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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.

Mennonite woman agrees to testify in death penalty case

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Greta Lindecrantz
According to Greta Lindecrantz's attorney, Robert Ray's defense team believes that testifying for the prosecution could actually save Ray's life.

A Mennonite woman who refused to testify in a death penalty case on the grounds that capital punishment violated her religious beliefs has reversed course, and has now agreed to take the stand.

According to a release from Greta Lindecrantz’s attorney, Mari Newman, the criminal defense investigator now feels that her beliefs compel her to testify. 

Newman says this comes after Lindecrantz learned that Robert Ray’s current legal team believes that not obtaining her testimony would actually hurt Ray’s chances of avoiding the death penalty.

Lindecrantz was jailed on February 26 because she declined to testify for the prosecution seeking to uphold the death sentence of Robert Ray, who was convicted of two murders in 2009. 

Ray’s current defense team is trying to argue that the defense in his original trial was ineffective. Lindecrantz was an investigator for the defense in that trial.

Newman says Lindecrantz’s Notice of Intent to Testify was filed Saturday.

Source: 9News.com, March 10, 2018


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