Free Republic

The case of Sakineh Ashtiani was moved to a back burner after her death sentence drew intense international scrutiny and criticism, not unlike how Youcef Nadarkhani's case is dragging on more quietly after similar international condemnation of his death sentence for apostasy from Islam. In both cases, Iran tried to come up with other excuses to execute them and erode support for them. The murder charge against Ashtiani, which was applied later, seems to be an afterthought below, and it appears to be the adultery charge on which authorities are moving ahead. An update on this story. "Iranian woman convicted...

Donald Neilson has just died at the age of 75. He had been looked after by the State for the past 36 years, receiving three square meals a day which he didn’t pay for and he was provided with a warm and secure shelter. Contrast Neilson’s life to that of Lesley Whittle. At the age of just 17, it was snuffed out. She died alone and naked, with her neck tethered by a wire noose, down a 60ft reservoir drainage shaft. Such an ordeal would have been terrifying for anyone, let alone a teenage girl. Neilson was better known as...

Broward County home sales and prices rose in August from a year ago, brightening hopes for a housing recovery. The county had 1,185 sales of existing homes, up 19 percent from August 2010, the Florida Realtors said Wednesday. The median price was $191,800, a 5 percent increase from a year ago. It was Broward’s third consecutive gain in sales and prices. Five other metro areas in Florida also had sales and price increases in August. Still, analysts are cautious, saying they don’t expect a housing bottom until at least 2012. “Over the past few months, it appears that home prices...

TEA'd off What do you think about Rep. Carson's comments? I'm outraged. He should apologize immediately. Not a big deal. I see his point. I'm not sure.

John, the 14 year old son of my daughter's friend and co-worker, hung himself two days ago. When he was found, he still had a heartbeat and has been in intensive care, with no brain activity. Tonight, the family prepared to remove him from life support, but brain activity has started, and they are asking for prayers. If you read this, please pray for him and his family. I will post any updates I receive on this thread. Thank you so much.

OWENSBORO, Ky. - Bob Howe points to an overgrown, muddy patch of land in a cemetery in Owensboro, gesturing to where the grave of the last man publicly executed in the United States may be. "I think it was over there," said Howe, an 81-year-old lifelong Owensboro resident and retired county coroner. "I used to pass it on the way to school. That's what I was told. It was over there somewhere." The grave is anonymous and unmarked, like other places associated with Rainey Bethea's hanging Aug. 14, 1936. On the 75th anniversary of the execution, it is something some...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - When Abdulhakim Muhammad killed a soldier outside a recruiting station in Arkansas, he hoped the world would pay attention to the war he had declared on the United States. He took responsibility for the shooting, called it retaliation for U.S. military action the Middle East and claimed ties to al-Qaida. But when Muhammad goes on trial this week in Little Rock, he won't face any federal or terrorism charges. He complained he's being treated like a common criminal, with a state trial on a capital murder charge. There will be no grand stage for his...

An 11-year-old boy in Orange, MA is in the middle of flag controversy after he and his family claim one of his teachers banned him from hanging a picture of an American flag he drew in the classroom because it might offend other students. The boy‘s dad is adamant his son’s civil rights were violated. But the school has a different take, and says the prohibition was because the boy disobeyed instruction

Iranian-Dutch woman Zahra Bahrami hanged in Iran reports, Reports from Iran say Iranian-Dutch woman Zahra Bahrami was hanged on Saturday for selling and possessing drugs. ...Bahrami, a 46-year-old Iranian-born naturalised Dutch citizen, was reportedly arrested in December 2009 after joining a protest against the government while visiting relatives in the Islamic republic. This is entirely consistent with Iran's hasty invention of new charges (such as murder or drug trafficking) to justify the execution of a person for an action that is not a crime in civilized nations. Iran sentenced Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani to be stoned to death for adultery and,...

The Teheran regime has hanged 66 individuals since the end of 2010, according to France 24 International News. Among them was a 46-year-old Iranian-born, Dutch national Sahra Bahrami, who was hung on January 29 on drug-smuggling charges. Holland's Foreign Ministry said it was "shocked, shattered by this act by a barbaric regime," according to Agence France Presse. Bahrami's sister dismissed the Iranian charges, which she contended were fabricated. "She doesn't even smoke cigarettes, let alone possessing drugs. How could someone who participates in election gatherings and endangers her life, engage in such actions against her country?" she is quoted as...

