Oct. 4
INDONESIA:
Death row prisoners in limbo in Indonesia after unexplained stay of execution
A condemned Pakistani man has spoken of his suffering as his life remains in
limbo more than 2 months after he was mysteriously spared from an Indonesian
firing squad.
Garment trader Zulfiqar Ali was among 14 convicted drug offenders slated to be
executed on April 29 as part of Indonesia's so-called "war on drugs".
But 10 prisoners, including Mr Ali, were given a last-minute stay of execution
for reasons never explained by the Indonesian government.
"I am in darkness until now," Mr Ali told Fairfax Media via his lawyer.
"I am suffering for a long time and still this is a time of suffering for me."
Mr Ali was arrested on drug trafficking charges in 2004 after an Indian
acquaintance, Gurdip Singh, named him as the owner of 300 grams of heroin.
An internal probe into Mr Ali's case, ordered by the Indonesian government,
found he was a victim of conspiracy and likely to be innocent.
The investigation by then director-general of human rights Hafid Abbas, which
found evidence of human rights violations and abuse of power at all levels, was
ignored by former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
"I have sent a very strong letter to President Jokowi 3 days ago and strongly
advised the president to immediately provide clemency to Zulfiqar Ali," Dr
Hafid, who is now a commissioner with the National Commission for Human Rights
told Fairfax Media.
However a spokesman for the Attorney-General, Muhammad Rum, said the executions
would still be carried out. "The plan is still on, it was only postponed," he
told Fairfax Media. "We haven't decided on the time."
Since his death was mysteriously postponed, Mr Ali, who has cirrhosis, has been
ferried between hospital and a jail on Nusakambangan, the island where
Indonesia carries out its executions.
He and another of the condemned prisoners, Indonesian Merri Utami, have
repeatedly asked to be transferred back to the jails where they were
incarcerated prior to July's executions.
Ms Utami, whom supporters say was a victim of human trafficking, has been kept
in an isolation cell at a jail in Cilacap, the closest town to Nusakambangan.
"She is in isolation 24/7 except for 2 hours of church time each week," her
lawyer, Afif Abdul Oyim told Fairfax Media.
"Her daughter spoke to her and told us her health has been impacted by the
isolation. Emotionally, she is still traumatised by the execution day.
Sometimes she will hear her cell doors opening, like the one she heard during
execution night. She has no activities all day in isolation. It adds to the
stress."
But Mr Rum said the 9 male prisoners would remain on Nusakambangan and Ms Utami
would stay at the women's jail in Cilacap.
"They are already there, so they stay there," he said.
Mr Ali's wife, Siti Rohani, is worried this means her husband will be taken
away from her again soon.
"We are hearing there is going to be another round of executions by the end of
the year," she said.
Mr Ali said he was forced to confess to the heroin after being tortured by
police: "They beat me like an animal. They showed me we will shoot you with a
gun. Many things they did to me. They didn't allow me to talk to my embassy and
talk to my lawyer."
He was sentenced to death in June 2005 even though the prosecution had only
demanded life imprisonment.
Dr Hafid said the sentencing was shortly after the arrest of the Bali 9 on drug
smuggling charges. "There was emotion in Indonesian society at that time that
narcotics cases should be punished much more."
He said he had provided four main reasons why Indonesian president Joko Widodo
should grant clemency.
These included that Gurdip Singh had recanted his allegations of Mr Ali's
involvement, Mr Ali had been in hospital the day the prosecution alleged he had
bought the heroin, prosecutors had only requested a jail sentence and another
accomplice had received a much lighter sentence.
Former president Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie also wrote to Mr Joko asking that he
save Mr Ali's life.
But the couple have been told nothing officially of Mr Ali's fate since the
night of the July 29 executions when he was asked what he wanted done with his
remains.
"They asked me in front of my wife, in front of my children, where do you want
to be buried?," Mr Ali said. "[They said] better you are buried in Indonesia.
[They] do not want to allow me to go back to Pakistan."
Ms Siti wept as her husband recounted telling his family "it was better to let
him go" in the lead up to the executions. "I am tired because of this system,
these people, this everything," he told her. "Better ok, if you want to kill
me, shoot me, finish this problem."
