Oct. 23
SAUDI ARABIA:
Execution of Saudi prince brings praise for the monarchy
Saudi Arabia's rulers are not as popular as they used to be in the kingdom.
With low global oil prices, officials have been forced to cut spending
dramatically in a nation where most people depend on the government for
salaries, education and other forms of welfare.
But the rare execution of a Saudi royal last week appears to have helped
resurrect the monarchy's popularity - at least according to the reaction on
social media.
Prince Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, who was found guilty of shooting to death a
Saudi citizen during a brawl, was executed last Tuesday as per a royal order by
King Salman. He became the 1st member of Saudi royalty to be executed in the
kingdom since 1975.
That drove Saudis to launch a hashtag in Arabic on Twitter that roughly
translates to "decisive Salman orders retribution for a prince," a reference to
Saudi Arabia's deputy crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. For days now, the
hashtag has been trending in Saudi Arabia, with tweets sent by citizens,
officials and royal family members praising the king for his "integrity."
One video shows King Salman telling officials that "any citizen can sue the
royal family and seek justice." The video has gone viral in the kingdom.
Some on social media described the execution as "evidence of the justice which
sharia law affirms," referring to the conservative Islamic codes that govern
Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations. Others said the ruling demonstrated "the
king's integrity in treating all citizens equally" and that "nobody is above
the law."
Saudi courts have brought other royal family members, estimated to number a few
thousand, to justice. In 1975, a prince who assassinated his uncle, King
Faisal, was beheaded. 2 years later, a princess was executed for adultery.
But other royals were pardoned at the last minute by victims' families. This
time, though, the victim's family turned down an offer of "blood money,"
reportedly in the millions of dollars to pardon the prince. Then, both the
kingdom's appeals court and the Supreme Court affirmed the death penalty.
At a time when the monarch is implementing unprecedented austerity measures,
even royal families welcomed the execution as decisive and fair.
"This is the law of God Almighty, and this is the approach of our blessed
nation," wrote Khalid al-Saud, a royal family member, according to Reuters.
Another Saudi royal member, billionaire businessman Al Walid Bin Talal, recited
a Koranic verse: "there is life for you in retaliation."
Details of the prince's last hours were revealed on social media, another rare
development for the conservative, often secretive kingdom.
Mohammed al-Masloukhi, the Imam of Al Safa mosque, who was present while the
victim's family was being offered the "blood money," described the prince's
"heartbreaking last moments with his family members" who visited him for one
last time in prison.
Al-Masloukhi said the convicted prince then prayed, reciting Koranic verses
until sunrise. He was executed 4 1/2 hours later.
The execution, tweeted al-Masloukhi, was carried out in presence of the
prince's father, who "broke down in tears" while the victim's father watched
with "a fixed expression on his face."
(source: Washington Post)
UNITED KINGDOM:
Britain's overseas anti-drugs policy 'putting people on death row'----Funding
for drug enforcement in Pakistan leads to vulnerable drug-smuggling mules
facing death penalty, says Reprieve
Britain is supporting an overseas battle against drugs that critics say is
leading to the arrest and potential execution of people either duped or coerced
into becoming "mules".
The issue is a sensitive one for the prime minister. Theresa May has made
combating people trafficking a priority for her government. But human rights
groups say the UK is failing to recognise the consequences of its support for a
number of operations abroad that target people being trafficked to smuggle
drugs.
Britain has been funding and training Pakistani drug enforcement officers to
intercept drugs at ports and airports through a UN initiative called the
Container Control Programme. Documents dated 17 October show that the UK has
given almost $200,000 (163,000 pounds) to the programme.
UK officials are also mentoring and training Pakistan customs agents, the Home
Office confirmed. Last month, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime revealed that
the programme had led to the seizure of drugs at Karachi airport that were
bound for Saudi Arabia. 3 men arrested in connection with the seizures now face
potential death penalties, according to the human rights group Reprieve.
There is evidence that some of those caught attempting to smuggle drugs from
Pakistan are doing so under duress - to pay off family debt or because a
relative is being held by a criminal gang. In other cases, those smuggling the
drugs are poorly educated and unaware of the implications.
The UN special rapporteur on migrant workers is one of several experts who have
raised concerns that some smugglers sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia are
trafficking victims. Almost 4/5 of those on death row in the kingdom are
foreign nationals, most of them migrant workers from India or Pakistan. There
are about 8,000 people on Pakistan's death row, many of them being held for
drugs offences. Since the country lifted the moratorium on the death penalty
more than 400 people have been executed.
In a letter to home secretary Amber Rudd, Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, warns
that the "UK funding for counter-narcotics programmes may be not only
contributing to the death penalty and other human rights abuse, but even
leading to the arrest and execution of some of the very exploited people it is
seeking to protect."
