Death Penalty News

Alejandro Giammattei, who is against same-sex marriage and abortion, has been sworn in as president of Guatemala. Giammattei was sworn in yesterday (January 14) following his surprise win in the presidential election of August 2019, the Washington Post reports. He replaced outgoing president Jimmy Morales and will hold office or a four-year term. His election will likely not be welcomed by the country’s LGBT+ population, as Giammattei has spoken out against same-sex marriage in the past. When asked in 2015 about same-sex marriage, he replied: “There is so much to solve in Guatemala that entering into that is counterproductive, that it is approved elsewhere does not mean that it is done here,” Prensa Libre reported. Alejandro Giammattei was elected president of Guatemala in August 2019. Giammattei – who is also a doctor – has also spoken out against abortion in the past, saying he is “a defender of life.” The 63-year-old won the election last year for Vamos, a...

Ex-prisons chief Alejandro Giammattei says he will seek to modify controversial pact with US A conservative law and order hardliner promising to reinstate the death penalty and deploy soldiers on to the streets has been elected the new president of Guatemala. Alejandro Giammattei, 63, an ex-prisons chief backed by the country’s economic and military powerbrokers, trounced his opponent Sandra Torres, a former first lady, to win Sunday’s presidential race on his fourth attempt by securing 58% of the vote. Despite the landslide victory, the low turnout triggered immediate questions about Giammattei’s legitimacy: around 60% of eligible voters abstained after both candidates failed to inspire hope in the Central American country, where tens of thousands of people flee extreme poverty, famine, violence and corruption every month. Giammattei’s triumph comes amid growing tension with the US over migration and asylum. Shortly before his victory, Giammattei said he wanted to c...

10 October 2018 - On this 16th World Day Against the Death Penalty, France reaffirms its opposition to the death penalty everywhere and in all circumstances. France is committed to the universal abolition of this unjust, inhumane and ineffective punishment and calls on all nations that still apply the death penalty to establish a moratorium on it with a view to its definitive abolition. France welcomes the decision by Mongolia, Guinea and Burkina Faso to abolish the death penalty.  It also welcomes Gambia’s ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aimed at abolishing the death penalty, as well as Guatemala’s abolition of capital punishment for ordinary crimes. France reiterates its concern over the continued use of the death penalty in all too many countries. France invites all nations to mobilize ahead of the Seventh World Congress Against the Death Penalty to be held from February 27 to March 1...

PARIS (AFP) - The use of the death penalty is declining: more than two-thirds of countries have abolished or ceased to use it and executions continued to decrease in 2017, Amnesty International says. But capital punishment remains in place in 23 countries, with China still believed to be the "world's top executioner", the group's 2017 report says. Here is an overview: Death penalty decline Amnesty International says that at the end of last year, 142 countries -- more than two-thirds -- had abolished the death penalty in law or in practice, with 106 ending it in law for all crimes. The latest were Guinea and Mongolia which in 2017 abolished capital punishment for all crimes, while Guatemala outlawed it for civil crimes only. Sub-Saharan Africa made significant progress towards abolition with a big reduction in the number of death sentences throughout the region. Only Somalia and South Sudan carried out executions in 2017 compared with fi...

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...

World governments at a UN meeting on the global drug problem were urged Tuesday to move away from repression , abolish the death penalty for drug offenses and step up treatment. In the 1st such meeting in nearly 20 years, the UN General Assembly adopted a document that marks a shift away from the "war on drugs" launched in the 1970s, with its heavy-handed approach centered on law enforcement and criminalization. "Drug policies that focus almost exclusively on the use of the criminal justice system need to be broadened. They need to be broadened by embracing a public health approach," said World Health Organization (WHO) director Margaret Chan, drawing applause. The 3-day special session was requested by Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala, which have felt the brunt of the war on drugs with an explosion of crime and violence. Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto said the fight against drugs must be seen from a "human rights perspective" ...

