June 5
INDONESIA:
Indonesian prosecutor seeks death for Taiwanese drug smugglers
An Indonesian prosecutor is to seek the death penalty for 4 Taiwanese nationals
involved in a crystal methamphetamine smuggling case that took place in
Indonesian waters in February, the Jakarta Post reported Tuesday.
The Taiwanese nationals, identified as Chen Chung-nan, Chen Chin-tun, Huang
Ching-an and Hsie Lai-fu were officially handed over to prosecutors Monday,
according to the report.
The chief prosecutor of the narcotics department, Dedi Siswadi, said the 4 are
facing the death sentence, the report said.
The case unfolded as Indonesia's National Narcotics Agency and Navy captured
the Taiwanese fishing boat Shun De Man No. 66 and its crew, including the 4
Taiwanese nationals, Feb. 7 in waters near Batam Island.
The vessel was carrying over 1 ton of crystal meth while flying a Singapore
flag and sailing under the name of Sunrise Glory when it was captured.
Upon boarding the vessel, Indonesian authorities found the narcotics hidden 41
rice sacks.
In a similar case last year, Indonesia also handed down the death sentence to
eight Taiwanese nationals who were found guilty of attempting to smuggle 1 ton
of amphetamine into Indonesia in July 2017.
(source: focustaiwan.tw)
BANGLADESH:
Youth to die, 2 get life for killing BCL leader----The murder in 2015 followed
row over committee
A court here yesterday sentenced a young man to death and 2 others to life
imprisonment for killing Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) leader Shahrukh Khan
Piyas in Kushtia town in 2015.
The death penalty awardee is Tutul Hossain, 25, son of late Kashem Ali, while
the lifers are Ashraful Islam, 30, son of Abdul Hamid, and Mosharraf Hossain,
30, son of Muntaz Pramanik, of different areas in the town.
After examining records and witnesses, Kushtia District and Sessions Judge Arup
Kumar Goswami also fined convicts--Tutul Tk 20,000 and Ashraful and Mosharraf
Tk 10,000 each.
According to the prosecution, the convicts waylaid Piyas, an honours student
and former vice-president of the then defunct committee of BCL Kushtia
Government College unit, in Harishankarpur area and locked in an altercation
over formation of BCL committee in July 10, 2015.
At one stage, Tutul shot Piyas at point blank range, leaving him critically
injured.
Injured Piyas was rushed to Kushtia General Hospital first and later shifted to
Dhaka Medical College Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries on July 23.
Following a murder case filed by Piyas's father Abul Kalam Azad with Kushtia
Model Police Station, police detained the trio from different areas at
different times.
(source: The Daily Star)
SRI LANKA:
Woman given death penalty for a murder committed in 1995
A woman, who had been found guilty of a murder committed in 1995 and been
avoiding arrest, was sentenced to death by the order of the Colombo High Court
Judge A.A.R. Heiyanthuduwa, today (05).
The convicted woman is a resident of Kirulapone named Muththusami Saraswathie.
The Attorney General had filed charges against her for stabbing a person named
Amarasinghe to death on 16th May 1995.
After a lengthy trial, the Colombo High Court decided, in the year 2013, to
convict the accused.
The accused woman, who came to Sri Lanka after hiding abroad, was arrested by
the police and produced before the Magistrate.
Accordingly, the Colombo High Court ruled that the death penalty will be
imposed on the accused, in accordance with the ruling in 2013.
(source: adaderana.lk)
INDIA:
DAK seeks death penalty for spurious drug traffickers
Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Monday has sought death penalty for those
involved in manufacture, sale and distribution of spurious drugs.
"To curb the menace of fake drugs, we need to get touch on the drug
traffickers. And the toughness include the death penalty," said DAK President
Dr Nisar ul Hassan in a communique.
"They kill hundreds and hundreds of people and most of them don't even go to
jail. They need to be punished for the carnage they cause," he said.
The amended Drug and cosmetic act of 2008 contains maximum punishment of life
imprisonment.
Dr Nisar said capital punishment has proved effective in other countries like
china. In 2007 former head of China's state food and drug administration was
executed for his involvement in substandard drugs which proved to be a strong
deterrent.
