Death Penalty News

CAIRO (AP) — A Libyan court Monday sentenced 23 suspected Islamic State group militants to death for launching deadly attacks that killed dozens of people, including Egyptian Coptic Christians. The appeals court in the western city of Misrata also sentenced 14 other militants to life in prison who were convicted on the same charges, which include destruction of police facilities and public property. The court sentenced nine defendants to between three and 12 years in prison. It acquitted five suspects. The court did not elaborate further details. The Islamic State and other extremist groups exploited the chaos that engulfed Libya after the 2011 uprising that toppled and later killed longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi.  They seized the coastal city of Sirte, Gadhafi's birthplace, and other cities including Derna in eastern Libya.

Six Libyans are facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity and proselytising under laws increasingly being used to silence civil society and human rights organisations, say activists. The women and men – some from Libya’s minority ethnic groups, including the Amazigh, or Berbers, in the west of the country – were separately detained in March by security forces. A US citizen was arrested by Libya’s Internal Security Agency (ISA) last month, but was released and is understood to have left the country. The six Libyans have been charged under article 207 of the penal code, which punishes any attempt to circulate views that aim to “alter fundamental constitutional principles, or the fundamental structures of the social order”, or overthrow the state, and anyone who possess books, leaflets, drawings, slogans “or any other items” that promote their cause.

BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — A Libyan court sentenced 17 former members of the Islamic State group to death, a statement from the country's Tripoli-based top prosecutor said on Monday. The death sentences were given out to those convicted of participating in the killing of 53 people in the western city of Sabratha and destruction of public property, according to the statement. Another 16 militants were given prison sentences, two of them for life. The court did not specify when the sentences would be carried out. Libya remains split between two rival administrations after years of civil war. The divide between authorities in the capital of Tripoli and eastern Libya has led to widespread lawlessness. Militia groups have also accumulated vast wealth and power from kidnappings and their control over the country’s lucrative human trafficking trade. The extremist group expanded their reach in Libya after the 2011 uprising that toppled and later killed longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi. IS milita...

Abu Agila Masud, a Libyan intelligence official recently extradited to U.S. over suspected involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, will not face the death penalty as he appeared in a U.S. court. Masud is facing multiple charges, including destruction of aircraft resulting in death. Prosecutors said at Monday’s hearing that they would not seek the death penalty and Masud could face life imprisonment if convicted. Each of the charges he faces include a possible sentence of life in prison, the death penalty or a fine of up to $250,000. However, U.S. prosecutors told the court they would not seek death, as they believe the punishment was not legally available at the time of his alleged crime. According to the BBC, Masud is currently seeking legal counsel, which the judge said was his right after Masud rejected the offer of free representation from the public defender’s office. Although he is the third Libyan intelligence official charged in the U.S. in connection with the attack, Masud ...

A Libyan man accused of being involved in making the bomb that destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over the town of Lockerbie in December 1988 is now in US custody, authorities in the United States and Scotland said Sunday. The US charged Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi for his alleged involvement in the bombing two years ago, a spokesman for the UK Crown Office and Prosecutor Fiscal Service told CNN. The attack killed 270 people as the bomb detonated over the Scottish town as it flew from London to New York. The US Justice Department issued a statement Sunday morning confirming that the US had “taken custody of alleged Pan Am flight 103 bombmaker” Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, saying he is expected to make his “initial appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia,” according to a spokesperson. The statement did not identify a specific date for his court appearance, but said more details would be forthcoming. Al-Marimi had been in custody in Libya ...

A Christian convert from Islam has been sentenced to death by the Court of Appeal in Misrata, north-west Libya. The man became a Christian around four years ago, and has been arrested several times since then by Libyan militias who act as law enforcement in the disordered country. The death sentence for apostasy was applied as a result of his refusal to return to Islam. Libya’s General National Congress (the GNC, which sat from 2012 to 2014) passed a law stating that apostates from Islam who refuse to recant will be sentenced to death. All laws passed by the GNC were subsequently abolished by its replacement, the Libyan House of Representatives. However, the Libyan Supreme Court in Tripoli has ruled that the House of Representatives is illegal, allowing courts to continue to apply laws passed by the GNC, including the death penalty for apostasy. The death penalty for sane adult males who renounce Islam is compulsory in all schools of sharia (Islamic law).  The Maliki school – which...

