July 31
BELARUS:
Belarus Condemns Second Man To Death This Year
A man was sentenced to death in Belarus for double murder on July 31, despite
repeated calls by the European Union for the abolition of capital punishment in
the only European country that still carries out executions.
The Minsk-based Vyasna (Spring) human rights group says a court in the eastern
city of Vitsebsk found the defendant, Viktar Paulau, guilty of murdering 2
elderly women in late December and sentenced him to death.
The court established that Paulau beat to death the 2 retired sisters in a
village near Vitsebsk and stole cash and alcoholic beverages from their house.
Paulau, 50, told the court he regretted his deed and begged for his life to be
spared.
He is the 2nd Belarusian sentenced to death this year after 36-year-old
Alyaksandr Asipovich received the death penalty in January for killing 2 girls
in 2018.
For years, the EU has urged Belarus to join other countries in declaring a
moratorium on capital punishment.
According to rights organizations, some 400 people have been sentenced to death
in Belarus since it gained independence following the collapse of the Soviet
Union in 1991.
Human rights groups say Belarus carried out 1 execution in January, 1 in
November, and 2 executions in May 2018.
(source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty)
***********************
EU warns Belarus to abolish death penalty
Despite the European Union’s repeated calls for the abolition of capital
punishment in the only European country that still carries out executions, a
man was sentenced to death in Belarus for double murder on 31 July.
The EU reiterated its opposition to the death penalty in a statement, in which
it expressed its sincere sympathy to the families and friends of the victims.
“Tangible steps taken by Belarus to respect universal human rights, including
on the death penalty, remain key for shaping the EU’s future policy towards
Belarus.”, the statement reads.
(source: neweurope.eu)
UNITED KINGDOM:
Activists warn UK against risking death penalty for ISIL suspects----The UK
failed to assure that 2 ISIL suspects would not face execution in US, angering
legal experts and rights groups.
The United Kingdom's decision to share evidence with the United States about
two suspected British ISIL members without seeking assurances they would not
face the death penalty if extradited sets a dangerous precedent, international
human rights lawyers and groups have said.
A letter leaked to the media in July last year, revealed that the UK's former
Home Secretary Sajid Javid told US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in
consultation with the then-foreign secretary Boris Johnson, that the UK had
"strong reasons for not requiring a death penalty assurance in this specific
case".
Maha Elgizouli, the mother of one of the two suspects, El-Shafee Elsheikh, has
challenged the UK's decision to share 600 witness statements gathered about her
son and the other suspected member of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL or ISIS) group, Alexanda Kotey, with US authorities under a mutual legal
assistance (MLA) agreement.
Elgizouli lodged a claim against the decision at the High Court, but two judges
ruled in January it was not unlawful.
She now hopes that after hearings which opened in the Supreme Court on Tuesday,
judges will rule to review the decision.
Internationally, we are moving away from a rule-based system to a power-based
system. That effectively means is that the international law rubric isn't being
adhered to.----Tasnime Akunjee, criminal defence solicitor
If extradited to the US without those assurances, Elsheikh and Kotey, both of
whom are accused of belonging to the so-called "ISIL Beatles", could be
executed or sent to Guantanamo Bay where detainees have been held for years
without trial.
"To proceed without the provision of an enforceable written assurance as to the
death penalty, torture and fair trial guarantees would set a very dangerous
precedent," Toby Cadman, an international human rights lawyer and barrister,
told Al Jazeera.
"It would send a message that we are prepared to disregard human rights
concerns for political expediency," added Cadman, who specialises in war
crimes, extradition and human rights law.
Legal exception
Elsheikh and Kotey were allegedly responsible for killing several people,
including journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid workers
Alan Henning and David Haines.
What should Europe do with families of ISIL fighters?
Both suspects were stripped of their British citizenship after they were
captured by Syrian Kurdish forces last January.
The move stirred debate over whether they should be returned to the UK for
trial or face justice elsewhere.
MLA requests between the UK and US are subject to rules in the Overseas
Security and Justice Assistance Guidance, which states that while written
assurances against the use of the death penalty should be sought, there can be
exceptions.
