Death Penalty News

Iranian authorities secretly executed Elias Zeinoddini, a Baloch prisoner from Lashar County, at Zahedan Central Prison in mid-May. He had previously been sentenced to death on accusations of “ moharebeh ” (waging war against God) and “participation in premeditated murder” in connection with the killing of a law enforcement officer. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Elias Zeinoddini, 44, from Lashar County in Sistan and Baluchestan Province, was executed in the early hours of Friday, May 16, 2026, at Zahedan Central Prison. He was denied a final visit with his family prior to the execution.

A second execution would be an unimaginable nightmare for Tony Carruthers and a moral horror for the rest of us. Tony Carruthers is not supposed to be alive . On May 21, Tennessee set out to execute him. It failed. Carruthers survived. He is not the first person to survive an execution in the United States, and he won’t be the last. For Carruthers, the question is: Now what? Will the state seek to arrange a second execution?

In an exclusive interview at home in Oklahoma City, Glossip describes his first days of freedom in a world he hasn’t experienced for nearly 30 years. For three decades, Richard Glossip lived on concrete. First at the Oklahoma County jail, after his arrest for murder in 1997, and then in the underground bunker housing death row inmates at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. As with the rest of his surroundings, he eventually got used to the hard, unforgiving floors, although recently he’d developed painful swelling in his legs.

Parliament of Ghana has approved a bill that would criminalize identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. The legislation now awaits ratification by President John Dramani Mahama. The proposed law goes further than the country’s existing colonial-era ban on same-sex relationships.  The bill approved by Parliament actually implements a tiered penalty system. While engaging in same-sex intercourse or public displays of affection carries up to 3 years of imprisonment, the bill imposes far harsher penalties of 6 to 10 years in prison for anyone who promotes, sponsors, advocates, or distributes material related to LGBT activities.

At least 43 political and conscience prisoners have been executed in prisons across Iran since the beginning of 2026, according to statistics documented by the Statistics and Documentation Center of Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.  During the same period, another 42 political and conscience activists have received either preliminary or final death sentences. Documented findings gathered by Hengaw indicate that the Islamic Republic of Iran has sharply escalated the issuance and implementation of death sentences against political and conscience dissidents in recent months.

Hengaw – Thursday, May 28, 2026 Iranian authorities have executed five Kurdish prisoners at Bukan Central Prison after they were sentenced to death on drug-related and premeditated murder charges.  Hengaw has confirmed the identities of three of the executed prisoners as Rahman Mahmoudi, Jafar Mohammadi, and Salah Jang. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the executions were carried out during the early hours of Tuesday, May 26, 2026, at Bukan Central Prison.

Hengaw – Friday, May 29, 2026 Iranian authorities have executed six prisoners, including a Lor man and a Baloch man, in prisons in Isfahan, Mashhad, Neyshabur, and Kashan. The prisoners had previously been sentenced to death on charges of drug-related offenses and premeditated murder, Hengaw Organization for Human Rights has learned. Mojtaba Khosravi, 42, a father of one, and Meysam Abdi, 38, both from Torbat-e Heydarieh in Razavi Khorasan Province, were executed at Isfahan Central Prison during the early hours of Wednesday, May 27, 2026.

In a message addressed to Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, the head of the Judiciary, Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Parliament) Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf wrote: "Under the bombardment and threats of the enemies, the Judiciary did not back down from protecting the rights of the people and confronting domestic murderers and traitors to the nation, and it shone brilliantly." This praise for the Judiciary's performance comes at a time when at least 39 political prisoners have been executed over the course of the days since Iran's war with the United States and Israel began.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday ruled that execution by nitrogen gas does not violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, rejecting an Alabama inmate’s claim that it causes excessive suffering. The ruling came after the first bench trial in the country to examine the constitutionality of the execution method that has now been used to put eight people to death, seven in Alabama and one in Louisiana. The ruling clears the way for Alabama and other states to continue with the method and is a setback for critics who hoped a fuller examination of Alabama’s protocol would halt its use.

