US COURT ORDERS NEW HEARING FOR DEATH ROW CAMPAIGNER

March 27, 2008: A US federal appeals court upheld the murder conviction against Mumia Abu-Jamal, but ruled the death-row campaigner cannot be executed without undergoing a new sentencing hearing.

The three-judge panel rejected Abu-Jamal's request for a new trial but ruled the former radio journalist and Black Panther civil rights activist should either face a new hearing or have his sentence commuted to life in jail.

The 118-page ruling upheld a district court decision from 2001, which stated that jurors in the original trial were given faulty instructions.

"We will affirm the judgement of the District Court," the appeals panel said in its ruling. It said Pennsylvania could only execute Abu-Jamal if prosecutors decide to re-submit him to a new death penalty hearing.

Abu-Jamal, 53, born Wesley Cook, was sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer the year before. While in jail, he became a figurehead for anti-death penalty activists.

Abu-Jamal's lawyer, Robert Bryan, said ahead of an earlier appeals hearing last year that his client's trial was marked by racial prejudice and legal inconsistencies. "Racism and politics are threads that have run through this case since his 1981 arrest," he added.

Abu-Jamal's supporters say he was denied the right to due process of law and a fair trial, alleging the trial judge was a racist and the prosecution made sure that there were no black jurors in the case.

At the time, Judge Albert Sabo, the trial judge in the 1982 hearing, is alleged to have told three people in his chambers: "I'm going to help 'em fry the nigger."

Court stenographer Terri Maurer-Carter made the charged allegation in a 2001 affidavit. Sabo died in 2002.

Since his conviction, Abu-Jamal has written several books and records a regular radio show from prison. His case has united anti-death penalty activists from around the world, notably a number of Hollywood stars.

Source: Afp, 27/03/2008

SAUDI EXECUTED FOR MURDERING COMPATRIOT

March 27, 2008: a Saudi man was beheaded by the sword after he was convicted of murdering a compatriot, the Saudi Arabian Interior Ministry said.

Mohammed bin Duhaim al-Dossari was executed in Wadi al-Dawasser in the Riyadh region after he was found guilty of fatally shooting Mohammed bin Mubarak al-Muaili following a row, said a ministry statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

Source: Agence France Presse, 27/03/2008

JAPAN: FAMILY'S DEATH SENTENCES UPHELD

March 27, 2008: death sentences were upheld by the Fukuoka High Court in Japan against a yakuza gang boss and his son, ensuring they will join his wife and another son on Death Row.

The court dismissed the appeals by gang boss Jitsuo Kitamura and his son, Takashi, against the lower court ruling that sentenced them to death for committing four murders in 2004. The high court also upheld execution orders handed down to Kitamura's wife, Mami, and another son, Takahiro, for their roles in the killings.

Each member in the family of four has now received a death sentence that has been upheld by a high court. During his initial trial at the Kurume Branch of the Fukuoka District Court, Jitsuo Kitamura, 64, said he alone had killed all four people the clan was accused of murdering. However, during the appeal trial, Kitamura said his family had worked together to bring about the killings. His son Takashi, 27, has maintained his innocence throughout proceedings.

Source: Mainichi Daily News, 27/03/2008

YEMENI BEHEADED IN SAUDI ARABIA FOR MURDER

March 26, 2008: a Yemeni national was beheaded by the sword in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of murdering a Saudi man.

Fuad Mohammad al-Akhram was found guilty of stabbing to death Majed Abdul Aziz al-Harbi after a dispute, the Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.

He was executed in the western region of Mecca.

Source: Agence France Presse, 26/03/2008

SAUDI ARABIA HARSHLY CRITICISED FOR EXECUTING 15YO BOY

March 25, 2008: the international Human Rights Watch organisation harshly criticised Saudi Arabia's justice system in a report published in London.

In particular, the manner of dealing with minors, who have been sentenced to flogging or even to death, was cruel and contradicted the principles of the rule of law, the report said.