He said India is the capital of spurious drugs and according to WHO, India
accounts for nearly 35% of world spurious drug market. In an estimate, 40% of
the Indian market is under the grip of spurious drugs.
"From cancer to heart medicines and from antibiotics to vaccines, drugs in all
therapeutic categories have been reported to be either substandard or
counterfeit," he said.
"There are clandestine factories that have been making these sham drugs," he
added.
Dr Nisar said Kashmir is a safe haven for spurious drugs as the market is
unchecked and unregulated and there is no fear of accountability.
"In 2013, we unearthed a big spurious drug scandal in which many people were
involved. Lakhs of tablets of fake drug maximizin, a life-saving antibiotic
were supplied to government hospitals. Following expose of this fake drug,
hundreds of drugs which were consumed by patients were declared substandard,"
he said.
(source: Kashmir Patriot)
BAHRAIN:
Police killer loses death penalty plea
A Bahraini who yesterday lost his final appeal against the death penalty was
the trigger man who personally detonated a bomb that killed a policeman. Salman
Isa Salman was also described as the founder of a terrorist cell that carried
out a spate of bombings targeting security personnel.
************************
Philippines to seek clemency for death row convict
The Philippines government will seek clemency for one of its nationals on death
row in Bahrain, it has emerged. The 39-year-old Filipino was found guilty of
premeditated murder and handed the death penalty by the High Criminal Court in
March last year - a sentence upheld by the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court in
December.
(source for both: gdnonline.com)
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES:
Killer lover loses plea against execution
A man who smashed and burnt a friend to death to pave way for a lasting
relationship with his wife lost an appeal against a death penalty on Sunday.
The Arab man - an employee, 32- was in an illicit relationship with his
friend's wife, 22. He tied him, punched his face, struck his head with a brick
and a car's sliding door and mowed him down until he died.
He poured petrol on the body and torched it. He pulled off gloves, tossed them
on the burning body and sped off on Oct.14.2016. He hurled the jerrycan on the
way. He was under the influence of alcohol.
On Feb.28.2017 the woman denied all charges. The man contended it was the
deceased's wife who instigated him. "Yes I committed all these crimes. I did
all this under her directives and instigation." The Dubai Criminal Court on
Mar.6 this year sentenced the man to death and the woman to 15 years in jail.
It referred the illicit affair and alcohol abuse charges to the Dubai
Misdemenours Court.
They sought leniency. The Dubai Appeals Court's jury on Sunday upheld the man's
death sentence. It sentenced the woman to 25 years in jail. Prosecutors had
demanded a stringent punishment.
An Indian security guard stumbled on a naked body gutted in flames near the
transformer of a warehouse in Al Qusais Industrial. A nearby warehouse's
Bangladeshi guard contacted police.
2 Emirati majors, a lieutenant and a captain found the charred "mysterious"
body lying face up. Investigations revealed the deceased had gone missing. They
summoned his relatives and friends.
The wife revealed she had an illicit affair with the man for 2 years. Wrangles
erupted between her and her husband over the issue. She told the man about it.
Both agreed to get rid of the husband. At around 3am she contacted the man that
she had sparked a wrangle with her husband, as planned. The man arrived and
lured the husband inside his car to discuss a solution to the wrangle.
He persuaded the husband to allow him tie his hands and feet and take him to
his wife to evoke sympathy from her, so he could win back her heart. The
husband agreed. He tied him then punched his face.
He drove him to a dark area in Al Tay, dragged him out of the car, pushed him
onto his stomach and hurled a brick onto his head. The victim bled. He pulled
him back inside the car and contacted the wife.
Both agreed to do away with him. He purchased a jerrycan of petrol at around
8am. He drove the victim to Al Qusais and committed the grisly murder. Both
confessed before police and prosecutors.
(source: The Gulf Today)
SUDAN:
EU Calls On Sudan to Commute Death Sentence of Noura Hussein
Members of the European Parliament are working on a resolution on the case of
Noura Hussein, a 19-year-old Sudanese women, who was recently sentenced to
death for killing her husband after he raped her.