The Supreme Court on Thursday threw out a Mississippi man’s conviction and death sentence. By a vote of 5-4, the court in Pitchford v. Cain agreed with Terry Pitchford that the judge at his 2006 trial had not properly analyzed whether the prosecutor in Pitchford’s case violated the Constitution’s ban on racial discrimination in jury selection. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority, in a nine-page opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Quoting a 2019 opinion in which the court threw out the conviction of Mississippi inmate Curtis Flowers in a case that involved the same prosecutor, Kavanaugh acknowledged that “‘America’s trial judges operate at the front lines of American justice’ and ‘the job of enforcing’” the Supreme Court’s 1986 decision in Batson v. Kentucky , holding that the use of peremptory challenges (that is, challenges for any reason) to remove potential jurors based on race violates the ...

A court in Tay Ninh Province, southern Vietnam has sentenced a 23-year-old factory worker to death for murdering a roadside coffee shop owner during a robbery last year. Tran Van Quy, from Cai Doi Vam Commune, southern Ca Mau Province, was convicted of murder at a first-instance trial held by the Tay Ninh People’s Court on Wednesday. According to the indictment, Quy had been living with his wife’s parents in Tay Ninh while working as a factory laborer. Mounting debts and financial difficulties drove him to plan a robbery.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Attorneys and death penalty advocates this week called on Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to halt all executions in the state after what they described as a “botched” execution attempt that left death row prisoner Tony Carruthers physically and emotionally traumatized following more than 90 minutes of failed attempts to establish IV access. At a press conference in Nashville, attorneys representing Carruthers and plaintiffs challenging Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol said the state’s execution procedures are deeply flawed, inadequately reviewed and incapable of ensuring constitutional executions. The attorneys argued that what happened to Carruthers on May 22 was foreseeable and directly tied to deficiencies already identified in ongoing litigation challenging Tennessee’s 2025 lethal injection protocol.

A 41-year-old Leesburg man could face the death penalty after a grand jury indicted him on 47 felony charges, including 12 counts of sexual battery on a child younger than 12. Fifth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Bill Gladson announced the indictment of Schubert Navarroza Macarat on May 27 and confirmed his office has filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty should Macarat be found guilty. The charges stem from an investigation that began on the evening of March 22. Lake County Sheriff's Office deputies responded to a call regarding a past sexual offense, where a caller reported that a child had just disclosed long-term, ongoing sexual abuse. 

Richard R. Ramirez, who was sentenced to death for the 1983 rape and murder of a 22-year-old bank teller in Garden Grove, died in prison at age 66 on Sunday, May 24, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said. He died at a medical facility, authorities said, with his cause of death to be determined by the San Joaquin County coroner’s office. He was not the Night Stalker, who shared the same first and last names and was convicted of 13 murders and 30 other crimes committed up and down the state in the mid-1980s. That Richard Ramirez, also condemned to death, died in 2013 of natural causes.

The case of Lin Qi's murder by poisoning highlights corporate rivalry and the high stakes of intellectual property rights. The execution of a former Chinese gaming executive and lawyer convicted of poisoning billionaire entrepreneur Lin Qi has reignited attention around one of China's most shocking corporate murder cases, linked to the global Netflix hit 3 Body Problem . Chinese authorities confirmed that Xu Yao was executed on 21 May 2026 after being found guilty of murdering Lin, founder of gaming company Yoozoo Games, through poisoning in late 2020. Lin died on Christmas Day that year at the age of 39 after reportedly suffering acute symptoms following the consumption of poisoned food.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 26 May 2026: Abdolghader Rasouli, a Kurdish man on death row for drug-related offences, was executed in Mahabad Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Mahabad Prison on 25 May 2026. His identity has been established as Abdolghader Rasouli, a Kurdish father of two from Mahabad. He was arrested around four years ago and sentenced to death on drug-related charges by the Revolutionary Court.

Iran Human RIghts (IHRNGO); 26 May 2026: State media reported the execution of Gholamreza Khani Shekarab, a man accused of intelligence cooperation and espionage for Israel. IHRNGO has established the location of his execution as Ghezel Hesar Prison.  Thus far in 2026, at least ten people have been hanged for alleged espionage and collaboration with Israel, while two others have been executed for spying on behalf of an unidentified Arab country.

Toomaj Salehi, a former political prisoner and protest artist, has condemned the death sentences handed down to four defendants in the “Ekbatan” case, calling them “unjust and against humanity.” Writing on his official account on the social media platform X, he stated: “I am writing these words at a time when freedom of expression and media freedom, which we never truly had to begin with, have been suppressed in the most severe manner possible under the pretext of war, while poverty rains down upon the people from both earth and sky.”

