Death Penalty News

Qatari authorities are ignoring international law by failing to inform embassies when their citizens are arrested, detained or are pending trial for a death sentence. Our new data reveals that between 2016 and 2021 at least 21 people were under sentence of death in Qatar. Of the 21, only three cases involved Qatari nationals and only one involved a woman (who was accused of murder). The remaining 18 were made up of foreign nationals: seven from India, two from Nepal, five from Bangladesh, one Tunisian and three Asians of unknown nationality. Of these cases, 17 related to homicide and one a conviction for drug trafficking. The majority of the murder cases involved male migrant labourers from South Asia, convicted of crimes related to their precarious migrant worker status. The remaining murder cases involved one Tunisian man, and two defendants’ where the nationalities were unknown. In December 2017, male Nepalese migrant worker Anil Chaudhary was sentenced to death for murdering a Qata...

The Nevada Supreme Court has overturned the death sentence imposed on Mexican foreign national Carlos Gutierrez.  In a 4-3 ruling, the court held that Nevada had violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations when police and prosecutors failed to notify Gutierrez of his rights to consular assistance by his government.  The court further held, based upon extensive mitigating evidence presented with the assistance of the Mexican government in his post-conviction proceedings, that the denial of consular assistance had been prejudicial. Justices Ron Parraguirre, James Hardesty, and Lidia Stiglich dissented.  Justice Parraguirre wrote that the 2004 opinion of the International Court of Justice in Avena and Other Mexican Nationals v. United States of America finding violations of the right to consular notification in more than fifty death-penalty cases involving Mexican nationals “is not binding on this court and says nothing about this state’s statutory procedural bars.”...

Canada has urged China to release 2 high-profile Canadian detainees and grant clemency to several other Canadians sentenced to death by Chinese courts, the Canadian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne told his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi during talks in Rome on Tuesday that the cases of former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor remain a top priority for the Canadian government. Their arrests have been widely viewed as retribution for Canada’s detainment at the request of the United States of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co, in late 2018. “Canada continues to call for immediate consular access to Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor. China’s actions are in violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations,” Champagne said in a statement issued after meeting, which took place on the sidelines of Wang’s visits to Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, France and Germany. ...

✔ The following article has been Google translated from Russian. Click here to read the original. The Russian Foreign Ministry noted that the use of lethal injections violates the international legal ban on the use of torture and other "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment" MOSCOW, July 16. / TASS /. Russia calls on the US authorities to abandon the death penalty at the federal level and put an end to this practice in the states where it is legalized.  This was announced on Thursday at a briefing by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova. "We urge the US authorities to refrain from imposing capital punishment at the federal level, to put an end to this practice that is inappropriate to modern human rights standards in the states where it is legalized," she said. “We are convinced that this step, along with maintaining capital punishment at the state level, is contrary to US human rights obli...

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will provide consular access on Monday to Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav who is being held on charges of espionage and terrorism, the Foreign Office said on Sunday. Foreign Office spokesperson Dr Mohammad Faisal announced the decision via a post on Twitter. "Consular access for Indian spy Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav, a serving Indian naval officer, and RAW operative is being provided on Monday, September 2, 2019, in line with Vienna Convention on Consular relations, ICJ judgment and the laws of Pakistan," he wrote. "Commander Jadhav remains in Pakistan’s custody, for espionage, terrorism, and sabotage," he said in another tweet. The Hague-based International Court of Justice on July 17 had rejected India’s request for acquittal, release, and return of Commander Jadhav. However, the world court asked Pakistan to provide consular access to him under the Vienna Convention. Following the verdict, the FO had announced that as a respon...

Human Rights Law Service (HURILAWS) Senior Programme Officer, Collins Okeke, in this piece urges the Federal Government to show more interest in Nigerians on death row abroad. On April 5, 2018, Peter Nielson, a Danish National was arrested by the Nigerian Police for allegedly killing his Nigerian wife, Zainab and their 3-year-old daughter, Petra at their home in the Ikoyi area of Lagos State. His arrest was communicated to the Danish Embassy in Nigeria after which the Embassy was given access to him. Officials of the Danish Embassy visited him at the police station and in prison, ensured he had legal representation and observed his trial at the Lagos State High Court. The Danish Ambassador was in court on some of Peter Nielson’s trial dates. Contrast Mr Nielson’s case with the case of Kudirat Afolabi, the Nigerian lady executed by the Saudi Government for drug trafficking. As I write, there is still nothing in the public domain on the role played by the Nigerian Consulat...

After more than two decades on Texas death row, a Mexican national convicted of killing three teens in El Paso died in bed early Sunday of cardiac arrest, a prison spokesman confirmed. Officials found 49-year-old Ignacio “Nacho” Gomez in his cell on the Polunsky Unit around 5:37 a.m. and took him to a Livingston hospital, where he was pronounced dead just over an hour later. The 49-year-old had long suffered from mental illness, and spent much of his time behind bars in the prison psychiatric ward. According to his lawyer, he wasn’t competent to be executed. “His passing ends a long process of difficult litigation,” said El Paso-based attorney Robin Norris, “and, I hope, will serve as closure for everyone concerned.” In November 1996, Gomez wrapped a loaded revolver in a white T-shirt and started cruising through his family’s neighborhood outside of El Paso, hoping to hunt down the person who’d vandalized his mother’s house and badly scared her. As he tooled around t...

A mentally ill Mexican national with claims of brain damage is set for execution in November, more than two decades after he was convicted of killing his wife and two youngest children near the southern border. Robert Moreno Ramos is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Nov. 14, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jeremy Desel. The 64-year-old immigrant was sent to death row in 1993 for the slayings of his wife Leticia and their children, Abigail and Jonathan, who were found buried beneath the bathroom floor in the couple's Hidalgo County home. For years, his lawyers have contended that his execution would be a violation of international treaty as he wasn't properly notified of his right to tell the Mexican consulate about his arrest and request legal assistance from his country. On top of that, they argue, Ramos had abysmal legal representation during trial and jurors never learned about his severely abusive childhood, brain dysfunctio...

A Mexican citizen on death row in Texas was executed Wednesday night for the slaying of his 16-year-old cousin who was abducted from her family's apartment and fatally beaten. Ruben Ramirez Cardenas, 47, was given a lethal injection after several federal court appeals failed to halt his punishment for the February 1997 killing of Mayra Laguna. Asked by the warden to make a final statement, he replied, "No, sir." As the lethal dose of pentobarbital began, he took a couple of breaths and then began snoring. After less than a minute, all movement stopped. 21 minutes later, at 10:26 p.m. CST, he was pronounced dead, making him the 7th convicted killer put to death this year in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any other state. Shortly after the execution, Mexican President Enrique Nieto tweeted, "I express my firm condemnation of the execution of the Mexican Ruben Cardenas Ramirez in Texas, which violates the decision of the In...