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Iran said yesterday that it had executed two men for plotting to overthrow the regime. They are the first to be put to death after more than 100 dissidents went on trial following President Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election last June. The hangings of Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour marked an escalation in the regime’s attempts to crush the opposition movement through Iran’s clerical courts. The two men were hanged before dawn, hours before prosecutors announced death sentences for five more opposition members arrested in connection with the protests on the Shia holy day of Ashura last month in which...

A well-known face of the former government of Saddam Hussein widely known as Chemical Ali was executed Monday for ordering a gas attack on a Kurdish village in northern Iraq and for his role in other attacks that became notorious symbols of Mr. Hussein’s tenure. An Iraqi court had sentenced the man, Ali Hassan al-Majid, to death by hanging last week. He is known here as Chemical Ali because of the attack on the village of Halabja, in which more than 5,000 Kurds died. “I congratulate the Iraqi people for this sentence,” said a lawmaker, Safia Suhail. It was Mr....

Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majeed -- also known as Chemical Ali -- was executed Monday, an Iraqi government spokesman said. He was hanged after having been convicted on 13 counts of killings and genocide, Ali al-Dabagh said.

Execution set for Thursday Julius Young beat a Tulsa woman and her 6-year-old son to death in 1993. His execution will be the state's first for the year. DEATH ROWJulius Ricardo Young: The 60-year-old was convicted of the beating deaths of Joyland Morgan and her 6-year-old son, Kewan. Their bodies were discovered in separate rooms of their apartment on Oct. 1, 1993. Evidence indicated that Young broke into their Tulsa home and beat the woman and child with a blunt instrument.   By DEON J. HAMPTON World Staff Writer Published: 1/10/2010  2:26 AM Last Modified: 1/10/2010  4:46 AM A death-row inmate...

A man convicted of gunning down a police officer during an attempted bank robbery was set to receive a lethal injection Thursday, the first execution of the year in the nation's busiest death penalty state. Kenneth Mosley, 51, was condemned to death for the February 1997 slaying of David Moore, a Garalnd police officer. Mosley was set for execution twice last year but technical issues and court appeals stalled the punishment. His attorneys said his appeals now were exhausted. "We just can't find anything," Bruce Anton said. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied a request for clemency for...

A 33-year-old El Monte school board member and five other men were shot dead execution-style in north central Mexico on Wednesday night, after they were abducted by gunmen, according to family members. Agustin Roberto “Bobby” Salcedo was having dinner with his wife in a restaurant when armed men burst in and kidnapped Salcedo and five other men. All six were found dead Thursday, El Monte officials said. Salcedo’s wife was not abducted.

Four foreigners face execution over China drugs: report (AFP) – 5 hours ago HONG KONG — Four foreigners could face the death penalty in China after their arrests in connection with a major heroin bust, a report said Thursday, days after the execution of a Briton convicted on drugs charges. The foreigners are among nine people arrested in September in southern China after police uncovered about 145 kilograms (320 pounds) of heroin stuffed inside cotton bales, the Hong Kong-based Ta Kung Pao newspaper reported. The paper did not specify the nationalities of the four foreigners. "Under Chinese law they may...

Here is a video report on news that China has executed a British citizen for "Drug Smuggling," despite pleas from the British Government and his family to spare his life. Akmal Shaikh was arrested and charged with possessing heroin in 2007. Shaikh's family said he was mentally ill, and appealed to the Chinese to not execute him. The Chinese ambassador Fu Ying has been summoned to the Foreign Office amid a growing row between the UK and China over the execution of a British man. Akmal Shaikh, 53, a father-of-three from London, was executed in China after being convicted of...

Condemned Briton's 'Heartbroken' Family Beg For Compassion from China The family of Akmal Shaikh, the British man condemned to death in China, have made a last-minute appeal to the Chinese authorities to show mercy. By David Eimer in Beijing 28 Dec 2009 Akmal Shaikh, a British national who is facing the death penalty in China for possession of heroin Photo: AFP/GETTY Mr Shaikh is due to be executed in Urumqi at 10.30am Tuesday morning local time for heroin smuggling. "We're here to plead for clemency and we hope the Chinese government shows compassion. His life is in their hands now,"...

Northeast China's Liaoning province has become the first province in the country to make lethal injection the standard practice for all its death penalty convicts. The Higher People's Court of Liaoning announced on Wednesday that all cities in the province have adopted the method, which means execution by gunshot will no longer be used. "Lethal injection can reduce the fear and suffering experienced by criminals," the court said in a statement on its website. "It can also help preserve the body of the convicts after death. "It is a symbol of the progress of civilization, and it also serves to...

