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

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 21



IRAQ:

15 Hussein Aides on Trial in Baghdad


The man known as Chemical Ali for his role in gassing villages in northern
Iraq stood up and identified himself as "the fighter, Ali Hassan Al
Majeed" today, during the 1st day of the trial for his role in suppressing
the 1991 uprising in the south of the country.

Despite his feisty description of himself, the man often chosen by Saddam
Hussein to carry out the darkest deeds of his regime  Mr. Majeed has
already been issued multiple death sentences for the crimes in Kurdistan
is now a shuffling old man.

Before sitting down in the front row of the dock among 14 co-defendants,
Mr. Majeed, a wooden cane in his right hand, walked meekly to his seat and
spent much of the time bent over his notes. He wore a white headscarf,
known here as a ghutra, and a disdasha. He stood up once to address the
judge, gesturing right and left but producing no Saddam Hussein-like
fireworks.

Mr. Majeed is accused of being among the leaders of the brutal suppression
of the uprising, which occurred as Iraqi armed forces engaged in a chaotic
retreat from Kuwait. Mr. Hussein made a disastrous decision to invade the
country and his forces were routed by a coalition led by the United
States.

Trials relating to the suppression have been divided into parts, and this
trial covers only alleged crimes in the southern provinces of Basra and
Amara. A United States official at the trial said that the division had
been done to reduce the number of witnesses who needed to be transported
from the south for any one trial.

When Mr. Majeed stood up, he first complained that documents on court
proceedings were not reaching him in a timely fashion. He also ridiculed
what he called 'plastic trash bags' that detainees were given to keep
their clothes in  and said that he was also required to keep court papers
in the bags instead of in boxes. "The bag will tear later on," if the
papers are all dumped in it, Mr. Majeed said.

The court also heard a witness, Khuraibu Jabbar Rissan, who said that the
Iraqi Army devastated his village during the suppression. When young men
of the village, in the marshes near Basra, heard that the city had fallen,
they marched on the police station and Baath party headquarters, Mr.
Rissan said. The men were angered because there was no food or electricity
in the village, he said.

The buildings were abandoned and the men burned them down, he said. Mr.
Rissan, who was in the Army, heard that the military would march on his
village and fled to an abandoned school in another town with his family.
Soon thereafter they fled into the marshes to escape the assault on the
entire area by Iraqi military forces.

When he finally returned to the village, he said, it had been largely
destroyed and looted by members of the Iraqi Army, Mr. Hussein's
Republican guard, and the local Baath party. His clothing shop was
destroyed, tank rounds had been fired into his house and everything was
missing except for 2 old sofas and a worn carpet.

"And a few pillows  because I'm under oath," Mr. Rissan said. "And a few
clothes thrown about."

The trial is taking place at the Iraqi High Tribunal, which was set up to
try crimes committed during Mr. Hussein's regime. The Embassy-run
organization that has overseen the trials, called the Regime Crimes
Liaison Unit, has for the 1st time left many of the logistical and
administrative duties  such as moving witnesses  to the Iraqi government,
said Armand Cucciniello, an Embassy spokesman.

Were going through a capacity building phase where we're trying to turn
over the operation to the Iraqis, Mr. Cucciniello said, using the term,
capacity building, that the United States calls upon here when it tries to
teach Iraqis how to carry out some task, in this case jurisprudence.

The gallery at the trial was sparse, reflecting a sharp drop in interest
in the high tribunal after Mr. Hussein was found guilty and hanged.

Mr. Majeed is the most recognizable defendant left in the trials. But his
earlier convictions are under appeal and he could be hanged at any time
for those crimes. The appeal process in Iraq generally takes no more than
30 days, and once a defendant in a capital case loses an appeal, the
sentence is carried out almost immediately.

In the current trial, Mr. Majeed is charged with crimes against humanity.

(source: New York Times)




SAUDI ARABIA:

No Sri Lankan legal aid for young maid facing death sentence in Saudi
Arabia


Although an appeal has been filed in the Saudi Arabian Supreme Court, the
fate of Sri Lankan maid Rizana Nafeek hangs in the balance. She was
sentenced to death in June for the murder of her employers child. The case
exposes not only the reactionary character of the Saudi legal system but
the failure of the Sri Lankan government to defend hundreds of thousands
of contract workers in the Middle East.

Nafeek, 19, arrived in Saudi Arabia two years ago to work as a house maid
in Dawadami, but was compelled to look after a baby along with her many
other tasks. She had no experience or training in child care. The infant
died in May 2005, while Nafeek was bottle-feeding him.

According to Nafeek, she was left alone to feed the child who began to
choke. She shouted for help, but before the mother arrived, the infant was
dead. The parents accused Nafeek of strangling the child and handed her
over to the Dawadami police. Siding with the family, the police pressured
the maid into signing a statement confessing to murder.

Nafeek renounced the confession in court in February, declaring that
police had threatened her. The Dawadami court ignored her statements and
on June 16 sentenced her to death. In Saudi Arabia, executions are carried
out by public beheading. The deadline for an appeal was set for July 16.

The Sri Lankan government was completely indifferent to the fate of a
young contract worker, leaving her isolated without any legal assistance.
It claimed that any aid would amount to contravening the sovereignty of
another country.

