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THREE death row prisoners convicted of leading a Christian militia in bloody violence against Muslims in Indonesia will be executed on Thursday, police said today, announcing beefed-up security to head off any unrest. International rights groups, including Amnesty International, have argued that the trials were unfair and called for further investigations, while Pope Benedict XVI has appealed for clemency, but police said it would go ahead. "The execution process will take place Thursday," national police spokesman Paulus Purwoko said, declining to reveal the precise time or location the firing squad would implement the punishment. Indonesia usually carries out executions in...

(September 12, 2006)-- A violent rampage that began 15 years ago in Huntsville that left two people dead and a third seriously wounded came full circle just after 6 p.m. Tuesday when convicted killer Farley Charles Matchett was executed in the Texas death chamber in Huntsville. The 43-year-old inmate was convicted in the 1991 fatal beating and stabbing of his 52-year-old uncle, Uries Anderson, at Anderson's Houston home. The US Supreme Court refused earlier Tuesday to halt the execution. Matchett also received a life prison term for killing a 74-year-old woman in Huntsville and leaving a 91 year-old Huntsville woman...

Farley Charles Matchett needed another fix. The crack addict had randomly knocked on doors in a northeast Houston neighborhood before he appeared at Uries Anderson's doorstep to ask for money. Anderson, who was related to Matchett by marriage, lectured him about his drug habit. Anderson, who was home alone, may not have known how deep Matchett's desperation ran. A day earlier in Huntsville, Matchett killed 74-year-old Melonee Josey with a meat hammer after she refused to give him money. The day before that, he severely beat 91-year-old Ola Mae Williams for the same reason. Anderson's body was found two days...

HUNTSVILLE — Insisting he was innocent, condemned inmate Derrick Frazier was executed this evening for the slayings of a South Texas mother and her teenage son at their home nine years ago. "I am innocent. An innocent man is being put to death. I've professed my innocence for nine years and I will continue to profess my innocence for another nine years," Frazier said.--snip--Frazier, 29, was the second convicted murderer to die for the shooting deaths of Betsy Nutt, 41, and her son, Cody, 15. Three months ago, Frazier's companion, Jermaine Herron, was executed. He was the 20th Texas prisoner...

OKLAHOMA has executed a confessed child murderer for the 1997 beating death of his 13-month-old daughter. James Malicoat, 31, was condemned for beating Tessa Leadford to death at his home in the south-central Oklahoma town of Chickasha on February 21, 1997 while the girl's mother was at work. Malicoat admitted slamming Leadford's head into a dresser a few days before she died and punching her in the stomach so hard she stopped breathing on the day of her death. Malicoat tried to resuscitate Leadford but when he was unable to revive her, he laid her in her crib and went...

(August 31, 2006)—Texas death row inmate Derrick Frazier received a lethal injection just after 6 p.m. Tuesday in Huntsville for the 1997 slaying of a South Texas woman and her son. Earlier in the day the US Supreme Court refused to halt the execution. Frazier was one of two men sent to death row for the slayings of 41-year-old Betsy Nutt and her 15-year-old son, Cody, at their home on their Refugio County ranch. Frazier's partner, Jermaine Herron, was put to death three months ago. Frazier was the 20th Texas prisoner executed this year. That's one more than all the...

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence for two sisters on Thursday for killing kidnapped children by smashing them against electricity poles. The death penalty is carried out in India by hanging but women have rarely been given the sentence. The women from Maharashtra had been convicted by a lower court and the top court upheld their death sentences, saying it was a "rarest of rare" case. The two women, Renuka Kiran Shinde and Seema Mohan Gavit, were convicted for running a kidnapping racket in and around the cities of Pune, Kolhapur and Nasik in Maharashtra...

LIVINGSTON -- Betsy Nutt thought she was being nice to the two young men who showed up at her family's South Texas mobile home and said they had car trouble and needed to make a phone call. ADVERTISEMENT She even served them iced tea on the hot afternoon nine summers ago and offered to drive them in her pickup truck the 10 miles to town. For her courtesies, the 41-year-old woman got two bullets in the head. Her 15-year-old son, Cody, was shot four times, including two shots to the head. Jerry Nutt found the bodies of his wife and...

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Gov. Mike Rounds today halted the execution of the state's first prison inmate in 59 years just hours before it was scheduled. Elijah Page, 24, had waived his appeals and asked to be executed for the torture slaying of a Spearfish man six years ago. A spokesman for the governor had said earlier that Rounds had no plans to intercede. But this afternoon Rounds delayed the execution and said he would talk about his decision at a news conference later in the day. Page rejected pleas from friends and death penalty opponents that he reconsider as...

Aug. 24, 2006, 6:50PMFuller executed for murder of Tyler manBy MICHAEL GRACZYKAssociated Press HUNTSVILLE — Condemned prisoner Justin Fuller quietly went to his death this evening for the abduction, robbery and fatal shooting of a Tyler man nine years ago.In a brief statement, Fuller thanked his family and friends for their support. ``Let everyone know that you must stay strong for each other,'' he said. ``Take care of yourselves.''He told the warden standing next to him, ``That's it.''As the lethal drugs began to take effect, he looked at his parents watching through a window a few feet away and...

