August 10
DENMARK/BRITAIN/IRAQ:
Death Penalty Stops Hand over of Prisoners to British
The Danish contingent in Iraq has suspended handing over prisoners to
British forces following the reinstatement of capital punishment by the
Iraqi government.
Danish soldiers, who operate under British command in Iraq, had previously
handed over captured insurgents and suspected criminals to the custody of
British forces, but have a preliminary agreement that the British will not
hand them over to others without Danish consent.
Until that loose agreement becomes more explicit, were making a suspension
so we dont risk ending up having the Iraqi government executing someone
who was originally detained by Danish troops, said defence spokesman Jakob
Winther.
An explicit agreement will most likely be sorted out soon, he said.
Britain, like Denmark, is obliged under the European Convention on Human
Rights not to extradite prisoners who could face the death penalty, which
is banned in the European Union.
Denmarks 496 soldiers serve in Basra and nearby Qurnah in British-
controlled southern Iraq.
The Iraqi government on Sunday reinstated capital punishment for people
guilty of murder, endangering national security and distributing drugs,
saying the death penalty was necessary to help put down the countrys
growing insurgency.
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Tariq Aziz Says He Faces the Death Sentence.
Imprisoned former Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz has told his son that
he faces the death sentence after being accused of responsibility for mass
killings in 1979 and 1991.
It was the 1st time details of the charges against Aziz had been made
public. His son, Ziad Tariq Aziz, called the accusations baseless.
The 1979 charges appear linked to the killings of 22 Baath Party members
allegedly involved in an anti-government plot shortly after Saddam Hussein
took power. In 1991, Saddams regime brutally repressed uprisings by
Kurdish and Shiite Iraqis.
Of course, according to the Iraqi penal code, the punishment for those 2
counts is death, Tariq Aziz wrote from his prison in a letter to his son.
The elder Aziz, a close aide to Saddam for decades, was best known as
Iraqs urbane, English-speaking foreign minister from 1983 to 1991. He was
deputy prime minister at the time of Saddams overthrow last year.
Ziad Aziz, who is living in Amman, the Jordanian capital, said that in a
letter dated July 1 and relayed by the Red Cross last week, his father
also asked him to appoint lawyers to defend him, unaware that that already
had been done.
In his letter Tariq Aziz had requested, among others, that Ramsey Clark,
who was US Attorney General during the Lyndon B Johnson presidency,
represents him.
Clark has said he would be willing to provide legal counsel to Saddam if
requested. He is a staunch anti-war advocate who has met Saddam on several
occasions in the past decade.
(source for both: The Scotsman)
INDIA:
Dhananjoy to be hanged on August 14
Dhananjoy Chatterjee, sentenced to death for rape and murder of a
14-year-old school girl, would be hanged at the high-security Alipur
Central Jail here at 4.30 am on August 14 even as his family prepared to
move the Supreme Court in a last-ditch bid to save him from the gallows.
The decision to carry out the execution was taken at a meeting at the
state secretariat presided over by West Bengal Jail Minister Biswanath
Choudhury, IG Prison Joydeb Chakraborty told newsmen today.
He said Chatterjee's family has been informed about the date of the
execution and as per rules. Family members could be present during the
execution at the discretion of the Jail Superintendent.
Chatterjee has been lodged in the Alipur Jail for nearly 14 years since
his arrest a few months after the rape and murder of the schoolgirl, Hetal
Parekh, at her residence in a housing colony in Bhowanipur area of the
metropolis in 1990.
Chatterjee, whose mercy plea was rejected by the President on August 4,
was earlier scheduled to be hanged on June 25.
The hanging was, however, put off after his family moved a petition in the
Supreme Court and also filed a mercy plea with the President.
Chatterjee's lawyer Joymalya Bagchi said the petition would be filed in
the apex court tomorrow under Article 32 of the Constitution .
(soure: Mid-Day Mumbai)
