Well done ... now free the Scot on death row

The 6th circuit Court of Appeals has already overturned Kenny Richey's conviction, but in Ohio, as in Pakistan, that does not seem to matter. He is still in jail. See my post of July 12, 2005

I am delighted to see that Briton Mirza Tahir Hussain has at last been released after 18 years on death row in Pakistan. Here I can only applaud the decision of Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf to use his discretionary powers to commute Hussain's death sentence on humanitarian grounds. Hussain's life for the past 18 years has surely been torture. He went to Pakistan all those years ago to visit family and ended up in some sort of hell. It was also wonderful to see so many members of parliament, prime minister Tony Blair and Prince Charles stepping in to fight for Mirza Tahir's life. All of this is incredibly poignant for me.

For the past decade and a half I've campaigned for justice for another British man on a foreign death row - the Scot Kenny Richey, still languishing in Mansfield Correctional Facility in Ohio after almost 20 years. Kenny, who has a Scottish mother and grew up in Edinburgh, has fought a long campaign to clear his name. As a young man, Kenny was convicted of arson and murder in Ohio in 1986 and sentenced to death in January 1987.

He has been on death row since then, but has always protested his innocence. Evidence has since emerged casting serious doubt over his guilt, and human rights organisations such as Amnesty International have always said his original trial was shoddy and that he should be allowed to present the fresh evidence that could clear his name. In fact, Kenny's lawyers are going to get the chance to present information to the 6th Circuit Federal Court of Appeal in Cincinnati in the new year, but when this ordeal for Kenny is ever going to end is still anyone's guess.

Kenny Richey, like Mirza Tahir Hussain, has been a victim of a gross miscarriage of justice. After what appears to have been a timely and vital intervention in Mirza Tahir's case from Tony Blair and Prince Charles, is it now not time for something similar with Kenny Richey? After this month's mid-term elections in the US, Ohio has a new governor-elect in Ted Strickland and this could be just the time for high-level representations to him.

As the Sunday Herald has reported, Kenny has already written to Mr Strickland pleading with him to look afresh at his case. Kenny's supporters are doing the same. It would be fantastic if Prince Charles and Tony Blair personally intervened in Kenny's case, and I will be writing to them to praise their work for Mirza. But I will ask that they extend the same support to an innocent Scot who has spent half of his life rotting on death row for a crime that never happened.


Report here



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