The Home Office denies funding the programme and insists all of its overseas
engagement work is risk-assessed, which includes looking at any impact on human
rights.
(soruce: The Guardian)
PAKISTAN:
Wrongful hangings expose flaws in justice system
The wrongful executions of the two brothers in a southern Punjab district have
exposed serious flaws in Pakistan's criminal justice system.
Possible complicity of prisons and judicial authorities in Punjab cannot be
ruled out in the hanging of the 2 brothers, who were executed under highly
questionable circumstances in Bahawalpur last year.
PHC temporarily halts militant's execution
Sources told The Express Tribune that the provincial home department had
already launched a probe into this 'criminal negligence', and officials
concerned also sought legal opinion on the matter from the advocate-general's
office.
After these revelations, a debate started once again whether or not to abolish
the death penalty in the country.
Case history
On October 6, while hearing 7-year-old jail petitions, a 3-judge bench of the
Supreme Court, headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, acquitted the 2
brothers - Ghulam Qadir and Ghulam Sarwar. They had been condemned to death for
killing Abdul Qadir, Muhammad Akmal and Salma Bibi on February 2, 2002 in Rahim
Yar Khan district.
However, things took a dramatic turn when it transpired that the 2 brothers had
been executed on October 12 last year.
The case landed in the Supreme Court 7 years ago by way of jail petitions after
the Lahore High Court dismissed the brothers' appeals and upheld their death
penalty.
Later, the apex court appointed Aftab Ahmed Khan advocate to plead the case on
behalf of the 2 brothers in 2010.
On June 10, 2010, a 2-judge bench, headed by Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed, took up
the jail petitions for 1st time against their death sentence and granted leave
only for re-examining evidence against them for the premeditated murder
(Qatl-e-Amad) of Salma. However, the bench upheld their death sentence in 2
other murders.
On October 5 this year, the case was taken up again by the apex court, after
which the bench found its order of June 10, 2010 to be 'anomalous' and decided
to review it.
The ruling was intimated by the apex court's registrar to the secretary of
Punjab Home Ministry and the federal secretary interior.
On June 6, the bench resumed the case hearing, wherein Additional
Prosecutor-General Punjab Ahmad Raza Gilani and the counsel for petitioners,
Aftab Ahmad Khan, also opposed the sentencing of the 2 brothers on 3 counts of
murder.
After examining the entire record, the court issued an 11-page judgment, in
which it held that the prosecution had failed to prove its case against the
appellants.
Justice Malik Manzoor Ahmad, while authoring the judgment, allowed their
appeals and set aside the judgments under which they were awarded death
sentences.
"The appellants, Ghulam Qadir and Ghulam Sarwar, are acquitted of the charges.
Both of them shall be released forthwith." Legal opinion on affixing
responsibility.
Against execution: Activists denounce capital punishment
Aftab Ahmad Khan, the counsel for both brothers, told The Express Tribune that
when the court issued orders acquitting the 2 brothers, he wrote a letter to
their family, but received no response.
Later, he said, he approached the Supreme Court's implementation branch for
their release.
Finally, he personally talked with jail authorities in Rahimyar Khan and
Bahawalpur, but was shocked to learn that both brothers had already been hanged
last year.
The counsel said that he was moving an application in the apex court next week,
requesting for launching a probe into the matter.
AAG Punjab Ahmad Raza Gilani believes that the jail authorities should have
sought the opinion of the prosecution department before going ahead with the
hangings.
Additional Advocate-General Punjab Qasim Chohaan contended that the apex court
should have suspended the death sentences in its June 10, 2010 order.
(source: Express Tribune)
*******************
Justice can't be blind
The facts are not in dispute in the case of 50-year-old Imdad Ali. He killed a
cleric in 2001 and was sentenced to death for the murder but he was also
certified as suffering from schizophrenia by government doctors. Since Imdad's
condition means he cannot understand both his crime and the punishment handed
out to him, he should not be awarded the death penalty. But a 3-member bench of
the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Anwer Zaheer Jamali, rejected his
appeal using the reasoning that schizophrenia is not a permanent condition and
so does not fall within the definition of mental disorders. This is, to put it
very mildly, an unenlightened view of mental illnesses. The Supreme Court
relied on dictionary definitions of schizophrenia and a 1988 judgement by the
Indian Supreme Court. Our understanding of mental disorders has progressed
greatly in the last 30 years so that case was perhaps not the best precedent
and it would have been better to rely on expert definitions rather than
consulting a dictionary. The US National Institute of Mental Health calls
schizophrenia a "chronic and severe mental disorder" and says "people with
schizophrenia may seem like they have lost touch with reality." Since Imdad's
schizophrenia is not in dispute, under this professional definition he should
not be given a death sentence.
