seven gang members were executed in eastern China for their role in the murders of 17 Chinese workers who had been kidnapped in Cambodia and held for ransom, Xinhua news agency reported.

an Iranian man convicted of repeated armed robbery and kidnapping has been hanged in a village near the southern city of Shiraz, AFP reported.

China's high courts began open hearings for death penalty cases in a long-awaited move aimed at raising the quality of justice in capital punishment cases.

Shehzad Ahmad, 29, Muhammad Ashraf, 34, Mubarik Ali, 28, and Umer Hayat, 32, were hanged in Pakistan for gang-raping a teenaged Christian girl at gunpoint in the central city of Faisalabad on November 7, 1999.

“What is the Italian government’s intention regarding the offer made by Marco Pannella for a special appointment to save Saddam from execution, and with Saddam’s life, the life of the rights and the civility which he massacred during 50 years of bloody rule?”

a federal judge halted executions in Missouri until the state makes sweeping changes to ensure that inmates do not suffer excruciating pain when they are put to death.

in a sharp rebuke of President George W. Bush's tactics in the war on terrorism, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unlawful the military tribunal system set up to try Guantanamo prisoners.

an Iranian man convicted of murder was hanged in public in the southern city of Shiraz.

according to reports from the Chinese government's state-run media organization, Xinhua News Agency, China has executed in the last week as many as 52 people found guilty of drug law violations.

Marco Pannella formally asked Italy’s government to be appointed with the objective of saving Saddam Hussein from the death penalty.

Good Friend, a support organization for North Korea with news from internal sources, revealed that on May 17th and 19th, public executions were administered on the riverbanks of the Susung creek next to the Sunam market in Chongjin.

Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court sentenced to death Otabek Akhadov, an Uzbek citizen, after he was found guilty of several murders connected to what officials describe as an ethnic-Uighur extremist group active in neighbouring China, the man's lawyer Nina Zotova said.