DEATH PENALTY MARCH 1998 NEWS AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL 1 Easton Street AI Index: ACT 53/02/98 London WC1X 8DJ Distribution: SC/DP/PO/CO/GR United Kingdom A SUMMARY OF EVENTS ON THE DEATH PENALTY AND MOVES TOWARDS WORLDWIDE ABOLITION AZERBAIJAN AND ESTONIA ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY Early into the new year, two more countries have Since 1993 AI has recorded 144 death sentences abolished the death penalty, bringing to 63 the including one in 1998. worldwide total of countries which are It is expected that the 128 people abolitionist for all crimes. currently under sentence of death will have their On 22 January President Haydar Aliev of sentences commuted to 15 to 20 years’ Azerbaijan announced his intention of imprisonment. In future, penalties of life abolishing the death penalty. “I believe that imprisonment or imprisonment for 20 to 25 years strengthening the struggle against crime in itself will be applied for those 11 offences which will reduce the number of criminal actions. At carried a possible death sentence at the time of the same time humanization of our policy of abolition. These include treason, premeditated, punishment will also create among the people a aggravated murder and aggravated rape. healthy attitude toward violations and crimes”, Azerbaijan currently has observer status he said. at the Council of Europe. It has applied to On 10 February the country’s parliament become a full member. agreed by 104 votes to three to adopt the President’s proposal to abolish the death penalty On 18 March the Estonian Parliament for all crimes. The relevant law came into force (Riigikogu) voted to ratify Protocol No. 6 to the with its publication in the presidential gazette on European Convention for the Protection of 21 February. Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms A moratorium on capital punishment had (European Convention on Human Rights). This been in force since June 1993. In 1996 the protocol provides for the abolition of the death number of articles in the Criminal Code penalty except in time of war or imminent threat punishable by death was reduced from 33 to 12 of war. Estonia had signed Protocol No. 6 in and the death penalty was abolished for women 1993 upon its accession to the Council of and for men over the age of 65. In August 1997 Europe. the Chairman of the Supreme Court publicly The decision to ratify the protocol was expressed his support for abolition of the death adopted by a vote of 39 in favour and 30 penalty. against. The effect of the vote was to abolish the In January the President stated that death death penalty for all crimes. Following the vote, sentences had been carried out on five people in Foreign Minister Toomas Hendrik Ilves said: 1988, six in 1989 and three in 1990. No further “Estonia has made another important step death sentences had been carried out until 1993, towards recognising common European values”. he stated, when eight people were executed. Death Penalty News March 1998 1 In December 1996 the parliament had defeated by 39 votes to seven. According to the introduced life imprisonment as an alternative to Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, death capital punishment under the criminal code (see sentences continued to be imposed throughout DP News June 1997), although a proposal to 1997. The last execution was in 1991. abolish the death penalty at that time was GUATEMALA’S FIRST government to send a delegation to the United States to study the more “modern” method of LETHAL INJECTION execution by lethal injection. EXECUTION “BOTCHED” Some 15 prisoners are currently under Manuel Martínez Coronado, an impoverished sentence of death. peasant farmer of indigenous descent, was SOUTH KOREA EXECUTES executed by lethal injection on 10 February after a series of last-minute legal appeals were 23 rejected by the Guatemalan judiciary. The government had also failed to respond to a On 30 December 1997, 23 people were hanged request from the Inter-American Commission on in prisons in the capital, Seoul, and the cities of Human Rights for the execution to be suspended Taegu, Pusan, Taejon and Kwangju. The 18 until it could consider whether the proceedings men and five women were executed without which convicted Martínez Coronado met the advance warning and the families of the standards set forth in the American Convention prisoners were not informed prior to the on Human Rights, to which Guatemala is a party. executions. These were the first executions Martínez Coronado, who was the first person to since November 1995 when 19 persons were be executed in Guatemala by lethal injection, had executed in one day. been found guilty of multiple homicide carried In November 1996 South Korea’s out in 1995 in the context of a family land Constitutional Court ruled that the death penalty dispute. was constitutional and a “necessary evil” but that it