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

Comments

Florida executes Michael Tanzi

Florida on Tuesday executed a death row inmate described by one local detective as a "fledgling serial killer" for the murder of a beloved Miami Herald employee. Florida executed Michael Tanzi on Tuesday, 25 years after the murder of beloved Miami Herald employee Janet Acosta, who was attacked in broad daylight on her lunch break in 2000. Michael Tanzi, 48, was executed by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Raiford and pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. ET.

South Carolina | Man who ambushed off-duty cop to face firing squad in second execution of its kind

Mikal Mahdi, 48, who was found guilty of killing an off-duty police officer and a convenience store worker, is the second inmate scheduled to executed by South Carolina's new firing squad A murderer who ambushed and shot an off duty police officer eight times before burning his body in a killing spree is set to become the second person to die by firing squad. South Carolina's highest court has rejected the last major appeal from Mikal Mahdi, 41, who is to be put to death with three bullets to the heart at 6pm on April 11 at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. Mahdi's lawyers said his original lawyers put on a shallow case trying to spare his life that didn't call on relatives, teachers or people who knew him and ignored the impact of weeks spent in solitary confinement in prison as a teen.

Afghanistan | Four men publicly executed by Taliban with relatives of victims shooting them 'six or seven times' at sport stadium

Four men have been publicly executed by the Taliban, with relatives of their victims shooting them several times in front of spectators at a sport stadium. Two men were shot around six to seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the centre of Afghanistan's Badghis province, witnesses told an AFP journalist in the city. The men had been 'sentenced to retaliatory punishment' for shooting other men, after their cases were 'examined very precisely and repeatedly', the statement said. 'The families of the victims were offered amnesty and peace but they refused.'

South Carolina executes Mikal Mahdi

Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers A man facing the death penalty for committing two murders was executed by firing squad on Friday, the second such execution in the US state of South Carolina this year. Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers, an off-duty police officer, and the murder of a convenience store employee three days earlier. According to a statement from the prison, "the execution was performed by a three-person firing squad at 6:01 pm (2201 GMT)," with Mahdi pronounced dead four minutes later.

USA | Why the firing squad may be making a comeback

South Carolina plans to execute Mikal Mahdi on Friday for the murder of a police officer, draping a hood over his head and firing three bullets into his heart. The choice to die by firing squad – rather than lethal injection or the electric chair – was Mahdi’s own, his attorney said last month: “Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils.” If it proceeds, Mahdi’s execution would be the latest in a recent string of events that have put the spotlight on the firing squad as a handful of US death penalty states explore alternatives to lethal injection, by far the nation’s dominant execution method.

I spent 16 years in solitary in South Carolina. This is what it did to me. | Opinion

South Carolinian Randy Poindexter writes about the effects 16 years of solitary confinement had on him ahead of South Carolina’s planned execution of Mikal Mahdi , who spent months in solitary as a young man. For 16 years, I lived in a concrete cell. Twenty-three hours a day, every day, for more than 3,000 days, South Carolina kept me in solitary confinement. I was a young man before I was sent to solitary — angry, untreated and unwell. I made mistakes. But I wasn’t sentenced to madness. That’s what solitary did to me. My mental health worsened with each passing day. At first, paranoia and depression set in. Then, hallucinations and self-mutilation. I talked to people who weren’t there. I cut myself to feel something besides despair. I could do nothing as four of my friends and fellow prisoners took their own lives rather than endure another day of torturous isolation.

Louisiana | Lawyers of Jessie Hoffman speak about their final moments before execution

As Louisiana prepared its first execution in 15 years, a team of lawyers from Loyola Law were working to save Jessie Hoffman’s life. “I was a young lawyer three years out of law school, and Jessie was almost finished with his appeals at that time, and my boss told me we needed to file something for Jessie because he’s in danger of being executed,” Kappel said. Kappel and her boss came up with a civil lawsuit to file that said since they wouldn’t give him a protocol for his execution, he was being deprived of due process, and the lawsuit was in the legal process for the next 10 years.

Lethal Injection, Electric Chair, or Firing Squad? An Inhumane Decision for Death Row Prisoners

South Carolina resumed executions with the firing squad killing of Brad Sigmon last month. Mikal Madhi’s execution date is days away. The curtain shrieked as it was yanked open to reveal a 67-year-old man tied to a chair. His arms were pulled uncomfortably behind his back. The red bull’s-eye target on his chest rose and fell as he desperately attempted to still his breathing. The man, Brad Sigmon, smiled at his attorney, Bo King, seated in the front row before guards placed a black bag over his head. King said Sigmon appeared to be trying his best to put on a brave face for those who had come to bear witness.

Execution date set for prisoner transferred to Oklahoma to face death penalty

An inmate who was transferred to Oklahoma last month to face the death penalty now has an execution date. George John Hanson, also known as John Fitzgerald Hanson, is scheduled to die on June 12 for the 1999 murder of 77-year-old Mary Bowles. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday set the execution date. The state’s Pardon and Parole Board has a tentative date of May 7 for Hanson’s clemency hearing, executive director Tom Bates said.

Arizona | The cruelty of isolation: There’s nothing ‘humane’ about how we treat the condemned

On March 19, I served as a witness to the execution of a man named Aaron Gunches, Arizona’s first since 2022. During his time on death row, he begged for death and was ultimately granted what is likely more appropriately described as an emotionless state-assisted suicide. This experience has profoundly impacted me, leading to deep reflection on the nature of death, humanity, and the role we play in our final moments. When someone is in the end stages of life, we talk about hospice care, comfort, care, easing suffering and humane death. We strive for a “good death” — a peaceful transition. I’ve seen good ones, and I’ve seen bad, unplanned ones.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog