Gaza: Plea not to endorse collaborator's death penalty

132 capital punishment verdicts issued since PNA's establishment in West Bank and Gaza

Human rights organisations in the Palestinian territories have urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas not to endorse the death sentence passed by the Gaza Military Court against a collaborator with Israel, labelling the sentence 'tough and inhuman'.

The rights organisations have also demanded the suspension of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) Revolutionary Penalty Law of 1979, as it is not a constitutional law ratified by the Palestinian parliament.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said that all Palestinian laws which lead to capital punishment, including the Penalty Law No 74 of 1936, which is used in the Gaza Strip, and the Jordanian Penalty Law No 16 for 1960 should be reviewed, and the Palestinian leadership should impose a unified penalty law which fits with the spirit of international human rights agreements and conventions.

On Sunday, the Gaza Military Court sentenced 23-year-old Faraj Abed Rabbo Faraj Abed Rabbo to death by hanging on charges of collaborating with the enemy as per article No 131 of the PLO Revolutionary Penalty Law, 1979 and article No 415 of the Palestinian penalty procedural law No 3/2001.

Abed Rabbo is a civilian employee of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and is from the village of Abed Rabbo, east of the Jabaliya Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip.

The organisations said that Abed Rabbo should be sentenced by a civilian court, not a military one and that he should be retried in a civilian court to secure a fair trial.

Concern

The human rights organisations said the capital punishment penalty should be suspended in accordance with international efforts to abolish this punishment and replace it with other penalties that secure justice is served.

The Independent Commission for Human Rights expressed its concern about the capital punishment verdicts issued by the Gaza Permanent Military Court. The commission stressed capital punishment is a serious violation for the right to life secured by the international conventions for human rights. The commission said that it does not undermine the charges and accusations pressed against suspects who should be put on trial to be punished for their crimes, but those suspects should stand before courts which stick to legal procedures to secure justice.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said that since the PNA was established in 1994, 132 capital punishment verdicts had been passed. Of these, 106 verdicts were passed in the Gaza Strip and 26 in the West Bank. The centre said that 46 capital punishment verdicts had been passed in Gaza since 2007, since the Islamist Hamas group took control in the coastal strip.

Since that year, 27 capital punishments were implemented in the Palestinian territories, of which 25 were executed in Gaza and two were executed in the West Bank. The centre said that after Hamas took control in Gaza, a total of 14 capital punishment sentences were implemented in Gaza without the official endorsement of the Palestinian president, which is a violation of the law.

Source: Gulf News, March 26, 2013

Oklahoma executes Wendell Grissom

Grissom used some of his last words on Earth to apologize to everyone he hurt and said that he prays they can find forgiveness for their own sake. As for his execution, he said it was a mercy. Oklahoma executed Wendell Arden Grissom on Thursday for the murder of 23-year-old Amber Matthews in front of her best friend’s two young daughters in 2005. Grissom, 56, was executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. local time, becoming the first inmate to be put to death by the state in 2025 and the ninth in the United States this year.

Louisiana's First Nitrogen Execution Reflects Broader Method Shift

Facing imminent execution by lethal gas earlier this week, Jessie Hoffman Jr. — a Louisiana man convicted of abducting, raping and murdering a 28-year-old woman in 1996 — went to court with a request: Please allow me to be shot instead. In a petition filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on March 16 seeking a stay of his execution by nitrogen hypoxia, a protocol that had yet to be tested in the state, Hoffman requested execution by firing squad as an alternative.

Florida executes Edward James

Edward James received 3-drug lethal injection under death warrant signed in February by governor Ron DeSantis A Florida man who killed an 8-year-old girl and her grandmother on a night in which he drank heavily and used drugs was executed on Thursday. Edward James, 63, was pronounced dead at 8.15pm after receiving a 3-drug injection at Florida state prison outside Starke under a death warrant signed in February by Governor Ron DeSantis. The execution was the 2nd this year in Florida, which is planning a 3rd in April.

Bangladesh | Botswana Woman Executed for Drug Trafficking

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Lesedi Molapisi, a Botswana national convicted of drug trafficking, was executed in Bangladesh on Friday, 21 March 2025. The 31-year-old was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail after exhausting all legal avenues to appeal her death sentence. Molapisi was arrested in January 2023 upon arrival at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, where customs officials discovered 3.1 kilograms of heroin hidden in her luggage. Following a trial under Bangladesh’s Narcotics Control Act, she was sentenced to death in May 2024. Her execution was initially delayed due to political unrest in the country but was carried out last week.

Louisiana executes Jessie Hoffman Jr.

Louisiana used nitrogen gas Tuesday evening to execute a man convicted of murdering a woman in 1996, the 1st time the state has used the method, a lawyer for the condemned man said. Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, was put to death at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, defense lawyer Cecelia Kappel said in a statement. He was the 1st person executed in the state in 15 years, and his death marked the 5th use of the nitrogen gas method in the US, with all the rest in Alabama. Hoffman was convicted of the murder of Mary "Molly" Elliott, a 28-year-old advertising executive. At the time of the crime, Hoffman was 18.

The doctor defending Louisiana’s controversial execution method

Dr. Joseph Antognini travels across the nation, being paid over $500 an hour by government officials who rely on him to vouch for their execution protocols. This [article] is part of “ Operating Capital ,” an ongoing Lens discussion about Louisiana’s resumption of executions. Earlier this month, Dr. Joseph Antognini, a California-based retired anesthesiologist, walked into the execution chamber at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. He tried on the air-tight mask that prison staff plan to use to execute Death Row prisoner Jessie Hoffman , using nitrogen hypoxia, a method that Louisiana executioners have never before used.

Texas Death Row chef who cook for hundreds of inmates explained why he refused to serve one last meal

Brian Price would earn the title after 11 years cooking for the condemned In the unlikely scenario that you ever find yourself on Death Row, approaching your final days as a condemned man, what would you request for your final meal? Would you push the boat out and request a full steal dinner or play it safe and opt for a classic dish such as pizza or a burger? For most of us it's something that we'll never have to think about, but for one man who spent over a decade working as a 'Death Row chef' encountering prisoner's final requests wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

South Carolina plans to carry out a firing squad execution. Is it safe for witnesses?

South Carolina plans to execute a man by firing squad on March 7, the first such execution in the state and the first in the nation in 15 years. But firearms experts are questioning whether South Carolina's indoor execution setup is safe for the workers who will shoot the prisoner and the people who will watch. Photos released by the South Carolina Department of Corrections show that the state intends to strap the prisoner, Brad Sigmon, to a metal seat in the same small, indoor brick death chamber where South Carolina has executed more than 40 other prisoners by electric chair and lethal injection since 1985.

Indonesia | Lindsay Sandiford convinced she will be released soon

A British drugs mule grandmother on Indonesia's death row is so convinced she will be freed from prison that she has started given her clothes away to other inmates. Lindsay Sandiford, 67, has been incarcerated in a cramped cell inside Bali's hellish Kerobokan prison since 2013 where she is facing execution by firing squad. The grandmother-of-two was sentenced to death for attempting to smuggle £1.6million worth of cocaine into Indonesia's capital by stuffing it into the lining of her suitcase. But her pals say she has now 'slumped into depression' as she thought she would have been released by now due to a change in the country's law.

Supreme Court rejects appeal from Texas death row inmate

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a Texas death row inmate whose bid for a new trial drew the support of the prosecutor’s office that originally put him on death row. The justices left in place a Texas appeals court ruling that upheld the murder conviction and death sentence for Areli Escobar, even though Escobar’s case is similar to that of an Oklahoma man, Richard Glossip, whose murder conviction the high court recently overturned.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog