Belarus sentences two to death for Minsk metro bombing

Dmitry Konovalov
and Vladislav Kovalyov

(Reuters) - A Belarus court Wednesday sentenced to death two men for carrying out a bomb attack at a central station of the Minsk metro in April this year which killed 15 people and injured scores of others.

Dmitry Konovalov and Vladislav Kovalyov, both 25, were arrested three days after the April 11 explosion which took place on a packed platform at evening rush-hour.

The two men, friends since childhood, were said by the prosecution to have dabbled with explosives for years and been behind explosions in 2005 in their home town of Vitebsk and a separate bomb attack at Independence Day celebrations in Minsk in 2008.

Rights activists had called on authorities in the ex-Soviet republic not to impose the death sentence. Belarus is the only country in Europe to have retained the use of capital punishment. Execution is carried out by a shot from a pistol.

Describing the accused as "an extreme danger to society," judge Alexander Fedortsov said: "The court sentences (them) to the extreme measure of punishment, death by execution."

Source: Reuters, November 30, 2011

Rights activists appeal for lives of men blamed for Minsk bomb

A court in Belarus could today sentence two young men to be shot in the back of the head for blowing up the Minsk metro system in April, after a trial that observers say has been a farce that threw up more questions than it provided answers.

Rights activists have called on Belarusian authorities not to impose the death sentence on Dmitry Konovalov and his apparent accomplice, Vladislav Kovalyov, with the latter's motherissuing an emotional video appeal this week protesting her son's innocence.

The bomb, detonated at rush hour one evening in April, killed 15 and injured hundreds. The country is run by the dictator Alexander Lukashenko, and although there is an opposition movement, it has never resorted to terrorism, nor is there any religious or ethnic conflict.

Police quickly arrested Konovalov and Kovalyov, however, and the former confessed to making the bomb and detonating it, while the latter admitted he knew his friend's plans and did nothing to stop him. The pair also admitted to a number of smaller attacks. Konovalov said that he carried out the attacks "to destabilise the situation in the Republic of Belarus" and because he disagreed with Mr Lukashenko's policies, but the bizarrely stilted admission, which mirrors an official legal definition, left many suspicious, as did the fact that Konovalov appeared to be entirely apolitical.

During the two-month trial, Kovalyov has said he only implicated his friend after being pressured by investigators, and Konovalov has said nothing. Besides the confessions, the prosecutors have offered little substantial evidence against the two men.

Although the verdict has not yet been delivered, Mr Lukashenko has already publicly rewarded officials for solving the case, and state-controlled media have frequently referred to the two men on trial as "terrorists". With experts seeing little hope of a not-guilty verdict, the main question now is whether the judge will hand down the death sentence. Belarus is the only country in Europe to retain the death penalty.

"I know that my son and Dima are not guilty," said Lyubov Kovalyova, Vladislav Kovalyov's mother, in a video released this week. "I ask just for one thing – that you do not kill my son, and instead find those that are really guilty."

Source: The Independent, November 30, 2011

Press release - AP125(2011)

Belarus: PACE rapporteurs express dismay at the death sentence on Dmitry Konovalov and Vladislav Kovalev

Strasbourg, 30.11.2011 – Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) rapporteurs on Belarus, Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), and on the death penalty, Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD) have expressed their dismay at the death sentence handed down today on Dmitry Konovalov and Vladislav Kovalev by the Belarusian Supreme Court, which found them guilty of the fatal bombing in the Minsk Metro on 11 April 2011.

"It is outrageous that Belarus continues to blatantly ignore the international community's calls for a moratorium on the death penalty. Such an irreversible, cruel and inhuman penalty is unacceptable in any civilised society, however heinous the crimes of the perpetrator. Moreover, many human rights defenders who monitored the proceedings in this case raise doubts about the defendants' guilt", stressed the rapporteurs.

"It is also deeply regrettable that the work of the death penalty study group of the National Assembly of Belarus, initiated some time ago, has not borne any fruit and that parliamentarians in Belarus do not dare to speak up against the death penalty ", Ms Wohlwend added.

Mr Herkel is preparing a report for the Political Affairs Committee, due to be adopted on 14 December with a view to an Assembly debate in January 2012.

Parliamentary Assembly Communication Unit

https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?Ref=AP-PR125(2011)&Language=lanEnglish

Press release - DC148(2011)

“Death is not justice!” says Secretary General following announcement of new death sentences in Belarus

Strasbourg, 30.11.2011 - Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjørn Jagland today made the following statement: “I urge the Belarus authorities not to carry out the death sentences pronounced today against Dzmitry Kanavalau and Uladzislau Kavalyou. The crime they were found guilty of was barbaric, but their punishment should not be the same. Belarus is the only country in Europe which still executes people and I would urge the authorities to introduce an immediate moratorium with a view to its ultimate abolition. The victims of the 11 April attack and their families deserve justice, not revenge".

Council of Europe Directorate of Communication

https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?Ref=DC-PR148(2011)&Language=lanEnglish

Help save two innocent men from execution in Belarus

Lyubou Kavalyova is living a mother's worst nightmare -- her son was just sentenced to death for participating in a terrorist attack in Belarus in April. But Lyubou believes strongly that her son and his friend, who was also sentenced, are actually innocent -- it is clear now that their confessions were procured through torture.

Without valid confessions, there's no evidence to support the accusations against these two young men. But political pressure has forced the Supreme Court to sentence Uladzislau Kavalyou and his friend Dzmitry Kanavalau to die for a crime that 88% of Belarussians -- and even victims of the attack -- believe they did not commit. But you can stop it.

