Bangladesh | Execution of Bangabandhu killer Abdul Mazed is imminent, says home minister

Abdul Mazed, a key fugitive convict in the killing of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was sent to jail following his arrest on Tuesday.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan has said Abdul Mazed, a convicted killer of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, could be hanged any day now as President Abdul Hamid has thrown out his appeal for clemency.

“President Md Abdul Hamid has rejected his appeal for mercy. Now there remains no hurdle to his execution,” Khan told bdnews24.com on Thursday.

Asked when the execution could take place, the minister said: “The date has not been fixed yet. It seems unlikely that we'll be able to carry out the execution today because of Shab-e-Barat.”

“It might not happen tomorrow as well. But it could happen any day now, depending on the situation.”

The Father of the Nation was killed along with most of his family members on Aug 15 in 1975 at his home in Dhanmondi 32.

After a lengthy trial, the court awarded the death penalty to 11 suspects in Nov 2009. Of the killers, 5 were hanged on Jan 28, 2010 while six, including Mazed, were absconding.

Mazed was arrested in Dhaka's Mirpur-11 on Tuesday, 4 1/2 decades after the assassination of Bangabandhu.

A Dhaka court issued a death warrant against Mazed, paving the way for his execution.

The death sentence could be executed any day between Apr 21 and 28.

Mazed had already lost the scope of appealing against the death sentence as he was a fugitive from justice, according to Mosharraf Hossain Kazol, one of the lawyers for the state in the Bangabandhu murder case.

Source: bdnews24.com, Staff, April 9, 2020

AL demands immediate execution of Majed’s death penalty

The Awami League has demanded immediate execution of the death penalty against Abdul Majed, a convicted killer of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader, also the general secretary of ruling Awami League, made demand though a written speech to the media on Wednesday, reports UNB.

“We, on behalf of Bangladesh Awami League, are demanding the government and the authorities concerned for immediate execution of the death sentence,” Quader said.

There is no legal bar on execution of the death penalty according to the country’s constitution and the existing Criminal Code of Procedure, said the statement sent by AL Office Secretary Barrister Biplab Barua.

There is specific period for execution of the death sentence mentioned in the laws as well, he said.

The Supreme Court upheld the death sentence issued by the trial court and the counsels for the killers were present at all stage from the lower court to the Supreme Court. Subsequently, the Supreme Court rejected the review petition of the convicted killers, said Quader.

Majed went into hiding before the Awami League came to power in 1997 and detectives had been working to trace him ever since. Quader said the process to execute the verdict as per the court has already started.

On November 19, 2009, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty of 12 convicted former army officials for the assassination of Bangabandhu and his family members.

5 killers of Bangabandhu – Syed Farooq Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed and Mohiuddin Ahmed – were hanged in January 2010.

The fugitive killers are – former Lt Col Khandaker Abdur Rashid, SHBM Noor Chowdhury, Shariful Haque Dalim, Rashed Chowdhury, and Risaldar Moslehuddin.

Interpol has issued a red notice against them.

Another killer Aziz Pasha met natural death in Zimbabwe in 2001.

Obaidul Quader said the assassination of Bangabandhu and most of his family members was not only an effort to exterminate a party and its ideals but also it was to end the future of the country.

He also urged the authorities concerned to bolster efforts to bring back the rest fugitive killers of Bangabandhu.

"Strong efforts are ongoing to bring back the convicted killers who’re hiding abroad. We’re demanding to strengthen this diplomatic effort in the days to come," he said.

Source: The Financial Times, Staff, April 9, 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

Two Executions In Six Hours: Florida Set For Historical Double Execution Tuesday

Florida is preparing to execute two death row inmates on Tuesday, July 28, in an action that would mark the state’s first double execution in more than 60 years. Former police officer James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12 p.m., followed six hours later by 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone at 6 p.m. If carried out, these will mark the 39th and 40th executions under Gov. Ron DeSantis and the 11th and 12th in the state since the beginning of 2026. In response, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) has launched petition and letter-writing efforts asking DeSantis to halt both procedures. The group has organized two public vigils outside Florida State Prison in Raiford, set for 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., contingent on whether stays are issued.

Florida executes Dominick Occhicone

Florida executes 2 men in a day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made Florida's death chamber the nation’s busiest at the end of his final term. STARKE, Fla. — Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, the last an 80-year-old man who was the second-oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern U.S. history. Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of killing a young girl.

Florida | 49 years on death row, killer of Bonita Springs teen learns death date

A Fort Myers man on death row for nearly five decades learned his execution date as Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his order Thursday, July 30. Harold Gene Lucas, then 24, shot and killed his 16-year-old girlfriend, Anthia Jill Piper in Bonita Springs on August 14, 1976. Lucas was 24 when he was charged in Piper's shooting death at her parents' home on Aug. 14, 1976. The execution is set for Sept. 1 in a state that has accelerated its pace under DeSantis the past two years, with a record of 19 executions in 2025. Piper was shot seven times by Lucas, who claimed to be intoxicated.

Florida executes James Duckett

Double execution: 1st of 2 inmates is put to death in Florida Florida has executed James Duckett, a 68-year-old former cop convicted of killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987. The state is set to execute an 80-year-old man 6 hours later for a 1986 murder. Florida carried out the 1st double execution in more than 60 years, executing former police officer James Duckett and later scheduling the execution of 80‑year‑old Dominick Occhicone, amid Governor Ron DeSantis’s aggressive push to increase death penalties in the state. Florida has put to death the 1st of 2 inmates in the state's 1st double execution in more than 60 years amid an aggressive death penalty push by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.

Iran erects iron gallows in Isfahan protest square

An iron gallows has been erected in an Isfahan square where protests erupted in January. Families of several of the 10 remaining prisoners sentenced to death have been summoned for farewell visits. An iron gallows erected in Ali-Khani Square in the central Iranian city of Isfahan has raised fears that the regime is preparing to publicly execute protesters arrested during nationwide demonstrations in January. Sources who spoke with Iran International said large numbers of security forces had been deployed in the area, while the families of several prisoners sentenced to death had been summoned to the prison for farewell visits.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Idaho | How Bryan Kohberger’s Guilty Plea Move Could Be His Death Sentence

If Bryan Kohberger successfully withdraws his guilty plea and goes to trial for the murders of four University of Idaho students, it could lead to him being sentenced to death, experts told Newsweek . Kohberger, 31, filed a handwritten petition on Monday from the Idaho Maximum Security Penitentiary, where he is serving four consecutive life sentences for the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen in a rental home near the university's campus in Moscow, Idaho, in 2022. Kohberger pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbings just over a year ago, a month before jury selection was set to start.

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