On May 10, the Central Omdurman Court in the twin city of Khartoum sentenced
Hussein to death by hanging. Hussein who was forced by her parents to marry her
cousin, refused to consummate the marriage, and fled to relatives in eastern
Sudan. She was then lured to her husband's house in Omdurman, where her
husband's relatives held her down while he raped her. When he approached her
again the following day, she stabbed him to death with a knife.
The EU ambassadors in Sudan reacted five days later by issuing a statement in
which they expressed their "firm opposition" to the death penalty: "whatever
the place and circumstances". They also recalled the principle of the 1948
Universal Declaration of Human Rights stating that "marriage shall be entered
into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses".
Motion for an EU Resolution
On Wednesday, a number of members of the European Parliament tabled a joint
motion on the case. They point to the global campaign for which almost one
million people have signed a petition entitled 'Justice for Noura', and to the
intimidation of her defence lawyers by the Sudanese authorities which
"represents an attack on the fair trial process".
The motion mentions the Human Development Index and the UN's Gender Inequality
Index in which both Sudan ranks 165th out of 188 countries - while the Sudanese
Constitution provides that the "state shall protect women from injustice and
promote gender equality".
The EU MPs refer to the remarks of Pramila Patten, the UN Special
Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, who noted, following her visit
to Sudan from 18 to 25 February this year, that "there is a deep-seated culture
of denial of sexual violence in Sudan", where "forced marriage, marital rape
and gender-based violence are considered normal", and "all these forms of
violence are justified by citing grounds of tradition, culture and religion. To
date "the Special Prosecutor's Office has not investigated a single case of
conflict-related sexual violence".
In the motion, the MPs call on the Sudanese authorities to comply with national
law and international human rights standards, including the Protocol to the
African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa,
as well as the Protocol of the Court of Justice of the African Union.
'Continuing worry'
On Thursday, EU Commissioner Christos Stylianides held a speech at the European
Parliament urgency debate on the situation of Noura Hussein.
He told the MPs that the human rights situation in Sudan constitutes a
continuing worry for the European Union.
"The shrinking space for civil society organisations and restrictions on
freedom of expression and assembly remain among the main areas of our concern.
I personally also raised these issues during my visit to Sudan last October,"
the commissioner said.
"The criminal justice systems ought to prevent and protect women and girls from
all forms of violence. This is sadly not the case in Sudan. Rape, including by
habitual or cohabiting partners, should never be tolerated under any
circumstances. Moreover, Sudan's Personal Status Law allowing for child
marriage without the consent of the intending spouses needs urgent revision.
"I would like to assure you that the EU will continue to closely follow the
case of Noura and raise it with the respective authorities. We will also
continue to team up with women's human rights defenders and women's
organisations to tackle the underlying causes leading to cases such as that of
Noura.
"The EU is also concerned about the recent news on the attempts by the state
security apparatus to intimidate Noura's defence team and calls on Sudan to
allow the lawyers to work without the fear of reprisals. [..]
"The EU also calls upon the government to take the necessary steps to
accelerate the ratification and the full, effective and non-discriminatory
implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) to advance the equal recognition,
enjoyment and exercise of all human rights of women. In this regard, the EU
welcomes the Sudanese Government's intention to ratify this Convention, as
announced by the Minister of Justice this week," Stylianides stated.
(source: allafrica.com)
KENYA:
Convict's appeals for freedom fail despite witness' new tale
A man was handed the death sentence on account of false testimony by a star
witness in a robbery with violence case, it has emerged.
Dominic Kihuri, a taxi driver, has confessed that his testimony that Peter
Manthi was 1 of the 2 people who robbed him on April 9, 2004, as he ferried
them was nothing but a lie.
However, Kihuri says he did not do it willingly. In court documents exclusively
obtained by The Standard, he says a police officer compelled him to implicate
Manthi, who has been at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison for the last 14 years.
He claimed an officer, in the rank of Chief Inspector of Police, and who he
identified only as Mutua, threatened to charge him if he did not implicate the
suspect.
Yet his admission has come too late as it cannot reverse the sentence
apparently because the case has already gone through the judicial process and a
decision made.
Manthi has appealed his sentence twice, before the High Court and the Court of
Appeal, and lost.
Manthi was arrested in 2004, tried and sentenced to hang by the magistrate's
court, a conviction upheld twice by superior courts. It was last year that
Kihuri claimed he was forced to implicate Manthi.
