Vietnam: Ex-leader of Vietnam's Agribank arm gets death for embezzling $3.7mn

A Vietnam court has sentenced the former general director of Finance Leasing Company No. 2 (ACL II), Vu Quoc Hao, 59, to death for embezzling VND78 billion (nearly $3.7 million) in a corruption case.

Corruption whistleblowers may be rewarded with up to $236,000 in Vietnam

Hao received the sentence at the court hearing for him and 10 other defendants involved in major corruption that took place at ALC II, which is under the State-owned Vietnam Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (Agribank), several years ago, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court said Friday after a 10-day trial.

The jury handed down the same penalty to Pham Minh Tuan, 56, former director of Xuan Viet Co., Ltd.; and Hoang Loc, 49, ex-general director of the Vietnam Verification and Appraisal Joint Stock Company (VIVACO).

Among the remaining 8 defendants - most of whom were from ACL II - 4 got life sentences while the other 4 received sentences from 15 to 20 years in jail.

According to the indictment, in 2003 Hao, as general director of ALC II, ordered the establishment of Long Hai Sand Joint Stock Company, an affiliate of ALC II.

Hao then asked Vu Duc Hoa, 35, the director of the new company, and the company's chief accountant, Nguyen Thi Minh Hue (Hoa and Hue were sentenced to life), to buy an old submarine, the Tinro 2, from the Hai Phong City Customs Department for VND100 million ($4,700).

Hao later colluded with Loc, and Le Phuc Duc, an appraiser at VIVACO, to create documents to falsely value the old ship as high as VND130 billion (US$6.15 million).

He then directed his subordinates to prepare a finance leasing contract dated December 26, 2007, in relation to the old ship, between ALC II and Long Hai Sand Company to make a disbursement of VND130 billion from the former to the latter.

That means Long Hai, under ALC II, bought the old ship for a price that was 1,300 times higher than the real selling price of VND100 million.

Hao later appropriated VND78 billion (nearly $3.7 million) of the amount and used it to buy some 90,000 square meters in Cai Be District, in the southern province of Tien Giang, the court said.

Source: tuoiTre News, Sept. 27, 2014

Florida Set to Execute Man Who Said He Killed to Reach Death Row, Challenging Misconception that Death Penalty Deters Crime

Florida is scheduled to execute James Robertson at noon on Tuesday, October 13, at Florida State Prison. His execution remains scheduled despite the withdrawal of William Lee Thompson’s death warrant, which had called for a 2nd execution that evening. If completed, this will be Florida’s 17th execution of 2026. Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) and partners will be holding a series of vigils and demonstrations across the state.

Christa Pike's Survival Wasn't a Miracle. That's What Should Scare Us.

What happened in Tennessee's execution chamber is one of the most common failures in medicine Christa Pike is awake. A week after Tennessee strapped her to a gurney and gave her two doses of pentobarbital , she is off the ventilator and speaking from a hospital bed, still shackled to it. Her lawyers call her recovery " medically unprecedented. " Legal scholars say she is the first person in American history to survive a lethal injection after the drug was actually given. I understand the impulse to make such claims. I consulted for Pike's legal team, but I have also spent three decades in operating rooms and intensive care units (ICUs), and I want to resist the word "unprecedented" and the word "miracle" that hovers just behind it.

Christa Pike: 4 Major Questions As She Returns to Death Row

As Christa Pike returns to death row after surviving Tennessee’s attempt to execute her, several questions remain about her case and what comes next. Pike, 50, was discharged from hospital and moved back to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years, her attorneys said on Saturday. She was hospitalized after surviving 2 doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital as Tennessee attempted to execute her on September 30. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, her classmate at a Job Corps training program in Knoxville, Tennessee. Pike was 18 at the time.

Florida executes James Robertson

STARKE, Fla. — A Florida prisoner who said he killed his cellmate specifically to get on death row was executed Tuesday, nearly 18 years after the attack. James Robertson, 63, declined to offer any last words before receiving a three-drug injection and was pronounced dead about 10 minutes later. It was a stark contrast to the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee two weeks ago, where she was rushed to the hospital after surviving two lethal doses of pentobarbital.

USA | Firing squad execution to be livestreamed, Pentagon says

The public will be able to watch the execution of a former US Army major by firing squad, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said. A Defense Department official told the BBC the execution of Nidal Hasan, who shot dead 13 unarmed US soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, would be livestreamed. It is believed it would be the first public execution in the US in almost a century. The decision to livestream it is "unprecedented in the modern era" and "on uncertain legal terrain", said John Mills, a lawyer who works with inmates sentenced to death.

Saudi Arabia executes two Bangladeshis over 'immoral act' inside mosque

Saudi Arabia has carried out the death penalty on two Bangladeshi nationals in Mecca. The country's Interior Ministry announced this in a statement on Wednesday. According to the report, they were sentenced over allegations of involvement in immoral acts inside a mosque in Mecca. The information was reported by Ajel News, citing the Saudi Interior Ministry's statement. The two Bangladeshis executed were a man and a woman, Nazrul Islam Abdul Basir and Sithi Akhter. The “immoral acts” referred to illicit heterosexual intercourse, not homosexual activity.

What Tennessee wants to do next to Christa Pike is beyond grim

Christa Pike, the woman who survived two execution attempts in Tennessee earlier this week, remains hospitalized in critical condition, where presumably medical staff is at work trying to keep her alive. If she wakes from the coma she had entered, Tennessee officials want to start anew to inject lethal drugs into her seemingly too-small veins to kill her and carry out the state death warrant. Pike also is being treated for “significant injuries to both arms” sustained when two lethal injections of pentobarbital failed to kill her. If she dies, there will be no need to try again. As we know by now, Tennessee tried to put Pike to death Wednesday night by lethal injection for a murder she committed when she was 18. She would have been the first woman executed in the state in 200 years.

Tennessee | Republicans legislature to investigate other execution methods after failed lethal injections

Republican leaders in Tennessee’s legislature say they will investigate the reliability of lethal injection as an execution method after the state failed to execute two death row inmates in the span of five months. Gov. Bill Lee stopped the May execution of Tony Carruthers after a physician unsuccessfully attempted to insert intravenous lines to begin the lethal injection process for over an hour. Death row inmate Christa Pike survived two failed rounds of Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol on Sept. 30 before the execution was halted. Pike, who was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, is receiving medical care in a Nashville hospital.

Buffalo Tops shooter files last-minute bid to avoid death penalty

Payton Gendron, who is already serving life without parole for killing 10 Black people in a racist mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket in 2022, is asking a federal judge to throw out the case that could send him to death row. Defense attorneys filed the motion Monday — a day before jury selection was scheduled to begin — seeking to dismiss Gendron’s federal indictment. They argued that Black residents are underrepresented in the jury pool for New York’s Western District, according to WIVB and WKBW.

Tennessee | Christa Pike’s lawyer says she has not regained consciousness since her failed execution

Christa Pike has remained unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital in the four days since her failed execution in Tennessee, and her prognosis might not be known for days more, one of her lawyers said Sunday. Little has been released about Pike’s condition since Wednesday night’s execution attempt. She has since remained hospitalized under guard as doctors try to get the massive dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital out of her system. When asked whether she ever regained consciousness after the execution attempt, Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell, Pike’s lawyer, said on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “Not that I am aware of.”

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