An Iranian court has sentenced a man identified by state media as a senior Mossad-linked operative to death. According to Fars News Agency, the judiciary said Gholamreza Khani Shekarab acted as an external coordinator for an alleged intelligence network that operated inside Iran, directing what authorities described as sabotage activities across several provinces, News.Az reports. State media reported that the network was involved in efforts to create insecurity, spread fear, disrupt public order and essential services, and carry out propaganda operations in favour of hostile actors. It also alleged involvement in targeted assassination plots.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 25 May 2026: Milad Armoun, Navid Najaran, Seyed Mohammad Mehdi Hosseini and Mehdi Imani, four “Woman, Life, Freedom” protesters, were sentenced to death by “Death Judge” Salavati after a grossly unfair trial. Defence counsel representing the defendants in what became known as the “Ekbatan case” have detailed the severe procedural and substantive flaws that violated fundamental due process rights and undermined the legitimacy of the rulings issued by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court. News of the judgement comes just days after the Criminal Court acquitted the defendants of murder charges.

Hengaw – Saturday, May 23, 2026. Iranian authorities have executed Esma Zarei, a 28-year-old Turkish woman from Parsabad in Ardabil Province, who had previously been sentenced to death on charges of “premeditated murder” in connection with the killing of her husband. She is the sixth woman executed in Iran since the beginning of 2026. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Zarei was executed at dawn on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, in Ardabil Central Prison. She had been sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) after being convicted of her husband’s murder.

Iran executed a man on Monday who had been convicted of carrying out armed attacks during the statewide anti-government rallies that peaked in January, the judiciary announced. Abbas Akbari’s execution is the latest in a series of executions by the Islamic Republic, which increased hangings in security-related cases following the commencement of war with Israel and the US on February 28. “Abbas Akbari… was hanged this morning,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported, describing him as “one of the armed leaders” during protests in the central province of Isfahan.

After nine execution dates, three last meals, and a Supreme Court ruling in his favor, Richard Glossip should soon walk free. Three decades after he was arrested for a capital crime he swore he didn’t commit — and more than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction — former death row prisoner Richard Glossip was granted bond by an Oklahoma judge and released from jail. In an order handed down on Thursday, Oklahoma County District Judge Natalie Mai set Glossip’s bond at $500,000. She ordered him to live with his wife, wear an electronic monitoring device, and abide by a curfew from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., and forbade him from traveling outside the state.

The EU has tightened the rules governing GSP+ trade preferences, but Pakistan’s record raises a harder question: whether Brussels is prepared to suspend market access when a major beneficiary fails to demonstrate sustained compliance with human rights, labour and governance obligations. The European Union has formally adopted revised rules for its Generalised Scheme of Preferences, strengthening the conditions attached to preferential market access for developing countries. The new framework will apply from 1 January 2027 and is intended to tighten monitoring, widen the list of international conventions, and make suspension of benefits easier in cases of serious violations.

Mark Fowler, according to a deposition, had not placed a central line in a patient for more than a decade when he attempted to put one in Carruthers Around 11 a.m. Thursday morning in the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, a medical doctor stepped in and attempted to place a central IV line in Tony Carruthers’ chest. By that point, the prison staff had spent some 30 minutes trying unsuccessfully to insert a backup IV line that would allow them to proceed with the lethal injection. According to Carruthers’ attorney Maria DeLiberato, who was in the room, after asking a staff member to attempt inserting a line through Carruthers’ jugular vein, the doctor moved on to the central line, which is identified as the last resort in Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol .

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 21 May 2026: Gholamreza Khani Shekarab, a man on death row for accusations of espionage for Israel, is at risk of execution after being transferred to the solitary confinement cells of Ghezel Hesar Prison from Evin Prison. According to information obtained by IHRNGO, Gholamreza Khani Shekarab was transferred from Evin Prison to the solitary confinement cells of Ghezel Hesar Prison on 7 May 2026.  Given that prisoners are typically transferred to Ghezel Hesar Prison for execution, the transfer has raised grave concerns that his execution may be imminent.