As part of her tireless campaign to save her son's life, Lyubou started a petition on Change.org to Belarussian authorities. Now, she's taking her campaign to the European Union. Will you sign Lyubou's petition and demand that EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Catherine Ashton save these two young men from wrongful execution in Belarus?

Now that the Supreme Court has sentenced Uladzislau and Dzmitry to death, they could be killed at any moment. Belarus executed two men in 2010 without informing their families of the time and method of their executions. And their bodies were never returned to their families.

But Uladzislau and Dzmitry's case has been the largest news story of its kind in Belarus, Russia and other parts of Europe, garnering overwhelming public support to save Uladzislau and Dzmitry. Since Belarus is the last country in Europe with the death penalty, action from Catherine Ashton could make Uladzislau and Dzmitry's fate a European issue, and put the brakes on their execution.

Lyubou's heart is breaking, but she's willing to sacrifice everything to save her son. "Even the victims of the attack believe that these two boys are innocent and should not be murdered," she has said. "But if they want more blood, I want them to send me to death instead of my innocent son; I have lived enough."

Please sign Lyubou's petition to save the lives of two men, including her son, from being wrongfully executed by the Belarussian government, and then send it to everyone you know:

http://www.change.org/petitions/the-supreme-court-of-the-republic-of-belarus-please-save-my-son-from-the-death-penalty

China to Execute Filipino Drug Trafficker Dec. 8

Execution by shooting in China

A Chinese court has upheld the drug trafficking conviction of a Filipino man and set his execution for next week despite appeals for clemency from the Philippine president, officials said Wednesday.

The 35-year-old man, who was not identified, was arrested in September 2008 at Guilin International Airport in southern China while trying to smuggle 3.3 pounds (1.5 kilograms) of heroin into Guangxi province from Malaysia, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said.

Smuggling more than 50 grams of heroin or other drugs is punishable by death in China.

Philippine officials based in China were told Monday that the Supreme People's Court in Beijing had upheld a lower court's decision to impose the death penalty on the Filipino man and that a Dec. 8 execution date had been set, the department said.

The Philippine government provided all possible help to the condemned man and made "sustained and exhaustive representations with the Chinese government at all levels," including an appeal from President Benigno Aquino III to his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, to try to have the death sentence commuted to life in prison, officials said.

The foreign office expressed "its sadness at this turn of events" and said the convicted man's family has been told of the Chinese court's decision. Arrangements were being made for family members to immediately leave for China to meet with the condemned man.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said that the Philippines respects China's judicial system and that the planned execution would not hurt bilateral relations like when three other Filipino drug offenders were executed by Chinese authorities in March.

"It was done in compliance with their legal processes — we respect that," Lacierda said in a news conference. "This should not cause a hiccup in Filipino-Chinese relations."

The condemned man's family members said they were devastated by the court's decision and asked Filipinos to pray for him. In a statement released by the foreign affairs department, they asked the media to refrain from hounding them at this time.

"It is a very difficult time for us and we are trying our best, through prayers, to cope with the situation," the family said.

The plight of Filipino workers overseas is an emotional issue in the Philippines, and ensuring their safety and welfare, often in conflict zones and countries with starkly different cultures, is a cornerstone of Philippine foreign policy. About 10 percent of the country's 94 million people work abroad to escape widespread poverty and unemployment at home.

In March, China executed three Filipino workers who were convicted of smuggling heroin despite last-minute appeals and political concessions by Philippine leaders. The three were arrested in 2008 and convicted and sentenced in 2009.

Aquino sent at least three letters to Hu and deployed his vice president to appeal, prompting China to postpone the executions of the three by a month. The Philippine government said it was able to prove that a drug syndicate had taken advantage of the Filipino workers.

Migrante, a group that works for the welfare of Filipino workers, urged the Philippine government to continue efforts to save the convicted man in Guangxi.

Vice President Jejomar Binay's spokesman, Joey Salgado, said Binay was ready to leave for China anytime to make a final appeal if a meeting with top Chinese officials can be arranged.

Migrante also renewed its call for the formation of an interagency government task force that would focus on efforts to have the death sentences of Filipinos abroad commuted.

"This is a sad, bitter reality confronting us as a nation, especially if we know that there are more than a hundred of them still on death row in various countries," the group said in a statement.

Source: ABC News, November 30, 2011

Palace respects China's decision

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang respects the decision of the Chinese government to carry out the death penalty sentence imposed on a 35 year-old Filipino convicted of drug trafficking.

Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said the Filipino’s case went through the process and that the Philippine government has “exhausted all efforts” to appeal for clemency.

President Aquino has sent a letter of appeal to Chinese President Hu Jintao requesting commutation of the Filipino’s death penalty sentence to life imprisonment, but the appeal apparently went unheeded.

The execution is scheduled to be carried out on December 8, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Lacierda believes that the execution would not affect the relations of the Philippines and China, coming at the heels of the President’s state visit to China last August.

“We recognize the decision of the judicial authorities in China. It was made based on the evidence that the Filipino national was carrying [1.495] kilos of heroin. And therefore based on their law, it was subject to the death penalty. It was done in compliance with their legal processes. We respect that and I believe that in the same manner that three Filipinos were previously executed, this should not cause a hiccup in Filipino-Chinese relations,” Lacierda said.

Aside from the President’s letter, DFA Secretary Albert del Rosario also made representations with the Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines to convey the appeal.

Former Philippine Ambassador to China Francisco Benedicto also conveyed to a top official of the Supreme People’s Court of China the government’s appeal to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment.

Lacierda cited that the penalties of two other Filipinos have been commuted by the Chinese high court from death penalty without reprieve to death penalty with two-year reprieve. This is the last death penalty conviction without reprieve on a Filipino concerning drug trafficking in China’s High Court.

