Death Penalty News

Oklahoma has carried out 1 of 3 executions set for the same day in the United States in another sign of the resurgence of the death penalty in the country.  Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 13, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.  He was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of his common-law wife in 2003 at their Oklahoma City home. He admitted to police he shot her twice during an argument.  Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, did not fight for his life, stunning his attorneys in July when he told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that he didn't want clemency. "It's time for me to pay for what I did," he said. 

The case of Rafael Andrés , a 61-year-old Cuban American sentenced to death for the second time on Friday by the judge of the Miami-Dade Circuit Court has brought attention to Cubans on death row in the United States. According to data from the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), an organization based in Washington specializing in the analysis of this measure, there are five Cubans facing the death penalty in the United States, all of them in Florida. In the Sunshine State, there are a total of 12 foreign prisoners sentenced to death.

A Miami-Dade judge sentenced Rafael Andres, a 61-year-old Cuban, to death this Friday for the murder of Ivette Fariñas, a 31-year-old waitress, also Cuban, who worked at the La Carreta restaurant at Miami International Airport, a crime committed two decades ago. According to Telemundo 51, Judge Zachary James of the Miami-Dade Circuit Court followed the jury's recommendation, which voted 9 to 3 in favor of the death penalty last November after reviewing all the evidence in the case. The jury classified the crime as "atrocious, horrifying, or cruel," although they did not conclude that it was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner.

MIAMI — The U.S. Department of Justice has unsealed a historic criminal indictment charging former Cuban President Raúl Castro and five co-defendants with murder and conspiracy.  The charges stem from the February 24, 1996, shoot-down of two unarmed civilian aircraft operated by the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue. The group frequently flew over the Florida Straits to search for and assist Cuban rafters fleeing the island. The unsealed document represents a major escalation in U.S.–Cuba relations, marking the first time in nearly seventy years that top Cuban leadership has faced criminal charges in an American courtroom for violence against U.S. citizens. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the indictment outside Miami's Freedom Tower, highlighting the decades-long push for accountability.

HAVANA TIMES – On August 24, the people of Ciego de Avila woke up to the alarming news that two “high-risk” inmates had escaped from Canaleta prison. That penitentiary is located roughly halfway between the cities of Ciego de Ávila and Moron, home to two-thirds of the province’s residents. One of the fugitives was serving a 28-year sentence for homicide and other crimes; his accomplice had been sentenced to 16 years for violent offenses, illegal possession of weapons, and robbery.

Aware that only the use of terror and force keeps it in power, the Cuban regime makes it clear that if necessary, it will not hesitate to kill. HAVANA TIMES – Inflation, misery, the lack of medicine, and power outages, which were the triggers for previous demonstrations, are worsening daily in Cuba. Given the possibility that these protests may occur again, the regime has threatened the death penalty for those who participate in demonstrations considered “illegal.”

Sept 14 (Reuters) - Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said on Thursday his country rejects the participation of its citizens as mercenaries in war, contradicting a statement by Cuba's ambassador in Moscow hours earlier saying his government did not oppose the legal participation of its citizens in Russia´s war in Ukraine. The apparently conflicting statements follow Cuban state-run and foreign media reports suggesting that young Cuban men have enlisted in the Kremlin´s military in recent months as mercenaries and victims in alleged human trafficking schemes.

Cuba's one-party legislature Sunday passed a new Penal Code, which was considered to be “modern” and adjusted to the country's socialist “reality,” it was announced in Havana. Although the new legal instrument was designed in tune with international criteria on human rights according to local authorities, the death penalty was not entirely removed and may still be applied. “The norm is of extraordinary relevance in the robustness of Cuba as a socialist state of law, a modern criminal law, adjusted to the socioeconomic realities and updated with the Constitution and other legal provisions,” Ruben Remigio Ferro, president of the People's Supreme Court, told the National Assembly of People's Power, the national parliamentary body. The new code provides for penalties that range from life imprisonment to 30-year prison sentences for the most serious crimes. It also maintains the death penalty for 23 extremely serious offenses , it was reported. Offenders are accountable sinc...

Kingdom was only candidate not to secure a seat on the 47-member UN human rights council Saudi Arabia’s failure to secure membership of the UN human rights council is a rebuke to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a social reformer who is a major human rights abuser. Russia and China were both elected to the council last week for the next three years, but Saudi Arabia failed in its attempt to win a place. It was the only candidate to do so. Human Rights Watch deputy director Bruno Stagno tweeted, “The kingdom reaped what it deserves for its serious violations and war crimes.” The UN General Assembly cast secret ballots to elect 15 new members from five regions to the 47-member council.  In the Asia-Pacific region, Saudi Arabia lost to China, Pakistan, Nepal and Uzbekistan, countries with poor human rights records. Rights violators Russia and Cuba were elected unopposed after backroom dealing among the UN’s 193 members. Saudi Arabia had launched a major public relations campaign to b...