When there are "strong reasons not to seek assurances, the case should
automatically be deemed 'High Risk' and FCO Ministers should be consulted to
determine whether, given the specific circumstances of the case, we should
nevertheless provide assistance," according to the guidance.
But UK Security Minister Ben Wallace generated anger among politicians and the
public when he said last year that Britain would be willing to waive its
long-standing objection to the death penalty in the cases of Elsheikh and
Kotey, claiming that seeking a bar on execution might "get in the way" of
justice.
Assisting a country who may seek to impose the death penalty, without seeking
concrete assurances that they will not, makes a mockery of the UK's claim to be
opposed to it.----Nadia O'Mara, Liberty policy and campaigns officer
According to Cadman, "whilst the guidance clearly states that the UK can
provide MLA to a foreign state without the provision of a written assurance as
to the death penalty, the mode of execution, the use of torture, fair trial
considerations are all matters that should be considered".
Tasnime Akunjee, a criminal defence solicitor in London, told Al Jazeera that
the move showed that "internationally, we are moving away from a rule-based
system to a power-based system. That effectively means is that the
international law rubric isn't being adhered to."
During a hearing in October, Elgizouli's lawyers said that Javid's decision,
was "unprecedented and unjustified", according to UK media.
But Akunjee, who represented Shamima Begum, a UK teenager stripped of her
citizenship for travelling to ISIL-controlled Syria in 2015, said the UK has
taken this decision before, but unofficially.
"This [move] has happened many times albeit … it's not been done in this
official way," said Akunjee, adding that "those who have survived that have
sought and garnered compensation."
Human rights concerns
Britain abolished the death penalty in 1965, having carried out its last 2
executions the year before.
"The UK has a long, proud history of leading global opposition to the death
penalty since we abolished it," Nadia O'Mara, Liberty policy and campaigns
officer, told Al Jazeera. "But assisting a country who may seek to impose the
death penalty, without seeking concrete assurances that they will not, makes a
mockery of the UK's claim to be opposed to it."
Jodie Blackstock, legal director at Justice, a UK-based law reform and human
rights organisation, said: "It is usual UK policy to seek such an assurance
before sharing intelligence because of the UK's anti-capital punishment
stance."
In addition to the death penalty, advocacy groups have raised concerns over the
suspects' potential detention at Guantanamo Bay, a US camp which the UK called
to close down following mounting international criticism of its conditions and
the length of time detainees were held without trial.
UK ISIL hearing: Legal challenge over information sharing
"Considering the UK's official position on Guantanamo Bay is for it to be
closed … the home secretary's position is hypocritical and flies in the face of
Britain's obligations against arbitrary imprisonment, torture and the death
penalty," said Moazzam Begg, outreach director for UK advocacy group Cage.
More broadly, there are increasing concerns among activists and legal experts
about the UK's human rights policies.
"There is a growing trend from the government of backsliding on fundamental
human rights obligations," said O'Mara, referring to the UK's decision earlier
this month against establishing an independent judge-led inquiry into UK
involvement in torture and rendition that took place after 9/11.
According to Cadman, the UK may be even bolder in its decision after Priti
Patel - who has in the past expressed support for reinstating the death penalty
- was appointed home secretary as part of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's new
cabinet.
"It is not likely that the UK government will seek to reinstate the death
penalty," he said, "but it does tend to demonstrate that the home secretary's
view on the issue is likely to be bolder than Sajid Javid's."
(source: aljazeera.com)
CHINA----execution
China executes serial killer years after sentencing innocent man to death for
same crime
A Hohhot court in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Tuesday carried
out a death penalty for a serial killer whose crime already served as the
reason for another death sentence several years ago, local prosecution said.
Zhao Zhihong, who has been found guilty of committing nearly two dozen rapes
and murders from 1996 to 2005, was sentenced to death in February 2015. His
crimes also include a murder, for which an innocent man, the first to report to
police about the victim, was executed in 1996. The innocent man was
posthumously exonerated in December 2014. The Chinese authorities delivered an
official apology to his parents and paid them $330,000 in compensation.