"In 2007, Saudi Arabia executed three juvenile offenders, including a 15-year-old boy who was only 13 at the time of the alleged crime," HRW said.

Saudi Arabia does not have a penal code and judges pass verdict based on their own interpretation of sharia law.

King Abdullah announced a reform of the justice system a few weeks ago which, among other things, would strengthen the right to appeal.

Sources: Monsters &Critics, Afp, 25/03/2008

Consensus on Counting the Innocent: We Can’t

A couple of years ago, Justice Antonin Scalia, concurring in a Supreme Court death penalty decision, took stock of the American criminal justice system and pronounced himself satisfied. The rate at which innocent people are convicted of felonies is, he said, less than three-hundredths of 1 percent — .027 percent, to be exact.

That rate, he said, is acceptable. “One cannot have a system of criminal punishment without accepting the possibility that someone will be punished mistakenly,” he wrote. “That is a truism, not a revelation.”

But there is reason to question Justice Scalia’s math. He had, citing the methodology of an Oregon prosecutor, divided an estimate of the number of exonerated prisoners, almost all of them in murder and rape cases, by the total of all felony convictions.

“By this logic,” Samuel R. Gross, a law professor at the University of Michigan, wrote in a response to be published in this year’s Annual Review of Law and Social Science, “we could estimate the proportion of baseball players who’ve used steroids by dividing the number of major league players who’ve been caught by the total of all baseball players at all levels: major league, minor league, semipro, college and Little League — and maybe throwing in football and basketball players as well.”

Joshua Marquis, the Oregon prosecutor cited by Justice Scalia, granted the logic of Professor Gross’s critique but not his conclusion.

“He correctly points out,” Mr. Marquis, the district attorney in Clatsop County, Ore., said of Professor Gross, “that rape and murders are only a small percentage of all crimes, but then has absolutely no real data to suggest there are epidemic false convictions in, say, burglary cases.”
What the debate demonstrates is that we know almost nothing about the number of innocent people in prison. That is because any effort to estimate it involves extrapolation from just two numbers, neither one satisfactory.

There have been 214 exonerations based on DNA evidence, almost all of them in rape cases, according to the Innocence Project at the Cardozo School of Law. But there is no obvious control group to measure these exonerations against. READ MORE>>>

Source : The New York Times

INDONESIA. 'BALI BOMBERS' DEATH SENTENCE APPEAL DROPPED

March 24, 2008: Islamic militants in Indonesia facing death over the 2002 Bali bombings are one step closer to the firing squad after a last-ditch appeal was dropped, reports said.

"The case was withdrawn by the ones that requested it and the prosecutors did not object, this means it is over. There are no further courts (of appeal)," the head of the panel of judges hearing the case Ida Bagus Putu Madeg was quoted as saying by news website Detikcom.

A lawyer for the bombers, Fachmi Bachmid, told AFP he withdrew from the judicial review at the Denpasar district court because a request to bring his three clients, Amrozi, Ali Ghufron and Imam Samudra, to appear in person at the appeal had been rejected by the court.

"The rights of our clients have been amputated. It is clearly stated in the letter from the Supreme Court that my clients and the prosecutors need to be present (in court for the appeal)," Bachmid said.

The review is the last avenue to stop the executions of the three short of an unlikely clemency from Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Sources: Khaleej Times, 24/03/2008

Protest as Olympic torch is lit

OLYMPIA, Greece (CNN) -- A lone protester managed to breach the tight security during the Olympic torch lighting ceremony in Greece Monday.

The man rushed behind the podium as China's Olympic chief was speaking.

He tried to unfurl an unidentified banner, but was quickly apprehended by security who escorted him away.

Meanwhile committee chief Liu Qi continued to make his speech in Chinese while the commotion went on behind him.

The camera cut away from the scene until the protester had been removed.

