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2024
The richest woman in Vietnam sentenced to death for embezzling $12 billion
On April 11, 2024, a court Vietnam sentenced to death 67-year-old entrepreneur Truong My Lan in the case of the country's largest fraud in history. The woman was found guilty of embezzlement, bribery and violations of banking rules. The defendant is charged with embezzlement of more than $12 billion. More. here
The number of death sentences in the United States increased by a third in a year
At the end of 2023, 24 death sentences were carried out in the United States, which is a third more than the previous year, when 18 people were executed. Such data was released in December 2023 by the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization based in Washington. Read more here.
US executes prisoner with nitrogen for first time in history
For the first time in history, an American court allowed a prisoner to be executed with nitrogen. 58-year-old Kenneth Smith, who was convicted of the contract murder of a woman committed in 1988, was sentenced to capital punishment in Alabama.
According to NBC News, the execution suggests that the offender is put a respirator on his mouth and nose, through which nitrogen is supplied. As a result, a person dies from lack of oxygen, having previously lost consciousness. The execution is scheduled for January 25, 2024.
Thus, Kenneth Smith became the first convict in the United States to be executed not by electric chair or by lethal injection, but by nitrogen hypoxia. His lawyers have already called the chosen method of execution cruel, saying that their client is used as a test subject.
 | Smith is not guaranteed a painless death. Smith did not prove in this record, and the court cannot conclude that the record provides for both cruel and unusual punishment, which makes him constitutionally powerless under the current legal framework, the judge said. |  |
He also noted that there was not sufficient reason to believe that execution by nitrogen could prove more painful than other types of executions.
The teacher of the medical faculty of the State University of Education, surgeon Alexander Goev, in a conversation with the publication, News.ru noted that as a result of nitrogen hypoxia, the convict would simply fall asleep, without suffocation, hallucinations or pain. Death will occur in about 30 minutes, but the time will depend on the dose and characteristics of the body, the expert added.
At the same time, the American Association of Veterinary Medicine in 2020 made a statement that a similar method, actively used in relation to animals, is painful and should be used after the beast loses consciousness.
Smith was sentenced back in 1989, but was overturned on appeal. The man was again found guilty after a retrial in 1996. The jury recommended a life sentence, but the judge decided to execute. The prisoner was tried for a lethal injection in 2022, but could not find a suitable vein.
By January 2024, 2,331 people in the U.S. have been sentenced to death and are awaiting punishment.[1]
Smith's accomplice was executed back in 2010, injecting him with a lethal injection.
As a result, the execution lasted about 22 minutes - longer than expected, since the sentenced, on whose nose and mouth they put on a mask, resisted and tried not to inhale nitrogen. According to eyewitnesses, nothing happened in the first minutes, then Smith began to experience severe convulsions, soon lost consciousness and stopped breathing.
Reporting on the execution, American experts called the method of strangulation with nitrogen the most humane method of execution of all. At the same time, part of the protocol of the event remained classified, which already hints that there could actually be big problems with humanity.
Smith and his lawyers until recently tried to challenge the chosen method of murder - the last petition was filed in the morning, on the day of the execution, but changes could not be achieved. As a result, now lawyers say that their client has become a test subject for the experimental method of execution, which actually violates the constitutional ban on cruel punishments.
The execution was attended by relatives of the woman killed by Smith, but even they reported that nothing that happened on this day would return their mother.
The new method (which will soon be applied also in the states of Oklahoma and Mississippi) caused concern both in the United States and in the world.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in an interview with the Vatican press, said that "it is impossible not to respond to human rights violations in the United States" and "there should be no death penalty at all." He also said that this affects not only the United States, but Iran, Japan and others. At the same time, preparations for the use of the nitrogen strangulation method in the United States have been discussed since last summer, to which the UN expressed only concern about possible cruelty.
2022:53% rise in executions on convictions to 883 cases
In 2022, 883 people were executed worldwide by court sentences. This is a 53% increase from the previous year, when 579 death sentences were carried out. Such figures are reflected in the report of the international non-governmental organization Amnesty International, published on May 16, 2023.
The data presented covers 20 countries, not including China. It is said that the figure recorded in 2022 is a record since 2017. This is due to the sharply increased number of executions in the Middle East and North Africa, where the value jumped from 520 in 2021 to 825 in 2022. Thus, these regions accounted for 93% of all recorded executions on a global scale.
The authors of the study emphasize that China remains the undisputed world leader in the number of death executions, but the true scale remains unknown, since this data is classified. It is estimated that the bill can go to thousands of people. The indicators for North Korea and Vietnam, where the death penalty is also practiced, are also not disclosed. In 2022, at least 576 death sentences were carried out in Iran, 196 in Saudi Arabia, 24 in Egypt, and 18 in the United States. In total, 13 women were executed in the world: 12 in Iran and another in Saudi Arabia. It is also said that in Iran at least five people were executed for crimes committed under the age of 18.
