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http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.592510

i don't know if i quite believe in capital punishment, but it's at least nice to for once see a wealthy person live by the same rule of law as the commonfolk.

I don't mind when capitol punishment is used in charges of murder/homicide. Death for white collar crimes is way overboard, imo.

iran is one of the five countries that kills its own people more than the U.S. does, so this doesn't come as a surprise.

this kind of harsh punishment could be a great way of deterring billionaires with a lot of influence and power from doing the bad shit they do.. unlike in the U.S., where it's nearly impossible to go to jail if you're a wealthy banker or magnate.

imo living in a country like Iran while being a billionaire is pretty stoopid lol

not really. all you need is to be buddies with people in their government. make sure your "business model" includes them, and there's a good chance you will be safe.

I don't know why people think capital punishment is less civilized than locking people in cages until they submit. The first is the most natural thing in the world, two forces oppose each other and one moves forward. The second forces blind submission without opposition, making it so even the force that wins is not the better for it. Additionally, the latter makes it far too easy for people to lock up others for lifestyle choices or minor scuffles (since in the eyes of the public, it's not punishment it's 'rehabilitation').

IMO there is nothing more civilized than execution or exile justice. Leave people to deal with their own shit. If someone commits an act that creates such a grievance with the locals that they want him gone, then get him gone, one way or the other.


The only time a wealthy person goes to jail in the U.S. is when they piss off enough other wealthy people (but ofcourse that's true in most countries).


Light/No sentences for white collar crimes is why rich people keep doing them...blatantly...sometimes publicly....and then shrugging it off when they get caught.


Unless it's home :2

Iran hangs a billionaire who stole $2.6 billion, while in Japan we have a fat a$$ who has stolen $500 million, and is still enjoying his life by partying 24-hours a day and moving from one five-star hotel to another.

It's an interesting issue.  Killing the fraudster in a case like this is a way of the government "saving face".

I am in favor of imposing the death penalty more frequently. If someone commits heinous crimes, he should be executed without delay. Much better option than granting him a taxpayer-funded vacation for many decades.

for all the ancaps here who are pro capital punishment.. isn't that a conflict? the government is the one who decides who dies and who lives.

My point wasn't about how long takes to premeditate the condemnation and execution of someone. If killing a criminal by revenge is wrong, the fact that the revenge is done by the government doesn't change a thing. I don't want cold blood murder to be done in my name.
Besides, I wouldn't like to live in a country where the State has absolute power over me and only needs a good pretext to kill me. One only needs to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and be confused by one or two scared witness. The next in line might be you or one of the people you care about. How many were acquitted after years on the death row by ADN evidence, only on rape/murder cases?

Apparently it's more than that, I think there treason involved in this, because there is no law being it Islamic or civil unless I missed something that give capital punishment for theft he would would have his hand cut.

I don't agree with capital punishment and I don't want this guy to be killed no matter what deed he've done, he should get 25 years of prison or even more, but if the guy is really guilty it is nice to see that some billionaires does get punishment and not getting away with it

As it should be.

now what happens to the billions? It is possible he got hanged simply because he owned this much money

as previously mentioned, this guy could have been singled out to take the fall.. which is fucked up, because in order for that kind of fraud to occur, multiple people have had to cooperate.. and those exact people get off scott free, also while ratting one guy out.

from OP article, 39 people were judged, it just happen that the guy is a billionair that's why the news is more axed around him

His billions will go to his family, i.e to the wife and the children. No. He wasn't executed because he was rich. He was hanged for stealing $2.6 billion from the government funds. The difference between the US and Iran is that, rich people can't bribe themselves out of court cases in Iran.

I believe that this attitude is a result of generations of training (largely driven by white-collar types.)  Fact is, most white-collar crime results in massive levels of suffering spread across many individuals while most run-of-the-mill crime is very limited in this respect.  If anything white-collar types should get even more harsh sentences for their crimes than common thugs for this reason.  At least that's the way I see it intellectually, though I have the same bias as everyone else so it's a strain to believe this.  One way or another, harsher punishments for white-collar crime would make it less common.  And as with anyone, if you can't do the time don't do the crime, and pretty much all white-collar folks have the mental ability to understand the fallout from their activities.  It bothers me greatly that these white collar guys go to minimum security places (for part of the week.)

