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As clock ticks toward another Trump presidency, federal death row prisoners appeal for clemency

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President-elect Donald Trump’s return to office is putting a spotlight on the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, which houses federal death row. In Bloomington, a small community of death row spiritual advisors is struggling to support the prisoners to whom they minister.  Ross Martinie Eiler is a Mennonite, Episcopal lay minister and member of the Catholic Worker movement, which assists the homeless. And for the past three years, he’s served as a spiritual advisor for a man on federal death row.
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HRW condemns France 'outsourcing' of IS trials to Iraq

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Islamic State militants
Some of the views expressed in the following piece do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor of Death Penalty News.

Baghdad (AFP) -- Human Rights Watch on Friday condemned France's "outsourcing" of trials of Islamic State group suspects held in Iraq where seven of its nationals have this week been sentenced to death.

Two of them have "alleged that they were tortured or coerced to confess", the New York-based watchdog said in a statement.

"France and other countries should not be outsourcing management of their terrorism suspects to abusive justice systems," said HRW's acting Middle East director, Lama Fakih.

"These countries should not be sitting idly by while their citizens are transferred to a country where their right to a fair trial and protection from torture are undermined."

A Baghdad court on Wednesday sentenced a Frenchman to death for joining IS, bringing to seven the number of French jihadists on death row in Iraq.

Yassin Sakkam was among 12 French citizens transferred to Iraqi authorities in January by a US-backed force which expelled the jihadist group from its last bastion in Syria.

Sakkam's sentence came despite France reiterating its opposition to capital punishment this week.

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Iraq has taken custody of thousands of jihadists in recent months after they were captured in neighbouring Syria.

They include hundreds of foreigners suspected of IS membership, raising the question of whether they should be tried in the region or repatriated.

France has long insisted its adult citizens captured in Iraq or Syria must face trial before local courts, while stressing its opposition to capital punishment.

Iraqi law provides for the death penalty for anyone joining a "terrorist group" -- even those who did not take up arms.

Source: Agence France-Presse, Staff, May 31, 2019


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Baghdad, Iraq
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