it was reported that three Iranian men convicted of raping and murdering a young boy were publicly hanged in Susangerd, a town in the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan.

Shanmugam Murugesu, a man convicted of drug trafficking at the centre of a high-profile campaign to end the death penalty in Singapore, was executed despite the appeals of his teenage twin sons and his lawyer's pleas that it was a denial of "natural justice".

authorities in the Indonesian province of Jambi executed Turmudi bin Kasturi, a man sentenced to death over the killing of four people in 1997.

three convicted armed robbers were executed in southwest China's Chongqing municipality after engaging in a cross province crime spree that included a bombing and gun battles with police. The three were executed immediately after the Chongqing high court issued the execution order.

Philippine President Gloria Arroyo granted a 90-day reprieve to 21 convicts scheduled for execution. The convicts, who were originally due to be executed in April and May, had their dates of execution pushed back to July and August following the order sent by Arroyo to the Justice Department.

according to the "Jordan Times", the Criminal Court sentenced a 27-year-old man to death after convicting him of murdering three of his friends over a 10-year period.

the elimination of all references to the death penalty in the constitutional project approved by the DRC’s National Assembly on May 13 showed the country’s will to create the foundations for a democratic regime with the full respect of human rights, declared Javier Solana, European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy.

the head of the Federation Council international affairs committee, Mikhail Margelov, said it was necessary to finalize the ratification of the sixth protocol of the Convention on Human Rights on abolishing the death penalty by the end of June 2005.

five people were sentenced to death and three others were jailed after being convicted of abducting and selling 19 young boys. Li Bifang, Jiang Chengpu, Yuan Guiyuan and Liu Weibing received death sentences for abducting boys aged between two and six by the Kunming Intermediate People's Court. Another gang member was given a two-year suspended death sentence while three others convicted of assisting the abductions were sentenced to eight to 13 years in jail.

two Polish members of the European Parliament who planned to attend a dissident meeting in Cuba were denied entry by the island's Communist authorities and sent back to Europe.

it was reported that the Afghan court responsible for crimes against national and external security sentenced four men to death on charges of involvement in an armed robbery and for the murder of two people in the Dehsabz District of Kabul Province.

an Iraqi court sentenced three rebels to death for rape, kidnapping and murder, the first death sentences passed in connection with the ongoing insurgency.