Death Penalty News

Hengaw – Saturday, May 23, 2026. Iranian authorities have executed Esma Zarei, a 28-year-old Turkish woman from Parsabad in Ardabil Province, who had previously been sentenced to death on charges of “premeditated murder” in connection with the killing of her husband. She is the sixth woman executed in Iran since the beginning of 2026. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Zarei was executed at dawn on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, in Ardabil Central Prison. She had been sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) after being convicted of her husband’s murder.

Iran executed a man on Monday who had been convicted of carrying out armed attacks during the statewide anti-government rallies that peaked in January, the judiciary announced. Abbas Akbari’s execution is the latest in a series of executions by the Islamic Republic, which increased hangings in security-related cases following the commencement of war with Israel and the US on February 28. “Abbas Akbari… was hanged this morning,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported, describing him as “one of the armed leaders” during protests in the central province of Isfahan.

After nine execution dates, three last meals, and a Supreme Court ruling in his favor, Richard Glossip should soon walk free. Three decades after he was arrested for a capital crime he swore he didn’t commit — and more than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction — former death row prisoner Richard Glossip was granted bond by an Oklahoma judge and released from jail. In an order handed down on Thursday, Oklahoma County District Judge Natalie Mai set Glossip’s bond at $500,000. She ordered him to live with his wife, wear an electronic monitoring device, and abide by a curfew from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., and forbade him from traveling outside the state.

The EU has tightened the rules governing GSP+ trade preferences, but Pakistan’s record raises a harder question: whether Brussels is prepared to suspend market access when a major beneficiary fails to demonstrate sustained compliance with human rights, labour and governance obligations. The European Union has formally adopted revised rules for its Generalised Scheme of Preferences, strengthening the conditions attached to preferential market access for developing countries. The new framework will apply from 1 January 2027 and is intended to tighten monitoring, widen the list of international conventions, and make suspension of benefits easier in cases of serious violations.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 21 May 2026: Gholamreza Khani Shekarab, a man on death row for accusations of espionage for Israel, is at risk of execution after being transferred to the solitary confinement cells of Ghezel Hesar Prison from Evin Prison. According to information obtained by IHRNGO, Gholamreza Khani Shekarab was transferred from Evin Prison to the solitary confinement cells of Ghezel Hesar Prison on 7 May 2026.  Given that prisoners are typically transferred to Ghezel Hesar Prison for execution, the transfer has raised grave concerns that his execution may be imminent.

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A St. Lucie County jury recommended the death penalty for Otto Lenke on Thursday in the penalty phase of his first-degree murder trial, though the final decision rests with the judge. Lenke, 66, a former Melbourne police officer and Indian River County firefighter , was convicted earlier this month of first-degree murder and first-degree arson in the Feb. 17, 2021, killing of Richard Benson at Fast Frank’s Custom Cycle Components, Benson’s motorcycle repair shop in Fort Pierce . Prosecutors said Lenke shot Benson multiple times inside the shop, then poured a flammable liquid on him and set him on fire while he was still alive. Surveillance video from the shop captured the attack.

Court throws out state’s challenge to judicial finding that inmate convicted of murder is ineligible for death penalty The US supreme court on Thursday threw out a challenge by the state of Alabama to a judicial finding that a death row inmate convicted of a 1997 murder is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible under the US constitution for the death penalty. In this highly unusual move, and in a single-sentence, unsigned order, the court dismissed Alabama’s petition for review in Hamm v Smith without deciding it, effectively undoing its earlier decision to take up an appeal by state officials to the method used by a lower court to determine that Joseph Clifton Smith was intellectually disabled and therefore could not be executed.

Man convicted of killing a woman and her 4-year-old daughter is executed in Florida  A Florida man convicted of fatally stabbing his cousin’s girlfriend and the couple’s 4-year-old daughter was put to death Thursday evening, becoming the 7th person executed by the state this year.  Richard Knight, 47, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. Knight was convicted of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the June 2002 killings of Odessia Stephens and her daughter, Hanessia Mullings.  The curtain of the death chamber went up promptly at the scheduled 6:00 p.m. execution time. Knight was already strapped down with his arms extended and an IV line in place. 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee officials on Thursday called off the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering three people in 1994, after his executioners tried and failed for over an hour to establish an intravenous line. Gov. Bill Lee announced soon afterward that the state would not try again for at least a year. In a written statement, the Tennessee Department of Corrections said medical personnel had quickly established a primary IV line but were unable to find a suitable vein for a backup line as required by the state’s execution protocol. Efforts to insert a central line also failed, and officials called off the execution.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — An attorney who was present for the planned execution of Tony Carruthers in Tennessee on Thursday said it was called off after officials struggled to find a vein for an hour. Maria DeLiberato, an attorney for Carruthers, said she saw Carruthers “wincing and groaning” and called it “horrible” to watch. Carruthers was in pain as the executioners tried to find a vein and there was a lot of blood, one of his attorneys, Amy Harwell, told the newspaper in a text message from a state prison on Thursday, May 21.