“Number one, it is not for us to comment kung anong klaseng merong sistema ang China. The fact is dumaan ‘yun sa proseso nila. We respect the process that it went through. Number two, meron tayong na-reduce na sentence from death penalty to death penalty with reprieve. That was also done prior to the visit of the President. This other case was undergoing review by their judicial authorities. This should not be seen in any way as a slap to the Philippine government,” Lacierda said.

Three Filipinos convicted of drug trafficking were executed last March.

The government once again issued an appeal to all Filipinos not to allow themselves to be used by drug syndicates and act as drug couriers.

“We appeal to all Filipinos, especially OFWs, not to allow themselves to be victimized by international drug syndicates and to be extremely cautious when dealing with strangers in airports and other areas of transit. We would like to stress that vigilance is the first major step in combating the modus operandi of international drug traffickers. We urge all our citizens to be on alert at all times in order not to be victimized by drug syndicates,” the DFA said in a statement read by Lacierda.

Source: ABS-CBN News, November 30, 2011

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Nebraska: Maker of lethal injection drug wants it back

When the Nebraska Department of Corrections announced Nov. 3 that it recently had purchased 2 batches of sodium thiopental made by a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Switzerland, Director Robert Houston said his department was ready once more to proceed with its statutory obligation to carry out capital punishment.

But 15 days later, the CEO of the pharmaceutical company Naari wrote a letter stating the company wants its drug returned.

"Naari did not supply these medicines directly to the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services and is deeply opposed to the use of the medications in executions," CEO Prithi Kochhar wrote in a letter addressed to Nebraska Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Heavican and also sent to Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning.

Houston and state Attorney General's Office Spokeswoman Shannon Kingery said in statements to the Journal Star on Monday that the 485 grams of sodium thiopental purchased for $5,411 and received Oct. 25 were legally obtained.

According to Kochhar's letter and an article published recently in an Indian weekly news magazine, a Calcutta, India-based middleman, Chris Harris, agreed to provide the 485 grams of sodium thiopental to drug officials in Zambia, where it would be used as an anaesthetic. Believing Harris would purchase a larger order of sodium thiopental, Naari gave him the vials of the drug toward the end of September, according to the article published in the December edition of Outlook.

Rather than provide it to Zambian officials, Harris sold the drugs to Nebraska officials for $5,411, according to the letter.

"He was not authorised (sic) to sell the product to the Nebraska Department of Corrections or to anyone else in the USA," Kochhar wrote in the letter.

A spokesman for Naari told Outlook, "We're not in the business of helping to execute people. We were lied to and cheated."

Maya Foa, an investigator with the London-based anti-death penalty advocacy group Reprieve, was first to notify Naari officials that their company had been named in a Nebraska Department of Correctional Services news release as the manufacturer of the state's supply of sodium thiopental.

She said staff with whom she dealt were outraged that the drug, which was intended for medical use in a 3rd-world country, could be used to execute Nebraska death-row inmates.

"They don't want to be in the business of killing," Foa said.

"This is an awful situation for us and we are trying to see what we can do to support Reprieve and work together with anyone who can help us prevent this from happening," Kochhar said in an email to the Journal Star. "We never intended for the product to reach the US and definitely not be used for executions."

The statements provided to the Journal Star by Houston and Kingery did not address the company's concerns with the drug's use.

Said Kingery, of the AG's office: "The sodium thiopental received by NDCS was approved for legal export by the government of India and approved for legal import by the regulatory federal agencies of the United States (DEA and Customs). It has been tested and positively identified as sodium thiopental."

1 of 3 drugs in Nebraska's lethal injection protocol, sodium thiopental has been in short supply since last year, when the only U.S. manufacturer, Hospira Inc., said it was ending production because of death penalty opposition.

Earlier this year, the DEA ruled that Nebraska had illegally imported 500 grams of sodium thiopental from Kayem, an Indian company.

The recent batches of sodium thiopental were acquired Oct. 25, according to the state's Nov. 3 news release.

The news release did not mention Chris Harris, described as the middleman in Kochhar's letter and the Outlook article.

But Jerry Soucie, an attorney with the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy, referred to Harris' role in procuring the earlier shipment of the drug that the DEA said was illegally imported in a May 2011 filing on behalf of death row inmate Carey Dean Moore.

Moore, convicted of killing two men, was scheduled to be executed June 14, but the state Supreme Court issued a stay of execution while Soucie challenged the purchase of the drugs in Douglas County District Court.

When the news about the acquisition of the Naari-manufactured sodium thiopental was released earlier this month, Bruning asked the Nebraska Supreme Court to set an execution date for convicted murderer Michael Ryan.

Soucie has until Wednesday to file documents regarding the execution of Ryan, who was convicted of killing James Thimm during a ritualistic torture at a farm near Rulo in 1985.

Soucie said he read the Outlook article Sunday and is trying to corroborate some of the information detailed in the story. He declined to speak further about the article.

Source: Journal Star, November 29, 2011

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Court considers setting executions of 2 Arizona inmates

The Arizona Supreme Court will consider clearing the way for 2 Arizona inmates to be executed. 

The court could issue execution warrants Tuesday for Robert Henry Moormann and Robert Charles Towery. 

If their execution warrants are approved, the 2 could be put to death sometime in the next two months in Florence. 

Moormann was convicted of killing and dismembering his adoptive mother in Florence while on a prison release in 1984. 

Towery was convicted of killing a man while robbing his home in 1991. 

The last inmate to be executed in Arizona was Thomas Paul West, who was put to death July 19 for the beating death of another man in a 1987 robbery. 

