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U.S. | 'I comfort death row inmates in their final moments - the execution room is like a house of horrors'

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Reverend Jeff Hood, 40, wants to help condemned inmates 'feel human again' and vows to continue his efforts to befriend murderers in spite of death threats against his family A reverend who has made it his mission to comfort death row inmates in their final days has revealed the '"moral torture" his endeavor entails. Reverend Dr. Jeff Hood, 40, lives with his wife and five children in Little Rock, Arkansas. But away from his normal home life, he can suddenly find himself holding the shoulder of a murderer inside an execution chamber, moments away from the end of their life. 

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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U.S. | 'I comfort death row inmates in their final moments - the execution room is like a house of horrors'

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