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Executions fuel Saudi fury over pardon By John R Bradley in Jeddah 11 August 2003 The public beheading of an Afghan and a Pakistani yesterday for drug smuggling has exacerbated the anger among ordinary Saudis at the royal pardon given last week to five Britons and a Canadian found guilty of alcohol smuggling and a string of bombings.A British national escaped unhurt last week after being shot at while driving his car and there are concerns for the security of other expatriate Britons living in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia imposes the death penalty for murder, rape, apostasy, armed robbery and...

A CHIEF executioner to one of Saddam’s sons has revealed how he helped drag two victims into a cage to be devoured by lions. The executioner said that he was ordered to seize two 19-year-old students and take them to a farm of Uday Hussein, Saddam’s oldest son who was killed by American forces last week. As soon as they arrived the students were dragged to a cage containing the lions and forced inside. “I saw the head of the first student literally come off his body with the first bite,” he said. He then had to stand and watch...

Summary executions become routine in Aceh as Jakarta's generals break their promises By Kathy Marks in Seunade, Aceh 26 May 2003 The handsome young army captain with the elegant moustache lit another cigarette and placed it between his perfect white teeth. "You must understand," he said, languidly blowing a smoke ring into the air. "We want to protect human rights. We don't want to kill the wrong people." Two miles down the road, the village of Seunade has just experienced the Indonesian military's interpretation of protecting human rights. On Friday, three men were gunned down on a bridge as they...

Travis County calls for execution ban 05/18/2003 By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News AUSTIN – In an unprecedented request to the Legislature, Travis County commissioners have joined a chorus of death penalty critics across the nation and asked state lawmakers to temporarily halt executions in Texas. Led by Travis County Judge Sam Biscoe, the Commissioners Court made its county the first in the state to take such action, calling for a moratorium until the fairness of the capital punishment law can be assessed. This year, Houston Mayor Lee Brown asked Gov. Rick Perry to postpone executions of some...

The following email was sent to Rush. To listen to Rush read this email (complete with his all knowing commentary) click here. http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_041103/content/who_s_responsible_for_more_deaths__enron_or_cnn_.guest.html This man (Eason Jordan) is disgusting. He lifts rationalizing to new heights. To tell the truth or not to tell the truth, that is the question. Is it nobler in the mind to tell the truth and save some lives, or to refrain, thus costing more lives over time. Oh, and silly me. I thought it was a journalists duty to report the truth. But not when it interferes with the bottom line apparently. After all CNN...

Saddam executes 60 Iraqi officers PAUL GALLAGHER SADDAM Hussein has executed 60 army officers and replaced them with some of his most fanatical supporters to dissuade soldiers from deserting in the face of allied attack, according to an exiled Iraqi general. Mohammed Nafee, who was a commander in Saddam’s forces in the Iran-Iraq war, claims the purge of the army higher ranks took place at the weekend. He has contacted Iraqi military sources in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, who passed on news of the mass executions. Mr Nafee said the commanding officers of army units considered most likely to surrender were...

FOX NEWS: Major Garret Reports that POWS Were EXECUTED, by being SHOT in head

<p>Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera showed footage Sunday of what it said were five U.S. prisoners, including one woman.</p> <p>The station showed footage of the alleged soldiers being questioned by their captors and being asked things such as where they were from and their names. The tape that was broadcast was reportedly provided by Iraqi television and was edited.</p>

Supreme Court stays Texas 300 execution Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court, acting on appeals that raised questions about the legitimacy of his conviction, granted a last-minute reprieve Wednesday to keep condemned killer Delma Banks from becoming the 300th prisoner executed in Texas. "I just thank the Lord," Banks said when informed by prison officials about 10 minutes before he could have been moved to the death chamber gurney. "Give Jesus all the credit." Family members waiting outside the prison Wednesday night jumped joyously and hugged as word spread. "I wish we could have brought it...

