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Japan | Hakamada found religion, but then felt under attack by ‘the devil’

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Editor's note: This is the last in a four-part series on letters that Iwao Hakamada wrote while on death row. About a decade after cursing God, Iwao Hakamada was baptized Catholic at the Tokyo Detention House on Dec. 24, 1984. “Since I have been given the Christian name Paul, I am keenly feeling that I should be aware of the greatness of Paul.” (June 1985)

High Court Upholds Death Penalty in Delhi Gang Rape Case

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NEW DELHI — The Delhi High Court on Thursday upheld the death sentences of four men who were convicted of gang-raping and murdering a 23-year-old student in the capital in December 2012.

In September, a lower court sentenced the men to death by hanging after determining that the case fell into the “rarest of the rare” category, which the Supreme Court has said is the only one that can merit capital punishment. The men were charged with murder after the woman died from severe injuries sustained when she was repeatedly assaulted with an iron rod.

In their order upholding the men’s convictions and death sentences, the two judges from the Delhi High Court called attention to the “gruesome manner of the execution of the crime” and said that such a case was “unparalleled in the history of criminal jurisprudence.”

A. P. Singh, a lawyer for two of the convicted men, said in a telephone interview that the decision to uphold the death penalty was politically motivated. “When the lower court passed the judgment, the Delhi Assembly elections had just been declared,” he said. “And now, they have passed this judgment as the national elections are around the corner.”


Source: India Ink, March 13, 2014
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