the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence handed down to Kazutoshi Takahashi, a 71-year-old man, for a 1998 double-murder in Yokohama.

over 20 Kyrgyz prisoners sentenced to death have appealed to President Kurmanbek Bakiyev requesting their convictions be re-examined in a letter published by the local media.

Afghanistan will free Abdur Rahman, a man who faced the death penalty for converting to Christianity, following Western pressure for his release, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. Rahman, 40, was jailed this month for rejecting Islam and converting to Christianity in a case that raised a storm of international protest and threatened to create a rift between Afghanistan and the United States and other Western backers.

a Chinese woman was executed for trafficking 31 children, the Supreme Court said, after another two men were sentenced to death earlier this week for kidnapping and selling baby boys.

an Afghan court dropped its case against Abdul Rahman, a Christian who faced execution for converting from Islam, referring the matter to Kabul's top prosecutor for a final decision, court spokesman Wakil Omari said.

Abdul Halim and Muhammad Aslam, two men who carried out a bombing which killed 47 people at a Shia shrine in Pakistan in 2005, were sentenced to death.

the military court of the Kalemie garrison in Katanga, south DRC, sentenced Capt. Yalala Musubao to death for voluntarily killing eight Mayi Mayi officers of the 8th Brigade.

a Sapele High Court in Nigeria’s Delta State sentenced a 34-year-old brick-layer, Justice Igbame, to death by hanging for killing his three-year-old daughter with a kitchen knife.

under mounting international pressure over the case of Abdur Rahman, a man facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity, Afghanistan said that its judiciary alone would decide the case.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai assured Canada that Abdur Rahman, a man facing possible execution for converting to Christianity, would not be put to death, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said.

Robert Salazar Jr., a man convicted of beating his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter to death because she was crying, was executed by lethal injection.

Constable Dave Burnett, a Trinidad and Tobago police officer with 13 years experience, was sentenced to hang after being found guilty of the murder.