[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

March 30


JAPAN:

Lawyers seek Japan cult guru death sentence appeal


Lawyers for the former leader of a doomsday cult, seeking to save their
client's life, urged a Tokyo court on Thursday to reverse its rejection of
an appeal of a death sentence for the man accused of masterminding a 1995
gas attack on the Tokyo subway.

The Tokyo High Court said on Monday that defence lawyers for Shoko Asahara
had failed to meet a deadline for filing the appeal, and it rejected their
argument that he was mentally unfit to proceed with the process.

The court's decision could pave the way for Asahara, whose real name is
Chizuo Matsumoto, to be hanged for his role in masterminding the nerve gas
attack that killed 12 and made thousands ill.

A spokesman for the Tokyo High Court said it was not clear when the court
would make a decision or whether it would accept the lawyers' request.

Asahara, 51, was found guilty of responsibility for the gas attack and
sentenced to death by the Tokyo District Court in February 2004.

The Tokyo High Court said last month that Asahara has been found mentally
fit to continue his appeal.

But Asahara's lawyers had argued that the former guru of Aum Shinri Kyo,
or Supreme Truth Sect, was incompetent, and they had requested that the
case be suspended.

Asahara's lawyers said their client has been unable to speak or to
communicate with them and should be moved to a hospital for treatment of
his mental condition.

The gas attack on Tokyo rush-hour trains on March 20, 1995, injured about
5,500 people, some permanently, when members of the cult released sarin,
first developed by Nazi Germany.

The gassing, with its images of bodies lying across platforms and soldiers
in gas masks sealing off Tokyo subway stations, stunned the Japanese
public and shattered the country's self-image as a haven of public safety.

Asahara was also found guilty of other charges including a series of
crimes that killed 15 people.

Asahara set up the cult in 1987, mixing Buddhist and Hindu meditation with
apocalyptic teachings and attracting, at its peak, at least 10,000 members
in Japan and overseas, including graduates of some of the nation's elite
universities.

The pudgy, nearly blind guru had predicted that the United States would
attack Japan and turn it into a nuclear wasteland.

Aum Shinri Kyo, which admitted involvement in the gassing, later changed
its name to Aleph, the 1st letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Its leaders
insist that the cult is now benign, but Japanese authorities still keep
its membership of about 1,600 under surveillance.

Asahara's lawyers were required to present their case for an appeal in
August but had refused to take the step, saying Asahara was mentally
incompetent, but they reversed their position last week, according to
media reports.

(source: Reuters)






CHINA:

Too Many Hanging Judges in China's Provinces


Stunned by the large number of executions carried out each year, Chinese
legal experts and lawyers have joined human rights advocates in attacking
the middle kingdom's system of capital punishment as arbitrary and calling
for swift changes to judicial process.

Authorities have responded with cautious strides towards reforming its
notorious system of capital punishment. It is doing that in part by
announcing changes in court procedures that are expected to reduce the
number of executions by 20- 30 percent, human rights advocates said.

China, which keeps the number of people it executes under the wraps, is
believed to have carried out about 8,000 executions in 2005, said Liu
Renwen, a scholar at the Law Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences.

Amnesty International (AI) documented at least 3,400 executions in 2004 --
90 percent of the total of capital punishments recorded around the world
-- but workers for the rights lobby said they believe the actual number to
be higher.

Liu and AI belong to a growing lobby of opponents of the death penalty in
the country, fighting to stop its arbitrary use and reform the judicial
system. China has come under fire for its widespread use of torture to
extract confessions and achieve high rates of convictions in courts.

Meanwhile, a United Nations special investigator on torture, who was
granted access to Chinese detention centres, after nearly a decade of
negotiations, has criticised the heavy reliance on confessions, saying it
encouraged the use of torture.

The most common methods, Manfred Nowak reported, were beatings with fists,
sticks and electric batons. Prisoners also said they had been burned with
cigarettes, beaten by fellow inmates under guard instructions and
submersed in water or sewage. Many detainees were held for long periods in
extreme positions and death row inmates were kept constantly shackled or
handcuffed.

Such systematic abuse was designed to break the will of detainees until
they confessed, he concluded. "The criminal justice system is focused on
admission of culpability, and the role of obtaining confessions continues
to be central to successful prosecutions," Nowak wrote in his report. As
special rapporteur and expert mandated by the United Nations High
Commission on Human Rights, Nowak concluded that "torture, though on the
decline -- particularly in urban areas -- remains widespread in China."

Forced confessions have long been denounced by legal rights advocates who
say they lead to arbitrary rulings by provincial judges and the high
number of death sentences.

Liu, the legal scholar, said provincial courts often resort to arbitrary
sentencing because they face political pressure to control crime rates
within their legal domains.

"Local governments think it (the death penalty) is a good tool to control
public security. They would be loath to see such power being taken away
from them," he told foreign correspondents at a meeting in Beijing.

Political pressure intensifies particularly during the periodic Yan Da
(Strike Hard) campaigns against crime. Initiated in 1983, by China's late
paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, to counter the downsides of the country's
opening to the outside world, Yan Da campaigns were revived in 1996 by
former President Jiang Zemin.

During these crackdowns, the country's legal institutions are required to
speed up normal legal procedures in order to meet quotas for solved
crimes. Death sentences are carried out swiftly by a bullet to the back of
the head.