Actually, one white collar guy who did hard time in the fed pen and plenty of it was the former CEO of QWest Joseph Nacchio who just happened to head up the only phone company who demanded a court order to turn his customer records over to the NSA in the early 2000's.  Funny how these things work, and pretty hard to stay positive about the nature of our country (here in the U.S.)

I consider it favorable that both China and Iran will use capital punishment for white-collar crime.  Whether they have a balanced justice system is doubtful though.  At least in China, and likely Iran (and pretty much anywhere else.)

No argument from a well thought out post. I can't reasonably say I'm not brainwashed by white-collar people into believing that the death penalty would be too harsh. Otherwise it wouldn't be brainwashing. ;D

Still think its pretty harsh.

I will agree with you on this. Some one who robs $2.6 billion for the government funds is indirectly causing thousands of deaths indirectly as a result of poor healthcare facilities, poor infrastructure.etc. Death penalty is 100% justified.

There are a lot of people in the world that don't deserve to live, there is no question about that. I do not however believe that any government should be granted such absolute power over anyone.

I pose the same question when it comes to the death penalty that I pose to people who believe in god, what if you're wrong?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exonerated_death_row_inmates

No, I don't believe in the death penalty, no matter the crime, I've had this argument with people before, it amazes me the lengths people will go to justify to themselves and others killing an unarmed person, it also amazes me how like the U.S Iran is but you will find all sorts of people ready to jump to the defence of the U.S when they do something wrong.

yeah that shit creeps me out. i don't like the death penalty; it's almost like people have this god complex, where they want to see the people they hate die. nevermind the possibility of a false conviction, it just doesn't feel right for a group of people to decide whether someone lives or doesn't.

It's just engineering to me.  Everyone dies eventually, and many people die prematurely due to bad luck.  Yes, life is precious and I don't mean to downplay it, but if someone is put away for life they are just an expensive drag on society with no hope for anything resembling a meaningful existence.

Furthermore, it is completely hypocritical to engage in wars and maintaining our (the U.S.) empire knowing damn good and well that thousands of Americans and millions of non-Americans are going to be killed and many more maimed, then turn around and be to purist about executing even the worse criminals.  Of course I'm probably talking to a couple of people who don't support our policies in this area so I don't mean to put up a straw-man here.  But we do live in a society which does these bad things (again, here in the U.S.)

I am currently and have been for a while now against capital punishment.  Philosophically I don't have much against it, but operationally it is _proven_ to not be reliable.  I may think about supporting it again, but only if some crimes are immune.  One of these would be cop killing.  That seems to be one of the main ways that innocent people get convicted.  That is, when the cops need to make an example of someone and don't care much about who it happens to be.  Also any attorney or other justice official who cheats to get an innocent guy convicted would face VERY severe punishment himself if caught.

As for the actual deed, I think that the Chinese do it best with a bullet to the brainstem.  Quick, reliable, painless, and cheap.  I little bit more humane also since they march someone out and keep them occupied by walking until the last seconds when they force the person to kneel down.

No one is sentenced to death, unless the judge is 100% sure about his crime. In the past mistakes might have happened. But with the advancement of technology, right now it is impossible to blame an innocent person for heinous crimes such as murder and rape.

How can be one judge 100% sure of the verdict?
Is he god to know that everything that was said is the true and the proof have not been altered by somebody else?
As for the advancement of technology , this could be applied to the western Europe and US&CA but not for the rest of the countries.

I wonder if police officers in central Africa even take fingerprints in those cases.

Bullshit, there are people out there who genuinely believe a women can't rape a man etc. which means all humans will naturally be biased to a certain viewpoint, none of what you said is true especially since a judge is a human being and is capable of making mistakes and then there's the fact that technology can always be tampered with.

Zimbabwe women accused of raping men 'for rituals'
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-15876968

And article so that nobody contest your first phrase

This is a very severe punishment for fraud. Normally only the worst gays and apostates would be given such a harsh punishment!

Did you misread my post? I said they believe it, doesn't mean that it's actually true :P

Nope didn't misread it although my reply might seem so.