Foreign employment minister Keheliya Rambukwella told the media that his
staff educated potential contract workers in the culture, behaviour and
law of the country where they were to work. But when they get in trouble,
the law of the land will apply, he declared.

Government made no contribution toward the legal fees needed to make an
appeal. Riyadh-based attorney at law, Kateb Fahad Al-Shammari, charged
250,000 Saudi Riyals ($US67,000)an impossible amount for Nafeeks family.
The Asian Human Rights Commission paid an initial sum of 50,000 Saudi
Riyals and other donors contributed the remainder.

Al-Shammari told Arab News he was currently preparing a detailed objection
to file at court with all the details related to the case. He was seeking
to have Nafeeks "confession" set aside because it was obtained under
duress. The lawyer was also asking for a reconsideration based on the fact
that Nafeek was a minor at the time of the infants death.

Amid rising concern internationally and at home, the Sri Lankan government
could no longer ignore the case. In a hollow expression of support, deputy
foreign minister Hussein Bahila finally declared on July 20 with great
fanfare that he would take steps to save the girl. He set off to Saudi
Arabia with the girls father, Mohammed Sultan Nafeek, and her mother,
Fareena Nafeek, to appeal to the authorities.

Bahila expressed the face-saving character of the exercise in an
interview, in which he said: We can provide consular assistance but there
is no provision providing them with financial assistance for legal
services." He added: "Right now the government can do little in regard to
saving the life of the condemned girl."

Bahila tried to meet Nafeek's employers to plead for clemency but the
parents refused to take part. The dead childs father, Naif Jiziyan Khlif
Al Otaibo, has so far refused to make any concessions. Nafeeks parents
visited their daughter in jail and she pleaded to be permitted to return
with them to Sri Lanka. Despite the lack of any progress, Bahila boasted
on his return on July 29: "We have done what is possible and I'm fairly
confident that this should bear fruit."

Instead of seeking to secure Nafeeks release, Sri Lankan authorities are
trying to divert attention into secondary issues. Nafeek was only 17 when
she was contracted to work in Saudi Arabia, based on a forged birth
certificate showing she was 23. The government is now making a hue and cry
about those responsible for hiring underage workers.

On August 2, the cabinet spokesman, Anura Peiyadarshana Yapa, told a press
conference: "The authorities are in the process of taking necessary steps
against every person involved in the incident starting from the Grama
Niladhari [village officer] to the foreign employment agency." Washing the
government's hands of any responsibility for saving Nafeek, he declared
that international human rights bodies were handling her case.

Nafeeks case underscores the appalling conditions facing foreign contract
workers in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. Employed to carry out menial
tasks, they are poorly paid and have few legal rights. Domestic servants
in particular are treated as little more than slave labour, forced to work
long hours and frequently abused.

Nafeek's mother told the Associated Press: "I was shocked to hear that my
daughter had been implicated in a murder case as she was very innocent and
too young even to think of committing such an act. She had written to us
several times saying that she had been overworked on a daily basis and she
had to get up at 3 in the morning and work till late at night. She also
told us in her letters how she was ill-treated and physically abused by
her employer. She was supposed to look after the house she worked in, and
not the children. That was not part of her agreement."

There are about 8 million migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, of whom 400,000
are Sri Lankan. The Saudi Arabian regime has no hesitation in enforcing
the country's draconian laws as a means of suppressing any discontent or
opposition among this huge foreign workforce. This year alone, 103
executions have been carried out so far, including a number of foreign
workers. Four Sri Lankans were beheaded in February.

The Sri Lankan government's refusal to aggressively intervene on their
behalf stems from its economic reliance on remittances from the Middle
East. Last year, the estimated 1.5 million Sri Lankans working abroad sent
$US2.3 billion back home. During the 1st 5 months of this year,
remittances brought in $1.09 billion, up 17 percent compared to the same
period last year.

The inflow of foreign earnings has become all the more imperative as
President Mahinda Rajapakse has plunged the island back into civil war.
The government has made huge purchases of military hardware over the past
year and the military budget increased again this year. Rajapakses top
priority is to maintain the trade in cheap labour to the Middle East, not
oppose the exploitative conditions imposed on contract workers. Least of
all is the government concerned about the fate of Rizana Nafeek.

(source: WSWS News)






CHINA:

Death penalty for destroyers of China power facilities


A new judicial interpretation which took effect Tuesday will allow Chinese
courts to pass death sentences on persons who damage electric power
facilities, resulting in "serious consequences."

Anyone who damaged electric power facilities and caused the following 4
types of serious consequences will be sentenced to imprisonment for 10
years, life imprisonment and even death penalty, according to the judicial
interpretation issued by the Supreme People's Court (SPC) of China today.

In line with Article 119 of China's criminal law, the four kinds of grave
consequences brought about by the destruction of electric power facilities
include killing 1 or more people, seriously injuring at least 3 people, or
slightly injuring 10 people or more.

Causing power cut for 6 hours or longer which affects the life of 10,000
households or industrial production or leaving direct economic losses of
over USD 1,31,500 and causing other serious consequences that endangered
public security are the other offences that can invite such a sentence.

The interpretation said those who negligently sabotaged electric power
facilities but caused serious consequences will also be sentenced to
imprisonment ranging from 3 to 7 years.

(source: Zee News)