Death Penalty News

A bench of Justices Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Rohit Kapoor allowed the appeal filed by the two convicts and commuted their death sentence to life imprisonment. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has commuted to life imprisonment the death penalty of two men convicted for kidnapping and murdering a minor boy for ransom in 2005 on the grounds of their illegal solitary confinement and the state’s delay in deciding mercy petitions. A bench of Justices Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Rohit Kapoor allowed the appeal filed by the two convicts and commuted their death sentence to life imprisonment for the remainder of their natural lives without any commutation or premature release.

Mississippi executes a man convicted of raping and killing a college student  A Mississippi man convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 20-year-old community college student in 1993 was executed Wednesday.  Charles Crawford, 59, was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. following a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman.  Crawford had spent more than 30 years on death row. His execution comes several months after the execution of Mississippi’s longest-serving death row inmate in a year of increasing executions nationwide. 

Mississippi executes inmate who’s been on death row almost half a century Richard Gerald Jordan, 79, received a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary after being on death row since 1976  Mississippi has executed Richard Gerald Jordan, the state’s longest-serving death row inmate.  Jordan, 79, was put to death by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman Wednesday evening, nearly 50 years on from when he kidnapped and killed a bank loan officer’s wife in a violent ransom scheme.

The court upheld the previous ruling, stating Jordan didn't prove the three-drug lethal injection protocol would cause undue suffering. Mississippi prisoner Richard Gerald Jordan was dealt another blow in his last-minute effort to stop his execution, set for Wednesday, June 25. On Tuesday afternoon, June 24, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate's ruling on Jordan's petition for a preliminary injunction to protest the state's three-drug protocol for lethal injection executions.

Meeting the standard of ‘rarest of rare’ for the award of the death penalty requires courts to conclude that the convict is not fit for any kind of reformatory and rehabilitation scheme, and does not have to do only with the grave nature of the offence, held a three-judge bench of the court led by the Chief Justice of India. IN a significant order, the Supreme Court has held that a death sentence cannot be imposed upon a convict merely on account of the grave nature of the crime, but only if there is no possibility of reformation in a criminal.  It said multiple previous judgments by it have highlighted that it is the duty of the court to enquire into mitigating circumstances as well as to foreclose the possibility of reformation and rehabilitation before imposing the death penalty. “Despite this, in the present case, no such enquiry was conducted and the grievous nature of the crime was the only factor that was considered while awarding the death penalty,” the court said.

A Sirajganj court on September 27, 2022 sentenced a man to death in a case filed for killing a two-year-old boy after an abduction. Sirajganj District and Sessions Judge Fazle Khoda Md Nazir pronounced the verdict against convict Md Amir Chan (28) of Raipur in Shahzadpur upazila in the district, our Pabna correspondent reports quoting Public Prosecutor Abdur Rahman. According to the case statement, the convict kidnapped the Abdus Salam of Raipur village on August 11, 2018 and demanded ransom from his family. Amir killed the child and dumped the body at a neighbour's house.  Police later recovered the body. The victim's mother Ambia Khatun filed the case against Amir at Shahzadpur Police Station.  Police submitted a charge sheet accusing him after investigation. The judge sentenced Amir Chan to death and also another 14 years in prison on separate charges of abduction and ransom. He was also fined Tk 50,000. The death sentence will be executed after completion of the other conv...

The Ho Chi Minh City police recaptured on 16 July 2021 morning a death row inmate infected with Covid-19 who had escaped from a high-security prison, the police said. Nguyen Kim An, 27, was sentenced to death for murder and robbery in 2015 and lodged in Chi Hoa Prison in the city’s District 10, considered one of the most secure in the country, having seen only two successful breakouts in its 78-year history. He escaped on 13 July, although how he did it is not known yet. A police spokesperson said" "An was captured at around 1 a.m. without resistance. Police officers are safe. He has been taken back to Chi Hoa." On 6 July, a riot reportedly broke out at the prison, with shots and screams being heard by locals, though the police have remained tight-lipped. Witnesses heard a number of blasts from inside at around 7 p.m., and shortly afterward saw police units arrive. In 2014 An lost his motorbike and computer and decided to murder one of his school friends to steal his bel...

Akwa Ibom State High Court sitting in Ikot Ekpene Local Government Area of the state on 16 July 2021 sentenced two police officers and three other persons to death for kidnapping in the state.  The accused were sentenced to death for kidnapping an Uyo based cattle dealer one Alh Muhammed Umar Barkindo. The court presided over by Justice Eno Isangedighi held that the accused were guilty of the offence. She said: “the prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubts and found the accused guilty of conspiracy and kidnapping Alhaji Muhammad Umar Barkindo on 25 November 2011, an offense punishable by death in Section one subsection two of Akwa Ibom State Internal Security and Enforcement Law 2009.” The condemned police officers are Corporal Friday Udo, a native of Ikot Inyang in Oruk Anam Local Government Area and Corporal Saturday Okorie of Ikot Etenge also in Oruk Anam who have since been dismissed from the Nigeria Police Force. Others condemned to death were Walter Jack Udo, ...