On July 29, executioners took from his cell "one black guy in front of me", a
Nigerian, who was later shot. Mr Ali, waiting in his isolation cell on
Nusakambangan, told himself "This is my number, this is my number".
But the executioners never came back for him.
"Around 1am I got a text from the prison governor saying 'Alhamdulillah (Praise
be to God) Bapak (Mr Ali) is safe," Ms Siti said.
"But we couldn't be sure about it because the prosecutors didn't say anything,
they were there ... but they just stayed silent."
Mr Ali said he had many opportunities to escape during his numerous stints in
hospital but chose not to do so.
"Why am I still here? Because I am not guilty. If they want to do something to
me, they will be wrong, not me. Still I have hope of God Almighty, who can do
anything. Inshallah."
(source: Sydney Morning Herald)
PAKISTAN:
Victims, not smugglers----Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are both bound by the
Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, under which Saudi Arabia has to share
information on Pakistani prisoners with Pakistan, while Pakistan is obliged to
take up the cases of its citizens imprisoned abroad
On September 29, 2016, Saudi Arabia executed Amjad Hussein Ashraf Shah, a
Pakistani national, for allegedly smuggling drugs into Jeddah. Shah's execution
brings the total number of Pakistanis Saudi Arabia has beheaded since 2014 on
charges of drug trafficking to 42. There are over 2,390 Pakistanis imprisoned
in Saudi jails, a significant number of whom being detained for similar charges
and facing the same gruesome fate. However, while the Saudi government and
media hail this spate of executions as a triumph of the kingdom's war on drugs,
people they have executed are not always the nefarious criminals they are made
out to be. Instead, a majority of Pakistanis executed and imprisoned by Saudi
Arabia and other Gulf countries are helpless and hapless victims of drug
trafficking rings who should be accorded sympathy and legal help rather being
punished. While the phenomenon of poor men being forced into being drug mules
is widely acknowledged in official circles, government of Pakistan seems to
have abandoned its citizens to the whims of a foreign country.
The case of Asmat Hayat, a Pakistani executed in Saudi Arabia, can put a human
face to this tragic trend. Hayat lived most of his life in a small, distant
village in Punjab until he received what he thought was the lottery of a
lifetime: a free trip to Saudi Arabia for an umrah. As happens in most of these
cases, Hayat was approached by an Overseas Employment Promoter (OEP) who told
Hayat of a rich Haji benefactor sponsoring the pilgrimage of pious but poor
men. Hayat, like many others before and after him, became overwhelmed with
excitement about visiting the holy lands, and jumped at the opportunity. After
the OEP agent handled his visa and travel arrangements, Hayat bid farewell to
his wife and children in 2009. It would be the last time they see each other.
Like many others facing the same predicament, the naive Hayat did not realise
that he had been recruited by a vile nexus of travel agents and drug
traffickers that targets impressionable men from smaller towns and villages
with grandiose promises. Shockingly, these OEPs often hold licences from the
Board of Investment and Oversees Employment. As is typical in most cases, right
before his flight, the OEP agent manufactured an excuse to delay the departure
and took Hayat and his brother to the house of the supposed benefactor. Once
there, the 2 were beaten and tortured. Hayat was forced under duress to ingest
opiates while his brother was held hostage to force his compliance. He was
instructed to deliver the drugs to a local dealer upon landing. The nervous and
traumatised Hayat, however, was arrested on arrival after a search at the
airport. Soon after, he was tried in a court where he received no legal
representation nor could he understand the language of the proceedings.
Sentenced to death, Asmat Hayat spent 6 years on death row before being
executed in August 2015.
Men like Hayat are double victims: firstly, of the criminal smuggling rings
that go unprosecuted in Pakistan, and secondly, of a Saudi criminal justice
system that lacks due process. After being detained, the local police tortures
and forces the victims of drug smuggling rings to sign confessions of their
guilt pre-written in Arabic. Once the detainees are put on trial, they are not
entitled to free legal counsel or impartial translators. These lopsided trials,
where the defendant is unable to present a defence, are concluded quickly with
the highest penalty awarded. Furthermore, the families of detainees are never
informed of their predicament; even after a Pakistani is executed, the families
are not sent the bodies of their loved one.
