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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.

The U.S. Supreme Court late Tuesday halted the execution of a Missouri man who killed a woman and her two children, citing concerns that his legal counsel was ineffective. Mark Christeson, 35, was scheduled to die by injection at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday at the state prison in Bonne Terre before the late stay of execution was issued.

A lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City on Tuesday names the governor, prison officials, and the doctor who performed the execution of Clayton Lockett, for the “brutal and barbaric” death of the convicted murderer. A lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City on Tuesday names the governor, prison officials, and the doctor who performed the execution of Clayton Lockett, for the "brutal and barbaric" death of the convicted murderer. According to the lawsuit, Johnny Zellmer, a family practice physician in McAlester, Oklahoma, performed Lockett’s bungled execution. Other defendants in the lawsuit, filed by...

FULL TITLE: l them I finished strong': Last words of Texas woman, 38, executed for starving girlfriend's 9-year-old son to death A Texas woman was executed this evening, after spending the last eight years on death row for the murder of her girlfriend's son a decade ago. Lisa Ann Coleman, 38, of Arlington, Texas, was found guilty of capital murder in the death of 9-year-old Davontae Williams, who had been beaten and bound, and whose body bore more than 250 scars when officials discovered him on July 26, 2004. 'What she’s really guilty of is being a black lesbian,' Stickels...

The families of two journalists beheaded by Islamic State jihadists were both warned by US government officials they could face prosecution if they raised a ransom for their release. The recent executions of James Foley and Steven Sotloff by Islamic State (IS) extremists triggered worldwide revulsion and Washington has since declared it is at war with the radicals. The United States has a policy of never paying ransoms, contending that doing so would endanger Americans all over the world. Late Friday, a spokesman for Sotloff's family said the murdered journalist's parents were told by a White House counterterrorism official last...

GAZA CITY, Gaza—More than a month after The Daily Beast reported evidence suggesting Israeli soldiers carried out the summary execution of six men amid fierce combat in late July, there are no signs that the Israeli government is investigating the matter. It has declined to respond to repeated inquiries. The independent organizations Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which the Israeli authorities have barred from Gaza, are unable to follow up in detail. And a United Nations investigation of abuses on both sides is barely under way.The Daily Beast has continued its own investigation, however. And the picture that’s emerging...

Gangster, arson-murderer hanged Crime Aug. 29, 2014 - 03:00PM JST ( 16 ) AFP TOKYO — Japan executed a mobster and a killer arsonist on Friday, bringing to 11 the total number of death sentences carried out since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took power in 2012. The executions came days before Abe is expected to reshuffle his cabinet amid speculation that he will appoint a new justice minister, whose approval is needed for any sentence to be carried out. “I ordered the executions after careful consideration,” Justice Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki told reporters

A Missouri inmate was put to death Wednesday for raping and killing a college student in 1995, making him the first U.S. prisoner put to death since an Arizona lethal injection went awry last month. When the drugs began flowing, his head lowered back to the pillow and he appeared to breathe heavily for about 15 seconds before closing his eyes. Some of his witnesses began crying after he fell unconscious.Texas and Missouri instead administer a single large dose of pentobarbital — often used to treat convulsions and seizures and to euthanize animals. Missouri changed to pentobarbital late last year...

A federal appeals judge issued a blistering dissent in a death-row case on Monday, declaring that an execution system that relies on drugs is doomed and the guillotine would be better. "Using drugs meant for individuals with medical needs to carry out executions is a misguided effort to mask the brutality of executions by making them look serene and peaceful — like something any one of us might experience in our final moments," Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote. "But executions are, in fact, nothing like that. They are brutal, savage events, and nothing...

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer ordered a review of the state's execution process after a convicted double murderer gasped and snorted for more than an hour and a half before his death Wednesday. Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne's office said Joseph Rudolph Wood was pronounced dead at 3:49 p.m. local time, one hour and 57 minutes after the execution started. Wood's lawyers had filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court while the execution was underway, demanding that it be stopped. The appeal said Wood was "gasping and snorting for more than an hour." In ordering the review, Brewer said...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Marine who was declared a deserter nearly 10 years ago after disappearing in Iraq and then returning to the U.S. claiming he had been kidnapped, only to disappear again, is back in U.S. custody, officials said Sunday. Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, 34, turned himself in and was being flown Sunday from an undisclosed location in the Middle East to Norfolk, Va. He is to be moved Monday to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, according to a spokesman, Capt. Eric Flanagan. Maj. Gen. Raymond Fox, commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Lejeune, will determine whether...

Florida on Wednesday executed a Tampa-area man who murdered his estranged wife and her young son in 1985, two years after he had been paroled for killing his previous spouse. It was the third U.S. execution in less than 24 hours since a botched April lethal injection in Oklahoma. John Ruthell Henry, 63, was pronounced dead at 7:43 p.m. after receiving a lethal injection for the stabbing death of Suzanne Henry. He also was convicted of stabbing her 5-year-old son, Eugene Christian, hours after the woman's murder.