[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Sept. 29 PAKISTAN: 2 sentenced to death in child kidnap, murder case An antiterrorism court on Saturday awarded death sentence to 2 men for kidnapping and killing a child over non-payment of ransom. 4 accused — Abdul Ghaffar Brohi, Abdullah Magsi, Ali Magsi alias Ali Dino and Zahid Hussain Gopang — were charged with kidnapping 4 1/2-year-old Ammar Hussain Jatoi within the remit of the Waleed police station, Larkana in 2012. On Saturday, the ATC-II judge, who conducted the trial in the judicial complex inside the central prison, pronounced his verdict reserved after recording evidence and final arguments. The ATC hands down life imprisonment to 2 more accused The judge noted that the prosecution successfully proved the allegations of kidnapping for ransom against the accused Abdul Ghaffar Brohi and Abdullah Magsi and handed down capital punishment to them. The judge awarded life imprisonment to accused Ali Magsi and Zahid Hussain and also ordered them to pay Rs500,000 each to the legal heirs of the victim as compensation. The judge further sentenced them to four-year imprisonment for possessing illicit arms and ammunition. However, all the sentences shall run concurrently. According to the prosecution, the accused abducted the child, a student of nursery class, when he was playing outside his house in the Sheikh Zayed Colony on March 9, 2012 and drove him away in a car. Later, they demanded a ransom of Rs5 million for his safe release. But, his body was found from an abandoned house as the family failed to pay the ransom, the prosecution added. The accused were arrested and led the police to the recovery of the child’s body. Trial transferred due to political interference On April 25, 2012 the Sindh High Court (SHC) had ordered transfer of the case from ATC Larkana to an ATC in Karachi after complainant Asfar Hussain Jatoi moved an application alleging that then ministers belonging to the Pakistan Peoples Party were influencing the investigation to favour the accused persons. “All the prosecution witnesses (were) examined; (they) supported that on Feb 13, 2012 the dead body of the child was recovered at the pointation of accused persons, mashirnama was prepared as per direction of Assistant Superintendent of Police, but nothing was brought on record,” the judge wrote in the order. He added: “In such circumstances the case was transferred to Karachi due to involvement of three Ministers of political party.” The verdict added that “the mashirnama of the (victim’s) body was prepared, but it was destroyed on political grounds and that record is available in his report under the Section 168 of the Criminal Procedure Code”. Earlier, special public prosecutor Nazeer Ahmed Bhangwar submitted that from the very beginning of the investigation the police were favouring the accused persons and had tried to hide the facts. He added that two brothers-in-law of the complainant had seen the four accused persons with arms in the car, as they were taking away the child and had informed the complainant about the incident. The prosecutor argued that accused Abdullah Magsi had made a phone call to the complainant demanding Rs5m ransom for the safe release of his kidnapped son, but agreed on Rs3.5m. While the complainant was arranging the money the same accused called him the next day and asked him to pick the body of his kidnapped son from a house in Yar Mohammad Colony on March 13, 2013, he added. He contended that the accused persons were arrested on March 13, 2013 and on their information the police had recovered the body, but the police showed their arrest on March 15 to create doubts and favour the accused. He argued that the evidence fully corroborated the prosecution’s case and pleaded to the court to convict them in accordance with the law. Advocate Altaf Hussain for the complainant said that the accused persons were influential and politically involved, therefore, under their influence the police did not investigate the case honestly. He added that the complainant had to move an application for re-investigation, which was conducted after great difficulty. On the other hand, defence counsel Wazeer Hussain Khoso and Safdar Ali Bhutto argued that their clients were innocent, but the police framed them in a false and fabricated case with mala fide intentions. 5 cases under Sections 302 (premeditated murder), 365-A (kidnapping for ransom), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offenders) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 (acts of terrorism) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 and Section 13-E of the Arms Ordinance were registered at the Waleed police station. (source: dawn.com) ** 7-judge bench to decide span of life sentence A 7-judge bench of the Supreme Court (SC) – led by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Asif
