Death Penalty News

Executions soared to their highest number in almost a decade in 2023 with a sharp rise across the Middle East, Amnesty International said today as it released its annual report on the global use of the death penalty. A total of 1,153 executions took place in 2023, which does not include the thousands believed to have been carried out in China , marking an increase of more than 30% from 2022. It was the highest figure recorded by Amnesty International since 2015, when 1,634 people were known to have been executed. Despite this increase, the number of countries that carried out executions reached the lowest figure on record with Amnesty International.

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 13 – Saudi Arabia has acceded to Kenya’s request to postpone the execution of Stephen Munyakho that was set for Wednesday to allow for further negotiations between all parties. According to Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Korir Sing’Oei, Kenya will be engaging stakeholders in Nairobi and Riyadh, including religious leaders, to agree on the next urgent steps.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Baghdad court on Monday handed a death sentence for a drug dealer of foreign nationality accused of bringing narcotics into the country, state media reported.  “The convict brought narcotic substances into Iraq for the purpose of trafficking them and selling them among drug users,” state media said, citing a statement by Baghdad’s Karkh Criminal Court.  The verdict was issued in accordance with Article 27 of the Iraqi Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Law. 

BALI, Indonesia (AFP): Two Ukrainians and a Russian national face the death penalty in Indonesia after police raided a suspected drug lab on the popular resort island of Bali, police said Monday. Authorities said four suspects, including an Indonesian national, were arrested earlier this month at a villa on the island.

Thousands of years ago in ancient China, felonies were not simply punished with a stint in jail, but serious crimes often entailed the amputation of a limb, specifically legs. This harsh culture of punishment, known as yue , disciplined people for various crimes, such as desertion from duties, stealing, or defrauding the monarchy. It was also used in lieu of the death penalty.

A Mississippi Coast man is headed to death row for his role in the beating and suffocation death of his 2-year-old stepson — all because the toddler soiled his diaper and took too long to get a juice box out of the refrigerator. A jury in Harrison County Circuit Court in Biloxi deliberated for just over two hours Friday before handing down the death sentence against Joseph David Heard, 41, in the Dec. 27, 2021, killing of his stepson, Hayden Lee Bataille, of Biloxi. 

SINGAPORE - The Court of Appeal has overturned the conviction of a 63-year-old man who had been sentenced to death for heroin trafficking because the prosecution had run an inconsistent case during his trial regarding when the drugs were delivered to him. In a written judgment delivered by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon on May 8, the court said the evidence did not support a finding being made beyond a reasonable doubt on when exactly the two bundles of heroin were delivered to Mohamed Mubin Abdul Rahman.

The Senate, yesterday, passed a bill which upgraded the maximum sentence of life imprisonment to death penalty for manufacturers of hard drugs. The legislation, titled: ‘National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act (Amendment Bill) 2024’ passed a third reading at the Senate, yesterday.  The Bill sought to review penalties provision, update the list of dangerous drugs, strengthen the operations of the NDLEA, and empower the NDLEA to establish laboratories. 

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); May 9, 2024: Hassan Choopani, Abdollah Hassanzadeh Yangajeh and Hassan Arabi Anabi were executed for drug-related charges in Urmia Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, three Kurdish men were executed in Urmia Central Prison on 9 May. Their identities have been established as 35-year-old Hassan Choopani, Abdollah Hassanzadeh Yangajeh and Hassan Arabi Anabi. They were sentenced to death for drug-related charges by the Revolutionary Court.

Medan. The Medan District Court on Wednesday found three defendants, including a woman dubbed the "drug queen" by local media, guilty of trafficking and sentenced them to death. Hanisah, also known as Nisa Binti Abdullah, her husband Al Riza, and co-defendant Maimun were convicted of trafficking at least 52 kilograms of methamphetamine and 129 kilograms of ecstasy pills.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); May 9, 2024: Abdollah Ozbekzehi, Khalilollah Barahouyi and Fariba Mohammadzehi were executed for drug-related charges in Kerman Central Prison. According to HRANA news agency, two men and a woman were executed in Kerman Central Prison on 8 May. 

