[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 27



GRENADA:

Judge in Grenada orders release of 3 jailed coup leaders


A judge ordered the immediate release today of three of 13 imprisoned
leaders of the 1983 coup that led to U.S. invasion of Grenada and he said
the remainder will serve less than 2 more years behind bars.

All 13 were originally sentenced to death in 1986 for the killings of
former socialist leader Maurice Bishop, 4 Cabinet members and 6
supporters.

Supreme Court Judge Francis Bell said he showed leniency because the
defendants behaved well in prison and demonstrated remorse by inviting the
victims' relatives to prison so they could apologize in person.

During the 1986 trial, prosecutors said that hard-line members of the
Marxist government sent soldiers to kill Bishop on Oct. 19, 1983,
considering him too moderate.

Six days after the killings, thousands of U.S. troops stormed the
Caribbean island on a mission that President Reagan said would restore
order, protect American medical students and prevent a buildup of Cuban
military advisers and weapons.

Some relatives of those killed in the coup on the Caribbean island
protested the ruling, shouting "Murders! Murderers!" as they stormed out
of the courtroom.

Hundreds of spectators turned out for the weeklong resentencing mandated
by a February ruling by the Privy Council, which threw out the death
sentences against the prisoners. The London-based panel is the court of
last appeal for the former British territory.

Three prisoners  Lester Redhead, Christopher Stroude and Cecil Prime
deserved to go free as soon as possible because they played a minor role
in the coup, Bell said.

The judge did not address a request to immediately release former Deputy
Prime Minister Bernard Coard, whose attorneys argued he needs eye surgery.

2 other prisoners with health problems, John Ventour and Colville
McBarnette, were ordered to appear before a review board within a year.

Defense attorneys argued that the defendants experienced a "spiritual
transformation" in prison, tutoring fellow inmates and earning a total of
10 university degrees by correspondence in law, economics, sociology and
theology.

But prosecutors said their expressions of remorse were not sincere and
requested life sentences for all 13 prisoners.

The bodies of Bishop and the other victims have never been found. Prime
Minister Keith Mitchell asked for help from the United States last week to
recover them and close a bitter chapter in the island's history.

4 others convicted in 1986 were spared death sentences. They included
Coard's wife, who was freed in 2000 to undergo cancer treatment.

(source: Associated Press)






JORDAN:

Jordanian court sentences a brother and a cousin to 10 years prison for
killing woman in "honor crime"


A Jordanian man who stabbed his sister to death in a premeditated "honor
crime" was sentenced to 10 years prison along with his cousin and
accomplice, a court official said Wednesday.

Jordan's criminal court initially sentenced both men to death but then
commuted the verdict because the father and the husband of the slain woman
dropped the charges, said the official, who spoke on customary condition
of anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to the press.

According to the indictment, the woman was killed with a kitchen knife by
her brother while her cousin prevented her from fleeing as a punishment
for having allegedly had a relationship with her husband before marrying
him.

The indictment sheet said the brother did not approve this relationship
and had intended to marry the victim to another man. It said he first
planned to poison his sister, before stabbing her to death in September
2004. The knife broke during the killing, so he brought another knife and
continued to hit until she died, it said.

The man fled to Syria and was tried in absentia and convicted to death
later in 2004. After his arrest in January 2005, he was retried along with
his cousin and both were initially handed down the death penalty.

In Jordan, an average of 20 women are killed in so-called "honor killings"
by male relatives each year. Men have the final say in all family matters
in this largely conservative Muslim society, where many consider sex out
of wedlock an indelible stain on a family's reputation.

Some women in conservative circles of society have been killed simply for
dating.

International human rights organizations have condemned honor killings in
Jordan and appealed to the country's ruler, King Abdullah II, to put an
end to the practice.

The government subsequently abolished a section in the penal code that
allowed "honor" killers to get sentences as lenient as six months. Also,
the government urged judges to consider honor killings equal to other
homicides, punishable with up to 15 years in prison.

But attempts to introduce harsher sentences for honor killings have been
blocked in Jordan's parliament, where the predominantly conservative
Bedouin lawmakers argue that lesser penalties would lead to tolerating to
promiscuity.

(source: Associated Press)






LIBYA:

Libya death row medics face new defamation charges


6 foreign medics sentenced to death in Libya for infecting children with
the Aids virus appeared Wednesday before a court to face new charges of
defamation brought by a senior police officer.


After a short hearing, the court adjourned until July 18 when it is due to
deliver its verdict.

The five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, who has now been given
Bulgarian nationality, were acquitted at the end of May in another
defamation case brought by three other police officers.

The cases arise from claims that the medics "confessions" in the Aids
trial were forced from them under torture, including beatings, electric
shocks, and being threatened with dogs.

If found guilty in the new trial, brought by Salim Jomaa Salim, head of
the police dog unit, they face sentences of up to 3 years in jail.

Their lawyer, Othman Al Bizanti, asked the court to acquit his clients.

Neither Salim nor his lawyer was present at Wednesday's brief hearing.

The five nurses - Kristiana Valcheva, Nassia Nenova, Valia Cherveniachka,
Valentina Siropoulo, and Snejana Dimitrova - and Dr. Ashraf Ahmed Juma
have already been in custody for 8 years.

They were condemned to death in May 2004 on charges of deliberately
injecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV, which can cause Aids, at
a hospital in the Mediterranean city of Benghazi.

The European Union is engaged in attempts to reach a deal with the Libyan
authorities that would spare the lives of the medics, who deny all charges
against them.

The EU, however, has expressed its opposition to any deal that it sees as
blackmail or compensation to the families. Instead it has supported "a
special assistance fund" that will serve, among other elements, to ensure
free medical treatment of the sick.

The 6 have denied the charges and foreign health experts have said that
poor hygiene was probably the cause of the epidemic in Libya's second
city.