In 2022, executions resumed in five countries:, Afghanistan,, and Kuwait To Myanmar. To Palestine Singapore However, six States abolished the death penalty either entirely (,, and) Kazakhstan Papua New Guinea Sierra Leone or Central African Republic partially (and). Equatorial Guinea Zambia
Overall, at least 2,016 new death sentences were handed down in 52 countries in 2022. As of the end of 2022, at least 28,282 people were on death row worldwide.[2]
2021:20% increase in executions
In 2021, Amnesty International recorded 579 death executions in 18 countries, up 20% from a year earlier. The figure represents the second lowest number of executions since 2010. Most of the known executions were committed in, China,,, and Iran Egypt. Saudi Arabia Syria The following methods of execution were used in the world: beheading, hanging, lethal injection and shooting.
China remained the world's leading executor of death sentences, but the true extent of the use of the death penalty in China is unknown, since these data are state secrets. Global figures for executions and death sentences do not include the thousands of people Amnesty International believes have been sentenced to death and executed in China.
Data on North Korea and Vietnam, which are believed to widely use the death penalty, were also not included in global figures on executions because secrecy and lack of access to independent information do not allow trends to be assessed.
Amnesty International registered 24 women among 579 known to have been executed in 2021 (4%) in the following countries: Egypt (8), Iran (14), Saudi Arabia (1) and the United States (1). Belarus, the UAE and Japan resumed the execution of death sentences. Amnesty International has not recorded a single execution in India, Qatar and Taiwan in 2020.
Iran has executed at least 314 people (up from at least 246 in 2020), the highest number of executions since 2017 and reversing a year-long decline since then. The number of executions in Saudi Arabia increased sharply from 27 to 65, that is, by 140%. Despite this increase, the number of executions in the world in 2021 is the second lowest recorded by Amnesty International since 2010. For the second year in a row, the number of countries known to have executed people is the lowest in the organization's history. In 2019, 2020 and 2021, Amnesty International recorded 657, 483 and 579 executions, respectively.
In July 2021, Sierra Leone's parliament unanimously passed a law abolishing the death penalty for all crimes. In December 2021, Kazakhstan adopted a law abolishing the death penalty for all crimes, which entered into force in 2022. Papua New Guinea has begun a national consultation on the death penalty, which resulted in a bill to abolish the death penalty in January 2022. The Malaysian government announced that it will submit legislative reforms related to the death penalty for consideration in the third quarter of 2022.
As of the end of 2021, more than two-thirds of the world's countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. 108 countries, most states of the world, have abolished the death penalty by law for all crimes, and 144 countries have abolished the death penalty by law or in practice. In 55 countries, the death penalty still persists.
Amnesty International recorded 2,052 death sentences handed down in 56 countries, a 39% increase from 1,477 death sentences in 54 countries in 2020. At the end of 2021, it was known that at least 28,670 people were sentenced to death. Nine countries accounted for 82% of the total number of known persons: Iraq (8,000 +), Pakistan (3,800 +), Nigeria (3,036 +), USA (Bangladesh 2,382), (1,800 +), Malaysia (1,359), Vietnam (1,200 +), Algeria (1,000 +), Sri Lanka (1,000 +).
Four people were executed for crimes committed under the age of 18: in Iran (3) and Yemen (1). Amnesty International believes other people in the category remain on death row in the Maldives, Myanmar and Iran.
It is known that in two countries (China and Iran) at least 134 death sentences for drug crimes were carried out, which is 346% more than in 2020 (30). Information about Vietnam, in which such death sentences could most likely be carried out, was missing.[3]
2020: World executions hit ten-year low
At the end of April 2021, Amnesty International reported that the number of executions in the world at the end of 2020 reached a ten-year minimum. Nevertheless, even the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic was not enough to deter 18 countries from carrying out the death penalty. Despite a general downward trend in cruelty, the number of executions has even risen in some countries.
The group of these countries includes, where Egypt the number of executions has tripled compared to 2019, and, which China considers the total number of executions and death sentences state secret and prevents independent verification. However, it is believed that China the number of deaths of this kind exceeds the number of death sentences in many other countries, such as (246 Iran +), Egypt (107 +), (45 Iraq +) and (27 Saudi Arabia). Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia accounted for 88% of all known executions in 2020. The administration Trump allowed the fatal execution again at the federal level after a 17-year hiatus, and in less than six months USA , 10 people were executed. In,,, and India Oman executions Qatar Taiwan also resumed.
It is known that at least 483 people were executed worldwide in 2020 (with the exception of countries that classify data on the death penalty as state secrets or for which there is limited information - China, North Korea, Syria and Vietnam). Shocking as the figure is, it is the lowest number of executions recorded by Amnesty International in a decade. The number of executions in 2020 turned out to be 26% less compared to 2019 and 70% compared to the record number of executions (1634 cases) in 2015.
| | The death penalty is a disgusting punishment, and carrying out executions in the midst of a pandemic once again emphasizes its inherent cruelty. Many people on death row were unable to access lawyers, and many lawyers who wished to help them had to put themselves at serious health risk. The use of the death penalty in these conditions is a particularly egregious assault on human rights, "said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International[4] | |
2018
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