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Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

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Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.

Appeals to China Intensify in Effort to Spare Briton

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LONDON — Five days before a British man is scheduled to be executed in China for heroin smuggling, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has joined members of the man’s family and human rights organizations in renewing appeals for clemency.

They say Chinese courts failed to give adequate weight to the man’s history of mental disturbance or to his claim that he was duped into carrying the heroin by a drug gang.

But Chinese officials have rejected the appeals, saying that the execution of the Briton, Akmal Shaikh, 53, will go ahead on Tuesday.

Full story here.

Source: The New York Times, December 24, 2009
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