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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.

Japan | Former gang boss on death row dies in apparent suicide

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A former Japanese crime syndicate boss on death row who was acquitted over the murder of 2 people for which he confessed his involvement after his capital punishment sentence was finalized was found dead at the Tokyo Detention House on Sunday, it has been learned.

Osamu Yano, 71, the death-row inmate, apparently committed suicide, sources familiar with the situation said, noting that there were cuts on his neck. 

The Justice Ministry officials are investigating details of the incident.

This was the 1st suicide by an inmate with a finalized death sentence in Japan since a 55-year-old death-row inmate detained at a branch of Sapporo prison in Hokkaido killed himself by cutting his neck with a razor in November 1999 while he was taking a bath.

Yano’s death sentence over cases including a fatal shooting at a bar in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture, in January 2003, became final in March 2014.

In letters sent to the Metropolitan Police Department in September 2014 and June 2015, Yano confessed his involvement in the killing of 2 other people, including a company president, in 1996 and 1998.

Over the cases, he was arrested in 2017.

In a lay judge trial, the Tokyo District Court handed down a not-guilty ruling to Yano in December 2018, concluding that his confession was designed to postpone the execution of his death sentence. 

The acquittal ruling was finalized later as public prosecutors did not file an appeal.

Source: Japan Times, Staff, January 26, 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: Tokyo, Japan
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