Free Republic

North Korean defense minister Hyon Yong Chol made a mistake: he fell asleep at an official event at which Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un was present. Kim, keen on sending a strong message amid rumors that his grip on absolute power may be slipping, reportedly decided that the appropriate punishment for napping during a rally is execution by anti-aircraft gun. If true, this would mark the latest in a series of “purges” which seem to lend some credence to the notion that Kim’s family name is no longer sufficient when it comes to securing absolute power and universal admiration both from...

South Korea's spy agency told the country's lawmakers Wednesday that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un executed his defense chief for falling asleep during a meeting and talking back to the young leader. Lawmaker Shin Kyoung-min says that officials from the National Intelligence Service told a closed-door parliamentary committee that People's Armed Forces Minister Hyon Yong Chol was killed by anti-aircraft gunfire with hundreds watching at a shooting range at Pyongyang's Kang Kon Military Academy in late April. Shin was one of the lawmakers who attended the briefing. The office of another lawmaker, Lee Cheol Woo, released similar information about...

)—An Army National Guard member and his cousin have been arrested in Illinois for allegedly conspiring to provide material support to the terrorist organization ISIS, federal prosecutors said Thursday. The alleged plot included a plan to attack a U.S. military installation in Illinois. In the past 18 months, the Justice Department's National Security Division has prosecuted or is prosecuting 32 cases of people attempting to travel abroad to join or providing support to terrorist groups. Of those cases, 18 allegedly involve support to ISIS.

A friend sent me an article about an initiative recently filed in California that is....shocking, to say the least. It is called the "Sodomite Supression Act" and...well, I'll let you read it for yourselves. I draw your attentions to sections "b" and "f", especially.....

<p>OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma would become the first state to allow the execution of inmates using nitrogen gas under a bill that overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives.</p> <p>The House voted 85-10 on Tuesday for the bill by Oklahoma City Republican Rep. Mike Christian, who described the method as humane, painless and easy to administer. There was no debate against the bill, which now heads to the Senate.</p>

The execution of the only woman on Georgia's death row has been postponed at the last minute for a second time in less than a week - because the drug used in the lethal injection she was scheduled to receive was 'cloudy'. Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 46, was due to be given an injection of pentobarbital at a prison in Jackson at 7pm on Monday in retribution for plotting the murder of her husband in 1997. But after officials observed the drug to be used in the execution had a 'cloudy' appearance, they postponed her death until a future, unspecified date...

As responses to terrorism go, this one communicates commitment. After ISIS released video of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kassasbe’s murder by immolation — which apparently happened weeks ago — the kingdom of Jordan has announced that all jihadist prisoners will be executed as soon as possible, beginning at dawn tomorrow with the woman ISIS wanted released: Jordan will execute Wednesday an Iraqi would-be suicide bomber on death row and other jihadists after having vowed to avenge the murder of a Jordanian pilot by Islamic State jihadists, an official said.“The sentence of death pending on… Iraqi Sajida al-Rishawi will be carried...

Militants fighting for the Islamic State terror group in Syria and Iraq have released a video they claim shows Jordanian pilot Maaz al-Kassasbeh being burnt alive while locked in a cage. The footage, which is titled 'Healing the Believers Chests' appears to show the captured airman wearing an orange jumpsuit as a trail of petrol leading up to the cage is seen being set alight. Flames are seen quickly spreading to the cage where they completely engulf the helpless pilot in images that are far too distressing to publish.

A former U.S. Army Ranger sniper and author of a best-selling book about his combat tour in Afghanistan said yesterday that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl should be executed if found guilty of deserting his unit in 2009.“I think he should definitely be put to death,” said Nicholas “Irv” Irving, the author (with Gray Brozek) of The Reaper: Autobiography of One of the Deadliest Special Ops Snipers, said on this writer’s radio show. “He’s given a lot of information to the enemy and he should pay the price.” Since being released last year, Bergdahl has received two promotions and about $300,000 in...

A senior State Department official on Saturday claimed that there is “nothing religious” about the Islamic State’s reported execution of a Japanese hostage. Rick Stengel, an under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, took to Twitter to condemn the killing of Japanese hostage Haruna Yukawa, who has been held for ransom by the terror group along with Japanese freelance reporter Kenji Goto. “Brutal criminal murder of Japanese citizen #Haruna Yukawa by the terrorist group #Daesh,” Stengel tweeted after IS released video of the killing. “Nothing religious about it.” Stengel’s apparent refusal to acknowledge that IS’s radical Islamic...

