an Iranian national, only identified as Morteza, escaped the noose after winning the forgiveness of relatives of his victim.

though no New Jersey prisoner has been executed in more than 40 years and the state's death penalty remains on a court-ordered moratorium on technical grounds, the state Senate voted on December 15 to study the issue and delay any execution until 2007.

Jordan's state security court handed al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi his third death sentence in absentia for planning a failed suicide attack at the border post with Iraq.

Ali Babai-Pour was hanged in Tehran, Iran, for killing his brother after an argument.

Han Guizhi, the former head of the top advisory body of Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for accepting 7.02 million yuan (US$ 875,000) in bribes.

a miscarriage of the Jordanian justice system that led to the execution of a man wrongly convicted of murder in 2000 had become a new reason to abolish the death penalty in the Kingdom, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

Iran’s State Supreme Court upheld sentences for two young men to be hanged in the Iranian capital Tehran, a state-run daily reported.

at 12:01 a.m., having exhausted all appeals, Stanley Tookie Williams shuffled into San Quentin's death chamber, shackled at the wrists and waist and escorted by four guards.

John B. Nixon Sr., a 77-year-old convicted hitman, was executed becoming the oldest person in the nation put to death since capital punishment resumed in the US in 1977.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he "strongly" opposed the death penalty but warned it was wrong to equate the human rights situtation in the US with that in countries such as China simply on the grounds of the number of executions carried out.

“Iran has executed at least eight juvenile offenders so far this year, two of whom were still under 18 at the time they were executed”, Amnesty International said in a statement.

Stanley Williams was executed after being denied clemency by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.