MPs voted 173 to one to pass constitutional amendments that state explicitly that the death penalty and torture are banned in Georgia.

two Sri Lankans accused of grabbing a gold chain from a woman caught in the 2004 tsunami before letting her be swept to her death have been sentenced to death for her murder. The men were caught on camera in December 2004 as they pushed the woman back into floodwaters during the island's worst natural disaster in a crime that shocked the nation.

death penalty opponents criticized the execution of Angel Nieves Diaz who took more than half an hour to die and needed a rare second dose of lethal chemicals. Diaz, 55, convicted of murdering a Miami topless bar manager 27 years ago, appeared to grimace before dying 34 minutes after receiving a double lethal chemical dose on December 13.

an Iranian man convicted of murdering 12 family members was publicly hanged in the southern town of Jahrom.

Saudi Arabia executed a Nigerian man for drug smuggling.

two Egyptians were hanged for beating and electrocuting to death a toddler whose cries were spoiling their televised football game, security sources said.

the photographic exhibit “Thinking is forbidden – the Faces of Repression in Cuba” realised by Oliviero Toscani for Hands Off Cain is currently being held in Warsaw.

three foreign nationals convicted of murder were executed by firing squad at Jaw prison, Bahrain. It was reported that Pakistani Mohammed Hanif Atta Mohammed, aged 37, was allowed to meet his three-year-old son for the first time just one day before he went in front of a firing squad.

South Africa's last death row inmate has had his sentence finally commuted to a jail term 11 years after capital punishment was declared unconstitutional, the country's highest court announced.

fewer prison inmates were moved to death row in 2005, according to a federal study that shows one more person was executed than in the year before.

Russia’s Parliament extended a 10-year moratorium on the death penalty to 2010, an extension of three years, by delaying the introduction of juries in court cases in the rebellious republic of Chechnya.