ARBITRARY AND SUMMARY KILLINGSExecutions are carried out without due process of law. Relatives are often prevented from burying the victims in accordance with Islamic practice, and have even been charged for the bullets used. Human rights organisations, such as Human Rights Watch, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iraq have reported the phenomenon of killing inmates in order to 'cleanse' the prisons. In 1984, 4,000 political prisoners were executed at a single prison, the Abu Ghraib. An estimated 2,500 prisoners were executed between 1997 and 1999 in a further "prison cleansing" campaign. In February 2000,...

<p>ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) --Ivory Coast rebels summarily executed 60 prisoners -- paramilitary police and their children last year as they cowered in their cells, Amnesty International said Thursday.</p> <p>Rebel officials denied the report, which the rights group said was based on the statements of 12 adults who survived the massacre.</p>

DAMMAM, 18 February 2003 — At first sight Ahmad Rezkallah is a pleasant man with a nice, broad smile. He expresses himself with the confidence of the professional man he is — Saudi Arabia’s most senior executioner. Rezkallah told Al-Majalla, a sister publication of Arab News, that he drifted into the profession by chance. “About 23 years ago the government asked for volunteers,” he explained. “I was 20 years old at the time, and the youngest in my group.” Because of his youth, people doubted he would be successful. “But I rose to it as a challenge,” he recalls. He...

Question of the day: Should Missouri go through with its first execution of the year, set for next week, or should it impose a moratorium like Illinois did?

Mexico has repeatedly argued with the US over executions Mexico has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague to stop the United States from executing dozens of Mexicans held on death row. The Mexican ambassador in The Hague said the dispute was not about the US' right to execute criminals, but about alleged violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Mexico wants its nationals to be retried, arguing that the US failed to inform the prisoners of their right to access to consular officials. Along with other American allies, Mexico has repeatedly voiced its concerns...

REMEMBER SADDAM HUSSEIN’S ATROCITIES J. Grant Swank, Jr., POB 1984, Windham ME 04062 Pastor, New Hope Church, Windham ME Lest we grow numb to Saddam Hussein’s atrocities, let us keep in the forefront of our ethics what devilment this “evil” fiend has been up to. Such is the crucial component regarding what a free, morally sensitive global citizenry must do in response to Hussein’s ongoing dark presence in our world. He is a hatchet man of the first order: - Sheikh Taleb Al Souhail, outstanding Iraqi leader and chief of the Bani Tamim tribe, was murdered by Hussein’s intelligence service,...

<p>SAN FRANCISCO - The California Department of Corrections has ended its six-year and largely unsuccessful legal battle with the media over witnessing executions in full, a department spokesman said Monday.</p> <p>The announcement means the media and other witnesses to executions at San Quentin State Prison will watch as executioners walk the inmate to a gurney, strap him down and insert the deadly poison with needles until death.</p>

CHICAGO - Calling the death penalty process "arbitrary and capricious, and therefore immoral," Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences of 167 condemned inmates Saturday, clearing Illinois' death row in a move unprecedented in scale in U.S. history. Ryan's action, just two days before he leaves office, drew immediate angry reaction from prosecutors, the incoming governor and relatives of some of the victims. Ryan said he sympathized with the families of the men, women and children who had been murdered, but he felt he had to act. "I am not prepared to take the risk that we may execute an innocent...

<p>NEW YORK -- Robert Blecker sat quietly as other professors ticked off their reasons for opposing the death penalty: It's unfair to blacks. It doesn't really deter crime. Innocent people could be executed.</p> <p>But Blecker, a professor at New York Law School, was having none of it. When it was his turn to speak at the recent death-penalty forum at John Jay College, he summed up his support for executions in three words: ''Barbara Jo Brown.''</p>

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico said Thursday it has asked the World Court in the Hague to resolve the case of 54 Mexicans on death row in the United States who allegedly were denied their rights to consular representation under an international treaty. Mexico's foreign relations department has made such allegations against the United States in the past -- one recent case led President Vicente Fox to cancel a meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush last summer. But this is the first time officials have brought the matter to an international court. In a news release, the foreign relations...

I am looking for a picture of an afghan woman being executed in the afghan soccer stadium. It is for a college project. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you