Case Study

Aftab Bahadur: Child offender executed in Pakistan

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Aftab Bahadur: Child offender executed in Pakistan

“The police tortured me and then after smearing my hands with oil, put those hands around the room and thus the impressions were obtained,” Aftab Bahadur. 

Aftab Bahadur was arrested by police in Lahore on 5 September 1992 along with another man, suspected of murder.He was held in police detention for several months without access to a lawyer. Detainees in Pakistan are often held in police custody for weeks at a time and sometimes up to a year while charges are prepared. They are rarely given the chance to challenge the lawfulness of their detention before a court or seek bail. 

When Aftab Bahadur finally appeared in court in 1993, he pleaded not guilty, claiming that police had taken him to the scene of the crime and forced him to leave fingerprints. His co-defendant also claimed that he had been tortured and forced to leave fingerprints. The judge noted their claims without comment. 

Aftab Bahadur was provided with a state-appointed lawyer at trial who failed to produce any evidence or witnesses in defence of his client. State-appointed lawyers in Pakistan are often poorly trained, and may not represent their clients vigorously unless given further payments by the defendant or their family. 

Aftab Bahadur was tried before the Special Court for Speedy Trials No.2 in Lahore on 13 April 1993, convicted of murder and sentenced to death. These courts operated between 1987 and 1994 with exclusive jurisdiction over certain scheduled offences including murder and political offences – including non-violent offences – for which the death sentence could be imposed. They operated outside the regular legal system, were presided over by retired judges and allowed for appeals only to a Special Supreme Appellate Court, again outside the ordinary Supreme Court bench. Strict time limits were placed on bringing cases to trial after charges had been filed, length of hearings, and the appeal process. Although the law establishing these speedy courts was repealed in 1994 a number of people remain imprisoned following trials in these courts, some of them like Aftab Bahadur, under sentence of death.

As Aftab was aged 15 at the time of arrest – a child offender –  his death sentence was in violation of both Pakistani and international law.

Aftab Bahadur appealed against his conviction to the Supreme Appellate Court. A lawyer was again appointed by the state to represent him. His appeal application is not dated and contains simply four generic points made on one sheet of paper: that the prosecution failed to establish his guilt beyond reasonable doubt; that there was insufficient reliable evidence to convict him; that he is innocent; and that the trial court judgement was arbitrary and based on conjecture. The appeal court confirmed the conviction and sentence on 27 March 1994. A mercy petition to the President was filed by Aftab Bahadur in 2010. He was detained in a Lahore jail. 

UPDATE: 

Sadly Aftab was executed on 10 June 2015 after spending almost 23 years on death row. His case had caused international condemnation with over 18,000 messages sent to the President of Pakistan in support of Aftab. In the days preceding his execution, Aftab wrote of his life on death row; “I just received my Black Warrant. It says I will be hanged by the neck until dead on Wednesday, 10 June. I am innocent, but I do not know whether that will make any difference. During my last 22 years of my imprisonment, I have received death warrants many times. It is strange, but I cannot even tell you how many times I have been told that I am about to die”. (hyperlink to  (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/09/22-years-pakistan-death-row-what-purpose-execution)

ADPAN: When Justice Fails – Thousands executed in Asia after unfair trials, (2011), p33-34 (https://adpandotnet.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/adpan-unfair-trials-asa-010232100-final-pdf.pdf),

https://reprieve.org/cases/aftab-bahadur/ 

Aftab Bahadur: Child offender executed in Pakistan
Reza Mohammed Shah Bin Ahmad Shah: Mandatorily sentenced for drug offences in Malaysia
Hakamada Iwao: Likely fabricated evidence led to 45 years on death row in Japan
Yong Vui Kong: Lack of judicial discretion in Singapore
Leng Guoquan: Claims of torture and unfair trials in China
Devender Pal Sing: Claims of forced confession in India

JAPAN CASE STUDY: HAKAMADA IWAO

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Japan Case Study: Hakamada Iwao

Hakamada Iwao (Hakamada), born in 1936 and a former boxer, was arrested for murder in 1966. He was sentenced to death in 1968. 

