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Mexico, who allows hundred of thousands of its citizens ("immigrants") to illegally cross over into the United States each year, has shown its "compassionate" side. The Mexican government has appealed to the World Court to "take urgent measures" to get the U.S. to stay all executions of Mexicans on Death Row in American jails. Amazingly, President Bush had already agreed with the World Court back in 2004. The court, which resides at the Hague in the Netherlands, ruled that the trials of some 50 Mexicans on Death Row were in violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention. It was then that...

Ten more "official" executions last week bring the number to 50 or the same pace of one a day since January 1st, 2008. Perma Link http://terrornewsbriefs.blogspot.com/2008/02/iran-executions-continue-at-one-day.html Also look at the video article asking to compare 30-yeafrs of the Mullahs with about that of the Monarchy and deciding which you rather have now in Iran.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- If six suspected terrorists are sentenced to death at Guantanamo Bay for the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. Army regulations that were quietly amended two years ago open the possibility of execution by lethal injection at the military base in Cuba, experts said Tuesday. Any executions would probably add to international outrage over Guantanamo, since capital punishment is banned in 130 countries, including the 27-nation European Union. Conducting the executions on U.S. soil could open the way for the detainees' lawyers to go to U.S. courts to fight the death sentences. But the updated regulations make...

Iran's Chief Judge Orders an End to Executions in Public January 30, 2008 The Associated Press Santa Barbara News-Press TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's chief judge has ordered that executions will no longer take place in public, the official IRNA news agency reported Wednesday. Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, a moderate conservative cleric, also banned publishing pictures and broadcasting video footage of executions, the report said. Executions can now only be carried out in public after special approval by the head of the judiciary, the report said. Since the start of this year, Iran has hanged more than 20 people convicted of...

Two former prison employees have filed federal lawsuits against South Carolina Department of Corrections director Jon Ozmint and another official, saying they were forced to perform executions in order to keep leadership positions. Ira Baxley and Terry Bracey say they were not trained properly to perform the executions or given counseling, according to the lawsuits, both filed Tuesday. Baxley, a 22-year prison employee, was a major in charge of the SWAT team. Bracey was a security division major and a 23-year employee, according to the lawsuits. Baxley's suit claims that operations director Robert Ward "made it clear that (Baxley) could...

Nashville, Tenn. (AP) -- A federal judge has ruled that Tennessee's procedure for lethal injections is cruel and unusual punishment. U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger's ruling could halt an execution scheduled for next week.

Baghdad, Sept 7, (VOI) – Three of the six defendants in the Anfal case will be executed by hanging on Saturday, a Saudi newspaper quoted the lawyer of former Iraqi deputy premier Tareq Aziz as saying. "The Iraqi Criminal Court notified Ali Hassan al-Majid, alias Chemical Ali, former defense minister Sultan Hashim and former chief of staff Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti that they will be executed tomorrow," lawyer Badie Aref Ezzat told Saudi newspaper al-Watan, published on Friday. The lawyer said he was told by the three convicts that they only wanted to meet their families before the executions. Ezzat said...

BRUSSELS, Belgium — The European Union on Tuesday urged the governor of Texas to halt executions and introduce a moratorium on capital punishment in the United States' busiest death penalty state. In an unusual direct appeal, the EU said Texas Gov. Rick Perry must "exercise all powers vested in his office" to halt the impending 400th execution since Texas resumed carrying out death sentences in 1982. The execution of Johnny Ray Conner is scheduled for this week. He is to die for the shooting death of a Houston grocery store owner during an attempted holdup in 1998, "The European Union...

Texas will almost certainly hit the grim total of 400 executions this month, far ahead of any other state, testament to the influence of the state's conservative evangelical Christians and its cultural mix of Old South and Wild West. "In Texas you have all the elements lined up. Public support, a governor that supports it and supportive courts," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "If any of those things are hesitant then the process slows down," said Dieter. "With all cylinders working as in Texas it produces a lot of executions." Texas has executed 398...

Iran has just carried out the largest wave of executions since 1984. It is early dawn as seven young men are led to the gallows amid shouts of "Allah Akbar" (Allah is the greatest) from a crowd of bearded men as a handful of women, all in hijab, ululate to a high pitch. A few minutes later, the seven are hanged as a mullah shouts: "Alhamd li-Allah" (Praise be to Allah). The scene was Wednesday in Mashad, Iran's second most populous city, where a crackdown against "anti-Islam hooligans" has been under way for weeks. The Mashad hangings, broadcast live on...

