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Don't hang Rajiv Gandhi killers, says judge
Sunday February 24, 2013 06:03:19 PM,
IANS
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Kottayam: A former
judge who headed a bench that awarded death sentence to four for
the killing of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi said Sunday that
the convicts should not be hanged.
K.T. Thomas said that since Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan had
spent 22 years in prison, hanging them now would amount to
punishing them twice for the same crime.
The three men are lodged at the Vellore jail in Tamil Nadu.
Thomas told reporters here: "If they are going to be awarded
(death sentence) after spending 22 years in jail, it would be like
giving them two punishment for the same crime, which is against
the constitution."
He urged President Pranab Mukherjee to review his decision to
reject their mercy petition.
"The president should reconsider this because as of now the three
have undergone a punishment more than the term of life
imprisonment," he said.
In 1999, a three-member Supreme Court bench comprising Thomas,
Justice D.P. Wadwah and Justice S.S.M. Quadri awarded death
punishment to Murugan, Santhan, Perarivalan and Murugan's wife
Nalini.
Thomas dissented on death punishment to Nalini, whose sentence was
commuted to life imprisonment after then president Pratibha Patil
accepted her mercy petition.
While Perarivalan and Murugan are Indian citizens, Santhan and
Murugan are from Sri Lanka.
A Tamil Tiger woman suicide bomber assassinated Rajiv Gandhi at an
election rally near Chennai May 21, 1991.
All four listed in the case were charged with contributing to the
killing. Among those wanted for the assassination were the Tamil
Tigers chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, who was killed in Sri Lanka
in 2009.
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