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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.

India | Impending mass execution

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The four convicts in the Nirbhaya case- Mukesh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31)
4 Nirbhaya case convicts to be hanged on Feb. 1

The President had rejected the mercy plea of Mukesh, one of the convicts, on Friday.

On a day President Ram Nath Kovind rejected the mercy plea of death row convict Mukesh Singh in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape case, a Delhi court on Friday issued a fresh death warrant to hang all 4 convicts in Tihar jail at 6 a.m. on February 1.

Mukesh had submitted a mercy petition to the President earlier this week. He had followed this up with a petition at the Delhi court seeking postponement of his execution.

Judge’s query


Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora, who had previously ordered execution of all 4 convicts for January 22, questioned why the other three convicts had not yet appealed against the death warrant or exhausted their legal remedies.

“Would it not be delaying tactics? How far can it be stretched,” the judge asked.

The Delhi Prison Rule states that, “If the sentence of death has been passed on more than 1 person in the same case, and if an appeal or an application is made by or on behalf of only 1 or more but not all of them the execution of the sentence shall be postponed in the case of all such persons (prisoner sentenced to deaths)”.

Currently, Vinay Sharma and Mukesh Singh have already exhausted their option of a curative petition before the Supreme Court against the death sentence, while the other 2 — Pawan Gupta and Akshay Singh — are yet to approach the apex court with their curative pleas. 

Sharma, Gupta and Akshay Singh — have also not filed a mercy plea before the President.

Advocate A.P. Singh, representing Sharma and Gupta, said a case was pending before the Supreme Court on the question of Gupta’s alleged juvenile status when the crime was committed.

Source: The Hindu, Staff, January 18, 2020


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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
Location: Delhi, India
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