Death Penalty News

On May 13, the Ministry of Justice published an appraisal document for the policy dossier of the draft amended Penal Code prepared by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). In a significant shift, the MPS has proposed reducing the number of crimes punishable by death in Việt Nam from 10 to 2.  The Details: Under the proposal, capital punishment would be retained only for murder under Article 123 and for the rape of a person under 16 under Article 142.  The stated goal is to meet international standards to which Việt Nam is a party. Notably, drug-related crimes would be exempt from capital punishment, even though they currently account for nearly 85% of death sentences. 

South Korea's beleaguered ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol has been found guilty of abuse of power, falsifying documents and obstructing justice when he tried and failed to impose martial law in the country in 2024. He has also been sentenced to five years in jail. Yoon is facing three other trials for charges ranging from insurrection to violating campaign law. The verdict comes more than a year after his short-lived decree threw South Korea into political turmoil, leaving it deeply divided.

Burkina Faso's military rulers will bring back the death penalty, which was abolished in 2018, the country's Council of Ministers announced on Thursday. "This draft penal code reinstates the death penalty for a number of offences, including high treason, acts of terrorism, acts of espionage, among others," stated the information service of the Burkinabe government. Burkina Faso last carried out an execution in 1988.

For years, there was a broad consensus in Israel that there was no benefit to reintroducing the death penalty. But now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is reportedly considering supporting a bill which would bring back capital punishment for convicted terrorists. The bill, which has passed its first reading in the Knesset, would introduce the death penalty for those who murder Jews – specifically, Palestinian terrorists. It would not apply to Jews who commit acts of terrorism and murder Palestinians. And it would not apply if Israeli Arabs, who are full citizens, are murdered.

Saudi Arabia has executed journalist Turki Al-Jasser after seven years in prison, following accusations of terrorism and treason, which activists say were related to his critical social media posts about the royal family. Human rights groups have condemned the execution, citing it as part of the kingdom’s crackdown on free speech. A prominent Saudi journalist, Turki Al-Jasser, has been executed after spending seven years in prison, The Associated Press reported, citing the Saudi Press Agency. Activists cited by the AP argued that the charges against him were politically motivated, primarily tied to his social media activity.

The ministry named the two citizens as Fahd bin Saud Al-Shammari and Sami bin Khald al-Mutairi and said they committed criminal acts betraying their country. Saudi Arabia's interior ministry has announced on Wednesday it executed two citizens convicted of several charges related to "terrorism". The ministry identified the two citizens as Fahd bin Saud Al-Shammari and Sami bin Khalid al-Mutairi. The ruling against them became final following an appeal that was then upheld by the Supreme Court and the death sentence was carried out on Wednesday in Riyadh.

A former high-level Chinese government employee has been sentenced to death for leaking state secrets to a foreign power, Beijing's spy agency said Wednesday. The individual surnamed Zhang "provided a large number of top secret and classified state secrets to foreign intelligence agencies," the Ministry of State Security said in a post to its official WeChat account. In his job, Zhang had access to "a large number of state secrets", the ministry said.

From the beginning of 2024 until October 24th, Saudi authorities have carried out 20 executions on charges of treason, part of a total of 234 executions this year, marking an unprecedented record. In contrast, death sentences for treason this year have been issued by the Specialized Criminal Court, while in 2023, two individuals were executed on treason charges in military trials—one a colonel, the other a first sergeant. No executions for treason were recorded in 2020 or 2022, while in 2021, three people were executed for treason under discretionary sentences from the Specialized Criminal Court.

State prosecutors revealed that the group had allegedly planned to orchestrate protests, ostensibly aimed at toppling President Nana Akufo-Addo's government in the lead-up to the 2020 general elections In a landmark ruling, six Ghanaians, among them three soldiers, have been sentenced to death by hanging for their alleged involvement in a coup plot that unfolded three years ago. This marks the first treason trial in Ghana since 1966, when the nation’s post-independence leader, Kwame Nkrumah, was ousted.