December 22, 2010: The United Nations General Assembly yesterday approved a new resolution in favour of a universal moratorium on the death penalty. It is the third time after the historic resolution approved in December 2007 and then again in December 2008. 108 countries voted in favour, with 41 against and 36 abstentions (another 7 countries were absent at the time of the vote). It recorded a decisive step forward compared to 2007 when in a plenary assembly the votes in favour were 104, with 54 against and 29 abstentions (with 5 absent at the time of the vote). Another step forward was taken also in respect to the second vote on the pro moratorium Resolution in December 2008 when there were 105 in favour, 47 against and 34 abstentions (6 were absent at the time of the vote). The most significant political data regarding the favourable is that of 6 countries that in 2008 voted against (Kiribati, the Maldives and Mongolia) or abstained (Bhutan, Guatemala and Togo) or the abstentions ...

On the eve of World Day Against the Death Penalty, Amnesty International has welcomed President Álvaro Colom’s public commitment to veto proposed legislation that would lead to the reapplication of the death penalty. The Guatemalan Congress had voted on 5 October 2010 to approve legislation that would have allowed the use of the death penalty. However, President Colom has since said he would veto the move because he does not think the president should decide on the life of others. "This is very good news. The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights - the premeditated, cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state," said Sebastian Elgueta, Central America Researcher at Amnesty International. "President Colom must now make his commitment a reality as he did back in 2008 following a similar move by Congress. Were Guatemala to reapply the death penalty, it would stand against a global and region trend towards the abolition of the death penalty." Mo...

Human rights groups have called on the Guatemalan congress to abolish the death penalty instead of regulating it, as MP’s debate legislation that would allow its use for the first time since 2000. The new legislation would create presidential pardons for those on death row, a move that would allow the country to use the death penalty in what politicians say is a response to public pressure over rising gang violence. “The death penalty is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and violates the right to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, said Guadalupe Marengo, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Americas programme. Marengo continued: “More than two-thirds of countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice as in the rest of the Americas. Even the USA, which is the only country in the region that consistently carries out executions, is showing signs of turning against this inhuman and degrading treatment. Guatemala would be turn...

Published June 25, 2008 The state of Virginia is scheduled to execute Robert Yarbrough on Wednesday for the 1997 murder of elderly shopkeeper Cyril Hugh Hamby. Yarbrough would be the 100th person put to death in Virginia since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 and the eighth in the country to die by lethal injection since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in April that Kentucky's method of execution using a cocktail of three deadly drugs did not, in fact, constitute "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Eighth Amendment as petitioners alleged. The ruling — effectively allowed executions by lethal injection to recommence after a seven-month unofficial moratorium. But the legal wrangling over lethal injection is hardly over. On June 10, an Ohio judge ordered his state to do away with its lethal injection drug combination in favor of a single large dose of barbiturates, a method commonly used to euthanize animals. The ruling is likely to prompt another nationwide re...

March 14, 2008: Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom vetoed a bill that would have reinstated capital punishment and given the president the power to commute death penalty sentences. There are 34 prisoners in limbo on death row after a high court in 2002 suspended executions, ruling that presidential reprieves on death penalty cases were unconstitutional. The vetoed measure, approved overwhelmingly in February by lawmakers, would have given Colom the authority to decide whether the prisoners in question are executed by lethal injection or have their sentences commuted to the maximum 50 years in prison. "If (the death penalty) were a disincentive, we would reinstate it," Colom said. "But we have studied cases in various states in the United States, and it doesn't dissuade" crime. The Catholic Church and European embassies openly opposed the law, saying it would violate human rights. Colom said "strengthening security institutions" is the best way to fight ...

February 12, 2008: Guatemalan lawmakers gave the president the ability to pardon or commute death sentences, lifting a five-year hold on executions. The law, approved 140-3, gives President Alvaro Colom the authority to decide whether the more than 30 prisoners sentenced to death in Guatemala are executed by lethal injection or have their sentences commuted to 50 years in prison, the maximum allowed under Guatemalan law. "The floor took a decision of great responsibility to punish murderers and kidnappers" said Congressman Mario Taracena, of Colom's Unity of Hope party. Guatemala is a signatory to the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights, which requires that those sentenced to capital punishment be given the right to appeal for a pardon from the president or other authority. Executions were suspended in 2002 when a court determined that presidential reprieves on death penalty cases were unconstitutional, creating a legal gap that suspended all executions. The last ti...