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A St. Lucie County jury recommended the death penalty for Otto Lenke on Thursday in the penalty phase of his first-degree murder trial, though the final decision rests with the judge. Lenke, 66, a former Melbourne police officer and Indian River County firefighter , was convicted earlier this month of first-degree murder and first-degree arson in the Feb. 17, 2021, killing of Richard Benson at Fast Frank’s Custom Cycle Components, Benson’s motorcycle repair shop in Fort Pierce . Prosecutors said Lenke shot Benson multiple times inside the shop, then poured a flammable liquid on him and set him on fire while he was still alive. Surveillance video from the shop captured the attack.

Court throws out state’s challenge to judicial finding that inmate convicted of murder is ineligible for death penalty The US supreme court on Thursday threw out a challenge by the state of Alabama to a judicial finding that a death row inmate convicted of a 1997 murder is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible under the US constitution for the death penalty. In this highly unusual move, and in a single-sentence, unsigned order, the court dismissed Alabama’s petition for review in Hamm v Smith without deciding it, effectively undoing its earlier decision to take up an appeal by state officials to the method used by a lower court to determine that Joseph Clifton Smith was intellectually disabled and therefore could not be executed.

Man convicted of killing a woman and her 4-year-old daughter is executed in Florida  A Florida man convicted of fatally stabbing his cousin’s girlfriend and the couple’s 4-year-old daughter was put to death Thursday evening, becoming the 7th person executed by the state this year.  Richard Knight, 47, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. Knight was convicted of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the June 2002 killings of Odessia Stephens and her daughter, Hanessia Mullings.  The curtain of the death chamber went up promptly at the scheduled 6:00 p.m. execution time. Knight was already strapped down with his arms extended and an IV line in place. 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee officials on Thursday called off the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering three people in 1994, after his executioners tried and failed for over an hour to establish an intravenous line. Gov. Bill Lee announced soon afterward that the state would not try again for at least a year. In a written statement, the Tennessee Department of Corrections said medical personnel had quickly established a primary IV line but were unable to find a suitable vein for a backup line as required by the state’s execution protocol. Efforts to insert a central line also failed, and officials called off the execution.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — An attorney who was present for the planned execution of Tony Carruthers in Tennessee on Thursday said it was called off after officials struggled to find a vein for an hour. Maria DeLiberato, an attorney for Carruthers, said she saw Carruthers “wincing and groaning” and called it “horrible” to watch. Carruthers was in pain as the executioners tried to find a vein and there was a lot of blood, one of his attorneys, Amy Harwell, told the newspaper in a text message from a state prison on Thursday, May 21.

Amnesty International says Indonesia continues to impose large numbers of death sentences despite a decade-long halt in executions, warning proposed execution regulations risk undermining human rights protections. Amnesty International has warned that Indonesia remains a significant contributor of new death sentences globally despite not carrying out executions for nearly a decade. In its latest report, Death Sentences and Executions 2025 , released on Wednesday, Amnesty International said Indonesian courts handed down at least 68 death sentences during 2025, most of them linked to drug-related offences.

An Iranian political prisoner sentenced to death on charges of “espionage and collaboration with a hostile state (Israel)” is at imminent risk of execution after being transferred to solitary confinement, the Norway-based rights group Hengaw said on Wednesday. Gholamreza Khani Shakarab, 34, a former MMA champion, coach and international referee, was moved from a high-security ward in Tehran’s Evin Prison to solitary confinement in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, Hengaw said. The case comes amid a widening wartime crackdown in Iran, where authorities have intensified arrests, executions and threats against dissent while repeatedly warning that criticism could aid the country’s enemies.

A decade on from reforms to its religious police, Saudi Arabia might not be quite as tough as it once was on its Christian population, but it remains one of the toughest places in the world to believe in Jesus. In its annual ranking of global persecutors, Open Doors places Saudi Arabia as the 13th worst country for the persecution of Christians. While foreign-born Christians of a certain status are able to enjoy a very limited amount of religious freedom, the situation is far worse for those lower down in society and for native-born Saudis who wish to follow Christ.

