Europe fights the death penalty—with drugs

Danish company manufactures U.S. executioners' anesthetic of choice for lethal injections

BRUSSELS, Belgium — The Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck has an ethical dilemma.

It prides itself on making products that improve peoples’ lives. But one is helping put people to death.

Convicted killer Benny Joe Stevens was executed Tuesday in Mississippi’s Parchman State Penitentiary with a lethal injection of the anesthetic pentobarbital made by Lundbeck.

Denmark, like the rest of the European Union, is officially opposed to the death penalty. Lundbeck spokesman Anders Schroll said the company holds that position in the Danish headquarters as well as in its American office.

“This is a misuse of our product,” Schroll said. “We are in an ethical dilemma where we are opposed to the use of our medication for capital punishment while at the same time we want to make sure that patients who benefit from our medication get access to it.”

Pentobarbital also is used in the treatment of seizures in humans and in anesthesia and euthanasia of animals. Only Lundbeck still manufactures the drug for purchase in the United States. Schroll provided letters from doctors urging the company not to withdraw the 50 million doses of the drug sold each year.

For its part, Schroll said Lundbeck has sent letters to prisons in 11 states in recent months demanding they cease using pentobarbital as part of the lethal injection “cocktail” because “this is just not what we stand for” he said. The Danish foreign ministry has pursued the matter through its contacts. No prison has responded. In fact, more and more states are intending to use the drug, with Virginia, the secondmost-active death-penalty state, announcing a switch just this week, following the lead execution state, Texas, earlier this month.

A conundrum

The mid-sized Danish company is left in this “conundrum,” as Schroll put it, because other businesses have put an end to their products’ use in executions. Sodium thiopental was used as the requisite sedative in the lethal mix by all but one of the 36 death-penalty states until very recently. The only U.S. maker of sodium thiopental, Hospira, started running short in summer 2010 and stopped making it altogether in January when it moved its manufacturing facility to Italy, which forbade using it for executions.

The difficulty in obtaining sodium thiopental led to a mad scramble by institutions to obtain it, an effort that in some cases involved the Food and Drug Administration, which had to bypass certain regulations so it could be imported from Britain, where a company called Dream Pharma operated out of a driving school. The desperation of prison authorities and dodgy practices came to light in documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the London-based human rights group Reprieve.

The British government late last year put an emergency export ban on sodium thiopental, after being sued by Reprieve. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has now seized stockpiles of sodium thiopental due to concerns raised about the legality of its import.

But there are also concerns about whether the drug made by Dream Pharma actually worked. The mother of executed Georgia inmate Brandon Rhode came to Europe recently to share the story of what she believes was the agonizing death of her son last year due to defective sodium thiopental. A lethal-injection expert said Brandon’s eyes remained open during his execution, indicating the sedative didn’t work properly. Patches Rohde pleaded with the British government to extend the emergency ban on the drug, saying U.S. authorities had “not only killed Brandon but tortured him … . I beg [you] to keep this torture from happening to anyone else.”

Last month Britain added pentobarbital along with two other lethal-injection drugs to the emergency export ban.

“We oppose the death penalty in all circumstances,” said U.K. Business Secretary Vince Cable, “and are clear that British drugs should not be used to carry out lethal injections.”

Patches Rohde is gratified. Speaking from her home in Mississippi this week, she said, “There’s just no words than can get across how it feels. The fact that Europeans are going to work harder to help people in prison in the U.S. than the people in the U.S. are is just”—she paused cautiously—“it’s shameful for the Americans … but it’s great. It really is.”

Source: TucsonSentinel.com, May 13, 2011

Related article: "Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck votes to continue supplying pentobarbital for lethal injections", Reprieve, March 25, 2011

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British Foreign Secretary William Hague urges Uganda not to pass Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Foreign Secretary William Hague has re-iterated the government's opposition to Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill, urging local officials to reject it.

Writing on micro-blogging site Twitter he said: “We oppose this bill and will continue to raise our concerns with Ugandan government. We urge Ugandan MPs to reject it.”

He continued: “Our embassy is lobbying Ugandan go and the UK initiated a formal EU demarche to the Ugandan foreign minister on the bill.”

Currently under review, the bill could see homosexuals either placed in prison or - if earlier versions of the Bill are passed - sentenced to the death penalty.

The proposed bill has been under a committee review for the past 48 hours and is expected to be either voted-in or rejected imminently.

A core supporter of the Bill told the parliamentary committee he doesn’t support the Bill’s death penalty clause. Despite this, Pastor Martin Ssempa still urged MPs to pass the legislation to control queers.

Naturally, global pressure is mounting. Conservative civil liberties spokesman in the European Parliament, Timothy Kirkhope, and Charles Tannock MEP also called on the EU's External Action Service to reinforce the EU's opposition to such a Bill, which the parliament has twice condemned in foreign affairs resolutions.

Tannock said: "The European Parliament and the EU's High Representative Ashton must bring the influence of the international community to bear on Uganda. We must make it clear that this outrageous law must not be allowed to pass.

"There is a very worrying violent and abusive environment towards homosexual people in Uganda and it must be condemned as far and wide as possible by the West."

Kirkhope added: "The right to live free from fear on the basis of sexuality should be an inviolable right across the world.

"There is no place in this world for laws that make homosexuality a criminal offence punishable by either long prison sentences or even death. The parliament of Uganda needs to look at how it can create a climate of tolerance in its country, rather than the very worrying climate of hatred that we have seen in recent years."

Source: PinkPaper.com, May 11, 2011

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Bin Laden death 'not an execution'

Osama bin Laden

The death of bin Laden was not an "execution" and does not call into question Europe's opposition to the death penalty, the European Commission said today.

In the wake of a statement from Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso welcoming his death as a "major achievement" which ensured his crimes did not go unpunished, a spokeswoman insisted the EU's underlying values of justice were not called into question.

"Our values relating to justice in the EU are very important values for us."

She said the statement, issued jointly with EU Council president Herman Van Rompuy, hailed an "important defeat" for a terrorist movement responsible for many deaths across the world.

She added: "Bin Laden was responsible for many deaths and with his death one enemy has disappeared and we see that as a step towards making the world a safer place.

"This in no way questions the basic principles and values we have always supported ... this was not the execution of a death sentence, it was something completely different. We continue to be against the death penalty."

The joint Commission statement said: "Osama bin Laden was a criminal responsible for heinous terrorist attacks that cost the lives of thousands of innocent people. His death makes the world a safer place and shows that such crimes do not remain unpunished.

"This is a major achievement in our efforts to rid the world of terrorism.

"The European Union continues to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States, our international partners and our friends in the Muslim world in combating the scourge of global extremism and in building a world of peace, security and prosperity for all."

Thorbjorn Jagland, secretary general of Europe's human rights watchdog the Council of Europe, hailed the death as of huge significance.

He said: "The news of the death of Osama bin Laden is certainly an important step in the international efforts in fighting terrorism. It is of immense symbolic significance.

