Death Penalty News

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand authorities imprisoned a man inspired by the Islamic State group for three years after catching him with a hunting knife and extremist videos — but at a certain point, despite grave fears he would attack others, they say they could do nothing more to keep him behind bars. So for 53 days from July, police tracked the man's every move, an operation that involved some 30 officers working around the clock. Their fears were borne out Friday when he walked into an Auckland supermarket, grabbed a kitchen knife from a store shelf and stabbed five people, critically injuring three. Two more shoppers were injured in the melee. On Saturday, three of the victims remained hospitalized in critical condition and three more were in stable or moderate conditions. The seventh person was recovering at home. The youngest victim was a 29-year-old woman, the oldest a 77-year-old man. Court documents named the attacker as 32-year-old Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsud...

LAST AUGUST a judge sentenced Brenton Tarrant, who murdered 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, to life in prison with no possibility of parole. It was the first time a court in New Zealand had meted out such a sentence. Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister and a liberal icon, took grim satisfaction in the punishment. “Today I hope is the last where we have any cause to hear or utter the name of the terrorist,” she said. Lifelong imprisonment seems to be spreading as a punishment for the worst crimes. In 2019 Serbia passed “Tijana’s law” in response to the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl. It allows judges to sentence some murderers and rapists of children to life in prison without parole. In June last year, after the gang rape of a 13-year-old girl by soldiers, Colombia overturned its constitutional ban on life sentences. Britain’s government recently proposed legislation to reduce the age at which judges can impose “whole-life” sentences from 21 to 18. The most heinous crime...

140 years ago this week, Ah Lee was hanged for the murder of Mary Young. Rumours of his innocence have persisted over the years, so much so that Naseby woman Hazel Harrison researched the case and has written a book about it. Here she sums up the case. At 8am on November 5, 1880, Ah Lee met his death by hanging in the courtyard of Dunedin Gaol for the murder of Mrs Mary Young, of Kyeburn Diggings. He is one of just four men subjected to the death penalty in Otago. The last of whom was hung in 1898. The other 3 seem likely, if not certain to have committed the crimes for which they were charged — at least beyond reasonable doubt. There is considerably more doubt in the case of Ah Lee. There were no witnesses to Mary Young’s murder on August 4 of that year, she did not identify Ah Lee and the circumstantial evidence linking him to the scene was thin, if not fanciful. Ah Lee himself maintained his innocence to the end. Indeed, though he understood little English, he is said to have shown ...

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) — The white supremacist who slaughtered 51 worshippers at two New Zealand mosques was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the first time the maximum available sentence has been imposed. Judge Cameron Mander said the crimes committed by 29-year-old Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant were so wicked that a lifetime in jail could not begin to atone for them. He said they had caused enormous loss and hurt and stemmed from a warped and malignant ideology. “Your actions were inhuman,” Mander said. “You deliberately killed a 3-year-old infant by shooting him in the head as he clung to the leg of his father.” The March 2019 attacks targeting people praying at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch shocked New Zealand and prompted new laws banning the deadliest types of semi-automatic weapons. They also prompted global changes to social media protocols after the gunman livestreamed his attack on Facebook....

They are providing Cher Wei Hon with consular assistance. In response to queries from Mothership, Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) stated that they are aware of the case of Cher Wei Hon, who has been sentenced to death for trafficking drugs in Vietnam . A spokesperson said: "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is aware of the case and in contact with Mr Cher’s family. Our Consulate-General in Ho Chi Minh City is rendering consular assistance to Mr Cher." Singaporeans in trouble overseas This is not the first time a Singaporean has run afoul of drug laws overseas. In December last year, a Singaporean woman was among the six foreign nationals arrested in Bali, Indonesia for alleged drug related crimes. The woman was found with 0.35g of cocaine in a small plastic bag inside of her passport. Indonesian law also allows for the death penalty — which is by firing squad — for drug related offences. In that case, the MFA also said that th...

A Norwegian man who murdered his Chinese-born stepsister and then opened fire on a mosque last year was sentenced Thursday to 21 years in prison, the maximum penalty under Norwegian law.  Twenty-two-year-old Philip Manshaus offered no apologies or regrets for his crimes and said he wished he could have caused more bloodshed.  Prosecutors called him “an extremely dangerous person,” and Judge Annika Lindstroem dismissed defense arguments that Manshaus was insane who claimed to be defending himself and others from “the enemy,” and believed “the white race is on the brink of extinction.”   Manshaus was sentenced to two decades in “preventative detention,” which is given to criminals deemed to be a danger to society.   Manshaus killed his 17-year-old stepsister Johanne Zhangjia Ihle-Hansen by shooting her four times with a hunting rifle.  She was adopted from China when she was 2 years old, and her mother later married Manshaus’s fath...

Was George Floyd's death the final straw? The black man died when a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for eight minutes, choking him, even while he cried out, "I can't breathe!" Those words, George Floyd's last, have become a catch-cry, chanted during protests and written on T-shirts. Protests have ranged from peaceful to riotous and Presidential condemnation of any kind of reaction has attracted negative commentary from many. The police officer who was allegedly involved in Mr Floyd's death has been charged with murder, but the protests and riots are not just about this one fatality: they represent a people sick and tired of seeing black people die at the hands of US police officers, often without reasonable justification, and in a land where the gun is a fashion accessory, that's saying something. It has become an extension of the Black Lives Matter movement, drawing large numbers of people who would not normally t...

The Association for Community and Dialogue is concerned about reports that a group of Malaysians has requested that a referendum be held on the abolition of the death penalty. A group representing the kin of murder victims, including the families of fireman Muhammad Adib Mohd Kassim and lawyer Kevin Anthony Morais, are pushing for a public referendum before the government abolishes the mandatory death sentence. Robert Phang of the Social Care Foundation Malaysia said the government should not make the country “a paradise for criminals”. He said the abolition of the mandatory death penalty for premeditated and heinous killings will encourage rogues from other countries to come to Malaysia and freely commit crimes here. While there is concern that criminals could escape if there is no mandatory death sentence, there seems to be a lack of concern that the innocent could be victims of circumstance. The desire for justice should not be allowed to turn into revenge, where subj...

A campaign manager for Hannah Tamaki's Coalition New Zealand Party [ Hannah Tamaki has become the leader of a new political party, Coalition New Zealand. It is not a Christian party but it is strong on "family values" - DPN] has called for the Government to introduce involuntary euthanasia for pedophiles who are repeat offenders. Jevan Goulter, who told the Herald his personal views don't necessarily represent the political party's stance, says its time for New Zealand to discuss the death penalty and involuntary euthanasia, alongside David Seymour's End of Life Bill after passing its 2nd reading. The campaign manager originally took to social media stating he wanted the euthanasia bill killed and the reintroduction of the death penalty for pedophiles who are repeat offenders. "Kill the Euthanasia Bill, reintroduce the 1961 death penalty for third time offenders," he said in a video. "If we're already talking about euthana...