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but no satees canied
out in He
place within the coming five months.
It was assumed that the
popular vote would be in favour of the retention of hanging.
Mr Wallace, supported by Mr Waterworth, emphasised that a referendum vote calling for retention should in no way detract from the Governor's prerogative to commute a death sentence where he considered that mitigating circumstances applied.
15.
Mr January reported an official announcement that the erection of gallows (total cost $340,000) in the Cayman Islands would soon be completed. Potentially controversial cases were pending in this Territory too. Two Caymanians and one Jamaican had been convicted of premeditated murder in 1987. The Caymanians were still awaiting a Privy Council hearing. New evidence had also recently come to light concerning a premeditated murder committed in 1982. Mr Waterworth recalled that during his visit to Cayman last July,
He assumed there were reported to be four prisoners on death row. that these included the murderers in the first case mentioned by Mr January. Progress on the erection of the gallows had at that time been very slow. Mrs Britton observed that the retention of the death penalty on DT statute books was not a contravention of HMG's international treaty obligations. However, she noted that Amnesty International had launched a worldwide campaign against the death penalty. In the event of a death sentence being carried out in a
considerable publicity would be likely to ensue and Amnesty
anomally might latch on to the apparent normally between the use of the death penalty in a DT and HMG's appeals for commutation on behalf of UK Inationals and Hong Kong belongers in third countries.
IDT,
16. Mrs Britton also referred to HMG's obligation to publish the terms of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in the DTS. She proposed that copies of the Covenant together with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the UK's reservations to both, be sent to each Governor for display
in the public library. The meeting agreed to this proposal.
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