Absent court action, Tony Carruthers is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Tennessee on May 21, 2026, despite untest­ed DNA evi­dence, an inno­cence claim, and seri­ous men­tal ill­ness con­cerns . On May 18, faith lead­ers, civ­il rights advo­cates and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers marched to the state capi­tol to urge Governor Bill Lee to grant Mr. Carruthers clemen­cy or stay his exe­cu­tion to allow addi­tion­al DNA test­ing, deliv­er­ing a peti­tion with over 130,000 sig­na­tures. Gov. Lee announced on May 19 that he has no plans to inter­vene and stop the exe­cu­tion. Mr. Carruthers’ case has drawn nation­al atten­tion as his sched­uled exe­cu­tion date nears, includ­ing from celebri­ty Kim Kardashian, who urged her 345 mil­lion Instagram fol­low­ers to call Gov. Lee’s office to press for the DNA test­ing, and from Demetrius Minor, the Executive Director of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty.

Iranian authorities executed a prisoner from Sari identified as Yahya Sobhani, who had previously been sentenced to death on drug-related charges, earlier this month in Sari Central Prison. According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the execution of 44-year-old Yahya Sobhani was carried out in Sari Central Prison at dawn on Sunday, May 3, 2026. Sobhani, a resident of Sari, was married and the father of two children. He had been arrested approximately two years ago by Iranian authorities on charges related to the transportation and possession of narcotics and was later sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court of Sari.

Iranian authorities secretly executed two Iraqi nationals, Ali Nader al-Obeidi and Fazel Sheikh Karim, in Karaj Central Prison during the final days of the 40-day war involving Iran, Israel, and the United States. The two men had previously been sentenced to death in a joint case on charges of allegedly spying for one of the Arab countries in the region. According to a report received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the executions were carried out in the early hours of Monday, April 6, 2026. The two men, both Arab residents of the Iraqi city of Amarah, were identified as 27-year-old Ali Nader al-Obeidi and 29-year-old Fazel Sheikh Karim.

Iranian authorities have secretly executed two Kurdish political prisoners, Ramin Zaleh and Karim Maroufpour, both from Naqadeh, who had previously been sentenced to death in a joint case on charges of membership in the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI). According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the death sentences of Ramin Zaleh and Karim Maroufpour were carried out in secret at dawn on Wednesday, May 21, 2026, in Naqadeh Central Prison, without prior notice to their families or the opportunity for a final visit.

MIAMI — The U.S. Department of Justice has unsealed a historic criminal indictment charging former Cuban President Raúl Castro and five co-defendants with murder and conspiracy.  The charges stem from the February 24, 1996, shoot-down of two unarmed civilian aircraft operated by the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue. The group frequently flew over the Florida Straits to search for and assist Cuban rafters fleeing the island. The unsealed document represents a major escalation in U.S.–Cuba relations, marking the first time in nearly seventy years that top Cuban leadership has faced criminal charges in an American courtroom for violence against U.S. citizens. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the indictment outside Miami's Freedom Tower, highlighting the decades-long push for accountability.

Arizona executes inmate who set couple on fire in 'horrific attack' Arizona has executed Leroy McGill for setting 21-year-old Charles Perez and his 24-year-old girlfriend on fire. Perez died the next day and Perez survived with severe burn injuries.  Arizona has executed a death row inmate for setting 2 people on fire more than 20 years ago, killing 1 of them and changing the other's life forever.  The state executed Leroy McGill, 63, by lethal injection on Wednesday, May 20, for the 2002 murder of 21-year-old Charles Perez. McGill set Perez and his girlfriend on fire after they accused him of theft, court records say. Perez died of his injuries the next day while his girlfriend survived with severe burns. 

For close to a quarter of a century, death row inmate Hiroko Kazama’s every movement in her 3½ tatami-size cell at the Tokyo Detention House has been watched. When she wakes up, uses the bathroom or creates a piece of art, she does so surveilled by guards who observe her through a ceiling-mounted camera. “Prisoners are never told how or when they are being monitored, which creates a profound sense of fear and uncertainty,” Kazama, 68, said in a statement to The Japan Times. As male guards are not prohibited from surveilling female prisoners, such exposure is particularly distressing for Kazama.