Zhao refused to meet his relatives before his execution, the prosecutor's
office said.
China remains the world’s leading country practicing death penalties with
thousands executed in the country each year. International human rights groups
have repeatedly urged Beijing to abolish capital punishment on grounds that
death-penalty processes are inhumane and prone to error.
(source: India Blooms News Service)
INDIA:
Death in hate crimes, life term for lynching proposed by Rajasthan----Rajasthan
is the 1st state in India to have a special law to deal with hate crime against
couples and the 2nd, after Madhya Pradesh, on lynching.
The Rajasthan government has proposed a death penalty for hate crimes against
people in the name of honour and tradition and life imprisonment for mob
lynching leading to death, in 2 separate bills tabled in the assembly Tuesday.
Rajasthan is the 1st state in India to have a special law to deal with hate
crime against couples and the 2nd, after Madhya Pradesh, on lynching. Both
states are ruled by the Congress.
The bill against hate crimes, “The Rajasthan Prohibition of Interference with
the Freedom of Matrimonial Alliances in the Name of Honour and Tradition Bill,
2019”, even provides punishment for holding assemblies to condemn inter-caste
and inter-community marriages in the name of family honour.
Though the death penalty is only given in the rarest of rare cases, the bill
said a special law addressing hate crimes would act as a deterrent.
In the case if the crime resulting in the death of a couple, or either of the
partners, the punishment mentioned in the bill is death or life imprisonment;
the bill also prescribes a penalty of up to ~5 lakh in such cases.
The bill empowers the sub-divisional magistrate or district magistrate to
prevent such assemblies and take steps to ensure safety of the couple.
The mob lynching bill, titled “The Rajasthan Protection from Lynching Bill,
2019”, states that offences under it will be tried by a sessions court and be
cognizable, non- bailable and non-compoundable. It says a person who commits an
act of lynching which causes death will face rigorous life imprisonment and a
fine of ~lakh to ~5 lakh. In case of grievous hurt, the punishment proposed is
jail up to 10 years and a fine of ~25,000 to ~3 lakh.
The bill also prescribes a jail term of up to 5 years and penalty of ~1 lakh
for obstructing arrest of the accused, creating hurdles in legal proceedings or
threatening the witnesses.
The bill prescribes a procedure for appointment of a coordinator at the state
and district levels as directed by the Supreme Court and witness protection,
and adds that mob lynching cases will not be investigated by an officer below
the rank of police inspector.
Both the bills were tabled by Law Minister Shanti Dhariwal and will be taken up
for discussion on August 5.
Civil society activists came out strongly against the manner in which the bills
had been introduced without any public consultation. Several civil society
organisations have written to the CM office and Dhariwal demanding the bills be
debated.
Aruna Roy of MKSS and PUCL Rajasthan president Kavita Srivastava demanded the
bills be referred to a select committee. Srivastava said any bills should be
scrutinised and publicly debated. “No one has seen these bills and they are
passed without debate. We demand they be referred to a select committee and our
views should be heard.”
(source: Hindustan Times)
JAPAN:
Retrial Rejected for 1949 Train Incident in Tokyo
Tokyo High Court rejected on Wednesday a retrial for a late former inmate who
was given the death sentence over an incident that claimed the lives of 6
people after an empty train went out of control at Mitaka Station in Tokyo in
1949.
Keisuke Takeuchi died of a disease in the Tokyo Detention House in 1967 at age
45 while seeking a retrial after his capital punishment was finalized for
charges of overturning a train resulting in deaths. His 76-year-old eldest son
newly called for a retrial in 2011.
New evidence submitted by the defense group "doesn't deny the credibility of
the core part of the confession" of Takeuchi, Presiding Judge Mariko Goto said,
adding that it was not clear enough to conclude that Takeuchi was innocent.
The new evidence included an analysis by a railroad engineering professor of
photos of the seven-car train involved in the accident, pointing to the
possibility that the pantograph connecting the second car with the electric
cable overhead and the headlight of the last car may have been manipulated.
The group claimed that there were contradictions between the train's situation
and Takeuchi's confession that he entered the 1st car and started the train.
