What Now for Rajiv Gandhi’s Killers? – WSJ

OB-    A group of men paid tribute to Rajiv Gandhi on the anniversary of his death in May 2010. A high court in southern India on Tuesday stayed the execution of three  men sentenced to death for the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, according to local media reports.

Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan, who only go by one name, were members of the LTTE or Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a violent guerrilla group who fought for a separate homeland for Tamils on the island of Sri Lanka. The rebel group was crushed by Sri Lankan troops in 2009.

Of the 26 people who were convicted in 1998 for the killing of Mr. Gandhi, they are the only ones who still face the death penalty. Mr. Gandhi was killed by a female suicide bomber known as Dhanu in May 1991 during an election rally in Sriperumbudur, a town in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Of the three men, Perarivalan is the only Indian citizen. Mr. Murugan and Mr. Santhan are Sri Lankan. The three men have been behind the bars for about 20 years on charges related to Mr. Gandhi’s murder.

Mr. Perarivalan, who holds an engineering diploma, was arrested for assembling the explosive belt Dhanu used to kill Mr. Gandhi.

Mr. Murugan is accused of grooming his wife Nalini Sriharan to assist the female suicide bomber and Mr. Santhan of helping coordinate the attack.

The mercy plea for Ms. Sriharan was accepted after Sonia Gandhi, leader of the ruling Congress party and widow of the slain prime minister, requested it. The sentences of the remaining 22 defendants had been commuted to life imprisonment.

After India’s President Pratibha Patil turned down the three men’s mercy pleas earlier this month – after a more than 11-year gap from the Supreme Court’s final verdict – their execution by hanging looked set to take place Sept. 9.

The 20-year-old daughter of  Mr. Murugan, has since appealed to Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi to help save her father, according to a recording of her voice posted on YouTube.

But after Ms. Jayalalithaa said she did not have a say on the matter,  on Monday the three men filed another petition, this time to the Madras High Court, seeking a stay on the execution of their death sentence.

On Tuesday, the court reportedly stayed their execution for eight weeks, by which time it expects why it took this long to respond to the clemency request.

Hitesh Jain, a Supreme Court lawyer based in Mumbai, told India Real Time Tuesday, that it was a “temporary order since the court has not given its view.” He explained that the court cannot interfere with the President’s decision to reject the mercy pleas.

According to Indian laws, a convict can appeal to the president for mercy only after his death sentence is confirmed by the Supreme Court.

Any mercy petition filed to the President is then routed to the Home Ministry and then to the federal cabinet of ministers. The president can grant or reject clemency only after seeking recommendation from the cabinet.

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