In a testimony that exposed the soft underbelly of Kenya's justice system,
Kihuri says Mutua forced him to tell court that Manthi was a criminal. "
I feel guilty for occasioning the conviction and sentencing of the applicant.
The guilt shall only go upon seeing the applicant walk to his freedom," Kihuri
stated in an affidavit dated June 20, last year.
Kihuri recalled that days after 2 men who had hired him robbed him of Sh700 and
the car, his employer, a Mr Joseph Kimashia, told him the vehicle had been
recovered. Identify vehicle Kimashia later asked him to report at Gigiri Police
Station to identify the vehicle.
"Upon arrival at the police station, Manthi was brought and I was told to
identify him as one of my assailants. When I stated I could not recall, the
police arrested me and put me in custody. I would then be transferred to
Muthaiga Police Station," the affidavit reads. Kihuri said he was in custody
for 29 days.
He was freed after accepting to testify against Manthi.
"If the CIP Mutua had not threatened me with prosecution, I could not have
claimed I could identify him as one of those who robbed me. Save for the Sh700,
the mobile phone and the shirt they tore, I did not suffer any other loss. The
vehicle was also returned to its owner," Kihuri said.
However, the development was not of much help to the prisoner. This was after
his fresh attempt for a review of his sentence last month, before High Court
judge John Mativo, also flopped.
Manthi had also sued the Attorney General and the Director of Public
Prosecutions over the matter.
The DPP opposed the bid for a retrial. However, the AG submitted that the
evidence contained in the affidavit met the threshold for new evidence and
urged the court to exercise its discretion and order a retrial. But Justice
Mativo dismissed the fresh suit, saying he did not have the chance to have
Kihuri examined to ascertain truthfulness of his affidavit.
"Only 2 scenarios can be true if at all the affidavit sworn by the said Dominic
Kihuri is genuine. Either, he lied in the lower court or he was compelled to
lie; or he is lying to this court. Years later, he wants the court to believe
statements he recorded at the police station and the detailed evidence he gave
in court was not voluntary?" Mativo asked.
Manthi's trouble started on April 14, 2004, when he was arrested at Kisii
General Hospital.
The police are said to have arrested him over a car he had allegedly parked in
the hospital's compound. Court records show Manthi was in custody for 21 days.
The police could not explain why they took long to charge him.
But the confession came in too late as Manthi had appealed the decision made
before Hellen Wasilwa (now a Labour Court judge) twice before the High Court,
and the Appeal Court and lost.
Ordered retrial
After the conviction, Manthi appeared before High Court judge Jessie Lesiit,
who ordered a retrial before a resident magistrate only named Maundu.
When he was put to his defence, Manthi said that he was a hawker in Kisii Town.
He said he only went to the hospital, on April 14, 2004, because he was unwell.
At the time of the robbery, Kihuri was employed by Elit Car Hire Company. He
said at 4pm he was at Upper Hill Springs restaurant when two men approached him
and requested that he ferries them to Ngong. At Ngong, the men refused to
alight, attacked him and snatched the car. But his testimony in 2006 does not
add up.
He said one of the men had a pistol, and in the same testimony indicated that
he did not see any weapon.
(source: standardmedia.co.ke)
ZIMBABWE:
VP Chiwenga Wants Death Sentence In Zimbabwe, Clashing With ED Mnangagwa
Vice President, General (retired) Constantino Chiwenga has said that he
supports the death sentence and revealed that he often argues with President
Emmerson Mnangagwa on that point.
Mnangagwa has repeatedly publicly stated that he is against the death penalty.
Introducing the president at a water resources investment conference, Chiwenga
said,
Most people will ask why he (Mnangagwa) doesn't want the death sentence, that's
why I have taken this opportunity to tell you about your President. He was
sentenced to death [by the colonial regime in 1965], but then he survived
because he was underage. But his cell was right at the end where everybody
would pass through when they are going to be hanged... From 1965, when he
(Mnangagwa) was arrested up until he was released, he would see his colleagues
going one by one to be hanged, so you have to understand why he doesn't support
the death sentence and of cause, I argue with him, but I also support him.
(source: pazimbabwe.com)
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