(source: nippon.com)
SINGAPORE:
Singapore says drug smuggling worsens, even as hangings rise
Drug trafficking into Singapore, which has some of the world’s toughest drugs
laws, has risen recently, the law minister said on Wednesday, and he defended
capital punishment for serious drug crime as reflecting public support.
Rights group Lawyers for Liberty warned of an “execution binge” after it said a
number of prisoners on death row in Singapore had their requests for
presidential pardons rejected this month.
“We have seen an increase in the number of people coming in from countries
trying to traffic,” Minister of Law K Shanmugam told Reuters.
He did not elaborate on what type of illegal drugs were being smuggled in.
The wealthy city-state has a zero-tolerance policy for illegal drugs and
imposes long jail terms on convicted users. It has hanged hundreds of people -
including dozens of foreigners - for narcotics offences over past decades,
rights groups say.
(source: Reuters)
*********************
Man wins appeal against hanging, gets life term instead
A brothel operator, originally sentenced to death for murdering a pimp who
worked for him, avoided the hangman's noose yesterday after the Court of Appeal
allowed his appeal and sentenced him to life imprisonment instead.
The 3-judge court said the totality of the circumstances showed that Chan Lie
Sian, 55, did not have a specific intention to kill 35-year-old William Tiah
Hung Wai.
Chan was convicted in the High Court in 2017 of committing murder with the
intention of causing death, which carries the mandatory death penalty.
The apex court yesterday downgraded the charge to murder with the intention of
causing bodily injury, which could cause death.
It sentenced Chan to life imprisonment, and not death, as the manner in which
he acted did not show a blatant disregard for human life.
On Jan 14, 2014, Chan, who is also known as Benny Seow, discovered that $6,500
of his money was missing and suspected that Mr Tiah was responsible.
He summoned Mr Tiah to the brothel, a lodging house in Lorong 18 Geylang,
intending to force a confession out of him.
Chan repeatedly struck Mr Tiah on the head with a metal dumbbell rod even as
the pimp fervently denied stealing the money, until he lost consciousness.
Mr Tiah died a week later in hospital, a day short of his 36th birthday.
A post-mortem found that there were 10 points of impact to the victim's head.
Chan surrendered himself to the police 2 days after the assault.
He was found guilty of murder in May 2017 after a High Court judge concluded
that he had intended to kill the victim. Chan appealed against his conviction
and sentence.
His lawyer Wendell Wong presented reports from a forensic pathologist from
Australia which said two of the impacts could have been caused by the victim
hitting his head on "intervening objects", and not attributable to blows by
Chan.
Yesterday, the Court of Appeal, comprising Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon and
judges of appeal Andrew Phang and Judith Prakash, concluded that Chan did not
have a specific intention to kill the victim.
The court noted that with no witnesses around and with the victim lying
helpless on the bed, Chan had every opportunity to bring any such intention to
kill to fruition. Yet, he did not do so.
The court also noted that at one point, in the presence of another staff
member, Chan splashed water on the victim to revive him, accused the victim of
feigning death and said that he would attack him again when he regained
consciousness.
These actions made no sense if Chan had attacked the victim intending to kill
him, said the court.
Turning to the sentence, the court said the death sentence was not warranted as
Chan had not acted in a manner that displayed blatant disregard for human life.
It found that Chan was not aware at the time of the attack, or in its immediate
aftermath, of the fatal nature of the victim's injuries.
(source: straitstimes.com)
INDONESIA:
Killer of Bekasi family gets death sentence
The Bekasi District Court has sentenced Haris Simamora, also known as Harry
Aris Sandigon, to death after finding him guilty of killing of a family of four
in Bekasi, West Java, in November 2018.
Haris was charged under articles 340 and 363 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) for
the premeditated murder and robbery of Diperum Nainggolan, 38, his wife Maya
Boru Ambarita, 37, and their children Sarah Boru Nainggolan, 9, and Arya
Nainggolan, 7.
The panel of judges, led by Djuyamto, said Haris had been harboring grudges
against his victims. Haris is to remain in custody before his execution.
“With intent and adequate time, he executed the planned murder,” Djuyamto told
the court on Wednesday.