Iran hanged on Tuesday a man found guilty of giving information on Iranian missiles to Israeli intelligence service Mossad, state news agency IRNA reported, quoting the Tehran prosecutor's office. Ali Akbar Siadat was hanged in Tehran's Evin prison after having been condemned to death for "working for Mossad," said the prosecutor's office, IRNA reported. Siadat was found guilty of having had links with Mossad for six years, said IRNA. "He had received $60,000 to give classified information to the Zionist regime," IRNA reported. IRNA said Siadat had acknowledged having established contacts with one Israeli embassy overseas and that he had...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - John Alan Conroy, 36, of Big Spring, Texas, pleaded guilty yesterday afternoon before U.S. District Judge Sam R. Cummings to one count of producing child pornography and one count of receipt of a visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct. He faces a statutory sentence of 15 to 50 years in prison, a $500,000 fine and a lifetime of supervised release. Judge Cummings ordered a pre sentence report with sentencing to be scheduled after the completion of that report. Conroy has been in custody since his arrest in July 2010 on a related...

The decision of the Iraqi war crimes tribunal to sentence Tariq Aziz to death is one that needs to be vigorously opposed for several reasons. Although it is true that, as Saddam Hussein's longtime henchman and deputy, he is morally tainted with some of the most appalling crimes in modern history, Aziz was not, in fact, condemned to execution for his part in the annexation of Kuwait, the destruction of the Marsh Arabs, or the attempted genocide against Iraq's Kurdish minority. (Indeed, there is some evidence that he advised his boss against the insane attack on Kuwait in 1990.) For...

BAGHDAD – Saddam Hussein's foreign minister Tariq Aziz was sentenced to death by hanging Tuesday for persecuting members of Shiite religious parties under the former regime. Iraq's high criminal court spokesman Mohammed Abdul Sahib did not say when Aziz, 74, would be put to death. The death sentence was for a conviction on charges of taking part in a Saddam-led campaign that hunted and executed members of the Shiite Dawa Party, of which current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is a member.

Japan has opened its execution chamber to the public for the first time in a move designed to inspire discussion over whether the country should scrap death penalty. TV footage from inside the Tokyo Detention House showed the trap door, the viewing room and rooms where the inmate can meet a cleric, with a Buddhist altar and a Buddha statue. The noose was not shown. Footage also showed the "button room", where three prison officers press a button at the same time to open the trap door, so it is not clear which button opened the door. Japan and the...

KABUL — Afghan President Hamid Karzai has held face-to-face talks with Sirajuddin Haqqani, leader of a particularly brutal militant group with ties to al-Qaida, Al Jazeera reported on Sunday. The presidential office reportedly denied that any meeting took place between Karzai and the Haqqani network, a group high on the CIA's hit list that is believed to have been behind some of the most sophisticated attacks across Afghanistan. Pakistan's army chief and the head of the country's intelligence services are thought to have accompanied Haqqani to the talks, sources told Al Jazeera. Pakistan's intelligence and military officials have long been...

As thousands of American troops pour into southern Afghanistan, insurgents have launched a vicious offensive against the Afghans supporting the surge. In the last day a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a wedding hosted by an anti-Taliban tribal leader, and insurgents publicly hanged someone who they labeled a spy for local troops. Men stand around coffins of blast victims outside a hospital in Kandahar city, Afghanistan,... Men stand around coffins of blast victims outside a hospital in Kandahar city, Afghanistan, Thursday, June 10, 2010. A suicide attack ripped through a wedding party in full swing in the Taliban's heartland...

HADLEY, Mass. - Lawyers for three teenage girls accused of participating in the bullying of a 15-year-old girl who committed suicide entered not guilty pleas Thursday on their behalf to charges including civil rights violations and criminal harassment. Ashley Longe, Sharon Chanon Velazquez and Flannery Mullins, all 16, did not appear in Franklin-Hampshire Juvenile Court for their arraignments. A judge ordered them to have no contact with the family of Phoebe Prince, a South Hadley High School freshman who hanged herself in January after what prosecutors called an "unrelenting" three-month bullying campaign by six teenagers. Prosecutors say Prince was targeted...

When Dr Harold Shipman, the worst serial killer in British history, committed suicide in 2004, the Home Secretary of the time David Blunkett confessed his first instinct on hearing the news was to 'open a bottle'. No doubt many felt the same way when they learnt that double child murderer Ian Huntley had been badly slashed across the throat in prison by a fellow inmate. Any sense of regret would be caused not by concern over Huntley's injuries, but the fact that his attacker failed to complete the job. Yet, in the wake of Shipman's death, Blunkett also expressed his...

