Death Penalty News

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - Nearly four decades after the Anfal campaign left tens of thousands of Kurdish families searching for answers, Iraq's judicial process has reached another decisive moment. On Thursday, the Federal Court of Appeals upheld the death sentence imposed on Ajaj Ahmed Hardan al-Tikriti, a former Baath-era prison official convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity, sexual violence, and the murder of Kurdish detainees held at the notorious Nugra Salman prison in 1988.

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — A Cumberland County Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that North Carolina prosecutors may seek the death penalty against Avantae Deven, a Fayetteville woman accused of murdering two of her adopted children. The ruling follows a Rule 24 hearing, a procedural requirement in North Carolina capital cases where the state must present evidence of at least one aggravating factor to a judge.  Deven, 63, is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Blake Deven and London Deven.

Nearly 2 years after a Cumberland County mother was arrested in the deaths of her adoptive children, prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty in the high-profile case.  Avantae Deven faces 5 felony charges, including child abuse and 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the deaths of her children, Blake and London Deven. A grand jury indicted her on March 10. Her next court appearance is scheduled for May 6.  "I think it's good," said John Whitker, Deven's next-door neighbor on Berridale Drive. "She knew what she was doing. She was planning, and then she starved them. She took advantage of the lowest common denominator." 

The father of a 3-year-old girl was sentenced to life imprisonment, and his girlfriend received the death penalty for the brutal abuse and killing of the child in Manzhouli, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The Hulunbuir Intermediate People's Court delivered its verdict on December 6, following months of legal proceedings that exposed harrowing details of the case.

The North Carolina mother who tortured and murdered two of her adopted children could face the death penalty after the children's partial remains were found in a metal burn barrel in the back of her house. The siblings Blake and London Deven have not been seen for years, but were never reported missing by their adoptive mother, Avantae Deven.

A wealthy father who tortured and starved his three-year-old son to death and made his short life 'pure hell' will be executed with a bullet to the head in Belarus . Alexander Taratuta, 48, has been sentenced to death for the brutal torture and murder of his son Semyon.  He will be shot in the back of the head in Belarus, the only country in Europe to carry out capital punishment.   His wife Anastasia Taratuta, 37, was sentenced to 25 years in a strict regime penal colony for the murder of Semyon.

Last year, authorities in Belgium ordered a modest red brick house in the south-west city of Charleroi to be torn down. For anyone not in-the-know, the destruction of the property - which sat on a street corner yards away from a railway track and a busy flyover - would have seemed wholly unremarkable. Just another old building making way for something new. But the move had been in the making for more than a quarter of a century, and even to this day, the local community in Charleroi and those affected by the events that unfolded there in the mid-90s are continuing to process their grief.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — North Korea is increasing its repression of human rights and people are becoming more desperate and reportedly starving in parts of the country as the economic situation worsens, the U.N. rights chief said Thursday. Volker Türk told the first open meeting of the U.N. Security Council since 2017 on North Korean human rights that in the past its people have endured periods of severe economic difficulty and repression, but “currently they appear to be suffering both.” “According to our information, people are becoming increasingly desperate as informal markets and other coping mechanisms are dismantled, while their fear of state surveillance, arrest, interrogation and detention has increased,” he said.

A Dubai resident convicted of torturing an Indonesian maid to death has had his life sentence reduced on appeal to 15 years in prison. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty when the case was first heard at Dubai Criminal Court in September last year. They said the Arab American, 39, originally from Syria, had tortured the 28-year-old maid for nearly six months. The maid began to work for the man's family in October 2019 but it was only after he lost his job in March 2020 and was staying at home that the series of assaults began. Police were alerted when he rushed the maid to a local hospital in September 2020. “During police questioning, he said he found her unconscious on the toilet seat of his Jumeirah Lakes Towers apartment then wrapped her in a sheet and drove her to hospital,” a police lieutenant told judges. Hospital staff called the police when they discovered that the woman was dead on arrival, court records said. Judges were told the man left the victim without food for...

A pair of women in Pennsylvania may face the death penalty* — if a jury agrees with prosecutors — for allegedly beating and starving two young girls to death. Partners Marie S. Snyder, 32, and Echo L. Butler, 26, were charged with criminal homicide for the horrific deaths of Marie’s daughters Nicole and Jasmine Snyder, the Williamsport Sun-Gazette reported. Prosecutors and police officers have described the case as “the worst that they have seen.” “The death penalty will be pursued against Marie Snyder and Echo Butler,” Lycoming County District Attorney Ryan Gardner reportedly said on Friday. “Prior to their death[s], [the vicitims] lived in and were subjected to conditions beyond comprehension.” Echo’s mother, Michele Butler, 49, is also facing a charge of third-degree murder. According to a police affidavit unsealed Friday in Lycoming County District Court and obtained by the Sun-Gazette, the two defendants subjected 6-year-old Nicole and 4-year-old Jasmine to heinous and unparallele...

