Death Penalty News

(New York) – Amnesty International today urged Iraqi authorities to commute all pending death sentences and impose a moratorium on executions with a view to abolish the death penalty after the chief of police in the Iraqi governorate of Anbar announced on Monday a Court of Cassation decision to uphold 196 death sentences in the region. It is unclear if the sentences have been ratified by the Iraqi presidency yet. The announcement gave no timeline for carrying out the executions but expressed a hope that it would be soon. "After this alarming announcement, Iraqi authorities must move quickly to commute all death sentences and declare a moratorium on executions across the country," said Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International. "If the Iraqi authorities carry out these death sentences, they would nearly quadruple Iraq's already shocking execution record so far this year." In the first half of 2012 alone, ...

MANILA (Updated, 4:28 p.m.) -- One of the six incumbent justices vying for the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court said Wednesday death penalty is not a necessary deterrent to crime. In response to a query by retired Justice Regino Hermosisima, Associate Justice Arturo Brion said while the penalty was constitutional, this should not be implemented again. "As much as we want to annihilate all people who committed heinous crimes, I will go for the lesser penalty of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole," he said. Individuals who were found guilty of high crimes such as murder, kidnapping and rape are required to serve up to 40 years in jail after then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed in 2006 a law deleting death as capital punishment. Brion told the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) about his aspiration of a "dream court," one that is founded on ethics. He admitted that graft and corruption does not only happen in t...

Attorney General (AG) Aishath Azima Shakoor has said last night that implementing capital punishment cannot be debated over. “It cannot be debated to not implement capital punishment. Debating over whether a certain verdict is not correct or that the death penalty is not a suitable punishment for a crime because it wasn’t a murder in the first degree but a murder in the second degree is different. But it cannot be debated that the death penalty cannot be implemented for murder,” she said during an interview on TVM’s “Raajje Miadhu” show. She revealed on the show that the AG’s office is working on drafting the procedures required to implement the death penalty and that the Home Minister Mohamed Jameel Ahmed has also sent a letter to the parliament to identify the procedures required to implement the death penalty. When asked by the presenter that given several people claiming problems with the judicial system if whether it was the right juncture to implement the death pen...

SHAH ALAM: Two Iranian men were sentenced to death by the High Court here Tuesday after they were found guilty of trafficking in methamphetamine, strapped to their legs, via the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang, two years ago. Judge Datuk Ahmadi Asnawi concluded that Ali Jalayeridarbandi Mousa, 26, and Vahid Aliakbarsadeghabadi Abbas, 29, failed to raise reasonable doubt against the case against them. He further found that testimonies by witnesses did not corroborate their defence that the drugs were for personal use. "Therefore, there's only one sentence which can be meted out for this offence, that is, the mandatory death penalty," he said. Ali, a cobbler, and Vahid, an engineer, were each caught trafficking 203.9g and 269.6g of methamphetamine at the arrival hall of the main KLIA terminal, about 3.45 pm on Dec 12, 2010. There were charged under Section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 which carries the mandatory death ...

President Patil July 22, 2012: Pranab Mukherjee, a veteran from the ruling Congress party, was elected by national and state lawmakers as the 13th President of India. Among the un-cleared files that outgoing President Pratibha Patil has left on his table are the mercy petitions of 16 death row inmates, including Mohammad Afzal Guru, convicted for the terrorist attack on Parliament in December 2001. In most of these cases, the Home Ministry (MHA) sent its recommendation on the mercy pleas more than once. For instance, in the case of Gurmeet Singh, the MHA first recommended his mercy plea on 18 May 2007 and then again on 9 December 2009. President Patil was the most merciful of all presidents during the last three decades as she commuted death sentences of 38 petitioners to life imprisonment during her tenure, which is over 90 per cent of the total pardon granted. In 2008, Patil had asked the government to review all the mercy petitions. Accordingly, the MHA sent 55 merc...

Iran Human Rights, July 24: One prisoner was hanged in the prison of Ilam (western Iran) reported the official website of the judiciary of Ilam Province. According to the report the prisoner was identified as "H. B." and was convicted of "keeping and carrying narcotic drugs". No further specifications were given in the report. The execution took place in the prison of Ilam on Thursday July 19, said the report. According to the IHR’s statistics more than 80% of those executed in Iran are convicted of drug-related crimes. However less than 10% of these people are identified by their full names. Source: Iran Human Rights , July 24, 2012

James Holmes at initial hearing Colorado shooting suspect James Holmes is set to appear in court Monday for an initial hearing, but the press is already asking what his punishment should be. Specifically, U.S. cable news has been posing the death penalty question. But it’s not just TV. Hop online and you’ll see the death penalty possibility raised, if not even championed , by blog and online newspaper reporters. There are currently three inmates on death row in Colorado. Holmes is in solitary confinement at Arapahoe Detention Center and faces at least 71 charges in the shooting rampage that killed 12 and injured some 58 others. But the other part of the talking head discussion is whether Holmes is even competent to stand trial — in which case the death penalty question could be a moot point. On CNN, former prosecutor Paul Callan takes that route. “He may not be even competent enough to enter a courtroom and understand the proceedings, in which case he'll si...

