Free Republic

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's prime minister says Saddam Hussein's execution would help undermine the insurgency as the ex-president's genocide trial heard more testimony Thursday of poison gas attacks on Kurdish villages two decades ago. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he hoped the trial, which began in August, would not last long and "shortly a death sentence will be passed against this criminal tyrant, his aides and the criminals who worked with him." "Definitely, with his execution, those betting on returning to power under the banner of Saddam and the Baath (Party) will lose," al-Maliki told reporters Wednesday in Najaf. Saddam...

http://www.unpo.org/article.php?id=5632 Ahwazi: Three Ahwazis Face Execution UNPO, Netherlands - Oct 16, 2006 ...Such racism against non-Persian minorities is endemic in Iran - Arabs are criminals, Azeris are stupid, Balochis are drug smugglers, etc - and is intended to ...

Ramsey Clark, a former US attorney general who is one of Saddam Hussein's lawyers, said that any death sentence against the former Iraqi president would increase violence in the strife-torn country. "It seems clear that a guilty verdict will set off catastrophic violence" and that a death sentence would be even worse, Clark told a Washington press conference. "It's hard to know how many Iraqis, dozens, hundreds, thousands, will die because of the sentence," he said.

SAN JOSE A judge weighing whether the state's lethal injection method is an unconstitutionally cruel punishment said Friday that the issue hinges on whether the condemned inmate is aware of what's happening. "The critical question, I guess, the court has to look at is what evidence there is of consciousness," U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel said at the conclusion of the four day hearing. Until a ruling, which Fogel expects to issue in November, executions in the state are on hold. Fogel halted the execution of rapist and murderer Michael Morales in February after his lawyers claimed inmates were suffering...

SAN JOSE One of two anesthesiologists who bowed out of participating in the February lethal injection of a condemned inmate, prompting a stay of execution, testified Thursday that he didn't want to be "painted as an executioner." Dr. Robert Singler of Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa volunteered to monitor the execution of Michael Morales, but later declined after learning he may have to participate rather than solely monitor the prisoner's consciousness. Singler testified during the federal court hearing, looking at whether California's lethal injection method is unconstitutionally cruel, that he had agreed only to stand by the inmate...

Sheikh Zana’ gang became the first group that have formally been executed by the Kurdistan Regional Government’s authorities, reported local media in Kurdistan on Thursday. The group of 11 people were hanged in the capital of Kurdistan, Arbil on Thursday. The group was named after their leader Zana Nasrat Sheikh Abdulkarim Barzinji, known as Sheikh Zana. The group members confessed to their crimes on Kurdistan’s TV few months ago.

Medical logs of past state executions showed that some patients might have been conscious during the lethal injection procedure because the sedatives were mixed by prison staffers with no medical background, an anesthesiologist testified Wednesday. Dr. Mark Heath of Columbia University also testified that records from San Quentin State Prison executions show that some of the drugs taken from the prison pharmacy that weren't used went missing. "For each execution, there's 15 vials missing," Heath said during the second day of court hearings challenging California's lethal injection method. He added, "There were errors in mixing drugs." The hearing was called...

Executions of 3 Christian militants sparks violence in Indonesia By Associated Press Friday, September 22, 2006 - Updated: 07:45 AM EST PALU, Indonesia - Christian mobs torched cars, blockaded roads and looted Muslim-owned shops in violence touched off by Friday’s executions of three Roman Catholics convicted of instigating attacks on Muslims. Some 200 inmates escaped after mobs assaulted a jail in the town of Atambua, sending guards fleeing to the nearby jungle. By midday only 20 had been recaptured, deputy national police chief Lt. Gen. Adang Dorodjatun said, calling on the others to turn themselves in. And on the island...

Executions of Christians spark riots Melbourne Herald Sun - HUNDREDS of Indonesians angered by the overnight executions of three Christians rioted in eastern Indonesia today, looting, throwing rocks and torching an official's home. The violence broke out after Fabianus ...

PALU, Indonesia, SEPT. 21, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Three Catholics convicted of leading a mob that killed Muslims were executed by a police firing squad in Central Sulawesi province, officials said. Fabianus Tibo, 60; Marinus Riwu, 48; and Dominggus da Silva, 42, were sentenced to death in 2001. They were found guilty of leading a mob in a 2000 attack that killed 200 people at an Islamic boarding school during Muslim-Christian clashes in Central Sulawesi's Poso region. "It has been done ... the location was around the airport," a police official who declined to be identified told Reuters. The executions occurred today....

THREE Indonesian Christians who were on death row for inciting violence against Muslims in 2000 were executed by firing squad, their lawyer said. "They have been executed....," lawyer Roy Rening said. Mr Rening said he was informed of the executions by the prosecutors office in Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi province.... < snip > Mr Rening added that he refused to be present at the deaths to protest a rejection by the state of their last demands, including that their bodies be laid in wake at Palu's main Catholic church. < snip > The trio were initially scheduled to...

Palu (AsiaNews) – Indonesian authorities have denied the three Catholic men sentenced to death the right to attend mass one last time before they are executed tonight by a firing squad. The Prosecutor’s Office in Palu has decided that Fabianus Tibo, Marinus Riwu and Dominggus da Silva cannot receive the “spiritual guidance” hitherto provided by Fr Jimmy Tumbelaka in Petobo Prison, this according to Father Tumbelaka himself, who is also parish priest at Poso’s Saint Therese Parish church. The clergyman added that the prosecutor also banned a chapel of rest in Palu St Mary’s Cathedral for the three men as...

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...