[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Oct. 8 IRAQ: At least 100 European Isis fighters 'to be prosecuted in Iraq, with most facing death penalty'Fate of militants' families remains uncertain At least 100 European Isis fighters will be prosecuted in Iraq, with most to face the death penalty, the country's ambassador to Belgium has reportedly said. Jawad al-Chlaihawi said Belgians were among those detained, along with jihadists from Russia, Chechnya and Central Asia. Fighters from around the world joined Isis's call to arms as the group established its so-called caliphate across Iraq and Syria in 2014. British fighters, including the notorious Mohammed Emwazi, also known as 'Jihadi John', were among them. He is believed to have been killed in a drone strike in Raqqa, Syria in 2015. Mr Chlaihawi told Belgium's RTPF there were around 1,400 family members of foreign fighters, including children, of suspected Isis members being held near Mosul. Many are reportedly from Turkey, and former Soviet countries in Central Asia, but there are also believed to be some French and Germans among them. It is unclear what will happen to the families and children of members of Isis, also known as Daesh. "We are holding the Daesh families under tight security measures and waiting for government orders on how to deal with them," Army Colonel Ahmed al-Taie told Reuters. He added: "We treat them well. They are families of tough criminals who killed innocents in cold blood, but when we interrogated them we discovered that almost all of them were misled by a vicious Daesh [Isis] propaganda." (source: independent.co.uk) INDIA: Back To Godhra: Gujarat HC To Pronounce Verdict On 2002 Sabarmati Express Carnage Tomorrow The Gujarat High Court on Monday will pronounce its judgement on the 2002 Godhra train carnage. In the horrific incident, 59 passengers were charred to death at the Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002. In 2011, the special court in its verdict had concluded that it is rarest of the rare case had convicted 31 accused and acquitted 63 others including main accused Maulana Umarji. Out of 31 who were convicted, 11 were awarded death penalty and rest 20 were sentenced to life imprisonment. The special court's verdict was challenged by the state government in Gujarat High Court in April 2011. Out of 31 convicts, 11 were awarded death penalty and the other 20 were sentenced to life imprisonment. The special court's verdict was challenged by the state government and the convicts before the Gujarat High Court on April 06 2011. The state had appealed for the confirmation of the special court order, whereas convicts had pleaded for quashing of the convictions. (source: Indiatimes.com) Convict facing death-sentence should die in peace, not pain: SCSC seeks response on alternatives to death penalty The Supreme Court has sought a response from the Centre on a plea seeking alternatives to death by hanging for convicts sentenced to death. Observing that such prisoners must die in peace, it agreed to examine if hanging could be replaced by less painful procedures such as death by lethal injection or shooting. The Centre was asked to respond within 3 weeks. (source: newsbytessapp.com) PAKISTAN: On death row FOR the thousands of prisoners on Pakistan's death row, Oct 10 will pass just like any other day. They will just strike off one more day of their nearly 12-year average jail sentence. It does not fall on a Thursday this year, so they will not have any family come visit them. Ostensibly, there is nothing special about this date to them. But beyond their literal prison, Oct 10 is World Day Against the Death Penalty - an annual accounting of this punishment that is as irreversible as it is inhumane. Activists around the world reflect on how many lives have been ended by the state and for what, and how to continue the global trend towards abolition. I would like to think, knowing this day exists, that someone cares about what happens to them; it would be heartening for those who remain in jails, waiting to die. But until December 2014, they had no reason to expect the arrival of their warrants. Pakistan had a de facto moratorium in place for nearly 6 years. Today, we have executed 480 prisoners in less than 3 years. We are used to counting bodies in Pakistan. Sometimes in the tens, other times in the hundreds; 480 is a significant death toll, if not a wholly unnecessary one. The numbers are terrifying. The figure has included juvenile offenders, the mentally ill. There are still more who have been executed only to have their corpses acquitted a year later. Many have died waiting to die. So in 2 days, as we take stock of the way the death penalty is implemented in Pakistan, let's go back to the reasons why it was resumed in the first place. No amount of time or commiseration can mitigate the horror of the attack
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., N.C., GA., FLA., OKLA., CALIF.
