Death Penalty News

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, October 19, rejected an appeal by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, leaving him facing a possible death sentence. The decision leaves in place a lower court ruling that allowed former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to withdraw a plea agreement under which Mohammed would have pleaded guilty in exchange for life imprisonment without parole. The Supreme Court provided no explanation for its decision. Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not participate.

Christa and I have been communicating regularly via a messaging system on her prison table for over a year. Her experience is proof that she and other guilty individuals on death row are not monsters As a former Jewish prison chaplain and co-founder of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty, I have communicated via phone and computer messaging for years with many individuals on American death rows before their ultimate execution. One of our long-time correspondents, Christa Pike , catapulted into international news late last month when she survived two torturous doses of lethal drugs in a botched execution attempt by the state of Tennessee.

WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - One-third of Americans think the government should try a second time to put a convicted criminal to death if a first execution attempt fails, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after a botched lethal injection in Tennessee. The four-day poll, completed on Monday, showed 39% of respondents thought the government should instead allow convicts to serve life in prison following a failed execution, while 26% were not sure which was a better approach.

Iranian authorities executed 50-year-old Ali Asghar Sanei in Shahroud Central Prison following his conviction on “drug-related offenses.” According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the execution took place at dawn on Wednesday, October 14, 2026. Sanei was from Semnan. Hengaw sources reported that he worked as a tiler in the construction industry before his arrest approximately three years ago for transporting nine kilograms of heroin.

There is massive outrage over the way two Bangladeshi migrant workers have been executed by Saudi Arabia. They were executed for "immoral acts" in a Mecca mosque, said Saudi media. But the opacity surrounding the execution process, including the lack of details of their crimes, and Dhaka being informed only after they were killed, have led to a backlash. There is outrage over Saudi Arabia executing two Bangladeshi nationals accused of committing immoral acts in a mosque in the holy city of Mecca. The executions have raised questions about their alleged crimes, the opacity of the process, the fairness of their trials, and whether Dhaka was informed beforehand and could have, in any way, helped save the couple.

A criminal court in Algeria on October 18, 2026, sentenced two men to death for the illegal importation and sale of 144 kg of synthetic drugs—approximately 235,000 ecstasy tablets.  This is the second death sentence issued in the country in two weeks under the anti-drug trafficking law adopted in July 2025, The Rio Times reports. According to Algerian state radio and the newspaper Echorouk, the court of first instance in Dar El Beida heard the case of eight members of the network. Prosecutors sought the death penalty for all defendants. The other accused were sentenced to terms of 10 years in prison or acquitted.

Saudi Arabia carried out a series of executions in mid-October, including that of a woman convicted of killing her mother and attempting to kill her sister, alongside five men in the Eastern Province. Official statements described the five as terrorists; human rights groups described them as political prisoners sentenced under discretionary (ta’zir) penalties, one of whom was a child at the time of the alleged acts. The cases illustrate the kingdom’s continued use of the death penalty under Sharia, its stated commitment to public order and justice, and criticism from human rights organizations over the scope of capital punishment.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear appeals from three men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks who are currently awaiting trial at the infamous Guantánamo Bay prison.   The justices turned away petitions from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two alleged accomplices, Mustafa al-Hawsawi and Walid bin ‘Attash, without explanation.  Justice Brett Kavanaugh recused himself from the Mohammed and al-Hawsawi petition.  The three prisoners were seeking to reinstate plea deals in which they agreed to plead guilty and give detailed confessions about their roles in the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history. In exchange, prosecutors would not have sought the death penalty.

Two death sentences in Meerut have renewed attention on women facing capital punishment. Historical records and recent data reveal how rare executions remain On October 14, the Meerut District and Sessions Court sentenced Muskan Rastogi and her partner Sahil Shukla to death for murdering her husband, Saurabh Rajput, and concealing his dismembered body in a blue plastic drum filled with cement. On October 16, another Meerut court sentenced Ravita Kashyap and her partner Amardeep to death for murdering her husband, Amit Kashyap, and staging his death to resemble a snakebite .

With his execution date looming, convicted killer William Reaves will soon be moved from Raiford's Union Correctional Institution to a death watch cell in nearby Florida State Prison, a maximum-security complex also known as "The Rock." Reaves, 77, a former Gifford resident in Indian River County who’s been on death row for 38 years, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Oct. 20 at 6 p.m. His execution will fulfill a sentence of death imposed for the 1986 fatal shooting of Indian River County Sheriff’s Cpl. Richard “Raz” Raczkoski outside a Zippy Mart store on State Road 60 west of Vero Beach.

