"Attorney General Ramesh Maharaj has indicated that he is "studying the route taken by Jamaica" on the whole issue of the plans to be put in place for prisoners on Death Row.
 Jamaica last October announced its planned withdrawal as a member of the United Nations Committee on Human Rights in order to deal with delays in carrying out the death penalty.  Trinidad and Tobago is a member of the UN Committee and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Recourse to these institutions is routinely employed by Death Row prisoners attempting to escape the hangman's noose.
But Maharaj has been complaining that petitions to both institutions have been used as a way of beating a two-year limit on executions following any conviction."

     By Peter Richards

     PORT OF SPAIN, Apr 6 (IPS) - Four years after it came to power promising to be
     tough on crime, the government of Prime Minister Basdeo Panday is once again getting
     ready to execute its first set of convicted murderers. The ruling United National
     Congress (UNC) had campaigned on the slogan "If you do the crime, you will do the
     time", in a bid to curtail the crime wave here.
     Ninety-four persons were murdered last year and just last weekend another four persons
     were killed.
     And while its term in office so far has not seen the promised "drastic reduction" in crime,
     there is every likelihood that the country's first execution since Jul 14, 1994 is only a few
     weeks away.
     There are 110 persons on Death Row here and in June last year, Attorney General and
     former human rights advocate Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj told the media that there
     would be an execution in Trinidad and Tobago later that month.
     That prediction never materialised but 10 months on the Court of Appeal here has all but
     cleared the way for the execution of Dole Chadee and his notorious gang of eight,
     convicted in 1996 for the murder of four members of a family. The nine men have
     already lost appeals before the London-based Privy Council and the Inter-American
     Human Rights Committee (IACHR) and the United Nations Human Rights Committee
     (UNHRC).
     The Panday administration has withdrawn its support for the IACHR and the UNHRC.
     The government complained that petitions to both institutions have been used as a way of
     beating a two-year limit on executions following any conviction.
     The deadline was imposed by the Privy Council which, in a number of judgments
     including the landmark Pratt and Morgan appeal, described inordinate delays in carrying
     out the death sentence as being cruel and inhumane.
     The Council back in 1994 commuted to life imprisonment, the death sentences of
     Jamaicans Earl Pratt and Ivan Morgan, saying spending more than five years on Death
     Row was enough punishment. Meanwhile, death warrants were read to Chadee and his
     gang in November last year.
     In dismissing their constitutional motion on the grounds of deplorable prison conditions, the
     local law Lords on Apr 1, gave the convicted men 10 days to obtain a stay of execution
     from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
     But the nine men will take no comfort in going before the Privy Council, which on Mar 17
     dismissed a similar argument about prison conditions by convicted killers Darrin Thomas
     and Haniff Hillaire.
     Attorneys for convicted murderers, Hilllaire and Thomas had claimed in a petition before
     the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council that their clients had been "detained in
     cramped and foul- smelling cells and were deprived of exercise or access to the open air
     for long periods of time".
     The Council ruled that even though such conditions were in breach of prison regulations it
     did not follow that they amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.
     Before the Court of Appeal ruling was handed down, Chadee himself seemed almost
     resigned to facing the hangman.
     "We talked about the case, mostly he told me he was very worried. All we did was talk
     about the case that day. He continues to pray?like he always does," his wife Chandra told
     a local newspaper. The Privy Council is on recess until Apr 14, but Maharaj says the
     state is moving to have the British Law Lords hear Chadee's new application for a stay
     of execution "as fast as possible". Informed legal sources say that the matter is likely to
     be heard on Apr 19, and is not expected to last more than a day, with a ruling given soon
     afterwards.
     But Chadee's wife believes that there are ulterior motives to Maharaj's quest to have the
     executions carried out "as soon as possible." "They insist they must use him as an
     example. I can't understand why. What are they trying to prove," she says.
     The government has already moved to acquire the lavish 46.5 hectare estate that Chadee
     had built on state lands in the rural village of Piparo in south Trinidad . The estate is to be
     used as a Drug Rehabilitation Centre. There is provision for the state to seize assets of a
     convicted drug trafficker under the amended 1991 Dangerous Drugs Act.
     (END/IPS/pr/cb/99) 