While as citizens of Pakistan we cannot change the way Saudi Arabia operates,
we need to hold our own government accountable for its apathy and repeated
failures to secure the fundamental rights of its citizens abroad. To that end,
the Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), a non-profit human rights law firm, sheds
light on the plight of migrant workers and Pakistan government's failures
through a series of case studies, interviews and legal analyses in its recent
publication entitled the Justice Bulletin. In December 2014, the JPP filed a
petition in the Lahore High Court on behalf of the families of migrant workers
facing execution. The aims of this ongoing case are to compel the Pakistani
government to fulfil its duty to protect the rights of its citizens abroad and
to provide them with legal assistance. However, through the proceedings of this
case, an inconvenient truth has come to light: Pakistan does not have a
codified consular policy located in one easily-distributed and authoritative
document.
Consular assistance is the help and advice provided by the diplomatic agents of
a country to their fellow citizens working or travelling in a foreign country.
But as Pakistan has only issued diffused guidelines to its embassies and
consulates abroad, which do not have defined mechanisms or responsibilities
outlined, there is deferring of responsibility and bureaucratic inaction.
Without an easily accessible and codified consular policy, the public has no
way of knowing their rights and the officials themselves lack understanding of
their roles. So we end up in the present situation where Pakistan, instead of
providing relief to its distressed citizens, seems to have given up on them.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are both bound by the Vienna Convention on Consular
Relations, under which Saudi Arabia has to share information on Pakistani
prisoners with Pakistan, while Pakistan is obliged to take up the cases of its
citizens imprisoned abroad. If the Pakistani government needs inspiration to
stand up for its citizens, it does not need to look beyond the South and
Southeast Asian region. India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Philippines
have all in recent years taken stern action to protect the rights of their
citizens working or travelling in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.
Moreover, interviews of former or current Pakistani prisoners in Saudi Arabia
conducted by the JPP have confirmed that citizens of these countries received
regular visits and assistance from their respective consulates.
In light of these realities, it is incumbent on the government of Pakistan to
take corrective action. The first and most important action it should take is
to formulate and implement a uniform consular policy to support all Pakistanis
imprisoned abroad. Secondly, it has to make forceful representation to secure
the due process and fundamental rights of those Pakistanis imminently facing
execution in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. On the domestic front, lack
of prosecution of drug and human trafficking rings needs to be immediately
addressed. Those responsible for entrapment and forced narcotic smuggling
should be identified and charged under relevant criminal laws. Finally,
government has to review why so many Pakistanis get arrested in Saudi Arabia,
which means restructuring the existing regulatory framework for emigration of
Pakistani migrant workers.
Only by taking these necessary actions can Pakistan assert its status as an
equal partner with Saudi Arabia in their enduring relationship, while salvaging
the lives of thousands of Pakistani migrants facing horrible conditions in the
Gulf countries.
(source: Daniyal Yousaf; The writer is an advocacy and policy officer at the
Justice Project Pakistan----Daily Times)
*************
Will Pakistan Execute a Man With Schizophrenia?----Imdad Ali's Execution
Imminent
Does Imdad Ali, a 50-year-old Pakistani with schizophrenia, understand that he
will be executed in the next few days? It's hard to tell. The death penalty is
inherently cruel - but even more so for those who may not recognize their
crimes. Ali's execution was scheduled for September 20, but just 1 day before,
the Supreme Court of Pakistan delayed the execution for a week - so it could
happen any day now. Only Pakistan's president can save Ali's life by commuting
his sentence.
Imdad Ali, who is aged around 50, was sentenced to death for the murder of a
religious cleric in 2002 and is set to be hanged tomorrow.
A court sentenced Ali to death in 2002 for the alleged murder of a religious
scholar. In 2004 and 2012, he underwent mental health assessments, which
concluded that he had psychosis and schizophrenia. According to his lawyers,
Ali has been in solitary confinement for the past 3 years.
