[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
August 16 KENYA: Life and Times of Kenya's Last Hangman His name was Kirugumi wa Wanjuki, not known to many but those who are keen on history, and those who were unlucky enough to go through his hands. He lived in a cold village at the foot of the Aberdares, a poor and desolate man surviving on a meagre pension and a decayed mud house, a reward for his service to the state. Kirugumi joined the Prison Service in 1937, where he was stationed at Kangumbiri Work Camps for seven years before he was moved to Kamiti Prison. There, he replaced a retiring Indian hangman and served in that capacity for 11 years. After that, he had a short stint at the King'ong'o maximum prison, where he served as the official hangman for 4 years before calling it quits in 1974. Before he joined the Prisons' Service, Kirugumi was a tracker and a professional game hunter. He was among the men who helped the Askari track the Mau Mau freedom fighters during the struggle for independence. The last executions to take place in Kenya was in 1987, with the last victims being the alleged masterminds of the 1982 coup, Hezekiah Ochuka, and Pancras Oteyo. Kirugumi wa Wanjiku admitted to being the one who hanged them. "I got so used to hanging people that at some moment I thought that killing people was as simple as slaughtering a chicken," he said in a KTN interview a few months before his death. The death penalty was repealed in 2016 when President Uhuru Kenyatta invoked article 133 of the constitution, officially commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment. This was not the first time this act was done. Mwai Kibaki had invoked the Prerogative of Mercy and issued a directive to commute the death penalty to life in prison on August 4, 2009, but President Uhuru made it official. The declaration in 2009 sent Kirugumi wa Wanjiku into a frenzy, and he even offered to hang the prisoners for Kibaki if he would let him. His opinion was that the death penalty was a deterrent to serious crime, but life imprisonment will dilute the purpose of punishment for a serious crime. In an interview conducted by The Standard in 2009, he recounted the last moments of prisoners before they headed to the gallows. "Inmates had to be clean before they went to the gallows. We had to ensure that their nails were well-trimmed, their hair clean-shaven and bodies clean," he said. The convicted prisoner was woken up before 5am and led to the gallows, his legs and his hands bound. "Some walked in silence, others prayed, some cried and some just went wild," he added. Kirugumi expressed the fact that he had no regrets over the prisoners who had lost their lives through his hands, for all he was doing was delivering justice as it had been prescribed. His biggest regret, he said, was having to hang a young person full of potential. He died on November 2nd, 2009, a desolate and abandoned man, ironically, at 0230hrs, more or less the time he prepared prisoners for their execution. He did not go out the way he had lived. Instead, he succumbed to pneumonia in the loneliness of his crumbling house. His death did not stir excitement in his neighbourhood. His only son Ngung'u Wanjuki was the one that mourned him, with the villagers giving his compound a wide berth. The stigma that came with his job trailed him to the last days of his existence, even as demons tortured him in the night and forced him to drink heavily just to gather some sanity. Not many knew about him when he lived, and not many will know about him long after his death. His name has been plastered in the halls of infamy, to be remembered as the Last Hangman that this country had. (source: kenyans.co.ke.) BANGLADESH: Bangabandhu’s killer Rashed Chy to be brought back: Law minister Law Minister Anisul Huq today said that Rashed Chowdhury, a fugitive killer of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, will be brought back to the country from the US. The minister said this while addressing a programme organised to mark the National Mourning Day at Akhaura Railway Station premises in Brahmanbaria this morning. “2 of the 6 fugitive killers of Bangabandhu are residing in the US and Canada. We would bring back the one living in the US. Legal steps are on to bring back the one in Canada as well,” Anisul Huq said. “Steps are on to trace the whereabouts of the four other fugitive killers,” he said. “No matter where they are hiding, they would be extradited to the country and would be brought to justice,” the minister also said. “After the assassination of Bangabandhu in 1975, conspiration was on to turn Bangladesh into a mini Pakistan,” Anisul Huq said, adding “the plot was almost implemented.” “It was after the Awami League government under leadership of Sheikh Hasina took power in 1996 that the fate of the country began to change for the better,” he added. Akhaura upazila unit of Awami League organised the
