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A contracted mercenary has no legal recognition or protection as a prisoner of war. Two American mercenary soldiers have been captured by Russian forces and now present a rather unique issue for the Biden administration. The traditional end result for captured mercenaries is execution; however, Russian President Vladimir Putin may not want to hang these two State Dept. conscripts. (Via Telegraph) – Two former US servicemen have been captured during fighting with Russian forces in Ukraine, The Telegraph has been told. The pair were taken prisoner during a fierce battle outside the north-east city of Kharkiv last week, according to...

Myanmar's junta said Friday it would carry out its first executions since 1990 by hanging four people, including a former lawmaker from the party of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and a rights activist. Myanmar is one of several dozen countries, including the United States, China, Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia that continue to put prisoners to death, using methods including beheading, electrocution, hanging, lethal injection and shooting. In a recent report, Amnesty International noted an "alarming" increase in the recourse to the death penalty in Myanmar, which it attributed to cases of civilians being transferred to military or...

An Arizona man convicted of murder in the 1984 killing of an 8-year-old girl was put to death Wednesday in the state’s second execution since officials resumed carrying out the death penalty in May following a nearly eight-year hiatus. Frank Atwood, 66, died by lethal injection at the state prison in Florence for his murder conviction in the killing of Vicki Hoskinson, whose body was found in the desert, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said in a statement. Vicki went missing months earlier after leaving her home in Tucson to drop a birthday card in a nearby mailbox.

A Georgia death row inmate set to be executed for the 1976 murder of an 8-year-old girl and rape of a 10-year-old girl has made his last meal request, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections Virgil Delano Presnell, Jr. is scheduled to be executed on May 17 at 7 p.m. Presnell, 68, was accused of abducting and attacking the two girls as they walked home from school in Cobb County, just outside Atlanta, on May 4, 1976. Presnell asked for four hamburgers, four French fries, two vanilla milkshakes, four sodas, and 8-piece bucket of chicken, potato salad and two...

An Arizona man convicted of killing a college student in 1978 has become the first person to be executed in the state after a nearly eight-year hiatus in its use of the death penalty. Clarence Dixon, 66, was put to death by lethal injection at the state prison in Florence for his murder conviction in the killing of 21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin. He is the sixth inmate to be put to death in the United States this year.

The Singapore High Court has granted a stay of execution for Malaysian Datchinamurthy Kataiah, according to rights group Lawyers for Liberty. Datchinamurthy, 36, was supposed to be hanged tomorrow. “There will be no execution tomorrow morning. Datchinamurthy argued the case himself as no Singapore lawyer dared to represent him for fear of reprisal from the state,” LFL adviser N Surendran said in a Twitter post. Meanwhile, human rights lawyer M Ravi said the Singapore court granted the stay of execution pending the outcome of Datchinamurthy’s prison correspondence misconduct legal challenge. The matter will be heard by the court on May...

HOUSTON (AP) — Nearly half of the jurors who sentenced a Texas woman to die for the 2007 death of one of her 14 children have called for her upcoming execution to be halted and for her to get a new trial. Melissa Lucio, 52, is set to be executed Wednesday for the death of her 2-year-old daughter Mariah in Harlingen, a city of about 75,000 in Texas’ southern tip. Her lawyers say new evidence shows that Mariah’s injuries, including a blow to the head, were caused by a fall down a steep staircase, and many lawmakers and celebrities such...

Tennessee's governor on Thursday called off what was to have been the state's first execution since the start of the pandemic, granting a temporary reprieve to the oldest inmate on death row for what was called an "oversight" in preparations for the lethal injection. Republican Gov. Bill Lee didn't elaborate on what issue forced the surprise 11th-hour stop to the planned execution of 72-year-old Oscar Smith. The inmate was to have received a three-drug injection only a short while later in the evening at a Nashville maximum security prison. "Due to an oversight in preparation for lethal injection, the scheduled...

I produced this video in the late 90's with Chinese dissident Harry Wu. It pretty much proves and documents the horrific practice of the killing of prisoners and the harvesting and sale of their body parts by China. Pretty sure it's going to be censored...

A South Carolina inmate who has spent 21 years on death row has chosen a firing squad for his April 29 execution. If the execution happens it will be South Carolina's first since 2011. Richard Moore, 57, chose a firing squad over the electric chair. "I believe this election is forcing me to choose between two unconstitutional methods of execution, and I do not intend to waive any challenges to electrocution or firing squad by making an election," Moore said. Moore's lawyers continue to challenge the constitutionality of both types of execution. They are challenging the execution in both state...