Solitary confinement can severely exacerbate previously existing mental health
conditions. In fact, the United Nations expert on torture has called solitary
confinement of people with psychosocial disabilities of any duration for what
it is: cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
In October 2015, the Supreme Court upheld Ali's death sentence, ruling there
was insufficient medical evidence of his disability. The court contended that a
large number of prisoners have mental health conditions and that they "cannot
let everyone go." Weeks later, a mercy petition filed on Ali's behalf was
dismissed by Pakistan's president. In September, another petition to halt the
execution on grounds of Ali's mental health condition was dismissed by the
Lahore High Court.
Pakistan has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities, under which the government is obligated to ensure effective
access to justice for people with disabilities. This includes providing
adequate health care, support, and procedural adjustments to enable people with
disabilities to participate in the judicial process.
Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row - one of the world's
largest populations of prisoners facing execution. Those on death row are often
from the most marginalized in society, and don???t receive the adequate
assistance of counsel or otherwise receive a fair trial.
Pakistani authorities have stopped executions where it was found to be
especially cruel. In 2015, authorities in Lahore suspended the execution of
Abdul Basit, a man who is paralyzed from the waist down after developing
tuberculosis in prison.
Pakistan's president can step in and spare Ali a trip to the gallows - and
spare Pakistan yet another display of the death penalty's inherent cruelty.
(source: Human Rights Watch)
TUNISIA:
Tunisia sentences 31 to death for attack on minister
A Tunisian court has handed 31 people death sentences over a 2014 attack on the
home of then interior minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou, a judiciary spokesman said on
Monday.
The 31, who included Algerians as well as Tunisians, were sentenced in absentia
and some are reported to be already dead.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed the attack on the minister's
family home in the western border region of Kasserine, which left four police
officers dead.
Ben Jeddou was not in the house at the time.
Those convicted were found guilty of "wilful homicide and membership of a
terrorist group" and were also sentenced to 36 years in prison.
A total of 46 people were prosecuted over the attack, said the spokesman for
Tunis district court, Sofiene Sliti.
Among the 15 remaining defendants, 8 were sentenced to between 3 and 10 years
in jail for "membership of a terrorist group" and "involvement in
terrorism-related matters".
The court, which issued the rulings on Friday, dismissed cases against the
remaining 7, Sliti told AFP.
Among the 31 sentenced to death were Seifallah Ben Hassine, an associate of
late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and founder of the jihadist group Ansar
al-Sharia.
The New York Times has reported that Ben Hassine, also known by the nom de
guerre Abou Iyadh, was killed in an air strike in Libya in mid-June last year.
The list also included Lokmane Abu Sakhr, an Algerian jihadist killed by
Tunisian security forces at the end of March last year, also in Kasserine.
Since its independence from France in 1956, Tunisia has carried out 135
executions, but has observed a moratorium on the practice since 1991.
A new anti-terror law adopted in July upheld the death penalty, despite
condemnation by local and international rights groups.
Since Tunisia's 2011 revolution, jihadist attacks have cost dozens of lives
among security forces as well as civilians.
Attacks claimed by the Islamic State group on the National Bardo Museum in
Tunis and a beach resort also killed 59 foreign tourists in 2015.
(source: worldbulletin.net)
EGYPT:
Amnesty Calls for Retrial of 8 Men Sentenced to Death in Military Court
Amnesty International called on Monday for the retrial of 8 civilians who were
sentenced to death by a military court before a civilian court.
The 8 defendants were convicted of belonging to a banned group and possessing
firearms and explosives. 18 others were handed prison terms, while 2 were
acquitted in the same case.
6 of the defendants were tried in absentia, including 2 of those sentenced to
death.
Amnesty called on Egyptian authorities to retry all those convicted in the case
before a civilian court. It also for excluding all confessions and evidence
obtained through "torture" and ill-treatment" in the retrial.
"Sentencing to death men who were tortured into 'confessions' is an egregious
injustice, even by the degraded standards of Egypt's justice system," said
Magdalena Mughrabi-Talhami, Amnesty International's Regional Deputy Programme
Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
"They must receive a fair trial before an ordinary civilian court that meets
international standards and excludes torture-tainted evidence, without the
recourse to the death penalty," added Mughrabi-Talhami.
Egypt's defence minister has ratified the death sentences on Aug. 21, while the
defendants were notified by the decision during the period between Sept. 15 and
21.
