Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Belarus, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore

Belarus 

30-year-old German national Rico Krieger, who was sentenced to death on six charges related to terrorism, espionage, and mercenary activity, was pardoned by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on July 30, 2024, thereby converting his death sentence to a life prison term. On August 1, Mr. Krieger was subsequently released during the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War, according to The Guardian. Eight Russian prisoners were released from Western nations, including Germany’s notable release of Vadim Krasikov, who was serving a life sentence for the 2019 assassination of a former Chechen militant, in exchange for 15 prisoners (4 Americans, 4 Germans, and 7 Russian opposition figures) released from Russia and Mr. Krieger released from Belarus. “The German government did not take this decision lightly,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesperson, Steffen Hebestreit. “The state’s interest in carrying out the prison sentence of a convicted criminal was weighed against the freedom, physical wellbeing and – in some cases – ultimately the lives of innocent people imprisoned in Russia and those unjustly politically imprisoned.” 

Mr. Krieger was accused of collaborating with Ukrainian security services and intelligence to photograph military sites and plant explosives on a train, which resulted in no loss of life according to his televised statement. Aired on state television days before receiving a pardon, Mr. Krieger admitted guilt, apologized, pleaded for intervention from the German government, and requested a pardon from President Lukashenko. Belarus is the only European country to retain the death penalty.  

Indonesia 

The Indonesian government has publicly announced that it will not seek the death penalty for Gregor Haas, Australian national and father to National Rugby League player Payne Haas, were he to be extradited from the Philippines to face drug-trafficking charges. “We made an agreement [with our Australian counterparts]. We promised to make sure that it will not go to the death penalty,” said Marthinus Hukom, head of Indonesia’s narcotics agency. Philippines Bureau of Immigration’s three-member board of commissioners has yet to decide whether to extradite Mr. Haas to Australia or Indonesia, where he is alleged to have tried to import drugs into in connection with the Sinaloa drug cartel. Spokesperson for the Bureau Dana Sandoval said that “[w]e are looking into these [diplomatic] considerations before we make a decision.”  

49-year-old Australian tourist Troy Andrew Smith was sentenced to six months of medical rehabilitation for possessing 3.19 grams of crystal methamphetamine for personal use, after charges of drug-trafficking, which carry a potential death sentence, were dropped. Mr. Smith has agreed to forgo an appeal and with time-served will be released in several months. 

Iran 

In line with previous patterns, executions have increased following the decline present during the aftermath of Ebrahim Raisi’s death and subsequent presidential elections (May 19-July 5). According to Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), at least 49 people were executed in July, bringing the seven-month total to at least 300 executions—a 30% decrease from the same period in the prior year. About 73% of executions in July occurred during the last 11 days of the month with 36 prisoners executed. In the past seven months, there were 172 executions for drug-related charges (a 20% decrease from 2023), 110 for murder charges (or retribution-in-kind), 15 for security-related charges, and 3 for rape. 42 Baluch prisoners, 20 Kurdish prisoners, and 20 Afghan nationals were amongst those executed this year. A lack of transparency continues to persist as only 9% of executions were officially reported; IHRNGO was responsible for verifying 91% of executions via two independent sources. “We are particularly worried about the new wave of executions of Kurdish civil activists and drug death row prisoners in the coming weeks and months,” said IHRNGO Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. “The only way to prevent this wave of executions is to raise its political cost through civil society protests and international pressure.”  

34-year-old Kurdish protester Reza Rasaei, who was arrested in relation to the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests, was secretly executed on August 6, 2024. He was charged in a group trial of 11 defendants accused of participating in the killing of a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. According to Amnesty International, Mr. Rasaei marks the 10th “Woman, Life, Freedom” protester to be executed. He was sentenced to death in October 2023 following unfair trial proceedings that depended largely on confessions obtained from torture, including “beatings, electric shocks, suffocation and sexual violence.” Authorities forbade the family from burying his body in his hometown, forcing them to bury it in a remote area. “This execution lays bare once again how Iran’s criminal justice system is rotten to the core and highlights the Iranian authorities resolve to use the death penalty as a tool of political repression to instil [sic] fear among the population,” said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “It also dispels any illusions of human rights progress with a new president assuming power last week. 

After spending 15 years on death row, Kurdish-Sunni political prisoner, Kamran Sheikheh was executed on July 25, 2024. Mr. Sheikheh was prosecuted alongside six others for “enmity against god” and “corruption on earth” and is the last to be executed. “Kamran’s execution, like that of his six co-defendants, was unlawful according to international law and the Islamic Republic’s own laws, amounting to an extrajudicial killing,” said Director Amiry-Moghaddam. 

On July 23, 2024, lawyers for Kurdish civil rights activist Pakhshan Azizi were notified of her sentence of death and four years imprisonment on charges of armed rebellion through membership of armed opposition groups. Upon returning to Iran after 10 years abroad, she was arrested on August 4, 2023 and held at Evin prison where her visitation privileges, including from lawyers, were withheld for the duration of her five month stay. Ms. Azizi, who worked as a journalist and social worker in humanitarian contexts, denies association to armed opposition groups, writing in a letter from prison: “Working in refugee camps could be the greatest moral-conscience service in a society that has been under oppression for years. Is everyone there a member of the PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party]?” She is the second female activist to be sentenced to death in July—worker’s rights activist Sharifeh Mohammadi was sentenced earlier this month. 