Jackson, Ga. (AP) — Ga. Supreme Court stays Monday's planned execution of death row inmate Warren Lee Hill. The Georgia Supreme Court has unanimously granted a stay of execution to a man convicted of killing a fellow inmate. Warren Lee Hill had been scheduled to be executed Monday at 7 p.m. at the state penitentiary at Jackson. But the high court said in a statement it was staying the execution so it could consider an appeal by the inmate over Georgia's recent switch to a single-drug execution method. Hill was convicted in the Aug. 17, 1990, beating death of Joseph Handspike. Hill was serving a life sentence at the time for the shooting death of his 18-year-old girlfriend. Hill's lawyers, among other issues, had challenged the state's recent switch from a three-drug lethal injection to a one-drug method. The change was announced days ago by state authorities. Source: AP, July 23, 2012 Related articles: Death Penalty News: Georgia's Doctor...

Indonesian prosecutors may appeal the sentence given to an Australian drug mule jailed for attempting to smuggle hashish and methamphetamines into Bali hidden in his stomach. Edward Myatt was jailed for 8 years on Monday in a ruling that shocked prosecutors, who had demanded a sentence of 15 years. The 54-year-old Ballarat-born man was also fined 1.5 billion rupiah ($A155,000). If he fails to pay the fine, Myatt will be required to serve an additional 4 months in jail. The decision is another major relief for Myatt, who was indicted on 3 charges, including 1 count of trafficking, which carries a maximum penalty of death. He was stopped as he arrived at Bali's Ngurah Rai Airport in February on a flight from India after he aroused the suspicions of Customs officers. He was later found to have swallowed more than 70 plastic casings containing 1.1kg of hashish and 4 grams of methamphetamine, otherwise known as ice. It had been expected he would receive a ...

Colorado shooting suspect James E. Holmes is expected to make his first appearance Monday morning in a court case that appears so clear-cut that at least one expert said the legal machinations could come down to one straightforward question: If he's convicted, does the suspect deserve the death penalty? "It is all but certain that prosecutors will file first-degree murder charges against Holmes in the Arapahoe County courthouse and that they'll seek the death penalty, criminal law expert Sam Kamin, a law professor at the University of Denver, told the Los Angeles Times. Kamin predicts that as the case moves forward, points of dispute between the prosecution and the defense will revolve less on the question of what Holmes did or did not do on Friday morning, and more on his state of mind at the time. "The evidence of his guilt is pretty strong," Kamin said. "The ... case for death is strong. So the question becomes, what is the case for mit...

On the verge of Ramadan (Muslims’ fasting month), the antihuman regime of mullahs, hanged another prisoner in Iranshahr (southeast Iran) on July 19. Mullahs’ justice department accused him of killing a commander of IRGC (Iran’s revolutionary guard). On the same day a female prisoner, 28, after being six years in Adel-abad jail, was hanged in Shiraz and a man was also hanged in public in Shiraz. Other prisoners who were executed include 8 prisoners in Qazvin including a father and his son (9- 17 July), 3 prisoners in Kerman (July 16), 2 prisoners in Zahedan’s central prison, and another prisoner in Baft-Kerman (July 8). As such, the number of executions since the beginning of the year has reached 220, at least. The mullahs’ regime’s resorting to this brutal punishment is in fact the reaction of a faltering regime incapable of confronting expanding public abhorrence and widespread domestic and international crises, particularly in a condition that Syrian dictator, as its forem...

Thousands still in prison including Ahmed Al-Gizawy who remains to stand trial. The Saudi Ambassador to Egypt, Ahmed Qattan, announced Thursday that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia will issue pardons for some Egyptian prisoners as is custom for the occasion of the Holy Month of Ramadan. Egyptian lawyer Ahmed Al-Gizawy and Islam Bakr are not included among those pardoned, as prisoners must stand trial before becoming eligible. Gamal Eid of The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information stressed the absence of justice in the Saudi Arabian judicial system. Currently 32 Egyptians are detained in Saudi Arabia without any pending charges. Many verdicts and pardons are politically motivated, Eid said. Due to lack of transparency and a politically-motivated judicial system, the outcomes of trials of foreign nationals in Saudi Arabia are often difficult to predict. However, Eid speculates that Al-Gizawy will be handed a harsh sentence, only to be pardoned by King Abdullah in a...