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Pakistan on 14 June 2021 sentenced two clerics to death after finding them guilty of kidnapping a 15-year-old student for ransom and later murdering him. According to the prosecution, Qari Abdul Majeed and Qari Ahsan Ali had kidnapped Abdul Moiz on June 26, 2016, just after his parents allowed him to sit in Aitkaaf at the Ghousia Qadriya Masjid in Khudadad Colony. The boy was kept hostage for 4 days in a house in Usmania Colony and after the payment of Rs400,000 in ransom by his family, he was killed by the accused who dismembered his body into parts, the prosecution added. The ATC-XX judge ordered that the convicts be hanged by neck till their death. The judge also ordered the convicts to pay a fine of Rs1 million to the family of the victim or else they would spend 5 years more in prison. Moiz’s father Mohammad Arif had lodged a complaint with the Brigade police station stating that his son had brought an application form for Aitkaaf and after taking ...

A tribunal in Joypurhat on Monday sentenced 5 people to death for killing a 2 1/2 years old girl after abduction in 2015. Judge of Joypurhat Woman and Child Repression Prevention Tribunal Mohammad Rustom Ali handed down the verdict. The convicted accused are Uttam Kumar, Biresh Chandra, Santosh Kumar of Rashidpur Molan village and Mostafizur and Obaidul of Bindhara village in the upazila, reports UNB. The court also sentenced the convicts to life term imprisonment in the case and fined Uttam Tk 500,000 and other convicts Tk 300,000 each. According to the prosecution, Aradha Rani, daughter of Paresh Chandra of Rashidpur Molan village in Panchbibi upazila had gone missing on December 22, 2015. Later, the girl’s body was recovered from a pond on December 25. Victim’s father Paresh Chandra filed a case with Panchbibi Police Station. Police arrested Uttam , Biresh, Santosh, Mostafizur and Obaidul in this connection. After interrogation, the arrestees confessed that they had kidnapped the gi...

New Delhi, April 25 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Friday commuted the death penalty of two convicts to life imprisonment and said that there shall not be any remission till they complete 25 years of jail sentence in connection with a case of kidnapping and murder of an eight-year-old child. A three-judge bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Uday Umesh Lalit, passed the judgment on the appeal filed by two convicts -- Rajesh Daware and Arvind Singh -- who had kidnapped one Yug Chandak, son of a doctor, named Mukesh Chandak. "The motive of the accused persons -- Rajesh Daware and Arvind Singh -- was to become rich by not doing hard work but by demanding ransom after kidnapping a young, innocent boy of eight years. We are of the view that the present case falls short of the 'rarest of rare' cases where a death sentence alone deserves to be awarded to the appellants," the top court said in its judgment. According to the prosecution, the victim was kidnap...

Almost a decade after two men abducted, raped and killed 2 children in the Indian city of Coimbatore, death sentence passed on the surviving perpetrator got ultimate confirmation by the nation’s top court. R Manoharan is to die by hanging after the 3-judge court dismissed in full on Thursday his petition to review his death sentence.  In a 2:1 vote, the court ruled death is more appropriate punishment than a life behind bars for the “shocking” and “cold-blooded” crimes he had committed. The October 2010 case horrified India with the callous brutality of Manoharan and his accomplice, Mohanakrishnan. The latter, who worked as a taxi driver, abused the trust of the wealthy Jain family, which occasionally used his services when their regular driver was not available. Mohanakrishnan picked up 2 siblings, the 7-year-old brother Hrithik and the 10-year-old sister Muskan, ostensibly to take them to school. But the 2 men, who were both 23 at the time, abducted the sibling...

An antiterrorism court on Saturday awarded death sentence to 2 men for kidnapping and killing a child over non-payment of ransom. 4 accused — Abdul Ghaffar Brohi, Abdullah Magsi, Ali Magsi alias Ali Dino and Zahid Hussain Gopang — were charged with kidnapping 4 1/2-year-old Ammar Hussain Jatoi within the remit of the Waleed police station, Larkana in 2012. On Saturday, the ATC-II judge, who conducted the trial in the judicial complex inside the central prison, pronounced his verdict reserved after recording evidence and final arguments. The ATC hands down life imprisonment to 2 more accused The judge noted that the prosecution successfully proved the allegations of kidnapping for ransom against the accused Abdul Ghaffar Brohi and Abdullah Magsi and handed down capital punishment to them. The judge awarded life imprisonment to accused Ali Magsi and Zahid Hussain and also ordered them to pay Rs500,000 each to the legal heirs of the victim as compensation. The j...

(CNN) -- Two of the remaining members of the British ISIS cell known as "the Beatles" have confessed their part in the ransoming of Western hostages in a rare interview that showed them broken and pleading for news of their fate.  One of the fighters also offered an unprecedented apology for his actions with the group. Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh have been held in northern Syria by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) for more than a year, and they recently consented to speak to CNN through a cameraman in their jail and a correspondent by remote video link from London. Their comments come amid a raft of activity by foreign governments and the SDF to resolve the destination of hundreds of Western ISIS fighters held in overcrowded Syrian prisons, including the transfer of a dozen French fighters to Iraq where they were sentenced to death in May. A visibly drained Elsheikh said: "I consider my role in this whole scenario, this whole epis...