(August 24, 2006)--Death row inmate Justin Fuller was executed just after 6 p.m. Thursday in the state’s death chamber in Huntsville for the 1997 robbery, abduction and fatal shooting of 21-year-old Donald Whittington, III of Tyler. Whittington's decomposing body was found at Lake Tyler four days after he was reported missing. Police say Whittington's ATM card was found in Fuller's wallet, and his watch was in Fuller's living room.

Human rights groups and concerned individuals worldwide are demanding an end to stoning executions in Iran – and right now are pressuring the head of the Islamic nation's judiciary to lift the death sentence against a 34-year-old mother of two young children. Malak Ghorbany was sentenced to death June 28 by a court in the Iranian city of Urmia after being found guilty of committing "adultery." Under Iran's strict Sharia law, women sentenced to execution by stoning have their hands bound behind their back. They are wrapped from head to toe in sheets before being seated in a pit. The...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A San Antonio man with a previous conviction for manslaughter was executed Thursday for the abduction, rape and fatal stabbing of a woman more than 12 years ago. Richard Hinojosa expressed love for his family and asked his victim's family to find peace in their heart. "I pray for you. Please find peace in your heart," he said looking at the parents, a brother and two aunts of his victim. "I know you may hate me for whatever reason. The Lord says hate no one. I hope you find peace in your heart. I know my words...

Death row inmate Samuel Flippen was executed early Friday for the beating death of his 2-year-old stepdaughter 12 years ago. Flippen was pronounced dead at 2:11 a.m., state Corrections Department spokesman Keith Acree said. Gov. Mike Easley denied a clemency request from Flippen's attorneys after state judges and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments to stop the execution.

(August 17, 2006)--A San Antonio man was executed just after 6 p.m. Thursday in Huntsville for the 1994 abduction, rape and fatal stabbing of a neighbor. Richard Hinojosa, 44, was condemned for the death of Terry Wright, who came upon the man burglarizing her home. Hinojosa’s lawyers said earlier in the day they had exhausted their appeals. Hinojosa denied killing Wright and contended that telling a jury of his previous manslaughter conviction turned the panel against him.

DEADWOOD, S.D. (AP) - This Old West town where Jack McCall killed gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok while he played poker in 1876 again figures in a capital punishment case in South Dakota, which may be facing its first execution in 59 years. McCall was hanged for shooting Hickok in Saloon No. 10. It was the first recorded execution in what would become South Dakota 12 years later. Now, Elijah Page wants to die. Page, 24, has asked to fire his lawyer, forgo appeals and die by lethal injection for his role in the March 13, 2000, slaying of 19-year-old Chester...

INDONESIA-POSTPONE Aug-11-2006 (410 words) xxxi Indonesia postpones executions of Catholics hours after papal appeal By Catholic News Service JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNS) -- Hours after an appeal by Pope Benedict XVI, Indonesian officials issued a last-minute stay of execution for three Catholics, but said they would be executed after Aug. 20. Gen. Sutanto, the national police chief, announced the stay late Aug. 11 for Fabianus Tibo, 60, Dominggus da Silva, 39, and Marinus Riwu, 48. The three were sentenced to death after being convicted in 2001 of murdering 200 Muslims in May-June 2000 in the Poso area, in Central Sulawesi. Christian-Muslim...

A man who said he worshipped Satan and enjoyed killing three people, stabbing and beating them and stomping on them with steel-toed boots, was executed Tuesday. Darrell Ferguson, 28, the youngest person put to death in Ohio since 1962, died by injection at 10:21 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. He had asked for the death penalty and chose not to pursue appeals, which could have delayed his execution for years. Ferguson was the second inmate executed using the state's new lethal injection protocol, adopted after an execution in May was delayed while prison staff struggled to find a...

A television documentary team has pieced together details surrounding the case of a 16-year-old girl, executed two years ago in Iran. Atefah Sahaaleh: wrongly described as being 22 years old On 15 August, 2004, Atefah Sahaaleh was hanged in a public square in the Iranian city of Neka.  Her death sentence was imposed for "crimes against chastity".  The state-run newspaper accused her of adultery and described her as 22 years old.  But she was not married - and she was just 16.Sharia LawIn terms of the number of people executed by the state in 2004, Iran is estimated to be...

THE Bali bombers responsible for killing 88 Australians could have less than three weeks to live. The three killers -- Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, Imam Samudra and Ali Gufron -- will be shot at dawn on August 22, barring any 11th-hour appeals. Relatives of the men were told of the execution date last week. The evil trio will be taken from their cells on the island jail of Nusakambangan, off the south coast of Java, and driven to the nearby beach where they will be blindfolded and shot. Amrozi, 43, dubbed the smiling assassin, Samudra, 36, and Gufron, 46, also known...