This date marks half a century since the hanging of Victor Feguer — the last man executed by the federal government in the 20th century. (And the last executed in the state of Iowa, period.) A drifter holing up at a Dubuque, Iowa, boarding house, Feguer phoned up a random doctor claiming a woman needed medical attention. Think about that the next time someone gets nostalgic for house calls. Dr. Edward Bartels showed up only to be kidnapped by Feguer, and eventually murdered in Illinois. Feguer was picked up in Alabama, trying to sell the doctor’s stolen car; his motive...

Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed 81 people convicted of crimes ranging from killings to belonging to militant groups, the largest known mass execution carried out in the kingdom in its modern history. The number of executed surpassed even the toll of a January 1980 mass execution for the 63 militants convicted of seizing the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979, the worst-ever militant attack to target the kingdom and Islam's holiest site. It wasn't clear why the kingdom choose Saturday for the executions, though they came as much of the world's attention remained focused on Russia's war on Ukraine —...

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said that Donald Trump was 'right on target' to suggest Hillary Clinton's operatives should be executed after the former president accused her campaign of treason. [cut] Jordan added that the 'spying' was 'worse than [we] thought.'

State officials on Thursday said its unlikely that prosecutors will be able to obtain a warrant to carry out death row inmate Zane Floyd’s execution before Nevada’s supply of one of the lethal injection drugs expires. “It’s theoretically possible but highly unlikely,” Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Alexander Chen said during a hearing in U.S. District Court. Floyd, who was sentenced to die for fatally shooting four people and gravely wounding another at a Las Vegas grocery store more than two decades ago, has multiple appeals in front of the Nevada Supreme Court. The high court would have to...

By | LIKE A push to repeal the death penalty in Utah, once a bedrock of conservative support for capital punishment, has garnered unlikely bipartisan support. Utah Rep. Lowry Snow, a Republican, voted twice against bids to repeal the death penalty in Utah in the past. Now, he’s the chief sponsor of HB 147, which seeks to prohibit the state from seeking the death penalty for aggravated murder committed after May 4, 2022. Instead, the current draft of the bill includes a possible sentence of 45 years-to-life for aggravated murder. He’s partnered with Sharon Wright Weeks, who started as a...

OKLAHOMA CITY — Two Oklahoma death row inmates facing executions in the coming months offered firing squad as a less problematic alternative to the state's three-drug lethal injection, one of their attorneys told a federal judge on Monday. The two inmates — Donald Grant and Gilbert Postelle — want U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot to grant them a temporary injunction that would delay their upcoming executions until a trial can be held over whether Oklahoma's three-drug lethal injection method is constitutional. A trial is set to begin before Friot on Feb. 28, but Grant is scheduled to be put to...

The New Zealand government has announced that patients admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 can be killed via euthanasia, according to Scoop. In November, anti-euthanasia group #DefendNZ asked the New Zealand Ministry of Health (MOH) questions about the practice of the nation’s End of Life Choice Act (EOLC Act). One of these questions was, “Could a patient who is severely hospitalised with Covid-19 potentially be eligible for assisted suicide or euthanasia under the Act if a health practitioner viewed their prognosis as less than 6 months?” The EOLC Act states that a person who has a “terminal illness that is...

After a five-year moratorium, the state of Oklahoma botched its third consecutive execution on Thursday when convict John Marion Grant died after convulsing and vomiting all over himself following a lethal injection, according to witnesses. Grant, 60, was convicted of murdering prison guard Gay Carter on Friday the 13th in November of 1998 after he stabbed her 16 times with a shank knife while he was serving sentences for robbery and illegal firearm charges. Almost immediately after he was injected, Grant experienced two dozen full body convulsions and began vomiting all over himself, according to Associated Press reporter Sean Murphy,...

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma ended a six-year moratorium on executions Thursday, administering the death penalty on a man who convulsed and vomited as he was executed for the 1998 slaying of a prison cafeteria worker. John Marion Grant, 60, who was strapped to a gurney inside the execution chamber, began convulsing and vomiting after the first drug, the sedative midazolam, was administered. Several minutes later, two members of the execution team wiped the vomit from his face and neck. He was serving a 130-year prison sentence for several armed robberies when witnesses say he dragged prison cafeteria worker Gay...

This is the moment an Afghan comedian continued mocking the Taliban as fighters from the insurgent group dragged him away from his home before later executing him by firing squad. In a viral video filmed at the end of July, Nazar Mohammad, better known as Khasha Zwan, can be seen in the back of a car with an insurgent on either side of him - one of them brandishing a Kalashnikov machine gun. The brave comic - known for his TikTok videos - continues making jokes about the group, causing the Taliban fighter to his right to begin slapping him...