Human Rights Watch has slammed Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for advocating discriminatory practices against homosexuals, calling the opposition leader’s anti-gay position as “shameful” and “fundamentally wrong.” Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division Phil Robertson accused Anwar of playing politics with civil liberties. "Anwar Ibrahim is fundamentally wrong when he maintains that it should be permissible to discriminate against homosexuals. “While this might be a good vote-getting strategy in some parts of Malaysia, his claim shamefully runs completely contrary to the central principle of non-discrimination in international human rights law,” he said in a statement issued today. The Human Rights Watch, the world’s leading independent organisation dedicated to protecting human rights, issued the state statement following a High Court hearing on Wednesday, in which Anwar categorical gave out his views about the lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders (L...

The final draft constitution spares female murderers from the hangman’s noose as it states that no woman shall face the death penalty. The draft, completed on Wednesday, partially abolishes the death penalty with the exception being in “cases of aggravated murder”. It also abolishes the death penalty for those under 21 years of age and those above 70. Human rights activists and organisations, including Amnesty International have been lobbying government to abolish capital punishment and the exemption of women appears to be a compromise to appease the activists. Section 4.5 of the new constitution reads in part: “A law may permit the death penalty to be imposed only on a person convicted of murder committed in aggravating circumstances, and the penalty must not be imposed or carried out on a woman.” But a person sentenced to death will have the right to seek pardon. The courts will have the discretion over whether or not to impose the penalty. Abortion rem...

Warren Lee Hill  10 months after the Troy Davis execution turned eyes on Georgia, another death-row case in the state is stirring debate. Convicted murderer Warren Lee Hill is slated to die by lethal injection on Monday at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. No one is debating whether Hill, 52, beat his prison cellmate to death in 1990 with a board imbedded with nails. But Hill's IQ is 70 — within the range of mental retardation. Advocates for the mentally disabled and death penalty opponents say that means he should not be executed. "I think in Hill's case, this is really a person who by all law and psychiatric investigation is ineligible for the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based organization that analyzes capital punishment issues. On July 13, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency for Hill and, as is customary for the ...

Iran Human Rights, July 22: Three prisoners were hanged in Isfahan prison (central Iran), reported the official web site of the Iranian judiciary in the Isfahan province today. According to the report, the prisoners were identified as "Eidi Sh." , 55, convicted of participation in carrying 148 kilograms and 850 grams of opium; "Malang S.A.", 54, convicted of possessing and carrying 10,435 grams of crack; and "Teymor M. Gh", 49, convicted of participation in the possession of 147 kilograms and 850 grams of opium. The charges have not been confirmed by independent sources. Source: Iran Human Rights , July 22, 2012

The ethical dilemmas raised by Monday's execution of a mentally disabled man call attention to the role of doctors as executioners. Despite international human rights appeals and a conflicting Supreme Court ruling, on Monday Georgia intends to execute a mentally disabled man convicted of two murders. When the lethal drug is pushed, the Medical Association of Georgia will be standing behind the doctor who will be making one of Georgia's most questionable executions possible. The medical association failed to enact its own membership ethics code for seven years and accredited the prison where the death will occur, leaving the organization morally linked to this grave moment. Though the European Union has intentionally created lethal injection drug shortages as part of its strategy to cripple America's capacity for capital punishment, the Peach State has persevered past this pharmaceutical blockade and will instead employ a single agent, pentobarbital. Pentoparbital...

Authorities in Texas have defended the state's first execution of a death row inmate using a single lethal injection of the sedative pentobarbital, instead of the cocktail of three drugs used in the past, saying it went "without incident". Texas and three other US states – Ohio, Arizona, Washington and Idaho – have been forced into changing the drug mix in the execution chamber after one of the three, thiopental sodium, was taken off the market in 2010. The European Union had placed a ban on the export of the drug to the US, precisely because the primary customers were states exercising capital punishment. Hearn was the first inmate to be killed in Texas using the method. Authorities did not address concerns held by opponents of the death penalty that the single drug method could increase the pain suffered. A spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice added: "The one-drug protocol has been adopted by several states, and has been upheld as const...