June 21
EGYPT:
Cancel Alexandria Death Penalty----Risk of Imminent Execution After Flawed
Trial
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi should cancel a death sentence
confirmed by the country's highest appeals court on April 25, 2017, Human
Rights Watch said today. The sentence followed a trial that violated the
defendant's due process rights. If carried out, it would be the 9th execution
related to an incident of political violence since the military removed the
former president in 2013.
An Alexandria criminal court originally sentenced Fadl al-Mawla, an employee of
the Engineers' Club in Alexandria and a preacher affiliated with the Muslim
Brotherhood, to death in 2016 in connection with the killing of a taxi driver
during a protest 3 years earlier. During the trial, the court denied defense
lawyers' requests to hear exonerating testimony from witnesses.
"Egypt's justice system remains highly politicized, characterized by rampant
due process violations," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human
Rights Watch. "The last thing the authorities should be doing in this period of
extreme political polarization is to put people to death following unfair
trials."
Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch called on Egyptian authorities to place a
moratorium on the death penalty in view of the sharp rise in the number of
death sentences, turbulent political upheaval, and failure to pass a
comprehensive transitional justice law in Egypt since the military removed
former President Mohamed Morsy in 2013.
The case stemmed from an August 15, 2013, march in Alexandria organized by the
Muslim Brotherhood to protest the brutal dispersals of mass sit-ins opposing
the military's removal of Morsy the day before. The dispersals on August 14,
2013, resulted in the deaths of at least 904 people at 2 protest sites in
Cairo.
The Alexandria march blocked traffic on the seaside corniche road, and some of
the protesters carried weapons, according pictures posted by residents on
social media. Protesters clashed with the police and government supporters. By
the end of the day, at least 7 people had been killed. At some point during the
march, an altercation began between protesters and a taxi driver.
In a video filmed from a balcony, a yellow-and-black Alexandria taxi can be
seen maneuvering quickly from one end of the crowd to the other. It accelerates
through marchers, possibly hitting some, before it runs into the rear of
another car and becomes stuck in traffic. Scores of marchers quickly swarm the
taxi, and a sound resembling a gunshot is audible. The person filming the video
says, "They shot him?" In another video that begins shortly after the apparent
gunshot, the crowd of marchers can be seen attacking the taxi while the person
filming screams, "They're killing him!" The videos do not clearly show the
identities of those in the crowd.
In the hours after the march, police set up checkpoints and arrested more than
a dozen alleged participants at locations around Alexandria, according to the
verdict handed down in June 2016. Police arrested 12 men on Abu Qir Street in
the Fleming neighborhood, allegedly confiscating a 9mm pistol, and 5 other men,
including al-Mawla, on Army Road, in front of Alexandria's Engineers Club as
"they tried to escape," the verdict stated.
Prosecutors alleged that al-Mawla beat the taxi driver, a Christian named Mina
Raafat Aziz, and fatally shot him with a birdshot pistol to spread "sectarian
strife" in the country. But problems with the state's case arose from the
beginning.
The key witness, Aziz's passenger, a man named Amr Ahmed Ghanem, told an
interviewer on video immediately following the incident that 2 "thugs" he
recognized from his neighborhood killed Aziz. Later, he changed his story,
telling prosecutors that al-Mawla stopped the taxi after seeing a cross hanging
in Aziz's car, beat Aziz, and shot him with the pistol.
A defense lawyer told Human Rights Watch that the court allowed him to question
Ghanem in court but did not address Ghanem's contradictions in the judgment.
The defense lawyer said that the court refused to let any defense witnesses
testify, including a neighbor of al-Mawla who rode to work with him on the day
of the march and an acquaintance of al-Mawla who was present during the attack
on the taxi driver and said he did not see al-Mawla there.
Egypt's criminal procedure code gives judges the discretion to deny defense
requests to call witnesses during trial if the defense has not submitted their
testimony in advance or presented them for interrogation at the beginning of a
trial. Al-Mawla's legal team had not done so. Egyptian defense lawyers involved
in political cases like al-Mawla's often decline to present witnesses in
advance out of fear that National Security agents will arrest or otherwise
intimidate them.