The torch was lit moments later as it began its epic began its 130-day, 137,000-kilo meters (85,000-miles) journey.

China's human rights records has been under scrutiny from the international committee in the lead up to what promises to be one of the most controversial Olympic Games.

Anti-China protests began in Tibet's main city, Lhasa, on March 10 and gradually escalated. Lhasa saw at least two days of violence and there have also been violent protests in provinces which border Tibet. Chinese officials estimated the death toll at 22 from Chinese officials, while the Tibetan government said at least 99 people lost their lives.

Reporters Without Borders, a group based in France that seeks to protect journalists around the world, claimed responsibility for the protest. View map of all countries torch will visit »

The group said three members, including the group's secretary general Robert Menard, managed to get into the ceremony without being stopped with flags.

A spokesman said it was intended to demand that China live up to the promise it made to respect human rights when it was awarded the 2008 Olympic Games.

The Olympic torch It will go from the site of ancient Olympia in Greece to Beijing, China, where the 2008 summer games will begin in August. Read all about history of the Olympic torch

The mammoth trip is the longest ever in Olympic history.

The flame was lit by focusing the sun's rays on a concave steel mirror at the ruins of the Temple of Hera in Olympia.

Greek actress Maria Nafpliotou, portraying the High Priestess, lit the first torch. Alexandros Nikolaidis, a Greek athlete who won a silver medal in taekwondo at the 2004 Olympics, then carried the flame for the first mile.

China's Olympic swimming gold medalist, Luo Xuejuan, took the flame from Nikolaidis. Another 603 bearers will run the torch through Greece, culminating in Athens on March 30, where the torch will be handed over to China for a flight to Beijing.

After a ceremonial arrival in Beijing, the flame will move around the world through April. At the beginning of May, it begins a three-month trek through at least 111 Chinese cities in more than 30 provinces and regions.

A second flame will attempt a side trip sometime in May -- depending on weather conditions -- to the top of Mt. Everest, the world's highest peak, along the Tibet-Nepal border.

The most controversial leg of the torch relay is planned for June, when it is scheduled to be carried through Tibet and three neighboring provinces where violent unrest broke out this month.

Olympic officials insisted last week that the relay in these areas will proceed as planned.

"All the preparations for the torch relay in Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai and Gansu are proceeding very well," Beijing Olympics organizer Jiang Xiaoyu said.

The flame is set to arrive in Beijing on August 6, where it will be paraded around the city until entering the stadium for the Olympics opening ceremony on August 8.

While much of the trip will be aboard a chartered jet, tens of thousands of torchbearers -- 19,400 in China alone -- will carry the flame on foot through 23 cities on five continents and then throughout China.

A second flame will attempt a side trip sometime in May -- depending on weather conditions -- to the top of Mt. Everest, the world's highest peak, along the Tibet-Nepal border.

The most controversial leg of the torch relay is planned for June, when it is scheduled to be carried through Tibet and three neighboring provinces where violent unrest broke out this month.

Olympic officials insisted last week that the relay in these areas will proceed as planned.

"All the preparations for the torch relay in Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai and Gansu are proceeding very well," Beijing Olympics organizer Jiang Xiaoyu said.

The flame is set to arrive in Beijing on August 6, where it will be paraded around the city until entering the stadium for the Olympics opening ceremony on August 8.

In addition to visiting cities in Greece and China, runners plan to carry the torch to countries including Kazakhstan, Russia, France and USA.

Just before the mainland China stretch, the flame will also pass through China's two special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macao.

Source: CNN.com

CHINA 'STILL EXECUTING PRISONERS FOR ORGANS'

Protesting the death penalty in China and the
harvesting of organs from DR inmates.

March 11, 2008: the killing of persecuted groups in Chinese military hospitals so that their organs can be harvested for sale may still be continuing, a former politician who investigated the issue said.