Oct. 8 TEXASimpending executions Death Watch: Where's Your Evidence?Exculpatory testimony, DNA at issue for Rodney Reed, Robert Pruett Rodney Reed, the Bastrop man who's spent nearly 20 years on death row for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites - a crime he has steadfastly maintained he did not commit - could move 1 step closer to a new trial next week. On Tuesday, Oct. 10, he'll step into Bastrop County's 21st District Court for a 4-day hearing set to address an interview CNN's Death Row Stories conducted in 2016 with Curtis Davis, the Bastrop County Sheriff's investigator and former best friend of Jimmy Fennell Jr., Stites' fiancee, then a Giddings police officer, and the person Reed and his supporters believe to be responsible for her death. The interview, according to Reed's attorney Bryce Benjet, validates longstanding questions concerning whether Fennell provided false testimony at Reed's trial about his whereabouts on the night of Stites' murder. Most relevant to Reed's effort is the portion of the interview in which Davis admits that on the morning of April 23, 1996, after Stites was reported missing, Fennell confided to Davis that he'd been out drinking by his truck the night before with several other police officers after a Little League practice. Davis said he doesn't know the exact time Fennell returned home, but told CNN: "definitely 10ish, 11 maybe at night." That unassuming nugget stands in direct contrast to Fennell's statement to police and testimony at Reed's trial: that he'd spent the night of April 22 at home with Stites, and was asleep when she allegedly left for work with his truck at 3am. Davis' reveal is remarkable on its own, but even more striking when stacked next to affidavits filed in 2015 by Werner Spitz, Michael Baden, and LeRoy Riddick - 3 of the country's leading forensic experts - each of which raises questions about the time of Stites' death; essentially, that her condition when investigators found her indicates that Stites must have died at least 4 hours before her official time of death, 3:30am. That time played an outsized role in the state's case against Reed: Prosecutors hung their argument around the assumption that Reed abducted, raped, and murdered her on her way to work, then abandoned Fennell's truck at a nearby high school. Fennell is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for the in-custody rape and kidnapping of a woman while he was an officer with the Georgetown Police Department in 2007. Visiting Judge Doug Shaver will preside over the hearing, a recent development. The county docket listed that court's usual judge Carson Campbell as the hearing's judge as recently as July, but District Clerk Sarah Loucks told the Chronicle that Campbell "never was going to hear" Reed's case. It has been Shaver's case since 2014, Loucks said on Sept. 29, and she had "no idea" how it got reported that Campbell was presiding over the hearing. (We reported it in July after seeing Campbell's name listed as the presiding judge on the Bastrop County district clerk's website. See "Rodney Reed Hearing Set for October," July 14. Loucks did not respond to additional requests for clarification.) Some might recall that Shaver has made a few headlines of his own over the years, including last September, when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals instructed him to further investigate Reed's request for additional DNA testing. Once the prosecution and defense submitted their findings - in opposition to one another - Shaver approved both arguments and shipped them off to the CCA. Shortly after, Shaver wrote the court to apologize for what he called an "inadvertent mistake." Curiously, during our interview with Loucks on Friday, someone listening in on the call from Loucks' office interjected to say that Shaver's approval of both sides' findings "wasn't an accident." Asked to clarify, all that person (who declined to identify herself) could say was that Shaver "wanted the Court of Criminal Appeals to make that decision" - another odd development, since Shaver's letter to the CCA stated that he meant to approve only the prosecution's findings. The appeals court affirmed Shaver's decision to deny additional DNA testing, less than 1 month before mandating that the county court hold this upcoming hearing. After that incident, Benjet told the Statesman that he planned to request a new judge preside over Reed's case. Neither Benjet nor the Bastrop County District Attorney's Office returned requests for comment concerning whether or not a new judge had indeed been requested and ??? if so ??? if that request had been denied. Pruett's Last Stand While Reed's hearing is going on, another longtime inmate of Texas' death row is slated for execution. Robert Pruett, convicted for the 1999 in-custody murder of Beeville prison guard Daniel Nagle, has a death date of Oct. 12. It's his 5th such date, as questions
