Free Republic

NEW DELHI: Santosh Kumar Singh, sentenced to death for raping and murdering fellow student Priyadarshani Mattoo in 1996, is "absolutely depressed" and has not eaten since he heard the verdict, Tihar Jail officials said Tuesday. Santosh Kumar, who had been practising as a lawyer and is the son of a retired senior Delhi Police official, is now lodged in Jail-II, specially meant for convicts. He did not sleep well Monday night after the court delivered its verdict that he would "hang till death", a top prison official, said. "He is shell-shocked and is not talking freely. We have counselled him...

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.

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...

A television documentary team has pieced together details surrounding the case of a 16-year-old girl, executed two years ago in Iran. Atefah Sahaaleh: wrongly described as being 22 years old On 15 August, 2004, Atefah Sahaaleh was hanged in a public square in the Iranian city of Neka. Her death sentence was imposed for "crimes against chastity". The state-run newspaper accused her of adultery and described her as 22 years old. But she was not married - and she was just 16. Sharia Law In terms of the number of people executed by the state in 2004, Iran is estimated...

Body Found Hanging Outside VFW Post in Ky.2 hours, 17 minutes ago WINCHESTER, Ky. - A man apparently hanged himself outside a Veterans of Foreign Wars post early Wednesday morning, just hours after someone burned an American flag in the same place, Winchester police said. Detective James Hall said foul play was not suspected. Hall said the dead man was found by a passer-by about 1 a.m., about two hours after the flag was burned. He was dressed in civilian clothes and found hanging by the flagpole rope, Hall said. The man had not been identified Wednesday afternoon. Clark County...

BAGHDAD, March 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Iraq hanged 13 insurgents on Thursday, a government statement said. The insurgents were convicted of the terrorist crimes,including murder, kidnappings and bombings, the state television quoted the statement as saying. "They were hanged after they confessed to committing terrorist crimes resulting in the killing of dozens of innocent Iraqis," the statement said. "Shukar Ferid, one of the hanged insurgents, confessed he was recruited to spread the chaos through killing and bombing," the statement said. Three members of the al-Qaida-linked Islamist group Ansar al-Sunna were hanged on Sept. 1, 2005, the first executions being carried...

Iraqis Hang 13 Insurgents; Blasts Kill 11 Mar 09 1:14 PM US/Eastern By SAMEER N. YACOUB Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD, Iraq The Iraqi government said 13 insurgents were hanged Thursday in the first executions of militants since capital punishment was reinstated in Iraq after the end of the U.S. occupation. Also Thursday, explosions killed 11 civilians and wounded 19 as a dust storm enveloped the capital. The U.S. military, meanwhile, confirmed that a mass abduction from a security firm was the work of kidnappers masquerading as Interior Ministry commandos. In Iraqi politics, Shiite Muslim politicians said they had asked President...

NAGOYA, Japan — Like all prisoners on Japan's death row, Masao Akahori knew that his execution would come without warning. The fear made him stiffen at the sound of the guards' approaching footsteps, wondering if the clack of boots was a countdown to death or would pass by, fading into the silence of another reprieve. One morning in the early 1970s, the march stopped outside Akahori's cell and a key turned the lock. "We have come to fetch you," the guards told him. Akahori remembers his legs collapsing under him, that five guards had to drag him from his cell....

Had Driven Into Car Dealership Last Weekend Gerald Georgettis, 56, was obviously a troubled man... and his life came to an end Wednesday, on a United Airlines flight from Washington, DC to Los Angeles. Georgettis achieved notoriety last weekend after he drove his Ford Escape into the Miami-Dade, FL car dealership where he had just purchased the small SUV. He then poured gasoline on the vehicle, and lit a match. The resulting fire caused nearly $1 million in damages to the dealership and the cars parked in its showroom. Media outlets throughout the country picked up the story. Earlier...

DENVER (AP) - A Miami man apparently hanged himself in an airplane lavatory during a United Airlines flight from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, and the plane was diverted to Denver after his body was discovered, police said Thursday. The Denver medical examiner's office identified the man as Gerald Georgettis, 56, and said his body was found on Wednesday. Medical examiner's spokeswoman Michelle Weiss-Samaras said an autopsy was planned. Police detective Virginia Lopez said no other passengers were ever in danger. "Right now, everything leads us to believe the male involved did commit suicide," she said. United officials did not...

Mitchell Rupe, a former death row inmate once found too obese to hang, died at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla on Tuesday following a long illness, a prison spokeswoman said. He was 51. Spokeswoman Lori Scamahorn said Rupe died in the prison hospital, where he'd been since Jan. 3 in the final stages of liver disease. Rupe shot two Olympia bank tellers to death at point-blank range during a 1981 robbery. Juries twice sentenced him to death, but higher courts overturned the sentences. In 1994, a federal judge upheld his conviction but agreed with Rupe's contention that at...