The verdict is subject to appeal before a Supreme Military Court for those who
were present in court within 60 days of the notification date.
The defendants, arrested between May 28 and June 7, 2015, were subjected to
enforced disappearances and their whereabouts were unknown for over 6 weeks,
according to Amnesty.
Based on their lawyers' and their families' statements, Amnesty reported that
the men had wounds that included "burns and bruises on their bodies as well as
injuries to their hands" indicating signs of torture.
Amnesty called for an "effective, independent, and impartial investigation into
the allegations of enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment."
Most families later discovered their relatives were in military custody when
they saw a televised video by the Defence Ministry on July 10 announcing the
arrests of the "most dangerous terrorist cell" in Egypt, according to the
report.
The video footage featured the detainees "confessing" to belonging to a banned
group and attacking military institutions.
The No to Military Trials for Civilians initiative launched in September a
social media campaign that's due to continue until end of October in support of
the defendants. Activists shared their posters carrying "No to Military Trials
for Civilians," alongside photographs and stories of the defendants.
According to a report issued in April by Human Rights Watch, 7420 civilians
have faced military trials since October 2014, when President Abdel Fattah
al-Sisi decreed a law that expanded the reach of the military justice system by
placing all public property under its jurisdiction.
(source: Aswat Masriya)
***********************
Help Stop Executions Of 6 Men Unfairly Tried (Egypt: UA 91/16)
Egypt's defence minister has ratified the death sentences of 6 civilian men
tried by a military court in a case marred by enforced disappearances and
torture and other ill-treatment. The men may now contest the ruling before a
higher court.
On 21 August Egypt's defence minister signed-off on death sentences handed down
against six civilian men by a military court last May in Case 174 of 2015,
known by the media as the "advanced operations committee case".
Under the country's Code of Military Justice, the president or his
representatives must ratify all judgements by military courts. All the men have
signed documents acknowledging that they have been notified of the minister's
decision, their representatives told Amnesty International.
Under Egyptian law, they have 60 days from the date of notification to
challenge the judgement before a higher court, the Supreme Military Court of
Appeals. If that court rejects the men's appeal they will be executed, unless
the president pardons them or commutes their sentences.
Officials notified 5 of the men of the minister's decision on 21 September:
Abdul Basir Abdul Rauf, Mohamed Fawzi Abd al-Gawad Mahmoud, Reda Motamad Fahmy
Abd al-Monem, Ahmed Mustafa Ahmed Mohamed, and Mahmoud al-Sharif Mahmoud. The
6th man, Ahmed Amin Ghazali Amin, was notified on 15 September.
The defence minister also ratified the prison sentences of 12 civilians jailed
in the same trial, as well as 2 death sentences and 6 prison sentences handed
down in absentia. Officials have notified all but 3 of the men currently
serving prison sentences of the decision.
The authorities have not investigated evidence that the men were subjected to
enforced disappearances following their arrests in 2015, nor have they
investigated the men's complaints of torture and other ill-treatment.
TAKE ACTION
Write a letter, send an email, call, fax or tweet:
-- Calling on the Egyptian authorities to retry all those convicted in the
case before an ordinary, civilian court without recourse to the death penalty
and in proceedings that respect international fair trial standards and exclude
"confessions" and other evidence obtained through torture and other
ill-treatment;
-- Calling upon them to open an effective, independent and impartial
investigation into the allegations of enforced disappearance, torture and other
ill-treatment;
-- Urging them to introduce a moratorium on executions as a first step towards
abolishing the death penalty.
Contact these 2 officials by 14 November, 2016:
Defence Minister
Colonel General Sedqi Sobhi
Ministry of Defence
Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt
F: +202 2 414 4248 / +202 2 414 4247
E: m...@afmic.gov.eg and m...@afmic.gov.eg
Salutation: Your Excellency
Ambassador Yasser Reda
Embassy of Egypt
3521 International Ct NW, Washington DC 20008
Fax: 202 244 4319 -OR- 202 244 5131 -- Phone: 202 895 5400
Email: ambassa...@egyptembassy.net
Salutation: Dear Ambassador
(source: Amnesty International USA)
TAIWAN:
Keir Starmer's next mission: stopping the death penalty in Taiwan ---- With 80%
of the population of Taiwan supporting executions, the Labour MP and former
director of public prosecutions faces an uphill battle
Executions in Taiwan traditionally involve sedated prisoners being thrust face
down on a mattress and shot 3 times through the heart. If the condemned donate
their internal organs, death is delivered by a single bullet to the back of the
head.
