Libya executes 18

It has emerged that Libya has executed eighteen people at the beginning of the month for “premeditated murder”. Of the eighteen, ten were from Nigeria and the remaining eight others from Chad and Egypt. Their identities still have not been disclosed and given the existing concerns surrounding Libya’s trial process, there are inevitably doubts as to the fairness of both sentence and execution, regardless of one’s view of the death penalty in principle.

Aside from the continuing concern over fair trials however, these executions highlight particular issues.

First, we should highlight the differing nationalities of the defendants. Foreigners are always less likely to have family or any kind of logistical support in a country when their trials were being conducted. They are most likely ignorant of court processes and what their rights are. Documents and the trial itself could well be in a language they do not understand. These are common issues in the cases we work on: Akmal Shaikh, executed in China at the end of 2009, could do nothing but watch as the trial that determined his death was conducted in Mandarin. Mark Arnold, currently imprisoned in Dubai, was convicted on the basis of a document written in Arabic which he was forced to sign. Even before we begin to discuss the wrongs of the death penalty, the very processes that lead to that sentence are clearly flawed.

The number of executions that took place on that one day in Libya is also striking and suspicious. What was the hurry? If the death penalty is portrayed as a way of somehow communicating wrongs to the public or somehow satiating their desire for justice, why do it so quickly and out of the public eye? It might just be that if the public was allowed to see and question what was happening, they would not want it to happen at all. The implication is there's something to hide and questions to avoid. In anticipation of a negative public response, Libya is inadvertently recognising flimsiness of its processes.

Just as unnerving is the disregard for human life. The brutal efficiency with which eighteen sentences were carried out is discordant with the notions of individual rights and human dignity. When we hear of eighteen executions on the same day, it is difficult to believe that each case was given due time and consideration and that each individual was treated with sufficient respect. Are we expected to believe that the merits and subtleties of each case was balanced and weighed, all at the same time, and that judgements in each case were made simultaneously? There is no information about any appeals, or any distinction between the members of the group. They seemed to have been lumped together with scant regard for individual circumstances. The overwhelming sense is that Libya did not recognise individuals at all, just a problem, which it promptly removed without concerning itself with details.

The final issue is one of secrecy. We are not told who the individuals are, or, in any meaningful way, what they are supposed to have done. Why not? Again, the implication is there's something to hide. Perhaps Libya is concerned that we may pay attention to the details that it has chosen to ignore. If not, why hide so much?

It is perhaps ironic that in declaring these individuals guilty Libya has served only to transfer suspicion onto itself. The manner of its sentencing and execution leaves us with little material to condemn the individuals executed, but a whole catalogue with which to challenge its trial processes. At Reprieve, we are firmly opposed to the death penalty whatever precedes it. When so-called “justice” is conducted with such secrecy and disregard for human dignity, however, it is difficult to be in favour of these executions whatever one’s views on capital punishment.