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Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

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Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.

Iran: CIA spy escapes death penalty to serve 10 years

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An Iranian national charged with spying for the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has escaped the death penalty and will instead serve 10 years behind bars.

On Saturday, Iran’s Supreme Court rejected the death penalty which was issued against Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, a US resident, by the Islamic Revolutionary Court, said his lawyer, Mahmoud Alizade Tabatabaei.

The lawyer added that his client would still appeal the imprisonment verdict.

On December 17, 2011, Iran's Intelligence Ministry announced that it had arrested the CIA spy of Iranian descent, foiling an intricate American plot to carry out espionage activities in the Islamic Republic.

Mirzaei Hekmati was charged with attempting to infiltrate Iran's intelligence apparatus in an effort to implicate the Islamic Republic in sponsoring terrorism. The defendant had been hired by the CIA in May 2009 to carry out espionage operations in Iran.

In a televised confession broadcast on the Iranian television a day later, Mirzaei Hekmati said he joined the US Army in 2001 and underwent decade-long intelligence training.

He added that he was sent to the US-run Bagram Airbase in eastern Afghanistan and given access to classified intelligence before flying to Tehran.

Hekmati was born in the State of Arizona in southwestern US and joined the Marines after he received his high school diploma, his father said.

Source: PressTV, April 12, 2014
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