Dødsstraff-statistikk 2007: 2007 DEATH PENALTY CASE STUDIES

CHINA
In July 2007 Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of China’s State Food and Drug Administration, was executed for taking bribes and dereliction of duty. Executions are commonly carried out by a bullet to the back of the head and, increasingly, lethal injection. Many of China’s capital crimes, around 68 in total, are non-violent, including tax evasion, smuggling and organizing prostitution.

SAUDI ARABIA
Mustafa Ibrahim was executed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for alleged practice of sorcery, witchcraft and desecration of the Quran. Official reports state that they had received complaints from a man who alleged that Mustafa Ibrahim was practising sorcery upon him in order to separate him from his wife. The reports state that he had confessed to all these charges. He was sentenced to death in May and his beheading took place in November. In a letter addressed to the President of the Saudi Arabian Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International expressed concern that he was convicted and sentenced to death on the basis of a confession obtained under torture, and that he was denied access to legal assistance and legal representation. The organization called for commutation of the death penalty against Mustafa Ibrahim and other prisoners but received no response.

VIET NAM
British citizen Le Manh Luong, born 1960, had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment last month, March 2008, by Vietnamese president Nguyen Minh Triet. Le Manh Luong was facing execution by firing squad after being sentenced to death in November 2006 for heroin trafficking, a sentence upheld on final appeal in April 2007. While on death row, he had reportedly been shackled by the wrists and ankles. Following a war injury he sustained as a child, Le Manh Luong is suffering from brain damage. Reports suggested he had difficulty understanding the court proceedings against him.

UGANDA
Mpagi Edward Edmary spent 18 years on death row in Uganda. He was arrested at the age of 27 in 1981 and sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of a neighbour. But there was no murder. It transpired that the neighbour was still alive but that his family held a grudge against Edward’s parents and had staged the murder to hurt them. This was confirmed in 1989 but Mpagi remained on death row for a further 11 years before finally being released. While on death row he counted 52 fellow inmates taken for execution.
To watch Mpagi Edward Edmary speaking about his experience, see http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5MXOaEzagW0

USA
Since 1976, more than 120 people have been released from US death rows on grounds of innocence. Three such cases were added to the list during 2007, and the most recent occurred this month, April 2008, when Glen Chapman walked free in North Carolina. He had spent more than a dozen years on death row for two 1992 murders before a judge granted him a retrial in 2007. On 2 April 2008, prosecutors dismissed charges against him. The 100th such case, as recorded by the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, DC, was that of Ray Krone in Arizona. He was arrested on New Year’s Eve in 1991, aged 35, for the rape and murder of a woman in Phoenix. He had no criminal record. He was convicted on circumstantial evidence and after an expert witness testified that Krone's teeth matched bite marks on the victim. Three years after he was sentenced to death, he received a new trial, but was again convicted and this time sentenced to life imprisonment. He continued to maintain his innocence and in 2001 there was a breakthrough when DNA testing excluded Krone and implicated another man as the assailant. Ray Krone was released on 8 April 2002.
To watch Ray Krone speaking about his experience, see http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz35tNT-Zt8&feature=user

CLIP - AI URGES THE ABOLITION OF THE DEATH PENALTY WORLDWIDE, NOVEMBER 2007
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jHsfGxb76A4

CLIP FROM WORLD CONGRESS AGAINST DEATH PENALTY, PARIS, FEBRUARY 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtlAorV1gg4
Comments from
Piers Bannister, Amnesty International, (in English)
Antoine Alexiev, Lawyer (in French)
Sakae Menda Exonerated death row prisoner (in Japanese)
Joaquin José Martinez, Exonerated death row prisoner (in Spanish)
Teng Biao, Lawyer (in Chinese)