Saudi has amended its criminal law, thanks to which, a death sentence will have to be unanimously agreed upon by all the judges involved in the case before it is passed.
Even as Saudi Arabia carried out its 1st execution of the year on Monday, January 11, 2010, the kingdom's Shura Council passed a legislation amending the procedure for passing the death sentence in the country. The amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law states that the death sentence can only be meted out if it is approved unanimously by the judges, reports Gulf News. Currently, the law says that a majority vote from the judges is adequate to pass the death sentence.
The amendment also states that lower court verdicts awarding the death penalty or sentences dealing with the severing of hands or similar punishments will not be carried out without a verdict from the Supreme Court, says the report.
Although there has been opposition from some members about the validity of the new amendment, it was approved by the majority of the council, the report says.
According to the sharia law enforced in the kingdom, courts can enforce the death penalty for cases involving rape, murder, armed robbery and drug trafficking. In 2009, 67 people were executed, as compared to 102 people in 2008 and 153 people in 2007. Most of the deaths in the kingdom are carried out by beheading.
Saudi Arabia has been under pressure from western governments and human rights bodies to abolish the death sentence in the country. Earlier this month, the Saudi Supreme Court revoked the death sentence of 2 young men charged with the murder of a 19-year-old during a school fight in Jeddah in 2007. The death sentence was passed by two lower courts before reaching the Supreme Court.
The case caught international attention because one of the two accused, 24-year-old Mohammed Kohail, is a Canadian citizen, and authorities from Canada urged Saudi officials to reconsider the case. Kohail's younger brother Sultan, who is also accused in the case, is still awaiting trial.
"Canada is very pleased to confirm that the death sentence against Mohammed Kohail has been revoked and that a retrial has been ordered," Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said in a statement.
"The government of Canada has repeatedly raised the cases of Sultan and Mohammed Kohail directly with senior Saudi ministers, and this case remains a priority for our government," he added.
Saudi's Supreme Court has now ordered a new judicial committee to be formed to look into the case and re-issue a verdict.
Another recent case that had human rights activists up in arms was that of a Lebanese man, Ali Sibat, who was given the death sentence in November last year after being convicted of practicing witchcraft. New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that Sibat was arrested during a pilgrimage in Medina in 2008 because he made psychic predictions on a Lebanese TV channel.
"Saudi courts are sanctioning a literal witch hunt by the religious police," Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of HRW said in a statement. "The crime of 'witchcraft' is being used against all sorts of behavior, with the cruel threat of state-sanctioned executions."
Sibat's lawyer told Amnesty International that "interrogators told him to write down what he did for a living, reassuring him that if he did so, he would be allowed to go home after a few weeks. This document was presented in court as a 'confession' and used to convict."
The organization is currently collecting petitions to send out to various Saudi officials including King Abdullah, to revoke his sentence.
There are many more cases like Sibat's. According to Amnesty International, there are at least 140 people are currently on death row in the kingdom, of whom 104 are foreign nationals. The actual numbers could be much higher, it says.
"Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty for a wide range of offences, including some with no lethal consequences. Court proceedings fall far short of international standards for fair trial. Defendants are rarely allowed formal representation by a lawyer, and in many cases are not informed of the progress of legal proceedings against them. They may be convicted solely on the basis of confessions obtained under duress or deception," the body said in a report late last year.
Source: Kipp Report, January 25, 2010
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