China yesterday executed the former manager of a securities company who embezzled millions of dollars - the first execution of an executive from the country's financial sector, Xinhua said. Some wanted Yang Yanming to be kept alive so he would explain where the 65 million yuan ($9.5 million) went, news reports said. Yang, 51, served as general manager of the Beijing securities trading department of China Great Wall Trust and Investment Corp from 1997 to 2003. He was sentenced to death in Dec, 2005.

Ohio executed a killer Tuesday by performing the nation's first lethal injection using a single drug, a supposedly less painful method than previous executions that required three drugs. Kenneth Biros was pronounced dead at 11:47 a.m. Tuesday, about 10 minutes after one dose of thiopental sodium began flowing into his veins at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. The U.S. Supreme Court had rejected his final appeal about two hours before. Experts predicted the thiopental sodium would take longer to kill the 51-year-old Biros than the convention three-drug cocktail, but the 10 minutes it apparently took him to die...

Ohio prison officials executed a death row inmate, Kenneth Biros, Tuesday with a one-drug intravenous lethal injection, a method never before used on a human. The new method, which involved a large dose of anesthetic, akin to how animals are euthanized, has been hailed by most experts as painless and an improvement over the three-drug cocktail used in most states, but it is unlikely to settle the debate over the death penalty. While praising the shift to a single drug, death penalty opponents argue that Ohio’s new method, and specifically its backup plan of using intra-muscular injection, has not been...

/begin my translation N. Korea: Two Executed by Firing Squad for Using Others to Swap Old Bills for New 2009.12.08 09:24 There is a report that two businessmen were executed by firing squad, which was carried out off the public view. They tried to get around (strict) rules for currency swapping. Quoting its source inside N. Korea, Open Radio for N. Korea, which broadcasts into N. Korea, reported on Dec. 7 that two businessmen in the city of Pyongsung, who had old bills totaling 11 million Won(N. Korean currency unit) from their sales, tried to convert them into new bills...

A 44-year-old Texas man was executed Thursday evening for raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl, despite pleas from his attorneys he was too mentally impaired to qualify for capital punishment.

<p>A 44-year-old Texas man was executed Thursday evening for raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl, despite pleas from his attorneys he was too mentally impaired to qualify for capital punishment.</p> <p>Bobby Wayne Woods received lethal injection about a half-hour after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt his punishment, which was delayed briefly until the high court ruled in his case. His lawyers had argued Woods was mentally impaired, making him ineligible for execution, and that previous appeals to spare Woods' life were unsuccessful because of shoddy work by his lawyer at the time.</p>

In a half-mile-long procession of motorcycles and patrol cars with their lights flashing, the Lakewood Police Department brought its four fallen officers home Tuesday morning. The bodies of the four officers slain Sunday morning were taken from the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s building at South 36th Street and Pacific Avenue to Mountain View Funeral Home on Steilacoom Boulevard in Lakewood. They had been brought to the Medical Examiner early Sunday evening from Parkland where they were shot by a similar escort of Lakewood officers.
Four Lakewood Fire Department Medic One units carried the bodies of Officers Mark Renninger, 39; Ronald...

Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- Investigators searching for the suspected killer of four Seattle-area police officers have rounded up several of his relatives and friends to keep them from helping him escape, a sheriff's spokesman said Monday. Police have brought in five or six relatives and other acquaintances of Maurice Clemmons, "and we expect that number to grow," Pierce County Sheriff's Department spokesman Ed Troyer said. Some of Clemmons' family and friends have been trying to help him elude police and seek treatment for a gunshot wound, and they have tried to divert investigators by calling in false leads, he said....

<p>A Pierce County sheriff's spokesman says authorities believe the man sought in the slaying of four police officers is still alive and has been aided by a network of friends and family.</p> <p>Spokesman Ed Troyer said Monday night that police have questioned several people who had provided assistance to Maurice Clemmons since the Sunday morning shootings. Troyer says investigators now think Clemmons is on his own.</p>

Note: Video included. # November 29, 2009 "4 officers shot dead in Wash. coffee shop 'ambush'" CNN.com SNIPPET: "LAKEWOOD, Wash. — SNIPPET: "A $10,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest, he said. Police are looking for one man and possibly a second person in the attack, which occurred about 8 a.m., Troyer said. The suspect is described as an African-American man, between 5 feet 7 inches and 5 feet 10 inches tall, wearing a black coat and blue jeans, with a "scruffy" appearance, he said. The man is believed to have fled the coffee shop on foot,...