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Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

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Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.

Ethiopian maid who stabbed sleeping child beheaded in Saudi Arabia

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Public beheading in Saudi Arabia
Riyadh: An Ethiopian woman who stabbed a small Saudi girl 30 times in her sleep was beheaded by the sword on Tuesday in the conservative Muslim kingdom, the interior ministry said.

Khadija bint Mohammed Isa was executed in Hafar al-Batin, northeast Saudi Arabia, it said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

She had "killed three-year-old child Aljazi bint Mohammed bin Fahd al Harbi... By stabbing her 30 times while she slept in her parents' room," the ministry said.

The suspect fled but was later captured and convicted, it said.

Local media said Isa was a maid, although SPA did not clarify her employment status or say what led to the killing.

Working conditions of more than 2.4 million foreign maids in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries have been widely criticised.

Saudi Arabia last year passed new rules that grant maids one day of rest a week and guarantee the payment of their salaries.

Isa was the latest of 78 foreigners and Saudis most of them men executed in the kingdom this year despite international concerns over the number and judicial process.

The kingdom "is keen to protect security and justice", the interior ministry said.

Authorities also executed a convicted Saudi drug dealer on Tuesday, it said.

Nasser bin Amiq Ali al-Inzi was found guilty of trying to smuggle "a large amount" of amphetamines into the country.

He was beheaded in the northern Jawf region.

The interior ministry said last week that authorities had seized more than 41 million amphetamine tablets during the Islamic calendar year that ended in October.

Rape, apostasy, homosexuality and armed robbery are also punishable by death under the kingdom's strict version of Islamic sharia law.

Source: Agence France-Presse, December 10, 2014
Location: Saudi Arabia
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