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, S.C., FLA., TENN., OHIO
Sept. 29 TEXAS: Texas officer who made headlines for his turban and beard killed in traffic stop Sandeep Singh Dhaliwal was one of the first to wear the traditional Sikh articles of faith as part of his uniform A Texas police officer who made headlines for being one of the first to wear traditional articles of faith as part of his uniform was killed during a routine traffic stop on Friday Sandeep Singh Dhaliwal, a sheriff’s deputy in Harris county, which includes Houston, died after a suspect appeared to ambush him and shoot him in the back of the head. The alleged shooter, Robert Solis, 47, was arrested and charged with capital murder. Although it was not immediately clear what punishment prosecutors would seek, Texas is a death penalty state. “I’m sad to share with you that we’ve lost one of our own,” Harris county sheriff Ed Gonzalez said on Twitter. Dhaliwal “was unable to recover from his injuries”, he said. “There are no words to convey our sadness. Please keep his family and our agency in your prayers.” Dhaliwal was shot about 12:45pm on Friday. Footage from a dashboard camera showed him having a conversation with the driver, then walking back toward his squad car. The driver’s door swung open and he ran up behind Dhaliwal and shot him, the Houston Chronicle reported. Dhaliwal, 42, had worked at the sheriff’s office for 10 years, starting as a detention officer in his late 20s. He was promoted to a deputy in 2015. He had 3 young children and was a practicing Sikh. Dhaliwal made national headlines when he was granted permission to wear a turban and beard as part of his uniform in one of America’s largest sheriff’s offices. “Sandeep was a trailblazer for the Sikh-American community,” Bobby Singh, south-east regional director for the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said on Twitter. “He served not just the Sikh community here in Houston with honor and dignity, but all of his community.” Houston mayor Sylvester Turner called Dhaliwal “a bold and groundbreaking law enforcement officer in the eyes of our county, our state, our nation”. Texas senator Ted Cruz said the state was “mourning a hero”. The turban is a traditional sign of faith for Sikh men, which typically covers uncut hair and is worn with a long beard. According to the Sikh Coalition, a civil rights group, a turban is “a public commitment to maintaining the values and ethics of the tradition, including service, compassion, and honesty”. In 2012, Washington DC became the 1st major US police force to make explicit accommodations for Sikhs to preserve their appearance on duty. An estimated 500,000 Sikhs live in the US as a whole. Dhaliwal tried to fit into American culture when he was young by shaving his beard and removing his turban, he told India Abroad, an Indian-American news weekly. He was once told he could only mop floors because of his poor English, the outlet reported. “I found it very insulting, and decided I will work overtime on my education and my English,” Dhaliwal said. He later started a trucking business, according to CBS. Dhaliwal changed careers in his late 20s and took a “huge pay cut” to join the sheriff’s department, Gonzalez told India Abroad. Permission to wear his articles of faith took time to wind through the department but was eventually made possible by a formal police department policy. Dhaliwal said the permission to wear his turban and beard “was a very American thing to do. You can be a good American and you can practice freely your religion.” According to India Abroad, the same day it was announced Dhaliwal could wear his articles of faith, he was given the day off. Instead, Dhaliwal went to work, to show his new uniform to his colleagues. (source: The Guardian) SOUTH CAROLINA: After sentencing Tim Jones to death, jurors still shaken, haunted by child murders 3 months after one of South Carolina’s most bone-chilling trials — the death penalty case of a Lexington County father who killed his 5, young children — jurors remain haunted by what they saw and heard. “I think about it every day,” said a 52-year-old woman with the initials, L.A., who served as an alternate juror until being excused near the trial’s end. “Many times during the trial, I went in the jurors’ bathroom and just wailed – cried my eyes out.” Jurors have stayed silent since June 13, when they unanimously voted to put Tim Jones Jr. to death for the 2014 murders of his children in the family’s Red Bank home. They endured some of the most harrowing testimony ever uttered in a S.C. courtroom — testimony that left veteran police officers and news reporters, seated in the court room, blinking back tears and recoiling in horror at the parade of gruesome evidence. Since then, nine of the 18-member jury panel have spoken to The State Media Co. about their life-changing experience. The trial left some traumatized,