(source: Middle East Times)



GHANA:

Government Asked By Civil Societies to Abolish Death Penalty


WITH THE world gearing up to wipe out acts of torture and abolish the
death penalty, civil society has re-echoed their stance calling for an end
to the inhuman and degrading treatments that have seen many perished in
the circumstance.

At a round table discussion to commemorate the United Nation International
Day in support of victims of torture in Accra yesterday, civil society
groups called on government to repeal the death penalty from the statute
books of the country.

According to them, the continuous presence of the death penalty in the
statute books makes a complete mockery of our existence as human beings
and as a country championing the essence of human dignity.

The death penalty had been on Ghana's statute books since independence and
the last time the hangman was used was in 1963 as it had been redundant
for some time now.

Its presence on the statute books in the view of the commissioner of Human
Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Emile Francis Short, who was
the chairman for the occasion, was the lack of political-will on the part
of politicians.

The programme, organized by the Commission of Human Rights and
Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) on the theme: "Eradicating Torture and
Abolishing of the Death Penalty" was to highlight pertinent human rights
issues as a means of promoting and advancing human rights in the country.

This year's United Nation International Day in support of victims of
torture brought together the police service, prisons service, Amnesty
International, Ghana Committee on Human and People's Rights (GCHPR) among
other Non-governmental Organisations and human rights activists.

Ghana as a signatory to the United Nation (UN) protocols is obliged under
the UN convention against torture, the African Charter on Human and
People's rights as well as the 1992 Constitution to execute relevant
provisions in these documents as a way of eradicating acts of torture,
cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of persons.

Ghana is therefore implored to adopt mechanisms under the Optional
Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT), a new tool that helps
in the eradication of torture most likely to take place in police cells,
prisons and other detention centers.

The mechanism, according to CHRAJ, would help develop efficient monitoring
systems through its outfit to prevent torture and to enhance conditions of
detention by regular visits to detention centers throughout the country.

In her welcome address, Acting Commissioner of CHRAJ, Ms. Anna Bossman,
noted that there could be no justification for dehumanizing any body under
any circumstance emphasizing that such torturous act is a " scar on the
conscience of humanity."

"If Ghana is to be regarded as the beacon of the rule of law and democracy
on the African continent and be seen to be championing African excellence
in the field on human right and civil liberties, then it is of utmost
importance that we formally abolish the death penalty", Ms. Bossman
emphasized.

The Commissioner of Police/Techical, Selwyn B. Mettle also stressed that
injuries inflicted on suspects by the public or the police, who effect
their arrest is not acceptable noting that the only way the police could
contribute to the eradication of torture was by enhanced training of
officers in human rights and democratic policing.

He has therefore indicated that the service had made requirements to
ensure that suspects in custody are appropriately catered for to avert
torture and other forms of inhuman and degrading treatment perpetrated on
suspects in cell as the service awaits the OPCAT to be ratified by
government.

On his part, the President of the Malian human rights organization/Inter
African Union, Brahini Kone was of the view that it would take states to
work hard to totally eradicate torture in the society.

According to him, the African Union abolished death penalty 15years ago
adding that the death penalty has not been the panacea of curbing criminal
activities as they are still on the increase.

Mr. Kone therefore called on major stakeholders to join forces in putting
an end to the death penalty.

Affirming its position of the eradication of torture and abolishing death
penalty, the Chief Legal Officer of the Ghana prisons service, Mr. Michael
Cudjoe Ntumy note that the presence of death penalty in the statute books
indicates that it could not easily be wished away emphasizing that its
redundancy suggests that it should be removed from the statute books.

(source: Ghanaian Chronicle)






SAUDI ARABIA----executions

Saudi Arabia execution toll tops 100


Saudi Arabia on Wednesday said it beheaded 3 men convicted of various
crimes, bringing the total number of executions announced by the
ultra-conservative kingdom so far this year to 101.

The Interior Ministry announced in a statement carried by the official SPA
news agency it had executed 2 Indian nationals for murder and 1 Saudi
national for rape.

It is the highest number of executions since 2000, when 113 people were
put to death.

The ministry said Mandeem Fali and Mansheen Yedi were executed in the
eastern city of Dammam for burning to death their Kuwaiti employer,
Abdullah al-Ajmi, while Marzuk al-Mowlid was executed in the holy city of
Mecca for raping a unnamed woman.

Executions are usually carried out in public in Saudi Arabia, which
applies a strict form of sharia, or Islamic law. Rape, murder, apostasy,
armed robbery and drug-trafficking can all carry the death penalty.

The oil-rich kingdom has come under intense criticism from Western rights
groups regarding its execution policy.

Amnesty International, in its 2007 report, said many defendants accused of
crimes that carried the death penalty complained they were not represented
by lawyers and were not informed of the progress of their trial.

Mufleh al-Kahtani, vice-president of the Saudi-based National Society for
Human Rights, told Agence France-Presse earlier this year the increasing
execution toll could be the result of wider changes in Saudi society.

"Social and economic changes are bringing with them new kinds of crimes,
like armed robbery by organised gangs, more cases of manslaughter and
crimes which are of such concern to the public that they could lead to
execution, like rape," he said.

Kahtani's organisation is the first rights watchdog in the kingdom to be
sanctioned by the government, in March 2004.

But it is possible for the condemned to have their lives spared. Local
newspapers have carried stories of people on death row for murder who are
pardoned by the family of the slain victim.

A Saudi woman walked free in May after spending 8 years behind bars for
killing a male compatriot, a case which prompted the intervention of Crown
Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz.

Such pardons are accompanied by the payment of diyya, or blood money, to
the victim's family. They can also be the result of "reconciliation"
involving greater compensation than stipulated by law.

(source: AFP)