As the U.S. wound up its second meeting with Iran to discuss the security of Iraq, the Iranian regime continued to face its own escalating insecurity. The deterioration of Iran’s economy, increase in civil unrest and sharp deterioration of human rights under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are three examples of a nation unraveling at the seams. Ahmadinejad has taken desperate measures to reign in the escalating civil unrest throughout Iranian society by closing newspapers, enforcing strict dress codes and stepping up public hangings and stonings. The high priority of implementing these new “security measures” was made clear in a July 2007...

The authors of the war that nearly everybody thought was necessary at the time seem genuinely puzzled that so many Americans think all of Arabia isn't worth the life of a single American soldier. If they're curious about why, the folks at the White House should read the stories that occasionally make it only to the back pages of the newspapers. Item (London Daily Telegraph): "The imminent execution of a teenage maid in Saudi Arabia drew fierce criticism yesterday and provoked condemnation of the kingdom's prolific use of capital punishment. The case has brought fresh attention to the draconian Saudi...

Militants have crucified Christians in Iraq, including converts from Islam and people involved in "mixed marriages," a senior Dutch parliamentarian has established. Joel Voordewind of the governing coalition’s junior party 'ChristianUnie', or ChristianUnion (CU), said he managed to confirm information received from a "trustworthy source" at the United Nations about the recent crucifixions, according to declarations obtained by BosNewsLife Monday, July 16. Several Iraqi Christians "are nailed to a cross and their arms are tied up with ropes. The ropes are put on fire," Voordewind said. Voordewind described how a person, who "survived" a crucifixion, "even showed holes in his...

LUCASVILLE, Ohio - An overweight inmate was executed by injection Thursday after a delay of more than an hour while prison medical staff struggled to find suitable veins in his arms. The execution of Christopher Newton, who had killed a cellmate in 2001 and insisted on the death sentence, had been set to begin at 10 a.m. But members of the medical staff at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility struggled to find veins in each arm, said Leo Jennings, a spokesman for the attorney general. Newton, 37, was pronounced dead shortly before noon. He weighed 265 at his physical on...

Arizona conducted its first execution in seven years, after administering a lethal injection to Robert Comer. Comer was convicted in a 1987 crime spree in which he killed a fellow camper at Apache Lake east of Phoenix. Additionally, he was also convicted of repeatedly, brutally raping a female camper the same night, in front of her boyfriend. Robert Comer was termed the most dangerous man in the Arizona prison system. Comer is the first inmate to be put to death in Arizona since Donald Miller was executed November 8, 2000, for participating in the murder of an 18-year-old woman. The...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California said on Tuesday it would revise its lethal injection procedure to ensure "a dignified end of life" for condemned inmates as it seeks to overcome a U.S. judge's objections to the procedure. In December, Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose ruled the "implementation of lethal injection is broken, but it can be fixed" and gave the nation's most-populous state a chance to revise how it metes out its ultimate punishment. Lawyers for a condemned California inmate had argued that lethal injection was "cruel and unusual" punishment barred by the U.S. Constitution. With the fate of...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A man convicted of killing a Memphis police officer in 1981 was executed early Wednesday after a court rejected defense pleas for more time to examine newly revised execution protocols. Philip Workman, whose execution had been delayed on five prior occasions, became Tennessee's third lethal injection since 2000. The Tennessee Supreme Court rejected a final defense request for more time to challenge the way the state carries out its three-chemical injection procedure. A federal judge halted Workman's execution last week over concerns about the revisions, but a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A federal judge in Nashville this afternoon delayed the scheduled execution of Philip Workman. He was scheduled to die by lethal injection early next Wednesday. U-S District Judge Todd Campbell ruled shortly after Workman's attorneys asked for a delay on grounds they did not have time to file complaints against new execution procedures. The new guidelines were released Wednesday. Workman was convicted for the 1981 shooting death of Memphis police Lieutenant Ronald Oliver after a fast food robbery. He twice has come within hours of execution before the courts stepped in. Campbell cited the likelihood that...

Tennessee is ready to resume executions under new rules it released Monday, using a three-drug lethal injection method opponents say is still inhumane and unconstitutional. Gov. Phil Bredesen will lift a 90-day moratorium on executions on Wednesday. Philip Workman, convicted of killing a Memphis police officer, is scheduled to die May 9. "It's essentially the same protocol as before, with a little window dressing," Nashville attorney Brad MacLean said. Among the complaints MacLean and other defense lawyers have about the execution method is the use of three chemicals to kill inmates. Last week a medical review of dozens of executions...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A death-row inmate who had vowed not to go willingly to the death chamber set a fire in his cell Thursday, but when the time came, walked to his death without a fight. Roy Lee Pippin, 51, was executed by lethal injection for the deaths of two Florida men gunned down in a dispute about missing drug money. From the gurney, he blamed the jury, the trial judge and the prosecutor, and said that he was innocent. "You will answer to your maker when God has found out that you have executed an innocent man. May God...