Following his arrest, police subjected Hakamada to 23 days of intensive interrogation from 18 August to 9 September 1966. He was interrogated without a break for an average of 12 hours a day; on three occasions he was interrogated for over 14 hours. He confessed after 20 days, was interrogated for another three days and then charged. During this period he signed a series of documents purportedly confessing to the crime. Hakamada later signed more confessions, this time prepared by the Public Prosecutor. 

Hakamada retracted these statements at his trial, claiming that while he was detained he had been denied food and water, was not allowed to use a toilet, and was kicked and punched. In a letter to his sister he wrote: “…one of the interrogators put my thumb onto an ink-pad, drew it to the written confession record and ordered me, ‘write your name here!’, shouting at me, kicking me and wrenching my arm.” Hakamada had had only three short interviews with different defence lawyers prior to trial. 

During his trial by the Shizuoka District Court in 1968, there were numerous inconsistencies in the evidence. Judges raised concerns that purported confessions presented by the Prosecution with Hakamada’s signature were not signed voluntarily. Of these 45 documents, only one was deemed to have been signed voluntarily and the remainder were declared to be inadmissible as evidence. 

“I could not convince the other two judges that Hakamada was not guilty so I had to convict him as the decision was made by majority. Personally the fact that I had to write his judgement was against my conscience, something I still think about to this day.” Kumamoto Norimichi, Shizuoka District Court judge, 2007 

He was convicted and sentenced to death, and the conviction and sentence were upheld by the Supreme Court in 1980. 

In 2007, Kumamoto Norimichi, one of the three judges at the Shizuoka District Court that sentenced him to death in 1968, said he believed Hakamada was innocent: “Objectively the evidence for him committing this crime was almost none; however, the investigator thought from the beginning that he was guilty, so the police conducted the investigation assuming that he was responsible for the crime. He was detained and coerced into making a confession because the police had arrested him.”Kumamoto Norimichi could not convince the other two judges that Hakamada was not guilty and was forced to convict him by majority verdict, despite believing in his innocence: “I could not bear the burden of my conscience so I resigned from being a judge … I felt very guilty myself.” 

Hakamada’s defence counsel appealed for a re-trial in 1981 but the application was rejected by the Supreme Court in 1994. A second appeal for re-trial was submitted in 2008 to the Shizuoka District Court; the appeal is still pending. Protesting his innocence for over 45 years, Hakamada is one of Japan’s longest serving death row inmates. All prisoners who are sentenced to death in Japan are placed in isolation. Other than brief visits from his sister, his lawyer and a select number of supporters, Hakamada has been kept in isolation for over 30 years. He has shown signs of serious mental deterioration. 

UPDATE: In March 2014, Hakamada, then aged 77, was temporarily released by a district court in Shizuoka, who ordered a retrial on the basis that police may have fabricated evidence. This decision was overrturned in 2018 by the Toyko High Court. Hakamada has been allowed to remain home on humanitarian grounds whilst awaiting an appeal of this decision to the Supreme Court.  

ADPAN: When Justice Fails – Thousands executed in Asia after unfair trials, (2011), p27-28 (https://adpandotnet.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/adpan-unfair-trials-asa-010232100-final-pdf.pdf); UPDATE: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/21/asia/japan-death-penalty-hakamada-hnk-intl/index.html; https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/06/japan-longest-serving-death-row-inmate-deserves-retrial/ 

Aftab Bahadur: Child offender executed in Pakistan
Reza Mohammed Shah Bin Ahmad Shah: Mandatorily sentenced for drug offences in Malaysia
Hakamada Iwao: Likely fabricated evidence led to 45 years on death row in Japan
Yong Vui Kong: Lack of judicial discretion in Singapore
Leng Guoquan: Claims of torture and unfair trials in China
Devender Pal Sing: Claims of forced confession in India
 

CHINA CASE STUDY: LENG GUOQUAN

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China Case Study: Leng Guoquan

Leng Guoquan, a seafood trader, was sentenced to death on 16 December 2009 by the Dandong City Intermediate People’s Court in Liaoning province. He was charged with being a leader of a criminal gang engaged in smuggling and trafficking drugs. His conviction followed an unfair trial, and was based on his confession and testimonies from witnesses who have either subsequently retracted their statements or say they were tortured into testifying against him. 

