FEATURED POST

Japan | Hakamada found religion, but then felt under attack by ‘the devil’

Published
Image
Editor's note: This is the last in a four-part series on letters that Iwao Hakamada wrote while on death row. About a decade after cursing God, Iwao Hakamada was baptized Catholic at the Tokyo Detention House on Dec. 24, 1984. “Since I have been given the Christian name Paul, I am keenly feeling that I should be aware of the greatness of Paul.” (June 1985)

Stockholm academic's death sentence in Iran 'definitive': lawyer

Published
Ahmadreza Djalali
Attempts to convince Iranian courts to review the death sentence given to an academic convicted of spying for Israel have failed, according to the man’s lawyer, who says the sentence is now "definitive".

Iranian emergency specialist Ahmadreza Djalali, who is a resident in Sweden, was arrested during a trip to the Islamic republic in April 2016. He was found guilty in October 2017 of passing information about Iranian nuclear scientists to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.

The sentence was met with protests by Amnesty International, the UN and Sweden’s Foreign Ministry. An initial appeal was rejected in December, and his lawyer now says a further request to have the sentence overturned has been denied.

"This time the sentence is definitive. It has been confirmed that the death penalty can be carried out, and it can happen at any time," Djalali’s lawyer Zouhaier Chihaoui told Le Soir, condemning the legal process in Iran as unjust.


The Swedish branch of Amnesty International said it has not received information about the death sentence being confirmed.

"But we heard from Djalali’s wife on Friday that a decision would probably be announced tomorrow (Monday), and the lawyer wasn’t optimistic. This is in line with that," Maja Åberg from Amnesty told news agency TT.

Amnesty had hoped the judgment against Djalali would be overruled, she said. The Swedish Foreign Ministry said it too had not received any information about the court’s decision.

Last week a further person was sentenced to six years in prison for spying in Iran, having allegedly sold information about the country’s nuclear energy program to the US and EU, according to the Iranian legal authority.

Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolotabadi claims the person met US and EU agents on nine occasions and gave them information “about sanctions and nuclear matters” in exchange for money.


Source: The Local, February 5, 2018


⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!



"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Iran
Related content:

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

First Third Of 2024 In Saudi Arabia: Executions Rise By 189% And Portend Another Bloody Year. At Least 71 Currently Facing Execution.

Published
Image
Since the beginning of 2024 until the end of April, the Ministry of Interior in Saudi Arabia announced the execution of 55 individuals. This figure constitutes a 189% increase compared to the executions in the first third of 2023, which witnessed 19 executions. The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights views these numbers as a clear indication of the Saudi government's continued approach towards executing and issuing death sentences, and that the promises made in recent years have become elusive.
Read more

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

Published
Image
The following document is a written record of convicted killer Hamida Djandoubi's last moments before he was guillotined in a Marseilles prison on September 10, 1977. This written record -- dated September 9 -- was written by a judge appointed to witness the execution. Djandoubi's execution was the last execution carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. Then-President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who had voiced his "loathing for the death penalty" before he was elected to office, flatly turned down Djandoubi's appeal for clemency and chose to let "Justice run its course", as he did on two previous instances ( Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977). Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was executed in Marseilles' Baumettes prison in September 1977. The following text was writ
Read more

Cruel and Unusual: Documentary explores epicenter of Texas’ prison system

Published
Image
Every few years, from childhood until my late teens, my granddad would take me along with him to the small Texas town where he grew up—Normangee, population 522—to visit old relatives and even older graves. The drive took us up I-45, beyond the Houston sprawl, past pine forests, and eventually through Huntsville, epicenter of the state prison system. One of the city’s seven prisons was just off the interstate, and as we passed by I’d stare at the guard towers and barbed wire before turning my attention across the street to the Texas Prison Museum, which had its own mock guard towers in the parking lot. (“Prison” and “museum” were words that never seemed to go together.) Later, I learned that the museum’s central attraction was the wooden electric chair the state used for executions until 1964.
Read more

Saudi authorities agree to postpone execution of Kenyan national

Published
Image
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 13 – Saudi Arabia has acceded to Kenya’s request to postpone the execution of Stephen Munyakho that was set for Wednesday to allow for further negotiations between all parties. According to Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Korir Sing’Oei, Kenya will be engaging stakeholders in Nairobi and Riyadh, including religious leaders, to agree on the next urgent steps.
Read more