NEWSWORTHY
Tennessee conducts first electric chair execution since 2007
Tennessee used its electric chair for the first time since 2007, executing an inmate Thursday evening for the killings of two other men who had been shot and had their throats slit during a drug deal decades ago. Authorities said 63-year-old inmate Edmund Zagorski was ...
Appearing to swagger, Pittsburgh synagogue massacre suspect pleads not guilty
Appearing defiant and swaggering, the man charged with killing 11 worshipers in a Pittsburgh synagogue, pleaded not guilty on Thursday in a federal court as the Jewish community buried three more of the dead. Robert Bowers, 46, an avowed anti-Semite, was brought before Judge Robert ...
Pakistan's top court on Wednesday acquitted a Christian woman who was sentenced to death in 2010 on blasphemy charges, a landmark ruling that could ignite mass protests or violence by hard-line Islamists. Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar announced the verdict to a packed courtroom and ...
Singapore hangings spur fresh calls by rights groups to scrap death penalty
Singapore on Friday hanged a Malaysian convicted of drug trafficking, the latest in what rights groups said was a series of executions prompting them to renew calls for the wealthy city-state to abolish the death penalty. Singapore has some of the world's toughest anti-drugs laws, ...
'The Chaplain': Ren Osugi shines as a clergyman working on death row
The sudden death of Ren Osugi last February robbed Japanese cinema of one of its most dependable actors. That loss is rendered all the more acute by "The Chaplain," Osugi's final screen role, and his debut as producer. It's the kind of serious, intelligent ...
Death sentence finalized for Chinese man over 2009 double murder in Aichi
The death sentence has been finalized for a 35-year-old Chinese man convicted of murdering two people in 2009, after the Supreme Court rejected his request for a retraction of the previous dismissal of his appeal. Lin Zhenhua broke into the house of 57-year-old Kihoko Yamada ...
America should do away with the death penalty
Without being aware of it, Vernon Madison might become a footnote in constitutional law because he is barely aware of anything. For more than 30 years, Alabama, with a tenacity that deserves a better cause, has been trying to execute him for the crime ...
Few question the death penalty for heinous crimes
Should murderers be put to death? Yes, says Japan. No, says (increasingly) much of the rest of the world. Japan swims against the current. The execution of criminals — not just murderers — was formerly, in Japan as elsewhere, a matter of course. The social ...
Egypt sentences 75 to death, hundreds to jail over 2013 sit-in that ended in bloodshed
An Egyptian court on Saturday issued death sentences for 75 people, including prominent Islamist leaders, and jailed more than 600 others over a 2013 sit-in that ended with the killing of hundreds of protesters by security forces. The sentencing concluded the mass trial of some ...
Taiwan has executed a death row inmate, the first execution carried out under President Tsai Ing-wen's government, despite ongoing calls from rights groups to abolish the death penalty. Lee Hung-chi was executed at a prison in the southern city of Kaohsiung on Friday afternoon by ...
Ex-Aum cultist Makoto Hirata has 'no special feelings' about Shoko Asahara's execution
Makoto Hirata, a former Aum Shinrikyo executive, says he has “no special feelings” about the execution last month of Shoko Asahara, the founder of the now-defunct doomsday cult.
Authorities have decided to permanently preserve trial records of criminal cases involving the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult as part of efforts to prevent a repeat of the serious crimes committed by its members, Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa said Friday. "Their crimes were unprecedented, and similar ...