An Oklahoma inmate executed amid a legal challenge over lethal injection began complaining about the effects on his body before the drugs were administered, prompting some to question whether he may have exaggerated his symptoms to help his fellow death row inmates' case. Charles Warner, who was executed Thursday for the killing of an 11-month-old girl in 1997, said during his last words: 'It feels like acid.' The comment came before any of the lethal drugs were administered and while he was only receiving a saline drip through an intravenous line.

Some 56 members of ISIS learned their so-called “caliph” doesn’t tolerate losing in battle, according to reports which said Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had them executed after they survived a rout by Kurdish fighters. Saed Mimousini, media spokesperson for the Kurdish Democratic Party, told Alsumaria news agency that Al-Baghdadi’s harsh decision came following their defeat at the hands of Peshmerga fighters in Kobar, south of the Kurdish capital Erbil. “ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi executed 56 of his men after their defeat at the hands of the Peshmerga forces in the Cowir area south of Erbilm," he said. “Executions took place...

WARNING - GRAPHIC IMAGES: A boy of about 10 is seen firing into the back of the heads of two kneeling and bound men in the horrifying footage This shocking image appears to show a young boy gunning down two alleged Russian spies captured in the Islamic State. However, a military expert has cast doubt on its authenticity. The slickly-produced video shows the boy, who appears to be around 10-years-old, raise a pistol to the kneeling men's heads and pull the trigger. He then appears to shoot more bullets into the two men's corpses. Chillingly, the video ends with a...

Recent botched executions aren’t doing much to sway proponents of the practice in a number of states where it remains legal — in fact, they’re causing states to look at older and potentially more brutal methods of execution, according to a recent report. Oklahoma’s most recent execution of Clayton Lockett in April was an extremely disturbing one, in which he writhed while being pumped with lethal drugs, prompting executions to eventually draw the curtains for the gallery. The warden described it as a “bloody mess,” according to the Associated Press. The execution joined a pair of others in Ohio and...

Oklahoma's last execution went so badly that the state tried to cancel it before it was over. With the inmate writhing while the lethal drugs seeped into his body, his executioners drew the viewing gallery curtains, concealing what the warden later described as "a bloody mess." The botched execution of Clayton Lockett in April and other troubling ones this year in Ohio and Arizona gave capital punishment opponents a flicker of hope that areas of the country that most enthusiastically support the death penalty might have a change of heart. They didn't.

It’s a dark time in America — a time when two uniformed officers who had absolutely nothing to do with what happened to Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., or to Eric Garner on Staten Island, are executed without warning, and some witnesses actually say “They deserved it.” Again: “They deserved it.” They being two men marked for death because they wore a New York Police Department uniform. One of those men was the recently-married Officer Wenjian Liu; the other, Officer Rafael Ramos, who leaves behind a wife and 13-year-old son. In a related story, both were reassigned from an anti-terror...

It was just last night that a handful of supporters of the New York Police Department attempted to hold a #ThankYouNYPD rally. The group was easily outnumbered by protesters, who taunted them and likened the gathering to a Klan rally. Just days before that, police haters hijacked a #BlueLivesMatter hashtag, while others were caught on video at the #MillionsMarchNYC chanting, “What do we want? Dead cops!” With news just coming in that two New York City police officers were reportedly ambushed in their patrol car and shot execution-style, it’s not surprising that the anti-cop contingent is coming out to proudly...

BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) A Missouri inmate has been executed for beating a 63-year-old woman to death with a hammer in 1998. Paul Goodwin was put to death early Wednesday, the 10th man executed in Missouri in 2014. That breaks the state’s previous high of nine executions in 1999 and matches Texas for the most in the U.S. this year. Goodwin sexually assaulted Joan Crotts in St. Louis County, pushed her down a flight of stairs and beat her in the head with a hammer. Goodwin was a former neighbor who felt Crotts played a role in getting him kicked...

A man who killed a suburban Kansas City gas station attendant in front of the worker's young stepdaughter in 1994 was put to death early Wednesday, the ninth execution in Missouri this year.

Allies of Kim Jong-un's ousted uncle among the victims of firing squads, some for watching South Korean television As many as 50 senior members of the North Korean government and military have been publicly executed so far this year, according to South Korea's intelligence agency. The victims of the purges - which the National Intelligence Service believes are continuing - include 10 members of the ruling Workers' Party who were executed by firing squad for watching South Korean soap operas, bribery or womanising.