Palestine: Halt Execution of Gaza Child Offender

(Jerusalem) – Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip should halt the planned execution of a prisoner who was a child at the time of a capital offense. Hamas should impose an immediate moratorium on capital punishment, and move toward outright abolition.

In an interview published on August 14, 2013, Gaza’s prosecutor general, Ismail Jaber, said that the Hamas council of ministers had approved the execution of a convict “in the coming days.” Jabr did not name the convict but his description of the case indicates that the man to be executed is Hani Abu Aliyan, 28, whom civil courts in Gaza convicted of two separate capital offenses. Abu Aliyan was 14 at the time of one of the crimes, and his lawyer told Human Rights Watch that Abu Aliyan had confessed under torture. Jabr said that more executions would follow and justified them as mandated by Islamic Sharia law to deter “would-be criminals.”

“Imposing the death penalty for a crime committed by a child makes the executions under Gaza’s abusive justice system especially atrocious,” said Joe Stork, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “If the authorities want to deter criminals, they should make sure people are convicted for what they did, not what they are tortured to confess.”

Human Rights Watch has previously documented that Hamas authorities in Gaza executed prisoners who were convicted despite severe due process violations and unfair trials. The convictions included cases of prolonged arbitrary detention, credible allegations of torture, and convictions based primarily on coerced confessions.

In his August 14 interview, published on the Gaza Interior Ministry website, Jabr said that a number of officials and others would witness the execution, which would be carried out “in a special place.” He claimed that “the public is very satisfied about [the death penalty]” and that “the only complaints come from some of the human rights organizations.” To these, he said, “we will not pay attention” because “our religious tradition” requires capital punishment as a deterrent. The authorities would carry out other executions “soon,” once appeals in the cases are exhausted, he said.

In separate hearings in May 2010, a first instance court in Khan Yunis sentenced Abu Aliyan to life in prison for killing a boy and 14 years in prison for sexually assaulting him in 2000, and to an additional life sentence for the “involuntary murder” of an acquaintance to whom he owed money in 2009. Human Rights Watch spoke briefly with Abu Aliyan in Gaza’s central prison in September 2012. He told Human Rights Watch that in the 2009 incident, he turned himself in to the police in Khan Yunis after killing the acquaintance, Hazem Ibrahim, during an argument.

The court noted that Abu Aliyan, born in 1985, was a child at the time of the first two offenses and therefore could not be sentenced to death, in accordance with article 13 of Juvenile Offenders Law of 1937. Abu Aliyan’s lawyer, Ghazi Abu Warda, contended that his client had confessed to the crime under torture, but the court refused to exclude the confession, Abu Warda told Human Rights Watch. “There were scars and bruises on his body,” Abu Warda said. The prosecutor general’s office appealed both sentences as too lenient.

(2013-08-19/hrw)