BOZEMAN — Last week, the case of 12-year-old James Alexander Hurley, who was found dead in his grandparents’ home in early 2020, returned to court in the form of another guilty plea. Now, only one of five people arrested connected to the West Yellowstone boy’s death - his grandmother - remains to be adjudicated . Last week, James Sasser Jr., the boy’s grandfather, pleaded guilty to the charge of deliberate homicide by association and two others: tampering with a witness and criminal endangerment, with prosecutors recommending a combined 120 years in prison at his November sentencing. All that remains to be adjudicated now: Patricia Batts. The weeks following February 3, 2020, were spent by many at the Gallatin County Law & Justice Center, as the pile of court documents has only grown, all with graphic details regarding the death of James. Grandfather James Sasser Jr., 14-year-old uncle James Sasser III, 18-year-old aunt Madison Sasser and Sasser III’s friend, Gage Roush, have eithe...

A Singaporean woman who starved, assaulted and ultimately killed her domestic worker was sentenced to 30 years in prison Tuesday, with the judge describing the case as "among the worst types of culpable homicide". The affluent city-state is home to about 250,000 domestic workers who mostly come from poorer Asian countries, and stories of mistreatment are common. But the abuse inflicted on Myanmar national Piang Ngaih Don, 24, was particularly awful and captured on CCTV installed in the family's home. The domestic worker was stamped on, strangled, choked, battered with brooms and burnt with an iron, according to court documents. The domestic worker died in July 2016, after her employer, Gaiyathiri Murugayan, repeatedly assaulted her over several hours. Gaiyathiri, 41, pleaded guilty in February to 28 charges including culpable homicide. Another 87 charges were taken into account in sentencing. She appeared in court on Tuesday wearing glasses and a black mask, and sat silen...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty against a Roane County couple charged with murder in the death of one of their adopted children, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported. Roane County authorities recovered the body of Sophie Heather Gray in the backyard of Shirley and Michael Gray Sr. last May. Deputies said she was about 11 years old at the time of her death.  Prosecutors called the girl’s murder “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel in that it involved serious torture or serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to cause death.” According to warrants, deputies said the girl died after being locked for months in the basement in 2017 as punishment for eating food from the kitchen. Roane County deputies began investigating the Grays after one of their adopted children was found walking alone on the roadside. Arrest warrant paperwork detailed authorities’ search of the house and their rescue of the Grays’ three surviving adopted children. Dep...

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a Roane County couple accused in a horrific child abuse case after the death of at least one of their adopted children. In separate notices issued to Shirley and Michael Gray Sr., the state said it will "seek a penalty of death" if either is found guilty of the first-degree murder of their adopted daughter, Sophie Heather Gray.  Roane County authorities recovered her body in the backyard of the couple's Ten Mile neighborhood home on May 23. Deputies said she was about 11 years old at the time of her death. In the documents, prosecutors called the girl's murder "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel in that it involved serious torture or serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to cause death."  According to warrants previously obtained by Knox News, deputies said Grays locked the girl in the home's basement in 2017 as "punishment" for eating food from the kitchen. She died after a few months...

SINGAPORE: The case involving the woman who abused her 24-year-old maid by beating, burning and starving her was so egregious that the Attorney-General had directed prosecutors to press for the highest possible charges of murder, said Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam on Thursday (Feb 25). "The first charge was actually intentional murder for which the death penalty could have been the possible punishment. But, because of the evidence that was available, it was then brought down to culpable homicide, under Section 304A of the Penal Code," Mr Shanmugam said. "That is extremely serious and as we know, the prosecution is asking for life sentence whereas (the) defence is saying 14 years." Myanmar national Piang Ngaih Don was punched, stamped on and starved by her employer until she weighed 24kg days before she died in 2016 from a brain injury. She was about a year into her first job in Singapore.   Employer Gaiyathiri Murugayan, 40, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to ...

The wife of a Singaporean police officer has admitted to starving, torturing and ultimately killing her domestic worker from Myanmar. The worker reportedly weighed only 24kg (53lb) when she died from her injuries in the 2016 incident. Prosecutors have called Gaiyathiri Murugayan's actions "evil and utterly inhumane". It is among a series of high-profile maid abuse cases in the wealthy city-state in recent years. Rights groups have raised concerns about how foreign domestic workers, many of whom come from neighbouring countries in Asia, have been treated. On Tuesday, Ms Murugayan, 40, pleaded guilty in a Singapore court to 28 charges including culpable homicide against Piang Ngaih Don. If she is convicted, she could be jailed for life. 'Throwing her like a ragdoll' The court heard that Ms Piang started working for Ms Murugayan in 2015, in her first job overseas. Ms Murugayan began abusing her from October 2015 after claiming Ms Piang was "slow, unhygienic and ...

Locals in Kopung County, where the execution took place, say it was the 1st public execution they've ever witnessed in the area The head of a local forest management office in Chagang Province was recently executed for removing saplings from state-owned land and planting corn in their place, Daily NK has learned. The man’s execution came after the Chagang Province People’s Committee’s launched an inquiry into why the local forest management office in Kopung County failed to grow the state-set quota of saplings and send them over to the committee on Arbor Day (Mar. 2). Forest management offices throughout North Korea are required to cultivate saplings to plant on Arbor Day each year. The people’s committee’s inquiry found that the director of the Kopung County forest management office, a man in his 50s, had removed saplings planted last spring and planted corn seeds in their place. The man then distributed the harvested corn to his colleagues and their families wh...