"However, as recent events have shown, the threat of terrorism remains acute today and the Council of Europe is dedicated to combating terrorism together with its member states."

European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek said: "We have woken up in a more secure world.

"Although the fight of the international community against terrorists is not over, an important step has been made in the fight against al-Qa’ida, to give security to millions of people: Christians, Muslims, all those who believe in peaceful coexistence."

Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the attacks of September 11 and the man who ever since has remained an elusive, shadowy presence at the centre of perhaps the world’s greatest manhunt, has been killed by special forces troops at a compound two hours outside of Islamabad.

The al-Qa’ida leader was killed on Sunday during an operation north of the Pakistani capital led by helicopter-borne US special forces.

Source: The Independent, May 2, 2011

How bin Laden was killed

The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Islamabad, came about four years after U.S. intelligence officials identified a man who served as one of the al Qaeda leader's trusted couriers, according to senior Obama administration officials.

Bin Laden was shot in the head and chest during the operation, a senior administration official told CNN. White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said that despite intelligence indicating that he was in the compound, there was no certainty the al Qaeda leader was actually there when the president authorized the assault.

In announcing bin Laden's death Sunday night, Obama called it "the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat al Qaeda."

"A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties," he said. "After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body."

Four others in the compound died in the raid, including bin Laden's adult son and a woman, Brennan said.

"Thinking about that from a visual perspective, here is bin Laden, who has been calling for these attacks, living in this million-dollar-plus compound; living in an area that is far removed from the front; hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a shield," Brennan told reporters. "I think it really just speaks to just how false his narrative has been over the years."

A senior administration official said later that the woman who died was not bin Laden's wife and may not have been used as a human shield, as originally reported. Nor did bin Laden have a gun, as earlier reports had indicated, the senior official said.

A DNA match confirmed with virtual certainty that bin Laden was killed in the operation, a senior administration official told CNN. Officials compared DNA of the person killed with bin Laden "family DNA," a senior administration official said, and a senior U.S. defense official said one of bin Laden's wives identified the body to U.S. forces.

There are also photographs of the body with a gunshot wound to the side of the head that shows an individual who is recognizable as bin Laden, a U.S. government official said. No decision has yet been made on whether to release the photographs and if so, when and how.

Calling the U.S. operation a surgical raid, officials said it was conducted by a small team and designed to minimize collateral damage.

A firefight was under way for most of the 40 minutes that U.S. Special Operations forces were in the compound, as the team encountered resistance from bin Laden and three other men, a senior defense official said.

The official said the forces had to fight their way through the first floor of the three-story building, where two adult males lived.

Bin Laden and his family lived on the second and third floors, and they were cleared last, with bin Laden killed in the last five or 10 minutes of the siege, the official said.

One of bin Laden's wives identified his body to U.S. forces after the team made visual identification, the official said.

In the end, all four of the combatants in the compound were dead, along with a woman whom one of the men used as a human shield, the officials said. Sources said bin Laden was shot in the head.

John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, said it is his understanding that the woman who was killed was one of bin Laden's wives.

Later, a senior U.S. official said that bin Laden's wife was not the woman killed and that she may not have been used as a human shield after all. This official also said that bin Laden was shot twice, once in the chest and once in the head.

At some point, one of the assaulting helicopters crashed due to a mechanical failure, according to the officials. It was destroyed as the U.S. team flew away, they said.

Obama and the senior administration officials said no U.S. forces were harmed in the operation, which took place very early Monday morning Pakistani time.

Source: CNN, May 3, 2011


Storming bin Laden's compound

Bin Laden's compound

The operation took place at a fortified compound on the outskirts of Abbottabad in north-west Pakistan.

It happened at some time between 0000 and 0130 local time on Monday morning (Sunday 1900-2030 GMT), dozens of local residents told a BBC reporter. Between two and four helicopters were seen flying low over the area, causing panic among some residents.

Residents describe hearing three explosions several minutes apart, followed by a huge explosion that shook their houses and knocked crockery from shelves. Most residents said they then also heard gunshots, but that the firing was brief, just a couple of minutes or so.

As the explosions started, they say, the lights in the area went off, going on and off again shortly afterwards. One report quotes some residents as saying they were commanded in Pashto - not the common language of the area - to turn their lights off, but this is unconfirmed.

It is believed that militants inside the house fired at the helicopters, but eventually they were able to land or hover outside the compound, and the commandos - a special team of some 15 or 25 US Navy Seals - emerged from them.

At some point in the operation one of the helicopters crashed, either from technical failure or having been hit by gunfire from the ground. But no US commandos were injured.

There are contradictory reports about which base the helicopters took off from, with some saying the US air bases at Jalalabad or Bagram in Afghanistan, but others suggesting it was the nearby Ghazi air base inside Pakistan.

Security concerns

The target of the operation was the compound, which had at its centre a large three-storey building with high walls, barbed wire and security cameras - and few windows.

The compound - valued at about $1m (£600,000) - had two security gates but no phone or internet lines running into the building.

Its occupants were so concerned about security that they were reported to burn their rubbish rather than leave it out for collection as other residents in the area did.

Mr Brennan told reporters that the commando team had been "able and prepared" to take Bin Laden alive "if he didn't present any threat".

"The concern was that Bin Laden would oppose any type of capture operation. Indeed, he did. It was a firefight. He, therefore, was killed in that firefight, and that's when the remains were removed," said Mr Brennan.

However other US officials who spoke to news agencies on condition of anonymity denied that Bin Laden had returned fire.

The al-Qaeda leader was in his bedroom when he was shot twice, officials said - once in the head and once in the chest.

Footage purporting to be of the bedroom appears to show a round gaping hole in the wall, suggesting US forces blasted their way into the building.

US officials described the operation as a "surgical raid" and said that as well as Bin Laden, three adult males - thought to comprise Bin Laden's trusted courier, his brother and Bin Laden's adult son - were killed.

A woman was also killed. She was originally reported to be one of Bin Laden's wives, though later reports suggested his wife was only wounded. There have also been conflicting reports as to whether the woman who died was being used as a human shield.

A senior intelligence official told reporters at a US Department of Defense briefing that Bin Laden's body was identified visually on the scene by operatives, by name by a woman at the scene believed to be one of his wives, by CIA specialists using photos and finally later on Monday by experts who found "virtually a 100% DNA match of the body against DNA of several Bin Laden family members".

The team left the compound carrying documents, hard drives and DVDs which it is hoped could yield further valuable intelligence data, officials said.

According to an official from Pakistan's main intelligence agency, the ISI, there were 17 or 18 people in the compound at the time of the attack, while US officials say those who survived the attack included a wife, a daughter, and eight to nine other children, not apparently Bin Laden's.

The ISI and US officials contradict each other as to whether a detainee was taken away alive.

Bin Laden's body was then flown to Afghanistan before eventually being buried at sea. US officials said this was to avoid his grave becoming a shrine.