Pakistan's justice system has struggled to keep up with the times. When much of
the world has made use of DNA testing to bring a greater degree of certainty in
the guilt of accused criminals, we have been arguing about its merits. It was
only in April of this year that Pakistan set up its 1st DNA testing lab. We
have now shown ourselves to be similarly archaic in our understanding of mental
disorders. It should be the duty of the state and the courts to provide
defendants with every possible chance to prove their innocence, especially when
the state has the power to take their lives. But, since the reintroduction of
the death penalty, capital punishment has been handed out hastily and we are
now seeing the consequences of that. Earlier this month, 2 brothers Ghulam
Sarwar and Ghulam Qadri were successful in appealing their death sentences to
the Supreme Court. The only problem was that they had already been hanged in
Rahimyar Khan a year ago. How they were given the death penalty when all their
appeals were yet to be exhausted will have to be explained and those who
carried out the sentence made to face the consequences for what is essentially
murder. Such cases do not get the attention they deserve because those given
the death penalty are overwhelmingly poor and without the resources to properly
fight their cases. They languish in jail for years - 15 in the case of Imdad -
as the courts are too slow in taking up their appeals. That people who should
not be imprisoned in the first place have to wait that long for verdicts is a
denial of their rights to begin with. That they are then still executed only
compounds the offence, turning it into a crime. Imdad, Ghulam Sarwar, Ghulam
Qadri and many others like them deserve better from the justice system.
(source: Editorial, The News)
*************************
The barbarism of capital punishment
Barbarism. There is no other way to describe the senseless bloodlust and
spiteful vindictiveness that characterises what passes for the criminal justice
system in Pakistan. In a judgment that will long be remembered for its sheer
idiocy and mindboggling insensitivity, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has
declared that paranoid schizophrenia is not a mental disorder, and that those
suffering from it can indeed by executed by the state. In deciding thus, the
Court has sealed the fate of Imdad Ali, who suffers from the disease and has
been languishing on death row after being convicted of murder in 2002. On at
least 2 separate occasions, in 2004 and 2012, medical experts confirmed that
Imdad Ali is a victim of mental illness, and that his condition is severe
enough for him to not even understand what he has been convicted of or the
nature of the sentence that has been decreed by the court.
The Pakistan Penal Code prohibits the punishment of those suffering from mental
illness. Pakistan is also a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Medical experts around the world are
unanimously of the view that paranoid schizophrenia is a very serious mental
disorder. Yet, despite all of this, the Supreme Court has defied Pakistan's
laws, its international obligations, and conventional wisdom by simply deciding
that because the disease can be treated and managed, it does not somehow
qualify as the type of disorder that could impede an execution. In order to
arrive at this this determination, the court relied on definitions of
schizophrenia provided in 2 English dictionaries, as well as a precedent from
an Indian court case from 1988. The real irony of this is that even on these
flimsy grounds (note the absence of reference to contemporary medical opinion)
there is little substantive content that supports the Supreme Court's
conclusions. Instead, the judges have simply changed the meaning of paranoid
schizophrenia by definitional fiat.
Condemnation of the Supreme Court's decision has been unsurprising and
widespread. Yet, even as lawyers, doctors, and human rights groups continue to
raise questions about the flaws in judicial process and reasoning that have
brought Imdad Ali to the brink of execution, significant sections of the
Pakistani populace have welcomed the decision. Once again, the medieval logic
of an eye-for-an-eye has intruded upon the debate, with an army of armchair
analysts and keyboard warriors frothily baying for blood; if someone is guilty
of murder, they should be killed. It does not matter if they did not know what
they were doing or lacked the mental faculties to understand the consequences
of their actions; there is no room for empathy, compassion, or understanding in
the justice system.
The problems with this argument are numerous. Those who simply demand blood and
vengeance every time a crime is perpetrated seem to give very little thought to
the purpose of punishment itself. Is the whole point to wreak terrible
retribution upon the perpetrators of crimes, is it to prevent further crimes,
or is it to offer the chance for rehabilitation and reform? Can it truly be
argued that depriving someone of their liberty for decades is less severe a
punishment than execution? Can a purely retributive and reciprocal principle of
justice even be implemented in a just and meaningful way, particularly in a
context like Pakistan, where weak law enforcement and judicial institutions
preclude the possibility of foolproof investigations and trials? Does the state
even have the right to take lives in this fashion, given the well-established
fact that innocents are sometimes executed for crimes they did not commit? Most
importantly of all, in the context of Imdad Ali, what possible purpose is being
served by killing a man who does not even understand what is going on around
him?