Source: Associated Press, November 29, 2011

North Carolina Senate derails Racial Justice Act

The state Senate on Monday rewrote the Racial Justice Act, a two-year-old law that allowed death-row inmates to use statistical evidence of racial bias to challenge their sentences.

On a 27-17 vote, senators approved Senate Bill 9, titled No Discriminatory Purpose in the Death Penalty. It now goes to Gov. Bev Perdue. There was no immediate word on whether the governor would sign the bill.

Perdue did sign the Racial Justice Act into law in 2009, saying it would ensure death sentences were imposed "based on the facts and the law, not racial prejudice."

Republican lawmakers and the state's prosecutors tried to minimize the impact of the new law, insisting it was only a fix. "This is not a repeal of the Racial Justice Act," Sen. Thom Goolsby, a Republican from Wilmington, said on the Senate floor. "It's a reform, a modification."

But earlier in the day, in response to a question from Sen. Josh Stein, a Raleigh Democrat, the Senate staff acknowledged that passing the bill, SB9, returned the law to what it was before the Racial Justice Act went into effect.

"This is an utter and total repeal," Stein said.

The vote followed a public hearing before a Senate judiciary committee in which impassioned pleas were made on both sides of the issue from the families of murder victims and from death-penalty opponents.

The state's district attorneys in recent weeks stepped up a campaign that they have been waging against the two-year-old law. The campaign took on a new urgency because the first case is scheduled to be heard in January in Cumberland County. Prosecutors unsuccessfully tried to have the judge hearing the case removed. Failing that, they submitted to legislators a resolution signed by all but one of the district attorneys in the state calling for immediate changes to the act.

All but three of the 157 people currently on death row have sought hearings under the new law, including cases that seemed to have nothing to do with race. But a study found murder defendants were 2 1/2 times more likely to be sentenced to death if at least one of the victims was white, and raised questions about how frequently blacks are excluded from serving on juries.

The prosecutors have insisted that anywhere from two dozen to nearly 120 inmates now on death row could be eligible for parole under the law, even though the Racial Justice Act specifies that the only option available for an inmate who has had a death sentence commuted is life in prison without parole. Both sides cite different court cases to prove their point.

The campaign continued earlier Monday when 16 prosecutors and several families of murder victims held a news conference in the statehouse to emphasize the emotion behind the debate. Relatives recounted the crimes in raw, gut-wrenching details:

A father told of his 11-year-old daughter who had been raped, chased across a field and her throat slashed. A sister recounted the execution of her brother, a Johnston County sheriff's deputy whose last words to the gunman were, "Please don't."

Many of those same people also spoke at the Senate committee hearing in the afternoon. To make their case, both sides used African-Americans, as crime victims, as prosecutors, as the wrongly accused.

Darryl Hunt reminded the committee that he was 1 of the 7 death-row inmates who have been exonerated; five of them, like him, were African-American. He spent 19 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit.

"I was one vote away from the death penalty," Hunt said. "I had 11 whites and one black on my jury. If you think that race did not play a factor in my case, then you're not living here in North Carolina."

Goolsby referred on the Senate floor to the remarks by victims' families.

"We have a moral obligation to make sure justice is served in these cases," he said. "The Racial Justice Act has very little to do with race or justice. Instead, it's turned out to be a Trojan horse, a back-door attempt to end the death penalty in North Carolina."

Sen. Floyd McKissick, a Durham Democrat who was the primary author of the Racial Justice Act, made his own impassioned speech to defeat the new bill. He asked fellow senators what they would do if they were accused of a crime and each time a prospective juror who was the same race was stricken from the jury. "We've come a very long way over the last 50 years," McKissick said. "We've made a lot of progress as a society and as a country. We can all share in that pride. But there's still remnants that exist, remnants of institutional racism, remnants of hatred in the hearts and minds of people."

Source: News & Observer, November 29, 2011

NC Senate Votes to Repeal Death Row Law

The North Carolina Senate has voted to repeal a landmark state law allowing death row inmates to appeal their sentences by using statistical evidence to show the influence of racial bias.

The Monday night vote means the repeal measure now heads to the desk of Gov. Beverly Perdue, who signed the 2009 Racial Justice Act into law.

A Perdue spokesman said the governor will review the bill before making a decision.

The largely Republican supporters of the measure said the Racial Justice Act, in its current form, will clog up the courts with appeals from scores of death row inmates. They say the law amounts to an unofficial death penalty moratorium.

But supporters say the law helps ensure fairness in how capital punishment is administered.

Source: Associated Press, November 29, 2011

China: Former Death Row Inmate Describes Torture

Chen told a conference in Beijing this past weekend that on the first day he was taken from his hometown in Heilongjiang, police tortured him. He described how the police officers attached wires to his fingers and toes and electrocuted him.

Chen Ruiwu spent almost 8 years in prison after being sentenced to death by a court in Hebei in 2001 for being involved in a murder.

However, Chen was eventually acquitted of the crime in Nov 2009.

On Sunday, at a legal conference in Beijing, Chen talked of his torture at the hands of local police officers.

Chen, who's currently 42 years-old, was born in Heilongjiang and became a suspect in a serial murder case in Shengfang town in Bazhou in Hebei province ten years ago.

He was arrested on Dec. 15 in 2001 and sentenced to death after the first trial. However, on Nov. 12, 2009, Cheng was acquitted of the crime by the People's Court in Heibei.

According to Chen, police suspected he was involved in the murder because he had once had dinner with a fellow-villager who was also a suspect.

Chen told a conference in Beijing this past weekend, that on the first day he was taken from his hometown in Heilongjiang, police tortured him. He described how the police officers attached wires to his fingers and toes and electrocuted him.