Just a small example on how this twisted this world is and how you should believe that everything is possible.
And how at first people didn't believe the actual criminals are guilty based only on their misconception , that  "a woman can't rape a man".
 

I am surprized that nobody mentions this but in islam (using sharia jurisdiction, as Iran claims to be) it is not possible to get a death sentence because of fraud, highest punishment for this would be cutting his "stealing" hand. Killing someone because he stole something / or fraud was never the case in islamic jurisprudence.

There is no unified Islamic law for punishment for various offences. It varies from place to place, and from sect to sect. Also, the offence can be interpreted in different ways. Some people may interpret it as theft. Some others might interpret it as treason.

In a scale such as this, it can be considered as treason... Treason is punishable by death according to Islamic jurisprudence.

I think the level-headed response here is not to praise Iran as the most just nation on Earth. The reason he was hanged was because OTHER powerful people disliked him, not because he broke the law.

But having said that, I would really like to see more serious punishments for these kind of crimes in the Western world, particularly the United States. The shit some of these guys pull causes financial distress for MILLIONS if not billions of people, whereas a murderer may kill a couple people, and he goes jail for a long time.

These guys have gotten off with a slap on the wrist for decades. The people who were implicated in the 2007-08 recession all got off with no jail time. Sure it is hard to prove, but the government has shown a clear lack of interest in prosecuting the high-level financiers involved...

Exactly. Generally in the Western nations, perpetrators of the white collar crimes are hardly ever brought to justice. Even people who steals billions of USD have in the past escaped with silly sentences.

I'm not familiar with Shiaa which is Irans way of Islam, but I'm pretty sure that cutting the stealing hand is the most severe form of punishment for theft and embezzlement in Islamic laws (this is a basic I believe) I think he and the guys that had the same sentence were involved in treason or and espionage (this is me speculating) as it seems the guy has companies in NA and stuff, or did something worse that got him the capital sentence

The fraud involved using forged documents to get credit at one of Iran's top financial institutions, Bank Saderat, to purchase assets including state-owned companies like major steel producer Khuzestan Steel Co.

Khosravi's business empire included more than 35 companies from mineral water production to a football club and meat imports from Brazil. According to Iranian media reports, the bank fraud began in 2007.

I doubt he was involved in espionage. They would have mentioned this as anti western propaganda.

I'm afraid I have no strong hopes on the value of technology to avoid the condemnation of innocents, at least current technology. In many countries, the guilty verdict is pronounced by fellow citizens, a jury. And even if this systems has its merits it can also put the life or liberty of a innocent person on the hands of amateurs that can be easily tricked by a motivated and professional prosecutor.

I am talking about examples such as these:

1. A person caught in video camera committing a crime such as murder or robbery.
2. A person proved to be involved in rape, from the DNA evidence.
3. A person proved to be involved in crimes such as extortion, as evident from telephone conversations.

In these cases, the judge can be 100% sure about the involvement of the alleged perpetrator in the crime.

One cannot be sure as long as there is the potential for evidence tampering and other sorts of malfeasance.  We know that our justice system has some deficiencies by virtue of the fact that different people from different socioeconomic strata get different results among other issues.  Once that issue is squared away I'll personally re-visit my support of capital punishment (in practice...in theory I've got no real problem with it.)  The thing about capital punishment is that it's permanent and so the machinery needs to be working with extreme precision.

On the other hand, absent a functional capital punishment framework it's more possible that law enforcement will be more incline to play a bigger role than it is supposed to (judge, jury, executioner) and we'll see even more problems in this respect.  Already it does seem like there is more police brutality, and I sometimes wonder if it is not becoming something of a policy which is informally filtering downward.  If we have another economic issue the cops are going to need every advantage they can get, and having the population being terrified of them is a very effective force multiplier.  That's what many countries to do mitigate the numbers issue.

Mahafarid Amir Khosravi was just unlucky. He should have fled to some Western country such as Canada or the US, where the white collar crimes are not prosecuted. (The main accused in this case, Mahmoud Reza Khavari is currently hiding in Canada).

In the USA white collar cases are also prosecuted, even big ones. Just remember Enron or Madoff.

Such instances are rare. Did the Americans prosecuted any of the bankers (JPM, Goldman Sachs.etc) for the economic collapse in 2008? Enron and Madoff were small fish.