IF GOVERNMENT ignores recommendations made by the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights (IACHR), then convicted killer Anthony Briggs will be next in line to be hanged.
The IACHR had on March 25 recommended that Briggs be paid compensation or be considered
for an early release or commutation of his death sentence. The Mercy Committee will take this
recommendation into consideration.
Briggs does not have any cases pending before any court. His last, a constitutional motion, was
withdrawn by attorney Douglas Mendes on May 28 before Justice Amrika Tiwary.
The motion was a class action which claimed that death by hanging was cruel and unusual. Had it
succeeded it would have applied to all convicted killers and execution by hanging would have been
abolished.
But a similar motion filed on behalf of convicted killer Dole Chadee and his gang of eight was
dismissed by the Privy Council on May 19. Chadee and his gang were executed on Friday, Saturday
and yesterday.
Briggs had been granted a stay by Justice of Appeal Jean Permanand on August 27 last year
pending the Privy Council decision in the constitutional motions of convicted killers Darren Thomas
and Haniff Hillaire. That decision was given in March this year.
Briggs' stay of execution was removed by the Appeal Court on May 20. Briggs, a mechanic of Pinto
Road, Arima, and Wenceslaus James were sentenced to hang on June 21, 1996 for murdering
23-year-old Arima taxi driver Shammi Ramkissoon on August 8, 1992. James' case is yet to be
determined by the IACHR.
Last August 29, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered Trinidad to take all measures
necessary to preserve the lives of James, Briggs, Anderson Noel, Anthony Garcia, Christopher
Bethel, Darren Thomas, Haniff Hillaire and Denny Baptiste.
Trinidad was also required to report every 15 days from September 1, last year on the status of
appeals and scheduled executions on the men. The commission would in turn send its observations
on these reports to the court within two days of their receipt.
The list of names was expanded by the commission to include the following convicted killers whose
cases are yet to be determined: Wilberforce Bernard, Naresh Boodram, Clarence Charles, Phillip
Chotolal, George Constantine, Rodney Davis, Natasha De Leon, Mervyn Edmund, Alfred
Frederick, Nigel Mark, Wayne Matthews, Steve Mungroo, Vijay Mungroo, Wilson Prince, Martin
Reid, Noel Seepersad, Gangadeen Tahaloo, Keiron Thomas and Samuel Winchester. 

Trinidad and Tobago hanged 3 killers on Monday, the last executions in an unprecedented series of nine over four days that marked the Caribbean nation's resumption of capital punishment.
Joel Ramsingh, Stephen Eversley and Bhagwandeen Singh were put to death within 3 hours started at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT) at the Royal Jail in Port of Spain, Prison Commissioner Cipriani Baptiste said.
Denying local media reports that some of the 9 killers had been taken to the gallows kicking and screaming, Baptiste said all of the men went to their deaths peacefully.
Defying years of pressure from former colonial master Britain to end capital punishment, Trinidad began the executions on Friday, sending gang leader Dole Chadee to the gallows.
It was the first execution in the southern Caribbean nation in 5 years.
One of Trinidad and Tobago's most notorious criminals, Chadee was a reputed drug lord who was never convicted of a drug crime. But he and 8 members of his gang were convicted of the brutal 1994 shootings deaths of a family of 4 at their home in Williamsville, in central Trinidad.
A large crowd gathered outside the jail Monday for news of the hangings. Trinidadians overwhelmingly favour capital punishment as a deterrent to rising crime.
There were few protesters during the 3 days of executions. But on Monday, abolitionist Ishmael Samad, who has waged a long campaign against execution, was joined outside the jail by several Catholic nuns.
"No human life, no matter how wretched, is without worth,'' Sister Theresa DeAlva said. "(The men) are still human beings, children of God.''
The 9 men, sentenced to death in 1996 for the killings, were hanged after failing in a lengthy battle to get the local courts and the British Privy Council, the final court of appeal for many former and current British territories, to commute their sentences to life in prison.
During trial, state prosecutors said Chadee gave orders to the gang to kill Hamilton Baboolal, suggesting Baboolal was a member of the drug gang but wanted out. Baboolal's father Deo, his mother Rookmin and sister Monica also were shot to death.
Along with Chadee, gang members Joey Ramiah and Ramkhelawan Singh also were executed Friday. Clive Thomas, Robin Gopaul and Russel Sankerali were hanged Saturday.
The executed men were buried at Happy Valley cemetery in the compound of the Golden Grove prison, 15 miles (24 km) east of Port of Spain.
Their executions took place despite a last-minute plea by Amnesty International, which sent a petition to the government with over 150 signatures including those of Nobel Peace Prize winners Rose Ramos-Horta, Sir Joseph Rotblat and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Source: Reuters) 

