By P. Vijian
CHENNAI, Aug 30 (Bernama) -- It was slight reprieve for three convicts involved in the assassination of then Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, after the Madras High Court temporarily suspended their hanging, scheduled for early next month.
On Tuesday, the court stayed the hanging of the trio -- identified only as Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan -- all members of the now-defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The court ordered an interim stay for eight weeks.
"It has been 11 years and four months' delay in disposing off the petition. The delay, unless properly explained and justified, makes death penalty immoral, illegal and according to me, unconstitutional," Ram Jethmalani, counsel for the convicts, said outside the court, reported Indian television channels.
The three were behind Gandhi's brutal murder which was carried out by a female suicide bomber on May 21, 1991, in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, while he was on an election campaign.
Last Friday, Vellore Central Prison Superintendent R. Arivudainambi said the hanging was fixed on Sept 9, after Indian President Pratibha Patil rejected their mercy plea.
At the Tamil Nadu state assembly this morning, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, also moved a resolution urging the death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
In 1999, India's Supreme Court ordered the three men to be given the death sentence for the crime which took place at the height of an LTTE-led civil war in northern Sri Lanka.
The assassination was said to have been ordered by LTTE leaders after Gandhi sent Indian peacekeeping troops to the northern region.
Another convict, Nalini Sriharan, Murugan's wife, a back-up suicide bomber, was also sentenced to death, but later given life term on the intervention of Sonia, Gandhi's widow, and Congress party president.
Nalini gave birth to a baby girl while in jail and also completed a master's programme in computer science.
The last execution India was in 2004, when a security guard was hanged for the rape and murder of a teenager in Kolkata in 2004.
CHENNAI, Aug 30 (Bernama) -- It was slight reprieve for three convicts involved in the assassination of then Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, after the Madras High Court temporarily suspended their hanging, scheduled for early next month.
On Tuesday, the court stayed the hanging of the trio -- identified only as Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan -- all members of the now-defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The court ordered an interim stay for eight weeks.
"It has been 11 years and four months' delay in disposing off the petition. The delay, unless properly explained and justified, makes death penalty immoral, illegal and according to me, unconstitutional," Ram Jethmalani, counsel for the convicts, said outside the court, reported Indian television channels.
The three were behind Gandhi's brutal murder which was carried out by a female suicide bomber on May 21, 1991, in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, while he was on an election campaign.
Last Friday, Vellore Central Prison Superintendent R. Arivudainambi said the hanging was fixed on Sept 9, after Indian President Pratibha Patil rejected their mercy plea.
At the Tamil Nadu state assembly this morning, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, also moved a resolution urging the death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
In 1999, India's Supreme Court ordered the three men to be given the death sentence for the crime which took place at the height of an LTTE-led civil war in northern Sri Lanka.
The assassination was said to have been ordered by LTTE leaders after Gandhi sent Indian peacekeeping troops to the northern region.
Another convict, Nalini Sriharan, Murugan's wife, a back-up suicide bomber, was also sentenced to death, but later given life term on the intervention of Sonia, Gandhi's widow, and Congress party president.
Nalini gave birth to a baby girl while in jail and also completed a master's programme in computer science.
The last execution India was in 2004, when a security guard was hanged for the rape and murder of a teenager in Kolkata in 2004.
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