Saudi Arabia's defence ministry has executed two military personnel who were accused of committing treason among other offences, the state news agency (SPA) said on Thursday. The two officers, a pilot and a sergeant major, were arrested in 2017 and sentenced to death on charges of treason and not protecting the national interest and military honour, SPA said, citing a statement from the ministry. Saudi Arabia's defence ministry has executed two military personnel who were accused of committing treason among other offences, the state news agency (SPA) said on Thursday.

Early 2023, the newly elected government of Israel announced an ensemble of judicial reforms; including a new bill that would introduce the death penalty for acts of terrorism. As of May 2023, the judicial reforms have been put on hold by the PM Netanyahu. This article takes a historical perspective to recontextualize the issue of the death penalty in Israel, as well as the views of civil society organizations on the subject. In January, the newly elected government of Israel announced an ensemble of judicial reforms which would modify the entire Israeli judiciary system. As part of this reform package is a law trying to instate mandatory death penalty for those deemed “terrorists” by the State. Specifically, the law targets anyone who “intentionally or out of indifference causes the death of an Israeli citizen when the act is carried out from a racist motive or hate to a certain public… and with the purpose of harming the State of Israel and the rebirth of the Jewish people in its hom...

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has signed a law imposing the death penalty on civil servants and army personnel convicted of high treason. The Belarusian leader on Thursday signed a bill introducing capital punishment for state officials and military personnel convicted of high treason. The amendments to the country's criminal code endorsed by Alexander Lukashenko envisage death sentences for officials and servicemen deemed to have caused "irreparable damage" to Belarus' national security. The new law is part of changes to the criminal code aimed at strengthening Belarus' fight against "crimes of an extremist (terrorist) and anti-state orientation."

Repression continues to devour Saudi citizens, even government allies, as Crown Prince entrenches his authority (Washington D.C., February 27, 2023) – The Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) in Riyadh, used to prosecute "terrorism" cases in Saudi Arabia, has charged six former prominent SCC judges and four former judges of the High Court, the country's supreme court, with "high treason" – a crime punishable by death in Saudi Arabia – in its first secret hearing of the case on February 16, 2023, said Democracy for the Arab Now (DAWN). Sources told DAWN that the government has denied the defendants legal counsel and held them incommunicado since their detention on April 11, 2022.

KYIV (Reuters) – Belarusian lawmakers gave their initial backing on Wednesday to a proposal to introduce the death penalty for treasonous officials and soldiers, and to make discrediting the army a criminal offence punishable by up to four years in jail. The Russian ally currently has the death penalty for crimes such as murder or for people who commit, plan or intend to commit acts of terrorism.  Executions are carried out with a single shot to the back of the head. The lower house voted in the first reading to introduce the death penalty specifically for officials or soldiers found guilty of treason. The parliament said this was needed “in order to exert a deterrent effect on destructive elements, as well as to demonstrate a determined fight against treason.” The draft legislation still needs to be approved in a second reading in the lower house, backed by the upper house and signed into law by President Alexander Lukashenko. The second legislative change – to introduce jail term...

PCHR Denounces Trial of Civilians before Military Judiciary and Calls for Abolishing Death Penalty On Thursday, 13 October 2022, the Permanent Military Court in Gaza issued 2 Death Sentences against 2 persons convicted of collaborating with the Israeli Occupation. (H. A.) (47), a military officer from Khan Yunis detained since last year, was sentenced in presence to death by firing squad, while (Y. B.) (45), a civilian from Gaza City, was sentenced in absentia to death by hanging. The court convicted the mentioned persons of collaborating with hostile foreign entities in violation of Article (31) of the 1979 Palestinian Revolutionary Penal Code. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) affirms the right of the authorities to prosecute the traitors and collaborators for treason of their national cause, people, and families and for being an integral part of the occupation’s entity. In the meantime, PCHR reiterates that death penalty is not the only mean to achieve justice or deter...