A 2007 report exposed that China was not only harvesting organs from prisoners on death row but also adherents of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, many of whom were detained without trial. Report author and former Canadian Secretary of State David Kilgour told a conference at Cambridge University that he believed the tainted organs were still being sold to rich Chinese.

He said: "The party-state in China and its agencies have killed thousands of Falun Gong practitioners, without any form of prior trial, and then sold their vital organs for large sums of money, often to 'organ tourists' from wealthy countries." "Despite this practice being banned, there is concern that organs seized from Falun Gong practitioners will now go to wealthy Chinese patients instead, with the hideous commerce thus continuing in the same volumes."

The report cites 41,500 unexplained organ transplants from 2000 to 2005 that do not come from convicted executed prisoners, the brain-dead or family donors.

Source: Epoch Times, 18/03/2008

CHINA: FIRST EXECUTIONS IN CHENGDU AFTER SHIFT TO LETHAL INJECTION

March 11, 2008: the intermediate people's court of southwest China's Chengdu city used lethal injections to terminate the lives of several convicts of murders and fraud after the court decided to stop applying gunshot executions from March 1st this year.

The local Chengdu Daily reported the executions were ratified by the Supreme People's Court (SPC) and carried out. Jiang Xingchang, vice-president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC), told China Daily in January that half of the country's 404 intermediate people's courts - which carry most of the executions - use lethal injections.

"It is considered more humane and will eventually be used in all intermediate people's courts" Jiang said without revealing a timetable.

To achieve the goal, the SPC will allocate the toxin used in the injection to local courts under strict supervision, he added. Currently, court officials have to come to Beijing for the toxin.

Source: China Daily, 13/03/2008

IRAN: WOMAN WITH DEATH SENTENCE RELEASED WITH SON

March 18, 2008: Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, the woman who was sentenced to stoning to death for adultery and at the centre of an international battle after last July her lover was stoned to death, has been released.

The woman, who has been in prison for 11 years, has left the prison of Qavzin in the north-west of the Islamic Republic, together with her 4-year-old son born from her relation with Jafar Kiani.

The release was ordered by the judicial commission for amnesty, the woman's lawyer Shadi Sadr reported, underlining that it is a "rare decision" of mercy for Iran.

Mokarrameh has returned to her family and "still can't believe that she's been pardoned" her lawyer explained.

Source: AGI, 18/03/2008

Court Rebuffs Georgian on Death Row

A narrowly divided Georgia Supreme Court declined Monday to order a new trial for a man sentenced to death in the 1989 murder of an off-duty Savannah police officer, despite recantations by seven of nine witnesses who originally testified against him.

The convicted man, Troy A. Davis, 39, had collected affidavits from all seven of the recanting witnesses, some of whom said their trial testimony had been coerced by investigators who were under pressure to convict someone in that fatal shooting of a fellow officer.

But the court, in a 4-to-3 decision written by Justice Harold Melton, held that sworn testimony at the trial was more important than the later recantations, noting that some of the witnesses had said only that they no longer felt able to identify the gunman.

Read MORE>>>

Source: The New York Times

CHINA. HANDS OFF CAIN ASKS FOR RELEASE OF DATA ON DEATH SENTENCES AND EXECUTIONS

March 17, 2008: Hands Off Cain asks China to provide data on the number of people sentenced to death and the number of executions performed.

Sergio D'Elia, Parliamentarian and HOC Secretary, and Elisabetta Zamparutti, Treasurer and curator of the HOC annual report on the death penalty around the world, said: "Like serious events that occurred in Lahsa and ones heard about in other regions in the plateau, the number of victims is not made known. This is how the death penalty in China is- it stays a state secret. The Chinese Supreme Court said last week that on reassuming the power to confirm death sentences in January 2007, there was a 15% reduction in the death sentences issued in 2007 by lower tribunals. According to the Dui Hua Foundation, an NGO based in San Francisco, approximately six thousand people were executed in China in 2007, equivalent to 25-30% less than in 2006.

