Death Penalty News

Lingkesvaran was sentenced to death in 2018.  A Malaysian man convicted of trafficking a significant quantity of heroin was executed in Singapore on Feb. 11, 2026, according to an official statement issued by the Singapore authorities.  Lingkesvaran Rajendaren, 33, had been found guilty of trafficking not less than 52.77 grammes of diamorphine, also known as pure heroin.  Singapore law mandates the death penalty for cases involving more than 15 grams of the drug.  The authorities said the amount involved was enough to sustain the addiction of approximately 630 abusers for a week, highlighting the harm caused by large-scale drug trafficking.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from transferring 20 ex-death row inmates, granted clemency by former President Biden, to the most restrictive “supermax” prison in the nation. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, an appointee of President Trump, ruled Wednesday that the men were likely to succeed in showing their due process rights were skirted by the administration in its bid to send them to the Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) in Florence, Colo.

Appeal court upholds capital punishment after Coast Guard intercepts narcotics boat  Kuwait’s Court of Appeal has sentenced 5 Iranian nationals to death after convicting them of smuggling and trafficking narcotics into the country, in one of the most serious drug cases heard this year.  The ruling was issued by an appeal panel headed by Judge Dr. Fahd Bu Salib and reflects Kuwait’s tough penalties for cross-border drug offences and its ongoing crackdown on narcotics trafficking, local media reported. 

Countries across Southeast Asia are moving away from the use of capital punishment. But Singapore remains an outlier. From Vietnam to Malaysia and Indonesia, Southeast Asian governments are narrowing the use of the death penalty and edging, often cautiously, toward abolition.  At present, eight of the 11 Southeast Asian countries retain the death penalty. Only Cambodia, the Philippines and Timor-Leste have abolished it in law. But recent years have seen most of the retentionist states abide by de facto moratoriums on executions and pass new legislation so death is no longer the mandatory punishment for certain crimes.

Oklahoma is set to carry out its first execution of 2026 on Thursday with the scheduled lethal injection of a man convicted in a 2006 drive-by shooting that killed two young men following a dispute outside an Oklahoma City nightclub. Kendrick Antonio Simpson, 45, is set to receive a three-drug lethal injection at 10 a.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. The execution would mark the first in Oklahoma this year and the second in the United States in 2026.

Hostages should be given "the honor of pressing the button" to carry out death penalties for Hamas terrorists, former Gaza hostage Eliya Cohen said in an Instagram post on Tuesday, in response to a Hamas statement criticizing Otzma Yehudit's death penalty bill. "Raping, murdering, smashing heads, desecrating bodies, burning babies, kidnapping civilians, and torturing them 24/7, is that not a violation of the international convention?" Cohen wrote.

Ronald Palmer Heath killed a traveling salesman in 1989; last year the state had a record 19 executions   A man convicted of killing a traveling salesman he and his brother had met at a bar has become the 1st person executed in Florida this year.  Ronald Palmer Heath, 64, was pronounced dead at 6.12pm on Tuesday after a 3-drug injection at the Florida state prison near Starke. Heath was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon and other charges in the 1989 killing of Michael Sheridan.  Around 60 protesters gathered outside Florida State Prison on Tuesday evening, a larger crowd than is typical for executions. Joe Lakers, an Iowa resident, came to protest Heath’s execution with the Our Lady of Lourdes church from Daytona Beach.

TEHRAN, Iran (DPN) — Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has approved pardons or sentence reductions for more than 2,100 convicts, the judiciary announced Tuesday, in a move coinciding with the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. However, authorities explicitly excluded anyone involved in the deadly nationwide protests that erupted in late December 2025 and continued into January 2026, highlighting the regime's ongoing hardline stance against dissent.

Lahore, Feb 9 (PTI) A high court in Pakistan has set aside the death sentence of a former military officer in a blasphemy case and acquitted him for "want of evidence," a court official said on Monday.  A sessions court had awarded a death sentence to Col (R) Muhammad Arif last year for allegedly passing insulting remarks about the Prophet in Rawalpindi city, some 250kms from Lahore.  An activist of radical Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, which was recently proscribed by the Shehbaz Sharif government, was complainant in this case. 