Chen described how at that time he still didn't know why he had been arrested.

The policemen didn't ask specific questions and only asked him to confess. When his answers didn't satisfy them, he would be given an electric shock.

Chen said that, "It was worse than the electric batons. I'd rather die than be subjected to electric shocks."

According to a local newspaper called Life News that published in Heilongjiang, Chen also described how his confession was made under torture during court proceedings, describing how he suffered electric shocks to his genitals from electric batons and also how his fingers and toes were hooked up to telephone wires in order to deliver electic shocks to his body.

During the interrogation, Chen was also forced to drink chili liquid; his head was covered with plastic bags; the arch of his feet were burned with a lighter and his fingers and toes were clipped with pliers.

Chen once tried to bite his tongue in an attempt to commit suicide and was sent to the hospital for stitches. After a month's torture, Chen couldn't bear any more and said you can write whatever you want to write.

However, when putting his name to the forced confession, he still deliberately wrote the character for his family name incorrectly, he later explained, "once I'm dead, they will find my signature is fake and launch an investigation."

Yang Hongyi, who was also acquitted, said that he was also tortured to confess.

Source: The Economic Observer, November 29, 2011

Nigeria Senate approves bill criminalizing gay marriage, instituting long prison terms for violations

LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigeria’s Senate voted Tuesday to criminalize gay marriage, instituting prison terms of more than a decade for violations in a nation where gays and lesbians already face discrimination and abuse.

The bill heads to Nigeria’s House of Representatives, who have to approve the bill and send it to President Goodluck Jonathan for his signature before it becomes a law. However, public opinion — and lawmakers’ calls for even harsher penalties for being gay — shows wide support for the measure in the deeply religious nation.

“Such elements in society should be killed,” Sen. Baba Dati said during the debate.

Under the measure, couples who marry could face up to 14 years in jail, and witnesses or anyone who helps couples marry could be sentenced to 10 years behind bars. That’s an increase over the bill’s initial penalties.

Homosexuality is already technically illegal in Nigeria, a country evenly divided between Christians and Muslims that is nearly universally opposed to homosexuality. In the areas in Nigeria’s north where Islamic Shariah law has been enforced for about a decade, gays and lesbians can face death by stoning.

Click here to read the full article

Source: The Washington Post, November 29, 2011

Iran 'hangs nine for rape, drug trafficking'

TEHRAN — Iran on Tuesday hanged three convicted rapists and six drug traffickers -- one of them a woman -- in different cities, local media reported.

Two of the men, aged 23 and 25, were hanged in public in the western city of Kermanshah, Fars news agency reported.

They were executed after being found guilty of raping a number of women, some of them university students. They were not identified.

Fars also said five men and one woman were hanged on Tuesday for drug trafficking, notably dealing in heroin. They were not identified either.

ISNA news agency also reported a young man convicted of rape and identified by the initials M.S. was hanged publicly on Tuesday in the central town of Saveh, some 120 kilometres (72 miles) southwest of the capital.

The hangings bring to 266 the number of executions in Iran so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on media and official reports.

Human Rights Watch counted 388 executions in Iran in 2010. Amnesty International put the figure at 252, ranking the Islamic republic second only to China in the number of people put to death last year.

Iran says the death penalty is essential to maintain law and order, and that it is applied only after exhaustive judicial proceedings.

Murder, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking, homosexuality and adultery are among the crimes punishable by death in Iran.

Source: Agence France-Presse, November 29, 2011

Nine prisoners, among them one woman, were executed in Iran today- Three of the prisoners hanged in the public

Iran Human Rights, November 29: Nine prisoners were executed in two different Iranian cities this morning Tuesday 29. November, reported the official Iranian news agencies.

One woman and five men were hanged in the prison of Kermanshah:

According to the state run Fars news agency six prisoners were hanged in the prison of Kermanshah early this morning. Quoting Kermanshah’s prosecuter Mojtaba Maleki the report said: "Six prisoners, among them five men and one woman, were sentenced to death convicted of drug trafficking". None of the prisoners were identified by name.

Two prisoners were publicly hanged in Kermanshah:

According to the official Iranian news agency IRNA, two young men identified as "H. H." and "M. R." were hanged in the Azadi (freedom) Square of Kermanshah this morning. The men were convicted of kidnapping and rape of five women, said the report.

Fars news agency reported that the men were 23 and 25 years old.

One prisoner was hanged publicly in Saveh:

A young man identified as "M.S." was hanged publicly in the Khalij-e-Fars (Persian Gulf) Square of Saveh (West of Tehran) reported the state rn Iranian news agency ISNA. The execution took place this morning and the prisoner was convicted of raping a woman two years ago, according to the report.

According to the sources IHR has been in contact with, the prisoner’s name was "Mansor Salamat".

Source: Iran Human Rights, November 30, 2011

Mali hands death penalty to French embassy attacker

BAMAKO (Reuters) - A Malian court has sentenced to death a Tunisian man accused of throwing an explosive device at the French embassy in Mali's capital in January, wounding two people, state television reported on Tuesday.

Like many countries in West Africa, Mali maintains capital punishment, but the sentences are rarely carried out and are often commuted to life imprisonment.

"In the terrorism case against Bachir Sinoun, who exploded a grenade outside the French embassy on January 5, the accused has been sentenced to death and has to pay a fine of 10 million CFA francs," the court said in its ruling issued Monday and carried by national TV on Tuesday.

Mali and its neighbours Mauritania and Niger are struggling to contain a growing threat by Islamist militants operating across West Africa's remote desert regions.