Haris’ lawyer Nuraini Lubis said that Haris wanted a second chance and planned
to appeal the verdict.
The sentence was what prosecutor Fariz Rachman had demanded. Fariz said that
Haris’ crimes could not be justified and deserved capital punishment,
especially as 2 of his victims were minors.
According to a police report, Haris arrived at the victims’ house on the
evening of Nov. 12 in Bekasi after the family invited him for Christmas
shopping the next day.
He waited for them to fall asleep, then at around 11 p.m., went to the living
room where Diperum and Maya were sleeping and beat them to death with a
crowbar.
Haris found the children before they could see their parents and brought them
back to their rooms, where he strangled them.
Haris then took Rp 2 million (US$139) from a cabinet and stole the family's car
before fleeing to a rented room in Cikarang, Bekasi, so that he could climb
Mount Guntur, reportedly to clear his head.
The police were able to quickly track him down and arrest him on Nov. 14 as he
was resting at a hiking post.
(source: The Jakarta Post)
PHILIPPINES:
Arrest and prosecution, not death penalty, deter crimes — lawmaker
The certainty of arrest and prosecution, and not death penalty, will be the
proper deterrent to crimes, a party-list lawmaker said Wednesday.
“I believe it is not a deterrent into the commission of a crime. What is really
a deterrent is the certainty of arrest and persecution, yun yung kulang natin,”
AKO Bicol Rep. Alfredo Garbin Jr. said in an interview with ABS-CBN News
Channel.
Even before President Rodrigo Duterte’s call for Congress to restore the death
penalty for “heinous crimes related to drugs and plunder” during his fourth
State of the Nation Address, several lawmakers have already filed bills at the
House of Representatives seeking to restore the capital punishment.
Garbin said that should these bills progress in the lower house, he will be
consistent with his opposition to the death penalty as he had showed in the
17th Congress.
“I was consistent with my vote. I voted no in the 17th Congress and that’s why
in the 18th Congress I joined again the minority purposely para panindigan pa
rin yung aking boto sa death penalty,” he said.
He added that several lawmakers have filed bills seeking to restore the capital
punishment since many in the House of Representatives have been supportive of
its revival.
(source: newsinfo.inquirer.net)
IRAN:
Iranian regime official admits extrajudicial executions of opponents
Ali Razini, a judiciary official admitted on July 29, 2019 that extrajudicial
executions in summer 1988 were carried out on Khomeini’s emphatic order
“without being held up by red tape.”
Deputy of Legal Affairs and Judicial Development of the Judiciary, Ali Razini
considered the trials that led to the extrajudicial executions of thousands of
political prisoners as one of Khomeini’s last major decisions.
Speaking to Jamaran, a website close to the family of Khomeini, Razini examined
the circumstances that led to the issuance of the decree. He also explained how
the executions had benefited the regime.
On July 24, 1988, Khomeini issued a secret edict to hold emergency trials under
the pretext of “investigating war crimes.” He appointed Ali Razini as head of
this court. The complete text of this secret edict was divulged 3 months later
by the Iranian Resistance.
In the following days, however, the court rapidly changed its course and took
aim at supporters of the PMOI in western Iran. The victims were residents of
western regions of Iran who had supported the Mojahedin.
On August 17, 1988, the NCRI President sent a telegram to the UN and leaders of
the 5 permanent members of the Security Council warning against widespread
executions of individuals who had not been involved in the battles of the
National Liberation Army, and were being executed merely for supporting the
PMOI/MEK.
In his remarks Razini states that Khomeini’s edict paved the way for massacre
of thousands of political prisoners in Iran.
“One of the most important benefits of this edict was that the opponents who
had taken part in the Mersad Operation were dealt with by these courts. That
is, we did not bring any of those arrested to trial in Tehran or Ahwaz. In the
same war zones, they were arrested, tried and punished.”
Former prosecutor of the Tehran Revolutionary Court told Jamaran website that
most of those tried in these courts without observing the formalities were
young people and some of their trials did not take more than half an hour.
About the number of those executed Razini said: “We didn’t die. I do not
remember. Back then we were busy and didn’t have time to count.”
