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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.

Algerian court condemns 12 to death for 2008 bombing

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A court in Algeria has handed down death sentences to 12 people and condemned 2 others to life imprisonment over their involvement in a bomb explosion that claimed the lives of a Frenchman and his driver back in 2008.

On Wednesday, the Algiers Criminal Court found the accused "forming an armed terrorist group and premeditated voluntary homicide."

The defendants given the death penalty are all members of the Katibat el-Arkam network, a splinter group of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). They are at large and Algerian judicial officials tried them in absentia.

The 2 present in the court, identified as Khaled Asalah and Brahim Brahim, admitted being AQIM members and taking part in several terrorist attacks.

Engineer Pierre Nowacki of the French enterprise BTP Razel and his Algerian driver were killed on June 9, 2008, when a bomb explosion ripped through their vehicle as it was travelling on a road in the town of Beni Amrane, located some 80 kilometers (49 miles) east of the capital, Algiers.

7 people sustained injuries minutes later when a second blast struck the town.

The French national had been supervising repair work on a railway tunnel in the area.

Source: Albawaba news, May 29, 2015

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Location: Algeria
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