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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.

Malawi scraps ‘unconstitutional’ death penalty

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Malawi’s highest court on Wednesday outlawed the death penalty and ordered the re-sentencing of all convicts facing execution.

Capital punishment has long been mandatory in Malawi for prisoners convicted of murder or treason, and optional for rape.

Violent robberies, house break-ins and burglaries could also be punishable by death or life imprisonment.

Executions have however not been carried out since Malawi’s first democratically elected president, Bakili Muluzi, opposed the punishment when he took office in 1994.

In a landmark ruling on Wednesday, Supreme Court judges hearing an appeal by a murder convict declared the death penalty “unconstitutional”, de facto abolishing the punishment.

“The death penalty… is tainted by the unconstitutionality discussed,” the judgment said.

Malawi last executed around two dozen prisoners in 1992, according to Amnesty International.

More than 30 countries in Africa still have the death penalty on their books, but just under half have carried out executions in recent years.

Source: Xinhua, Staff, April 29, 2021


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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: Malawi
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