Source: BBC, May 3, 2011


May 4, 2011 Updates

U.S. revises story on bin Laden's raid, offers more details

Bin Laden's residence sits in
a region where most residents
are Pakistani army personnel.

Abbottabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- U.S. officials issued a revised version of the nighttime raid that killed the world's most-notorious terrorist.

The 40-minute raid early Monday in Pakistan left Osama bin Laden dead, along with four others in the complex that sits on a mountainous region near the capital.

Bin Laden was not armed during the raid, but he put up resistance when U.S. forces entered the compound, the White House said. Officials had earlier said that bin Laden was an active participant in the firefight, implying that he was armed and gave the U.S. Navy SEALs little choice but to shoot him down.

After the operation, U.S. forces departed with the al Qaeda leader's body, nearly 10 years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

U.S. military personnel arrived on two helicopters, attacked the residence and started moving methodically from room to room, said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

They were engaged in a firefight throughout the operation, he said.

There were no armed guards around the compound, according to a U.S. official who is not authorized to speak on the record.

CIA Director Leon Panetta told PBS "NewsHour" that the original plan was for two Black Hawk helicopters, carrying 25 people, to go into the compound.

The first was to go over a courtyard, while the second was to go over the roof. But the first helicopter had problems and had to set down on the ground, prompting the second one to do the same, he said.

"Both teams immediately went into the compound itself. They had to breach about three or four walls in order to get in there," he said. "They were able to do that and they immediately then went into the compound itself and fought their way up to the third floor."

Besides the bin Laden family, two other families lived in the compound, according to Carney.

On the first floor of the building, two al Qaeda couriers were killed in addition to a woman caught in the crossfire, he said.

Bin Laden and his family lived on the second and third floors, and they were cleared last, with bin Laden killed toward the end of the siege, Carney said.

Bin Laden was not armed but did put up resistance when U.S. forces entered the compound, he said.

According to the U.S. official, who is not authorized to speak on the record, bin Laden "didn't hold his hands up and surrender."

A woman in the room with him -- believed to be bin Laden's wife -- rushed U.S. forces and was shot in the leg, but not killed, said Carney.

Officials had earlier said that bin Laden was shielded during the shooting by women, including his wife.

Five of the approximately two dozen people in the compound were killed -- the two couriers, the woman, bin Laden and his son, said the U.S. official who sought anonymity.

Panetta told PBS he didn't think bin Laden said anything to U.S. forces before he was killed. Read more.

Source: CNN, May 4, 2011


White House changes story: Bin Laden unarmed

The administration possesses graphic images of bin Laden's corpse, at least one of which is likely to be released, according to CIA Director Leon Panetta. Officials hope that doing so would quiet any doubts that bin Laden is indeed dead. The worry is that anti-U.S. sentiment would be inflamed as a result.

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin has also had the photos described to him and said it "does sound very gruesome."

Bin Laden was shot twice at close range, once in the chest and once in the head, right above his left eye and that bullet opened his skull, exposing his brain and it also blew out his eye. So these are not going to be pictures for the squeamish," Martin said.

How did bin Laden resist Navy SEALs without a weapon?

White House officials initially suggested bin Laden had been holding a gun and perhaps firing at U.S. forces. The corrected account raised questions about whether the Americans ever planned to take him alive, or simply were out to kill him.

After they shot him in the head and chest, the SEAL team in just minutes quickly swept bin Laden's compound for useful intelligence, making off with a cache of computer equipment and documents. The CIA was hurriedly setting up a task force to review the material from the highest level of al Qaeda's leadership.

The revised account of bin Laden's final moments was one of many official details that have changed since he was killed in the nighttime raid early Monday morning in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad. The White House misidentified which of bin Laden's sons was killed — it was Khalid, not Hamza. Officials incorrectly said bin Laden's wife died in gunfire while serving as his human shield. That actually was the wife of a bin Laden aide, and she was just caught in crossfire, the White House said Tuesday.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney attributed those discrepancies to the fog of war, saying the information was coming in bit by bit and was still being reviewed. Nevertheless, the contradictory statements may raise suspicions about the White House's version of events, given that no independent account from another source is likely to emerge. The only non-U.S. witnesses to survive the raid are in Pakistani custody.

Source: CBSNews, May 4, 2011


May 5, 2011 Update

Account Tells of One-Sided Battle in Bin Laden Raid

The new details suggested that the raid, though chaotic and bloody, was extremely one-sided, with a force of more than 20 Navy Seal members quickly dispatching the handful of men protecting Bin Laden.

Administration officials said that the only shots fired by those in the compound came at the beginning of the operation, when Bin Laden’s trusted courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, opened fire from behind the door of the guesthouse adjacent to the house where Bin Laden was hiding.

After the Seal members shot and killed Mr. Kuwaiti and a woman in the guesthouse, the Americans were never fired upon again.

This account differs from an official version of events issued by the Pentagon on Tuesday, and read by the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, which said the Seal members “were engaged in a firefight throughout the operation.”

In a television interview on PBS on Tuesday, Leon E. Panetta, the director of the C.I.A., said, “There were some firefights that were going on as these guys were making their way up the staircase of that compound.”

Administration officials said the official account of events has changed over the course of the week because it has taken time to get thorough after-action reports from the Seal team. And, they added, because the Special Operations troops had been fired upon as soon as they touched down in the compound, they were under the assumption that everyone inside was armed.

“They were in a threatening and hostile environment the entire time,” one American official said.

When the commandos moved into the main house, they saw the courier’s brother, who they believed was preparing to fire a weapon. They shot and killed him. Then, as they made their way up the stairs of the house, officials said they killed Bin Laden’s son Khalid as he lunged toward the Seal team.

When the commandos reached the top floor, they entered a room and saw Osama bin Laden with an AK-47 and a Makarov pistol in arm’s reach. They shot and killed him, as well as wounding a woman with him.

The firefight over and Bin Laden dead, the team found a trove of information and had the time to remove much of it: about 100 thumb drives, DVDs and computer disks, along with 10 computer hard drives and 5 computers. There were also piles of paper documents in the house.

The White House declined to release any additional details about the operation, saying that further information would jeopardize the military’s ability to conduct clandestine operations in the future. The administration’s reticence came after it was forced on Tuesday to correct parts of its initial account of the raid, including assertions that Bin Laden had used his wife as a “human shield.”

Source: The New York Times, May 5, 2011


Michael Moore: Bin Laden Wasn't Killed, He Was Executed

Osama bin Laden wasn’t killed by a Navy SEAL team -- he was straight up executed, Michael Moore told TheWrap on Wednesday.

The “Fahrenheit 9/11” director has been setting Twitter aflame Wednesday afternoon urging the Obama administration to come clean about the circumstances surrounding the terrorist leader’s death -- particularly in light of the White House’s shifting account of last weekend’s firefight in Abbottabad (see map below).

The Oscar-winning director has been tweeting about his belief that Bin Laden should have received a trial, and his theory that Pakistan was keeping the Al Qaeda head under house arrest. TheWrap grilled Moore about his controversial views.

