Don’t hang Rajiv Gandhi’s killers, says judge
February 25, 2013 11:25 am
A former Indian judge who headed a bench that awarded
death sentence to four for the killing of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv
Gandhi said on Sunday that the convicts should not be hanged.
KT 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 in Kottayam: “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 DP Wadwah
and Justice SSM 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.
(Agencies)
