Death Penalty News

Afad, an independent observatory monitoring human rights abuses in Iraq, recently documented 63 cases of secret executions. Iraqi authorities continue to carry out secret executions in violation of the country's constitution, aiming to evade scrutiny from political factions and human rights organisations, according to Iraqi officials. 

If you expand the pool of potential capital defendants to in clude non-lethal child rape, you substantially increase the potential for wrongful convictions. Sarah McGee has served as a victim-witness coordinator for the Davidson County District Attorney’s Office, a probation officer, an assistant public defender for youth and adults.

The human rights activists have voiced deep concerns over the recent agreement entered between the government of Pakistan and Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) where both parties agreed to set up a counter-blasphemy wing at Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), and include the charge under section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act against blasphemy accused in addition to Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, which carries a mandatory death penalty. They have urged the government to prioritize the safety and security of blasphemy accused, and introduce robust legal and administrative safeguards to prevent the misuse of blasphemy laws, rather than opening avenues for its further abuse.

On 7 July last year, 48-year-old Norasharee bin Gous was executed in Changi Prison after being accused by a rival gang member, Mohamad Yazid bin Md Yusof of instructing him to traffic drugs in 2013. Yazid was arrested along with another Malaysian by the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) on 24 October 2013, having found in possession of bundles which contained not less than 120.90g of diamorphine. While in detention, Yazid accused Norasharee of having instructed him to collect the drugs from a Malaysian courier the following day after having met on 23 October 2013 at VivoCity.

Leonard “Raheem” Taylor was convicted for the 2004 murders of Angela Rowe and her three children in Jennings, Missouri. Throughout the trial and appeals, he has maintained his innocence . Court documents show that the murders occurred after Leonard left Angela’s home, where he last saw her and her children alive, and headed to the airport to visit his daughter in California.  Then there is the false statement made by his brother, who says police coerced him, threatened him and his mother, beat him and told him to tell them Leonard had confessed to the crime — a statement that he recanted immediately and repeatedly since then. 

LAHORE, Pakistan, November 22, 2021 (Morning Star News) – A Christian in Pakistan incarcerated for nearly 10 years on a false blasphemy conviction was released from prison on Nov. 9 after a high court acquitted him, but quietly to avoid Islamist outrage, his attorney said. The life prison sentence of Sajjad Masih Gill, 37, had been converted to the death penalty on March 10 under Islamist pressure. His attorney, Javed Sahotra, said that a two-judge division bench of the Lahore High Court on Oct. 26 acquitted Gill on grounds of insufficient evidence and ordered his release. “My client is facing serious security risks,” Sahotra told Morning Star News. “We intentionally kept the news secret to avoid putting his and our lives at risk. Gill is very happy after being released from prison on Nov. 13, but he cannot return to his normal life.” Gill, member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Pakpattan, spent nine years, 10 months and 15 days in prison on the false charge, Sahotra said. “The ...

In the United Arab Emirates, there exists a different kind of punishments for crimes including capital punishments for the most heinous of crimes such as rape. Sexual assaults are heavily punished in Dubai and can often include death sentence, especially in instances of sexual assault of minors. The penal code of the UAE is promulgated under UAE Federal Law number 3 of 1987 and its amendments (the “UAE Penal Code”) which sets of the legal provisions that determine actions recognized as crimes under the penal code and also sets out the penalties incurred for such crimes. Article 354 of the UAE penal code defines ‘Rape’ as, ‘Without prejudice to the provisions of the Law on juvenile delinquents and displaced, death penalty shall be imposed on whoever used coercion in having sexual intercourse with a female or sodomy with a male. Coercion shall be considered committed if the victim is below fourteen years of age when the crime is perpetrated, or if the crime is committed against a person ...

Official misconduct and perjury or false accusation continue to be the main reasons innocent men and women are wrongfully convicted in America, according to the 2019 annual report by the National Registry of Exonerations. That misconduct, the report indicates, is most prevalent in cases involving the most serious criminal charges. The registry reported on March 31, 2020 that 143 men and women were exonerated in 2019 following wrongful convictions across the United States. More than half (76) involved wrongful convictions for homicide, including three people who had been sentenced to death, and other cases in which innocent defendants had been capitally tried, defendants threatened with the death penalty had falsely confessed, or witnesses threatened with the death penalty had provided testimony falsely implicating innocent defendants. Perjury or false accusation was present in 101 of the 143 exonerations (70.6%), making it the most prevalent factor in the 2019 exonerations, ...