Oct. 23
INDIA:
Home ministry turns down Kasab's mercy plea
The home ministry has rejected 26/11 Mumbai attack convict Ajmal Kasab's plea
to commute his death sentence to life and sent its recommendation to President
Pranab Mukherjee for final disposal.
The home ministry "processed Kasab's mercy petition" within 3 weeks of
receiving the file from the Maharashtra government. This brings to an end the
legal options before Kasab in appealing his death sentence that has been
confirmed by the Supreme Court.
It is almost 4 years since Kasab landed on the shores of Mumbai in a dinghy as
part of a 10-man Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) squad - all Pakistani nationals - to
unleash a reign of terror lasting 3 days that killed 166 people and left the
iconic Taj hotel in flames.
Kasab, a native of Okara in Pakistan, was the sole member of the Lashkar squad
to be captured alive and proved to be invaluable in establishing the role of
LeT chief Hafiz Saeed and members of the Pakistani military establishment in
planning and executing the Mumbai attacks.
Apart from witness accounts, CCTV footage of Kasab armed with AK-47 striding
into Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) helped secure Kasab's
conviction. An exclusive picture of Kasab with gun in hand was also captured by
a TOI photographer, when the LeT man was at a foot over-bridge near CST.
Perhaps aware that a delay in confirming Kasab's death sentence could only
trigger a political controversy - as in the case of Parliament attack case
convict Afzal Guru - the government did not take much time in processing the
relevant file.
The home ministry displayed similar alacrity earlier in dismissing the mercy
plea of Kehar Singh, who was awarded a death sentence for the assassination of
PM Indira Gandhi. Kehar Singh's file was processed and rejected within 3 months
(October-December 1988).
More typically, the home ministry can take years to process pleas of death row
convicts. It took the government more than five years to process Guru's file.
It finally rejected Guru's mercy plea and submitted the government's opinion to
the President over a year ago. However, the case is still pending with the
President's secretariat.
Though 'technically' it is the President who takes a final call on a mercy
petition under Article 72 of the Constitution, Rashtapati Bhawan never goes
against the opinion offered by the government. The President can, at best, send
the file back to the government for reconsideration. If the government does not
alter its decision, the President accepts the opinion.
The President can, however, sit on a mercy plea file as the Constitution does
not lay down a timeframe. The constitutional provision has seen the waiting
time of current death row convicts range from 3 to 20 years in the case of 11
petitions still pending with the President. Kasab's mercy petition is the 12th
in line with Pranab. His predecessor Pratibha Patil had decided 18 cases - with
majority of them being commuted. At present, only the file of Balwant Singh
Rajoana - killer of former Punjab CM Beant Singh - is with the home ministry.
The SC upheld death penalty for Kasab on August 29.
(source: The Times of India)
NORTH AFRICA:
Maghreb activists push for death penalty ban; Human rights activists are urging
Maghreb governments to follow through on reform pledges and abolish capital
punishment.
Rabat played host last week to the 1st regional conference aimed at abolishing
the death penalty in the Middle East and North Africa.
The October 18th-20th event was organised by the Moroccan Human Rights
Association (OMDH), the Moroccan Coalition against the Death Penalty and the
"All against the Death Penalty" association.
The goal of the event was to present the experiences of countries that banned
capital punishment, particularly those in the Maghreb region, and to call for
abolishing the penalty on the international level.
"The right to life is a natural extension to human rights, and this compels us
to do collective mobilisation to urge regional countries to join international
obligations on the death penalty, to change their national legislations as a
guarantee for respecting the human right to life, and to change their practices
as a start for changing their legislations and regulations," Rabat mayor
Fathallah Oualalou said.
"Morocco is qualified, more any other country in the region, to take this
qualitative leap since it has stopped the implementation of death penalties for
2 decades," he added. "This is also in view of the spirit and content of the
recent constitutional reforms. In addition, taking part in efforts against the
death penalty and linking to global values that call for the respect of man
would boost the moral and political reality of regional countries."
Mourad Abaderi, a spokesperson for Tunisia's human rights minister, said that
there had been a "change in the way of dealing with this penalty since the
outbreak of revolution".
Algerian activists are also seeking reform. "It's about time we put an end to
the death penalty now that some peoples in the region are facing tough
circumstances under which the death penalty is imposed in many cases,"
commented Ayachi Daadoua, a member of Algeria's National Consultative Committee
for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (CNCPPDH).
Meanwhile, Morocco's National Human Rights Council (CNDH) Chairman Driss El
Yazami said that "one of the recommendations of the Justice and Reconciliation
Commission (IER) was to call on Morocco to ratify the Second Optional Protocol
to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."
El Yazami urged the government to take up the treaty, which bans the death
penalty, as part of national consultations on judicial reform in Morocco.
"The death penalty is stipulated for in all laws in the Maghreb, but its
implementation is stopped in most countries," Abderahim Jamai of the Moroccan
Coalition against the Death Penalty told Magharebia. "However, regional
countries' failure to ratify the UN recommendations makes them states where the
death penalty is still a possibility."
"We hope there will be political boldness and response to Maghreb public
opinion towards enhancing the protection of right to life, and we hope that
this conference will have an effect on the abolition of the death penalty,"
Jamai added.
The Moroccan and Algerian governments have already said that the abolition of
the death penalty is not a priority, while Tunisia is the closest country to
abolishing the penalty after declaring its intent to ratify the international
ban.
(source: Magharebia)
_______________________________________________
DeathPenalty mailing list
DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Search the Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/deathpenalty@lists.washlaw.edu/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A free service of WashLaw
http://washlaw.edu
(785)670.1088
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
