Death Penalty News

A Ugandan-American man was sentenced to death on Thursday over the murder of four young children he stabbed to death at a kindergarten in Uganda's capital. Christopher Okello Onyum was arrested on 2 April as he tried to flee the daycare centre in Kampala, where he killed the tiny children, aged between 15 months to two-and-a-half years. Prosecutors said Onyum, who holds Ugandan and US citizenship, confessed to the crime, believing the "human sacrifice" would help him become rich, although he eventually pleaded not guilty in court.

Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada has authorised the killing of 11 categories of people under a newly endorsed Taliban penal code, granting himself sole authority to approve executions deemed necessary for what the movement describes as the “public interest”.  Article 16 of the Taliban’s new penal code allows for “discretionary execution” ( ta’zir by death) of individuals accused of a broad range of offences, including armed opposition to the Taliban, promoting beliefs considered contrary to Islam, sorcery and repeat criminal acts, according to the text reviewed by Amu TV. 

Saudi Arabia executed 345 people in 2024, rights groups say, double the rate of the past few years. The government in Riyadh, pictured, has rejected allegations of unfair trials and secret executions.  For a year, Mohamed Saad’s family had no idea whether he was alive or dead. The 28-year-old Egyptian fisherman had gone out on a routine trip off the coast of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and never returned. Relatives searched for months with no word from authorities. When they finally heard his voice, it was from a prison in Tabuk, northern Saudi Arabia, where Saad said he was being held on drug-smuggling charges. 

On July 30 2021, the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea (PNG) quashed the National Court’s temporary stay of executions for all people sentenced to death. The judgment has cleared a major obstacle to carrying out death sentences for the first time in nearly 70 years. It makes execution a real possibility for 15 individuals who are on death row . From the PNG government’s perspective, there remain rather brutal administrative considerations: regulations authorising officers to carry out executions, and nominating the “ most possible ” of the approved methods of execution under law . The then Australian administration abolished the death penalty in PNG in 1970. The PNG government reintroduced it in 1991. Despite its reintroduction in law, PNG has not carried out any executions since 1954. Even so, the death penalty, or at least the threat of its implementation, has been used as a form of social control and has remained part of PNG’s criminal justice system. As of August 2021, there are...

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to hold the world’s attention, Canada has decided to resume selling weapons to the butcher regime in Saudi Arabia . An April 9 release from Global Affairs Canada entitled “ Canada improves terms of light armored vehicles contract, putting in place a new robust permits review process ” stretches the limits of feel-good government double-talk, effectively stating that the country is willing to trade jobs for its principles, albeit with a bit more transparency and an “arms-length advisory panel of experts who will review best practices regarding arms exports.” Well, that’s all sorted then. And never mind the timing. As journalist Martin Lukacs put it on Twitter , “Thursday afternoon before a four-day weekend in the midst of a global media-monopolizing pandemic… the perfect time for Liberals to announce they’ve green-lighted exporting more death machines to the Saudi dictators.” I guess Canada is back, but hoping no one was watching. Pr...

Somali militant group al-Shabab has executed 18 people since Wednesday, an unprecedented rate of executions for the group, which is under pressure from U.S. airstrikes. Militants put to death 4 people in the southern town of Jamame on Sunday, immediately after the judge in an al-Shabab court declared them guilty. Firing squads shot and killed 2 men accused of being Somali government soldiers and a woman accused of being a spy for Kenya. The militants identified the woman as 20-year-old Iqra Abdi Aden. Afterward, an 18-year-old man, Nur Bakar Jirow, was publicly stoned to death for allegedly raping a 16-year-old girl. The man argued the sex was consensual, but the judge said he deserved the death penalty because he was married at the time. On Saturday, al-Shabab firing squads killed 3 men accused of being Somali government soldiers in the town of Kurtunwarey in the Lower Shabelle region. In Buale town of the neighboring Middle Jubba region, the militants executed a ma...

