Death Penalty News

We, the 3,800+ members of the group “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty” wish to respond respectfully to Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Lieberman’s Feb. 15th Jerusalem Post op-ed entitled “Should Israel execute Hamas terrorists for war crimes on par with the Nazis?” In his thoughtful, powerful and nuanced essay, Rabbi Dr. Lieberman expresses how difficult it has been for him as a rabbi and physician to even ask this question, given the sanctity of life to which he has devoted his laudable career. We profoundly honor Rabbi Dr. Lieberman’s sacred callings, as well as his courage in sharing his feelings so openly and vulnerably in the public square. We also empathize with his suffering and understand and respect his position. Indeed, like Jews everywhere, we too have been shocked beyond belief by the horror and barbarity that continue to unfold in the wake of the Oct. 7th, 2023 pogrom. The mutilated bodies of the youngest members of the Bibas family that Hamas just released are a palpable remi...

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko is as complicit in crimes of aggression against Ukraine as Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is, the European Parliament asserted in a resolution adopted on Sept. 13. The resolution, based on a report by MEP Petras Austrevičius from Lithuania, was adopted during a plenary session in Strasbourg by an overwhelming majority of votes. “The illegitimate Lukashenka regime is actively supporting and has become fully complicit in Russia’s unjustified war of aggression and war crimes against Ukraine,” the document reads. “The special international tribunal on the crime of aggression perpetrated by Russia against Ukraine must have jurisdiction to investigate not only Putin and the Russian political and military leadership, but also the Belarusian leadership.”

South Africa must do the "right thing" and abide by international law if Russian President Vladimir Putin personally attends the BRICS summit in Johannesburg next month. Source : Karim Khan, International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor, in an interview with CNN Quote : "South Africa has felt a crime against humanity for decades, the crime of apartheid, I don't think they need lessons from me. They are voluntarily a state party to the ICC, they know what the law is, and I think they would do the right thing. And we will assess what actually happens at the BRICS summit and respond accordingly."

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...

Ben Ferencz, the last living prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials, who tried Nazis for genocidal war crimes and was among the first outside witnesses to document the atrocities of Nazi labor and concentration camps, has died. He had just turned 103 in March. Ferencz died Friday evening in Boynton Beach, Florida, according to St. John’s University law professor John Barrett, who runs a blog about the Nuremberg trials. The death also was confirmed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. “Today the world lost a leader in the quest for justice for victims of genocide and related crimes,” the museum tweeted. Born in Transylvania in 1920, Ferencz immigrated as a very young boy with his parents to New York to escape rampant antisemitism. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Ferencz joined the U.S. Army in time to take part in the Normandy invasion during World War II. Using his legal background, he became an investigator of Nazi war crimes against U.S. soldiers as p...

The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in the abduction of children from Ukraine. Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation,” the court said in a statement. It also issued a warrant Friday for the arrest of Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation on similar allegations. Moscow has repeatedly denied accusations that its forces have committed atrocities during its one-year invasion of its neighbour and the Kremlin branded the court decision as "null and void" with respect to Russia. The International Criminal Court in the Hague has just issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin. While it is unlikely that Putin will end up in court an...

Iraq's judiciary has sentenced 14 people to death over the 2014 Camp Speicher massacre. Baghdad's Central Criminal Court issued the verdict on Thursday under Iraq's antiterrorism law. More than 1,700 unarmed air force recruits, mainly Shiite, were killed in the massacre as ISIS swept across Iraq. The killings were one of the worst attacks by the terrorist group and became a symbol of its brutality. Dozens have already been sentenced to death for taking part in the attack at the former US base, near the city of Tikrit.

Poland’s hardline conservative government has opened up a new front in its increasingly fractious relationship with the rest of the EU, after its Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said he backed a return of the death penalty, which is banned in the bloc. Mr Morawiecki said the country needed a “rethink” of its position, describing the post-Cold War abolition of capital punishment “was a premature innovation of the 1990s”.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — An Iranian citizen was sentenced Thursday to life imprisonment by a Swedish court after being convicted of committing grave war crimes and murder during the final phase of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. The Stockholm District Court said Hamid Noury took part in severe atrocities in July-August 1988 while working as an assistant to the deputy prosecutor at the Gohardasht prison outside the Iranian city of Karaj. A life sentence in Sweden generally means a minimum of 20 to 25 years in prison, but it could be extended. If he is eventually released, Noury will be expelled from Sweden. Noury can appeal the verdict. The court said 61-year-old Noury participated “in the executions of many political prisoners in Iran in the summer of 1988." The acts were deemed as a serious crime against international law, the court said. A second wave of executions was directed at left-wing sympathizers who were deemed to have renounced their Islamic faith, the court statement said, add...