Guatemala's highest court has abolished the death penalty for civil cases in a landmark ruling announced Thursday. The Constitutional Court's decision is final and will take effect once it is published in the government's official gazette. Until now Guatemalan law has allowed for the death penalty in cases of murders of people younger than 12 or older than 60; kidnappings where the victim is severely hurt or dies; assassination of the president or VP; or in certain crimes related to drug trafficking. "We cannot allow us to be one of the last countries that apply that penalty," said Jose Alejandro Valverth Flores, one of the lawyers who had petitioned the Constitutional Court to declare unconstitutional the pertinent articles of the penal code and a law governing drug crimes. "We believe it is necessary for the respect of human rights in Guatemala," he added. The Central American nation has not applied a death sentence for some year...

Cuba abstained from participating in a vote in the United Nations that sought to issue a resolution condemning the death penalty based on someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity . The initiative condemning “the imposition of the death penalty as a sanction for specific forms of conduct, such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations” obtained 27 votes in favor, 13 against and seven abstentions . Disregarding the importance of an initiative that “raises the grave concern that the death penalty for adultery is disproportionately imposed on women” and that “poor and economically vulnerable people and foreigners are disproportionately subject to the death penalty,” Cuba abstained from voting with apparent disinterest. The resolution, backed by Belgium, Benin, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia and Switzerland, did not receive a vote from Kenya, Nigeria, Tunisia, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea or Cuba. It was the only Latin...

Cuban artist Juan Abreu (second from far left) with European Parliament members Teresa Giménez Barbat, Javier Nart and Fernando Maura during the opening of the exhibit, 1959, which features more than 100 portraits of those executed by the Castro regime. More than 100 portraits of Cubans executed by the Castro regime are on display at the European Parliament offices in Brussels thanks to the support of three parliament members from Spain and the Czech Republic. The three politicians are “sensitive to Cuban issues and know that Cubans have the same right to live in freedom as any other human being,” said Juan Abreu, the Cuban artist and writer who painted the striking series of portraits. “I believe that Cubans who live in freedom should thank these Euro deputies for the opportunity to put the cause of a free Cuba before the parliament,” he added. “Because it’s not a show of my paintings. It is an event of great international significance.” Titled “1959,” the exh...

Fidel Castro, Cuba's lifelong dictator, dies at 90. In April 2013, after ten consecutive years without carrying out executions, Cuba became a “de facto abolitionist” country. The Penal Code presently in force provides for the death penalty for 112 offences, 33 of which are common crimes. Offences punishable by death include: crimes against external State security; crimes against internal State security; crimes against peace and international law; acts against State security (like the violation of Cuban territory by participating as a member of the crew or travelling on board a ship or plane); crimes against the normal development of sexual relations and against the family, infancy and youth (rape when the victim is under 12 years of age or serious injury or illness results; pederasty with violence when the victim is under 14 years of age or serious injury or illness results). A February 1999 reform of the penal code expanded the application of the death penalty to ...

"A majority of Cubans want the death penalty abolished." At the beginning of July, Havana Times put forward a new initiative: to find out what Cubans think about different national and/or global issues. As far as we know, only the government and government institutions carry out surveys; the results of these are not normally very accessible to ordinary Cubans. The aim of our project is to contribute towards public opinion surveys not being administered by a centralized body and that the results of these are made easily accessible to everyone. We kicked off this project with a simple survey where the person taking it didn't have to give any personal information; all they had to do was mark the option they believed to be correct with a cross. We chose to begin with the death penalty, because it's a very sensitive and important issue when building a civilized country. In Cuba, capital punishment was abolished by the 1940 Constitution and was later reinstated...

Indonesia has carried out a 3rd round of executions under President Joko Widodo. Attorney-General H. Muhammad Prasetyo had announced that 14 people would face the firing squad, but only 4 were killed on Thursday night - 3 Nigerians and an Indonesian national. All those executed under Widodo have been convicted of drug offences. Deputy Attorney-General Noor Rachmad said the most recent executions were: ... done not in order to take lives but to stop evil intentions, and the evil act of drug trafficking. The remaining 10 executions were delayed. The attorney-general's office has not justified this delay. The 10 remaining prisoners include Indonesians and Nigerian, Indian, South African and Zimbabwean nationals. Those prisoners face another agonising and indefinite wait for their execution. Indonesia faces renewed international criticism Human rights organisations have renewed criticism of Indonesia's practice of capital punishment for drug offences. Amnesty...