Capital punishment does not work. Evidence from around the world has shown this
time and again. It does not deter crime, it is prone to abuse and severe
miscarriages of justice, and it is often entirely disproportionate to the
gravity of the offence committed. Yet, it continues to be championed as a
panacea for all kinds of social ills in Pakistan. After a welcome moratorium on
the death penalty that lasted for the better part of a decade, 425 people have
been executed in Pakistan since 2014. This number includes people who were
children when they were convicted of the crimes they allegedly committed, as
well as others suffering from severe physical disabilities. The execution of
these people (with thousands more death row prisoners slated to die in the
years to come) has been justified in the name of national security, with the
desire to punish terrorists serving as a basis upon which to reintroduce this
form of punishment. How people accused of murder and other non-terror related
offences can be executed on that basis is something that has yet to be
clarified by the government and the courts.
However, it is here that it becomes possible to see that the execution of
people like Imdad Ali has nothing to do with justice, and everything to do with
keeping up appearances. He must die, not because of adherence to some abstract
principle of justice, but because the powers-that-be have decreed that capital
punishment is a necessary tool in the fight against terrorism. To spare a life
under these circumstances, no matter how legitimate the reason might be, would
be to undermine the legitimacy of the whole exercise. To cast doubt on the
rightness and justness of the state's right to execute people would be to
potentially open the floodgates to further questioning about the utility and
legitimacy of the death penalty.
We live in a country where a video of a female reporter being assaulted by a
security official in Karachi is welcomed with a chorus of cries lauding the
latter for putting the woman in her place, and where religious minorities are
routinely persecuted by mobs egged on by the calls emanating from the
loudspeakers of their mosques. We as a society have come to revel in brutality,
and the bloodlust that demands satiation through the execution of Imdad Ali has
absolutely nothing to do with justice.
(source: Hassan Javid; The writer is an assistant professor of political
science at LUMS----The Nation)
INDIA:
Justice Katju Will Appear Before SC To Explain Why Death Sentence Should Be
Imposed On Govindachamy
Justice Markandey Katju, through his Facebook post, has said that he will be
appearing before the Supreme Court Bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi in
Soumya Rape and Murder case. Saying that he received the Supreme Court notice
in the matter, Justice Katju said: "I will be appearing before the Supreme
Court in the Soumya case on 11th November at 2 p.m.to explain why the judgment
requires review, and the death sentence be imposed on the accused Govindachamy.
"
Reacting to a comment in his post which suggested that death penalty should be
abolished, Justice Katju said: "No, it should be retained in some types of
cases, e.g. honour killing, dowry deaths, fake encounters by police, serial
murders, brutal murders which shock the conscience, etc."
Shortly after the Supreme Court pronounced its judgment, justice Katju had said
the Supreme Court must review its Thursday judgment in Soumya case, in which
the apex court found accused Govindachamy not guilty of murder but only guilty
of rape.
Last week, after the conclusion of hearing of arguments by the review
petitioners in the Govindaswamy case, had issued notice to the former Supreme
Court Judge to appear in Court in person, and participate in the proceedings on
November 11 at 2 p.m.
Reacting to the said notice, Justice Katju had told Live Law that he would be
happy to appear before the Supreme Court considering the Review Petition in
Soumya Case, if the judges consider that a former Supreme Court judge is not
debarred from appearing by Article 124(7) of the Constitution.
(source: livelaw.in)
NIGERIA:
Kidnapping: Lagos to impose death by hanging
The Lagos State Assembly has recommended death by hanging as penalty for
kidnapping in Lagos State. This was revealed yesterday when the Assembly held a
public hearing on a Bill for a law to provide for the prohibition of the act of
kidnapping and other connected purposes.
The bill sponsored by the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Rt.
Hon. Mudashiru Obasa, stated that any person, who kidnaps, abducts, details or
captures or takes another person by any means with intent to demand ransom or
do anything against his/her will commits an offence, and is liable on
conviction to death sentence.
The death penalty in the Bill by the Assembly is a stiffer penalty for the 21
years imprisonment at present provided in the state criminal code.
It is not only persons found guilty of kidnapping that would be penalised,
those who participated in the process or attempted kidnapping would not go
unpunished, as the Bill provides that any person, who knowingly or willfully
allows or permits his premises, building or a place belonging or occupied to
which he has control of, to be used for the purposes of keeping a person
kidnapped is guilty of an offence under the law and liable on conviction to a
term of imprisonment of 14 years without an option of fine.
Also, a Chief Magistrate in Lagos State, Mrs Seri Sholebo said that it was
fundamental to add conspiracy to kidnapping, disclosing that convicting
offenders on the basis of conspiracy since 2011 had been a herculean task.
Meanwhile, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has said that to win the war against
terrorism in Nigeria would require collaborative efforts among the citizens and
strong synergy among security agencies.
(source: guardian.ng)
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