(source: iran-hrm.com)
EGYPT:
Special Report: How Sisi's Egypt hands out justice
Security forces detained Lotfy Ibrahim, a young construction worker, as he left
a mosque near his home on the Nile Delta in the spring of 2015. When his family
finally saw him again nearly three months later, he was in jail, looking badly
brutalized.
“He rolled his sleeves down so we couldn’t see the signs of torture,” said
Ibrahim’s mother, Tahany. “But I saw burns on his arm. His face was pale, and
his hair was shaved off.”
Ibrahim, then 20, was eventually tried on charges of murdering three military
academy students in a roadside bombing. He swore his innocence. His family said
his lawyer had proof in the shape of a confession by the real perpetrators. But
the lawyer was arrested and the new evidence was ignored by the authorities,
the family said. Reuters didn’t see the confession.
In early 2016, almost a year after Ibrahim’s arrest, a military court found him
guilty and sentenced him to death. From his prison cell, he wrote a letter to
his family. It contained a message to the father of one of the murdered cadets.
“I don’t have your son’s blood on my hands and everyone knows that,” Ibrahim
said. “Please pray for me, I forgive you.” When he put down his pen he was led
away to the gallows, Ibrahim’s mother said. He was hanged in January 2018, a
few months after his lawyer’s arrest.
Egyptian courts have sentenced some 3,000 people to death since 2014, when
President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi took power, according to the Arab Network for
Human Rights Information, an independent organization that documents human
rights violations in the Middle East and North Africa. That compares with fewer
than 800 death sentences in the previous 6 years, according to Amnesty
International.
Most sentences are overturned at appeal and statistics on the number of
executions carried out are hard to come by. Egypt doesn’t publish official
figures; newspapers and local media outlets close to the government are the
most detailed source of information. Reuters reviewed media reports over a
period of 10 years and interviewed Egyptian and international human rights
researchers. Amnesty International shared its data. This reporting showed that
at least 179 people were executed from 2014 to May 2019, up from 10 people in
the previous 6 years.
There was also an increase in the number of civilians tried in military courts,
and the number of death sentences handed down by military judges. At least 33
civilians were executed following trials in military courts from 2015, Reuters
reporting shows. That compares with none from 2008 to 2014.
Crimes for which capital punishment is being meted out have included forming a
terrorist group, use of explosives and rape.
The deadly punishments are part of a wider crackdown against Islamists by the
government of Sisi, a former general. Sisi became president in 2014, a year
after the military ousted Egypt’s first democratically elected president,
Mohammed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood has since been banned
and its members driven underground.
“Those numbers are unprecedented,” said Gamal Eid, founder and director of the
Arab Network for Human Rights Information. “This is political revenge.”
The Egyptian government did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters for
this article.
Egypt has consistently said it is fighting terrorism. In February, Sisi told
visiting European Union leaders that the Middle East and Europe had “two
different cultures.” When terrorists kill, the victims’ families want blood,
“and that right must be given through the law.”
“The priority in Europe is achieving and maintaining well-being for its people.
Our priority is preserving our countries and stopping them from collapse,
destruction and ruin,” he said.
Reuters spoke to the families of seven young men who have been executed or are
on death row. Ibrahim’s parents said their son didn’t belong to the Muslim
Brotherhood, although his father is a member. Each family said the accused was
tortured and denied access to a lawyer. For weeks or months, relatives had no
idea where the men were being held. Human rights groups say many executions
were carried out after flawed trials. Egyptian authorities did not respond to
requests for comment.
Some executions have taken place after an attack by Islamist militants. The
timings of those executions “suggest a troubling trend on the part of the
government in which executions appear to be tools of revenge following
terrorist attacks rather than a part of an orderly criminal justice system,”
said Timothy Kaldas, non-resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle
East Policy. Mohamed Zaree, a human rights activist and a director at the Cairo
Institute for Human Rights Studies, a non-governmental organization that
produces analysis and research, said the authorities feel “they have to present
something to public opinion. They have to show bodies. It doesn’t matter if
they did it or not.”
