LEBANON RESUMES CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
VATICAN CITY, JAN. 19, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Lebanon's
decision to resume capital punishment after a five-year moratorium
has drawn international criticism, according to Vatican Radio. The
first three death sentences were carried out Saturday in a prison in
Beirut. The offenders-Ahmed Mansour, Badie Hamadeh and Remi Zaatar-were
executed at dawn at Roumieh prison, Vatican Radio reported that day.
Mansour, found guilty of murdering eight of his colleagues in a
department of the Ministry of Education in July 2002, was hanged.
Hamadeh and Zaatar were shot. Hamadeh, also known as Abu Obeida, was
believed to be a member of an extremist Muslim group Osbat al-Ansar,
with headquarters in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el Helu,
the largest in Lebanon, located on the outskirts of Sidon. On July
12, 2002, Hamadeh attacked a group of members of the Information
Services of the Lebanese Army, who were trying to arrest him near
Ain el Helu, killing two officials and a soldier, for which he was
sentenced to death. Zaatar was condemned for killing two members of
the civil defense and a Syrian officer on July 1, 2000. These were
the first executions to be carried out since Emile Lahud took office
as president of Lebanon in 1998
The Catholic position on Capital Punishment.
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Human rights advocates decried on Friday the planned
executions of three men, holding sit-ins in front of the Parliament
building and an overnight vigil outside Roumieh Prison where the
death sentences will be carried out on Saturday morning.
About 150 people demonstrated for an hour in Nijmeh Square on
Friday, then walked toward Riad al-Solh, where they performed a
so-called die-in, falling on the ground and feigning death. Military
and security forces barred visitors from entering the area and
closed down all restaurants in the vicinity.
The demonstrators, many of whom were members of Amnesty
International were carrying black flags and banners with slogans
such as “Don’t make their same mistake,” and “An eye for an eye and
a tooth for a tooth leaves us all toothless and blind.”
Imad Mortada, who calls himself an independent leftist activist,
said, “How can he (Hariri) tolerate that people are being executed?”
Mortada added that he felt sympathy for the families of the victims
but that he was categorically against any death penalty. “The people
who committed these crimes are victims of the social system in
Lebanon. They shouldn’t punish the outcome, but treat the causes of
such deeds.”
Mortada also said he believed that many Lebanese felt this way.
“We are here to say that this is not being done in the name of the
Lebanese people.”
Ghassan Makarem, a member of the group Hurriyat Khasa (civil
rights), pointed out that the choice of who would be executed was
made along sectarian lines. “One is Sunni, one Shia and one
Christian. This is not a coincidence.”
The demonstration was organized by The National Campaign to
Eliminate the Death Penalty, The Forum for Human Dignity in the
Penal Code and Amnesty International, which strongly urged President
Emile Lahoud to use his powers to halt Saturday’s executions.
In a Friday press release, Amnesty International urged the president
to take the necessary steps to commute the death sentences that have
been handed down to Ahmad Mansour, Badih Walid Hamade and Remi
Antoine Zaatar, the three slated for execution on Saturday.
“The finality and cruelty inherent in the death penalty, and the
lack of evidence showing it to be a deterrent to violent crimes,
make it an inappropriate and unacceptable response to crime,” the
press release said.
The executions are due to take place at Roumieh prison at 5am.
Mansour, who was convicted of killing eight people at the Private
School Teachers’ Pension Fund in August 2002, will be executed by
hanging. Hamade, who was accused of killing three army intelligence
personnel in July 2002 in Sidon, and Zaatar, who murdered two Civil
Defense members, will be executed by a firing squad.
An unknown assailant threw a bomb Friday night at a crossroad that
leads to Mansour’s southern village, Loubieh. No one was hurt.
Saturday’s planned executions will be the first to be carried out
during Lahoud’s term, despite pressure from the European Union,
which wants Lebanon to abolish capital punishment in order to meet
conditions set by Euro-Med agreements signed with Lebanon. Lahoud
signed the final execution decrees on Jan. 14, following approval by
Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and Justice Minister Bahij Tabbara.
Meanwhile, six decrees were issued Friday reducing the sentences of
six other prisoners from the death penalty to imprisonment with hard
labor. The six are accused of intentional murder rather than
premeditated murder.
President of the Higher Judicial Council, Magistrate Tanios Khoury,
told the National News Agency that a premeditated murder was “any
crime committed with previous planning” while intentional murder was
the result of “immediate circumstances without previous planning.”
State Prosecutor Adnan Addoum authorized Mansour’s wife, his sister
and her husband and Hamade’s mother and sisters to see both men on
the eve of their execution.
The execution will be attended by a member of the Judicial Council,
Magistrate Mukhtar Saad, representing the State Prosecutor’s office;
Brigadier Samir Rahme, Mount Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces
commander; the warden of Roumieh Prison and security officers; and
the three men’s lawyers.
After the execution, the bodies will be taken to the nearest
hospital before being handed over to the parents.
Before the execution, two Muslim sheikhs will write Mansour and
Hamade’s wills, while a Christian cleric will write Zaatar’s.
According to Amnesty International, the organization has great
sympathy for the families of the murder victims, but executing the
three men will do little to alleviate the families’ suffering.
“Beams of hope lit by a de facto five-year moratorium on the death
penalty have been dimmed by Lebanon’s decision to kill these men,” a
press release issued by the organization said. “Their lives and
those of 24 others under sentence of death, whose fate may well be
similar, are now at the gravest risk imaginable, and no effort
should be spared to save them.”
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all
circumstances, and considers it to be a violation of the right of
life and the right to be protected from cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment.
A sit-in was also held Friday by the National Campaign for the
Abolition of the Death Penalty. The sit-in will continue until
Saturday. A statement issued by the campaign said the sit-in would
be held under the theme of absolute refusal of the death penalty,
and solidarity with the condemned and their parents and with the
victims’ parents. The statement said participants would wave black
flags and candles and wear black clothes.
The Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues
also “expressed its deepest concern” at the planned executions. It
called on authorities to commute all death sentences and abolish the
death penalty. The federation brings together rights groups from
across the world and is an advisory body to the United Nations.
Meanwhile the Forum of Human Dignity in the Penal Code issued a
statement denouncing the executions.
“What’s the point of re-implementing the death penalty in the
present situation?” the statement said.
“Is it to appeal to people’s instincts … while work should be done
to appeal to their minds and develop the feelings of tolerance?”
With agencies
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/17_01_04/art1.asp
