DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran and Sweden agreed Saturday to a prisoner swap, freeing Hamid Nouri, convicted of war crimes by Sweden over mass 1988 executions in the Islamic Republic, in exchange for two men held by Tehran. Iran released Johan Floderus, a Swede who had been working for the European Union’s diplomatic […]
A former suburban New York cop who turned drug dealer and orchestrated the executions of four men in 2016 was sentenced Monday to four back-to-back life sentences, federal prosecutors said. Nicholas Tartaglione suspected a man of stealing from him in 2016 and lured him into a trap, after which he and others executed the man, […]
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, a potential vice presidential contender, is taking heat for comparing former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial to show trials in military revolutionary Cuba and posting video of one that ended in the execution of the accused. Rubio has been vehemently criticizing Trump’s conviction and deriding the judge and prosecutors. After […]
Children’s sketches of violent scenes of gladiators and hunters battling animals have been uncovered at the archaeological park of Pompeii, the park’s superintendent has said. The drawings, thought to be made by children between the ages of five and seven sometime before Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, were found on the walls of a […]
LONDON (AP) — The number of executions recorded worldwide last year jumped to the highest level since 2015, with a sharp rise in Iran and across the Middle East, Amnesty International said in a report released Wednesday. The human rights group said it recorded a total of 1,153 executions in 2023, a 30% increase from […]
Iran on Saturday hanged at least seven people, including two women, while a member of its Jewish minority is at imminent risk of execution as the Islamic republic further intensified its use of capital punishment, an NGO said. Parvin Mousavi, 53, a mother of two grown-up children, was hanged in Urmia prison in northwestern Iran […]
Iran executed 853 people in 2023 – the highest number on record since 2015, according to a new report in Amnesty International. The surge in executions comes as Iran continues what Amnesty calls Iran’s “war on drugs.” In 2023, more than half – 481 – of the total executions were for drug-related offenses. The mass […]
Three of the largest manufacturers of medical-grade nitrogen gas in the US have barred their products from being used in executions, following Alabama’s recent killing of the death row inmate Kenneth Smith using a previously untested method known as nitrogen hypoxia. The three companies have confirmed to the Guardian that they have put in place […]
Some 170 people including women and children have been “executed” in attacks on three villages in Burkina Faso, a public prosecutor has said. Aly Benjamin Coulibaly appealed for witnesses to help find those who attacked Komsilga, Nordin and Soro. Separately, army chiefs warned of the increased risk of attacks by militants, “including attacks on urban […]
Louisiana is poised to become the fourth state in the nation to allow executions using nitrogen gas after a bill on Thursday cleared a key legislative hurdle. It is now headed for the desk of Gov. Jeff Landry, who is expected to sign it. The bill was introduced during a special legislative session focusing on […]
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Bidding to resume Louisiana executions after a 14-year pause, the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature gave final passage to a bill Thursday to add electrocution and the use of nitrogen gas as means of administering the death penalty. The legislation comes one day after the country’s most recent execution in Texas and […]
The human rights organization Amnesty International on Friday called on the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan to stop carrying out executions and abolish the death penalty. “We oppose all executions as a violation of the right to life. The Taliban has been repeatedly carrying them out publicly which is a gross affront to human dignity as […]