The last execution was at 8.47pm on 10 May inside a jail near the capital,
Taipei. Cheng Chieh, 23, received three shots. The crime he committed was a
frenzied, mass stabbing of travellers on a metro train, inflicted with a long
fruit knife, which left 4 commuters dead and 24 injured in 2014.
Cheng's final appeal had been dismissed by the country's supreme court 2 1/2
weeks earlier. He reportedly confessed: "I had to murder people so I would be
convicted for murder and given the death sentence. Only then would my miserable
life end." His mental state was the subject of intense legal dispute.
On Tuesday, Keir Starmer, the Labour MP and former director of public
prosecutions, the solicitor Saul Lehrfreund, who is co-executive director of
abolitionist UK charity the Death Penalty Project, and Dr Richard Latham, a
consultant forensic psychiatrist, will arrive in Taipei in the hope of halting
further executions.
Their ultimate aim is to persuade the newly elected Democratic Progressive
party government of president Tsai Ing-wen that she should abandon capital
punishment, a shift that would signal the island's political distance from
mainland China's practice of executing thousands of prisoners a year.
The problem is that, according to the latest opinion polls, 80% of the
Taiwanese population support the death penalty. The challenge does not seem to
deter Starmer. "History shows us there are key moments when attitudes change,
like the death penalty, or, for example, gay marriage.
"While popular opinion appears to be strongly in one direction, bold moves are
taken in accordance with changing standards. You expect an outpouring of
outrage but within a short time a new norm emerges.
"If you said 20 years ago that the public would accept gay marriage, you would
have got a very different answer. Rarely has the death penalty been abolished
by vote, but it has been restricted by legal measures, then abolished; and
that's been accepted." Europe, he points out, is now a "death penalty-free
zone" with the sole exception of Belarus.
Starmer is a founding director of the Death Penalty Project, and has appeared
frequently on a pro bono basis before the privy council - the final court of
appeal for many Commonwealth countries - since the 1990s to challenge the use
of the death penalty in the Caribbean.
Despite alarm over the recent rate of hangings and beheadings in Saudi Arabia,
Iran and Pakistan, the international trend is for countries to abandon
executions. There are 109 abolitionist states, although 7 retain the punishment
for war crimes and treason. A further 39 states abstain in practice.
Taiwan has 42 people on death row. Alongside the US and South Korea, it is one
of only a few liberal democracies that supports judicially authorised killing
of its citizens. When the present governing party was last in power, it
introduced a temporary moratorium and drafted into domestic legislation the
United Nation's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),
which prevents the death sentence being imposed on pregnant women or those who
committed their crimes below the age of 18.
That moratorium, however, was lifted when the government changed in 2010,
leading to the execution of 33 people. The electoral victory this year of Tsai
Ing-wen, Taiwan's 1st female president, has boosted hopes of converting the
country permanently to abolition.
The Democratic Progressive party emerged out of activist opposition to an
earlier era of 1-party rule. Human rights are part of its core values. The
president, who is a lawyer by profession, has so far not committed herself
either way.
Lehrfreund says: "We are not there to dictate, we are there to assist them." He
has been working closely with the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty. "We
hope Taiwan will show it is respectful of human rights and wants to be
different to other countries in the region. That would create momentum for
others to switch, perhaps Thailand and South Korea."
Lehrfreund is convinced that popular support for executions is not set in
stone. "Once you throw in variables about innocent defendants being mistakenly
executed, then perceptions change." Challenging "misconceived views about the
deterrent effect" of the death penalty also helps shift opinion, he adds.
The experience of awaiting execution can be mentally destabilising, says
Latham. "It's termed 'death row syndrome'. It has an incredibly negative
impact. It resembles a depressive state. Depending on conditions and if you are
kept in isolation, prisoners develop more severe responses such as hearing
voices and delusional beliefs." As well as oscillating wildly between hope and
fear, inmates overhear neighbours in adjoining cells being dragged away and
never coming back.
