Johnny Paul Penry, a convicted killer whose case stirred national debate over whether mentally retarded inmates should be executed had his death sentence overturned for the third time.

it was reported by Iranian press that a 26 year old man was condemned to “three hangings”.

a boy sentenced to death at 17 years of age will be executed, reported the Iranian daily Etemad.

Hands Off Cain’s “2005 Report – The Death Penalty Worldwide”, edited in its Spanish edition by HOC board member Begoña R. Antigüedad, was presented in Madrid at the Spanish Senate.

Liberia acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty.

a Speedy trial tribunal in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, sentenced to death four people and gave life terms to six others for the murder of Khaleque at Dashuria in Pabna district.

in a dissenting opinion filed in the capital case of Moore v. Parker, Judge Boyce Martin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit wrote that "the death penalty in this country is arbitrary, biased, and so fundamentally flawed at its very core that it is beyond repair."

Saudi Arabia has set up the first government department for monitoring and boosting human rights in the kingdom, a Saudi official statement said.

Iran's supreme court upheld a death sentence against Khadijeh Shahla Jahed, a jealous woman who murdered the wife of a former national football hero.

a court hearing opened on a lawsuit filed by Tomoyoshi Emura, a lawyer who was seeking disclosure of the layout of the execution chamber at the Osaka detention centre in a bid to break the secrecy surrounding executions in Japan.

Mohammed Ahmed Khan, 33, Abdul-Basir Abdul Hai Mohammed Ishaq, 50, Faz Mohammed Youseff Khan, 32, and Sayed Mudassar Shah Hekmat, 26, were hanged at a police station in the capital Kuwait City, and the public was later invited to view the strung-up bodies.

a man convicted of raping and murdering a six-year-old girl was executed in central Pakistan.