Here is video from Iraqi TV that show the final moments of "Chemical Ali" today before he was executed in Iraq by hanging. Two still photos are shown in the video of Saddam's cousin, who was his primary enforcer and henchman. it shows Ali's face in one still shot, and them shows "Chemical Ali" with a hood over his head and a noose around his neck just before his execution today. This video report gives a good review of his life, brutality and capture that led up to his execution today. . . . (VIDEO)

Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, who was hanged Monday, ordered the infamous poison gas attack on the northern Iraqi Kurdish village of Halabja in 1988 that killed 5,000 people and earned him the chilling moniker "Chemical Ali." Mr. Majid was executed a week after he received his fourth death sentence on Jan. 17, the final one for the Halabja attack. He bore a striking resemblance to Mr. Hussein and was one of the most brutal members of the dictator's inner circle. The general led sweeping military campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s that claimed tens of thousands of lives–wiping...

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....

Discretion advised When you see footage such as this, with anti-regime Iranian protesters losing any concern about their own safety, it's hard to imagine the current leadership hanging on. Here, via Gateway Pundit, is brutal footage of protesters saving two men who were being hanged. Caution definitely advised. Not for the squeamish or faint of heart. video at site

She had no lawyer. She tried to defend herself. In the end the government took her to the noose. She was hung. The 16-year-old body was accused of committing "acts incompatible with chastity." Note date of article's first posting. What was happening then is happening now and will happen on into the future.

Here is how CBS News reported, in September, on the death of a census worker in Kentucky. “Terror in Kentucky: Census Worker's Murder. Body Found Naked, Hanging From Tree in Cemetery; Had Been Gagged, Duct Taped, 'Fed' Scrawled on Chest.. "'He was murdered,’ Weaver said. ‘There's no doubt.’ ... I said, 'Bill you be careful when you go over to eastern Kentucky to do your census work. Some of the people over there may not understand that you're just collecting statistics,' friend Gilbert Acciardo told CBS News.. “Although anti-government sentiment was one possibility in the death, some in law enforcement...

Remember the case of the Census worker who was found hanging from a tree with the word ‘fed' scrawled across his chest? You remember - he died at the hands of right-wing commentators and anti-government tea partiers. He was killed because of an overwhelming case of right-wing paranoia. He was murdered by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann, and Fox News. Keep this quiet though... While the death of Bill Sparkman was a media sensation for pushing anti-conservative sentiments just a couple of months ago, it is receiving little to no coverage currently. Why? Because, as investigators have recently speculated,...

The FBI is investigating the hanging of 51 year old census worker, Robert Sparkman. Sparkman was found hanging in a remote wooded area of west Kentucky in Clay County with the word “FED” scrawled on his chest. I was reading about this case this morning and of course, the thought came to mind that “right winged” extremists would be blamed for this event. I mean, geez, there is so much hatred for those who oppose the take over of America and “fundamentally transforming” America into a European style Socialist country that, of course, when a dead fed is found that,...

BIG CREEK, Ky. (AP) - A part-time census worker found hanging in a rural Kentucky cemetery was naked, gagged and had his hands and feet bound with duct tape, said an Ohio man who discovered the body two weeks ago. Jerry Weaver of Fairfield, Ohio, told The Associated Press on Friday that he was among a group of relatives who discovered the body of 51-year-old Bill Sparkman on Sept. 12. "The only thing he had on was a pair of socks," Weaver said. "And they had duct-taped his hands, his wrists. He had duct tape over his eyes, and they...

MANCHESTER, Ky. – When Bill Sparkman told retired trooper Gilbert Acciardo that he was going door-to-door collecting census data in rural Kentucky, the former cop drawing on years of experience warned: "Be careful." The 51-year-old Sparkman was found hanged from a tree near a Kentucky cemetery and had the word "fed" scrawled on his chest, a law enforcement official said Wednesday, and the FBI is investigating whether he was a victim of anti-government sentiment. "Even though he was with the Census Bureau, sometimes people can view someone with any government agency as 'the government.' I just was afraid that he...

After the mass demonstrations in Iran the ruling Mullahs hanged numerous opposition supporters. Today the Shiite leaders of Iran have continued with their Islamic blood lust and have hanged over a dozen of their Sunni rivals.

Iran hanged 13 members of a Sunni Muslim rebel group Tuesday convicted of bombings and killings in the country's restive southeast near the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, the state news agency reported. The mass execution was the largest ever carried out against members of Jundallah and was likely meant as a warning to the group, which is composed of Sunnis from the Baluchi ethnic minority. They have waged a low-level insurgency in recent years, accusing the mostly Shiite and Persian Iranian government of persecution. The group, whose name means Soldiers of God in Farsi, took credit for a suicide...

