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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.

Japan: Death penalty sought for Peruvian man charged with string of six slayings in Saitama

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Gallows trapdoor at Tokyo Detention Center
SAITAMA – Prosecutors on Monday demanded the death penalty for a 32-year-old Peruvian man accused of killing six people, including two girls, after breaking into their suburban homes north of Tokyo in 2015.

Lawyers defending Vayron Jonathan Nakada Ludena at the Saitama District Court argue he is not mentally fit to stand trial.

Nakada Ludena broke into three homes in Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture, in September 2015 to steal money and valuable items and killed the occupants, according to the indictment.

The victims were Minoru Tasaki, 55, his wife, Misae, 53, Kazuyo Shiraishi, 84, and 41-year-old Miwako Kato and her two daughters, 10-year-old Misaki and 7-year-old Haruka.

Nakada Ludena was arrested on Oct. 8 the same year in connection with the deaths of the Tasakis, after being hospitalized following his plunge from a second-floor window at Kato’s home on Sept. 16. Police subsequently served him with further arrest warrants related to the other victims.

Prosecutors said his actions were “extremely cruel and merciless” and “it can be rationally surmised that he broke into the houses to steal money and goods and killed to eliminate obstacles.”

“The defendant hasn’t shown regret or even the least sense of propriety. This makes me furious,” Kato’s 45-year-old husband said at the trial.

Source: Japan Times, February 19, 2018


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
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