Around the world, numerous countries are complicit in the killing of actual and perceived sexual minorities. However, the reasons for these deaths are often misunderstood, distorted, or covered up. A new report, State-Sanctioned Killing of Sexual Minorities: Looking Beyond the Death Penalty , exposes the sheer extent to which states are involved in the killing of sexual minorities. This report was drafted as part of Eleos Justice, a Monash University initiative. 30 years ago, consensual same-sex sexual acts between adults were criminalised in the majority of countries worldwide. Today, of the 69 countries that continue to do so, the death penalty may be applied for same-sex intimacy in 11. However, the report reveals that the state-sanctioned killing of sexual minorities is often perpetrated well beyond the boundaries of the law, and even in countries that do not criminalise such conduct. In fact, the findings suggest at least 23 states are complicit in the killing of individuals on th...

Countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) ruthlessly persisted with executions, defying the unprecedented challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, making them some of the world’s most prolific executioners of 2020, said Amnesty International in its annual global death penalty report today. The report reveals that four out of five of the world’s top executioners are MENA states. Iran (246+), Egypt (107+), Iraq (45+) and Saudi Arabia (27)  accounted for 88% of all reported executions carried out worldwide in 2020, excluding China, which is believed to execute thousands each year, making it the world’s most frequent executioner.  Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia accounted for 88% of known global executions in 2020 Egypt tripled number of yearly executions Iran accounted for 56% of all recorded executions in MENA 85% drop in executions recorded in Saudi Arabia Oman and Qatar resumed executions for first time in several years Lowest number of executions globally in a de...

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt on Saturday executed a Libyan militant convicted of plotting an attack that killed at least 16 police officers in 2017, the military said. Abdel-Rahim al-Mosmari was hanged in a Cairo prison after a military appeals court upheld his death sentence last week, the military said. The deadly attack southwest of the Egyptian capital took place in October 2017. Al-Mosmari was arrested a month after the attack. He was tried by a military court and sentenced to death in November last year. The court also sentenced 15 other defendants for their involvement in the attack, including 10 in absentia, to life in prison. Another 17 got 5- to 15-year sentences. Al-Mosmari was from Libya’s eastern city of Derna, which served as a safe haven for years for militant groups before the self-styled Libyan Arab Armed Forces took control of it early in 2018. The LAAF is led by military commander Khalifa Hifter, an ally to Egypt. The defendants were accused of plotting ...

A fugitive for over 20 years, Majed was arrested on Tuesday Abdul Majed, one of the convicts in the killing of Bangladesh’s founding father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, has been executed at the Dhaka Central Jail. “The convict was hanged at 12:01am Sunday,” Inspector General (Prisons) Brigadier General AKM Mustafa Kamal Pasha said. He said other concerned officials including a magistrate, police representatives witnessed the execution as required by the law. "This was the first case of the execution since Dhaka Central Jail was relocated in Keraniganj," he added. Defying the coronavirus restriction, a number of people emerged in front of the jail at midnight. Earlier, the prison authorities called Majed’s wife for a final visit as per the last wish of the death-row convict. His body will be taken to Bhola for burial today although two MPs, including a former Chhatra League leader from Bhola have said they will not let that happen in their ...

CAIRO (Reuters) - Top Egyptian militant suspect Hisham al-Ashmawy was executed on Wednesday following his conviction over several high-profile attacks, the country's military spokesman said. Ashmawy, a former Egyptian special forces officer, led the Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Egypt's most active militant group, before it pledged allegiance to Islamic State in 2014. He then moved with a group of followers to Egypt's Western Desert, later crossing the border to Libya to join the al Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia, according to Egyptian officials. He was captured in the east Libyan city of Derna in late 2018 and transferred to Egypt in May 2019. Ashmawy was convicted on several charges including plotting a 2014 attack that killed 22 military guards, and the attempted assassination of a former interior minister in 2013. Military and civilian courts had sentenced him to death before and after his extradition. Egypt's military spokesman posted a...