Sang Yuechun, president of Jigang Industrial and Trade Group Corp. and a former deputy to China's legislature, was executed in the northeastern province of Jilin on charges of rape, weapons possession and misappropriating 120 million yuan (US$15 million; €12 million).

former US attorney general Ramsey Clark, a member of Saddam Hussein's defence team, predicted that a bloodbath would follow should an Iraqi court trying the former president have him executed.

judges postponed their verdict in Saddam Hussein's trial. The verdict had been expected on October 16 but was delayed until at least the end of the month while judges took extra time to review the evidence and make sure their case was airtight.

Jaj Singh and Gurwail Singh, both residents of Bhitewad village near Amritsar, India, were scheduled to hang for murder in Amritsar’s high-security Central Jail on October 16.

a bill that would abolish capital punishment in Morocco is scheduled to be presented to parliament within the few next months, said Bouchra Khiari, deputy of the opposition party Le Front des Forces Démocratiques (FFD).

the wife of Mohammed Afzal, who has been slapped with a death sentence for a terror attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001, has filed a mercy petition before President APJ Abdul Kalam, news reports said.

a man was hanged in the city of Ahwaz, south-west Iran, the government-run news agency Fars reported.

a 17 year old boy was sentenced to death in Iran for murder, the Etemad daily reported.

Pakistani prison authorities asked a court to fix a new date for the execution of a British man sentenced to hang in a case that was raised by Prime Minister Tony Blair with President Pervez Musharrafa few days earlier.

more than 100 Nigerians condemned to death had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment as part of independence day celebrations in the West African country.

Bangladesh's Supreme Court ordered a stay of execution for seven Islamist militants sentenced to death for bomb attacks that killed at least 30 people in 2005, said Fazlul Karim, secretary of the Supreme Court.

countries where capital punishment is practiced should exempt children under 18 -- or adults convicted while minors -- from the death penalty, a UN human rights expert report said.