Death Penalty News

Pedro Castillo has been declared president-elect of Peru, weeks after winning the popular vote in a tightly-contested run-off election. The country's election authority announced its verdict after reviewing claims of electoral fraud by his right-wing rival, Keiko Fujimori. Mr Castillo, a 51-year-old former school teacher and union leader, secured just over 50% of the votes. He will now be sworn in as Peru's president on 28 July. After the jury announced its verdict, Mr Castillo gave a speech in the capital, Lima. "We are going to work together and bring this country together," said Mr Castillo, according to news outlet RPP. "We are going to reject anything that goes against democracy." In a tweet, Peru's current President Francisco Sagasti said he welcomed the announcement. "May this be the beginning of a new stage of reconciliation, consensus and unity," he added. Mr Castillo burst onto the national scene four years ago when he led thousands o...

Rural school teacher Pedro Castillo was largely unknown in Peru until he led a nationwide strike 4 years ago. Now the 51-year-old far-left unionist, rarely without the trademark white, wide-brimmed hat of his home region of Cajamarca, has a chance to become Peru's next president. Facing off against neoliberal Keiko Fujimori in elections on Sunday, Castillo has vowed to nationalize Peru's vast mineral resources, to expel foreigners who commit crimes in the country, and to move towards reinstating the death penalty. One thing unlikely to change under a Castillo presidency is the Peruvian state's socially conservative character: he is Catholic and vehemently opposed to gay marriage, elective abortion and euthanasia. He frequently quotes from the Bible to drive home his points. In April, Castillo surprised many by taking the lead in the race to become Peru's 5th president in 3 years. He had not ranked among the top 5 choices in opinion polls ahead of a 1st voting round cont...

Indonesian police said some of the five foreigners who have been arrested for alleged drug smuggling on the tourist island of Bali since the end of November will face the death penalty if they are convicted. Five foreigners, from Peru, Britain, China, Malaysia and Germany, were paraded by police at a news conference on Thursday in Denpasar in Bali. The accused, all individual men whose cases are not related, have been arrested since November 30 this year. The drugs allegedly seized from the men included four kilograms of cocaine, as well as marijuana, ecstasy and ketamine. Indonesia has strict drug laws and dozens of convicted smugglers are currently on death row. The last executions in the country happened in July 2016, when an Indonesian national and three foreigners were shot by a firing squad. Two Australians, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who were the ringleaders of the Bali Nine drug smuggling group, were executed on April 29, 2015. A police sta...

SAITAMA - A Peruvian man accused of killing six people, including two girls, in their homes in Saitama Prefecture in 2015 was sentenced to death Friday by a Japanese court. The Saitama District Court handed down the capital sentence to 32-year-old Vayron Jonathan Nakada Ludena, concluding that he can be held liable for his crimes. His defense counsel, who had argued the defendant has schizophrenia and was not mentally competent to be held responsible for his conduct, appealed the ruling. Nakada Ludena was charged with murder-robbery. The sentence, reached by a panel of professional and lay judges, was in line with prosecutors' request, while his lawyers had sought his acquittal. "The consequence of claiming the lives of six innocent people is grave and they were cruel crimes," Presiding Judge Naoto Sasaki said in the ruling. Citing Nakada Ludena's efforts to hide the bodies and wipe away blood at the crime scenes, the judge said the defendant "...

SAITAMA – Prosecutors on Monday demanded the death penalty for a 32-year-old Peruvian man accused of killing six people, including two girls, after breaking into their suburban homes north of Tokyo in 2015. Lawyers defending Vayron Jonathan Nakada Ludena at the Saitama District Court argue he is not mentally fit to stand trial. Nakada Ludena broke into three homes in Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture, in September 2015 to steal money and valuable items and killed the occupants, according to the indictment. The victims were Minoru Tasaki, 55, his wife, Misae, 53, Kazuyo Shiraishi, 84, and 41-year-old Miwako Kato and her two daughters, 10-year-old Misaki and 7-year-old Haruka. Nakada Ludena was arrested on Oct. 8 the same year in connection with the deaths of the Tasakis, after being hospitalized following his plunge from a second-floor window at Kato’s home on Sept. 16. Police subsequently served him with further arrest warrants related to the other victims. Prosecutor...

The arrest of a man who has confessed to raping and killing an 11-year-old girl, and burning her remains, has revived the call among some members of Congress to reinstate the death penalty. Under the 1979 Constitution, the death penalty was abolished except for crimes of treason during times of war, and in 1993 Congress added the crime of terrorism. The last death sentence was issued in 1979, against a non-commissioned Air Force officer charged with spying. The president of the Judiciary, Duberli Rodriguez, said the global trend shows that the death penalty is not the answer to crime, and instead there should be stronger emphasis on the need for prevention and for stiffer sentences. He also noted that reinstating the death penalty would require amendments to the Constitution and to the Criminal Code. It would also affect the country's standing in the hemisphere's legal institutions. "We would have to leave the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and I ...

Could Joran van der Sloot possibly get the death penalty in Peru for the murder of Stephany Flores? The answer is quite simply, no. While Peru is one of nine countries in the world that does have the death penalty, it has many limitations. Peruvian law reads something to the effect that the death penalty may be considered, but only for crimes "committed in exceptional circumstances". This means that only crimes that are committed in times of war or genocide or crimes under military law can be considered as death penalty cases. Peruvian President Alan Garcia wanted to introduce the death penalty into law in 2007, for terrorists, but even that bill was rejected. A poll taken in '07 determined that more than 70% of Peruvians were in favor of instituting a death penalty in their country. Murder is considered a fairly ordinary crime in Peru, so that won't even be a consideration in the case of Joran van der Sloot. It is almost incomprehensible that he was never tried fo...

LIMA, Mar 1, 2010 (IPS) - The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has asked for precautionary measures in Peru to prevent the extradition to China of Wong Ho Wing, a Chinese national accused of crimes that could carry a death sentence in his country. The IACHR's assistant secretary, Elizabeth Abi-Mershed, informed Wong's defence lawyer by letter of the Commission's application to the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights, after the Peruvian justice system had approved China's extradition request. Wong faces charges in his country of money laundering, bribery and customs tax fraud. The latter is a capital crime under Chinese law. Abi-Mershed invoked paragraph two of Article 63 of the American Convention on Human Rights, which says: "In cases of extreme gravity and urgency, and when necessary to avoid irreparable damage to persons, the Court shall adopt such provisional measures as it deems pertinent." A United Nations report presen...