March 2
THAILAND:
Koh Tao Defense Team to File Appeal With Thai Supreme Court
The legal defense team representing the 2 Burmese migrant workers sentenced to
death for the 2014 murder and rape of 2 Britons in Thailand's Koh Tao island,
will next file an appeal with the Thai Supreme Court, after being rejected in
the appeal court.
U Kyaw Thaung, a member of the men's defense team, said, they have been
discussing when to submit the next appeal, to Thailand's highest court. "We
will do so within the next week," he told The Irrawaddy.
The defense team said they were not formally informed about the ruling in this
very controversial case, in which the 2 men, Win Zaw Htun and Zaw Lin, received
the death penalty for charges they have denied, involving the deaths of British
nationals Hannah Witheridge, 23, and David Miller, 24.
The verdict was handed down by the Koh Samui Township Court in December 2015,
and the 2 men lost their appeal to the District Court of Appeal in March 2017.
The appeal was nearly 200 pages long and argued that the DNA evidence which led
to the conviction was inadmissible and had not been "collected, tested,
analyzed or reported in accordance with internationally accepted standards,"
Reuters reported.
U Htoo Chit, the director of the Foundation for Education Development - an
organization providing outreach to migrant workers in Thailand - said, "the
Lawyer's Council of Thailand - the legal body assisting the Burmese defense
team - was not officially informed about the verdict of the appeal. But we will
consult with the defense lawyers to keep our appeal in accordance with the Thai
judicial system."
"Also we learned that Win Zaw Htun and Zaw Lin were not properly informed
through the translator, either," he added. "But the District Court of Appeal
upheld the verdict of the [Koh Samui] township criminal court ruling."
It was not clear when the Appeal Court's verdict was made, but it was known
publicly after being published in Thai media on Wednesday afternoon, said the
defense team members.
(source: irrawaddy.com)
INDIA:
India Sentenced To Death Twice As Many People In 2016 As In The Previous
YearHowever the Supreme Court is growing less likely to confirm death
sentences.
Sessions courts handed down nearly twice as many death sentences in 2016 as
compared to 2015, new data for 2016 compiled by the Centre on the Death Penalty
at the National Law University Delhi shows.
Over half of the 136 death sentences in 2016 (70 in 2015) were for murder
simpliciter, in which the accused was convicted for murder only. In all,
sessions courts have handed down 1,790 death sentences between 2000 and 2015.
Despite the Supreme Court in 2015 making it clear that death warrants - an
order by a court that has issued a death sentence specifying the time and date
that the execution is to be carried out - are not to be issued in haste,
secrecy or before the accused has exhausted all his or her legal options, the
report found that Sessions courts issued 5 death warrants in 2016 before the
accused had exhausted their legal options. These were later cancelled by higher
courts.
High Courts confirmed 15 death sentences in 2016 (handed down by sessions
courts in earlier years), commuted the sentences of 44 convicts and acquitted
14 people.
The most significant change came at the level of the Supreme Court - of the 7
criminal appeals on the death penalty that came before it in 2016, the SC
confirmed none (it did however confirm one death sentence at the review
petition stage). This was a notable departure from the previous year, when the
SC 8 of 9 appeals that came before it. Seventy-one criminal appeals on the
death penalty are still pending before the SC.
President Pranab Mukherjee disposed of 6 mercy petitions in 2016, rejecting 5
and commuting to life one in a case that was confirmed by the SC in 2000,
leaving the convict, Jeetendra Singh Gehlot, with no idea of his fate for 16
years.
There were 397 people in all on death row at the end of 2016, 11 of them
sentenced under the Army Act and little was know of their status.
Despite being the harshest possible punishment, the administration of the death
penalty in India remains shrouded in mystery.
"It is almost impossible to state with any kind of certainty the number of
death sentences handed out in any given year or even know the exact number of
prisoners under the sentence of death at any given point," the researchers
noted. "Additionally, the fact that there exists no reliable data even on the
number of executions carried out in independent India speaks to the opacity
that surrounds the death penalty," they wrote.
The researchers used RTI applications, official data from some courts, court
judgement data and news reports to compile the report.
(source: huffingtonpost.in)
GHANA:
Emile Short Calls for the Abolishment of Death Penalty
The Former Commissione