Amnesty International says Indonesia continues to impose large numbers of death sentences despite a decade-long halt in executions, warning proposed execution regulations risk undermining human rights protections. Amnesty International has warned that Indonesia remains a significant contributor of new death sentences globally despite not carrying out executions for nearly a decade. In its latest report, Death Sentences and Executions 2025 , released on Wednesday, Amnesty International said Indonesian courts handed down at least 68 death sentences during 2025, most of them linked to drug-related offences.

An Iranian political prisoner sentenced to death on charges of “espionage and collaboration with a hostile state (Israel)” is at imminent risk of execution after being transferred to solitary confinement, the Norway-based rights group Hengaw said on Wednesday. Gholamreza Khani Shakarab, 34, a former MMA champion, coach and international referee, was moved from a high-security ward in Tehran’s Evin Prison to solitary confinement in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, Hengaw said. The case comes amid a widening wartime crackdown in Iran, where authorities have intensified arrests, executions and threats against dissent while repeatedly warning that criticism could aid the country’s enemies.

A decade on from reforms to its religious police, Saudi Arabia might not be quite as tough as it once was on its Christian population, but it remains one of the toughest places in the world to believe in Jesus. In its annual ranking of global persecutors, Open Doors places Saudi Arabia as the 13th worst country for the persecution of Christians. While foreign-born Christians of a certain status are able to enjoy a very limited amount of religious freedom, the situation is far worse for those lower down in society and for native-born Saudis who wish to follow Christ.

Absent court action, Tony Carruthers is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Tennessee on May 21, 2026, despite untest­ed DNA evi­dence, an inno­cence claim, and seri­ous men­tal ill­ness con­cerns . On May 18, faith lead­ers, civ­il rights advo­cates and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers marched to the state capi­tol to urge Governor Bill Lee to grant Mr. Carruthers clemen­cy or stay his exe­cu­tion to allow addi­tion­al DNA test­ing, deliv­er­ing a peti­tion with over 130,000 sig­na­tures. Gov. Lee announced on May 19 that he has no plans to inter­vene and stop the exe­cu­tion. Mr. Carruthers’ case has drawn nation­al atten­tion as his sched­uled exe­cu­tion date nears, includ­ing from celebri­ty Kim Kardashian, who urged her 345 mil­lion Instagram fol­low­ers to call Gov. Lee’s office to press for the DNA test­ing, and from Demetrius Minor, the Executive Director of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty.

Iranian authorities executed a prisoner from Sari identified as Yahya Sobhani, who had previously been sentenced to death on drug-related charges, earlier this month in Sari Central Prison. According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the execution of 44-year-old Yahya Sobhani was carried out in Sari Central Prison at dawn on Sunday, May 3, 2026. Sobhani, a resident of Sari, was married and the father of two children. He had been arrested approximately two years ago by Iranian authorities on charges related to the transportation and possession of narcotics and was later sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court of Sari.

Iranian authorities secretly executed two Iraqi nationals, Ali Nader al-Obeidi and Fazel Sheikh Karim, in Karaj Central Prison during the final days of the 40-day war involving Iran, Israel, and the United States. The two men had previously been sentenced to death in a joint case on charges of allegedly spying for one of the Arab countries in the region. According to a report received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the executions were carried out in the early hours of Monday, April 6, 2026. The two men, both Arab residents of the Iraqi city of Amarah, were identified as 27-year-old Ali Nader al-Obeidi and 29-year-old Fazel Sheikh Karim.

Iranian authorities have secretly executed two Kurdish political prisoners, Ramin Zaleh and Karim Maroufpour, both from Naqadeh, who had previously been sentenced to death in a joint case on charges of membership in the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI). According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the death sentences of Ramin Zaleh and Karim Maroufpour were carried out in secret at dawn on Wednesday, May 21, 2026, in Naqadeh Central Prison, without prior notice to their families or the opportunity for a final visit.

MIAMI — The U.S. Department of Justice has unsealed a historic criminal indictment charging former Cuban President Raúl Castro and five co-defendants with murder and conspiracy.  The charges stem from the February 24, 1996, shoot-down of two unarmed civilian aircraft operated by the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue. The group frequently flew over the Florida Straits to search for and assist Cuban rafters fleeing the island. The unsealed document represents a major escalation in U.S.–Cuba relations, marking the first time in nearly seventy years that top Cuban leadership has faced criminal charges in an American courtroom for violence against U.S. citizens. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the indictment outside Miami's Freedom Tower, highlighting the decades-long push for accountability.

Arizona executes inmate who set couple on fire in 'horrific attack' Arizona has executed Leroy McGill for setting 21-year-old Charles Perez and his 24-year-old girlfriend on fire. Perez died the next day and Perez survived with severe burn injuries.  Arizona has executed a death row inmate for setting 2 people on fire more than 20 years ago, killing 1 of them and changing the other's life forever.  The state executed Leroy McGill, 63, by lethal injection on Wednesday, May 20, for the 2002 murder of 21-year-old Charles Perez. McGill set Perez and his girlfriend on fire after they accused him of theft, court records say. Perez died of his injuries the next day while his girlfriend survived with severe burns.