Ibrahim and three other young men convicted of the roadside bombing were hanged
four days after Islamic State gunmen attacked a church and a Christian store in
Cairo, killing at least 11 people.
TIGHTENING THE SCREW
In the summer of 2015, Sisi declared that Egypt’s criminal code wasn’t fit for
purpose. Egypt was facing terrorism, he said, and needed courts and laws
capable of delivering justice swiftly. “We won’t spend five or 10 years trying
people who kill us. When a death sentence is issued, it shall be carried out,”
he said. “We will amend the laws.”
He was speaking at the funeral of public prosecutor Hisham Barakat, murdered in
a car bombing that authorities blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood and Palestinian
group Hamas. In 2016, the government said 14 members of the Brotherhood had
confessed to the killing. The Brotherhood, which says it is a peaceful
organization, denied any role.
Barakat’s assassination shocked the government: He was the highest ranking
official to be killed in decades. A month after his murder, Egypt introduced a
new anti-terrorism law that imposed the death penalty or life imprisonment on
anyone convicted of establishing, organizing or financing a terrorist group.
“The trend of handing down death sentences started before the prosecutor was
killed, but after the assassination it escalated,” said Mona Seif, co-founder
of No to Military Trials, an independent group that tracks and assists
civilians tried by military court. By the end of 2016, there were executions
almost every month. This, Seif said, was how the authorities tried to instill
fear.
“There are no repercussions for whatever the authorities do internally or
internationally,” she said, “so why not?”
In 2017, a further set of amendments gave courts the power to refuse to hear
all or some witnesses for the defence and limited the defence’s opportunities
to appeal. Amnesty International said the changes were “paving the way for mass
death sentences and executions.”
In recent years, dozens of judges have been forced into retirement, moved from
criminal courts and even put on trial. In April, the constitution was revised
to give Sisi new powers over appointing judges and the public prosecutor.
“Sisi’s way of dealing with the justice system reminds me of the godfather
pulling the strings,” said human rights activist Zaree. “This is what the
justice system is like in Egypt.”
A DARK TUNNEL
Ahmed al-Degwy was one of dozens of young men rounded up by security forces in
the weeks after Barakat’s murder.
The engineering student was held without access to a lawyer, tortured with
electric shocks and denied medicine for his diabetes, said his mother, Ghada
Mohamed. Reuters couldn’t independently verify this account. Ghada Mohamed’s
son was a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, she said, but his only
connection to Barakat was that they lived in the same Cairo neighbourhood.
Another of the accused, Mahmoud al-Ahmadi, testified at the mass trial in the
Barakat assassination that the defendants had been tortured. “We’ve been very
thoroughly electrocuted,” he said in a video that was shared on social media.
“We’ve had enough electricity to power Egypt for 20 years.”
Twenty-eight men were convicted of Barakat’s killing and sentenced to death in
2017. They included al-Degwy and al-Ahmadi. The Court of Cassation upheld the 2
men’s sentences in late 2018.
In February this year, two days after a suicide bomber killed three policemen
in Cairo, authorities executed al-Degwy, al-Ahmadi and 7 other convicted men.
Family and friends of the dead began arriving at Cairo’s Zynhom morgue shortly
after they heard the news. A Reuters journalist was there. Running prayer beads
through his fingers, al-Degwy’s father stared at the mortuary gate. A white
shroud to dress his son’s body lay on the ground beside him. Al-Degwy’s sister
darted around anxiously. Friends tried to comfort her. “Don’t worry,” said one,
“you will see him.”
None of the men’s families had been notified before the execution – a breach of
Egyptian prison law. Families of those sentenced to death are entitled to visit
their relatives the day before the execution.
A judicial source said authorities are worried that prisoners might send
messages via their families if they are allowed to see them. A police officer
at the mortuary said authorities don’t inform relatives prior to executions
“for security reasons.”
“We can’t tell them the date, no one knows, even the prisoners aren’t told.
They could commit suicide if we told them,” the police officer said. “Not all
laws are enforced here. This is a state policy, bigger than you and I.”
