Death Penalty News

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has executed its special envoy to the United States on spying charges, as its leader, Kim Jong-un, has engineered a sweeping purge of the country’s top nuclear negotiators after the breakdown of his second summit meeting with President Trump, a major South Korean daily reported on Friday. Kim Hyok-chol, the envoy, was executed by firing squad in March at the Mirim airfield in a suburb of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s largest daily, reported on Friday, citing an anonymous source. Mr. Kim faced the charge that he was “won over by the American imperialists to betray the supreme leader,” the newspaper said. Four officials of the North Korean Foreign Ministry were also executed, the South Korean daily reported, without providing any hint of who its source might be or how it obtained the information. South Korean officials could not confirm the Chosun Ilbo report. North Korea has not reported any execution or p...

French FM says his country is increasing steps to avoid death penalty for four French citizens convicted of fighting alongside IS group. PARIS - France said Tuesday it was stepping up efforts to stop Iraq executing four French citizens convicted of fighting alongside the Islamic State (IS) group. An Iraqi court on Sunday sentenced three French nationals to death for joining the Islamic State group, the first IS members from France to be sentenced to capital punishment. On Monday, a fourth French citizen was also condemned to death in Baghdad. The four have 30 days to appeal. "We are increasing the steps to avoid the death penalty for these four French citizens," Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on France Inter radio on Tuesday. RELATED | Un quatrième Français condamné à mort en Irak, la France a entrepris des démarches "We are opposed to the death penalty... I myself reminded the president of Iraq, President (Barham) Saleh, of o...

BEIJING (AFP) - A Chinese court adjourned a hearing on a Canadian man's appeal against his death sentence for drug smuggling without a decision on Thursday (May 9), in a case that has deepened a diplomatic spat between Beijing and Ottawa. Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, 36, was sentenced to death in January after a court deemed his previous 15-year prison sentence too lenient. His appeal hearing came a day after a top executive of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, appeared in court in Canada to fight a United States extradition bid that triggered the diplomatic storm. The Liaoning High People’s Court in northeast China said in a statement that “all procedural rights of appellant Schellenberg were guaranteed in accordance with the law”. The trial has adjourned and the court will “select a day or time to pronounce the sentence", it said without further details. Schellenberg's case is seen as potential leverage for Meng, who was arrested on a US...

It has been more than 50 years since the last person was executed on Australian soil, but the Federal Government is being urged to do more to stop the death penalty in other countries. Ronald Ryan was hanged in Victoria in 1967 for the fatal shooting of a prison officer during an escape from Pentridge Prison, but since then, at least 8 Australians have been executed by foreign governments. Former Adelaide woman Lisa Cunningham is now potentially facing the death penalty in the south-western US state of Arizona over the death of her 7-year-old stepdaughter Sanaa. Melbourne lawyer Nicholas Harrington, who established Reprieve Australia, a group that provides legal representation to people at risk of execution, said that while Australia had become much better at pushing for an end to the death penalty, there was "a lot more work that needs to be done". "It's difficult to know how effective we are, as it all happens behind closed doors," Mr Harrin...

Nusakambangan island, Central Java, where executions are carried out. Jakarta says the executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran are not open for negotiation, and has criticised Australia for revealing an offer to pay the cost of the men's life imprisonment to the media. Details of Australian offers to spare the Bali Nine pair, including Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's correspondence with her Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi, were published on Thursday. Ms Bishop's earlier offer of a prisoner exchange deal was rejected and she's now awaiting a response on an offer to cover the cost of the life imprisonment of Chan and Sukumaran. Asked about the offer on Thursday, Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir said the matter wasn't open for negotiation. 'I want to stress that it is not a matter of negotiation as has been said by the president and the foreign minister,' he told reporters in Jakarta. 'This is a mat...