Death Penalty News

The Idaho Supreme Court held Tuesday night that a second execution attempt of Thomas Creech does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment or imposing multiple punishments for the same offense. Earlier Tuesday, a federal judge in the district of Arizona said he will block the scheduled execution of Creech, according to the Idaho Statesman.  U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow said in court that a second execution attempt would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

A former high-level Chinese government employee has been sentenced to death for leaking state secrets to a foreign power, Beijing's spy agency said Wednesday. The individual surnamed Zhang "provided a large number of top secret and classified state secrets to foreign intelligence agencies," the Ministry of State Security said in a post to its official WeChat account. In his job, Zhang had access to "a large number of state secrets", the ministry said.

Iran has sentenced three people to death over the 2020 assassination of one of the country’s top nuclear scientists, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the judiciary said on Tuesday. “The judicial processes of these three people were carried out in the Revolutionary Court of Urmia, and they were sentenced to death in the initial stage, and the case is currently in the appeal stage,” judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir told a Tehran press conference.

SINGAPORE: Singapore’s Home Ministry (MHA) has instructed Meta Platforms Inc be issued Targeted Correction Directions (TCDs) following the reposting of false statements on its platforms regarding the scheduling of executions and the prosecution of drug trafficking charges in the country. The ministry said it has instructed Office of the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) to issue the TCDs, which require Meta to alert users who have seen the repeat posts that they contain false statements.

A female student at Tehran’s Islamic Azad University stripped to her underwear on campus after university security personnel harassed her and tore her clothing for not wearing a headscarf. University officials later claimed she was transferred to a psychiatric hospital. Social media users now call her the "Science and Research Girl," after Tehran's Science and Research Campus, where the incident occurred. Known for its scenic mountainous location, this unit of the Islamic Azad University has become the focal point of a protest that sparked widespread attention online.

Arvin Netanel Ghahremani's relatives claim he did not receive adequate defense. Authorities in Iran on Monday executed a Jewish man, Arvin Nathaniel Ghahremani, who had been sentenced to death for murder, Iranian media reported. “The sentence of retribution was executed this morning,” said Hamidreza Karimi, the prosecutor for Kermanshah in western Iran, according to the Mehr news agency.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); November 2, 2024: Amid escalating tensions between Iran and Israel, and under the cover of war propaganda, the Islamic Republic carried out at least 166 executions in October alone. This marks the highest number of executions recorded in a single month since Iran Human Rights began documenting executions in 2007. Among those executed were 13 Afghan nationals, six women, and an Iranian-German citizen.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); November 1, 2024: Hamed Doyesti, a man on death row for murder, was executed in Isfahan Central Prison. Per informed IHRNGO sources, there are currently more than 70 murder death row prisoners awaiting execution at the prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Isfahan (Dastgerd) Central Prison on 31 October. His identity has been established as 35-year-old Hamed Doyesti who was arrested five years ago and sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) by the Criminal Court.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — It was the hottest September in more than a century in parts of South Florida, and Dwayne Wilson could hear his 81-year-old fellow inmate gasping for breath and crying out for help at the Dade Correctional Institution, 45 miles southwest of Miami on the edge of the Florida Everglades. The elderly man was confined to a wheelchair and for weeks had been complaining of severe chest pain and difficulty breathing in the unventilated dorm where he was serving his sentence, according to a federal class action lawsuit filed this week on behalf of Wilson and two other inmates at the prison.

South Carolina executes Richard Moore despite broadly supported plea to cut sentence to life   South Carolina put Richard Moore to death by lethal injection Friday for the 1999 fatal shooting of a convenience store clerk, despite a broad appeal for mercy by parties that included 3 jurors and the judge from his trial, a former prison director, pastors and members of his family.

Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith has represented a number of clients who have been sentenced to death row across the USA and he's recounted some of their final moments A human rights attorney has reminisced about the bitterly ironic moment his executed client was initially denied a last cigarette over health concerns. Clive Stafford Smith shared the poignant tale with LadBible, recounting how Nicholas Lee Ingram skipped his final meal in favor of a smoke.

In Germany, all three consulates general of Iran will be closed in response to the execution of the German-Iranian citizen Jamshid Sharmakhd This was reported by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Tagesschau reports. Iranian consulates will be closed in Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg. The Iranian embassy in Berlin will continue to work. Those of the 32 consulate employees who do not have German citizenship will have to leave Germany.

A federal judge also decided inmates don’t have a right to know more about the drugs they can choose to kill them COLUMBIA — The U.S. Supreme Court will not stop an inmate’s execution scheduled for Friday, according to a Thursday order. Richard Moore, 59, had asked the nation’s highest court to keep him from the death chamber long enough to hear claims that prosecutors struck Black jurors because of their race during his 2001 trial. But in a two-sentence order, the justices declined.