should only be used in exceptional cases. The execution was broadcast live; radio However, the court also said that the death and television audiences could hear the penalty retains an aspect of institutional murder condemned man’s three children and their and for this reason debate surrounding its use mother sobbing in the lethal injection chamber’s should continue. The court said that the death observation room as the execution took place. penalty should be abolished in the future, when Although the authorities had claimed that it is no longer needed as a criminal deterrent. execution would be painless and “over in 30 seconds”, Martínez Coronado took 18 minutes to DEVELOPMENTS IN THE die. Witnesses present in the observation room USA reported that the executioners had trouble finding a vein into which to insert the injection. Human Rights Procurator Julio Arango said: “I Iowa think we all have the obligation to tell what happened: his arms were bleeding heavily. I The legislature of the state of Iowa will not think everyone who was there was suffering.” debate or vote upon reinstatement of the death penalty during its 1998 session. Proponents of Between 1983 and 1996 a de facto the death penalty decided in February to drop moratorium on executions was in place. their plans for a full debate because of lack of However, in response to a rising crime rate support. Governor Terry Branstad described the Guatemala extended the range of crimes for opposition to the death penalty as “strong and which the death penalty could be applied. organised” but said he believed that Guatemala’s first execution in 13 years, carried reintroduction was “a matter of time”. out by firing squad in September 1996, was televised live (see DP News September 1996). Texas Executes First Woman since The revulsion engendered in viewers moved the 1860s Death Penalty News March 1998 2 ___________________________________________________________________________ Karla Faye Tucker, who was convicted in 1984 punishment was not a “prudent culmination for a of killing two people with a pickaxe, was criminal justice system which is human and executed by lethal injection on 3 February. She therefore fallible”. is the second woman to be executed in the United States since the US Supreme Court ruled BOSNIAN COURT RULING in 1976 that the death penalty was constitutional and the first woman to be executed in Texas ABOLISHES DEATH PENALTY since 1863. Karla Faye Tucker IN PEACETIME gained worldwide publicity because of her apparent rehabilitation and conversion to Meeting on 5 September 1997, the Human Christianity; she also earned support from a Rights Chamber of the Human Rights brother and sister of the victims as well as a Commission for Bosnia and Herzegovina juror from her trial. Despite appeals for decided in the case of Damjanovic vs. Bosnia commutation from Pope John Paul II, the and Herzegovina that provision for the death European Parliament and others, the Texas penalty in peacetime is incompatible with the Board of Pardons and Parole did not recommend Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina commutation of her death sentence, nor did (Article II, paragraph 4 of which provides for the Governor George W. Bush order a stay of enjoyment of the rights and freedoms in a series execution. of international agreements, including the Following the execution of Karla Faye Second Optional Protocol to the International Tucker, Mary Robinson, the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, the abolition of the death penalty). The ruling issued a statement on 4 February in which she also makes clear that the imposition of a death said that “The increasing use of the death penalty sentence or the carrying out of an execution for a in the United States and in a number of other crime committed in peacetime would violate the states is a matter of serious concern and runs General Framework Agreement for Peace in counter to the international community’s Bosnia and Herzegovina, Article 1 of which expressed desire for the abolition of the death provides that Bosnia and Herzegovina will penalty.” She added: “I have full sympathy for secure the rights provided in a series of the families of the victims of murder and other international agreements including Protocol No. crimes but I do not accept that one death justifies 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights another.” concerning the abolition of the death penalty. The appellant, Sretko Damjanovic, had UNITED KINGDOM - MURDER been sentenced to death by a military court in 1993 for genocide and war crimes against the CONVICTION OF HANGED civilian population. The Human Rights Chamber MAN QUASHED ruled that the Criminal Law did not define these crimes with sufficient precision to satisfy the Nearly 46 years after Mahmood Hussein Mattan restriction of the death penalty under Protocol was hanged for murder in Cardiff, Wales, his No.