Al-Degwy’s family hadn’t seen him for over a year, his mother said. They’d been
denied access to the high security facility where he was held awaiting sentence
– the notoriously harsh Tora prison, known as “scorpion prison,” south of
Cairo.
“We are in a country where humans have no value,” she said tearfully. “This is
political and legal chaos, and the country is heading towards a dark tunnel.”
ON DEATH ROW
Egypt’s forensic authority submitted evidence of the torture of another
suspect, student Essam Atta, to the court that tried him. It did not help his
case.
On the day Atta handed himself into police for questioning about the shooting
of an officer, his father, Mohammed, brought food to the station. Atta was in
the 4th year of a graphic design course at Ismailia University and had no
interest in politics, Mohammed said. Atta told his family he’d done nothing
wrong. His father, who’d told Atta to turn himself in, was sure his son would
soon be home.
But Mohammed was turned away from the police station. He tried again the
following day.
“Officials there kept denying that he was being held inside and denied that
they knew anything about his whereabouts,” Mohammed said. But he could hear his
son screaming inside the building. “I was shattered. I couldn’t bear it.”
Several days later, Atta and 6 other men appeared on a pro-state television
channel looking bruised, dishevelled and weak, before confessing to their role
in the killing of the policeman. Their families saw them on TV but didn’t know
where they were being held.
A report by Egypt’s forensic authority, prepared for the trial judge and
reviewed by Reuters, concluded it was “technically possible” that Atta and his
co-defendants were “assaulted using a wooden stick, bamboo, electric taser and
some were burned with cigarettes.” They also appeared to have been kept in
handcuffs for a long period, said the report, which hasn’t been reported
previously.
Co-defendant Hazem Mohamed Salah is now on death row at Al-Abadiya jail in
Damanhur. He told his family that he was tortured for several days and then
taken into the prosecutor’s office. “The prosecutor told him to sit down and
offered him a glass of hibiscus, and then told him to sign the confession
without asking him a single question,” said his sister, Dina. He drank the
juice, a common refreshment in Egypt, and signed quietly.
A lawyer involved in the case, Shibl Abou al-Mahasen, confirmed this account.
6 years on, Atta, now in his early 20s, is sitting on death row. He was
sentenced in 2017; the verdict was upheld in November 2018. According to an
Amnesty researcher, there are 61 men on death row, most of them political
prisoners.
Atta’s family says he signed a confession under duress, and he was questioned
without a lawyer.
“I regret handing him in,” said Atta’s father, Mohamed. “I thought that there
was rule of law in the country and that they would listen when he told his part
of the story. But my son was beaten up, electrocuted and humiliated.”
(source: Reuters)
MAURITANIA:
Mauritanian blogger who faced death penalty freed
A Mauritanian blogger condemned to death in 2014 for apostasy over a Facebook
post about Islam has been freed, media watchdog Reporters Without Borders and
his lawyer said on Tuesday.
Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir had spent over 5 years in jail after a
high-profile case surrounding a post in which he criticised the use of religion
to justify social discrimination.
He originally faced the death penalty for comments interpreted as a direct
criticism of the Prophet Mohammad, but his sentence was later downgraded.
His article touched a nerve in Mauritania, a West African country with deep
social and racial divisions. Thousands protested in the capital Nouakchott and
other cities during the trial demanding Mkhaitir be put to death.
"His release is a massive relief after over 5 years ... of detention in
near-total isolation," said Christophe Deloire, secretary general of Reporters
Without Borders (RSF).
Mkhaitir was released on Monday and immediately left Mauritania for safety
reasons, his lawyer, Mohamed Ould Moine, told Reuters.
"He spent 2 years in total isolation, was sometimes physically attacked,
separated from his wife, and members of his family were harassed," Moine said.
In 2017, his sentence was reduced to 2 years in prison - which he had already
served - and a fine of 60,000 ouguiyas ($170), but he remained captive until
now.
In the weeks leading up to his release, the blogger apologised for his post on
Facebook and on public television.
Mauritania has not carried out a death sentence since 1987, but in 2016 a group
of influential Muslim clerics urged authorities to apply the harshest
punishment regarding Mkhaitir's case.
(source: Reuters)
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