Two to hang Monday
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo has signed warrants clearing the way for hangings to resume Monday at 08:00 hrs at the Georgetown Prisons, and convicted murderers Noel Thomas and Abdool Salim Yasseen are scheduled to be the first to go to the gallows. Home Affairs Minister, Mr. Ronald Gajraj yesterday confirmed that the warrants were read on Thursday to the two prisoners. Yasseen and Thomas were convicted for the 1987 murder of Kaleem Yasseen, brother of Abdool Salim Yasseen. Director of Prisons, Mr. Dale Erskine said yesterday that everything was in place for the hangings. The last time the gallows were used was on August 25, 1997 when condemned prisoners Peter Adams and Michael Archer were executed. Thomas and Yasseen, formerly of Riverstown, Essequibo Coast, were twice sentenced to hang for the March 19, 1987 murder but their execution was blocked by several appeals. A jury found that Yasseen masterminded the murder plot in retaliation for a will his father made bequeathing the larger portion of the estate to the brother who was killed, and that the elder brother hired Thomas as the assassin. In September 1996, Yasseen's father appealed to delegates at a judicial forum on human rights here to help his son's bid to escape hanging. Abdool Yasseen Snr. signed a letter to the judges imploring them to study his son's case and grant necessary assistance. Subsequently, Lord Lester of Britain, who was here for the judicial colloquium, wrote then President Cheddi Jagan urging clemency for the two condemned Essequibo murderers. Around that time, the two men had appealed to the Prerogative of Mercy Committee. They were to have been hanged in 1996 after the committee, headed by then Attorney General, Mr. Bernard DeSantos, considered an appeal from the men and recommended sentence should be carried out. DeSantos was the lawyer for the two men before he became Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs. A special appeal court convened to hear the challenge by the two men to DeSantos' perceived double role in the matter, ruled that the mercy committee should sit again, without DeSantos as chairman, to consider their appeal for mercy. Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon recently said "the Government's approach on capital punishment is well known." He said hanging was a constitutional obligation fully supported by Guyanese and the governments and people of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). Amnesty International yesterday claimed the two men were denied a fair trial and the decision to schedule the execution was a flagrant breach of Guyana's obligations under international law. It called on the Government to stop the hangings. If the Government hangs Thomas and Yasseen despite a ruling by a United Nations committee, it will seriously undermine the international system for human rights protection, Amnesty International argued.
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