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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. 

Saudi beheads man for murder

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RIYADH: A Saudi man was beheaded on Wednesday by the sword in Riyadh for murder, the interior ministry said.

Salman al-Ghamedi was found guilty of stabbing to death another Saudi, Ahmed al-Qahtani, following a dispute, the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.

The beheading brings to 76 the number of executions in Saudi Arabia this year, based on an AFP count.

In September, Amnesty International called on the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom where 140 people were on death row to establish an "immediate moratorium on executions."

The London-based rights watchdog said Saudi Arabia was one of a minority of states which voted against a UN General Assembly resolution last December calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery, homosexuality and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.

Amnesty says Saudi Arabia executed 27 convicts in 2010, compared to 67 executions announced the year before.

Source: AFP, December 28, 2011
Location: Riyadh Saudi Arabia
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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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