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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. 

Somalia: Woman stoned to death for polyandry

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Mogadishu: A Somali woman has been stoned to death in an Islamist Al Shabab-controlled part of the country for secretly marrying several husbands, officials and witnesses said on Saturday.

Witnesses said the woman was buried up to her neck and pelted with rocks and stones by hooded men in front of a large crowd in the southern coastal district of Barawe.

“The woman married four husbands and confessed to the crime. I questioned her several times while she was in prison and she told me she was mentally fit. All the four husbands were questioned and they have confirmed that they had married her,” Islamic court judge Shaikh Mohammad Abu Abdullah told the gathering.

The woman, 33-year-old Safiyo Ahmad Jumale, was executed on Friday in front of dozens of onlookers.

“The woman was brought with her eyes covered and she was buried up to her neck before she was stoned to death by hooded men,” said Ali Yare, a resident who witnessed the execution.

Somalia’s Al Qaida-affiliated Al Shabab control large swathes of territory in the south and centre of the war-torn country, where they impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Source: Agence France-Presse, Sept. 27, 2014
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