However, Malian authorities have said Sinoun, who escaped prison in March but was rearrested a few days later, was acting alone in the botched attack and had no known links with Islamist militants.

Five Westerners have been kidnapped this month in separate cases, and another Westerner was killed as he tried to resist abduction.

Source: Reuters, November 29, 2011

Bahrain postpones protesters' death penalty appeal

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) – A civilian court in Bahrain on Monday postponed a highly anticipated ruling on the appeal of two protesters sentenced to death by a security court during a wave of anti-government protests earlier this year.

Meanwhile, another high-profile case resumed on Monday — the retrial of doctors and other medical professionals who treated protesters injured during the Shiite majority's campaign for greater rights in the Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom.

The medics' trial has been closely watched by rights groups that have criticized Bahrain's prosecution of civilians by the special tribunal, which included military prosecutors and judges. The tribunal was set up under martial law-style rule that was lifted in June.

In the initial trial at the security court, more than a dozen health professionals were convicted and sentenced to prison terms of up to 15 years on charges of attempting to overthrow the monarchy.

Click here to read the full article

Source: USA Today, November 29, 2011

Norwegian mass murderer Breivik insane; may be committed to a psychiatric institution indefinitely

(Reuters) - Court-appointed psychiatrists have concluded that Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik is criminally insane, a prosecutor said on Tuesday, meaning he may be committed to a psychiatric institution indefinitely rather than sent to jail.

Breivik killed 77 people in July by bombing central Oslo and then gunning down dozens of mostly teenagers at a summer camp for the ruling Labour Party's youth wing.

"The conclusion is ... is that he is insane," prosecutor Svein Holden told a news conference. "He lives in his own delusional universe and his thoughts and acts are governed by this universe."

If the court accepts the psychiatrists' conclusions, the anti-immigration militant could be held as long as he poses a threat to society and may be released if found to be healthy.

Norwegian courts can challenge psychiatric evaluations or order new tests but it is rare for them to reject such a professional opinion.

If the evaluation is upheld, Breivik would not be put on criminal trial but would face a court hearing to rule on his criminal insanity and the length of his commitment to a psychiatric institution.

Breivik could then face similar hearings periodically to determine if he needs to remain committed, and could be held for life if he remained a threat.

Holden said Breivik had developed paranoid schizophrenia and was psychotic at the time of the attacks, and that his condition was persisting.

Source: Reuters, November 29, 2011

Anders Behring Breivik, Norway Killer, Was Insane During July Attacks

OSLO, Norway -- Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik was insane when he killed 77 people in a bomb and shooting rampage in Norway, and should be sent to a psychiatric ward instead of prison, prosecutors said Tuesday.

A psychiatric evaluation ordered by an Oslo court found that Breivik was "psychotic" during the July 22 attacks – the country's worst peacetime massacre – which means he's not mentally fit to be sentenced to prison, prosecutors told reporters.

The conclusions, which will be reviewed by a panel of forensic psychiatrists, contrasted with comments made by the head of that board after the attacks. Dr. Tarjei Rygnestad at the time told who told The Associated Press that it was unlikely that Breivik would be declared legally insane because the attacks were so carefully planned and executed.

"The conclusions of the forensic experts is that Anders Behring Breivik was insane," prosecutor Svein Holden said, adding Breivik was in a state of psychosis during the attacks.

In their report, the experts describe a man "who finds himself in his own delusional universe, where all his thoughts and acts are governed by these delusions," Holden said. "They conclude that Anders Behring Breivik during a long period of time has developed the mental disorder of paranoid schizophrenia, which has changed him and made him into the person he is today."

In Norway, an insanity defense requires that a defendant be in a state of psychosis while committing the crime with which he or she is charged. That means the defendant has lost contact with reality to the point that he's no longer in control of his own actions.

The 243-page report will be reviewed by a panel from the Norwegian Board of Forensic Medicine, which could ask for additional information and add its own opinions.

On Tuesday, Rygnestad, who heads that board told AP that his comments in July were based on "secondary information" and that a person's mental state can only be determined through in-depth analysis. He said he had not read the full report yet.

Source: AP, November 29, 2011

Saudi Arabia: Man executed for killing security official

November 25, 2011: Fahd bin Saif Al-Qahtani was executed for killing security official Hasan bin Salem Majurshi in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, an Interior Ministry statement said.

Al-Qahtani was also charged with smuggling and trafficking in qat and banned pills, drinking liquor, damaging a number of cars and carrying weapons.

Source: Arab News, November 29, 2011

Nearly 400 capital murder convicts get life without parole

In six years, Texas has built a "lifer's row" filled with 398 prisoners who will never be released through parole - a fast-growing group that already has outpaced the number of inmates serving a death sentence in the Lone Star State, a Houston Chronicle analysis of prison records shows.

Harris County prosecutors, who historically have led the state in seeking death sentences, have so far also been the most aggressive in pursuing capital murder charges and obtaining mandatory life without parole sentences in capital cases.

Texas became the last of the death penalty states to approve life without parole in September 2005, after Harris County prosecutors dropped their opposition to the change. The law applies only to offenders convicted of capital murder.

For the first time, it gave jurors and prosecutors a non-death sentence that guaranteed someone convicted of killing a child, killing multiple victims, slaying a police officer or committing another capital crime could not be released on parole.

In all, 110 Harris County offenders have been sentenced to life without parole since the law took effect, compared with 11 death sentences.

Click here to read the full article

Source: Houston Chronicle, November 28, 2011

Iran: Man hanged in Qom's prison

Iran Human Rights, November 27 : One prisoner was hanged in the prison of Qom (south of Tehran) reported the state run Iranian news agency Mehr today.

