The execution of three men in the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip illustrates ongoing failures in the justice system to ensure a rigorous fair trial process, Amnesty International said after three murder convicts were hanged on Tuesday.
Gaza has recently seen a significant increase in executions, with three other hangings this year. At least 14 have been executed by Hamas since 2010.
“The hanging of these men is a deeply disappointing episode in the short history of Hamas’ de facto control of the Gaza Strip,” said Ann Harrison, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and Africa.
“Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases but at least one of those executed yesterday was sentenced to death after proceedings which failed to meet international fair trial standards.
“When individuals face the ultimate sanction, it is all the more necessary that trial proceedings are scrupulously fair.”
Twenty-one-year-old Na'el Jamal Qandil Doghmosh, one of the three executed, was sentenced to death for murder in April 2011. His final appeal was rejected by Gaza’s highest legal body, the Court of Cassation in May this year.
According to his family, Doghmosh “confessed” under torture by police investigators after he was arrested in May 2010. When his family was able to visit him two months later, his nails had been torn out and he had burns and bruises on his body. more
This is an eyeopener that executions and capital punishment has no place in a harmonious society.
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