the Abakaliki high court, Nigeria, sentenced 15 people to death by hanging for killing three over a land dispute.

the family of Scottish businessman Ian Millar, sentenced to death in Nigeria, spoke of their relief after his murder conviction was overturned. Millar, 56, spent a year and a half on death row after being found guilty of killing Anne Marie Gale, his girlfriend, at their home in Lagos in April 2003.

North Korea put two human traffickers to death in public in late February for smuggling North Korean women into China. The public execution took place in the North Korean city of Hoeryong, close to the border with China.

the BBC broadcast footage purportedly showing the public execution of North Koreans caught trying to flee the country. The videotape obtained exclusively by the BBC was reportedly filmed clandestinely in a village near the North's border with China a month previously.

Jean de Dieu Muzaliwa Maroy, former death row inmate in the Democratic Republic of Congo, intervened at the UN Comission on Human Rights representing Hands Off Cain and the Transnational Radical Party.

a briefing entitled: “THE ROLE OF THE UN TOWARD ENDING EXECUTIONS - True Stories and Practical Realities in Africa and the U.S.A.”, will be held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva on April 12. The event is organized by Hands Off Cain, the Transnational Radical Party and the National Association For Criminal Defence Lawyers.

the United Nations top human rights body backed a call by the United States to keep pressure on Cuba by renewing the mandate of a special investigator into alleged abuse there.

the Committee for the Defense of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights in Syria (CDF) addressed a letter to an EU delegation visiting the country advancing proposals for the improvement of human rights and civil society in Syria.

the Patrick Manning administration was warned that Trinidad and Tobago's reputation in the international community could be in jeopardy, if the government insisted on acting against a civilized judicial system.

“The Commission, in conjunction with the Presidency of the European Union, has raised this matter [of the death penalty] with the Palestinian Authority, and has transmitted a message of serious concern at the prospect of a resumption of executions. It has also called on the Palestinian Authority not to ratify or carry out any death sentences.”

Uganda's constitutional court struck down the imposition of mandatory death sentences but rejected an appeal by death-row inmates to completely outlaw capital punishment.

a Vietnam court has sentenced a 46-year-old Australian of Vietnamese origin to death by firing squad for attempting to send heroin stuffed in loudspeakers to Australia, the state-run Voice of Vietnam radio said.