Latham will be talking to doctors about diagnosing prisoners and the way
evidence is handled by the courts. "People can appear superficially to be well
but they may nonetheless be mentally disordered."
Starmer is gratified that what began in obscure privy council legal hearings,
has developed into Commonwealth legislation and now broadened out into an
international campaign affecting every state around the world.
"It's for the government in Taiwan to decide whether it wants to move towards
abolition," says Starmer, "but the fact that it has signed up to the ICCPR
shows that it wants to do so in accordance with international standards. And
that???s welcome." There will also be discussions about Taiwan's plans to
introduce a jury system.
Progress towards global abolition may not be straightforward, Lehrfreund
concedes. Both Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte and Turkey president Recep
Tayyip Erdogan threatened this summer to restore the death penalty, setbacks
that may overshadow International World Day Against the Death Penalty on 10
October.
"There should be a burden on any state to make sure they are not executing
people who are mentally disordered," Lehrfreund says. "It's in the political
arena that abolition will eventually happen."
(source: The Guardian)
INDIA:
SC upholds death penalty to rapist, killer ex-cop Umesh
The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the sentence of death penalty awarded to B A
Umesh, a cop-turned-criminal, for raping and murdering a widow in Bengaluru's
Peenya police station limits on February 28, 1998.
Dismissing his review petition, the court said, "The petitioner has become a
menace and threat to the society".
Going through his criminal antecedents, including 7 convictions for rape and
robbery among others, a 3-judge bench presided over by Justice Ranjan Gogoi
rejected his plea against the capital punishment. The court said "there is
little hope of rehabilitation and reformation of the petitioner".
The apex court saw no reason to show any leniency to the convict, also known as
Umesh Reddy, on the ground that he was just 30 years of age at the time of the
offence.
With regard to his contention that he had left the seven-year-old child of the
victim unharmed, the bench said, it was not because of any compassion, but
actually, it was a hasty retreat.
No reason to review
"On the overall analysis of the facts and circumstances of the case, the
gravity of the offence and the manner in which the crime is committed read with
the antecedents of the petitioner who is an ex-police official, we do not find
sufficient reason to review or modify the order of affirmation of death
sentence in the present case," the bench, also comprising Justices Prafulla C
Pant and A M Khanwilkar, noted.
The court noted that the petitioner was involved in crime not only before the
incident but subsequently also, as he committed robbery 2 days later.
Merit in argument
The Supreme Court found merit in the argument by advocate Anita Shenoy,
appearing for Karnataka, that there was no mitigating factor in favour of the
petitioner to save him from death penalty, which had already been upheld by the
Supreme Court in 2011.
Umpteen cases
Listing out the 21 cases faced by Umesh Reddy to assert that there was no
chance of his reform, the lawyer claimed that the petitioner had criminal
propensity, while maintaining that even a single case of brutal murder was good
enough to award the death penalty.
A 5-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court, by 4:1, had on February 9,
2014, held that all review petitions in case of the death penalty should be
heard in the open court as a matter of right for the condemned prisoners.
Bengaluru resident Umesh, whose review petition was dismissed in 2012, had got
a ray of hope with the verdict of the court.
Bizarre crimes
Reddy had gained notoriety for his crimes, attempting to have sex with dead
bodies after murdering the victims. He had filed the writ petition in the apex
court on February 17, 2011.
The Supreme Court had refused to show any leniency to the convict who had raped
and smothered the victim after tying her hands.
Umesh Reddy was sentenced to death by the High Court of Karnataka on February
18, 2009.
(source: Deccan Herald)
*****************
Supreme Court dismisses death penalty review for Bangalore's "Jack the Ripper"
Yesterday, the Supreme Court of India upheld the death penalty awarded to Umesh
Reddy, dubbed as Bangalore's 'Jack the Ripper' by some media outlets. The
judgment was delivered by a Bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi, Prafulla C Pant and
AM Khanwilkar.