Is Obama lying about how Bin Laden died?

Common sense tells you he was executed. That was the plan all along. Just tell us that and quit treating us like children.

I have a lot of faith in Obama, but we’ve received three different stories in three days. We heard, "There was a firefight." "He used a woman as a shield." Now it turns out none of these things were true. He wasn’t armed.

Does it matter if he was executed? Do you think he deserved a trial?

I am a Catholic, and the position of the Catholic Church and the Pope is that we are 100 percent against the death penalty unless it is in self-defense. Look at the Nuremberg Trials. We didn’t just pop a bullet in the heads of the worst scum in history. We thought it was important to put them on trial and expose their evil. In a democracy we believe in a system of justice and we believe in a judicial system that gives people a day in court...and then we hung them.

It doesn’t mean we can’t hang them afterward.

Do you think people will be angry if it turns out the operation was less heroic than it originally seemed?

It was heroic. There was no need to embellish things. People in positions of power tread so gingerly around the electorate. Some people may not like it, but don’t bullsh*t us anymore about stuff like this.

The government, especially the Pentagon, has a poor track record of telling the truth, starting with Jessica Lynch. Pat Tillman, that was all made up, and this firefight is going to turn out to be hooey.

Also Read: Killing Bin Laden: Keeping Secrets in the Age of WikiLeaks

Will it hurt Obama if the story turns out to have been partly false?

It won’t hurt him, because the basic facts will remain the same. Osama is still dead and everybody is happy about it.

In your tweets you say that Pakistan was safeguarding Bin Laden.

This is not a conspiracy theory. This was a garrison city. He was living in a compound attached to their version of West Point.

Source: TheWrap, Brent Lang, May 5, 2011


May 6, 2011 Update

Osama Bin Laden: Legality of Killing Questioned

The death of the man held responsible for mass atrocities, including the 11 September 2001 attacks, was welcomed around the world.

But as the US narrative of the raid has developed - and changed - since Monday's raid, there have been growing questions about whether it was legal to kill the al-Qaeda leader.

At one level, these questions have focused on what happened during the operation at the building in Abbottabad in which Bin Laden was found.

"The issue here is whether what was done was an act of legitimate self-defence," said Benjamin Ferencz, an international law specialist who served as a prosecutor during the Nuremburg trials and argued that it would have been better to capture Bin Laden and send him to court.

"Killing a captive who poses no immediate threat is a crime under military law as well as all other law," he told the BBC World Service.

'Killing appropriate'

Putting the case for the legality of the raid on Wednesday, US Attorney General Eric Holder said it was "conducted in a way that was consistent with our law, with our values".

"If he had surrendered, attempted to surrender, I think we should obviously have accepted that, but there was no indication that he wanted to do that and therefore his killing was appropriate," he told the Senate judiciary committee.

No blow-by-blow account of what happened in the moments before Bin Laden was shot has been agreed upon.

US officials have suggested that Bin Laden may have been reaching for a weapon, and that the Navy Seals may have suspected that people in the compound were wearing suicide belts.

But they have also said Bin Laden was not carrying a weapon - after initially saying he was.

And they have told US media that just one person in the compound shot at the special forces team, in what appears to have been a fairly one-sided confrontation.

Legal experts have therefore asked whether the US forces were instructed to kill, and whether Bin Laden was given a chance to surrender.

'Proportionate response?'

Like Mr Ferencz, British law professor Philippe Sands QC, of University College London says it is impossible to make a definitive legal judgement without knowing precisely what happened. But he says the case for the raid's legality has been weakened.

"The question to ask is: were the measures taken in the actual situation that pertained reasonable and proportionate given the circumstances in which the [Navy Seals] found themselves?" he told the BBC.

"The facts for Bin Laden don't appear to easily meet that standard."

On a broader level, US officials have justified Bin Laden's killing as an act committed as part of an armed conflict with al-Qaeda.

Mr Holder said Bin Laden's killing was "an act of national self-defence", calling the al-Qaeda leader "a lawful military target" who had acknowledged his role in the 9/11 attacks.

"It's lawful to target an enemy commander in the field," he said.

Some legal experts have backed up that position.

"I don't think that this is an extrajudicial killing," Philip Bobbitt, a specialist on constitutional law and international security, told the BBC's Today programme. "I think this is part of an armed conflict authorised by the United Nations, authorised by both houses of Congress."

'Setting precedents'

But the fact that Bin Laden was killed in a normally quiet town in a country that was not informed about the raid until after it had finished, has also raised questions.

"As a matter of international law, one country is not free to enter another country apparently without the authorisation of that country, and intervene, whether to kidnap or kill a national of a third state," Mr Sands said.

He acknowledged that under the doctrine of necessity, where there is an "overriding threat to national security", such an act might not give rise to responsibility or liability.

But he said the difficulty with that argument was that it was put forward against a background of a rise in extrajudicial killings, including through the use of drones, and that this was not a "lawful direction to be taking".

The logical conclusion of any idea that Bin Laden could be killed as an enemy combatant was "that anyone associated with al-Qaeda in any country in the world can be taken out, can be executed," Mr Sands said.

"I think it's deeply troubling if we are indeed moving to a place where you can have a global assassination policy for those who are perceived to cause trouble," he added.

The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, and the special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Martin Scheinin, have raised a similar concern.

"In certain exceptional cases, use of deadly force may be permissible as a measure of last resort... including in operations against terrorists," they said in statement.

"However, the norm should be that terrorists be dealt with as criminals, through legal processes of arrest, trial and judicially decided punishment," they added.

"Actions taken by states in combating terrorism, especially in high profile cases, set precedents for the way in which the right to life will be treated in future instances."

Source: BBC News, May 6, 2011



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Pennsylvania House Votes to Expand Death Penalty as International Controversy Mounts

Pennsylvania's moves in the opposite direction of the prevailing winds of reform.

On April 6, Sister Helen Prejean, author of the book "Dead Man Walking" and the inspiration for the 1995 film of the same name starring Susan Sarandon as a Catholic nun counseling a condemned prisoner, stood before a packed crowd at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia to tell her story and urge attendees -- especially young people -- to join efforts to end capital punishment in Pennsylvania.

"As long as we are not active, as long as we don't raise our voice, as long as we don't resist, we too are responsible," said the fiery, 71 year-old abolitionist.

Her talk couldn't have come at a more dubious time for the death penalty in America.

Since Governor Pat Quinn formally abolished capital punishment in Illinois in March, legislators in no less than half-a-dozen states have introduced bills to repeal the death penalty and replace it with life without parole. States where abolitionist legislation is being considered include three of the death penalty's "big four" -- Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania, which together account for nearly a third of the nation's condemned inmates. (California, which leads the nation with 711 prisoners awaiting execution, has no such legislation pending).

Separately, an international scandal involving a key ingredient used to execute inmates has focused world attention on a U.S. practice that remains out of step with much of the developed world.

