A court in India will hear a last-ditch clemency plea from one of the country's worst serial killers, who has been sentenced to death.
However, human rights groups have said they are worried India's corrupt and ineffective justice system has not allowed the man a fair trial.
Domestic servant Surendra Koli and his employer Moninder Pandher were accused of killing 18 woman and children in a house in Delhi. They reportedly dismembered their victims' bodies before stuffing their remains into nearby drains.
One of Koli's victims was Anil Halder's 14-year-old daughter, Rimpa.
"There can be no bigger crime than this," he told the ABC.
"No bigger crime than this, what can be worse than this?"
Indian police said Koli confessed to killing 7 of the victims, including 10-year-old Joyti Lal.
Joyti's father, Jabbu Lal, is a laundry worker and thought Koli and Pandher were nice people.
"They'd come to us with clothes and a couple of times they had blood stains," he said.
"I asked them about it, how did that happen?
"Koli told me the clothes must have gotten accidentally stained when they went to buy freshly cut chicken."
Koli and Pandher were convicted in 2009 and sentenced to death, however Pandher was later acquitted.
The crimes shook India, but there were also concerns Koli was not given a fair trial in India's dubious justice system.
The investigation was marred by police misconduct and incompetence, and there were allegations Koli was tortured until he confessed.
Maja Daruwala from the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative said the case was typical of the things that could go wrong in the Indian justice system.
"In India, the justice system is extremely frail, it is extremely imperfect," she said.
"It's not so much about the horrendous circumstance that the Koli case opened up and showed to the public.
"I think that overtook the case, but the frailties of the case are very, very real."
India has imposed an unofficial moratorium on executions up until 2012.
Since then 2 people have been put to death.
Death sentences are still frequently commuted, but Ms Daruwala said there were huge dangers in keeping the penalty in a country with such an imperfect justice system.
"It is not a question of numbers, it is a question of what we as a country want to be."
Source: Yahoo news, November 25, 2014
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