Israel’s prison authorities have begun logistical and operational preparations for carrying out executions following the first Knesset reading of a bill allowing the death penalty in terrorism cases In recent days, the Israel Prison Service has begun making practical preparations for the possible implementation of the death penalty for convicted terrorists, following the first reading in the Knesset of a bill that would authorize capital punishment in exceptional cases. According to a report by Channel 13 News, the preparations include logistical, organizational, and personnel-related measures. 

Officials described in silence the day Mary Jane Veloso returned to Philippine custody in December 2024 after spending over fifteen years overseas. However, many Filipinos found it emotionally charged, particularly those who had family members employed abroad. Not only did someone return, but the topic we’ve been trying to answer—what happens when the system fails the weakest?—also came back into focus. She had departed the nation in 2010 with common aspirations: modest but determined. To provide for her family, she sought domestic work overseas, just like a startlingly high percentage of Filipina workers. What happened next was a destructive spiral. Mary Jane, who was arrested in Indonesia after more than two kilograms of heroin were discovered in her suitcase, said she had no idea what she was carrying.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq announced on Monday that a high-level security officer during the rule of Saddam Hussein has been hanged for his involvement in the 1980 killing of a prominent Shiite cleric. The National Security Service said that Saadoun Sabri al-Qaisi, who held the rank of major general under Saddam and was arrested last year, was convicted of “grave crimes against humanity,” including the killing of prominent Iraqi Shiite cleric Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, members of the al-Hakim family, and other civilians.

Human rights activists are sounding the alarm over reports of secret and extrajudicial executions in Iran, warning that the authorities may be moving toward retaliating against detainees after the deadly crackdown on protests in January. Domestic accounts—fragmentary and difficult to verify under heavy censorship—suggest that killings may be continuing beyond those reported during the nationwide unrest of January 8 and 9, when security forces opened fire on demonstrators in cities across the country. One case frequently cited by rights activists involves Mohammad-Amin Aghilizadeh, a teenager detained in Fooladshahr in central Iran.

The condemned headed family syndicates that trapped Chinese abroad in massive scam centres BEIJING — In less than a week, China conducted a series of executions on a scale rarely seen in recent decades. In all, 16 core members of mafia-like crime syndicates were put to death for a range of crimes, from murder to fraud and human trafficking. While all the victims in the cases were Chinese nationals, many of the condemned were citizens of Myanmar, a largely Buddhist country not known for executing crime bosses.

The HRANA report comes as the Islamic Republic has been carrying out an increasing number of executions. At least 13 prisoners were executed in various prisons across Iran on Saturday morning after having been convicted by the regime's courts of drug and murder-related charges, US-based human rights group HRANA reported the same day. According to the group, the executions took place in the prisons of Khorramabad, Sanandaj, Dezful, Aligudarz, Kermanshah, Yasuj, Nahavand, Zahedan, Hamedan, and Karaj Central Penitentiary.

TOKYO - Japanese political parties are split on abolishing the death penalty, with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the main opposition Centrist Reform Alliance not taking a clear stance on the issue, a survey released by a human rights group ahead of Sunday's general election showed. In the questionnaire conducted by Tokyo-based Human Rights Now, the long-ruling LDP said the issue should be "considered cautiously by fully taking into account public opinion" as it "relates to the foundation of the criminal justice system."

TORONTO, Canada — China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a Canadian official told AFP Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg's lawyer Zhang Dongshuo, reached by AFP over the phone in Beijing on Saturday, confirmed the decision was announced Friday by China's highest court. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China–Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou.

Alabama has scheduled a March execution date for a man sentenced to death for a fatal shooting during a 1991 robbery even though he didn't pull the trigger.  Gov. Kay Ivey on Thursday set a March 12 execution using nitrogen gas for Charles “Sonny” Burton, 75. Burton was convicted as an accomplice in the shooting death of Doug Battle, a customer who was killed during an Aug. 16 robbery that year of an auto parts store in Talladega.