INDIA, PRIMA ESECUZIONE DA OLTRE 10 ANNI

CALCUTTA, 14 AGO - Un uomo condannato a morte per stupro e omicidio e' stato messo a morte mediante impiccagione in un carcere di Calcutta.

Lo hanno annunciato fonti ufficiali. Si tratta della prima esecuzione in quel paese da oltre dieci anni.

Dhananjoy Chatterjee, un portiere di 42 anni, e' stato impiccato verso le 4:30 di oggi ora locale (1:00 in Italia). Era stato condannato a morte nel 1991 per aver violentato e ucciso, l'anno prima, una liceale di 16 anni, Hetal Parekh.

Centinaia di persone, tra cui molti attivisti per i diritti umani, si erano riunite dalla serata davanti al carcere di Calcutta per una veglia funebre a una manifestazione di protesta contro la pena capitale.

La Corte suprema indiana autorizza molto raramente le esecuzioni, che spesso sono rinviate indefinitamente o commutate in pene detentive.
   Nel 1991 erano stati impiccati due uomini riconosciuti colpevoli di omicidio, mentre due anni prima la stessa sorte era capitata a due guardie del corpo accusate per l'assassinio del primo ministro Indira Gandhi, nel 1984.

 La settimana scorsa il presidente indiano Abdul Kalam aveva respinto una richiesta di grazia per Chatterjee.

India carries out first execution in 9 years - Man convicted of raping, killing teen hanged in Calcutta

A man convicted of raping and murdering a teenage girl was hanged at dawn Saturday in India's 1st execution in 9 years, as dozens of anti-death penalty protesters held a vigil outside the prison.

Dhananjoy Chatterjee, 39, was executed in the courtyard of Alipora Correctional Home, where he has spent the last 13 years in solitary confinement.

"Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged at 4:30 a.m.," Inspector-General of Prisons Joydeb Chakraborty told reporters outside the prison, where only police officers remained. About 70 protesters had gathered at 2 a.m., lit candles and held anti-death penalty banners. At 4:30 a.m they were silent for a moment, then left.

Chatterjee was convicted of raping and suffocating Hetal Parekh, 14, who lived in a Calcutta apartment building where he worked as a security guard. He was arrested in 1990 and transferred to the solitary confinement of a death row cell after his conviction in 1991.

Chatterjee and his family had maintained his innocence, and lawyers filed appeals twice to the Supreme Court and sought clemency from 2 Indian presidents.

President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam turned down the final clemency plea last week and the Supreme Court rejected another appeal Thursday.

Nata Mullick, 84, performed the hanging. He had also carried out the last hanging in West Bengal state in 1991, when 2 men were executed for killing 4 members of a family. India's last execution was in 1995, when an auto-rickshaw driver convicted in the serial murders of prostitutes was hanged in southern Tamil Nadu state.

India's Supreme Court ruled in 1983 that the death penalty should be imposed only in "the rarest of rare cases."

Although several convicts have been sentenced to death in the past decade, none have been executed, because of appeals pending before higher courts or because they have won clemency.

Trials and appeals often take decades in India's slow-moving judicial system.

Some human rights groups and intellectuals in West Bengal state, of which Calcutta is the capital, had objected to Chatterjee's scheduled execution, but there was no groundswell of opinion in his favor.

On Friday, a group of 30 people from the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights marched silently in front of the jail where Chatterjee was incarcerated. They waived placards reading "Abolish capital punishment" and "Death for death is state-sponsored terrorism."