Buried on page 554 of the plan is a directive to execute every remaining person on federal death row — and dramatically expand the use of the death penalty. During the final six months of Donald Trump’s presidency, his administration carried out an unprecedented execution spree, killing 13 people on federal death row and ending a 17-year de facto federal execution moratorium.

OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — The interval between executions in Oklahoma will grow to 90 days, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruled on Tuesday. The court also decided against setting execution dates for a group of death row inmates, which has been done since 2022.

SINGAPORE — Singapore's Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam on Wednesday (May 8) cited local and regional surveys as proof of strong and growing support for using the death penalty on drug traffickers. He was delivering a ministerial statement in parliament on Singapore’s approach to drug control. 

Iraqi courts have handed down hundreds of death and life sentences in recent years for people convicted of membership in a terrorist group. BAGHDAD – Eleven people were executed on Monday at Al-Hut prison in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya after they were convicted and sentenced to death of terrorism crimes, two security sources said.

On April 30, 2024, a week after the parties in Glossip v. Oklahoma filed merits briefs at the United States Supreme Court, several amici filed briefs in support of the parties’ joint position, asking the Court to grant Richard Glossip a new trial.  Ken Cuccinelli, the former Virginia Attorney General and Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security under President Donald Trump, said in his brief that the consequences of failing to overturn Mr. Glossip’s conviction are “most dire.” 

The Alabama Supreme Court has authorized the nitrogen hypoxia execution of Alan Eugene Miller, setting the stage for the state to have at least four executions this year. Miller's execution would be the second carried out using nitrogen gas, the Alabama Attorney General’s office says. Miller, now 59, was convicted of killing three people during a pair of 1999 workplace shootings in suburban Birmingham. He was living in Autauga County at the time.

Kaohsiung, May 7 (CNA) A Kaohsiung man's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment Tuesday by the Kaohsiung Branch of the Taiwan High Court, after his case was retried for the fourth time. According to the court's verdict Tuesday, the man surnamed Liu (劉) was accused of robbing and killing a woman near Haluo market in Kaohsiung's Zuoying District on Dec. 3 2014.

In the early 1970s I was a North Carolinian, white boy from the South attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and working in East Harlem as part of a program. In my senior year, I visited men at the Bronx House of Detention. I had never been in a prison or jail, but people in East Harlem were dealing with these places and the police all the time. This experience truly turned my life around.

A knife attack at a hospital in southwestern China has killed two people and injured 21 others. No motive was given for Tuesday's attack at Zhenxiong County People’s Hospital in Yunnan province. Authorities said the suspect is a male from the same county .

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); May 6, 2024: Ali Asghar Falah, a man sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder, was executed Qom Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Qom Central Prison on 5 May. His identity has been established as 35-year-old Ali Asghar Falah who was sentenced to qisas for murder.

Mahmoud Mehrabi, a political prisoner held in Isfahan's Dastgerd Prison, has been sentenced to death for "corruption on Earth," a charge often used against dissidents. On Saturday, his lawyer, Babak Farsani, reported that the court refused to provide a written verdict.  Lawyers only learned details of his sentence by attending the issuing branch when judges read the text aloud.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); May 4, 2024: Sohrab Rafieian and Morteza Azimi, two co-defendants on death row for drug-related charges, was executed in Zanjan Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, two men were executed in Zanjan Central Prison on 28 April. Their identities have been established as 35-year-old Sohrab Rafieian and 40-year-old Morteza Azimi who were sentenced to death for drug-related charges by the Revolutionary Court in the same case.

A jury of 12 Johnson County residents voted Thursday to send 31-year-old Jerry Elders to death row for the murder of Robin Waddell, agreeing with prosecutors who requested the death penalty. The defense argued for life in prison without parole, saying Thursday morning that Elders’ actions came after a lifetime of drug addiction and going in and out of jails and prisons, being kicked out of his family home as a teenager and not receiving support from family members.