May 03, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 26, 1429

NEW DELHI, May 2: Amnesty International said on Friday that India should abolish the death penalty after hundreds of cases examined by the human rights group revealed “fatal flaws” in the country’s judicial system.

A 10-year study of judgments on death penalties handed down over five decades revealed inconsistencies in the investigation, trial, sentencing and appeal stages, AI’s India director Mukul Sharma said.

“The death penalty does not deter crime at all and especially when the judicial system that puts them has been shown by this extensive research to be unfair,” Sharma told a news conference.

The international watchdog also urged India to join the global trend towards a moratorium on the death penalty.

Official records show 140 people have been sentenced to death in India in the past two years but the last execution was in 2004, Amnesty said.

The lack of executions reflects pressure from human rights groups and long appeals processes in a heavily overloaded judicial system.

In December 2007, the United Nations General Assembly voted by a large majority for a resolution calling for an end to the death penalty, but India voted against the resolution.

Mercy petitions from death-row prisoners who are poor and illiterate are often thrown out for “technical reasons” and cases not argued in court properly, Amnesty said.

“Most death sentences handed down in India are based on circumstantial evidence and a lot depends on how rich is the under-trial,” Sharma told Reuters after releasing the study, titled “Lethal Lottery -- The Death Penalty in India”.

“At the end of the day, life and death in India for the poorer convicts on death row is a like a lottery,” Sharma said.—Reuters