These are important developments, but they must become official. Therefore, China must provide statistics regarding death sentences issued and executions performed in 2007 and in the preceding years.

The resolution on the Moratorium on capital punishment that was approved by the UN General Assembly asks states that maintain the death penalty to provide data on executions and capital sentences to the UN Secretary General. By "special invitation" of the UN Secretary General, the UN is currently holding the Council of Human Rights in Geneva. The Council is discussing the death penalty and the help that Italy and the trans-regional, pro-moratorium coalition can provide China regarding transparency, moving away from capital punishment and the state of human rights."

Sources: radicali.it, 17/03/2008

Troy Davis

Today's stunning decision by the Georgia Supreme Court to let the death sentence stand in the Troy Anthony Davis case means that the state of Georgia might execute a man who well may be innocent.

Take action now and tell the Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles to commute the death sentence for Troy Anthony Davis. With this decision, the Supreme Court is demonstrating a blatant disregard for justice and turning its back on the fundamental flaws that taint Mr. Davis's case at every level.

Tell the Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles to commute the death sentence for Troy Anthony Davis.

Over 60,000 supporters signed petitions on Troy's behalf, and letters of support continue to pour into his mailbox. "I want to thank all Amnesty supporters," he said, "I want to thank everyone all over the world who have been praying for me, supporting me, writing letters and signing petitions on my behalf." Troy needs your continued support today, now more than ever.

Troy Davis, a man who may well be innocent, faces execution. Call on the Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles to commute the death sentence for Troy Davis!

Take Action for Troy!

Troy's My Space Page

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SAUDI ARABIA: CITIZEN BEHEADED FOR KILLING COMPATRIOT

March 16, 2008: Saudi Arabian authorities beheaded a man convicted of fatally shooting a fellow citizen. The Interior Ministry statement, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, said Abdullah bin Muhammad al-Kahtani was executed in the eastern Saudi town of al-Khobar.

The man shot the victim, Musfir bin Habad al-Dowsary, several times using an automatic weapon after a dispute.

Sources: Jerusalem Post, 16/03/2008

GUATEMALA: VETO KEEPS EXECUTIONS ON HOLD

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 crime in Central America's most violent country, where gangs are rampant and as few as 2 percent of more than 5,000 homicides a year are solved.

Sources: Associated Press, 14/03/2008

Web page on Native Americans and the death penalty

The Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to announce the introduction of a new Web page on Native Americans and the death penalty.

The page contains information on the use of the death penalty against Native Americans and includes the results of an extensive historical study conducted by David V. Baker. His research was recently published in the December 2007 edition of Criminal Justice Studies, and is the first of its kind. Baker reported 464 executions of Native Americans between 1639 and 2006, not counting thousands of extra-judicial executions. There is a breakdown of executions by jurisdiction and by method.

As of 2006, 39 Native American prisoners resided on state and federal death rows. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, 15 American Indians have been executed, mostly for the murder of white victims.

To view DPIC's page on Native Americans and the death penalty, please visit here.

DPIC will expand this page as more information becomes available.

Source: Death Penalty Information Center

Chinese troops parade handcuffed Tibetan prisoners in trucks

The Chinese army drove through the streets of Lhasa today parading dozens of Tibetan prisoners in handcuffs, their heads bowed, as troops stepped up their hunt for the rioters in house-to-house searches.

As the midnight deadline approached for rioters to surrender, four trucks in convoy made a slow progress along main roads, with about 40 people, mostly young Tibetan men and women, standing with their wrists handcuffed behind their backs, witnesses said.

A soldier stood behind each prisoner, a hand on the back of their neck to ensure their heads were bowed.

Loudspeakers on the trucks broadcast calls to anyone who had taken part in the violent riots on Friday - in which Han Chinese and Hui Muslim were stabbed and beaten and shops and business set on fire - to turn themselves in. Read more>>>

Source: The London Times