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As clock ticks toward another Trump presidency, federal death row prisoners appeal for clemency

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President-elect Donald Trump’s return to office is putting a spotlight on the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, which houses federal death row. In Bloomington, a small community of death row spiritual advisors is struggling to support the prisoners to whom they minister.  Ross Martinie Eiler is a Mennonite, Episcopal lay minister and member of the Catholic Worker movement, which assists the homeless. And for the past three years, he’s served as a spiritual advisor for a man on federal death row.
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Zhou Yongkang, Former Security Chief in China, Gets Life Sentence for Corruption

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Zhou Yongkang
Zhou Yongkang
HONG KONG — Zhou Yongkang, China’s former domestic security chief, was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for accepting bribes, abuse of power and revealing state secrets, according to Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency.

He is the most senior official to be convicted of corruption in the history of Communist rule in China.

Mr. Zhou, 72, was tried in secret in the northeastern city of Tianjin. Xinhua said he admitted guilt and would not appeal his conviction.

Mr. Zhou retired in 2012 after a career of building an extensive power base in China’s law-and-order apparatus and the country’s oil and gas industry.

He had served on the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s highest echelon of political power, from 2007 to 2012, and his downfall makes him the highest-ranking figure to be ensnared in President Xi Jinping’s continuing campaign against official corruption.

Prosecutors called the circumstances of his wrongdoing “particularly grave” when they announced charges against him in April. In its verdict, the Tianjin First Intermediate People’s Court said that the bribes were “extremely large” but had been recovered and that the sentence against Mr. Zhou was in accordance with the “degree of harm to society” caused by his crimes.


Source: The New York Times, Austin Ramzy, June 11, 2015

Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com
Location: China
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