The defense lawyer said that the defense team submitted footage captured by
Engineers' Club security cameras showing security forces raiding the club and
conducting arrests. A video posted by the club on YouTube showed the damage
caused by the raid and included interviews with 2 witnesses. The lawyer also
said that the defense submitted an official statement from the club saying that
al-Mawla had been at his workplace during the protest. Police did not recover
the birdshot pistol allegedly used to kill Aziz.
In its judgment, the court wrote that it had heard the defense arguments but
was satisfied with the prosecution's evidence and did not need to hear from the
defense witnesses.
Prosecutors used Egypt's colonial-era Assembly Law, passed in 1914, to charge
all 17 defendants collectively with the killing of Aziz and 6 other people who
they said had died during clashes between marchers and residents involving
firearms, knives, and Molotov cocktails. The Assembly Law bans any gathering
larger than 5 people that endangers "public peace" and allows courts to convict
anyone who participated in the gathering for acts, including murder, committed
by other participants. It is the subject of a lawsuit filed in administrative
court by Egyptian human rights activists, who contend that parliament voted to
repeal the law in 1928 and that it should no longer be in effect.
Prosecutors also charged the defendants with stealing Ghanem's property,
destroying Aziz's car, endangering a public roadway, possessing unlicensed
weapons, and belonging to a banned group.
In its ruling, the court stated that the evidence supported a verdict of
"intentional murder" against al-Mawla, but not the other defendants, for
allegedly shooting Aziz in the chest from a range of approximately one meter.
The other defendants, the court stated, had committed the lesser crime of
"wounding or beating until death," which implies unintentional murder.
The court sentenced al-Mawla to death. It sentenced a former Muslim Brotherhood
official and member of parliament, al-Mohamedi Sayed Ahmed, to 15 years in
prison, and the 14 other defendants to 5 years in prison.
In March and April, Human Rights Watch sent letters to 6 Egyptian institutions,
including the presidency and Defense Ministry, expressing serious concerns
about death sentences handed down in both military and regular courts. Human
Rights Watch urged President al-Sisi and Defense Minister Sedki Sobhi not to
approve any further death sentences. Egypt should move quickly toward
abolishing the death penalty.
Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as a
punishment that is not only unique in its cruelty and finality, but also
inevitably and universally plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error. At
least 10 other people currently face execution in connection with alleged
political violence, 6 of them sentenced in a regular court and four in a
military court, after appeals courts confirmed their death penalties earlier in
June.
(source: Human Rights Watch)
INDIA:
Kerala HC sets aside death penalty in murder case
The Kerala High Court commuted the death penalty awarded to the convict in a
2010 murder case to rigorous imprisonment for life. The court said the accused,
Rasheed,35, hailing from Meenangadi in Wayanad, should not be released from
prison till he completed the actual prison term of 40 years.
The case
According to the prosecution, Rasheed landed in Kochi to raise funds for going
abroad as he was broke. On November 16, 2010, he approached a woman named
Bindu, of Pachalam, seeking a room on the 3rd floor of her residence for rent.
Rasheed murdered Bindu and stole her ornaments when she took him to the 3rd
floor.
The court observed the facts and circumstances in the case clearly showed all
the material prosecution witnesses had definitely put forward a consistent
case.
"On applying the principles in the case of award of death penalty, We (the
court) found this as not a fit case to be classified as the 'rarest of rare
cases' warranting a death penalty," the court stated.
Counsel for the accused submitted a case within the category of rarest of rare
cases only deserved the extreme punishment. According to him, the sentence and
the fine imposed on the accused are extremely harsh and not commensurate to the
socio-economic status of the accused.