Earlier this year Illinois-based Hospira, the only American-based manufacturer of the barbiturate sodium thiopental, chose to stop making it rather than promise authorities in Italy - the site of its new manufacturing facility - that its drug wouldn't be used for capital punishment. Until recently sodium thiopental, sold under the brand name Pentothal, was a primary ingredient in the lethal injection cocktails of 34 states.

Hospira was already facing a shortage of key components used in the manufacture of the drug. The decision to cease production sparked a nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental and forced some states to seek the drug from less reputable overseas suppliers, sparking controversy and in some cases legal intervention.

On March 15 the Drug Enforcement Agency seized Georgia's entire stock of sodium thiopental less than a month after attorneys for inmate Andrew Grant DeYoung notified Attorney General Eric Holder that the Georgia Department of Corrections had imported a quantity of the drug without proper registration from the United Kingdom last July. Since December 2011 Britain has enforced export controls on sodium thiopental.

According to records obtained by attorney John Bentivoglio, the drug came from a small, mom-and-pop wholesaler called Dream Pharma, which ran its operations out of a rented space in the back of a driving school in Acton.

Georgia had already executed two men using the drug, both of whom kept their eyes open during the process. An analysis by the UK-based death penalty abolitionist group Reprieve suggests the quality of the sodium thiopental may have been compromised by poor storage, and both inmates were likely partially conscious throughout the execution process -- a grueling experience according to anesthesiologists .

"At last someone is paying attention to the shenanigans that have been going on with the fly-by-night company exporting large quantities of execution drugs from Britain," said Reprieve's Director Clive Stafford Smith, commenting on the DEA's action.

Kentucky and Tennessee responded to the seizure by turning over their entire stocks of sodium thiopental to federal authorities, but at least 5 other states are reported to have acquired the drug overseas. Last week The Times of India revealed that at least 2 states, Nebraska and South Dakota, were using a Mumbai-based company as their supplier; on April 6, the company, Kayem Pharmaceutical, said it would no longer ship the drug to the U.S.

Pennsylvania - where more than 200 condemned inmates sit on death row -- has so far refrained from entering the debate, and no published reports exist outlining its plans as sodium thiopental becomes less available.

Susan McNaughton, communications director at the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, declined to comment on the supplier of the state's sodium thiopental, or if it maintained a stock of the drug, but said the DOC is "reviewing its options" as to how the issue surrounding the availability of the drug will affect the execution process in Pennsylvania, if at all.

"We have no reason to think that we are not prepared to carry out executions," she said.

A request under Pennsylvania's Right to Know Law for information on who supplies Pennsylvania's execution drugs, whether or not they are stockpiled and how often the stocks are rotated was pending at press time.

The fact that the state hasn't hosted an execution in more than a decade certainly makes the situation seem less than urgent. However, according to the drug's guidelines, the average shelf life for sodium thiopental is 4 years, meaning the state would need to rotate stocks at least that frequently, or would need to order it before an execution proceeds.

Seeking to circumvent the controversy, some prisons have decided to abandon sodium thiopental altogether. Last month Ohio became the first state to execute an inmate with a single dose of pentobarbital - a short-acting barbiturate commonly used to euthanize animals -- while several others states have said they will begin using pentobarbital in place of sodium thiopental as 1 of 3 execution drugs. That decision is already raising challenges from defense attorneys who say the new drug is unproven and that some states, Texas for instance, have not followed the correct protocol for making such a change.

Meanwhile, many European governments have stepped up efforts to ensure they are not complicit in a practice they oppose. On April 1, Germany petitioned the European Union to consider banning sodium thiopental for exportation to countries where it could be used for execution, and legislators in the UK are lobbying the government to add the other 2 drugs commonly used in lethal injections -- potassium chloride and pancuronium bromide -- to the country's list of banned exports. Given European sentiment concerning capital punishment, pentobarbital may one day face the same fate. With as much as 40 % of pharmaceuticals now being made outside the United States, the implications could be reaching.

Death penalty opponents say the international outcry underscores just how isolated the U.S. is from its allies on the issue of capital punishment.

"This is a sign that it's difficult to do the business of killing people when there are others out there who don't want to participate," said Andy Hoover, Legislative Director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union.

PA Legislators push alternate death penalty bills

The day before Sister Prejean visited Chestnut Hill, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives unanimously voted to approve a bill that -- if it passes the GOP-controlled Senate -- could see more inmates sent to death row in the Keystone State.

The legislation -- House Bill 317 -- adds two new aggravating factors to the 18 already considered when determining if the death penalty applies to defendants in murder cases, making capital punishment applicable for defendants that commit sexually violent murder while they are registered sex offenders, as well as those who target the elderly and infirm.

"The House is just completely out of step with reality," said Hoover, commenting on the bill. "They are refusing to accept that this is a broken program. The death penalty was made to be used in limited circumstances, but by adding a category for people that are infirm, which lacks definition, the House is expanding it to where it can be applied to most homicides."

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, a Republican representing parts of Centre and Mifflin Counties, didn't respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment, but in a statement he said the bill is about "justice, protecting law-abiding citizens and keeping dangerous people off the streets."

Two Democratic senators -- Allegheny County progressive Jim Ferlo, and Daylin Leach -- who represents parts of Delaware and Montgomery Counties -- are seeking to end capital punishment in the Commonwealth.

According to Leach, who in February introduced a bill to place a statewide moratorium on executions, the cost of putting people on Death Row where they'll sit for years through endless appeals just doesn't make any sense given the budget crisis currently facing the state. Studies show it costs more than twice as much in appeals, administration and housing to put an inmate to death than to house him or her for the rest of their lives, while polls show waning support across the nation for the death penalty. The most recent numbers in Pennsylvania show that less than half of respondents favor the death penalty when given the alternative option if life without parole.

"The Death Penalty is just another government program that is too expensive and just not working," said Leach, in an appeal to his conservative colleagues.

Since Pennsylvania reinstated the death penalty in 1977, only three executions have been carried out (the last a dozen years ago), and in all three cases the defendants waved their appeals. It's been nearly half a century since the state executed someone who didn't ask to be. Since then at least 20 condemned inmates have died of natural causes.

Nonetheless, Pennsylvania governors from both parties continue to sign dozens of death warrants, making Pennsylvania's Death Row the fourth largest in the nation. Governor Ed Rendell, a Democrat, signed 119 death warrants during his tenure; and newly minted Republican Governor Tom Corbett has already signed four since taking office in January. There are currently 222 inmates awaiting their execution date, more than half of them Black men from Philadelphia County.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams supports the death penalty but has said he will use it more conservatively than his predecessor Lynn Abraham, who gained a reputation for aggressively pursuing capital murder charges.

According to Tasha Jamerson, a spokesperson for Williams, the DA's office has filed 11 capital cases since Williams took office, and Jamerson reports a "steady decrease in capital prosecutions since 2003."

