Death Penalty News

International laws and treaties impose obligations on countries that still implement the death penalty to ensure that individuals facing this punishment are granted their full rights, including the right to seek pardon. Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: "Anyone sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of the sentence. Amnesty, pardon, or commutation of the sentence of death may be granted in all cases." The Arab Charter on Human Rights, in its Article 6, confirms that every person sentenced to death has the right to seek pardon or to have the sentence commuted to a lesser penalty.

Saudi Arabia executes man for murdering Otaibah tribe woman RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has executed a native citizen.  The Ministry of Interior of Saudi Arabia has announced that the execution of a man named Basil Bin Suhail has been carried out. Basil was executed for killing a woman by hitting her with a car.

Brevard County death row inmate James Barnes — who confessed to killing his estranged wife in 1997, court records show — was executed today for the brutal 1988 murder of another woman, Patricia “Patsy” Miller, inside her Melbourne condominium. Barnes, 61, was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 6:13 p.m. at Florida State Prison in rural Bradford County, northwest of Starke. "The execution took place without incident," Kayla McLaughlin, spokesperson for the Department of Corrections, said during a press conference.

SPA now says man believed to have been executed during holy month was killed days before, following outrage Saudi Arabia’s official news agency appears to have changed an announcement about a controversial Ramadan execution to suggest it took place before the start of the holy month. On 30 March, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported that Khaled al-Harbi, a Saudi man convicted of murder, had been executed in Medina “on Tuesday”. The announcement garnered international headlines, with one rights group saying that Harbi’s execution was the first to occur during the Muslim holy month since 2009, if not the first time ever. SPA announcements are often the only official information released about executions in Saudi Arabia and are typically made one or two days after an execution. Harbi was therefore presumed to have been executed on Tuesday 28 March. 

More than 1,000 death sentences have been carried out since King Salman assumed power in 2015 Saudi Arabia has executed a man during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which a rights group said on Monday had not occurred in years. The execution took place on March 28 — five days into the fasting month — in the Medina region which includes Islam’s second holiest city, the official Saudi Press Agency has reported. It said the man put to death, a Saudi national, had been convicted of murder. He stabbed the victim and set him on fire, the report said. “Saudi Arabia executed a citizen during Ramadan," said the Berlin-based European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) in a statement.

The Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN) and Transformative Justice Collective (TJC) are alarmed by the scheduled execution of Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam by the Singapore government on 27th April 2022 , during the holy month of Ramadhan observed by the Muslim communities in Malaysia and Singapore. Nagaenthran was convicted under Singapore’s Misuse of Drugs Act for trafficking 42.72 grams of Diamorphine (heroin). His I.Q. has been assessed to be 69, a level that is internationally recognised as an intellectual disability. His last legal challenge was dismissed on 29 March 2022, leaving him with no further legal avenue to challenge the scheduled execution. During the hearing, the Public Prosecutor alluded that the issue of fitness to execute is an issue that should be addressed through the clemency process as opposed to legal process.  RELATED  | Nagaenthran to be hanged next week, says lawyer On 1 June 2020, the President’s office rejected Nagaenthran’s clemency application....

A woman was hanged among 19 people executed between March 9 and 17, 2022, in the Central Prison of Shiraz, also known as Adelabad Prison. An unidentified woman was hanged along with her husband on the morning of Monday, March 14, 2022, in Adelabad Prison on charges of deliberate murder. They had just got married at the time of the arrest. At least 19 prisoners were executed in the Central prison of Shiraz between March 9 and 17. The authorities of Adelabad Prison have told another 15 death-row prisoners that their sentences will be carried out before Ramadan. The world’s chief executioner of women With this latest execution in Shiraz, the number of women executed in Iran since summer 2013, reaches 131. Iran holds the world’s top executioner record, with the highest number of citizens executed per capita. It is also the world’s chief executioner of women. The [sentences] are grossly unfair. The actual number of executions, particularly the number of women executed, is much higher. The c...

An Egyptian criminal court sentenced a man to death on 6 December 2021 for slaying his wife and six children at their home in a village in Fayoum governorate, southwest of Cairo, in May over accumulated debts. The man, the owner of a bakery shop, killed his family during the holy month of Ramadan while they were eating their Sohour (pre-dawn) meal.  He then headed to his shop and set it on fire in an attempt to kill himself.  He was rescued, however, and he turned himself in.  The man said he owed EGP 800,000 (nearly $50,000) in debts and that he murdered his family fearing the wrath of debtors. The court verdict was issued after the grand mufti, the country's top Muslim legal authority, approved the punishment.  The mufti's opinion is legally required in death penalty cases but is not binding. The ruling is not final and the convict has the right to appeal the verdict within 60 days.    Source:  Ahram, Staff, December 6, 2021 🚩 | Report an error, ...