Criminal investigators have passed a file on the first 3 cases – Dzmitry Ravich, Dzianis Dzikun and Aleh Malchanau of Svetlagorsk – to court prosecutors. The state Investigations Committee says they could face the death penalty, although lawyers say there is no basis for that in Belarusian law. On Saturday 23 July, Belarusians will protest at their country’s embassy in London, in support of the Svetlagorsk defendants and eight others arrested on terrorism charges. Ravich, Dzikun and Malchanau were detained in Svetlagorsk on 4 March this year – a week after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine – along with Alisa Malchanau, Aleh’s daughter, and Natalia Ravich, Dzmitry’s wife, who were released a few days later. Dzianis Dzikun’s brother, Dmitry, said in an interview last month that Dzianis had wanted “to help Ukraine somehow”. Three people had been arrested, he said, and: "As far as I understand, people knew [at that time] that all the Russian equipment was moving towards the n...

Cuba's one-party legislature Sunday passed a new Penal Code, which was considered to be “modern” and adjusted to the country's socialist “reality,” it was announced in Havana. Although the new legal instrument was designed in tune with international criteria on human rights according to local authorities, the death penalty was not entirely removed and may still be applied. “The norm is of extraordinary relevance in the robustness of Cuba as a socialist state of law, a modern criminal law, adjusted to the socioeconomic realities and updated with the Constitution and other legal provisions,” Ruben Remigio Ferro, president of the People's Supreme Court, told the National Assembly of People's Power, the national parliamentary body. The new code provides for penalties that range from life imprisonment to 30-year prison sentences for the most serious crimes. It also maintains the death penalty for 23 extremely serious offenses , it was reported. Offenders are accountable sinc...

Malawi’s highest court on Wednesday outlawed the death penalty and ordered the re-sentencing of all convicts facing execution. Capital punishment has long been mandatory in Malawi for prisoners convicted of murder or treason, and optional for rape. Violent robberies, house break-ins and burglaries could also be punishable by death or life imprisonment. Executions have however not been carried out since Malawi’s first democratically elected president, Bakili Muluzi, opposed the punishment when he took office in 1994. In a landmark ruling on Wednesday, Supreme Court judges hearing an appeal by a murder convict declared the death penalty “unconstitutional”, de facto abolishing the punishment. “The death penalty… is tainted by the unconstitutionality discussed,” the judgment said. Malawi last executed around two dozen prisoners in 1992, according to Amnesty International. More than 30 countries in Africa still have the death penalty on their books, but just under half have carried out exec...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia executed three soldiers Saturday it accused of committing “high treason,” without elaborating on which enemy the kingdom believed the men aided. The state-run Saudi Press Agency identified the men as soldiers working in the Defense Ministry. It did not elaborate on how the men aided the kingdom's enemies.  Saudi Arabia is fighting Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.  The kingdom also views Iran as a regional archrival. The kingdom said the three men were convicted in court and a later royal order served as a death warrant. Saudi Arabia carried out the world's third most executions in 2019, according to figures from Amnesty International.  The kingdom followed China and Iran, respectively.  In 2019, the kingdom put to death 184 people. Source:  The Associated Press, Staff, April 10, 2021 🚩 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; r...

Authorities in North Korea executed without trial 3 high-ranking officials last week on charges of treason, for allegedly stealing food from the country’s strategic supply and selling it on the open market amid skyrocketing prices resulting from the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, sources within the isolated country told RFA. According to sources familiar with the situation, the food was part of a large emergency shipment from China that was allowed to come through despite trade between the 2 countries having been shut down to prevent the spread of the virus. The portion that was sold on the market was high-quality food intended to be used in celebrations for national founder Kim Il Sung’s birthday on April 15, a holiday referred to as the Day of the Sun. A trader in North Pyongan province told RFA’s Korean Service Sunday said that authorities temporarily reopened the Dandong-Sinuiju customs office on March 23 to accept the shipment. It had been completely shut down since ...