Leng Guoquan himself has always denied the charges and says he confessed because he was tortured. Detained on 19 January 2009, Leng Guoquan said he was tortured for three days and three nights while being interrogated by a special police unit. Three police officers bound his hands behind his back. They pushed his head between his legs and punched him. Later, they lit one end of a tube of rolled paper and stuffed the other end into his nose, covering his mouth until he was forced to breathe in the fire. Since January 2009, Leng Guoquan has been interrogated and tortured several more times. 

Leng Guoquan has been held at the Fengcheng County Detention Centre since 2009. He was first registered under a false name (Chen Dong), apparently in an attempt to prevent his lawyer and family from finding out where he was held. Since discovering his location, his family have not been allowed to visit him. His family have appointed four different lawyers to represent him. The judicial authorities forced the first one to resign after he took pictures of Leng Guoquan’s scars which he said were a result of torture, while the second and third were denied access to him. The fourth lawyer eventually gained access and met him before his first trial. This lawyer filed a complaint with the Dandong City Procuratorate in July 2009 claiming that his client had been tortured in custody and calling for an investigation. 

In August 2010, the Liaoning Provincial Procuratorate concluded that the allegations of torture were unfounded. At the trial, Leng Guoquan’s lawyer had no chance to cross-examine key witnesses. Those who did testify retracted their previous statements. Leng Guoquan’s co-defendant said that he had been tortured into confessing. Another witness also said that he had given the police false information. The prosecution did not provide any material evidence to support witness statements (which were subsequently withdrawn) that claimed he was guilty. 

At his appeal hearing on 7 December 2010 at the Liaoning Provincial Higher People’s Court, Leng Guoquan showed the court the scars on his head, wrists and legs he said were inflicted through torture. Of 56 witnesses called by the defence, only three were heard by the court. On 6 May 2011, the Liaoning court sent Leng Guoquan’s case back to the Dandong City Intermediate People’s Court for re-trial due to “lack of clarity about the facts” and “lack of evidence.” The re-trial took place on 10 October 2011. 

ADPAN: When Justice Fails – Thousands executed in Asia after unfair trials, (2011), p25 (https://adpandotnet.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/adpan-unfair-trials-asa-010232100-final-pdf.pdf) 

Aftab Bahadur: Child offender executed in Pakistan
Reza Mohammed Shah Bin Ahmad Shah: Mandatorily sentenced for drug offences in Malaysia
Hakamada Iwao: Likely fabricated evidence led to 45 years on death row in Japan
Yong Vui Kong: Lack of judicial discretion in Singapore
Leng Guoquan: Claims of torture and unfair trials in China
Devender Pal Sing: Claims of forced confession in India

MALAYSIA CASE STUDY: REZA MOHAMMED SHAH BIN AHMAD SHAH

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Malaysia Case Study: Reza Mohammed Shah Bin Ahmad Shah

Reza Mohammed Shah Bin Ahmad Shah, known as Reza Shah, was arrested by police on the evening of 14 August 2000 in a squatter neighbourhood outside Kuala Lumpur. Police said he was carrying a plastic bag which he threw away when they called out to him. Police located the plastic bag and said it contained almost 800g of cannabis. Reza Shah denied any knowledge of the bag’s contents and stated in court that the police had beaten him to force him to reveal its location. 

After arrest, Reza Shah was held at Brickfields Police District Headquarters, a police station which has been the subject of repeated allegations of torture and other ill-treatment. Reza Shah was detained pending trial for two years and finally tried in August 2002. He was found guilty by the High Court of Kuala Lumpur of possessing 795.3g of cannabis under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952….

In the case of Reza Shah, once the trial court found that he possessed drugs in the alleged quantities, the law as it stood at that time left the court with no discretion but to convict him of trafficking and then to hand down the mandatory death sentence. 