According to the report the prisoner who was identified as "L. A." (age unknown) was convicted of participation in smugling and keeping 430 kilograms of crack. The execution was carried out on Thursday November 24, said the report.

The report also said that another prisoner was hanged in connection with the same case on 3rd of July this year. Execution of this prisoner has not been reported by the official Iranian sources previously.

Source: Iran Human Rights, November 27, 2011

California, Like Oregon, Has a “Compromised and Inequitable” Death Penalty System

Bank of phones in
San Quentin's
new death chamber

Kitzhaber granted a reprieve to Haugen on Tuesday, and announced he would not allow any executions to go forward as long as he is in office. “I am convinced we can find a better solution that keeps society safe, supports the victims of crime and their families and reflects Oregon values,” he stated. “I refuse to be a part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer.”

With 37 inmates on death row in Oregon, many of whom have been there for more than 20 years, Kitzhaber decried an “unworkable system that fails to meet basic standards of justice.” Despite the wide sense the death penalty process is flawed, he maintained the state has “done nothing; we have avoided the question.”

Here in California we have strikingly similar problems only on a far larger scale. We have over 700 men and women on death row, with an average wait of well over 20 years. There have been 13 executions since the re-institution of the death penalty in 1977, and none since 2006.

One difference from Oregon is that California’s scheme has been extensively studied and its dysfunction conclusively established. In 2008, the bi-partisan California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice (CCFAJ) issued its report which found California’s death penalty is “plagued with excessive delay” in the appointment of post-conviction counsel and a “severe backlog” in the Court’s review of appeals and habeas petitions. According to CCFAJ’s report, the lapse of time from sentence of death to execution constitutes the longest delay of any death penalty state.

With the largest death row in the country, CCFAJ reached a well-documented conclusion that common-sense already tells us: “most California death sentences are actually sentences of lifetime incarceration. The defendant will die in prison before he or she is ever executed.” Indeed, “the backlog is now so severe that California would have to execute five prisoners per month for the next twelve years just to carry out the sentences of those currently on death row.”

A study released in June by U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Arthur L. Alarcon found that California’s death penalty system is currently costing the state about $184 million per year. Further, “since reinstating the death penalty in 1978, California taxpayers have spent roughly $4 billion to fund a dysfunctional death penalty system that has carried out no more than 13 executions.”

Click here to read the full article

Source: Andy Love, LA Progressive, November 25, 2011

China sentences 113 in tainted pork scandal, 1 receives death sentence

BEIJING (AP) — More than 100 people, including over a dozen Chinese government employees, have been sentenced over chemical-laced pork that caused a food safety scandal earlier this year, state media said Saturday. One person was given the death penalty.

An investigation into the safety of pork was launched in March after several farms in central Henan province were found using the fat-burning drug clenbuterol — a banned chemical that makes pork leaner but can be harmful to humans — in pig feed. A subsidiary of Shuanghui Group, China's largest meat processor, was one company selling tainted pork.

A total of 113 people have received sentences ranging from jail terms to the death penalty with a reprieve, Xinhua News Agency said, citing Henan's higher people's court. A statement on the court's website said trials involving 59 cases and 114 people had finished, but gave no details.

Of the 113 punished, 77 were either producers or sellers of clenbuterol or government employees, Xinhua said.

The China Daily newspaper said that 60 had produced or sold clenbuterol and 17 had worked for government departments.

Xinhua said the main culprit, Liu Xiang, was convicted of harming public safety and sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, meaning the execution will be delayed for two years. Such sentences usually are commuted to life in prison if the prisoner shows good behavior.

Liu ran a clandestine workshop in Henan's Xiangyang city that produced clenbuterol, Xinhua said, adding that his collaborator, Xi Zhongjie, was sentenced to life.

The pair invested 50,000 yuan ($8,000) each in producing clenbuterol in 2007 and sold the chemical to pig dealers.

By March, they had made 6.4 million yuan after selling more than 6,000 pounds (2,700 kilograms) of the chemical, which spread to eight provinces, including some in eastern China.

Xinhua said most of the remaining 77 producers and sellers and government employees involved in the scandal — including animal health inspectors and food safety officials — received convictions for negligence of duty and abuse of power. Most were given sentences of three to nine years.

The court sentenced 36 pig farmers to probation or jail terms of less than a year.

Clenbuterol, known in China simply as "lean meat powder," is banned in the country yet stubbornly continues to pop up in the food supply, laced into animal feed by farmers impatient to get their meat to market and turn a profit.

It can cause nausea, dizziness, headaches and heart palpitations in humans, but pig farmers like to use it because it yields leaner meat, which is more expensive than fatty meat.

Food safety is a sensitive issue in China following scandals in recent years from deadly infant formula to recycled restaurant oil containing potentially deadly molds.

Source: AP, November 25, 2011

Poland's opposition party wants death penalty reinstated

PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński said the penalty should be applied to those who commit exceptionally cruel murders

Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of Poland's main opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS), told journalists on Friday that his party will soon submit an amendment to the penal code calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty.

“We would like to reinstate the death penalty for exceptionally cruel murders, and in general, increase the punishment for murders,” Mr Kaczyński said.

According to the PiS party leader, Poland's average punishment for committing a murder is seven years in prison; this figure includes second degree murder.

“The nation should be protecting its honest people and combating crime, so that the average Pole can feel safe,” he added.

Mr Kaczyński said that he is aware of objections the EU administration could have to this plan. However, he said that there is no law in the EU which forbids the death penalty.

“Just because the EU elites are against it, does not mean we have to be. We are a sovereign state,” he added.

Poland has signed and ratified Protocol 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights which forbids the death penalty in times of peace.

