Staple Hill the previous
December, Bressington's motives were unclear.
He often wore women's cosmetics, and was thought to be "feeble-minded". An
appeal for a reprieve was turned down and on the morning Bressington was
hanged, a large crowd gathered outside the prison. He was 21 years old.
Frederick Morse - July 25 1933
Morse, 34, a quarryman, was hanged for the murder of his 12-year-old niece
Dorothy Brewer by drowning her in the river at Curry Mallet, near Taunton. She
may have been pregnant as a result of an abusive relationship with him, and her
death might have been a result of a suicide pact in which he failed to kill
himself. In his last days he refused all visits from family members, including
his mother.
Reginald Hinks - May 3 1934
Hinks, 32, was hanged for the murder of James Pullen, his 81-year-old
father-in-law, at his home in Bath.
Hinks claimed he had found the old man with his head in the gas oven, and that
the suspicious bump on his head was from when Hinks had pulled him out.
Forensic science established that the bump was in fact a fatal blow, and in any
event Mr Pullen was not capable physically or mentally of ending his own life.
Hinks was a notorious womaniser and is thought to have wanted to get his hands
on the old man's money to support his philandering lifestyle.
He maintained his innocence to the end and was supported by his wife Connie,
who spent the night before the execution at a Bristol hotel with their
6-year-old daughter. Prison authorities had refused permission for the girl to
visit her father.
Frederick Austin - April 30 1942
Driver Frederick James Austin, 28, of the Royal Army Service Corps, was hanged
in 1942 for the murder of his wife, Lilian Dorothy Pax Austin, in January of
that year.
At his trial, the court had heard that the 2 had quarrelled when she found a
letter from another woman in his kitbag, and he had sought to frighten her by
putting a live round into his rifle and pointing it at her. He claimed to have
forgotten about this and she died 3 days later when, Austin told the court, the
gun went off accidentally when he was cleaning it. The jury found him guilty
but made a strong recommendation for mercy, which the Home Secretary chose to
override.
Ernest Digby - March 16 1944
Ernest Charles Digby, 35, a Sergeant in the Royal Artillery stationed in
Dorset, conspired with his lover (he was already married to another woman) Olga
Davy Hill to murder the child she had had by him. The remains of the baby were
put in a suitcase and buried in woodlands in Oxfordshire.
It appears that both were involved in the murder, but Olga was discharged.
Digby was found guilty at Taunton Assizes and later admitted to killing another
child, the year before.
Eugeniusz Jurkiewicz - December 30 1947
Jurkiewicz, a Polish army sergeant in his 30s, was living at a resettlement
camp for Poles at Middlezoy in Somerset when he broke into the George Inn in
the village and raped and killed the landlady, Emily Bowers, who was 74.
Ronald Atwell - July 13 1950
Ronald Douglas Atwell, 24, was convicted of the murder of Lily Palmer, 26, in
Bridgwater in what appears to have been a drunken sexual encounter which went
wrong. At his trial, the court heard how the victim had been previously
diagnosed as "mentally defective" and the alleged killer was also mentally
unstable.
Edward Woodfield - December 14 1950
Edward Isaac Woodfield, 49, confessed to the murder of his next-door neighbour,
Ethel Worth, 65, at Hughenden Road, Horfield, in September 1950.
He had called at her house saying he had come to repay the 2 pounds she had
loaned him, struck her over the head with a lemonade bottle and strangled her.
When her son returned home from work he found a pair of binoculars and a watch
were missing.
Interviewed by the police, Woodfield said the killing had been a "mad impulse"
but the jury rejected his defence of insanity caused by a blood clot on his
brain some years previously.
Thomas Eames - July 15 1952
Eames, 31, had contracted a bigamous marriage in 1947 with Muriel Bent, 5 years
younger than him, for which he served a 2-day prison sentence.
The couple went on to have a child, but the relationship eventually broke down
and Muriel moved out of their home in Plymouth to live with another man.
Eames could not bear this and when Muriel visited to collect a letter, and
announced she was planning to marry her new boyfriend, he stabbed her in the
back as she was kissing him. He then went to his local police station to
confess.
At Horfield he was said to have fought, kicked and struggled all the way to the
gallows.
Miles Giffard - February 24 1953
Miles William Giffard came from a well-to-do family in St Austell and was
educated at the prestigious Rugby School. He was a talented cricketer and twice
played for Cornwall County Cricket Club.
From his teens he appears to have suffered from psychological problems and as a
young adult he was unable to hold down a steady job. He had a bad relationship
with his solicitor father, which came to a head when he began a relationship
with a girl his parents disapproved of.
One evening, after a day's steady drinking, he bludgeoned his father to death
with a lead pipe, then killed his mother with it too.
Although the court at Bodmin Assizes was told he was a schizophrenic, the jury
found him guilty and he was hanged in Bristol, aged 27. Because of the Giffard
family's social standing, the case attracted extensive press coverage.
John Greenway - October 20 1953
Greenway, was convicted of murdering his landlady at her Swindon home because
her cooking was awful.
The 27-year-old had been living with Beatrice Court, who had been forced to
take in lodgers because her husband was disabled. Greenway had arrived in
Swindon with a friend, Christopher Percy, some months previously. He and Percy
were believed to have been lovers and Greenway appears to have been heartbroken
over Percy's sudden decision to leave, on account of the terrible food.
Russell Pascoe - December 17 1963
Russell Pascoe, pictured shortly before his execution, with prison officer
Robert Douglas, .Pascoe and his friend Dennis Whitty killed farmer William Rowe
at his home near Truro in Cornwall in a botched robbery attempt.
By now there was growing public pressure for an end to the death penalty, and
right up to the days before he was executed, Pascoe remained hopeful that the
death sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment.
The Home Secretary was not so minded, and he was executed at the same time that
Whitty was hanged at Winchester. There was a large silent protest outside the
prison as the last man to be executed in Bristol went to his death.
Where are the bodies buried?
Between the abolition of public hangings in Britain in 1868 and the abolition
of the death penalty in 1965, criminals sentenced to death were executed within
the walls of Britain's prisons. Their bodies were almost always then buried in
unmarked graves in the prison grounds, as a final mark of shame.
As far as the Bristol Post can ascertain from Home Office documents, all 14 men
hanged at Horfield were buried in a plot on the western corner of the site,
adjoining Clevedon Road and the lane that runs alongside the north-west wall of
the prison, next to the allotments. The graves are unmarked, but prison
officials recorded the dates each burial plot was used, meaning it would be
possible to work out who is where.
The graves are a tiny part of the prison site, and should the Prison Service
decide to replace HMP Bristol in the future they would be unlikely to prevent
the site being sold for redevelopment, as other prison sites have already been
sold off complete with grave sites.
It is unlawful to build over a grave and in practice it is unusual for remains
from prison graves to be exhumed and re-buried. They are usually only dug up in
unavoidable circumstances. These circumstances do include the construction of
new buildings, though this requires the special permission of the Home
Secretary.
Very occasionally they can be exhumed and reinterred at the request of a
relative, or where a pardon is granted, or where doubt arises as to the guilt
of the executed prisoner or when a DNA test is required.
(source: Bristol Post)
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