In an unprecedented move, more than 20 men, including four Afghan nationals, were transferred to pre-execution cells in Ghezelhesar Prison on August 5 and 6 and are at imminent risk of execution. “They’ve closed the doors in the wards. They’re scheduled to be executed tomorrow. All the cells are full, we don’t know exactly how many of them there are,” a Ghezelhesar prisoner told IHRNGO. [UPDATE August 7, 1:14pm ET: 26 men at Ghezelhesar Prison and three men at Karaj Prison were executed in a group execution for murder, rape, and drug-related offenses. According to IHRNGO, group executions this large are unprecedented in the last two decades. The most recent group execution prior to this was the execution of 20 for drug-related offenses in 2009.]

Iraq 

On July 10, 2024, the Supreme Judicial Council in Iraq sentenced to death an unnamed widow of the ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was known to have four wives, for her involvement with the armed group, including detaining kidnapped Yazidi women in her Mosul home. An anonymous court official told Reuters: “The criminal court today sentenced Baghdadi’s wife to death by hanging for crimes against humanity and genocide against the Yazidi people and also for contributing to terrorism actions.” The sentence must now be ratified by an appeals court.

This decision comes 10 years after the Yazidi genocide and nearly five years after U.S. Special Forces killed al-Baghdadi. Since 2017, when ISIL was driven out of Iraq, courts have sentenced hundreds to death and life prison terms, according to Al Jazeera. Rights groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and United Nations experts, have criticized the nation for their lack of transparency, vague counterterrorism law, and unfair trial proceedings. In April, at least 13 men were executed, marking the country’s first mass execution of 2024 and second since December 2023—the first mass execution since November 2020—raising widespread international concern and prompting calls for a moratorium. In their June 27 press release, UN Special Rapporteurs highlighted unlawful applications of the death penalty, stating: “We are alarmed by the high number of executions publicly reported since 2016, nearly four hundred, including 30 this year, and the explicit political commitment to continue implementing death sentences, in total disregard to the reported irregularities in the administration of justice, cases of enforced disappearances, and torture-tainted confessions, which led to these unfair sentences.” With official figures placing the death row population at 8,000, experts warned “that when arbitrary executions are on a widespread and systematic basis, they may amount to crimes against humanity.”   

On July 4, 2024, Sweden’s Foreign Ministry announced plans to summon the Iraqi chargé d’affaires over the recent death sentences of three Swedes for their involvement in the shooting of another Swedish citizen in January. “The information we have received on the death penalties is extremely serious and we are working to ensure the sentences will not be carried out,” the foreign ministry said in an emailed statement to Reuters. According to reporting by the Associated Press, Swedish media believe the incident to be related to a war between the Swedish gangs, the Foxtrot and Rumba. A fourth Swedish citizen is thought to have received a death sentence for a separate drug-related incident, although confirmation from Sweden’s Foreign Ministry is pending. 

Saudi Arabia 

According to the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR), there were 15 drug-related executions carried out in July, comprising 83% of all drug-related executions this year. Drug-related crimes make up 14% of all executions this year (126) and July executions account for 31% of all executions this year. 

Singapore 

In the span of a week, two men were hanged for drug-trafficking, which fail to meet the international threshold of a “most serious” crime, bringing the total number of executions this year to three. On August 7, 2024, a 59-year-old man was executed for trafficking “not less than 35.85” grams (1.3 ounces) of pure heroin following the president’s denial of his clemency petition and the Court of Appeal’s earlier rejection of his appeal on May 11, 2022. On August 2, a 45-year-old man, who was convicted and sentenced to death in February 2019, was executed for trafficking 36.93 grams (1.3 ounces) of pure heroin. “He was accorded full due process under the law, and was represented by legal counsel throughout the process,” said the Central Narcotics Bureau in a statement following both executions. According to the Agence France-Presse, there have been 19 executions since executions resumed in March 2022. 

Following a tip from the Hong Kong narcotics bureau, a 25-year-old Hong Kong man was arrested on July 18, 2024 for importing 4.15kg [9lbs] with an estimated value of $384,260, of crystal meth into Singapore and could face the death penalty; the meth was hidden in the base of two stone figurines of a Chinese mythical creature. “If a person is found guilty of trafficking more than 250g of methamphetamine, he or she may face the mandatory death penalty,” said the Singapore’s Central Narcotics Bureau. This is the third instance in less than four weeks in which Hong Kong aided foreign governments in cracking down on drug-trafficking in the region. 

On July 16, 2024, the Court of Appeal acquitted a 63-year-old man, Mohamed Mubin Abdul Rahman, who was convicted of trafficking heroin and sentenced to death in 2020 due to an inconsistent timeline in the prosecution’s case. The prosecution recommended that Mr. Mubin be acquitted and suggested two amended charges for possession of methamphetamines, which Mr. Mubin subsequently plead guilty to. The court sentenced him to time-served and ordered his release.