Death Penalty News

At Least 17 Executed for Non-Lethal Drug-Related Offenses in 2026 (Beirut) – Saudi authorities executed five Ethiopian migrants for nonlethal drug-related offenses on July 27, 2026, without due process, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi authorities have executed at least 17 Ethiopian nationals since the beginning of 2026 on drug-related charges. At least 79 more remain at imminent risk of execution on similar charges. Saudi authorities have executed at least 116 people in 2026 as of July 27, according to the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights.

Riyadh (AsiaNews) – The Saudi authorities have granted a royal amnesty to around 2,000 Ethiopian prisoners who have been held in the country’s jails for some time. The news was announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Addis Ababa in a statement, which added that, following the decree issued by the authorities in Riyadh, Ethiopian officials have already begun the repatriation of the 1,971 compatriots who had been held in prison until now. However, whilst this news is being received with satisfaction and hope, the dramatic situation—both human and legal—of the many Ethiopian migrants detained on death row in Saudi Arabia remains unresolved, as they await the carrying out of the death penalty amidst suffering and false hopes.

The store surveillance video showed Rolbert Joachin smashing the victim's car window before she exited the store and he attacked her with a hammer. Florida State Attorney Amira Fox announced Thursday that a Lee County grand jury has indicted Rolbert Joachin, a 40-year-old Haitian national, on a charge of first-degree murder in the killing of 51-year-old Nilufa Easmin, a Bangladeshi immigrant and mother of two who worked as a gas station clerk in Fort Myers. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. According to authorities, surveillance video from the D&D Convenience Store on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard captured Joachin smashing the windshield of a vehicle associated with Easmin using a hammer or mallet. When she came outside to confront him, he repeatedly struck her in the head in a targeted and extremely violent attack.

The case sent shockwaves through France and reignited a heated debate over the country's immigration policies. Algerian illegal migrant  Dahbia Benkired has been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for raping, torturing, and killing 12-year-old Lola Daviet in 2022, the first time such a sentence has ever been handed down to a woman in France. A Paris court handed down the maximum sentence to 27-year-old Dahbia Benkired on Friday, following her conviction for the kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder of Lola Daviet, whose body was found in a plastic trunk outside her home in northeastern Paris.

AFP — Saudi Arabia put two Ethiopians to death July 10, pushing this year's number of foreigners executed past 100 — a spike in capital punishment that human rights groups have strongly condemned. The pair were executed on drug charges, the interior ministry said, bringing AFP's tally of foreigners put to death since the beginning of the year to at least 101. "Khalil Qasim Muhammad Omar and Murad Yaqub Adam Siyo — both of Ethiopian nationality — were found guilty of smuggling hashish," read the statement published by the Saudi Press Agency.

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Taiwan High Court on Wednesday opened a second trial in the case of Mark Dave Velasco, a 30-year-old Filipino migrant worker convicted of killing and dismembering his girlfriend in 2023. Velasco is appealing his life sentence. Prosecutors have also contested the original ruling, arguing it was too lenient and seeking the death penalty, per CNA. Velasco was found guilty in the first trial under Taiwan’s lay judge system of murdering his girlfriend, Red Michelle Selda, following a dispute at their rented apartment in Taoyuan. Prosecutors said he killed Selda during the altercation, dismembered her body, and fled with her wallet and phone.

HOUSTON - A new act is aiming for the federal government to pursue the death penalty in all 50 states, even where it's banned, for undocumented murderers. Texas lawmakers push for the death penalty nationwide  Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate have introduced legislation that would allow the federal government to seek the death penalty for undocumented immigrants convicted of murdering American citizens, codifying an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in January. The two bills— The Justice for Victims of Illegal Alien Murders Act in the House and The Justice for American Victims of Illegal Aliens Act in the Senate—aim to expand federal jurisdiction in murder cases involving undocumented suspects and mandate capital punishment as a sentencing option.