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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.

Saudi Arabia executes Jordanian drug trafficker

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Public beheading in Saudi Arabia (file photo)
Riyadh: Saudi Arabia executed a Jordanian man on Friday for drug trafficking in the kingdom, the interior ministry said.

Mohammad Abu Samak was arrested “as he was smuggling a large amount of banned amphetamine pills,” said a ministry statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

His beheading in the northwestern region of Tabuk is part of a surge in executions that has alarmed human rights activists.

Saudi Arabia has already executed 68 people so far this year, after 87 in all of 2014, according to AFP tallies.

Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy, homosexuality and armed robbery are all punishable by death under the kingdom’s strict version of Sharia.

Amnesty International’s 2014 global report on the death penalty ranks Saudi Arabia among the top five executioners in the world.

Source: Agence France-Presse, April 24, 2015

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