Monday, December 12, 2005 PAKISTANI MILITANTS CALL FOR ELIMINATION OF CHRISTIANS AND PUBLIC HANGING OF BLASPHEMY PRISONER By Jeremy Reynalds Special Correspondent for ASSIST News Service SURREY, ENGLAND (ANS) -- Militant Islamists in Pakistan have called for the elimination of Christians and the public hanging of a Christian accused of blasphemy. According to a news release from human rights organization Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), about 3,000 Muslims gathered for Friday prayers at the Jamia Mosque in Sangla Hill on Dec. 2. It was at that location three weeks earlier that three churches, a school, a convent and Christian homes were...

In one South Florida community, a man's holiday decorations are causing holiday fear for local children instead of creating holiday cheer. Residents called police and complained to the city that a house in Miami Beach had a life-sized, blindfolded Santa Claus doll hanging from a tree with its hands tied. Some residents were furious and said their naughty neighbor put jolly old St. Nick in a position that is not too merry. But even police officers couldn't save a Santa who was bound, gagged and hanging for the holidays. The owner of the house said it's freedom of speech. But...

THIS is no way to remember Nguyen Tuong Van. This steals from him the only thing that in some small way might justify his brutal execution last Friday. Have we forgotten that this man trafficked drugs? In fact, enough heroin for 26,000 hits, some fatal. Yet today, the Bracks Government will have no fewer than four politicians, including Bruce Mildenhall and Richard Wynne, at his funeral service as a mark of official respect. Last week Health Minister Bronwyn Pike attended his memorial service. Note also that Nguyen is being given the honor of a requiem mass in St Patrick's Cathedral,...

Singapore defends Nguyen hanging30nov05 SINGAPORE'S High Commissioner in Australia Joseph Koh has defended his country's decision to execute convicted drug trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van as correct and responsible. In an opinion piece published in Fairfax newspapers today, Mr Koh said Singapore had not breached international law, with no existing international agreement to abolish the death penalty. "Capital punishment remains part of the criminal justice systems of 76 countries, including in the United States, where it is practised in 38 states," he said. "We respect Australia's sovereign choice not to have capital punishment. We hope Australia will likewise respect Singapore's sovereign...

HEROIN smuggler Nguyen Tuong Van sent a message to young Australians to stay away from drugs before he paid the ultimate price for his crime yesterday. Nguyen was hanged at dawn in Singapore's Changi Prison as family and friends wept nearby, bells tolled at prayer services across Australia and an international storm gathered over capital punishment. In a hand-written letter to be read at his funeral in Melbourne on Wednesday, it is believed Nguyen repents for the pain he has caused, and warns about the evil of drugs. Father Peter Hansen, who will lead a requiem mass for Nguyen at...

CONVICTED drug trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van showed courage going to his death, his lawyer said today. The 25-year-old was executed in Singapore at 6am local time (9am AEDT), while his mother Kim grieved with friends and relatives at a nearby church at the scheduled time of the hanging. "I know that he died the courageous death that he planned for himself and died as an optimistic young man, making us all extremely proud of him," lawyer Lex Lasry QC told ABC radio. Mr Lasry said he thought the case would have a long-lasting impact. "This case and its impact is...

THE lead lawyer for condemned trafficker Van Tuong Nguyen today stepped up the pressure for the Melbourne man to be allowed to hug his mother before his Friday execution in Singapore. Lex Lasry QC also launched a blistering attack on city-state's use of the mandatory death penalty regime as he arrived for a final meeting with Nguyen. "It shouldn't require a legal loophole for Nguyen to allowed to touch his mother before he goes to the gallows," Mr Lasry said after flying in at 10.30pm local time, (1am AEDT). "It should simply be a matter of ordinary humanity that Singapore...

Australian man prepares to hang The family of an Australian man facing the death penalty in Singapore has visited him for probably the last time. Nguyen Truong Van, 25, is scheduled to be hanged before dawn on Friday, after being found with 400g (14 ounces) of heroin at Singapore's airport in 2002. His mother and twin brother visited him at Changi prison on Thursday. Singapore has ignored calls for clemency for Nguyen, and on Thursday, Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock branded his hanging "barbaric". Mr Ruddock said the case had mitigating circumstances, because Nguyen had said he smuggled the drugs to...

Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Thursday the execution of a convicted Australian drug smuggler will go ahead as planned at dawn on Friday. ...Australia been lobbying for months to stop the execution of 25-year-old heroin trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van, who received a mandatory death sentence after he was caught in 2002 at Singapore's Changi Airport on his way home to Melbourne carrying nearly 14 ounces of heroin.