In 2006, the Putrajaya Appeal Court overturned the trial court’s verdict. It held that the prosecution had not proved that Reza Shah had knowledge of the bag’s contents. It convicted him for possession of drugs only but not of trafficking, and sentenced him to a jail term of 18 years and 10 strokes of the cane. In January 2009, the Federal Court overturned the Appeal Court’s judgement in response to an appeal by the prosecution, concluding that Reza Shah had failed to prove that he was not guilty of drug trafficking. It reinstated the death sentence. Reza Shah has exhausted all his legal avenues for appeal. He has since appealed to the King to commute his sentence. A decision is pending. 

ADPAN: When Justice Fails – Thousands executed in Asia after unfair trials, (2011), p22 (https://adpandotnet.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/adpan-unfair-trials-asa-010232100-final-pdf.pdf) 

Aftab Bahadur: Child offender executed in Pakistan
Reza Mohammed Shah Bin Ahmad Shah: Mandatorily sentenced for drug offences in Malaysia
Hakamada Iwao: Likely fabricated evidence led to 45 years on death row in Japan
Yong Vui Kong: Lack of judicial discretion in Singapore
Leng Guoquan: Claims of torture and unfair trials in China
Devender Pal Sing: Claims of forced confession in India
 

SINGAPORE CASE STUDY: YONG VUI KONG

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Singapore Case Study: Yong Vui Kong

“When we say mandatory death sentence it means basically judges don’t have discretion. Just close your eyes… and execute. Don’t have to look at the person’s background and all that.” M. Ravi, Yong Vui Kong’s lawyer.

Yong Vui Kong, a Malaysian man, was arrested in Singapore in 2007, aged 19, for possessing 47g of heroin. Yong had dropped out of school early and had turned to petty crime as a way of earning money. At that time, under Singapore’s Misuse of Drugs Act, anyone found guilty of possessing more than 15g of heroin is presumed to be guilty of drug trafficking, for which the death penalty is mandatory. As Yong was not able to counter this presumption, the High Court convicted him in 2008 and he was sentenced to death. The court had no discretion to consider mitigating circumstances or pass a lesser sentence. 

Lawyers filed an appeal against his conviction but Yong withdrew it in April 2009, saying that he had embraced Buddhism and wanted to acknowledge his crime. Yong petitioned Singapore’s president for clemency on the basis of his youth but this was rejected in November 2009. 

Yong’s lawyer, M. Ravi, appealed against Yong’s sentence by challenging the constitutionality of the mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking and seeking judicial review of the clemency process. But in May 2010, the Court of Appeal rejected the appeal. This was the third time it had rejected such a challenge since 1980. The Court ruled that the right to life in the Singapore Constitution did not imply a ban on inhuman punishment. It rejected the argument that customary international law prohibits mandatory death sentences as an inhuman punishment or a violation of the right to life. 

The application for judicial review of the clemency process had argued that the power to grant pardon had been prejudiced by public comments about the case made by the Law Minister, thereby undermining accepted principles of procedural fairness. This was dismissed by the High Court in August 2010. The Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal against the High Court’s decision in April 2011, clearing the way for Yong’s execution. The President can only exercise clemency following advice from the Cabinet and thus has little discretion in granting pardons. Clemency for a death sentence in Singapore has reportedly been granted only six times since independence in 1965. 

UPDATE: 

On 14 November 2013, Yong became the first person on Singapore’s death row to have their sentence reduced to life imprisonment and caning under the 2012 amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act. 

ADPAN: When Justice Fails – Thousands executed in Asia after unfair trials, (2011), p19-20 (https://adpandotnet.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/adpan-unfair-trials-asa-010232100-final-pdf.pdf) 

Aftab Bahadur: Child offender executed in Pakistan
Reza Mohammed Shah Bin Ahmad Shah: Mandatorily sentenced for drug offences in Malaysia
Hakamada Iwao: Likely fabricated evidence led to 45 years on death row in Japan
Yong Vui Kong: Lack of judicial discretion in Singapore
Leng Guoquan: Claims of torture and unfair trials in China
Devender Pal Sing: Claims of forced confession in India

INDIA CASE STUDY: DEVENDER PAL SINGH

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India Case Study: Devender Pal Singh

“It is for the accused to show and satisfy the court that the confessional statement was not made voluntarily,” Supreme Court response to Devender Pal Singh’s allegations of torture, March 2002. 

