Eksekvering af dødsstraf er sjælden i Indien i dag og mange er imod
A court in southern India has stayed the executions of three men convicted of plotting the 1991 assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, BBC online reports Tuesday.
The men were to have been hanged at a jail in Tamil Nadu on 9 September but that has now been put back eight weeks.
India’s president rejected a plea for mercy this month. Lawyers for the men say the time taken to decide the plea – 11 years – was unconstitutional.
The killing of Rajiv Gandhi by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber shocked India. The three men – Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan – were all members of the separatist rebels, who were defeated by Sri Lankan troops in 2009. The first two are from Sri Lanka, the third is an Indian Tamil.
Gandhi’s killing was widely seen as retaliation for his having sent Indian peacekeepers to Sri Lanka in 1987 when he was prime minister.
Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu state assembly has unanimously backed a resolution calling for the death sentences to be commuted to life imprisonment.
Chief Minister J Jayalalitha said the resolution “took into consideration the overwhelming sentiment of the people of Tamil Nadu” who wanted the men’s lives spared.
The death penalty is rare in India. The last execution was in 2004 when a 41-year-old former security guard was hanged for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old schoolgirl.
