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An American businessman arrested in Communist China over a decade on apparently flimsy charges of drug trafficking will be put to death, Chinese government officials have announced. Mark Swidan, a Houston, Texas businessman, was arrested in November 2012 and sentenced to death in 2018 on charges he was in China to smuggle illegal drugs. John Kamm, chairman of the Dui Hua human rights foundation, tells Newsweek “the only ‘evidence’ against him is that Swidan once visited a factory where Chinese authorities allege the meth was manufactured, and that he had been in a room rented by another person where drugs...

Sarah’s was to be Bristol‘s final public hanging on the flat roof of the gatehouse of New Gaol in Cumberland Road. She was a house maid to sixty one year old Miss Elizabeth Jefferies, who according to Sarah, did not treat her well and had locked her in the kitchen all night among other perceived abuses. There was almost certain to be conflict between a cranky, elderly spinster and a rebellious young girl and this culminated in Sarah bludgeoning Miss Jefferies to death with a large stone as she slept, on the night of Sunday the 4th of March 1849....

Ukraine said Tuesday it had identified a soldier shot dead in a video that circulated widely across social media, sparking outrage and spurring officials to call for a probe. "According to preliminary data, the deceased is a serviceman of the 30th separate mechanised brigade, Tymofiy Mykolayovych Shadura," the Ukrainian land forces said on Telegram, adding he had been missing since February 3 amid fighting in eastern Ukraine.

Remember all that political hay the far left and its media allies made during the Vietnam War about the wickedness of America's South Vietnamese ally and the importance of abandoning that country to the communists? Here's the Pulitzer Prize-winning AP photo that was supposed to prick our consciences and make us turn against that "immoral" war against a communist takeover: There's no doubt about it, the photo is hard to look at. It's crude, rough, wartime justice, a picture of South Vietnamese Police Captain Nguyễn Ngọc Loan coldly executing Viet Cong Captain Nguyễn Văn Lém. The film is even harder...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A man convicted of killing three teenagers while they slept in a Texas Panhandle home more than 25 years ago was executed on Wednesday, the sixth inmate to be put to death in the U.S. this year and the second in as many days. Balentine appeared jovial as witnesses were entering the death chamber, asking if someone standing near the gurney could remove the sheet covering the lower two-thirds of his body “and massage my feet.” Then he chuckled.

Progressive Democrat Rep. Cori Bush (MO) faced backlash online after lamenting the recent execution of Amber (previously “Scott”) McLaughlin, a biological man identifying as a transgender woman who was convicted of brutally raping and killing his ex-girlfriend. Following the execution by the state of Missouri, far-left “Squad” member Cori Bush released a statement saying that McLaughlin was “killed by state-sanctioned, inhumane capital punishment.” “My heart is with her family and loved ones,” the Democrat congresswoman said, making no mention of McLaughlin’s victims. “I yearn for the day when our society acknowledges that state-sanctioned murder will never achieve justice.”

The first openly transgender woman slated for execution in the US is appealing to Missouri’s governor for mercy, citing mental health struggles. Lawyers for Amber McLaughlin, 49, on Monday asked Republican Gov. Mike Parson to spare her life before her Jan. 3 execution. She was convicted of killing her 45-year-old ex-girlfriend Beverly Guenther on Nov. 20, 2003. Guenther was raped and stabbed to death in St. Louis County.

Oklahoma will not carry out an execution scheduled for Thursday morning because convicted murderer John Fitzgerald Hanson remains in a federal prison in Louisiana. "His transfer to state authorities for state execution is not in the public interest," a regional director for the Federal Bureau of Prisons told Oklahoma Attorney General John O'Connor in an Oct. 17 letter. The state is now suing in federal court in Texas for his return.

Iranians expressed horror, disbelief and anger at the ruling establishment and its judiciary, which hanged a 23-year-old protester over his participation in an anti-government demonstration.The execution of Mohsen Shekari at a prison outside Tehran on Thursday unleashed a barrage of furious reactions from ordinary Iranians in the midst of the anti-government unrest that has engulfed Iran for nearly three months. The early morning announcement on Thursday marked the first known death penalty carried out against a detainee arrested in the ongoing protests and sent shockwaves across Iran, fueling fears that the state was determined to go the extra mile in...

Iran was slapped with fresh sanctions Friday after carrying out its first execution over demonstrations that have shaken the regime for nearly three months, as activists called for fresh protests. Mohsen Shekari, 23, was hanged Thursday after being found guilty of "moharebeh", or "enmity against God", (except).. (excerpt)The judiciary said Shekari was arrested after blocking a Tehran street and striking a member of the Basij paramilitary force linked to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with a machete -- a wound that required 13 stitches

The Taliban put a murder suspect to death Wednesday, the fundamentalist regime’s first official public execution since retaking control of Afghanistan last year. The man accused of a fatal stabbing in 2017 was shot and killed by the victim’s father in the western Farah province. The killing was attended by at least a dozen senior government officials, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. ... the capital punishment was sanctioned by the Taliban’s reclusive supreme spiritual leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhunzada, according to Mujahid. The mother of the victim, named only as Mustafa, told the BBC that she demanded that the suspect, identified...

The Missouri Department of Corrections successfully carried out its execution of Kevin Johnson early Tuesday evening. The execution was carried out at 7:40 p.m. at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Missouri. Johnson, 37, died via lethal injection. Prior to his execution, he made no final statement. Missouri Governor Mike Parson issued the following statement after Johnson’s death: Today, the State of Missouri carried out Kevin Johnson’s sentence as ordered by the Missouri Supreme Court. Mr. Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2005 murder of Sgt. Bill McEntee. Mr. Johnson’s claims were reviewed...

was hanged Mahmood Mattan, 28, was the last person to be hanged in Cardiff 70 years ago for a crime he did not commitSouth Wales Police have apologised to the family of a man who was wrongfully executed for a murder he did not commit 70 years ago. Mahmood Mattan, a British Somali and former seaman living in Cardiff, was hanged in 1952 after he was convicted of killing shopkeeper Lily Volpert in her store in Cardiff. Ms Volpert, an established Cardiff shopkeeper and unofficial money lender, had her throat slashed with a razor and bled to the death in...

Should execution be on the table for Americans who allegedly spill nuclear secrets? Former CIA Director Michael Hayden appeared to endorse the idea late Thursday after new allegations accused former President Donald Trump of storing highly classified documents with nuclear information at Mar-a-Lago. What is the background? After Attorney General Merrick Garland admitted on Thursday that he personally approved the FBI raid on Trump's south Florida residence, the Washington Post reported, citing anonymous sources, that FBI agents raided Mar-a-Lago to retrieve documents with nuclear information. The sources with whom the Post spoke "did not offer additional details about what type...

Alabama prison officials examined female reporters’ clothing and tried to block a female reporter with AL.com from witnessing Thursday night’s execution of a death-row inmate, saying her skirt and shoes violated a prison dress code. Ivana Hrynkiw, a reporter and managing producer with AL.com, said she was told by Alabama Department of Corrections Public Information Officer Kelly Betts after she arrived at the media center at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore that her skirt was too short.

The ex-boyfriend of a New York City woman who was shot dead as she pushed their infant daughter in a stroller has been ordered jailed without bail, with prosecutors describing the killing as a “premeditated execution.” Isaac Argro, 22, appeared Saturday evening in Manhattan Criminal Court on charges of second-degree murder and second-degree weapons possession. Prosecutor Brittany DeCesare told Judge Eric Schumacher that on the night of the killing, Argro dressed in all black and wore a ski mask as he paced back and forth waiting to shoot Azsia Johnson, his estranged girlfriend.

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...