October 30, 2024 – Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have raised urgent alarms over escalating human rights abuses in Iran, where both corporal punishments and executions are being enforced at alarming rates. Amnesty International reports that five men held at Urumieh Central Prison in West Azerbaijan Province – Hadi Rostami, Kasra Karami, Mehdi Shahivand, Mehdi Sharifian, and Morteza Esmaeilian – are at immediate risk of having their fingers amputated by Iranian authorities. This follows the October 29 use of a guillotine machine by prison officials to amputate four fingers from the right hands of two other men, brothers Mehrdad and Shahab Teymouri, who were transferred to solitary confinement just prior to their punishment.

This investigative report uncovers a punitive approach employed by Syrian security forces following the detention of minors. Children were held without trial until they reached the legal age of 18, at which point they were transferred to Military Field Courts. Additionally, the Syrian regime used illegal methods to issue death sentences for detained minors under the Anti-Terrorism Law (No. 19 of 2012). Investigation by Ali Al Ibrahim and Mohamad Skaf

The Ministry of Health currently has no plans to abolish the death penalty in the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, following amendments in 2017 and 2023 that removed its mandatory status for drug offences. KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 30 — The Ministry of Health (MOH) currently has no plans to completely remove the death penalty from the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 (Act 234) for drug-related offences. Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad said that while the MOH oversees the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, its implementation and enforcement are carried out by other agencies, including the Royal Malaysia Police under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

In a statement to CNA today, the ministry said activist Kokila Annamalai was undermining public confidence in the Singapore criminal justice system SINGAPORE, Oct 31 — The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) of Singapore said today that it does not target individuals for voicing opinions against the death penalty. However, it emphasised the need to correct false statements regarding government policies, especially those affecting public interest. This response came following queries by media site CNA after activist Kokila Annamalai refused to comply with a correction direction related to her social media posts, which the MHA deemed false regarding the government’s execution scheduling and legal processes.

Authorities at Urmia Prison in Iran’s West Azerbaijan Province carried out the sentence of finger amputation on two brothers convicted of alleged theft. Branch 1 of the provincial juvenile court ordered the amputation of four fingers from the right hand of each brother, Shahab and Mehrdad Teimouri.  After the procedure, the brothers were transferred to Imam Khomeini Hospital in Urmia for medical treatment.

After the September 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini and the subsequent protests, Iranian universities have also faced heightened repression and intensified control. The government's new "Population Growth" initiative, coupled with mandatory hijab laws, has transformed universities into enforcers of these policies, placing additional pressure on female students. Under the policy, universities offer academic grades and incentives for observing mandatory hijab, marrying, or having children, effectively turning these institutions into vehicles for promoting the Islamic Republic’s ideological goals.

Richard Moore, a 59-year-old father and grandfather, is scheduled to be executed in South Carolina on Nov. 1 for the 1999 killing of a convenience store clerk in a shootout, though Moore  entered the store without a weapon. His attorneys said he never intended to kill anyone and the death penalty is not a fair punishment. Advocates for commutation include a former state supreme court justice, jurors, a former director of the state’s department of corrections and more.

From 2010 to 2015 I was incarcerated in Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, the Tennessee prison that houses death row for the men’s system. On one side of a gate, 250 of us lived in a “support staff” unit working maintenance, landscaping, kitchen service or whatever else kept the facility operational. On the other side of the gate were maximum-security prisoners and those in protective custody, and a unit just for the condemned.

He was sentenced to death in February 2023 for “corruption on Earth,” and was accused of being involved in the 2008 bombing of a Shiite mosque in Shiraz that led to the deaths of 14 people and over 200 others injured. Iran executed a 69-year-old German-Iranian software developer and US resident, Jamshid Sharmahd on Monday, October 28, following years of imprisonment.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); October 28, 2024: Mansour Hadadi and Esmail Shehbakhsh, two men on death row for drug-related offences, were executed in Birjand Central Prison. According to Haal Vsh, a man was executed in Birjand Central Prison on 22nd October. His identity has been reported as Mansour Hadadi from Zabol who was sentenced to death for drug-related charges by the Revolutionary Court. He was executed without his family being notified and the right to a last visit with them.

Iran consistently ranks among the world’s leading executioners, claiming the grim distinction of having the highest number of executions per capita.  The Iranian regime extensively employs the death penalty as a tool not only for judicial punishment but also for political repression. The Iranian legal system, with its reliance on vaguely defined charges such as Moharebeh (waging war against God) and Baghi (rebellion), provides the state with broad latitude to impose capital punishment. These charges are frequently invoked not only in cases of violent crimes like murder but also to silence political dissent, protests, and religious beliefs that deviate from the state’s official ideology.