Death Penalty News

British consular incidents involving suspected ‘drug mules’ grew from 80 in 2023 to above 340 in 2025.  The number of British nationals detained overseas on drug trafficking charges has surged more than 4-fold over 3 years, official figures show, alongside a government warning that penalties include life imprisonment and the death sentence.  Consular incidents involving suspected "drug mules" grew from 80 in 2023 to above 340 in 2025, with at least 160 recorded so far this year.  Over 200 UK citizens are presently held in foreign custody for smuggling cannabis originating in Thailand. Around 60% of those caught since 2024 are aged between 16 and 30. 

CLEARWATER, Fla. — A former plastic surgeon accused of killing an attorney involved in a lawsuit against his former employer will put his fate in the hands of a judge. Tomasz Kosowski has waived his right to a jury trial in the murder of attorney Steven Cozzi, according to court records. He has also waived his right to have a jury determine his sentence if he is convicted and the case proceeds to a penalty phase. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Kosowski plans to represent himself.

Death row inmate Lin Wang-jen (林旺仁), who was convicted of setting fire to a karaoke bar in 2004, killing five people, yesterday died of an illness, authorities confirmed. The number of inmates on death row has fallen to 34, correctional authorities said late yesterday, after local media reported that Lin had died in hospital. Lin, a Yilan County resident, was sentenced to death for murder in 2004. In 2011, the Supreme Court upheld his sentence. Lin set fire to a karaoke bar in Keelung on June 16, 2004, because he was upset with his wife for accepting a job there, court rulings said.

Alabama plans to execute Jeffery Lee on Thursday via lethal injection after a down-to-the-wire decision by the federal courts halted his death by nitrogen hypoxia in June. In response, Gov. Kay Ivey set the 30-hour window for the execution to be carried out by lethal injection beginning at 12 a.m. on Thursday, September 17, and expiring at 6 a.m. on Friday, September 18. Barring any further court action, the execution will take place at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.

Every resident of a building on Tehran’s Sheikh Hadi Street was arrested after several stones were thrown from its rooftop at repressive forces during the January protests. Months later, four of those detained were sentenced to death, and the Supreme Court has now rejected the appeal of one of the defendants. Information obtained by IranWire confirms that Branch 9 of the Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of Mohammad Reza Majidi-Asl, putting him at immediate risk of execution.

On Sept. 11, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a death warrant for William Thompson, convicted of the 1976 kidnapping, rape, and murder of 23-year-old Sally Ivester. Thompson, now 74, and another man were staying in a Miami Beach hotel room with Ivester and another woman, according to court records. After Ivester was unable to get money from her mother, the men beat and tortured her, prosecutors said. She died from internal bleeding and multiple injuries. Thompson was convicted in 1978 of kidnapping, rape, and first-degree murder.

Iranian authorities executed Abdolrahim Narouei Rouzaneh, a 47-year-old Baloch prisoner from Zabol, in Isfahan Central Prison (Dastgerd Prison). He had previously been sentenced to death on drug-related charges. Based on information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Narouei Rouzaneh, a married father of nine from Zabol, Sistan and Baluchistan Province, was executed at dawn on Monday, September 14, 2026, in Dastgerd Prison.

An Iranian court has handed down a death sentence to a man detained in connection with the January 2026 protests in the northeastern city of Shandiz, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported on Sunday. Hossein Rasouli-Nasab was sentenced by the Mashhad Revolutionary Court on charges including “ moharebeh ,” or waging war against God, HRANA said. The rights group said authorities had alleged that he committed moharebeh through participation in the destruction of public property and setting fire to religious centers. He was also accused of assembly and collusion against national security.

At least eight women are facing death sentences in prisons across Iran, including four in cases linked to the nationwide January protests, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) rights group reported on Sunday. HRANA said the women had been sentenced in separate political, security, and protest-related cases on charges including “armed rebellion,” “enmity against God," and “corruption on earth,” offenses that can carry the death penalty under Iran’s Islamic penal code. The cases were heard by branches of the Revolutionary Courts in Tehran, Isfahan, Rasht, and Bandar Abbas, the group said.

Marziyeh “Sevda” Ebrahimi Shamsabadi, a 33-year-old blogger from Bandar Abbas who has been detained since March, has been sentenced to death, according to information obtained by Iran International. Branch 3 of the Bandar Abbas Revolutionary Court convicted her on charges including insulting Iran's supreme leader, media and propaganda activity against national security, intelligence and security activity on behalf of hostile governments, and taking and sending photographs to Persian-language media abroad, according to the information.