Fine amount
The trial court had imposed a fine of `11,10,000 on the accused for various
offences. The court observed it was paradoxical to impose such a huge amount as
fine when the prosecution itself cited extreme poverty of the accused as a
predominant motive for committing the crime. "Considering the allegations
against the accused and over all circumstances brought out in evidence, the
fine imposed on the accused is highly excessive and the default imprisonment is
also unjustifiably long," the court said.
Quantum and severity of punishment, especially capital punishment, directly
depend on the nature of the crime, brutality with which it was done, nature of
the weapon used, the condition or situation of the victim, the manner in which
it was committed, the societal impact of the crime, the antecedents of the
offender and the like factors. In this case, the material aspects revealed from
the prosecution evidence show the accused was in dire financial constraints and
he was struggling to support a family. The prosecution has no case he is a
hardcore criminal involved in any other offence. The young age of the accused
is also a favourable factor.
The court held the prosecution succeeded in establishing beyond reasonable
doubt the accused committed murder of Bindu after confining her in room on the
2nd floor of her residential building with an intention to rob her gold
ornaments.
(source: The New Indian Express)
*********************
Father gets death penalty for killing pregnant daughter
A father, who murdered his pregnant teenage daughter on the day of her delivery
in 2013, as he was against her inter-caste marriage, was sentenced to death by
Nashik's District and Sessions court on Monday, terming it the rarest of rare
cases.
After the murder, Eknath Kisan Kumbharkar (47) is said to have stated that his
daughter Pramila had disgraced him and so he had killed her.
The victim's mother stated that her husband was a good for nothing fellow, and
demanded that he should be hanged.
It may be recalled that, Pramila had married Deepak Kamble, who belonged to a
different caste, in 2012 in Saptashrungi temple. She was nine months pregnant
and was due on 28 June 2013.
Kisan visited his daughter in Mahatmanagar in an autorickshaw and told her that
her mother was ill and admitted to Savarkar Hospital. Hearing the news,
Pramilla accompanied her father in the auto. When they reached Chopda Lawns,
Eknath took out a nylon rope and strangled Pramilla.
The auto driver Pramod Mangal Ahire (35) tried to intervene but was unable to
stop Eknath. But he informed the police and took the unconscious woman to
Nashik Civil hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival. The cops
arrested Kisan and produced him in court the next day. He is a resident of More
Mala, Hanumanwadi in Panchavati area. The police had also charged him under
section 316.
(source: The Asian Age)
TAIWAN:
Prosecutors seeking death penalty for model's killing: The crime was
premeditated, as the suspect lured the victim to a building under the pretext
of a photography shoot, prosecutors said
The Taipei Shilin District Prosecutors' Office yesterday announced it is
seeking the death penalty for Cheng Yu 23, who was charged with the rape and
strangulation of a female model, surnamed Chen, at a building in Taipei's
Nangang District in March.
Prosecutors completed nearly 4 months of investigations before arriving at
yesterday's indictment.
Prosecutors dropped charges against Liang Ssu-hui, Cheng's girlfriend at the
time.
Cheng had claimed that Liang took part in the crime.
Cheng was also charged with forgery and fraud as well as one one count of theft
and one count of robbery.
Prosecutors allege he made purchases with her credit cards and used her mobile
phone in an attempt to make it appear that Chen was still alive.
Cheng has previous convictions for sexual assault, fraud, forcible confinement
and causing bodily harm, prosecutors said.
"Based on his criminal record, it has been determined that jail time has not
had the desired effect of rehabilitation, and that Cheng has a low possibility
of ever being rehabilitated. Cheng should be removed from society. Therefore we
request the most severe penalty available for this crime," the office's Deputy
Chief Prosecutor Chen Hsi-chu said.
Prosecutors said the murder was premeditated, adding that Cheng used the
pretext of a commercial photography shoot and promised the victim payment to
lure her to the building.
"Cheng raped the victim and killed her for his own sexual gratification then
seized the victim's possessions," prosecutors said.
"After killing the victim, Cheng tried to cover up the crime by falsely
accusing Liang of involvement, which misled the police and the judiciary in the
course of the investigation," prosecutors said.
(source: Taipei Times)
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