While on death row in Sanaa Central Prison in Yemen, Qaid Youssef Omar Al-Khadamy wrote, “I want the world to know that here they are executing [juvenile offenders]. No one cares or checks these juvenile cases … If you don’t have anybody [to help you], they just execute you, whether you are young or not.” Al-Khademy is convicted of murder. He was only 15 years old when he wrote this.
In a report released by Human Rights Watch Monday, the group called for the government of Yemen to stop seeking and carrying out executions on youthful offenders. According to the report, “Look At Us with a Merciful Eye: Juvenile Offenders Awaiting Execution on Yemen’s Death Row,” at least 22 minors have been sentenced to death without consideration for the fact that they were under the age of 18 at the time of their alleged crimes.
Most recently, on Dec. 3, 2012, Hind Ali Abdu al-Barti was executed by firing squad on the charge of murder. A birth certificate and forensic examination both confirmed she was no older than 16 at the time of the crime.
Priyanka Motaparthy, a children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, said, “President Hadi should break with Yemen’s past of arbitrary justice and state-sanctioned violence by reversing the execution orders of the three young men with signed execution decrees. Ending executions of juvenile offenders is a clear and straightforward way for Yemen’s government to show it honors its human rights commitments.”
Yemen has ratified both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which prohibits explicitly capital punishment of persons under 18 at the time of the offense. Yemen’s own penal code bans the execution of juvenile offenders and limits the maximum penalty for minors who commit capital offenses to 10 years.
Yemen has one of the lowest rates of birth registration in the world, with the country only recording 22 percent of all live births between 2000 and 2010. As such, most Yemenis lack a birth certificate to prove their age. Prosecutors may request forensic examinations — which are error-prone and use technology that is dated. Such prosecution-requested tests tend to incorrectly assert that the defendant is older than 18.
It is not uncommon for prosecutors and judges to simply disregard age evidence in a trial. The Yemeni government currently does not encourage judges to consider such evidence. Yemen’s Juvenile Welfare Law requires courts to refer minors 15 years or younger to the juvenile court system; 16- and 17-year-olds are subject to the adult criminal courts.
Human Rights Watch suggests that Yemen launch a review of execution orders to ensure compliance with Yemeni law. Three individuals — Mohammed Taher Sumoum, Walid Hussein Haikal and Mohammad Abdu Qassim at-Tawil — are currently scheduled to be executed at any time now. They all were convicted as minors and all served the maximum 10 years in prison; according to Yemeni law, they should be free.
The group also suggests that the government provide clear sentencing guidelines to all judges involved in juvenile offender capital cases, that appropriate safeguards are in place for adherence to the ICCPR and the CRC and that ages should be determined by an independent third party.
According to Amnesty International, Iran is the world’s leader in juvenile offender executions, with 51 since 1990. The United States comes in second with 19. Completing the top nine are China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen.
The United States, by a Supreme Court ruling, banned youthful offender executions in 2005. “From a moral standpoint, it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor’s character deficiencies will be reformed,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion of the court.