Iran has executed at least 29 people arrested in connection with the widespread protests in January, more than half of whom were not accused of killing anyone, with some put to death in public in what rights groups describe as a campaign to deter further dissent. The findings are contained in a new joint report by Human Rights Watch and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran examining executions following the nationwide protests that erupted in late 2025 and January 2026.

Kneeling next to a ditch, deep in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, a 22-year-old woman draws her last breath in a 'desert court' before she is shot in the back with an AK-47. Her executioner? Likely her hardline militant husband, in what the Taliban consider an 'honour killing'.  It took less than an hour to decide Najiba had been adulterous – although it has been suggested this accusation was fabricated to protect her husband's reputation. Adultery is a crime that deserves capital punishment under the Taliban's strict interpretation of Sharia law. Fourteen years on from her death, little is known about her story, like many women slowly being erased from the fabric of Afghan society. 

Prosecutors sought the death penalty for singer and YouTuber A, who was brought to trial on charges of assaulting and neglecting his teenage biological daughter, causing her death. On the 10th, the criminal division 1 of the Changwon District Court Jinju Branch (Lee Seung-il Director General) sought the maximum sentence allowed by law, the death penalty, at the sentencing hearing for the 40-year-old A, who was detained and indicted on charges including murder.

The Ministry of Home Affairs says discussions with the Israeli government involved the sharing of best practices in emergency response, crime prevention, and forensics. Issues relating to the death penalty “were never part of the meeting and were not discussed."  SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday (Sep 11) refuted claims by an Israeli media outlet that the death penalty was discussed during a visit by an Israeli delegation in May. The Haaretz newspaper reported on Sep 7 that a delegation comprising representatives from the Israel Prison Service and National Security Ministry made a “secret visit” to Singapore that month.

Iranian authorities secretly executed three prisoners, including a Baloch man, in Isfahan Central Prison (Dastgerd Prison). The three had been sentenced to death in separate cases on drug-related charges. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Mohammad Yousef Issazahi (Rigi), Shahrokh Pouresmaeili, and Hossein Ghasemzadeh were executed at dawn on Wednesday, September 9, 2026. Issazahi (Rigi), a 40-year-old Baloch man from Iranshahr, Sistan and Baluchestan Province, was married and the father of five children. He was arrested in Isfahan in 2022 on drug-related charges and subsequently sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court.

In Florida’s 15th execution this year, man put to death for killing linked to ‘Hog Trail Murders’  A Florida man convicted in one of a series of suspected killings that became known as the “Hog Trail Murders” in the 1990s was put to death Thursday, becoming the state’s 15th person executed this year.  Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. after receiving a 3-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He had been sentenced to die for the 1996 kidnapping and strangling of Richard Allen Montgomery, whose mutilated body was found in a wooded southwest Florida area where authorities found the remains of at least 6 people over a 3-year span.

Johnny Morales struggled to find sleep. He dozed off for a few moments, but officers came to his death row cell and woke him a little after midnight. They needed to inventory and box up his belongings. He was leaving San Quentin.  Hands cuffed behind his back, he walked across the empty upper yard in the dim gray hours before daylight. An officer walked alongside him step for step, black latex-gloved fingers holding onto Morales’s arm. For almost 20 years, Morales could only experience the world outside his 4-by-11 foot cell in the condemned housing unit like this—chained and escorted by officers. Security protocols required all death row residents be handcuffed or shackled any time they were out in open space with staff.

Muscat: Oman has enacted a new Law on Combating Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances under Royal Decree No. 67/2026, introducing severe penalties for drug trafficking, smuggling, possession and personal use, including the death penalty and life imprisonment in certain cases. Under the new law, importing, exporting, producing, or manufacturing narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances for the purpose of trafficking is punishable by imprisonment and a fine ranging from RO 35,000 to RO 60,000. The death penalty applies to drug smuggling carried out for the purpose of trafficking in specified aggravated circumstances, including repeat offences, abuse of official authority, licences or legal immunity, using a person lacking legal capacity or with diminished capacity, and participation in or cooperation with international gangs involved in drug smuggling.

His judgment also contained observations about alleged threats, pressure on the judiciary, and the influence of gangsters and mafia in western Uttar Pradesh MEERUT Additional district and sessions judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar, while pronouncing his 23rd capital punishment in the last five months in a murder case on Monday (September 7), said in his verdict that he would prefer death to being called a “coward judge."