If media reports are to be believed, Umesh was a habitual offender with a
particular modus operandi. After the commission of rape, he would murder the
victim and make the scene of crime appear like a robbery. However, these
stories remain conjecture at best, and figments of overactive media imagination
at the worst.
As the Supreme Court's judgment shows, Reddy was convicted for only 7 crimes,
out of which it was the rape and murder of Jayashree Subbiah that resulted in
the death sentence. Subbiah's 7-year-old son had met Umesh while Umesh was
leaving the scene of the crime, and had later testified against Umesh.
As far as leaving the child unharmed was concerned, which was one of the main
pillars the defence counsel Kiran Suri had relied on to prove the possibility
of Umesh's reformation, the Bench noted that, "As far as the fact as to leaving
PW-2 Suresh (7 years old child) unharmed is concerned, it is apparent that
actually the child was left unharmed not because of any compassion on the part
of the petitioner. Rather he was on a hasty retreat from the place of
incident."
It seems as if Umesh's criminal antecedents happened to be the final nail in
his coffin. The judgment, penned by Prafulla C Pant, reasoned that there was
little possibility of reformation. The judgment reads, "The following chart of
history of 7 convictions recorded against the petitioner is placed before us
which shows that there is little hope of rehabilitation and reformation of the
petitioner.
... The worst is that the petitioner has committed crimes not only before the
incident, but also within 2 days, subsequent to the incident, i.e. another
robbery in connection with which he was apprehended by the public and handed
over to the police.
Taken together, all the above, reveals that the petitioner is a menace and has
become threat to the society."
Interestingly, Justice Ranjan Gogoi had pursued a slightly different line of
questioning during the hearing, choosing to look at the case from an academic
perspective.
He had also requested Anitha Shenoy, appearing for the Registrar General of the
State of Karnataka, to collate a list of all the cases in which death penalty
has been awarded so as to provide a perspective into this particular case.
(source: barandbench.com)
********************
Hoshiarpur boy's 2 killers to be hanged on October 25
The parents of Hoshiarpur boy Abhi Verma, who was kidnapped and murdered for
ransom at 16 in February 2005, have welcomed the orders to execute convicts
Vikram Walia and Jasvir Singh in the wake of the President's rejecting their
mercy petition.
Ravi Verma and his wife, Anita, are relieved that a long legal battle has come
good. "Justice will prevail after almost 12 years," said Ravi Verma. "The
execution of the convicts will not bring our child back but it will deter those
who play with the lives of others."
Walia and Jasvir Singh will be hanged in Patiala jail at 9am on October 25. The
2 along with Jasvir's wife, Sonia, had kidnapped Abhi, a Class 9 student of DAV
School here, and killed him with an overdose of anaesthesia. Walia and Jasvir
Singh were then in their early twenties. Walia lived in Model Town here and
Jasvir at his aunt's in Milap Nagar, the house where they kept the boy.
Mastermind Walia was known to goldsmith Ravi Verma. After kidnapping Verma's
son, he even went to his house with Jasvir, and offered fake sympathies. Even
after killing the boy, they continued to demand '50 lakh ransom from his
family.
Sonia, Abhi's former tutor, was involved in everything from the kidnapping and
intoxication of the boy to the destruction of evidence. They dumped the body in
a field in Jalandhar district, from where it was recovered on the disclosure
statement of Jasvir.
On December 21, 2006, the district and sessions judge gave death penalty to all
3. On May 30, 2008, the high court upheld the sentence. In January 2010, the
Supreme Court commuted only Sonia's sentence to life imprisonment.
To prolong the trial, Walia and Jasvir challenged capital punishment awarded
under Section 364-A (kidnapping for ransom) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) but,
in August 2015, a 3-member Supreme Court bench headed by justice TS Thakur
dismissed that appeal. Jasvir and Sonia sought conjugal rights from the court
to bear a child but that, too, was declined. Walia and Jasvir filed a mercy
petition with the President, which he turned down this August.
Issuing death warrants, the Hoshiarpur district and sessions judge has ordered
the Patiala Central Jail superintendent to make necessary arrangements for the
execution. His legal aid, Maninder Pal Singh, said that the convicts had
exhausted all their legal means and their hanging was imminent.
(source: Hindustan Times)
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