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Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

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Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.

Pakistan hangs 19th militant since school attack

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Pakistan has executed a militant for his role in a 2004 sectarian killing, bringing to 19 the number of executions carried since a 6-year moratorium on the death penalty was lifted in the wake of the Taliban school massacre in Peshawar.

Pakistan on Saturday (Jan 17) hanged a sectarian militant whose execution was cancelled but later reinstated after a court rejected a pardon from his victim's family, officials said.

The hanging brings to 19 the number of executions Pakistan has carried out since it lifted a 6-year moratorium on the death penalty in terror cases following a school massacre last month. Ikramul Haq, a member of banned Sunni militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was hanged in the central city of Lahore early on Saturday morning.

He had been sentenced to death by an anti-terror court in 2004 for killing a Shiite Muslim 3 years earlier. Police, prison officials and defence lawyer Ghulam Mustafa Mangan confirmed the execution.

The victim's family had pardoned him on Jan 8 just before his scheduled hanging, but a court later rejected the compromise. "The victim's family had pardoned my client, but the court rejected it and while we were appealing against the decision, my client was hanged," Mangan told AFP.

Murder can be forgiven under Pakistani law in exchange for blood money, while rival militant groups may choose to pardon each others' convicted killers. The United Nations, the European Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on Pakistan to re-impose its moratorium on the death penalty, which ran from 2008 until December 2014.

Rights campaigners say Pakistan overuses its anti-terror laws and courts to prosecute ordinary crimes. There are also concerns that death row convicts from non-terror related cases could be executed.

Taliban gunmen stormed an army-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar last month, killing 150 people, mostly children, in the country's deadliest ever militant attack. In addition to ending its death penalty moratorium, Pakistan has since moved to set up military courts to try terror cases.

Source: Agence France-Presse, January 17, 2015

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