                    FOUR Caribbean countries, frustrated by British pressure to ban
                    capital punishment, will remove Britain from their legal systems and
                    set up a Caribbean Court of Justice.
                    Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad are eager to hang those
                    convicted of capital crimes, despite strong opposition from Britain.
                    They are to change their constitutions to free themselves of the
                    Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the final legal arbiter for
                    current and former British colonies in the Caribbean, said Basdeo
                    Panday, Prime Minister of Trinidad.
                    An overwhelming majority of leaders attending the 16-member
                    Caribbean Community summit last week in Guyana supported the
                    idea, he said. The move would cut a colonial link dating to 1833
                    and end a decade of wrangling and friction between Britain and
                    her former colonies. Britain has been pressing for the abolition of
                    the death penalty in the Caribbean, which the EU considers a
                    breach of human rights.
                    Clement Rohee, Guyanese Foreign Minister, said at the summit:
                    "We don't want anybody lecturing us about human rights."
                    Polls consistently show that a majority of Caribbean people favour
                    the death penalty. Their numbers have grown because of a surge in
                    violent crime connected to international drug trafficking from South
                    America and the US.
                    Britain has used a legal ploy to block the death penalty. The Privy
                    Council in 1993 ruled that it was inhumane to execute people who
                    had been on death row for more than five years, knowing that
                    appeals can drag on for at least 10 years.
                    In Barbados, Attorney-General David Simmons said the British
                    "have infuriated populations who see their governments rendered
                    virtually powerless by decisions of legal policy set for Caribbean
                    countries and applying British and Euro-centric notions".
                    Britain has tried a "stick and carrot approach" to the issue, offering
                    to give the colonies full British citizenship under certain conditions,
                    which include abolition of the death penalty.
                    That poses a difficulty for Bermuda, among others, where
                    islanders have voted in referendums to stay British and to keep the
                    death penalty. Caribbean attorneys-general went to London to ask
                    how officials felt about cutting court ties. Mr Panday said: "The
                    Privy Council was overly anxious to get rid of their jurisdiction. It's
                    costly."
                    Jamaica, which has commuted 105 death sentences since 1993
                    and has 47 inmates on death row, this year withdrew from the
                    Organisation of American States' Inter-American Court on Human
                    Rights. Eager to resume executions after a decade's hiatus, it said
                    that the court took too long to hear inmates' appeals. Jamaica has
                    also been under pressure from Britain to abolish flogging. Trinidad,
                    which plans to hang five convicted murderers, says that it will
                    withdraw from the court next year. 

       THE CANADIAN COALITION AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY
offers free webpages and penpal requests for death row inmates.  If you know of a death row inmate who would to be listed on these pages, please contact us at :         info@ccadp.org