Saudi Arabia: Prison, lashes for liberal Saudi website founder; apostasy charges dropped

Riyadh: The founder of a liberal minded website in Saudi Arabic has been sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes after angering Islamic authorities in the country, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Raif Badawi, through his website known as Free Saudi Liberals, had urged Saudis to share opinions about the role of religion in the country, which follows a strict form of Islam that includes harsh punishments for challenging customs. A judge in the Red Sea port of Jiddah imposed the sentences but dropped charges of apostasy, which could have brought a death sentence, the Al Watan newspaper reported.

Badawi has been held since June 2012. The newspaper did not name the judge who sentenced Badawi, nor did it say when the ruling was handed down. It was unclear Tuesday whether Badawi would receive any credit for the time he’s already served.

Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said Tuesday that the US was “deeply concerned” by the sentence given to Badawi. “We believe that when public speech is deemed offensive, be it via social media or any other means, the issue is best addressed through open dialogue and honest debate,” Psaki said.

Hard-line Saudi clerics have raised repeated objections to social media, including one prominent Islamic scholar describing Twitter as a path to hell. He later withdrew the comment.

Source: Agence France-Presse, July 31, 2013

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Louisiana | Execution by nitrogen gas ‘ugly way to die’: MD

What is it like to be executed by nitrogen gas? Dr. Jonathan Groner, a medical ethicist who studies capital punishment, has not witnessed an execution using this method, but he speculates about what happens to an inmate who is given pure nitrogen to inhale through a mask. “They don’t go quietly, I will say that,” Groner, a professor of surgery at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, told “Banfield” on Wednesday. A federal judge this week halted the state of Louisiana’s plans to execute an inmate for the first time through “nitrogen hypoxia.” State officials plan to appeal the judge’s decision, which raised questions about whether using nitrogen gas is a cruel and unusual punishment.

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