JAMAICA: Hanging to Resume Early Next Year

KINGSTON, Dic 13 (IPS) - The dismissal of a case of a Jamaican convict by the United Kingdom Privy Council has paved the way for this northern Caribbean island to resume hanging which has been suspended for the last six years.

Prime Minister, Percival Patterson who had earlier this year announced that he was awaiting the outcome of the case involving Albert Huntley who was convicted of murder, to decide when hanging would be resumed, says it will start early next year.

Patterson made this announcement within hours of receiving the Privy Council's decision.

The last hanging took place here in 1988 and should have resumed in 1991, however the two men who were to be executed Earl Pratt and Ivan Morgan, were granted last-minute stay of execution by the Governor General.

Last year their sentence was commuted to life imprisonment following a ruling of the Privy Council.

In dismissing Huntley's case Monday, the Privy Council ruled that murder convicts were not entitled to a hearing when their cases were being classified by a judge of the Court of Appeal.

However, the Privy Council recommended that prisoners whose cases were classified as non-capital murder should be given a hearing in respect to the number of years they should serve before being eligible for parole.

The Offences Against the Person Act was amended in 1992, making provisions for two categories of murder, capital murder which attracts the death penalty and non-capital which carries the sentence of life imprisonment. However it is up to the judge in the case to recommend how many years the prisoner should serve before he becomes eligible for parole.

Offences categorised as capital murder include the murder of a member of the security force while in the execution of duties, murder of a judicial officer or correctional officer and murder committed in the course of rape, burglary, housebreaking or arson in relation to a dwelling house.

Murder related to terrorism, murder consequent on a contract between persons and murder committed by a person who has previously been convicted of the capital charge will also attract the death penalty.

The amended act imposes the capital punishment on accomplices present at the scene of the murder and whose acts caused the death of, or who used force on the victim.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service