The American Bar Association has a theory as to why the Keystone State carries out so few executions despite having so many condemned: Pennsylvania is the only state in the nation that provides no post-conviction financial support for defense appeals, meaning defendants are often required to turn to county services and the aid of less-than-able court-appointed attorneys. As a result, cases are often wildly mismanaged, and regularly overturned on appeal at the expense of taxpayers.

Since 1980, more than 200 death sentences in Pennsylvania have been overturned by federal and state courts, and nearly as many death convictions are vacated in Pennsylvania each year as are handed down.

As states across the country rethink their stance on capital punishment, it's fallen to a handful of "true believers" -like Florida, Texas and Ohio to conduct the majority of America's executions. How long Pennsylvania will continue to count itself among this group remains to be seen, but advocates are confident it's not a matter of if, but when the state will abolish capital punishment.

"It might not be on the first try, it might not be on the second try, but if people keep the pressure on eventually we can change this," said Prejean. "Politicians do eventually listen to the people."

A coalition of 15 statewide abolitionist groups, including Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (PADP), The Interfaith Alliance of Pennsylvania, Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, and the ACLU of Pennsylvania is working hard to see that that they do.

"I think with many changes, it's a question of chipping away, little by little and day by day," said Kathleen Lucas, executive director for PADP. "We will get there. Once our legislators see how broken the system is, I believe that they'll do the right thing. The evidence is on our side."

Source: alternet.org, April 16, 2011

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The Netherlands: 'More help for Dutch nationals facing death penalty'

The Netherlands is to become more proactive in helping Dutch nationals jailed in countries where they could face the death penalty, foreign affairs minister Uri Rosenthal is quoted as saying in the Telegraaf.

The news follows the execution of Dutch Iranian woman Zahra Bahrami earlier this year.

Some 2,500 Dutch nationals are being held in foreign prisons, of whom around 500 are in countries with the death penalty.

Source: dutchNews.nl, April 13, 2011

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EU to impose Iran sanctions over human rights

The European Union has agreed to impose sanctions on 32 Iranian officials for human rights abuses.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Monday that during uprisings across Northern African and the Middle East the brutal regime in Tehran has worsened. He says this has forced the 27-nation bloc to impose visa bans and asset freezes on the 32 individuals.

Hague particularly underlined Iran's imprisonment of opposition leaders, the detention of journalists and the use of the death penalty.

In Washington, the White House commended the move.

Source: Sify.news, April 14, 2011

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High court rejects appeal from Troy Davis

The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis, clearing the way for the state to resume planning for Davis' execution.

The justices on Monday refused to order the federal appeals court in Atlanta to examine Davis' case and they declined to do so themselves.

In 2009, the high court ordered a federal judge to examine evidence Davis said would show he was innocent of the 1989 killing for which he has been sentenced to death.

But the judge decided last year that Davis had failed to clear his name.

At the moment, executions are on hold in Georgia after federal agents seized the state's supply of a key lethal injection drug.

Source: Associated Press, March 28, 2011

Appeal denied in high-profile US death row case

The US Supreme Court Monday rejected an appeal to death row inmate Troy Davis who is seeking a new trial after 7 of the 9 witnesses against him recanted their murder trial testimony.

The Supreme Court rejected a request for an appeal hearing submitted by lawyers on behalf of Davis, a 42-year-old convicted of murdering a police officer in the southern state of Georgia in August 1989.

The decision clears the way for the execution of Davis, who has been on death row in Georgia since 1991 but has always maintained his innocence.

Davis's conviction rested on the testimony of the 9 witnesses, with no direct physical evidence such as a murder weapon, DNA or fingerprints linking him to the crime.

After a series of failed earlier appeals, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in August 2009 allowing Davis to present what he claimed was exculpatory evidence that was not reasonably available during his trial.

But after the rare hearing in August 2010, the judge decided there was not enough evidence to prove Davis's innocence.

With its racial overtones -- Davis is black, the officer Mark Allen MacPhail was white -- and the prisoner's continued claims of innocence, the case has triggered an international outcry.

Critics have included the European Union, whose member states oppose the death penalty, as well as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu of South Africa and Pope Benedict XVI.

Source: Agence France-Presse, March 28, 2011

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Cruel and usual: US solitary confinement

As incarceration rates explode in the US, thousands are placed in solitary confinement, often without cause. In Europe, solitary confinement has largely been abandoned, and it is widely viewed as a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, in violation of international human rights conventions.

The spectre of Bradley Manning lying naked and alone in a tiny cell at the Quantico Marine Base, less than 50 miles from Washington, DC, conjures up images of an American Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, where isolation and deprivation have been raised to the level of torture.

In fact, the accused Wikileaker, now in his tenth month of solitary confinement, is far from alone in his plight. Every day in the US, tens of thousands of prisoners languish in "the hole".

A few of them are prison murderers or rapists who present a threat to others. Far more have committed minor disciplinary infractions within prison or otherwise run afoul of corrections staff. Many of them suffer from mental illness, and are isolated for want of needed treatment; others are children, segregated for their own "protection"; a growing number are elderly and have spent half their lives or more in utter solitude.

No one knows for sure what their true numbers are. Many states, as well as the federal government, flatly declare that solitary confinement does not exist in their prison systems. As for their euphemistically named "Secure Housing Units" or "Special Management Units", most states do not report occupancy data, nor do wardens report on the inmates sent to "administrative segregation".

Prosecutor, judge and jury

By common estimate, more than 20,000 inmates are held in supermax prisons, which by definition isolate their prisoners. Perhaps 50,000 to 80,000 more are in solitary confinement on any given day in other prisons and local jails, many of them within sight of communities where Americans go about their everyday lives.

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Source: Al Jazeera, Jean Casella, March 24, 2011

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DEA seizes execution drugs obtained on the black market by Georgia

ATLANTA (Reuters) - U.S. authorities seized Georgia's supply of a drug used in executions on Tuesday because of concerns about how it was imported, a move praised by death penalty opponents.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents took control of the state's sodium thiopental, a sedative that attorneys for several death row inmates have said was improperly obtained.

"We commend the DEA for forcing the Department of Corrections to stop using black market execution drugs," said Sara Totonchi, executive director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta.

Authorities offered few details about the motive for the seizure except to say there were questions about how the state had obtained the drug.

"DEA became aware of this situation today," Special Agent Chuvalo J. Truesdell said. "We took control of the controlled substances, and it's now a regulatory matter."

He declined further comment because of the ongoing investigation.

The Georgia Department of Corrections said it had requested federal assistance after questions were raised about how the drug was imported.

"We're working with them to make sure we're in compliance in the way we handle controlled substances," Corrections spokeswoman Peggy Chapman said.

The federal government stepped in following a letter sent last month to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on behalf of Georgia death row inmate Andrew Grant DeYoung.

With sodium thiopental in short supply nationally, Georgia corrections officials ordered the drug from a pharmaceutical distributor in London, England, DeYoung attorney John Bentivoglio wrote in the February 24 letter.

