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First Third Of 2024 In Saudi Arabia: Executions Rise By 189% And Portend Another Bloody Year. At Least 71 Currently Facing Execution.

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Since the beginning of 2024 until the end of April, the Ministry of Interior in Saudi Arabia announced the execution of 55 individuals. This figure constitutes a 189% increase compared to the executions in the first third of 2023, which witnessed 19 executions. The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights views these numbers as a clear indication of the Saudi government's continued approach towards executing and issuing death sentences, and that the promises made in recent years have become elusive.

Human Rights: Longest-serving French inmate wins parole

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Philippe El Shennawy, a French convict infamous for being the longest-serving prisoner alive in France and a string of escape attempts, will be released on parole on Friday.

“It is a big relief,” his lawyer told reporters on Wednesday, adding that the convict would have to wear an ankle bracelet for a period of two years. “He is going to live with his wife. He is very, very happy.”

Short in comparison to prison sentences in other countries, the 38 years El Shennawy spent behind bars made him the longest-serving inmate alive in France.

In France, prison sentences even for the worst crimes are usually limited to 30 years of incarceration, with inmates often paroled or freed after that time.

El Shennawy, now 60, was found guilty of robbing a Paris bank and taking hostages in 1977, crimes he has always denied committing.

He was released in 1990, but wound up back in jail after breaking the rules of his parole.

He took flight in 1997 and again in 2004, hiding from police for months, during which time he committed several armed robberies before being apprehended.

He also made headlines after hunger strikes and challenging the French justice system.

Source: FRANCE 24 with AFP, January 24, 2014
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First Third Of 2024 In Saudi Arabia: Executions Rise By 189% And Portend Another Bloody Year. At Least 71 Currently Facing Execution.

Published
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Since the beginning of 2024 until the end of April, the Ministry of Interior in Saudi Arabia announced the execution of 55 individuals. This figure constitutes a 189% increase compared to the executions in the first third of 2023, which witnessed 19 executions. The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights views these numbers as a clear indication of the Saudi government's continued approach towards executing and issuing death sentences, and that the promises made in recent years have become elusive.
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20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

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The following document is a written record of convicted killer Hamida Djandoubi's last moments before he was guillotined in a Marseilles prison on September 10, 1977. This written record -- dated September 9 -- was written by a judge appointed to witness the execution. Djandoubi's execution was the last execution carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. Then-President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who had voiced his "loathing for the death penalty" before he was elected to office, flatly turned down Djandoubi's appeal for clemency and chose to let "Justice run its course", as he did on two previous instances ( Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977). Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was executed in Marseilles' Baumettes prison in September 1977. The following text was writ
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