Death sentence - The African Mirror

Apr

2024

Vietnam tycoon sentenced to death in $12.5 billion fraud case

A court in Vietnam handed the death sentence to real estate tycoon Truong My Lan for her role in a 304-trillion-dong ($12.5-billion) financial fraud, the country's biggest on record, state media said. Her trial, begun on March 5 and ending earlier than planned, was one dramatic result of a campaign against corruption that the leader of the ruling Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, has pledged for years to stamp out. Lan, the chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was found guilty of embezzlement, bribery and violations of banking rules at the end of a trial in the…

Mar

2024

By TAREK AMARA

Tunisia sentences four people to death for 2013 assassination of politician

NEWS

A Tunisian court sentenced four people to death and two to life in prison on charges of participating in the murder of prominent political leader Chokri Belaid 11 years ago, which sparked mass protests against the then-ruling Islamists. Belaid, a leftist politician, had been a fierce critic of the Islamist Ennahda party which led the government at the time, accusing it of turning a blind eye to violence by extremists against secularists. He was shot dead in his car by gunmen on February 6, 2013, in what was viewed as the first political assassination in Tunisia in decades. Belaid's assassination…

May

2023

By The African Mirror

Libya court sentences 23 to death for Islamic State campaign

NEWS

A Libyan court sentenced 23 people to death and another 14 to life in prison for their role in a deadly Islamic State militant campaign that included beheading a group of Egyptian Christians and seizing the city of Sirte in 2015. The Attorney General's office said in a statement that one other person was sentenced to 12 years in prison, six to 10 years, one to five years and six to three years while five were acquitted and three others died before their case came to trial. Islamic State's Libyan branch was one of the militant group's strongest outside its…

Feb

2023

By The African Mirror

Jury urged to sentence to death man who killed 8 on New York bike path

WORLD

JONATHAN ALLEN A federal prosecutor urged a New York jury to sentence Sayfullo Saipov to death as the penalty phase of his trial began on Monday, saying his execution would be the only just punishment after he killed eight people in his 2017 attack on a Manhattan bike path. It marked the first time jurors have been asked to vote for the federal death penalty since U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, took office in January 2021 after promising voters he would abolish the punishment. Defence lawyers for the Uzbek immigrant called the death penalty barbaric and urged the jurors…

Jul

2022

By The African Mirror

LGBTQ+ Nigerians fear violence after sharia court death sentence

LGBT+, LGBTQIA+

PELUMI SALAKO A Nigerian sharia court's decision to sentence three men to death by stoning for homosexual acts could trigger similar cases in the country's states that apply Islamic law and unleash a wave of homophobic violence, LGBTQ+ rights groups said. Male same-sex relationships are punishable by up to 14 years in prison under Nigerian national law, but 12 states in the mainly Muslim north also use parallel sharia courts to punish residents for crimes ranging from adultery to blasphemy. Last month's ruling in the northern state of Bauchi has raised fears of an increase in homophobia in Africa's most populous…

Apr

2022

By The African Mirror

Indonesian court sentences teacher to death for raping 13 students

WORLD

AN Indonesian court handed down a death sentence to a teacher for raping 13 girls at an Islamic school, upholding an appeal by prosecutors for the death penalty after he had initially received a sentence of life in prison. The case of teacher Herry Wirawan has shocked Indonesia and shone a spotlight on the need to protect children from sexual violence in the country's religious boarding schools. After he was sentenced to life in jail by a court in the city of Bandung in February, prosecutors who had called for the death penalty filed an appeal. "(We) hereby punish the…

Sep

2021

By The African Mirror

Cameroon sentences four men to death

NEWS

JOSIANE KOUAGHEU A court in Cameroon has sentenced four people to death for their roles in a shooting attack on a school last year that killed seven children and wounded 12 others, according to a court document seen by Reuters on Wednesday. A military court in Buea, the capital of Cameroon's South West region, found the men guilty of terrorism, assassination, and attempted secession, according to its judgment, which was issued on Tuesday. The men were sentenced to execution by firing squad in the town square, but their sentences are likely to be converted to life imprisonment. Cameroon has not…

Jun

2021

By The African Mirror

Confirmed: death sentence for 12 Egyptian activists

NEWS

EGYPT’S highest civilian court has upheld death sentences against 12 senior Muslim Brotherhood figures over a 2013 sit-in which ended with security forces killing hundreds of protesters, judicial sources said. The ruling, which cannot be appealed against, means the 12 men could face execution pending approval by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. They include Abdul Rahman Al-Bar, commonly described as the group's mufti or top religious scholar, Mohamed El-Beltagi, a former member of parliament, and Osama Yassin, a former minister. Many Muslim Brotherhood figures have been sentenced to death in other cases related to the unrest that followed the military's ousting…