A Broward County man is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday evening while his legal team mounts a furious, multi-pronged effort to halt the execution in federal and state courts. Richard Knight, who was convicted of the 2000 murders of Odessia Stephens and her daughter, Hanessia Mullings, faces a May 21 execution date at 6:00 p.m. ET. If carried out, it will mark the seventh execution in Florida this year and the 34th under Governor Ron DeSantis.

The judges argued he would be aware that the job involved something dangerous or illegal, because he was "accustomed to criminal activities". A 73-year-old Singaporean man was unsuccessful in appealing against his conviction and sentence for drug trafficking in 2019. Previously, Low Sze Song and his accomplice, 37-year-old Malaysian national Sivaprakash Krishnan, were each found guilty of trafficking at least 43.2g of pure heroin, exceeding the 15g threshold for the mandatory death penalty under Singapore law. After a trial, they were both sentenced to death on Apr. 14, 2023.

On days when executions are scheduled at Union Correctional Institution, in northwest Florida, members of the prison’s Catholic services pray the rosary. Over the course of the last year, they gathered in the chapel 24 times to pray for each person scheduled to die. After the state’s 19 executions in 2025, a record number , prisoners and staff alike have become increasingly numb to the routine act of state-sanctioned killing. The vibe around here is mostly the same on execution days. We used to be locked down; but not anymore, when there are sometimes up to two executions a month these days. The compound moves as it always has. Everybody here has been, and will be, here a long time; one gets used to these grim machinations.

South Carolina didn’t seek a death sentence the first time. Murdaugh is poised to challenge any attempt to do so now as illegally “vindictive.” After South Carolina’s Supreme Court reversed Alex Murdaugh ’s double-murder conviction and life sentence last week, the state’s attorney general, Alan Wilson, said the death penalty is “on the table” for a retrial against the ex-attorney who was found guilty in 2023 of killing his wife, Maggie, and their son Paul in 2021. But introducing the prospect of capital punishment could further complicate the state’s case in what’s already been a tortured legal process.

PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona prisoner convicted of killing another man by throwing gasoline at him and lighting a match is set to be put to death Wednesday, the first of three executions planned this week around the U.S. Leroy Dean McGill, 63, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection of pentobarbital at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence. He was convicted of murder in the July 2002 death of Charles Perez. Authorities said McGill threw the gasoline and a lit match at Perez and Perez’s girlfriend, Nova Banta, as they sat on a sofa in a north Phoenix apartment on July 13 of that year. Perez and Banta had accused McGill of stealing a gun from the apartment before the attack. At the time, McGill was using methamphetamine and hadn’t slept in several days.

On May 13, the Ministry of Justice published an appraisal document for the policy dossier of the draft amended Penal Code prepared by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). In a significant shift, the MPS has proposed reducing the number of crimes punishable by death in Việt Nam from 10 to 2.  The Details: Under the proposal, capital punishment would be retained only for murder under Article 123 and for the rape of a person under 16 under Article 142.  The stated goal is to meet international standards to which Việt Nam is a party. Notably, drug-related crimes would be exempt from capital punishment, even though they currently account for nearly 85% of death sentences. 

Hengaw – Tuesday, May 19, 2026—Iranian authorities executed a prisoner from Shiraz identified as Saeid Rahmanirad, who had previously been sentenced to death on charges of premeditated murder by the Iranian judiciary, at Adelabad Prison in Shiraz. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the execution was carried out at dawn on Sunday, May 17, 2026, at Shiraz Central Prison, commonly known as Adelabad Prison. Rahmanirad, 30, had been convicted of “premeditated murder” by the Iranian judiciary.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (FOX Carolina) - Alex Murdaugh’s defense attorneys are questioning a statement from the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office about his fate after a retrial. Murdaugh, who was convicted in 2023 of killing his wife and son, was granted a new trial by the South Carolina Supreme Court. Attorney General Alan Wilson issued a statement saying, ”In light of the Supreme Court’s decision, we’re back to square one on this case, and that means all our legal options are on the table, including the death penalty." Murdaugh’s lawyers held a press conference on Monday to discuss a related federal lawsuit he has filed against the former Colleton County clerk of court. “I had hoped that would have been the main topic of this press conference, but over the weekend we learned that the Attorney General has announced he’s considering the death penalty in this case,” attorney Dick Harpootlian said. “Clearly, he is not talking to the lawyers in his office. He’s probably talking to his ...