Since the 1st strike hard campaign in 1983, the number of crimes punished
by death sentence has doubled from 32 to 68, including economic offences
such as smuggling, tax evasion and embezzlement.

Since China signed the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights in 1998, the lobby against the death penalty has grown
larger, attracting legal scholars, lawyers and rights advocates.

Recent public outcry over several miscarriages of justice, involving the
death penalty and the use of torture in prisons and detention centres, has
strengthened the hand of reformers.

In one sensational case, a man accused of killing his wife was released
from prison after 11 years, following the discovery that his wife was
living with another man. The case sparked calls from legal experts to
outlaw confessions gained through torture. Under the appeal to "kill
fewer, kill carefully", lawyers and scholars campaigned for a central
review of all death penalties and reform of court procedures.

Even critics of the death penalty are aware that reform in China must go
beyond arbitrary rulings. Surveys show that, for cultural and historical
reasons, the majority of Chinese public support the use of death sentence
as a deterrent for crimes.

Many people still believe in the old principle that "a life is paid with
another life." So while impetus for reform of the capital punishment
system is growing, China is not likely to discontinue the use of the death
penalty.

During the March annual legislative session of parliament, the government
ruled out the abolition of the death penalty, according to people who
attended.

Xiao Yang, president of the Supreme People's Court, told legislators that
grave economic crimes would still be punished by death. He announced,
however, that a series of new measures would be implemented to avoid
wrongful executions.

As a first step, the apex court is taking back the final review of all
death penalty cases from the provincial courts. Moreover, when hearing
death sentence trials for a 2nd time, Chinese courts will begin open court
sessions, allowing prosecutors, judges and defence attorneys to meet face
to face.

"As of July 1, 2006, all second-instance trials of death sentence cases
shall be heard in open court," Xiao, who is also the country's chief
judge, said at a press conference.

But to regain control of the final decision in death sentences, the
central government should first outlaw the use of evidence gained through
torture, legal experts warn, or it would face difficulty in rightfully
handling the reviews, legal experts said.

"Without discarding the use of such evidence, we cannot expect to achieve
our goal of curbing wrongful executions," Cai Zhang, president of the
Jilin Province high court said at a panel discussion on the sidelines of
the parliamentary session this month.

(source: IPS News)






LIBERIA:

Taylor could get life in jail, but no death penalty


Ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor faces a possible life term, but not
the death penalty, if he is convicted of war crimes by an international
court in what could be a long trial, the chief prosecutor said on
Thursday.

Desmond de Silva said the former warlord could make his 1st appearance by
Friday before a judge of the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone
where he was flown on Wednesday.

He will be asked to plead guilty or not guilty to the 11 counts of war
crimes and crimes against humanity, including mutilations and sexual
slavery, with which he is charged.

He is accused of receiving diamonds in exchange for supporting Sierra
Leone rebels who often hacked off the limbs of their victims or raped
them.

The charges stem from Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war, one of a web of
brutal regional conflicts in West Africa that shocked the world with
graphic images of gratuitous killings and mutilations by drugged-up child
soldiers.

If, as expected, Taylor pleads not guilty, the prosecution and defence
would prepare for trial. "On the basis of what has happened with regard to
other defendants, the trial is many months away," de Silva told Reuters by
telephone.

Taylor, 58, was taken into U.N. custody on Wednesday when Nigeria deported
him after he made a brief abortive run for freedom from his exile home.

Exile in Nigeria, part of a 2003 peace deal for Liberia, had kept him out
of the reach of the Sierra Leone court for nearly 3 years.

De Silva said Taylor would be tried under international criminal law,
which forbids the death penalty, but can mean convicted war criminals
spend the rest of their lives behind bars.

"It depends on how long he lives ... in international criminal courts
people can be sentenced to 10, 20, 30, 40 years or indeed for the rest of
their natural lives," he said.

REINFORCED GUARD

World leaders, including U.N. chief Kofi Annan and U.S. President George
W. Bush, hailed Taylor's swift delivery to the Sierra Leone court on
Wednesday as a triumph of justice.

This was a relief for Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo who had been at
a loss to explain how Taylor -- described by de Silva as "something of an
escapologist" -- had managed to slip away late on Monday from his exile
home in the southeastern Nigerian town of Calabar.

Nigerian police caught up with him early on Wednesday, more than 1,500 km
(930 miles) away, when he tried to drive over the border into Cameroon
with a trunkful of dollars.

De Silva said a contingent of Irish U.N. rapid reaction troops were being
brought in from Liberia to reinforce security around the Special Court
compound in Freetown where Taylor was being held since late Wednesday in a
special cell by himself.

The Irish will join a group of Mongolian U.N. soldiers, recently hardened
by a stint of duty in Iraq, to guard the large court compound in Freetown
which is surrounded by barbed wire-topped walls and watchtowers.

Nigeria and Liberia had been at odds over how to handle Taylor's case
since Liberia's newly elected President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf asked for
him to be handed over in early March.

U.N. Secretary General Annan said Taylor's delivery for trial sent a
strong warning to human rights offenders.

"His capture and his being put on trial does not only close a chapter but
it also sends a powerful message to the region that impunity will not be
allowed to stand and would-be warlords would pay a price," he said.

(source: Reuters)