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Biden Fails a Death Penalty Abolitionist’s Most Important Test

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The mystery of Joe Biden’s views about capital punishment has finally been solved. His decision to grant clemency to 37 of the 40 people on federal death row shows the depth of his opposition to the death penalty. And his decision to leave three of America’s most notorious killers to be executed by a future administration shows the limits of his abolitionist commitment. The three men excluded from Biden’s mass clemency—Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers—would no doubt pose a severe test of anyone’s resolve to end the death penalty. Biden failed that test.
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Iraq: 28 executions in Basra

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April 13, 2008: Iraqi's interior ministry executed 28 criminals and militant cult members in the city of Basra, some 550 kilometres south of Baghdad, media reports said.

Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a department chief in the ministry, told the Iraqi al-Sabah newspaper that the ministry carried out the 28 verdicts issued by Iraq's central criminal court.

"The execution of such criminals is considered as a message to all criminals in Basra," Khalaf was quoted as saying in al-Sabah.

"The message says that law is above all and will not make any exceptions for any one involved in crimes."

Iraqi officials told Deutsche Presse-Agentur that the executed criminals included militants of a Shiite cult known as "Jund al- Samaa."

Source: Earth Times, DPA, 14/04/2008)
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