DUBAI — Saudi Arabia executed five people Saturday on terrorism charges, the ministry of interior said, bringing the total number of death sentences carried out this year to 188, according to an AFP tally based on official statements. The five Saudi nationals were convicted of “joining a foreign terrorist organization," opening fire on security forces and “providing support” for “terrorist operations inside the kingdom." Their executions were carried out in the Eastern Province, home to most of Saudi Arabia’s Shia Muslim minority, which has long complained of marginalization in the Sunni-majority country.

Iranian authorities executed Nasser Parvaneh, Ahmad Parviz, and a third prisoner named Farid, whose surname remains unknown, at Qezelhesar Prison in Karaj and Shirvan Central Prison. All three had been sentenced to death for “murder” in separate cases. According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Ahmad Parviz, a former lawyer, was executed at Qezelhesar Prison on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, after Iran’s Supreme Court upheld his death sentence.

On 10 October 2026, the World Day Against the Death Penalty, Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture (Madpet) asks Malaysia to speed up the abolition of the death penalty. Malaysia has made progress towards abolition. The last execution was in 2017, and there has been a moratorium on executions since 2018. The mandatory death penalty was abolished in July 2023. This means Malaysia is on the verge of becoming “abolitionist in practice” (or de facto abolitionist). Such countries keep the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions for at least 10 years. They also have an established policy or practice against executing people.

Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India, October 16 (ANI): Meerut Court on Friday handed down the death penalty to a woman and her paramour for the murder of her husband, a crime they systematically attempted to pass off as a tragic accident involving a venomous snake. The court sentenced Ravita Kashyap and her accomplice, Amardeep, to death for the murder of Ravita’s husband, Amit Kashyap. The sentencing comes shortly after the court convicted the duo of murder and criminal conspiracy on October 7.

The magistrate handling the proceedings against Pablo Ibar in Florida (United States) has completely dismissed the motion filed by his defense, which requested a public hearing for the witness who exculpates the Spanish inmate, of Guipuzcoan origin, from the three murders for which he is serving a life sentence.  The ruling is not yet final and will be appealed to the 4th District Court of Appeals.

President Donald Trump reversed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth's decision to livestream the state execution of the Fort Hood terrorist after pushback against the shocking decision.  'Nidal Malik Hasan, a former U.S. Army Major turned traitor, is a very bad and evil man who killed 13 people, including a pregnant soldier who died, along with her unborn son, and injured, very seriously, 32 more innocent people,' Trump said of the 2009 tragedy.  Hasan's execution by firing squad is scheduled for December 3.  Last week, Hegseth said that the execution will be made 'public,' and the Department of War later announced it would be live streamed.

Otto Lenke, a Sebastian resident and former Indian River County firefighter/paramedic, as well as a former Melbourne police officer, was convicted in May 2026 of first-degree murder with a firearm and first-degree arson for the February 2021 killing of Richard Benson, owner of Fast Frank’s Cycle Concepts in Fort Pierce. SEBASTIAN—A Nineteen Judicial Circuit judge on Tuesday sentenced former Indian River County firefighter and Melbourne police officer Otto Lenke of Sebastian to death for the 2021 killing of a Fort Pierce motorcycle shop owner.

(The Hill) — A new survey found the majority of Americans opposed publicly broadcast executions ahead of the Pentagon’s planned livestreamed execution of convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan. In the YouGov poll , 71 percent of respondents opposed “having executions broadcast live to the public,” while 18 favored it and 13 percent were not sure. Along partisan lines, 52 percent of Republicans opposed livestreamed executions, and 31 favorited it, while 87 percent of Democrats opposed it compared to only 8 percent in favor.

Relatives of a 17-year-old Thai girl whose body was found in a suitcase in Pattaya said on Monday (October 12) they want the death penalty for the Australian man accused of killing her, as they say he refused to apologize to them during a hearing at Pattaya Provincial Court. "I'm really angry. Being there in the courtroom, I see it as a life for a life, after the things he did to my child," said Thongchai Donhomla, the 46-year-old father of the victim. Simon Peter Carman faces charges of murder, concealment of a body, moving or destroying a body, and taking a minor for sexual purposes. 

New provisions prescribing the death penalty for crimes involving forest arson and child kidnapping have taken effect in Algeria under amendments to the penal code, the Algerian Press Service reported Wednesday. The amendments, approved by both houses of parliament last week, were published in the Official Gazette, it said. Under the law, capital punishment applies to anyone who deliberately sets fire to forests, wooded areas, cultivated or uncultivated fields, or trees and timber within forests.