Devender Pal Singh (also known as Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar) was arrested by police at New Delhi’s international airport in January 1995 for travelling on false documents. In December 1991, his father and uncle had been abducted and killed by Punjab police (for which a number of police officials have since been indicted) looking for Devender Pal Singh in connection with a bomb attack carried out in support of an independent Sikh state in Punjab. He attempted to flee to Canada in 1994 after hearing that he was wanted by Punjab police in connection with terrorist offences, but was arrested in transit at Frankfurt airport and applied for asylum in Germany. His application was rejected and he was returned to India where he was immediately arrested at the airport. 

Police claim that following his arrest at New Delhi airport, Devender Pal Singh confessed to being involved in a 1993 bomb attack in Delhi that killed nine people – a statement which was made when he was first detained and had no access to a lawyer. Devender Pal Singh later retracted the confession, stating that he had been “physically manhandled, threatened with encounter extinction [extrajudicial execution] and was forced to sign several blank papers”. He filed a petition with the Supreme Court which refers to “coercion and torture” in extracting the alleged confession. In his statement to the Supreme Court, Devender Pal Singh said that on the way to the magistrates’ court hearing, “he was told that if he made any statement to the Court [about being tortured], he would be handed over to Punjab Police who would kill him in an encounter.” 

Devender Pal Singh was tried under the 1987 Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), a law which lapsed in 1995 following widespread criticism from national and international human rights organizations because it had been misused to arbitrarily arrest, detain and torture thousands of people. Despite its lapse, prosecutions under the Act continue against people suspected of terrorist offences committed prior to 1995. The only evidence against Devender Pal Singh was his retracted confession. 

Under ordinary Indian law, confessions are admissible as evidence only if they are made before a judicial magistrate; those made to the police are not. TADA, however, made confessions to police admissible at trial. Devender Pal Singh was taken before a judicial magistrate who was supposed to verify whether his confession was made voluntarily. However, the judicial magistrate asked only one question – whether the statement was recorded on the particular date. The magistrate did not actually see the statement, and allowed police officials to be present during the hearing.

In August 2001, a special TADA court convicted Devender Pal Singh of committing a terrorist act resulting in death, conspiracy to murder and various other offences and sentenced him to death. Ordinarily, all death sentences passed by a trial court are reviewed automatically by a High Court, with a possibility of further appeal to the Supreme Court, but under TADA, appeal is only to the Supreme Court. The conviction and death sentence were confirmed by the Supreme Court in March 2002. However, one of the three judges found Devender Pal Singh not guilty, concluding that there was no evidence to convict him and that a dubious confession could not be the basis for awarding a death sentence. A further review petition was dismissed by the same Supreme Court judges, again by a 2 to 1 majority, in December 2002. A clemency petition to the Indian President was rejected in May 2011 but on 23 August 2011 the Supreme Court admitted a petition seeking to commute the sentence because of the President’s delayed rejection of the mercy plea.”

UPDATE: In January 2014, the Supreme Court of India permitted Bhullar’s curative plea seeking to commute his death sentence to life imprisoment. On 31 March 2014, the bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Sathasivam, commuted Bhullar’s death sentence to life Imprisonment on the grounds of inordinate delay in deciding his mercy petition and his diagnosed schizophrenia. 

ADPAN: When Justice Fails – Thousands executed in Asia after unfair trials, (2011), p17-18 (https://adpandotnet.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/adpan-unfair-trials-asa-010232100-final-pdf.pdf) 

Aftab Bahadur: Child offender executed in Pakistan
Reza Mohammed Shah Bin Ahmad Shah: Mandatorily sentenced for drug offences in Malaysia
Hakamada Iwao: Likely fabricated evidence led to 45 years on death row in Japan
Yong Vui Kong: Lack of judicial discretion in Singapore
Leng Guoquan: Claims of torture and unfair trials in China
Devender Pal Sing: Claims of forced confession in India