Putin spokesman says veterans detained in Ukraine will face an investigation and a trial A Kremlin spokesman on Monday would not rule out the death penalty for two Americans captured by Russian forces while fighting for Ukraine.  "It depends on the investigation," Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, told NBC News in an interview. Alexander Drueke and Andy Huynh were participating in illegal activities, Peskov said, by shooting at Russian troops in Ukraine. The Americans "were endangering their lives," he said.  The 2 US military veterans were reported missing last week. A Russian-controlled court in eastern Ukraine gave the death penalty to a Moroccan and 2 British citizens who had fought Russian forces earlier this month.  Ukraine said in March that 20,000 people from 52 countries had offered to join the fight on its side.  Peskov wouldn't say where the Americans, whom he called "soldiers of fortune," were being held but said they p...

The plight of the Moroccan man who has been sentenced to death in Ukraine has been largely ignored, his sister says. Brahim Saaudun, 21, and two Britons were captured fighting with the Ukrainian army and tried as mercenaries by a Russian proxy court. The British and Ukrainian governments have condemned the trial but Morocco is yet to comment. Iman Saaudun told the BBC he had been "left aside" as attention focused on the other men. "At first, when they captured all of them, then it was like different news about every person," she told the BBC. "There wasn't much attention on my brother... Maybe it's because of my government, they are not doing much about it, they are literally silent." The BBC has contacted the Moroccan government for a response. Like many countries in Africa and the Middle East, Morocco has avoided taking sides in the conflict in Ukraine, calling instead for a peaceful resolution to the war which started with Russia's invasion ...

The UN human rights office, OHCHR, on Friday condemned the death sentence handed down to three foreign fighters in Ukraine by a court in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. “Such trials against prisoners of war amount to a war crime,” said OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani. The three men - Britons Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, and Moroccan Saaudun Brahim – were captured while fighting for Ukraine , reportedly defending the southern port city of Mariupol. Bitter fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces since the Russian invasion on 24 February flattened the city, where UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet has previously condemned attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, that have likely caused thousands of deaths. “OHCHR is concerned about the so-called Supreme Court of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic sentencing three servicemen to death,” said Ms. Shamdasani. “According to the chief command of Ukraine, all the men were part of the Ukrainian a...

Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner were captured while fighting in Ukrainian army Two British men and a Moroccan national captured while fighting in the Ukrainian army in Mariupol have been sentenced to death by pro-Russia officials after a days-long process described as a “disgusting Soviet-era show trial”. A court in Russian-controlled east Ukraine convicted 28-year-old Aiden Aslin, from Newark, 48-year-old Shaun Pinner, from Watford, and Saaudun Brahim on charges of “terrorism”. Observers said the process was intended to imitate the war crimes trials of Russian soldiers taking place in Kyiv. Both Britons have said they were serving in the Ukrainian marines, making them active-duty soldiers who should be protected by the Geneva conventions on prisoners of war. However, Russian state media has portrayed them as mercenaries, and the court has convicted them on the charge of “being a mercenary”. The ruling was swiftly condemned by top British officials. “I utterly condemn the sentencing of Ai...

UNITED NATIONS —The United States and its allies are vowing to hold Russia accountable for crimes committed by its forces since they invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. U.S. Undersecretary of State Uzra Zeya told a U.N. Security Council meeting Thursday on strengthening accountability and justice for serious violations of international law that in nearly 100 days the world has seen Russian forces bomb maternity hospitals, train stations, apartment buildings and homes and even kill civilians cycling down the street. Zeya said the United States is working with its allies to support a broad range of international investigations into atrocities in Ukraine. Ireland’s Attorney General Paul Gallagher welcomed efforts over the last three months to support calls for justice in Ukraine, saying Ireland was one of 41 countries that quickly referred the situation in the country to the International Criminal Court. Gallagher said the ICC has deployed a team of 42 investigators, forensic experts and support ...

“What did you come to us for? You came to protect us? From whom? You ‘protected’ me from my husband, whom you killed.” A 21-year-old Russian soldier was found guilty Monday of killing an unarmed civilian in Ukraine’s first war crimes trial since Russia’s invasion. He was sentenced to life in prison. A court in Kyiv handed down the verdict after Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin pleaded guilty last week to killing a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the northeastern Sumy province but said he was following orders. Shishimarin pleaded guilty to killing 62-year-old Oleksandr Shelipov, who was pushing his bicycle near the village of Chupakhivka, near the Russian border, during the early days of the invasion in late February. Shelipov “died on the spot just a few meters from his home,” according to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova. Shishimarin’s charge, “violation of the rules and customs of war," is punishable by 10 years to life imprisonment. Shelipov’s widow last week said she would ...