The state received 50 vials of sodium thiopental in July, Bentivoglio said, citing public records.

But Bentivoglio said the state was not registered to import the controlled substance and failed to notify DEA about the shipment.

"I think it raises very troubling questions about the lengths to which they would go to pursue lethal injections when that process requires careful attention to the integrity of the process," Bentivoglio told Reuters on Tuesday.

Totonchi said her center first raised questions about the state of Georgia's purchase from England in federal court filings for death row inmate Emmanuel Hammond, who was executed in January.

Sodium thiopental is the first of a sequence of three drugs administered in U.S. lethal injections that paralyze breathing and stop the heart. A sedative is legally required in all lethal injections of U.S. death row inmates.

Hospira Inc. of Illinois, the only U.S. company that manufactured sodium thiopental, said in January it would stop making the drug after Italy, where it planned to move production, objected because the European Union has banned the death penalty.

Several states have either run out of supplies of sodium thiopental or switched to using pentobarbital, a barbiturate that is often used to euthanize pets and other animals.

Georgia had 106 inmates on death row at the beginning of 2010, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The state has no executions scheduled at this time, according to the Center, which tracks the death penalty in the states.

Source: Reuters, The Raw Story, March 16, 2011

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Taiwan: President Ma Ying-jeou defends executions

ABOLITION FAR AWAY: The premier said European countries took 100 to 200 years to abolish the death penalty, and said polls show that 75% of Taiwanese support capital punishment

President Ma Ying-jeou yesterday defended the Ministry of Justice’s execution of 5 death row inmates and dismissed concerns that the move violated the International Covenant on Civil Rights.

The executions were carried out on Friday after Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu signed documents authorizing them, sparking protests from anti-death penalty activists, who condemned the Ma administration for ignoring the covenants that it had recognized as domestic laws.

Approached by reporters for comment, Ma yesterday simply said: “No” when asked whether the executions violated the covenants.

While Ma declined to say whether the government would suspend executions in the future, Premier Wu Den-yih, at a separate setting yesterday, suggested the death penalty would not be abolished any time soon.

“The executions of capital -punishment were in line with high social expectations and demand for a good public order in a country that respects the rule of law,” he said when approached for a comment on the concerns about the execution voiced by human rights groups.

“In order to stabilize public order and ensure public security, the death penalty should in no way be abolished,” he said.

Saying that “it’s not time to abolish capital punishment,” Wu urged activists in opposition to the use of capital punishment to communicate with the public about abolition of the death penalty and build a consensus on the issue.

Wu added that the government did not violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

“It’s clearly stated in the international human rights covenants that [countries] should refrain from handing down mandatory death penalties except for the most serious crimes,” Wu said.

Although some might feel uncomfortable with the executions, Wu said, all of the people executed were given due process and none of them was wrongfully put to death. Some had even asked for a quick execution, he added.

Wu said that it was also his dream that the death penalty could be ended in the country when the day comes that “everyone has a heart of gold” and that it would make no difference whether capital punishment exists or not.

Saying that it took 100 to 200 years for most European countries to eliminate the death penalty, Wu added that “maybe Taiwan could reach that point in a shorter time, like in several decades or so."

Wu mentioned the results of several polls suggesting that more than 75 % of Taiwan’s people are still against an abolition of the death penalty because the majority do not feel satisfied with the public order.

According to a report released yesterday by the Ministry of Justice that compiled the results of nine public surveys conducted by several different organizations between 1993 and 2008, nearly 80 percent of the respondents opposed abolition of the death penalty.

The groups that carried out the polls include the Justice Ministry, the Cabinet’s Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, Academia Sinica and a poll center operated by the Chinese-language United Daily News.

The report said that over the past 15 years, whenever asked whether they supported the abolition of the death penalty, 70 % to 80 % said no.

Source: Taipei Times, March 5, 2011

Five executions spark concern in EU, Germany

In the face of widespread criticism, the justice minister said that the executed inmates had committed atrocious crimes.

The Ministry of Justice’s execution of 5 death-row inmates on Friday drew concerns and condemnation from the EU and various advocacy groups opposing capital punishment.

In a statement issued following the executions, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton said she deeply regretted the execution and urged Taiwan “not to undertake further executions."

Saying the EU had been encouraged by Taiwan’s de facto moratorium on executions that had been in place from late 2005 until last year, Ashton called on Taiwan to “put in place an immediate de facto moratorium on executions, pending legal abolition."

The executions came less than a year after the ministry resumed the implementation of capital punishment in April last year.

Following the resumption of capital punishment, Taiwan is now once again “one of the very few industrial democracies to implement capital punishment,” Ashton said, adding that the EU considers the abolishing the death penalty a contribution toward the enhancing of human dignity and the progressive development of human rights.

“It’s the EU’s view that the death penalty does not serve as an effective deterrent, and that any miscarriage of justice, which is inevitable in any legal system, would be irreversible,” Ashton said in the statement.

The German government also expressed concerns over the execution, with Taiwanese Representative in Berlin Wei Wu-lien being summoned to the German Federal Foreign Office (AA), according to a press release posted on its Web site.

Marcus Loening, the German Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Aid at the AA, said in the statement: “I strongly condemned the executions."

Loening said he has always regarded Taiwan as a positive example of democracy and rule of law, but the worst thing emanating from the execution was that Taiwan sent a very negative signal.

“Against this background, today the head of the Taipei Representative Office in Berlin has been summoned to the Foreign Office,” the statement said.

James Lee, director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, declined to confirm or deny that he had been summoned to meet with German officials.

“That European countries raised concern following the execution was understandable as it has been their wish that Taiwan could restore a moratorium. We have maintained contact with them about our difference of opinion on the issue,” Lee said.

Lee did not elaborate what messages the AA has conveyed to Taiwan via the meeting with Wei.

Lee said Taiwan has been trying to make European countries understand that the executions were carried out according to the law, as Taiwan followed the rule of law.

As Taiwan is a country that respects human rights, it has been working toward reducing the use of capital punishment before a consensus is reached on revising the laws to eliminate the death penalty, he added.

Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu said on Friday that the latest executions were of people “who had committed atrocious crimes and who had killed between 3 and 5 people."

He added that the 5 people executed had exhausted all possible legal avenues and “there were no reasons not to execute them. We had to deal with them according to the law."

Unconvinced, Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific director, said in a statement that “the Taiwanese authorities have repeatedly stated their intention to abolish the death penalty. But they have — yet again — acted contrary to their own commitments and against the global trend towards abolition of the death penalty."

He said President Ma Ying-jeou’s administration had apparently not learned the right lesson from the execution of Chiang Kuo-ching in 1997.

Serving in the air force at the time, Chiang was accused of raping and murdering a girl and was soon executed. It was discovered last month that Chiang was actually innocent and that he had admitted to the crime under torture.

Only last month, Ma had to apologize for the execution of an innocent man, the statement said.