Signing and ratifying the treaty is a condition which must be met in order for a country to be allowed to join the EU.

Source: Izabela Depczyk, Warsaw Business Journal, November 25, 2011

Death row inmates' desire to die renews debate

San Quentin's
new execution chamber

Imprisoned on death row for the past 28 years, [Jerry] Stanley insists he deserves execution for the cold-blooded killing of his fourth wife in 1980 and for shooting to death his second wife five years earlier in front of their two children.

Despairing of the isolation and monotony of San Quentin's rooftop fortress for the purportedly doomed, Stanley earlier this year stepped up his campaign for a date with the executioner by offering to solve the cold case of his third wife's disappearance 31 years ago — by disclosing where he buried her body.

One of 718 prisoners on California's death row, Stanley has renewed an ethical debate among legal experts about whether a condemned prisoner who drops resistance to execution has been driven insane by his confinement or has accepted his fate and should be allowed a dignified end.

Since the modern era of capital punishment began with the 1977 execution of Gary Gilmore in Utah, civil rights advocates and death penalty supporters have debated whether a state would run afoul of laws prohibiting execution of the mentally ill if they bow to a condemned inmate's suicidal impulse.

"Most of these people aren't dropping their appeals because they believe it's the punishment they deserve," said John Blume, a Cornell University law professor and author of "Killing the Willing," a 2005 study of those who abandon pursuit of reprieve.

Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma, Florida and other states with more frequent executions see more inmates asking their lawyers to drop appeals, said Blume, who believes that more than 10% of the 1,277 executed nationwide since 1977 had lost the will to live by the time they were executed.

Click here to read the full article

Source: Los Angeles Times, November 25, 2011

Linda Carty: "I'm in hell on death row but I didn't kill anyone!"

Linda Carty

The 1st British woman to face the death penalty in 50 years has spoken from a Texan jail cell to insist she is innocent and her life is a living “hell”.

Grandmother Linda Carty, 53, has been on death row for 10 years after being found guilty in a circumstantial case of kidnapping and murdering a mother to steal her newborn baby.

Human rights groups and a raft of celebrity supporters have blasted her defence lawyer, claiming his handling of the case was shambolic.

There was no forensic evidence linking her with the abduction and the men who carried out the crime, who claimed they were acting on her orders, only confessed to doing so after making a deal to serve lesser sentences themselves if they blamed Carty.

The poor track record of her defence lawyer Jerry Guerinot – 20 people he has represented have ended up on death row – has led him to be dubbed “undertaker for the state of Texas”.

Yet all Carty’s appeals have failed, meaning that at any moment a judge could sign her death warrant leaving her 90 days before a lethal injection.

Her plight will feature in a TV documentary this month by filmmaker Steve Humphries. He travelled to Mountain View prison in Gatesville, Texas, to hear Carty’s story. From behind the jail’s razor wire, she said: “I know nothing about this murder, nothing about an abduction, I don’t even know the victim. This is the pettiest place I’ve been in. The people hate you for being different. It’s hell, hell.”

Carty was convicted for the kidnap and murder of Mexican-born Joana Rodriguez in Houston in 2001. The 25-year-old was found bound, gagged and suffocated in the boot of a car while her 4-day old son was found uninjured in another. Both vehicles were either used by or belonged to Carty.

The kidnappers said she was desperate to steal the baby to raise as her own. Police also found a pushchair, baby clothes, a baby bed and a baby bath in one car. They said scissors found in her bag would have been used to cut the baby from Rodriguez’s womb had she not already given birth.

Carty denies it all and insists she lent the cars to 2 men, Oscar and Chris, who used them without her knowledge in a botched robbery on the Rodriguez home on May 16.

At her trial, she said Guerinot did not even speak to her. Nor did he contact the British government, which he was supposed to under international law, because she was entitled to consular support having been born on the Caribbean island of St Kitts when it was under British rule in 1958.

She said: “How would you feel if your trial attorney never spoke to you, never addressed you by your correct name and lied and said he had to bribe me with chocolate to get a conversation going with me when I’m allergic to chocolate?” Paul Lynch, British consul general in Houston, Texas, admitted: “It is a terrible failure of the system and all I can say is that the authorities have changed the system so that it won’t happen again. But that’s too late for Linda Carty.”

Carty’s last hope lies with Michael Goldberg, of global law firm Baker Botts, who has taken up her case for free. He said: “If you throw out the criminals’ testimony, what does the state have? The state has nothing.” Also in her corner are celebrities including Bianca Jagger.

Guerinot did little to even uncover circumstances that could be used in mitigation. Had he used the funds he was given to fly to St Kitts he would have discovered that Carty was raised in a well-off religious family and worked as a teacher, but was forced to leave when she gave birth to a daughter as an unmarried mother in 1982.

In America she attended college while caring for her daughter, Jovelle. When she fell pregnant again after being raped, her life started to unravel. She put the baby up for adoption, but then fell into a series of troubled relationships. One was with a drugs kingpin, which led to her working undercover for the Drug Enforcement Agency.

In her last relationship, she suffered 2 miscarriages, which supporters say may explain the baby paraphernalia in her car. Jovelle, now a mother of 2 boys, said: “My fears are that they’ll win and my mom won’t come home.”

Carty no longer fears death but says: “If I have to die, I pray that my family, especially my mother and daughter, will not look and not feel ashamed. It isn’t because I am guilty, it’s because the state of Texas has failed and failed me badly.”

The last woman in Britain to be executed was murderess Ruth Ellis in 1955. The British Woman On Death Row, Channel 4, November 28, at 8pm

Source: Daily Mail, November 25, 2011

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