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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.

Saudi Arabia: new execution

A Saudi man sentenced to death for murder was beheaded today in the western port city of Yanbu, the interior ministry announced, the 12th execution in the kingdom this year.

Mohammed al-Hubaishi al-Juhani was executed for his role in the robbery and murder of Fuad bin Qarnabish.

Together with 2 accomplices, Juhani lured Qarnabish into an empty house, tied him up and robbed him, the ministry said in a statement carried by the Saudi state news agency SPA.

Working alone Juhani then took the victim and threw him in the Red Sea to drown.

Juhani's accomplices were given heavy jail terms and lashes for their role in the crime.

The execution brought to 12 the number of beheadings announced by the Saudi authorities since the beginning of the year.

A total of 102 people were executed last year while in 2007 a record 153 people were executed in the country, which applies a strict version of sharia, or Islamic law.

That figure compared with 37 in 2006 and the previous record of 113 in 2000.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, where executions are carried out in public.

Source: Melbourne Herald Sun, Feb. 24, 2009

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