Following that so closely with today’s executions, however, shows a blatant disregard for the fallibility and irreversibility of the death penalty,” the statement, said, condemning Taiwan for failure to provide a “procedure that would allow people under sentence of death to seek pardon or commutation of the sentence — a right recognized by [the] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR], which Taiwan has legally committed to implement."

The Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network, a cross-regional alliance of non-governmental organizations, lawyers and human rights activists from 23 countries, also released a statement expressing their regrets upon hearing about the latest executions.

Questionable legality

Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty executive director Lin Hsin-yi said that since the ICCPR already enjoys the status of a domestic law, the legality of the executions may be called into question.

She said several other human rights organizations around the world — including the Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights and the International Commission against the Death Penalty — have contacted her to express their concerns and regrets and that many of them will likely release their own statements condemning the executions after gathering more information about the cases.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng, who is known for his support of the death penalty, on the other hand, described the executions as “belated justice."

He said he understood the dilemma of the government because of international pressure and the backlash from local civic groups, but said that if the government does not carry out executions, it will leave a bad impression on society and that it will not be fair for those on death row.

Wu expressed hope that the ministry would continue to execute death-row inmates and “complete the execution of all inmates this year."

‘SAVE MONEY'

Entertainer Pai Ping-ping, whose daughter was murdered in 1997, said: “It is a good thing to execute them, because it helps to solve a lot of problems.”

“Isn’t it good for the government to save the money used to incarcerate them to take care of the underprivileged?” Pai asked.

After the latest executions, 40 convicts remain on death row, according to the official tallies.

Source: Taipei Times, March 5, 2011

Taiwan: 5 death-row convicts executed

5 convicts on death row were executed in Taiwan Friday, the Ministry of Justice said in a statement, potentially dealing the country's international human rights image a severe blow.

The executions came less than a year after the ministry resumed enforcing capital punishment verdicts last April after ending an unofficial moratorium on the execution of death-row inmates that had existed since 2005.

The resumption of the practice was widely criticized by the international community, including by Amnesty International and the European Union.

According to the MOJ statement, the 5 death-row inmates were executed Friday evening after Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu signed their execution decrees earlier in the day.

The 5 inmates were identified as Guang Chung-yen, Wang Kuo-hua, Chung Teh-shu, Wang Chih-huang and Chuang Tien-chu, the statement said.

After Friday's executions, there remained 40 convicts on death row, according to official tallies.

The death penalty was last carried out in Taiwan on April 30, 2010, when 4 death row inmates were executed.

Source: Focus Taiwan TV, March 4, 2011


Taiwan executes murderers amid death penalty debate

5 convicted murderers have been executed in Taiwan amid a growing national debate on whether to abolish the death penalty.

The government, along with religious and human rights groups, opposes capital punishment but most victims' families are in favour of it.

Surveys show most of the population also support the death penalty.

Taiwan's government adopted an informal moratorium on executions in 2005, but dropped it following an outcry.

In the 1980s and 1990s Taiwan put to death 505 criminals - a figure which dropped to 36 over the past decade.

Instead, judges were given the ability to sentence violent criminals to life in prison.

But last year, Taiwanese justice minister Wang Ching-feng was forced to resign following an outcry from victims' families when she tried to insist on extending the informal moratorium on the death penalty.

4 convicts were executed, bringing the moratorium to an end.

On Friday, the new justice minister signed the execution orders for another 5.

40 more convicts remain on death row. An official in the justice ministry told the BBC that although the government wants to eventually end the practice, it must first win over the public.

To that end it is increasingly involving victims' families in the trial process. By allowing them to vent their anger at the murderers, and allowing them to hear the background of those convicted, the hatred of some families is reduced.

The hope is that, in time, people will learn to respect all human lives, even those of murderers.

But it is not a simple matter.

1 of the 5 men executed on Friday - a rapist and murderer - had been on death row for 10 years.

He had pleaded to be executed, saying it was a waste of taxpayers' money to keep him alive.

Source: BBC News, March 4, 2011


Government backs enforcing death sentences in line with law

The government must enforce capital punishment verdicts in accordance with the law as Taiwan is a country that upholds the rule of law, Presidential Office spokesman Lo Chih-chiang said Friday.

Lo was reacting to the Ministry of Justice's (MOJ's) confirmation that 5 inmates on death row had been executed earlier in the day, potentially dealing the country's human rights image a severe blow in the international community.

The executions came less than a year after the ministry resumed enforcing death sentences in April 2010, when it ended an unofficial moratorium on the execution of death-row inmates that had existed since 2005.

The resumption of the practice was widely criticized by the international community, including by Amnesty International and the European Union.

Lo acknowledged that abolishing capital punishment is a prevailing trend in many countries around the world, but he said most Taiwanese people have yet to reach a consensus on the issue.

With the public divided on whether the death penalty should be abolished, Lo said, it will take time to forge a consensus through rational discussion.

"And until capital punishment is formally abolished, legally meted out death sentences must be enforced in accordance with the law. Otherwise, there should be justifiable reasons to defer enforcement of those verdicts," Lo said.

On criticism that the latest executions seemed to contradict President Ma Ying-jeou's previous pledge to reduce the use of capital punishment, Lo said Ma's stance has remained consistent since his stint as justice minister more than a decade ago.

"Reducing the use of capital punishment is one thing. Imposing a moratorium on legally issued death penalty verdicts is another, " Lo said.

In line with the policy of limiting the use of capital punishment, Lo said Taiwan has invalidated legal provisions that mandated the death sentence as the only penalty for specific crimes.

According to the MOJ statement, the 5-death row inmates were executed Friday evening after Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu signed their execution decrees earlier in the day.

The 5 inmates were identified as Guang Chung-yen, Wang Kuo-hua, Chung Teh-shu, Wang Chih-huang and Chuang Tien-chu, the statement said.

3 of them -- Wang, Chuang and Guang -- signed pledges to donate their organs before their executions.

Their bodies were sent to Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Kaohsiung City and Far Eastern Memorial Hospital in New Taipei City to have their organs removed for transplant to suitable patients, the statement said.

After Friday's executions, there remained 40 convicts on death row, according to official tallies.

The death penalty was last carried out in Taiwan on April 30, 2010, when 4 death row inmates were executed. They were the 1st executions since 2005.

The lack of executions since 2005 drew attention early last year when then Justice Minister Wang Ching-feng, who opposed capital punishment, insisted on stays of execution for death row inmates.

Wang resigned on March 11, 2010 following an outcry from victims of violent crime and their families. Tseng, who succeeded Wang to the position, has promised to carry out the death penalty according to the law.

Tseng apologized Friday evening for failing to tell the truth earlier in the day that he had signed the decrees in the morning to execute the 5 inmates.

"I had to withhold the information until after they were executed, " Tseng told reporters after attending a Legislative Yuan session in the evening.

He said all of the 5 executed inmates had been involved in felonies, including serial rapes and killings, and that their cases had long been closed.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel, March 4, 2011
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