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., TENN., COLO., ARIZ., WYO., CALIF., ORE., USA
August 16 TEXAS: Texas to seek death penalty for MMA fighter accused of double homicide Cedric Marks was indicted on 2 counts of capital murder earlier this year. He has plead not guilty to those charges. According to USA Today prosecutors in Bell County, TX are planning to seek the death penalty for Cedric Marks, 45. A long-time MMA fighter, Marks was indicted in the killings of Jenna Scott, 28, and Michael Swearingin, 32, in March. Marks has plead not guilty to all charges. The remains of Scott, Marks’ former girlfriend, and Swearingin, her friend, were discovered in shallow graves in Clearview, OK on January 3rd. Marks’ current girlfriend Maya Maxwell, who recently gave birth while incarcerated, is also facing charges in this case. She has told authorities that Scott and Swearingin died after being alone in rooms with Marks. Maxwell has also confessed to moving Swearingin’s vehicle in an attempt to sidetrack the investigation into the killings. Scott and Swearingin were declared missing in December. Around this time Marks was arrested in Grand Rapids, MI. He was arrested on a burglary charge after he was accused of robbing Scott’s Temple, TX home back in late 2018. The reported break-in happened shortly after Scott had a request for a 2-year protective order against Marks turned down by Judge Paul LePak. During court proceedings Scott claimed that Marks had previously choked her unconscious and had threatened to kill her and her family. Scott also claimed that Marks had told her he had gotten away with murder in the past and he knew how to cover it up. Police in Bloomington, MN consider Marks a person of interest in the disappearance of April Pease. Marks and Pease were involved in a reportedly bitter child custody battle in 2008. Pease was granted custody of her and Marks’ child, but she went missing a year later. Custody then reverted to Marks. However, the state took custody of the child soon after. Marks has spent the last 20-years competing in professional mixed martial arts. His most notable career appearance came in 2010, in a loss to Andrew Chappelle at Bellator Fighting Championships 20. (source: bloodyelbow.com) FLORIDAimpending execution Florida Supreme Court refuses to block death row inmate Gary Ray Bowles' execution The Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected appeals by death row inmate Gary Ray Bowles, who is scheduled to be executed next week for the 1994 murder of a Jacksonville man who was hit in the head with a concrete block and strangled. Justices unanimously denied a request by Bowles’ attorneys for a stay of the Aug. 22 execution. The attorneys argued in a brief last month that the Supreme Court should order a hearing about whether Bowles is intellectually disabled and, as a result, should be shielded from execution. But the Supreme Court said Bowles had failed to make a “timely” intellectual disability claim because he did not raise the issue until 2017. “Bowles waited until October 19, 2017 to raise an intellectual disability claim for the first time,” the court’s 10-page main opinion said. “Therefore, the record conclusively shows that Bowles’ intellectual disability claim is untimely under our precedent.” (source: news-press.com) TENNESSEEexecution Tennessee executes a double murderer by electric chair A double murderer who chose to die by electrocution was executed Thursday night, the Tennessee Department of Correction said. Stephen West was convicted in 1986 of fatally stabbing a mother and her 15-year-old daughter, CNN affiliate WKRN reported. He had several times escaped being put to death, including a scheduled execution in 2001 that was delayed when he began appealing his death sentence, according to several media reports. Jack Campbell, whose uncle was the husband and father of the victims, lamented the legal system. "Our family has suffered very deeply over the past 33 years through all the appeals that we think is very unfair for anyone to have to go through when all of the proof in the world was there for the case to be over within 24 hours, let alone 33 years," he said in a statement. Witnesses to West's death in the electric chair said he sobbed before he died. Reporters in the viewing area said his last words were, "In the beginning God created man." He then began to weep. And then said, "Jesus wept. That's all." He was pronounced dead at 7:27 p.m. CT (8:27 p.m. ET). West had denied he killed the mother and daughter. He blamed their deaths on an accomplice, according to CNN affiliates WKRN and WSMV. A statement from his legal team said: "We are deeply disappointed that the state of Tennessee has gone forward with the execution of a man whom the state had diagnosed with severe mental illness. A man of deep faith who has made a positive impact on those around him for decades and a man who by overwhelming evidence did not commit