A Kuwaiti court on 6 July 2021 sentenced a man to death after convicting him of the kidnap and murder of a mother of two, a crime that shocked the emirate. The brutal killing of Farah Hamzah Akbar, 32, whose body was dumped outside a hospital on April 20 after she was snatched in broad daylight, sparked protests and calls for justice. “The verdict hit the nail on the head, and we hope it is backed and implemented so the family can rest,” the Akbar family lawyer, Abdulmohsen al-Qattan, told AFP. He added that the case will now be referred to the court of appeal for review. The man, who had persisted in stalking Akbar despite several complaints to authorities, dragged her from a car during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Akbar had previously filed two harassment complaints against the man who had proposed to her although she was already married. He had been arrested but was released on bail. The interior ministry said at the time of the murder that Akbar had been stabbed in the chest. ...

17 Egyptian prisoners, including Sheikh Abdel Halim Gabreel, an 80-year-old Qur'an teacher, were executed yesterday, on fabricated charges in the case known in the media as the "Kerdasa massacre". Regime authorities carried out the death sentences at dawn in Wadi Al-Natrun Prison in complete secrecy and without prior notification to the families. The 16 other prisoners that were executed were: Walid Saad Abu Omaira, Mohamed Rizk Abuel Soud, Ashraf Sayed Rizk, Ahmed Owes Hussein, Essam Abdel Moety, Ahmed Abdel Nabi, Badr Abdel Nabi, Qutb Sayed Qutb, Omar Mohamed El-Sayed, Izzat Al-Attar, Ali El-Sayed Kenawy, Abdullah Saeed, Mohamed Yousef Al-Seidi, Ahmed Abdel Salam, Arafat Abdel Latif, Mustafa El-Sayed El-Kerfesh. All 17 men were convicted of killing 13 policemen during a 2013 attack on a police station in the Giza suburb of Kerdasa in 2013. However serious questions marks were raised over their conviction. Arab Organisation for Human Rights UK (AOHR) confirmed that the i...

Iran Human Rights (IHR); April 26, 2021: Baluch citizen, Habibullah Sheikh-Hossein has been executed on drug-related charges in Sabzevar Prison. According to Resanak, a man was executed in Sabzevar Prison on the morning of April 26.  His identity was established as Zahak native, Habibullah Sheikh-Hosseini, who had been sentenced to death on drug-related charges. He was arrested in Nayin city around two years ago and said goodbye to his family in a visit prior to his execution. Habibullah was executed on the 13th day of Ramadan, a month when executions are rarely carried out. At the time of writing, his execution has not been announced by domestic media or officials in Iran. It has been almost four years since an Article was added to the Anti-Narcotics Law in 2017 to limit death sentences specifically and provide a general degree of reprieve in some cases.  However, while the numbers reduced that year, the death penalty is still being used in drug-related cases. According to Ir...

Responding to the news that the Egyptian authorities executed nine people today, including an 82-year-old man, after a grossly unfair trial, in relation to the killing of 13 police officers during an attack on Kerdasa police station in August 2013, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director, Philip Luther said: “Today’s execution of nine people is a chilling demonstration of the Egyptian authorities’ disregard for the right to life and their obligations under international law. “By carrying out these executions during the holy month of Ramadan the Egyptian authorities have displayed a ruthless determination to persist with their escalating use of the death penalty. “The use of the death penalty is abhorrent in all circumstances, and in Egypt it is extremely concerning that it is used after unfair trials, with courts routinely relying on torture-tainted ‘confessions’. “These death sentences were issued following a grossly unfair trial in which de...

The Iranian regime has resumed executions after a 20-day hiatus around Nowruz holidays, putting to death at least 13 people, 10 of whom were convicted of drug related charges. On April 11, a prisoner identified as Morteza Kabiri was executed in Isfahan Prison after being convicted of drug charges. Three more prisoners in Isfahan Prison are believed to be in imminent danger of execution, according to reports from the province. On the morning of Saturday, April 10, the authorities executed a prisoner identified as Yousef Rasho Hashtian (also known as Bayazid Rashidi). The man who was convicted of drug related charges was transferred to solitary confinement on April 8, to await his death sentence. On Friday, April 9, four prisoners convicted of drug related charges were executed at Urmia Prison, northwest Iran. They were identified as Mahmoud Bayazid, Ali Mohammadzadeh, Arshad Heydari, and Hamid Najmi. On Thursday, April 8, another man convicted of drug related charges identified as Safar...

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – While Iran halted this week the executions of three young men linked to deadly fuel protests in November, the government continued to carry out death sentences of Kurds without much apparent notice among the international community. "Unfortunately, five Kurds were executed in the prisons of Urmia and Kermanshah in the past few days. Another inmate, Hussein Osmani, who is sentenced to 30 years of imprisonment, was threatened with the death penalty," Jila Mostajer, manager of the human rights watchdog Hengaw, told Kurdistan 24 on Tuesday. Her organization later specified in a report that Osmani had been told he would be put to death this week. She said that this threat was particularly concerning because it fits a pattern of events that have ended in the death of other political prisoners like Mansour Arvand, whom the courts initially handed a life sentence but was later executed. A relative of Osmani told Kurdistan 24 that authorities ...