A judge in Malawi has sentenced the murderer of an albino teenager to death, saying the unprecedented penalty could help end a spree of similar killings linked to the country’s general election. Willard Mikaele was told he would hang for the strangling and ritualistic dismemberment of Mphatso Pensulo, who was 19 when he was lured into his killer's house with a promise of juice and biscuits in 2017. Pensulo’s murder was one of at least 25 documented killings of albinos since 2014, a spree that has spread terror through Malawi’s 10,000-strong community and raised troubling questions about the country’s political culture. Albinos, who suffer from a genetic condition that bleaches the skin, eyes and hair white, have long been the victims of a widely held superstition that their bones and innards contain magical properties which bring luck and material wealth. But albino-rights activists believe that the trade in albino body parts is driven by politicians, who are amo...

In sub-Saharan Africa, a region with no shortage of development issues, Botswana stands out for its strong economy, stable democracy and commitment to the rule of law. But by one measure the country is frighteningly narrow-minded — its support for capital punishment. Most of Africa is abandoning the death penalty, according to Amnesty International. Today, just 10 African countries allow for capital punishment and only a handful ever use it. But Botswana — an affluent, landlocked, diamond-exporting state — is among the leading exceptions. After a lull in killings in 2017, it has resumed by executing convicted murderers Joseph Tselayarona (28) in February and Uyapo Poloko (37) in May. Botswana’s legal system, and the basis for capital punishment, is rooted in English and Roman-Dutch common law. According to the country’s penal code, the preferred punishment for murder is death by hanging. Although the Constitution protects a citizen’s “right to life”, it makes an exce...

Saudi Arabia continues to use barbaric methods of execution claiming they are justified by the Quran and its traditions Saudi Arabia has some of the most barbaric and bizarre punishments in the world. Public beheadings, amputations, eye for an eye retribution and flogging all form part of the justice system. As The Sun reported this week, a murderer was crucified after being found guilty of repeatedly stabbing a woman, his body hung on a cross after execution. Crown Prince Salman wants to make the desert kingdom a tech savvy 21st century nation and has introduced liberal reforms. Yet for all his ambitions, the country still has the trappings of one caught in a altogether different era, particularly when it comes to its justice system. Saudi Arabia retains the death penalty for a large number of offences including drug trafficking and "sorcery" as well as murder. The majority of death sentences are carried out in public by beheading, drawing comparis...

Eight of the 97 Papua New Guinean villagers convicted of killing seven people in a sorcery-related attack four years ago in Madang have been given the death penalty. The National Court judge Justice David Cannings imposed life sentences on the remaining 88 after one of the accused died last month in hospital. The 97, from villages on Madang's Rai Coast, were found guilty of the murders of three elderly men, two children and two young men at Sakiko village near Ramu Sugar town. They were each charged with seven counts of wilful murder. The eight on death row were found to be directly involved in the murders. Justice Cannings said the 97 villagers had marched into Sakiko village on April 14, 2014, motivated by concerns about the number of deaths in the area attributed to sorcery. He said a genuine belief in sorcery cannot be regarded as an extenuating circumstance to lessen the gravity of the crimes. Belief in witchcraft, sorcery and the occult is known...

Saudi Arabia's drive to counter terrorism has become a convenient chimera to support crackdowns on legitimate public dissent and political or social activism of any kind, and the campaign has turned into an indiscriminate tool wielded to stigmatize critics of the state as terrorists. Those are our conclusions based on research and 2 comprehensive visits to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by one of us, Ben Emmerson, while he was serving as Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights While Countering Terrorism, an independent expert appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. The findings are outlined in detail in a country report issued last week with co-author, Fionnuala Ni Aolain, his successor as Special Rapporteur. While expressing gratitude for the Kingdom's transparency and courteous, constructive and cooperative approach during the 2 visits, the report articulates grave and sustained concerns about Saudi Arabia's human rights record...

Crown Prince Signals Possible Limit on Non-Murder Executions Saudi Arabia has executed 48 people since the beginning of 2018, 1/2 of them for nonviolent drug crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. Many more people convicted of drug crimes remain on death row following convictions by Saudi Arabia's notoriously unfair criminal justice system. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman said in an interview with Time magazine on April 5, that the Saudi authorities have a plan to decrease the number of executions, but that they would not limit executions to people convicted of murder. Nearly all executions in Saudi Arabia that are not for murder are for non-violent drug crimes. The prince said the country would consider changing the penalty from death to life in prison in some cases, but not in murder cases. It's bad enough that Saudi Arabia executes so many people, but many of them have not committed a violent crime," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human...