NEW DELHI (AP) — India's top court has refused to replace hanging with lethal injection as the country's sole method of execution, saying there is no evidence it is less painful than other ways. Monday's ruling rejected a petition by rights activist Ashok Kumar Walia, who said hanging was a "cruel and painful" method of execution and should be replaced by lethal injection, which is used in more than 30 U.S. states as a primary method of execution. "How do you know that hanging causes pain? And how do you know that injecting the condemned prisoner with a lethal drug...

SABINA AMIDI, Special to The Jerusalem Post As the Iranian authorities warned the opposition on Tuesday that they would tolerate no further protests over the disputed June 12 presidential elections, a report emerged of the hangings of six supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. Speaking after Iran's top legislative body upheld the election victory of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sources in Iran told this reporter in a telephone interview that the hangings took place in the holy city of Mashhad on Monday. There was no independent confirmation of the report. Underlining the climate of fear among direct and even indirect...

As the Iranian authorities warned the opposition on Tuesday that they would tolerate no further protests over the disputed June 12 presidential elections, a report emerged of the hangings of six supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. Speaking after Iran's top legislative body upheld the election victory of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sources in Iran told this reporter in a telephone interview that the hangings took place in the holy city of Mashhad on Monday. There was no independent confirmation of the report.

A rep for the Phoenix Police Department has just released the following statement regarding Mike Tyson's 4-year-old daughter: I was just advised by investigators that Exodus Tyson was pronounced deceased at 11:45 AM today at the hospital. Our sympathies go out to the family. Paramedics were called to Tyson's Phoenix home at around 10:30 Monday morning when his 7-year-old son found the young girl hanging from a treadmill by its power cable. Tyson's reps have no comment at this time.

NINE people, including a 30-year-old woman, have been hanged in Iran, state media reported yesterday. The state-run daily newspaper Iran said four of the nine including the woman were convicted of murder in separate cases and were hanged on Wednesday. The woman was found guilty of killing her husband with a hammer, it said.

The city man accused of biting a chunk from his 1-year-old son's neck and stabbing his ex-girlfriend committed suicide in Berks County Prison Friday night, state police said. Aaron Barragan-Cruz, 34, who had no known address when arrested but had lived in the 100 block of Rose Street, was found about 9:30 p.m., hanging by bedsheets tied to his bed in his prison cell. He had been alone in the cell. Troopers said guards and ambulance personnel tried to revive him but could not. He was pronounced dead by members of the Berks County coroner's office at 10:40 p.m. An...

Law enforcement sources said they found David Kellermann, acting chief financial officer of mortgage company Freddie Mac, hanging in the basement of his Reston, Va., home, dead from an apparent suicide early this morning. Virginia police say they found David Kellermann, acting chief financial officer of mortgage company Freddie Mac, hanging in the basement of his Reston home, dead from an apparent suicide early this morning. (ABC News)The death was "an active investigation" and there were "no signs of foul play," Fairfax County police officer Sabrina Ruck said. Local police said they were called to Kellermann's home at 4:48am. Kellermann,...

The acting head of Freddie Mac, David Kellermann, has apparently committed suicide, Fairfax County Police tell WTOP. Fairfax County Police spokeswoman Mary Anne Jennings says Kellermann, 41, was found at his Hunter Mill Estates home Wednesday morning. Jennings says police responded to the home after family members called police around 5 a.m. "We were called from inside the house to come investigate an apparent suicide," Jennings says. Because of legal ramifications, Jennings says she can't describe the nature of the suicide. "We're not to give you details of the condition of the body, except to say it was an apparent...

If we hang all “war criminals”, economic recovery will be easy and swift. They will be all dead. The dying industry benefits from it. But it is not the way you think it is. Highest troop surge in Iraq, 163,000. My estimate of some 50,000 more intelligence agents and security homeland security officers committed, together with the soldiers who obeyed the orders of their Commander-In-Chief, “war crimes”, according to the legalese of Obama’s hatchet men. Some 373 more Senators and Congressmen and Congresspersons are said to be Bush conspirators in committing “crimes against humanity” in Iraq. It includes then Sen....

It sounds sadistic but the deafening cry of the socialist Left and their radical Liberal satellites to hang the former Republican president and vice president for alleged “war crimes” is reaches far beyond Bush and Cheney themselves. The sword of anger is drawn not only to get them but also to strike down all U.S. presidents living or dead accused of genocide by foes abroad and by the enemy within. Let us clear this confusion generated by victorious socialist Democrats who are now publicly perceived as intoxicated by their newly found power since Obama won the last presidential election.The radical...

A 20-year-old Ghanaian has been sentenced to death in Singapore for trafficking 2.6 kilograms (5.73 pounds) of cannabis, the Straits Times reported Saturday. The High Court convicted and sentenced Chijioke Stephen Obioha on Tuesday after a 21-day trial held last year, it said. Under Singapore's tough anti-drug laws, the death penalty is mandatory for anyone caught trafficking more than 15 grams of heroin, 30 grams of cocaine or 500 grams of cannabis. The death penalty is carried out by hanging. Narcotics officers arrested Obioha in April 2007 following a surveillance operation. He had come to Singapore in 2005 to try...

It's a safe bet, dear reader, that the title of this column has caused you to either (a) roll your eyes and wonder, What century do you think we're living in? or (b) scratch your head and ask, Yes, why don't we? Wherever you come down, the question defines a fault line in the civilized world's view about the latest encroachment of barbarism. Year-to-date, Somalia-based pirates have attacked more than 90 ships, seized more than 35, and currently hold 17. Some 280 crew members are being held hostage, and two have been killed. Billions of dollars worth of cargo have...

Authorities at the University of Kentucky are trying to find out who hung an effigy of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on campus. College spokesman Carl Nathe said it was found hanging from a tree Wednesday morning. Police immediately took it down. School President Lee Todd says that he plans to personally apologize to the Obama family on behalf of the university and that he is "personally offended and deeply embarrassed by this disgusting episode." It's the second time an effigy has been found on a college campus recently. Earlier this week, George Fox University in Oregon said it was...

A Halloween decoration showing a mannequin dressed as vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin hanging by a noose from the roof of a West Hollywood home is drawing giggles from some passers-by and gasps of outrage from others. The mannequin is dressed in brunet wig, glasses and a red business suit. Another mannequin dressed as John McCain emerges from a flaming chimney. Chad Michael Morisette, who lives in the house, told CBS 2 News that drivers and bus passengers have been stopping to snap pictures of the macabre scene. Morisette says the effigy would be out of bounds at any other...

Iran to hang 30 convicts on Sunday TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Thirty people convicted of drug and other criminal charges will be hanged on Sunday, Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency reported Saturday. The 30 had their cases tried by the highest judicial authorities and were found guilty of the charges brought against them, Iran's judiciary said in a statement. The verdicts are final, and the sentences will be carried out Sunday, according to Fars. According to Amnesty International, Iran executed 317 people last year, second only to China's 470. The U.S. executed 42 people in 2007, according to Amnesty International....

The executions took place in the north-eastern city of Sabzeva, Reuters news agency reported. It was not revealed what crimes those executed had been accused of, nor how they were killed or when, but the radio report said they were "wicked people". On Saturday four others, convicted of murder, were publicly hanged in the southern province of Bushehr, an Iranian newspaper reported. Murder, rape, adultery, drug trafficking, armed robbery and apostasy - the abandoning of religious faith - all carry the death penalty under Iranian Sharia law. In January, Iran's judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi ordered that all public executions...

PARIS (AFP) - New evidence has emerged that a large plate of floating ice shelf attached to Antarctica is breaking up, in a troubling sign of global warming, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Thursday. Images taken by its Envisat remote-sensing satellite show that Wilkins Ice Shelf is "hanging by its last thread" to Charcot Island, one of the plate's key anchors to the Antarctic peninsula, ESA said in a press release. "Since the connection to the island... helps stabilise the ice shelf, it is likely the breakup of the bridge will put the remainder of the ice shelf...

TOKYO (AFP) — Japan on Tuesday executed three people including notorious serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki, a fetishist convicted of murdering four little girls and eating some of their bodies, officials said. Miyazaki, 45, was nicknamed the "killer nerd" for his obsession with sexual cartoons and pornography. But defence lawyers contended he was mentally ill and could not be held fully responsible for his actions. Japan is the only major industrialised nation other than the United States to apply the death penalty and has been stepping up the pace of executions, which enjoy wide public support. "We are carrying out executions...

Japan hangs 3 convicted murderers By MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press writer 9 minutes ago A serial killer who mutilated the bodies of four young girls and reportedly drank the blood of one of his victims was among three convicted murderers executed in Japan on Tuesday for crimes an official called indescribably cruel. Tsutomu Miyazaki, 45, whose rash of grisly killings in the late 1980s triggered calls for tighter restrictions on violent pornographic videos, was hanged at a detention center in Tokyo, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said. Miyazaki burned the body of one 4-year-old and left her bones on her parents'...